The Nether



The Nether (Also referred to as "The Nexus" in Notch's Blog and was previously known as Hell and The Slip) is part of the Minecraft Halloween Update. It exists in a completely different world from the normal world above. If the player dies in The Nether, they will be transported back to the spawn point on the surface world. However, his/her dropped items will be in the Nether around the place he/she died.

Terrain
The terrain is dimly lit, full of lava streams flowing from the ceiling, sudden cliffs, and lava lakes, making it extremely dangerous to explore. The ceiling and the base of the Nether are made of bedrock. Mushrooms are also commonly found. Near the bottom of the map, very large lava pools are found. There is also naturally occurring fire.

Portals and Fast Travel
Portals are made by creating a 4x5 (2x3 on inside) door frame out of obsidian and then lighting the inside of the frame on fire with Flint and Steel, or Fire, obtained through hacking. The corners of the frame may be left out, using only 10 obsidian. When you stand inside the portal for the first time, it will create a portal in its equivalent area of The Nether. A loading screen will appear during the change of worlds.

A portal can be shut down if part of the obsidian frame is removed.

When re-entering the normal world, any distance covered in The Nether is multiplied by 8, effectively making The Nether a fast travel zone that allows for greater distances to be covered in a short amount of time in the normal world.

There are two ways to use portals for fast travel. The first is to create 2 separate nether portals some large distance apart. To travel quickly between their overworld locations, you enter the nether at portal A, travel a short distance in The Nether, then emerge back into the overworld at portal B. The distance traveled in the overworld will be 8x the distance traveled in The Nether. When doing this, it is best to bring a minecart, lots of rails and a lot of cobblestone (as Ghasts cannot destroy it). Place the minecart rails, then create a wall around it using cobblestone. This will protect it from Ghast attacks. It is also recommended that you bring cobblestone with you into The Nether even if you are not building a trans-portal railway. Just bring it with you to build a small protective wall around your portal (so Ghasts cannot destroy it)!

The second, usually accidental, form of fast travel is to have 2 overworld portals connected to the same Nether portal. This occurs if the overworld portals are too close together, or if the portal-placement algorithm has trouble finding a clear space. When this happens, you can enter either portal in the overworld, immediately re-enter the same portal, and you will emerge in the overworld at the first portal that was built. This is effectively one-way fast travel, since there is no way to enter the Nether portal and come out through secondary portals.

Because The Nether is 1/8th the size of the normal world, The Nether would be the fastest legitimate way to reach the edge of the generated map. By using minecart systems one could create a complex and fast means of travel between distant locations.

Due to the dangers in The Nether, it is recommended that travelers enclose the paths between their portals using glass or cobblestone, effectively making the nether safe for travel.

Walking through a portal will not teleport the player - in order to use them, the player has to stand still inside the purple haze until the loading screen appears. Currently, they will not transport mobs or minecarts. Attempting to go through a portal while in a minecart will result in the player needing to restart the game to continue.

Notch has also officially announced the Nether to be in SMP in Beta 1.6 on his Twitter.

Mobs
Mobs that spawn in the main world do not appear here. Instead, there are special mobs that originally only appeared in the Nether. As of Beta 1.5, the Nether now has no mobs exclusively found there, as Ghasts have a small chance of spawning near a portal and pigs struck by lightning transform into Zombie Pigmen.

Overworld mobs
Although normal passive mobs (sheep, cows, pigs, etc.) do not naturally spawn in the Nether, if grass is hacked into the Nether, and a light level of 9 or above is provided, passive mobs will spawn.

Ghasts
Flying jellyfish-like monsters that shoot explosives. They can be damaged by any conventional weapons, but they do not get hurt when on fire, only when touching it. A Ghast can fly into lava falls or lava lakes, but even if they burn they don't get damaged (As of the November 10th Update). The fireballs they shoot can be deflected back at them using a fist or any tool by hitting it just before impact (shooting an arrow or using the Fishing Rod on the fireballs works too). They drop gunpowder, But is very hard to obtain, since they're always flying around over lava lakes. Creepers provide a better source of gunpowder. Ghasts will destroy Netherrack blocks easily with their fireballs. This can be deadly if you are on thin ground high above lava, as they can shoot the ground out from under you as you dodge attacks. Cobblestone is an effective barrier that can withstand a ghast fireball attack. If a fireball hits your portal, the portal will go out and have to be relit with flint and steel again.

Zombie Pigmen
Peaceful, humanoid creatures that turn hostile when attacked. They drop a cooked porkchop when killed. They carry gold swords, and do 3 hearts of damage (Normal difficulty). They often appear in packs of 4, and tend to stay together. If one Zombie Pigman turns hostile, then so will every one in the range of 32 blocks. The safest way is to fight a zombie pigman when they are alone, which is unfortunately uncommon.

Blocks
Blocks can be brought to and from the main world. So far, there are three block types uniquely found in the Nether:


 * Netherrack - This block burns indefinitely, and is the main block type forming The Nether. Setting these on fire with Flint and Steel while travelling in The Nether is more economical than torches. Making torches is, for the most part, pointless in The Nether. Some of the Netherrack is naturally on fire.


