It's Not Nostalgia. Old Minecraft WAS Great.

Getting this question a lot, so I’d better answer. The version I mostly play (and what you’re seeing mostly in the video) is Beta 1.7.3 (do not confuse this with release 1.7. They’re different)

Old Minecraft gave me a vibe no other game ever has

Can we just take a moment to respect how lucky we are that all of these old versions are even still available? So many games just discard the old versions once the new ones are added, but Minecraft saw the need to preserve early. I can't think of any other game that makes it so easy and accessible to play versions of the game at all, let alone old development versions. Regardless of how the design moves forward in the future, we've always got the safety net of playing our favorite iteration years from now, and that's so special in this industry.

Tbh old minecraft immerses me way more. when there’s so many things, i get overwhelmed and unmotivated to do everything

seeing the old lava texture made me emotional for some reason

One thing about old minecraft is you learn IMMEDIATELY how the myth of Herobrine came to be. There's so little ambience, the world is so dark and empty, and choked by fog at all times. It's only natural for your brain to fear there being another presence in the world. Couple that with old minecraft having legions of generation bugs, and you've got a solid urban legend.

another thing about older minecraft that i really enjoy is the fact that the darkness out there is actually dark. As soon as the night hits, it's almost impossible to get through the woods with no light source and at the same time any lighting you put up looks so much brighter and more vibrant in comparison with the newer brighter nights

I love your point about the fog so much. I never really played beta beyond the occasional foray with a friend to see what it was like, but the fog in beta adds to the exploration part of the game so much in my opinion. It definitely beckons you towards it a little more, giving you an ever so slight taste of what’s in the distance. It also applies to builds in a fascinating way, especially in areas like yours with several huge structures. It makes it feel like they go on and on.

The thing i hate in newer versions is that new stuff doesn't work with the old one, for example new mobs have complex animations and more realistic design, so when you look at a cow for example it feels like a different game because of how different these mobs look like

In the old versions of minecraft, every block had a purpose. Now there are way too many cosmetic blocks.

Your point about old Minecraft feeling a bit eerie, lonely or melancholic worked really well to encourage the player to build stuff, because where your buildings where felt less lonely. Which is why old Minecraft worlds have paths going everywhere, which is something i see way less of in newer Minecraft worlds. It was almost obligatory to have a nice path between every building you made.

I just want to say I absolutely love how casually you’re talking. There’s no yelling, nothing super fast paced—it’s refreshing

There’s no other feeling like old minecraft. The textures, the colors, the biomes, the ambiance of the game was unmatched. And I yearn for those days where I was younger and watching YouTube and this is what I saw.

When they added The different kinds of stone it did begin to complicate the simplicity of mining. I wish there was a way to flag certain things for your character to not pick up in modern Minecraft.

There's this quote that goes like "limitation breeds creativity" and I feel like that applies to this version. Tho I don't personally play it, it definitely has a charm to it and it kinda feels like you can do more with less

this felt so natural i didn't event realize it was 21 minutes long

This reminds me of how I got into making levels for Quake (1996): There's just enough complexity to be able to make fully 3D environments but enough simplicity to easily make levels that look good in the game, with no need to be a professional level designer, something that anyone can pick up and have fun with.

In terms of aesthetics or overall "feel", I really miss the old-school dungeon crawler RPG style that it had in its early years.

I personally think the old Minecraft was better because of how simple and few things there were in it. No Elytra so the minecart and boats were heavily needed. Enemies hit harder so it was scary to see them. Not knowing how to play the game so the curiosity was huge. no sprinting so exploring felt more brutal and earned instead of like a tiktok speed of exploring as nowadays, everything you found was so much slower so you would appreciate it so much more. you can cover 100k blocks with an elytra in like 20 mins. 100k in old minecraft would be hoursssssssssss, everything had a purpose and nothing made something else obsolete. Edit: and heavily agreed that things became really disappointing once mojang headed in the realistic direction... for whatever reason.. Minecraft was way more enjoyable when it was an actual fantasy game.

the fog is a big deal. it really did make your worlds feel so much cooler when you'd get up to some high vantage and look back towards your base/town/whatever while you were out gathering things and exploring the woods nearby. looking back at your structures from a distance felt soo cool