The Nether



The Nether, also referred to as "The Nexus" in Notch's Blog on Tumblr and previously known as Hell and The Slip, is a hellish dimension accessible in the Overworld by entering a Nether Portal.

The Nether can be used for travelling large distances on the above ground map quickly. The Nether also contains block types not seen anywhere else, as well as supplies of block types found in the Overworld, predominantly mushrooms, gravel and lava. The Nether is home to four mobs: Ghasts, Magma Cubes, Blazes, and Zombie Pigmen. All of these mobs are only found in the Nether with the exception of Zombie Pigmen which spawn in the Overworld when a pig is struck by lightning (and, as of Snapshot 12w22a, Zombie Pigmen have a small chance of spawning near Nether Portals in the Overworld).

The Nether functions as a second map in a player's world. When it is entered, the chunks from the above ground map are unloaded and the Nether chunks begin to load. Terrain generates infinitely in the Nether just like in the Overworld. If the player dies in the Nether, their items will stay there while the player respawns in the Overworld, assuming that they do not land in either fire or lava, and burn.

Terrain


The Nether's terrain is largely composed of Netherrack, which is arranged into large, smooth outcroppings and niches; it is essentially a cave. There are patches of gravel and soul sand, as well as stalactites of glowstone hanging from the ceiling. Mushrooms grow abundantly in the Nether, and natural fires are a common sight. Small tunnels form in the netherrack, which contain no ores or hidden caverns. Nether fortresses can be found as well. These Nether fortresses are made up of Nether brick, Nether brick stairs, Nether brick fences and crops of Nether wart. At the very bottom, beneath an ocean of lava, is a layer of Netherrack and bedrock. The very top of the Nether is also bedrock.

Navigating the Nether can be very dangerous. The strange, dimly lit landscape conceals pits and sudden cliffs. Many lava streams flow from the ceilings, down the Netherrack and into a lava ocean. If one dies near this lava or a patch of fire, it is a safe assumption that some of one's items will fall in and be burned.

The sky and fog in the Nether are dull dark red. Thunderstorms can cause the shade to flicker quickly - a known bug.

In the Xbox 360 edition, world sizes are currently limited to 1024x1024 blocks. In the Overworld, the edge of a map generates an ocean and (mostly) smooth shores, whereas in the Nether this limit is formed by a wall of bedrock that abruptly cuts off the terrain. These bedrock walls aren't smooth at all, as they seem to be generated in the same way as the bedrock located at the bottom layers of a map.

Environment
The Nether has no day/night cycle and no weather. The only natural sources of light are fire, lava, and glowstone. A dim ambient light can be seen throughout the Nether, but this is purely a visual effect and does not affect game mechanics. Contrary to some common myths, light works the same way in the Nether as it does in the Overworld: there are 16 levels of brightness and one level falls off for every transparent block it radiates through.

The Nether does have one special property relating to light: plants that usually require it, such as flowers and Nether wart, can survive in complete darkness when planted in the Nether. However, due to a bug, this doesn't work below natural veins of glowstone or below lava source blocks that appear naturally in cave walls. Plants at any level below these formations, even if separated by other terrain, will uproot if not adequately lit.

Blocks and structures
Entries marked with a D require additional data to fully define the block in a Beta world. Entries marked with a T have tile entities associated with them to store additional data. Items with IDs in red cannot be legitimately obtained in the player's inventory in the game; they can only be obtained by the use of inventory editors or in multi player using the /give server command. Items available only in Creative mode are in blue.

Naturally generated
Naturally Generated includes blocks that are created through the world seed.

Naturally created
Naturally Created means a combination of events that cause a new block to be placed by natural causes, not the player.

Structures
These blocks are generated as part of Nether fortresses. Even if the "Generate Structures" option is turned off, Nether fortresses are still created.

Nether-affected materials
When grass blocks are obtained using a tool, such as a shovel, with the "Silk Touch" enchantment and taken into the Nether, it becomes possible to have grass in the nether.