 * Glowstone - A golden block that glows indefinitely, commonly found as stalactites on the ceiling of The Nether. These can be used as a light source underwater on the surface world, and the powder produced when it is mined is suspected to be an ingredient in making lanterns when they are released.


 * Soul Sand - A brown block resembling a collage of creepers' faces. When walked on, it slows the movement speed of the player and mobs that walk across it, and makes them sink down a tiny bit, like quicksand or wet mud. It is possible to make one-way doors with Soul Sand.

There are six blocks that spawn in both worlds: Air, Lava, Gravel, Bedrock, brown and red mushrooms. Fire also spawns in the Nether and can be found on Earth.

Water
Water cannot be placed from buckets normally in The Nether. Instead, it generates a steam effect and the fizz.ogg sound effect (the same used when lava destroys an object) is played. If an inventory hack is used to give the player a water block, they can place the block. The water block will behave and flow normally, and it will react with lava as usual, creating obsidian. An inventory hack can also be used to give the player an ice block, then place and break it to get water. Squid can also spawn in water placed in this way.

Although Squids seem to spawn a lot more often when water is placed via hacking, this is not the case, as the water is the only place they can spawn, as they cannot spawn on land or in lava.

Because water is normally unplaceable in The Nether, if a player falls into a lava pit or otherwise catches fire, they are unable to put themselves out with water. It has been noted that walking through the Portal whilst on fire extinguishes the fire once on the other side, however, this does not always happen.

Planting & Growing
As water cannot be placed in The Nether, Sugar Cane will not be able to survive. Wheat, however, can be grown on a farmland block, although it must be grown quickly, as once the block reverts to dirt the wheat crop will be destroyed. Thus, bone meal is suggested for farming in the nether. Trees will grow normally, and their leaves will take a dead-looking brownish color. However, they grow in odd formations and occasionally morph shapes when they are altered. For example, a user plants a sapling in The Nether and it grows into an odd-shaped windblown tree. He deletes a leaf from the tree and it morphs into a pine. This makes Nether-trees useful for traps or endless log harvesting on occasion. Cactus blocks will be able to grow normally unlike trees, provided they are planted on Sand. In addition, flowers can survive in The Nether, but only with a light source nearby.

Naming
In the original announcement, Notch mentioned "a brand new Hell world". When the preview was sent out on 29 October 2010 to a couple of gaming websites, the new dimension was called the Slip. This was changed to The Nether on the day of the update release. It was referred to as 'The Nexus' on his personal blog.

File save location
The nether is saved in the very same way normal worlds are, but instead of mixing the world files inside the save folder, the files for Nether are stored in appdata/.Minecraft/Saves/Worldname/DIM-1, whereas normal world files in %appdata%/.Minecraft/Saves/Worldname. Note that DIM-1 does not contain it's own level.dat, as the same level.dat in the upper folder is used for both overworld and Nether.

Ambience
The most common ambience in The Nether is the ghast's cries and the crackling of fire, along with low-pitched moans by Zombie Pigmen. It plays "ghast.ogg" which is the sound file that sounds similar to evil children screaming and crying for help. Zombie Pigmen usually oink and slurp, making The Nether very eerie and creepy to be in. Normal cave ambience also plays, although it is not often.

Trivia

 * When you warp from worlds, the direction you are facing is maintained (e.g., if you are facing east in the Overworld when you warp to the Nether, you will still be facing east).
 * Because they were meant to operate in the Overworld, and because there are no day/night cycles or spawn points in the Nether, Clocks and Compasses brought through Portals to the Nether will be unable to function, and will instead spin wildly.
 * While inside the Nether, furnaces will stop smelting and plants will stop growing/decaying in the Overworld. However, the day/night cycle continues while in The Nether.
 * It is possible, but very rare, for a Nether biome to be created on the Overworld. This is due to a bug. Image here. You can see the Overworld sky on the picture. The Nether mobs can even spawn there.
 * The idea for the Nether came from a transportation method used in the novel series The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan. Within this transportation system, the Ways, you could travel a massive amount of distance in a few days instead of weeks. Like the Nether, the Ways has many dangers. Notch also once said that Jake, his co-worker, was a big key to the Nether. It isn't clear what exactly that means.
 * If you open the inventory screen right before you warp to the loading screen, it will cause the loading text to glitch. However, it WILL NOT crash the game.
 * Sometimes, if two Overworld portals are connected to one portal in The Nether, then, depending on what side you go through, you can choose where you end up.
 * It is possible to make a portal without using a diamond pickaxe to extract Obsidian. This is done by adding lava buckets and turning them into obsidian by using spring water (source water will not work) into the shape of a frame.
 * The Nether aka Hell was added as a map theme on the Indev phase. Instead of having Netherrack and Soul Sand, it had dirt and sand. All mobs would even spawn there.
 * You cannot sleep in the nether. You will receive the "you can only sleep at night." message.
 * It is possible, though very rare to create a new world and the new world will end up being The Nether. If your newly created world is The Nether, you cannot escape from it.
 * You are able to spawn pigs in the nether by adding in pig spawners and grass and placing the two near each other. However, both the pig spawner and grass blocks have to be hacked in.
 * Below the lava pool in the nether is more netherack followed by bedrock.