Notes

How Minecraft's Custom Maps Are Evolving

Everyone has their own personal memories of their first experience playing Minecraft, usually loaded with the same warm nostalgia of a child waking up early on Christmas morning. Minecraft is a warm blanket for the soul, and the warm hand-warming mug of hot chocolate that completes the image are its community-made custom maps. These maps have evolved alongside the main game for more than a decade, ranging from simple adventure maps to fully-fledged game modes.



Many consider the golden period of Minecraft maps to have been 2009. Minecraft was simpler back then with less tools and mechanics (except for Minecraft mods) available for developers to explore. These limitations didn't stop creators releasing a variety of popular maps such as Skyblock and The Walls. They have been downloaded millions upon millions of times and watched by millions of users through YouTube Let's Plays. Although they are similar in design however, they each offer distinct variations of Minecraft's core gameplay. Skyblock is one example. It places you on an island in the sky with only water, lava, and a tree to survive. There are also plenty of difficult challenges to conquer. The Walls is a Hunger Games-inspired battle royale in which each team has time to prepare before the walls that divide them fall and a game of free for all begins.



If we talk about the most pivotal members of the Minecraft map community, you'd be difficult to find a more influential person than Vechs who has developed numerous influential maps - like Super Hostile and Race for the Wool which set the standard for what a top Minecraft minigame should offer. Vechs states, "I've been creating custom games since Duke Nukem 3D," and his Super Hostile series has more than two million downloads. Super Hostile itself gained a lot of attention from both influencers and community members alike - there are many Super Hostile Let's Plays that have over one million views on YouTube.



"It's not every single day that you invent a new genre. Vechs says it feels quite good. My old map-making method was to create a world, then open it in MCedit and delete everything. I like to start totally from scratch." While remaining loyal to his own method the huge leap in quality from the old days is stunning to see for the veteran map maker.



"Minecraft maps are evolving for the better It is a fact. There were a variety of worlds that Minecraft created, and then people found a spot in that world to display signs. In the past, maps that required little effort made from generated worlds were the norm. Now such a thing would be laughed at. The quality of the products on offer has increased dramatically."



Lucian Tash, better known in the Minecraft community as Chopper2112, runs the Minecraft-affiliated map making group Yeggs. The team was founded in 2015 and has since made 23 maps. At the time, the creation of maps was just a fun hobby for Tash and his friends. "Yeggs was initially created as a server on an old laptop that several real-life buddies would play after school. Then we started making small maps until 2019 when we joined the Realms program," Tash explains.
Servers


Mojang developed the Realms content creator program in 2014. It serves as a curated library for community-made maps.



Quality control is a thing that Yeggs is very serious about. "A major goal of ours is to create games that are accessible to everyone, and this - along with the limitations of the Realms service itself - often requires us to come up with innovative solutions to address issues related to lag," Tash says. Sometimes, you may have an idea that would require a lot of resources. Many of the technical aspects of a Minecraft map are based on static objects within the game. This makes it quite difficult to get the appropriate hardware.



Many of the maps designed by Yeggs make use of command blocks which can be used to execute code lines. One of their most recent map, Road Runners, is inspired by the frogger-style humor of the popular mobile game Crossy Road. The map uses command blocks to make Minecraft an all-top-down race against the clock where you must carefully dodge deadly mobs.



Tash says that the new commands have enabled ideas to be realized that couldn't have been done in the pre-1.13 version of the game. "The introduction of datapacks also has changed the way custom maps are made. It allows for easier access to commands than command blocks did in the past. A Minecraft map developer can invoke multiple commands at once or employ recursion for a function call.



Minecraft is a constantly evolving project that doesn't rest on its achievements. However, the foundation for Minecraft's unstoppable community will remain the same, as Vechs states. "The most valuable skill to use for map making is empathy. It is essential to build a mental model of what the player will see and feels and what they think. Empathy allows you to design difficult curves and also to know when to break the curve or add scenic views to give the player a sense if wonder.


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