A Retrospective Review of a Very Mixed Bag of an Update
(This was an unfinished rant from November 2021 that I only got round to finishing now.)
I then thought back as to what updates actually ARE five years old, and how do I think of them now? What update is actually around about 5 years old NOW? I looked into my encyclopaedic knowledge of Minecraft updates, and realised that the update that is closest to the 5 year mark was actually a very interesting one. 1.11, the "Exploration Update" hasn't exactly gone down in history as being one of the best updates of all time. In fact, many who remember it, remember it as being one of the weaker updates. Some even calling it one of the worst.
It is safe to say 1.11 hasn't aged particularly well.... but there are some things added in 1.11 that we use all the time and don't even think of nowadays.
The History of 1.11
1.11 was the first "survival-themed" update in an extremely long time. In its day, 2016, Minecraft was in a rut. Very much so. It the most wilderness of all its wilderness years. Most of the classic YouTubers that defined the OG era of the game had longsince moved on, the updates had slowed to a crawl, dipped in quality massively, and Microsoft had acquired the game but there was no Bedrock Edition yet.
1.11 had its main features revealed at MineConCraft Live Earth whateverthefudgetheycalleditthatyear, 2016. This was the first update that had a "big MineCon feature reveal", with all its features and the update's theme being kept under wraps until being revealed at that year's Minecraft Convention. It would start an annual trend that we've seen every year since, wherein we would know nothing of the next update until they did a big reveal at Minecon.
1.11's main features included the Woodland Mansion, Illagers (including the Vindicator, Evoker, and Vex), the Totem of Undying, exploration maps, Shulker Boxes, and Llamas. A fairly small update, really, but similar in scope to updates of its time (1.10, 1.11, and 1.12 were all pretty small updates). There were just 5 months between the release of 1.10 and 1.11.
What Went Wrong?
The main MAIN feature of 1.11 was the Woodland Mansion. And we cannot deny that at the time, the Woodland Mansion was a feat of Minecraft architecture. Far bigger in size than any previous overground dungeon-type structure, and by far the most complex structure of any in Minecraft up to that point. The Woodland Mansion's VAST array of different rooms, all bursting with creativity, including many hidden rooms, bringing new hostile enemies to the table, and holding an extremely valuable item... this should have been one of the biggest and best features ever added to Minecraft. But nowadays, the Woodland Mansion is almost universally forgotten. And when it is remembered, it's generally in the context of "Oh yeah, that exists."
So.... what went wrong?
When exploring a woodland mansion, it never ceases to blow me away how diverse and creative this forgotten structure's many rooms are. The presence of secret rooms just piques my interest even more. I will say this again: from a design standpoint, the Woodland Mansion is absolutely INCREDIBLE. Clearly, SO much time and effort went into creating this structure, and yet it just feels like it was so wasted on this structure that nobody remembers or ever visits. Clearly, the issue here is not with the structure itself.
I believe there are really 2 main problems and one minor issue with the Woodland Mansion.
The first is simply its rarity. These structures are rare. CRAZY rare. They are so rare in fact that you will almost NEVER find one by accident. You will typically have to travel more than 10,000 blocks to find one!!! And essentially the only way you'll ever find one is by buying a special map off a Cartographer villager that leads you to it. Again, I love what they were trying to do here, make it feel like some sort of a side quest. And maybe this could have been less of an issue if it weren't for the second issue...
The loot sucks. This has been made even WORSE by the 1.14 update making the main treasure of the mansion farmable and MUCH easier to obtain. Without that drive to come to the Woodland Mansion, there is basically nothing here for you. There are entire ROOMS filled with chests, but they are all empty. Where is the hidden God Apple in one of the chests? Or the hidden diamond block or SOMETHING?! Why are all the chests empty?! Why does this place offer low-tier TRASH as a reward for the player coming all the way out here? If they are going to make the mansions THIS rare and THIS long and hard to find, why are we rewarded with utter GARBAGE??? The Totem was really the ONLY reason to come here, but with THAT use undercut, I would go as far to say this structure is basically obsolete. That is unless you want to make a home of this place.
Finally, the minor point, the long corridors and tall ceilings make the structure very easy to cheese, since the only additional danger from standard darkness mobs is the Vindicator. A melee-only enemy just doesn't work too well in this setting. You can snipe it with a bow from miles away down a long corridor, and there is usually enough space to pillar yourself up and out of danger if you are caught off-guard (which in itself is unlikely given the long corridors giving you PLENTY of sight to watch for oncoming Vindicators).
