Minecraft 1.7: What's New (Terrain, Flowers & Ground Cover)

Why I split it into two articles: I love images and I'm sure lots of us do. I decided to put in a lot of images as examples rather than have paragraph upon paragraph of boring text. Also, I don't think any of us like overly long articles; but if you think it's better to have it all in one article, let me know

Biomes and other small changes (like fishing) will come up in the next article. If there is something you know and would like to share, post a comment!

It's been a long ride, and we are now close to the release of version 1.7. It's not necessarily a big update, but it does bring significant changes to game-play. 1.6.4 was a stepping stone update, making us ready for its successor. Here's whats new in the world of Minecraft!

Terrain Generation

New terrain generation code has been one of the most hyped features of the latest snapshots. One of the biggest changes is the removal of large oceans. While it does sound big, you might just not notice it. You can still find big pockets of water, which should make up for the wide open expanse of the great blue....O.K, I'm going to miss oceans. There's no way I'm getting over it. Anyway, here's come examples of the new generation:

Here's what Minecraft terrain generation used to look like till 1.6:

And here's what it will look like from now on:

Things are more 'put-together' now; we somewhat lose the realistic continent shapes in favor of better biome placement. Looks like there still are significantly big masses of water, but no more swaths of blue; the Minecraft team say that "Tweaks to add more islands and checks to avoid huge oceans" have been put in place.

New Flower's

Yup, we now have 10 new flowers to find and use. Four of them are two blocks high.

From Left to Right:
(Top) Small Flowers: Dandelion, Poppies, Blue orchid, Allium, Azure Bluet, Oxeye Daisy
(Mid) Tulips: Red Tulip, Orange Tulip, White Tulip, Pink Tulip
(Bottom) Big Flowers: Lilac, Rose Bush, Peony, Sunflower, Large Fern

Ground Cover

We have three new types of ground cover, related to the biomes.

• Podzol: Found in the new Mega Taiga biome. It can only be obtained by digging it with a Silk Touch-enchanted tool.

• Packed Ice: Found in the Ice Plains Spike biome. Can be obtained by a silk touch item. Doesn't melt.

Grass-less Dirt: Pretty much what it sounds like.