One of Minecraft’s biggest mysteries right now is this strange structure in the middle of Ancient Cities. Mojang hasn’t really said much about it, but the prevailing theory is that this is a portal to a new dimension. Today we’re gonna go over a bunch of theories on what this thing is, if we’re getting A new dimension and if not, what the purpose of Reinforced Deepslate might be in the game. So Subscribe if you like what you see! I will be your host, I’m SimplySarc and let’s try and guess what thing is supposed to be! Theory 1: It is a Portal. Now I wouldn’t be surprised if this did just turn out to be a regular old portal. It follows the exact same format as the Nether and the End; you activate it and it takes you to some new dimension. It’s not unlikely, but I do think there’s a few flaws to this idea: When you look at the Deep Dark, the Warden, Ancient Cities and Sculk there’s a clear theme Mojang is playing to; “This is different”. All of these features feel like they’re making a real effort to be individual and unique. The Warden and the vibration mechanic for example really stands out as its own thing, it’s breaking from tradition. It could be a portal to a new dimension, but that would be what we’re expecting. I reckon, like the Deep Dark and all its features, they’d want this to work differently too. There’s also the question of, “What would this new dimension do?”. The Nether is all about fast travel and the End was (at least initially) a battle arena. If we do get a 4th dimension, what is its purpose? What sets it apart from all the others? Theory 2: It’s not a Portal, it’s all about the Reinforced Deepslate The biggest piece of evidence that this… thing isn’t just for decoration is because of the Reinforced Deepslate. It can’t be moved by pistons and while it can be mined, it doesn’t actually drop itself, even with Silk Touch. That begs the question, if you can’t move it and can’t obtain it, then that means it’s probably supposed to stay put, right? Why does it need to stay put? Maybe I’m the minority here, but I actually quite liked the idea of Reinforced Deepslate just being a really, really hard to mine block. And maybe that’s why it doesn’t drop itself, maybe it’s because it can only be picked up in a specific way. If you take a look at the texture, it kinda seems like it’s supposed to be a rotatable block like logs (but maybe just isn’t yet). Perhaps the way it’ll work is this will be the first block that has variable mining speeds depending on which face you target. So these 5 outer ‘reinforced’ faces are almost unbreakable, but this inner, softer face allows you to mine the block as normal. As you can see, this would mean you could create extremely tough defensive walls that make it hard for outsiders to get in, but easy for insiders to get out. Theory 3: It’s not a Portal; it’s a teleporter This is actually a fairly popular one. The idea is that this doesn’t take you to a new dimension, it teleports you to another Ancient City. So you could basically instant travel between cities. So this would obviously be super useful in some ways, but there’s definitely some issues with this idea. First, while the thought of being able to jump from one location on the map to another sounds good on paper, it might not be as handy as you think. Ancient Cities aren’t super duper common, so what you’ll probably end up with is a Network of teleporters that take you to locations you aren’t interested in. That said, it could just work in a different way; maybe it warps you back to your spawn point sorta like how end gateways work. But the issue there is that end portals pretty much already do that. And when it comes to fast travel, that’s sorta the Nether’s whole bread and butter, so I’m not really sure it would end up being that useful; you either make the Nether redundant or you get super fast travel to places you don’t care about. Theory 4: It really is just for decoration So I wouldn’t put it past Mojang to possibly do this, but there is of course the chance there’s nothing special about this structure and it really is just there for aesthetics. If this were the case, this introduces a big, big problem. Something a lot of people have commented on is that the Ancient Cities aren’t (currently) rewarding enough and I would tend to agree with this. Swift Sneak feels like something that would be useful in the cities and the Deep Dark, But in most other settings it’s hard to see why you would want to sneak quickly. In fact, it might even be a bit of an inconvenience, because you don’t necessarily want to be zooming around abruptly when you’re bridging over lava. The Recovery Compass on the other hand does have some applications, but the way it works doesn’t really make much sense. It faces the same problem the Totem of Undying had when it was a Woodland Mansion exclusive; You have to go to one of the most dangerous places in the game to get an item that is only useful when you die. If you survive the Ancient City and manage to take a compass home, you kinda don’t need it, because you’re not the type of player who dies easily. And if you have a compass and you die, it’s completely useless, because the Recovery Compass has also been lost!!! I definitely think for the compass to be useful, you should get to keep it on death so it can actually be used as intended. The point here is, Ancient Cities are dangerous. The Warden is oppressive. There’s gotta be an irresistible prize down there to force players to take the risk. That’s why I don’t think this *can* just be for decoration; if it were, the entire basis of Ancient Cities is flawed. Theory 5: It’s not a portal, it’s a gateway This is probably one of the most interesting theories. We’ve gotten used to the idea of a portal taking us to another dimension, but this portal might actually do something new; instead it’ll take us to a new ‘plane’. A plane isn’t like a dimension, because