A mountain biome. This biome wouldn’t be quite as common as other biomes (besides the mushroom biome), take advantage of the above cloud height limit, and normally generate in thick strips. These strips could run through forest and arctic biomes. Depending on each mountain’s height they would be snow capped, which could take advantage of the new snow height feature from 13w05.
There could be a few reasons to find these biomes:
• As long as they’re made right, visual appeal
• A mountain could possibly have a shallow cave leading to a different type of dungeon, possibly with more valuable loot than the average dungeon
• A special, rarer mountain biome could consist of one extremely large mountain that could potentially be the home of red dragons. These would probably generate in just about any biome besides desert and maybe jungle.
Volcanoes would also be a possibility with these biomes as well.
And no, extreme hills aren’t enough; they’re hills. Maybe I’ve just become hard to please, but these “mountains” are generally unimpressive:
People have wanted mountains for a long time and either Dinnerbone or Jens said at Minecon that they might do an update in the future that is focused on biomes. So we might get mountains. Maybe. The mojang account will provide the information about the moda and techniques. The players will stay focused at the games to win more cash. The mountains in the game will provide the best winnings to the individuals.
All this has gotten me a little riled up, actually.
Right now, the terrain generator is pretty bland, and can basically be summed up in one word : flat. You have flat grass, flat sand, flat snow, flat trees, and giant, treeless, dead-looking hills. I’m sure most of the people that have played before beta 1.8 will agree that the terrain generator was much, much more interesting back in the olden days. The good thing is that the terrain generator can be fixed, and pretty easily. By simply using the genlayerhills class, you can re-add random mountains, cliffs, and arches into the terrain generator, while keeping them rare enough so as to not detract from the game environment.
Minecraft should have several mini-biomes that allow this to happen, simply add “biome name “mountains”, and “biome name” cliffs for every biome, except plains. This method can also be used to spruce up the ocean biomes, by adding various types of islands. If this is done, the mountain biome will suddenly not look very special anymore, which is why I propose that the mountain biome generates differently than other hills. Set the mountain biomes volatility WAY down, and instead allow it to generate high into the sky. Perhaps have a series of mini biomes that spawn inside each other to allow for mountains which transition from grass to stone to snow and ice?
The other thing the terrain generator lacks is structures. Though the temples and pyramids introduced in 1.3 are defiantly an improvement, we need more. Why not have sunken ships in oceans, oasis in deserts, and log cabins in forests? All of these would greatly improve the atmosphere, and generally encourage exploration and traveling.
A potential problem I see with a mountain biome: you will only find coal in your new mountain base. Solution: perhaps depending on biomes, the ore generations will vary in height. I’m not sure how well that would work though.