hi!!!! if this is not the right board for this then please move or remove it, but i thought this could be a good place to have an old minecraft thread!

i am someone who is really heavily invested in old versions of minecraft, old mods old maps old modpacks videos posts etc. i know there are other people who are also interested in that (r/goldenageminecraft as reddit has served as a hub for people who are interested in this for quite a while) but i figured maybe there would be some people who are also interested in this on the forums, and if there aren't then maybe i could share some new information or something!  

i would first like to share the playlist i made a few days ago, of minecraft in 2009... it has every public or unlisted video of minecraft from 2009 that i could find, listed in chronological order. aside from privated videos, which can't be added to playlists, i'm pretty sure it is mostly comprehensive.. regardless, if you find any videos i missed, please bring them to my attention! 

www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRBq6XxIxlbXn6LKYqLdAgowzvY5nk1nq

i've seen another playlist that claims to have every minecraft video from 2009, but my playlist has some videos missing from that one, and is ordered differently, so i think mine justifies it's existence in that way. i do give credit to that playlist for helping me find most of them, so that playlist is linked here for anyone who wants it..

a small warning, this is not a highlights playlist, as far as i'm aware it really does have almost every minecraft video made in 2009. it's intended to be comprehensive, and i didn't select for quality, so a few of the videos in the playlist contain offensive language such as slurs etc. i guess it would be expected out of a playlist of 2009 gamer videos, but please browse carefully if that's sensitive for you.

i do have every video in this playlist downloaded (+1 that became private after i started making the playlist) so if any more videos in this playlist become privated then let me know and i can upload them somewhere. 

i've also been working on a minecraft in 2010 playlist here, but that one is incomplete and not intended to be comprehensive (a bit more of a highlights reel). it's ordered by day and not by hour/second/minute so not as chronological as the 2009 playlist and may have some things out of order. 

if you're interested in the process of making one of these playlists (the process of making/saving, how i found the videos, how i ordered it, etc.) then i can put a guide on how to do that...

onto old minecraft more generally and not just old minecraft videos, playing old versions is something people still do today.. people play it in lots of different ways, but if you're interested in playing, i hear that the betacraft launcher is the best way to play multiplayer or singleplayer vanilla, and that multiMC launcher is the best way to play old modded minecraft. betacraft can also mod pretty well IMO, since i got a modpack that wasn't made for betacraft or multiMC running on it, but it's a little harder to figure out what you're doing.. less intuitive, i guess. and multiMC has a bigger playerbase, i think. so, it's really up to you. using an official minecraft launcher to play older versions isn't recommended though, because support for older versions is really on it's way out.. crashes, skins don't work, sounds don't work, etc.. it's hard to get it working right!

most of my old minecraft playing is modpacks, modded singleplayer, or the occasional vanilla singleplayer.. i like making my own modpacks out of old mods and trying to get them working (if big enough you will really run into compatibility issues, but it kind of fun to try and put together..). i'd like to try old multiplayer, but haven't gotten around to it. i was thinking if enough people were interested i could try running a server for an older version for the people on this forum to play on though. 

why play old minecraft? well, the biggest & most obvious answer is nostalgia, but even if you don't have nostalgia for it, there are a lot of perks to playing these older versions... old minecraft, especially the older you go, has a much simpler and sandboxier feeling.. in mods, this is not felt so much, but especially playing in vanilla singleplayer, it's a calm and still world.. almost sort of eerie . this isn't felt in newer versions so much. the world generation is interesting - a lot of people prefer it to that of newer minecraft's. i don't know if i think it's better, but i do think it isn't any worse.. just different. lots of memorable world generated structures like big hangover mountains etc. some people think the difficulty / scary / survival experience is better in older minecraft, which i am ambivalent about but worth mentioning.. + a lot of people say that adding the hunger bar made the game worse, which i don't necessarily agree with, but old minecraft, when you're not running from mobs, has a pretty unhurried feel.. if you don't take damage, you won't have to periodically replenish any kind of bar, you move slowly, and goals are both clearer and less clear....

i think something i don't see discussed is that because there's a bit less to do in the game i feel like you end up doing more of what the game gives you to do. when was the last time you baked a cake in minecraft, or made TNT? in the old versions, i feel sort of compelled to do these tasks, even if they don't further the progression of the game, just because they are a thing i can do.. i don't mean to imply anything negative about the variety of tasks in current minecraft, but i never feel particularly drawn to craft those sorts of items in it. i guess on the flipside though, i don't feel as drawn to doing the busywork in old minecraft that i love doing in new minecraft.. hollowing mountains is tedious when your pickaxe can't be repaired, farming is not as fun when you move slower, etc... they really are just different experiences, that you interact with differently.

anyway, all of what i just said applies to the base older minecraft, but what i am the most drawn to is the old mods.. i have a lot of nostalgia surrounding old mods old modded let's plays old mod reviews etc, so i think that's why i was drawn to exploring the user-created parts of old minecraft. but you might be surprised how well these mods still hold up. i feel like there was a bit of a different philosophy when designing them, because you couldn't tell where minecraft would go next. i can't articulate it, but you definitely get a different feeling playing older mods. and the mods themselves, they're still good. just because they were left in time doesn't mean they got any worse. i feel sad thinking that a lot of people won't experience some of these cool older mods! i don't think this is nostalgia brain talking either. when changing versions, people forgot these mods..  but no fear! many are still archived..

if you want to play modded old minecraft, your best shot is beta 1.7.3. that's the last update before the hunger mechanic was added, so people flock to it because it's the most 'finished' version of a hungerless minecraft. the majority of old minecraft mods archived are for beta 1.7.3. a good archive can be found here, and i'm sure you can find even more mods + modpacks for both beta 1.7.3 and other versions by browsing r/goldenageminecraft, which despite the state of reddit, doesn't look like it's going anywhere. (worth downloading anything you'd miss if it were gone though)

more creeps and weirdos is my all-time favorite mod. it's so silly and amazing and surprisingly polished... interacting with this mod was absolutely formative experience for me. there's so much random shit it's the peak of minecraft modding. and it was left in 1.2.5... (well, there's actually a revival for newer versions going on right now but i haven't tried it). there's so many things to do, i can't even put into words how cool it is. one of my favorite things is their pet training mechanics which remind me a bit of doggytalents but like maybe better. there's just a lot to do there.

some honorable mentions for mods: loafcat, hamsters, portal gun mod, fairies/fairy factions, adventurecraft, singleplayer commands mod, baby animals, mo creatures, doggy talents, nandonalt's more trees/corals, nandonalt's seasons, wtfisaneko, nandonalt's extended wolves, elemental creepers, the aether, mystcraft, tropicraft, twilight forest, not so secret saturday, and more that i'm not remembering!   

i think i've said all that i need to say.. well, i also have a .txt file containing a list of like 1000 different minecraft maps & modpacks separated by version, but i haven't updated it since 2020 so a lot of them might not be available anymore.. if anyone wants to hear about maps for a specific version though i can give it a lookover.



thanks for reading!! sorry for big ramble, i'm really bad at being concise, and i have a lot to say about old minecraft .. let me know favorite stuff from old minecraft - experience, servers, mods, maps, etc., && also if i should try archiving videos of anything else ? considered looking for old warrior cats or LPS vids, but don't know how many of them will still be available...