After a month-long exhaustive search and distributed smart computing, Minecraft gamers have discovered what might well be the world seed for the title menu’s panoramic background. First added to the game in 2011 and only recently replaced in patch 1.13, the background picture is a bit iconic of the game’s history. However, whose world the panorama was from was not known until yesterday, when some digital explorers found the world (s) in question and published it on Reddit.
A world seed is a specific string of numbers that spawns a unique Minecraft world. The origin of the title screen was a mystery because the generated world, then the screenshot taken for it, was not documented by who recovered it in the misty days of Minecraft’s past. Because worlds can have similar or identical characteristics while remaining unique across the board, there are actually two candidates for the panoramic world.
The project started last month, on June 14, and used a distributed computing project called Minecraft @ Home, which uses the volunteers’ computer downtime to “advance research related to Minecraft.” The same project is also looking for the tallest cactus in all of Minecraft. They have currently found one that is 22 blocks tall. You can read more on Reddit.
