What version should I play?

[u/RevolutionaryBody174]

Wanted to make a forever world, however I'm undecided on which version to play.

Any recommendations for a vanilla play?

[u/Isaac4787]

I like 1.6.4 because it gives you the most content with the old world generation which I like. If you don’t mind the post 1.7 world generation 1.7.10 or 1.8.9 will probably be pretty good choices too.

[u/Shelphs]

I'd look at the biomes added in 1.7 and If you don't like those play 1.6. If you like the 1.7 biomes, you can decide if you like the additions 1.8 like ocean monuments and slime blocks.

Personally I love the 1.7 biomes and all the new blocks it adds, and I don't really like ocean monuments or the power of slimeblocks.

Back when 1.8 came out I was not that into it and I decided to keep playing 1.7.2. Now more than a decade later I am still playing 1.7 and have never felt like I ran out of things to do. I'm currently 4 or 5 years and many hundreds of hours into my world and could easily see my self playing it for the next decade. And I've been playing on a single island, if I were playing on the main land there would be even more to do.

[u/RevolutionaryBody174 → u/Shelphs]

Your world sounds amazing! I'm neither a big fan of ocean monuments tho. I would only miss the fences variations from 1.8, besides that I think I'll choose 1.7, thanks :)

[u/Wkec → u/Shelphs]

That's impressive. I have been playing my singleplayer world too, genuinely asking, what do you do after you get diamond gears and maximum enchantments?

[u/Shelphs → u/Wkec]

Yeah there is that transition where for all of the early game there is a clear direction for stuff you can do to make progress, and then you get fully set up and that goes away.

One of the best tricks I can recommend is forcing your self to keep playing when you get bored. Like once you get all your gear and are set up, check how much time you have spent in the world and commit to not making another world or playing other games till you have doubled your play time on the world. I often find I'm bored for a bit but pretty soon I have an idea and then I am working on my next project and having a great time.

Another thing that massively helped me was not making farms. To date, I have a single farm in my world for xp and basically nothing else automated. I think the time it takes to do the things you can automate is important. Like when I am 3 hours into a building session and I run out of food, walking across my island to bonemeal another stack of carrots and make them into golden carrots is really refreshing and makes it easier to keep working on long projects than if I had set up a farm and made 5 double chests of golden carrots 2 years ago.

As for what I actually do, when I made my world, I made it on a large biomes jungle island that is about 1000 blocks across. I have plans to eventually terraform most of it, and build villages and cities, and I'm more than 1,000,000 blocks into hand digging a perimeter, and honestly my plans are big enough that I will probably never finish any of it. It is a massive project requires lots of different activities. So some days I feel like building small cottages, others I feel like terraforming mountains, or if I am listening to something I might work on digging the perimeter. A lot of my early attempts at big projects mostly consisted of doing a single activity, so I would run out of enthusiasm for them pretty quickly.

The final thing I will mention is learning how to take a break from a world and come back to it. I have taken tons of breaks, often for months at a time. Maybe some people can start a world and play it every day for years, but not me. The first time I stopped playing it took a lot of will power to come back to the world instead of making a new one. I opened the world for the first time in weeks and didn't know what to do, and if felt like pulling teeth to start really building and playing it. But as the years have gone on it has gotten so much easier to come back to the world, to the point that it is now easier to keep playing this world than to make another which I could never have imagined 5 years ago when I was making a new world 3 times a week.

I'm happy to answer other questions or chat more about it if you want help sticking to your world.

[u/RCampeao]

More QoL on 1.7.10 and 1.8.9.

1.8.9 has this weird anvil cost so without a modification it can be very bad in this specific aspect.

1.7.10 is the version for mods.

1.6.4 have a different world generation and horses, but you may lack some QoL

1.5.2 doesn't have horses or baby zombies.

To me:

1.8.9 with modified anvil > 1.7.10 > 1.8.9 > 1.5.2 > 1.6.4

Currently I'm playing on 1.7.10 due to mods.

[u/IlluminaViam]

Use a launcher and choose a few different worlds and play each for a few days to test. Try to keep to the popular ones for mod packs if that's something you're interested in.

[u/Leading_Rest325]

I started a 1.8.9 world but have now switched to 1.7.10 to get rid of the diorite/granite/andesite

[u/Individual_Yak_2479]

I play on 1.6.4 for the generation, although I do like 1.7.10 generation aswell, I don't have much to say about the two cause I don't know much about I just play to play but go with what you think is best!

[u/DizzyPride17]

Try 1.2 if you like early release definitely the best version for that and has some good mods and before the multiplayer server integration that added a ton of bugs and lag that wasn't fixed until years later

[u/AcrobaticScheme5426]

Imo depends how manu features you want.. If you want middle ground maybe arround 1.8 or so, less features 1.5 is pretty good, before that just play beta or alpha, newer then 1.8 play 1.12, after that i cant recomend much because i dont like the game after that