There is no way to place water in the Nether in a Survival game. Using water buckets will produce steam and an empty bucket. This makes growing sugar cane impossible since the plant requires water to survive. Wheat farms are also affected by this. They can survive without water, although they will grow much more slowly. As of 1.2.5, broken or melted ice blocks will produce water, but ice cannot be obtained normally. As of snapshot 12w17a, ice can be obtained using Silk Touch, but will no longer produce water when broken or melted in the Nether. Water blocks edited into a player's inventory can be placed and will still produce water. However, when using mods, water can be placed in the Nether by using the water tile. The water tile cannot normally be accessed, even in creative mode.

Trees grow normally, and their leaves take a dead-looking brownish color like in desert biomes. Trees are hard to keep in the Nether because of the substantial amount of lava, which ignites them.

It is always a good idea to bring paper down into the Nether and then craft a map, as getting lost is easy and happens frequently. Note that only the player's location is seen on the map, not the actual scenery, since the player is inside a massive cavern. Also, direction indicators rapidly spin and is not a good indicator of direction, this function is only useful for which parts of the Nether that have been explored. Compasses and clocks can be brought in freely or crafted in the Nether, but they will not work correctly. As the Nether is in a totally different dimension from the Overworld, compasses will be unable to find the original spawn point, and clocks cannot determine the position of the sun or the moon. Their arrows and dials will instead spin and flail madly. Maps made on the above ground dimension and The End will not show the player's position in the other dimension. For maps to display the Nether, they must be crafted there. Beds will explode when a player attempts to sleep in one. This can be a useful strategy to quickly mine materials in the Nether, but only if the difficulty is set to peaceful.

Lava flows twice as far in the Nether as it does in the Overworld (generally 8 blocks, instead of 4 blocks). Building Snow Golems will only cause them to melt. This is due to the Nether having a very high temperature. However, they can survive in fortresses.

Mobs
The Nether is home to its own share of mobs.


 * Ghasts, huge jellyfish-like creatures, will lazily hover around. They are 4×4×4 blocks large, and have 9 tentacles hanging from them. If they spot the player, they will shoot fireballs at them, which can be deflected by shooting arrows at them, punching them or hitting them with any tool. The reflected fireballs will instantly kill the Ghast, if it is hit. These will explode and often leave craters, if the blast-site is weak enough. They make screeching and whimpering noises, something like a purring kitten or an angry baby, and can be heard for great distances. Also, they can be killed by firing 2 arrows and hitting the Ghast. If killed, they drop gunpowder and/or a ghast tear, which is used in potions.


 * Zombie Pigmen spawn in groups and wander aimlessly. They will not harm the player unless attacked. If they are, all the Pigmen within a 32 block radius rush the player, often causing ambushes from behind as the player attempts to attack while fleeing. If killed, they drop rotten flesh and sometimes a gold nugget, and even more rarely a golden sword that sometimes has a low enchantment, such as knockback I or even sharpness II, sometimes both. Other enchantments may also drop, but this is unconfirmed.
 * Blazes are able to float and shoot 3 fireballs at the player in a quick succession. They appear to catch fire just before shooting said fireballs, then "cool down" until they can shoot again. If killed, they drop blaze rods.


 * Magma Cubes are spring-like mobs that slowly hop towards the player. If killed, they split into 2-3 smaller versions of the original one. Magma Cubes are occasionally rare. If killed, they drop magma cream, which is used to make a potion.

Nether mobs are completely fire-proof and can often be seen wandering into lava, where it will take them a while to get out due to the slowdown it causes on movement.

Overworld mobs like pigs and zombies do not randomly spawn in the Nether, but throwing chicken eggs and constructing golems works as normal (however, Snow Golems will die from the heat). Creative mode spawn eggs work normally in the Nether.

Portals and fast travel


Nether 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 a fire charge. When the player stands 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.

If the player creates a portal in the Nether and re-enter 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 (in the Xbox 360 edition, this factor is 3 in stead of 8, probably because of the world size limit). Linking a network of portals between the Nether and the Overworld can be tricky though. See the Nether portal page for the precise details of how this can be done.

