Biome



According to Wikipedia, biomes are climatically and geographically defined as similar climatic conditions on the Earth, such as communities of plants, animals, and soil organisms, and are often referred to as ecosystems.

Before the Halloween Update, when a world was generated it had either a Snowy or Grassy theme. But after the update, a single world includes diverse themes in a logical fashion determined from the biomes graph.

In Minecraft, from the Halloween Update onward, there are different areas with varying heights, temperatures, humidity ratings, sky color and foliage colors that distinguish each biomes.

Because of the Anvil file format, new biomes can generate in worlds that used the old Region file format.

Biome Types
Biome types may be easily distinguished by the differentiating grass and leaf colors in conjunction with the kind of blocks present, like cacti in deserts and pine trees in the taiga. They are pseudo-randomized based on given seeds.

There are ten biomes as of Minecraft 1.2.4.

Technical Biomes
Technical biomes are found alongside or within their bigger counterparts. They are not considered as "true" biomes, but more of as part of the terrain itself. However, these technical biomes serve to be important in the Minecraft world, as they make the land and water look more appealing.

There are seven known technical biomes.

Anvil File Format
The Anvil format allowed for biomes to be stored in one's world data. This is different from MCRegion because MCRegion was reliant on the seed for biome placement, messing up old worlds after biome code was added. This is no longer so. Also, "edge" biomes allow for biomes to continue generation in older worlds beyond newer chunk borders. This allows for smooth transitions in world generations after the generation code was edited in a newer update.

Biome History
Biomes were added in Alpha 1.2.0, also known as the Halloween Update. In Beta 1.8, biomes got an overhaul, removing some biomes and others replaced with nine fractal-based biomes - some old, some new.

Difficulty
It can be difficult to play and gather sufficient resources if one starts in the middle of a biome with no trees, such as deserts, tundras, and especially oceans.

There have been multiple reports of players spawning on tiny islands in the middle of a vast ocean with no trees for several Minecraft days in any direction. It appears that these desert islands generate in the Ocean biome, where animals cannot spawn (on the water); sometimes the island spawns with no trees so players have to delete the world and start again, swim great distances to a landmass, or search for nearby underwater openings into abandoned mineshafts to acquire wood. Of course, this is no problem if the player uses Creative Mode.