I feel if the loot was made good, or the Mansions weren't so flipping rare (or preferably a bit of both options), this structure would be better received. But in its current state, it's safe to say the Woodland Mansion was a flop. It was awesome until the novelty wore off, and boy it wore off fast. Then it was completely gutted of ALL use when its only unique loot and enemies were made a LOT more accessible via Raids.
Phew, okay, that's Woodland Mansions out of the way, and why they were a total flop. But you know, the Woodland Mansion is 1.11's biggest feature, and it fell flat. No doubt this caused 1.11's standing in the public eye to take an almighty knock.
There was another feature in 1.11 that also felt like a good effort, but was executed very poorly. The Llama caravan system to move a lot of items at once. Has anyone actually used this? Like, ever? To me this just felt like a use tacked onto another bandaid real-life animal added to the game, to try to justify its use. Someone on the team wanted Llamas, and they had to give Llamas SOME use (side note: does everything in Minecraft NEED a use to have its existence justified? This will be a great rant for another time!) Again, the main issue with the Caravan system is that Llamas are not that easy to find. If they are trying to get players to explore more, niche purposes for random animals that are hard to find is not a good way to do it. Not to mention this highlights another problem with the game: Leads are very frustrating and counterintuitive to use, because they constantly when you least expect them to. If they REALLY wanted this feature to work, they could at LEAST have given us the ability to actually RIDE a Llama like a horse.
What Went Right?
As a survival-based update, you would expect it would have added some features that would have woven themselves into the average runthrough of survival mode. And you would be right. In particular, 2 features really stick out. Both of these are late-game items that have proven invaluable.
The Shulker Box is one of the most widely-used late-game items that have gone a very long way in solving the storage crisis (although still not all the way), and is the closest thing we have in the game to a backpack, which at the time was an extremely heavily-requested feature. Shulker Boxes have been extremely valuable and a HUGE motivation to go to an End City once the Elytra has been taken.
But perhaps the most widely-used 1.11 feature was the Totem of Undying. The totem has broken hardcore become almost ubiquitous in survival runthroughs, with many players sacrificing their crappy wooden shield for a shiny golden totem of undying. Now, I have done an entire rant about the totem and why I think it may be a little TOO OP... or rather a little too farmable. But that is a testament to how popular and useful this feature is.
1.11 also FINALLY added in the missing spawn eggs, which was absolutely HUGE for most people. Before, many mobs such as Wither Skeletons did not have their own spawn eggs, as they were seen as a "variant" of the Skeleton. This meant if you wanted to spawn in a Wither Skeleton, you had to either use the summon command Skeleton with an NBT tag, or go to a Nether Fortress and use a Skeleton spawn egg. Nightmare! Other mobs like the Zombie Villager you basically had to spawn in loads of Zombies until one was a Zombie Villager, or spawn a Zombie in a Village and wait for it to convert Zombies. The addition of all the spawn eggs for "close-cousin" type mobs was a HUGE Quality of Life change that was extremely welcomed.
But we cannot ignore the fact 1.11 introduced a very interesting concept to the game: Illagers. The concept of exiled, or evil, Villagers never existed until now. A whole new family of mobs were added, and this family would go on to become the basis of an extremely successful spin-off game, Minecraft Dungeons! There would be no Minecraft Dungeons without 1.11, and I don't think we can forget this. I personally am a huge fan of the Illager mobs, and always love it when one is added. Illagers make for some of the most unique and interesting mobs in the game, being some of the few that can master magic. I REALLY hope we see more Illagers in future.
Also, another massive quality of life feature: FINALLY the /locate command to find structures easily in creative mode!!!
Also also, the hunger bar got a MASSIVE nerf in this update, yet another very long overdue Quality of Life change.
Also also also, CHICKENS FINALLY HAVE TEXTURES ON THEIR NECKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And finally, we have to remember this update only took 5 months to come out after the previous one. It wasn't one of those year-long updates we see now. It took less than half the time updates nowadays take! It was bound to be a smaller one.
Final Word
It is safe to say that 1.11 was indeed a very mixed bag. For every feature that wove itself into the fabric of Minecraft, and was a delight to see, there was a feature that fell flat, or quickly became forgotten. And I think why many people look back and think badly of this update is because its main and biggest feature was sadly in the latter pile. This has, for many, made people think the entire update was lame, when in actual fact they forget all the good stuff this update brought to the table. Most people do not have an encyclopaedic knowledge of what features were added in what update. Most people who even are aware of the update history will only remember what that update's flagship feature is. Lots of people probably forgot, or were not aware, that 1.11 added shulker boxes and totems of undying. A lot of people may not appreciate what the addition of Illagers did for the Minecraft universe. They will only remember the Woodland Mansion, which sadly did not age well. And as such, sadly, 1.11 will often not get the recognition it deserves for the good stuff it did add.
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