Due to Ghasts, it is recommended that players enclose their portals with a blast-resistant material (cobblestone is cheap and effective). This will prevent Ghasts from being able to hit the portal and shut it down. Optionally, the player can choose to carry a flint and steel with them in case this happens, or just trick a Ghast into shooting the portal again, therefore effectively re-activating the portal. If the Nether world portal closes from a strike of a ghast and the player is unable to repair it, the player will be trapped in the Nether.

It is not possible to get to the Nether via The End. If you enter the Nether, be sure to leave the Nether through the same portal! If you leave through a different portal, than the one you entered in, could mean you arrive in the overworld a long way from where you entered, You may not be able to find your original location again in the overworld.

History


The Nether was one of the key features to be added in the Halloween Update, and was announced on October 4th, 2010. This announcement stated that there would be a "hell world" that could be used for fast travel. It hinted it would utilize Portals and that distance travelled inside the Nether would be multiplied greatly on the map above ground. On October 10, a screenshot was released by Notch depicting what the Nether would look like. With the rest of the Halloween Update's features, the Nether was released on October 30.

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 to avoid offending religions and to have a more original name. It was referred to as 'The Nexus' on his personal blog. It was finally changed to “the Nether” on the day of the Halloween update release.

Along with the Nether, Ghasts, Zombie Pigmen, Netherrack, soul sand, glowstone and portals were added on November 10th, Lava was made to flow farther than it did on the Overworld.

There was a glitch where The Nether was a biome. This was fixed in an later update.(which one)

In Beta 1.6, Portals were made to function properly in multi player, allowing players in servers to warp between the Overworld and the Nether. 1.6 also fixed a bug where the player could have menus open while inside portals. When warping, the text on screen would appear totally gray.

In Beta 1.6.2, beds in the Nether were made to explode if used. This can be used as a mining technique.

With the "Silk Touch" enchantment in the 1.9 pre-release 4, it was possible to legitimately obtain grass and water using ice in the Nether. Because passive mobs and squid spawn in the only place available, it was possible to use this to control the spawning, which allowed the player to make highly efficient passive mob grinder, something extremely difficult to do in the Overworld since passive mobs stopped despawning in Beta 1.8. The ability to pick up ice blocks with the enchantment was removed in the subsequent pre-release. Water also made Nether mob grinders easier as it can transport items without burning them as well as drown Nether mobs that are immune to lava, such as Magma Cubes and Zombie Pigmen.

In Minecraft 1.0, many new things were added to the Nether:
 * Magma Cubes
 * Blazes and Blaze spawners
 * Nether fortresses and the blocks they are made of
 * Nether wart
 * Ghast tears dropped by Ghasts

File save location
The Nether is saved in the 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 (on Windows), whereas normal world files in %appdata%/.minecraft/saves/Worldname. Note that DIM-1 does not contain its own level.dat, as the same level.dat in the upper folder is used for both Overworld and Nether. This means that even if a player changes the level data in the /world folder for a particular save, Nether portals will still take the player to the Nether world originally generated for that save.

Accessing the void on top of the nether
Since 1.2, the max world height is now 256 instead of 128 blocks. This allows for mobs to spawn, mushrooms to grow, and blocks to be placed above the bedrock surface.

There are several ways to access this void:

1. One of the many ways to get to there is to stand just below the bedrock, using pistons to shove the player into the Netherrack, then disconnect from the game and reconnect. On reconnect, the player will be spawned in the next free space above, which is above the bedrock.

2. You can also use boats, in a different manner to go in game, and inexpensively, to the top requiring just two boats and a bit of damage place one boat on a block with one block of air between it and the ceiling, which needs to be one block thick, and place another boat on the one thick ceiling. Get in the boat, and hold right click to access the void. Sit in the boat on top and reconnect to go back down.

3. Another way is to throw ender pearls at the bedrock, throwing fast enough to get through. The "Limbo" area above the Nether is an extremely efficient place to travel since there are no pigmen to block rails, or netherrack to block Enderpearl teleportation.

4. A less reusable, but simpler, method of glitching up is to drop gravel on the player. While portal networks are very efficient in "limbo", there is no way to connect any portal in the Overworld to a portal in limbo. The only access is by glitching up or admin deletion of bedrock (or a rare chance of an SMP nether spawn being there. This is probably a Bukkit bug however). Typically portals created in the Nether spawn an Overworld portal at about the same height as the Nether portal.

