Minecraft developers share how they implemented community feedback for 1.18 Caves & Cliffs update part 2

The upcoming Caves and Cliffs Part 2 is the biggest update in Minecraft's decade-long history. It will change the entire Overworld generation forever by adding cave and sub-mountain biomes.

The new caves would generate down to Y -59, whereas mountains will reach an astounding height of 260 blocks. Implementing such a huge change is probably the most difficult challenge Mojang developers have faced. The Minecraft community helps developers by providing valuable feedback.

In the latest episode of Dev Diaries, Agnes Larrson, Henrik Kniberg, and Cameron Thomas share how they implement feedback from players into their ambitious Caves and Cliffs update.

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Minecraft developers share how they implemented community feedback in the 1.18 update

As LadyAgnes stated, community feedback has been important to Minecraft developers. They go through all the valuable feedback and implement it into beta versions and snapshots.

Regarding the feedback, LadyAgnes remarked:

It's just super valuable and something that's important for Minecraft, and the other thing is that we actually can adapt to the feedback we get very quick, so we like release a beta or snapshot we get feedback.

She further stated:

Then we can fix things and release another beta or a snapshot, and then we can continue to iterate like that, and yeah, it's very valuable, and it helps us create really good experience for our players.

We are doing lots of play testing, and we keep finding so many epic and inspiring places in the Caves&Cliffs part two world gen! I can't stop exploring😊. Look at this lake for example! It looks like a crater lake with a rather spectacular Ice Spike kingdom on the peninsula! pic.twitter.com/Vwiqe2Qa8j

— LadyAgnes (@_LadyAgnes) August 11, 2021

LadyAgnes was also delighted to share that Minecraft 1.18 development is going pretty well. Developers are pretty satisfied with the current terrain generation and are now working on performance.

Henrik Kniberg is one of the most active Minecraft developers on Twitter. He often shares new world generation changes, asks questions, and reads suggestions from players.

Even a small difference is a difference pic.twitter.com/c4bmjUkWME

— Henrik Kniberg (@henrikkniberg) September 8, 2021

Henrik shared how he sometimes joins Minecraft servers anonymously and talks with casual players to get their opinion on the update. He also watches videos by Minecraft content creators to understand their views and reads up on comments to gain holistic feedback.

Henrik also shared how feedback can help him with development:

As a designer, it also helps boost my own confidence. I don't have to guess as much if I have an idea, a question, I can ask it, and I can get feedback. I don't have to make scary decisions and then hope that it's going to end up really well we know when we release several months in the future.

Minecraft's Senior Community Manager, Cameron Thomas, encourages players to share their feedback. He stated:

All feedback is useful, and all feedback is feedback that we want to hear you know whether you've been playing Minecraft for ten years or you've been playing it for 10 minutes.

We just want to hear what players think about the stuff that we're working on so we can just yeah so we can iterate and just make the game the best it can possibly be.

Mojang has always taken community feedback into account and implemented it many times into the game. Players can submit their valuable opinions on Minecraft 1.18 update at feedback.minecraft.net.