it still occupies the same space as the dimension you’re in (the overworld in this case). Think of it as something like ‘the spirit world’; overlaid on top of the regular world Is a hidden layer of content that you can only see and interact with if you’ve passed through the gateway. This would allow you to bypass one of the biggest hurdles that comes with adding new dimensions; filling it with content. The Nether and End have both been plagued with the complaint that they’re too empty. Adding a new dimension is hard because you basically have to create a whole new world gen, biomes, mobs and content just for that dimension. But with a plane, you can reuse the overworld’s content without having to design an entire new world from scratch. Of course the problem here is, logistically, having two different worlds that occupy the same space might be difficult to achieve; how does it all sync up? Minecraft might not even be able to support that sort of feature. Theory 6 (but actually just a question): How do you activate it? Before you check, I tried lighting it with a flint and steel and it doesn’t work, so it’s probably not gonna be that. It might possibly have something to do with Echo Shards, maybe you have to use them like Eyes of Ender for the end portal. I also think these weird totems are a bit suspicious. When these were first added in the experimental snapshots, I tried for a solid hour to make Them do something because I was convinced you had to do some rain dance or activate them in a specific order and that would turn the portal on. But it didn’t. What I reckon though is that to turn, whatever this is, on, it’s gonna require some form of sacrifice. The fact Sculk grows through death and feeds on living souls gives weight to this theory. In fact this whole city kinda reminded me of the show, “FullMetal Alchemist”. But in that show they had to sacrifice an entire *city* (then planet) to acquire a philosopher’s stone. Perhaps this is a similar kind of deal, where the Portal, Gateway or Teleporter actually has a toll to use each time. Mobs actually don’t spawn in Ancient Cities, so you’d have to figure out how to feed the portal with a regular supply of fresh souls. Theory 7: You can’t add a new dimension, because the End needs updating If you’d said this a couple years ago, I actually would have agreed with you. Every time you say “add this”, someone else will tell you that ‘X, Y or Z’ is more urgent and needs updating first. Things are a little different now. The ocean has been addressed. The Nether has been addressed. The underground has been addressed. The overworld has, and is being, addressed. There’s actually not that many really obvious updates left to do. In fact, the End is pretty much the only one that’s missing and I guarantee it’ll be one of the next ones they do. Because of that, I actually do think the game is ready for a major new expansion with something Like a new dimension. Mojang has eaten through most of their to-do list at this point, and yes there’s always *something* that needs fixing (I’m sure you’ll all tell me what you reckon it is), but I think the “this is more important” argument is starting to run out of steam. / Theory 8: It’s not a portal. It’s not a gateway. But it is a magical structure So this thing might not actually take us anywhere at all. It might fall into the same category as something like the Beacon or the Conduit, in that it’s A built structure that provides some kind of effect on you or the surroundings. For example, maybe it’s called ‘Reinforced’ Deepslate, not because the block is strong, but to ‘Reinforce’ things like the player who passes through it. Maybe by walking through it, you get some kind of special buff that makes you really strong? One thing that’s weird about this thing though, is how much bigger it is than the other portals. Maybe it needs to be this big to let something big through. One theory is that this is some sort of super spawner that unleashes a horde of enemies or perhaps even a boss. So it is a portal, just an exit-only portal. Theory 9: Whatever it is, it’s not coming till later If this feature has something to do with a major new game expansion like a dimension, I’d be very surprised if we saw it in 1.19. That’s a really big commitment and isn’t something you can just squeeze out in a snapshot or two. I think this monument is going to stay like it is for now and give the community time to speculate and build up the mystery (basically what I’m doing now!) before they do anything with it. A lot of people aren’t gonna like the idea of that and will say the Warden and everything is pointless. But I think we should withhold judgment for now. While it does leave the Ancient Cities incomplete for a time, as long as there is a planned Vision to finish them, I don’t think it’s the end of the world to wait. I also don’t think they need to throw out a bunch of random loot into the cities to make up for it. Ancient Cities may have a roadmap on how they’re supposed to work when finalized, it’s just Not all been implemented yet. Let’s wait and see. But anyway guys, those are just some of the theories I had. Whatdya reckon? Did I get anything right? Or was I way off?! If you’re from the future, by all means, rub it in my face I deserve it! Either way that’s all we have time for today! Thanks once again for watching, guys. I hope you enjoyed! I have been your one and only SimplySarc and I will catch you, in the next one! Video Information
This video, titled ‘Is Minecraft Getting a 4th Dimension?’, was uploaded by SimplySarc on 2022-04-18 19:30:50. It has garnered 1700139 views and 67670 likes. The duration of the video is 00:11:04 or 664 seconds.
In the centre of Minecraft Ancient Cities is a strange new ‘portal’ frame. Will this lead to the game’s 4th dimension or does Reinforced Deepslate have some other purpose?
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