Note: No matter what people tell you, there has never been a legitimate way to break bedrock in survival mode since an alpha only wheat glitch that was fixed well over a year ago.

Bugs

 * (Xbox 360 edition) Saving in the Nether can cause the Overworld to become unavailable, and the game will crash upon trying to return.
 * In 1.3.1 on SMP, sometimes the player will appear in a void when crossing over to the Nether. Unsupported, they will fall until they die from falling out of the world.
 * In SMP, although extremely rare, The Nether and the Overworld may merge while generating new chunks.
 * An example of this can be seen here. this effect can also be reproduced by replacing one's overworld data with their nether data. This works in reverse too.
 * Fire can sometimes be found in the base of a Nether fortress's support, having replaced the Nether brick.
 * On extremely rare occasions in SSP, when going back to the Overworld from the Nether, Minecraft may crash. Upon logging back into the world, the player spawns in an area far from the Portal in the Overworld, an all of the items in the inventory are lost.
 * When the player builds a Nether portal at the overworld bedrock layer, enters the Nether, and saves, the player can become stuck in the Void on top of the Nether and has to delete the world, or find a way back, such as dying, teleporting, reconnecting in a boat with one block underneath, move themselves with a mod or third party editor, etc.
 * (Xbox 360 edition) on occasion entering the nether and tossing out an object will cause the game to crash. And will happen every time when using the portal from that time onwards.

Trivia

 * 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, people 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 exactly what that means.
 * The bedrock ceiling of the Nether created a rumor that the Nether is underneath the bedrock barrier on the above ground map. This is supported due to the fact that one of Minecraft's merchandise is a shirt that has the Nether below a Cavern, presumably below Bedrock level. This has been dismissed as creative mode/mods let players get above the Bedrock to find the Nether's Void. Notch has stated that the Nether and the above ground map are in entirely different dimensions.
 * The ceiling of the main Nether Cave reaches a maximum y value of 109 at eye-level. (111 when standing on the ceiling) This makes levels 115-125 great for making minecart rails connecting different destinations in the Nether that are free from Ghasts.
 * When the player warps from worlds, the direction the player is facing is maintained (e.g., if the player is facing east in the Overworld when the players warp to the Nether, the player will still be facing east).
 * While inside the Nether, furnaces will stop smelting and plants will stop growing/decaying in the Overworld. However, the day/night cycle continues and all the Mobs present are maintained.
 * Gravel is one of the only three blocks found in the Nether and also in the Overworld (the others being obsidian and bedrock).
 * One of the Level themes in Indev was Hell. It was a normal map, but with a lava ocean, perpetually dim lighting, and a black sky with dull red clouds.
 * If the player stands on soul sand with lava at the same level adjacent to the soul sand, the player will take damage if he/she steps near the edges of the soul sand.
 * In SMP, if the player disconnects and someone places blocks where he/she was, when the player logs in, he/she will spawn on top of the blocks. If there isn't any room above the blocks, the player can spawn above the bedrock layer and will be trapped. Dropping sand or gravel achieves the same affect.
 * There may be some areas where the ocean/lake of lava may go under an overhang and the lava will not illuminate that area. Going in there and creating light (placing a torch, lighting a fire, etc.) will fix this.
 * Pointing at entities (Minecart, Painting, etc.) in the Nether causes the inventory to become 'brighter'.
 * There is no naturally spawning passive mob that has been announced in the Nether as of now, but chickens can be spawned from eggs.
 * Even with no light sources around, the player can see in the Nether, due to apparent "background light". However, this doesn't count as light for other game purposes -- lighting up areas is still useful to prevent mob spawning.
 * As of the shift to the Anvil file format in 1.2, it is now possible to build on and above the bedrock ceiling of the Nether, however it is normally inaccessible anyway outside of Creative.
 * Pressing in the Nether will display the biome as "Hell".
 * In Creative mode, if the player places ice in the lava and wait, it will turn into water and not "evaporate"/despawn.
 * For the Xbox 360 Edition, there is a wall of bedrock surrounding the map to stop the player from crossing the map limit as shown here.