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Revert the world folder format to vanilla

Open masmc05 opened this issue 2 months ago • 7 comments

Is your feature request related to a problem?

Yes, current folder structure is weird in many aspects. Like fake data folders in custom worlds, or how the datapack dimension have their folder structure messed up. There is also the fact that the root folder is a bit too cluttered

Describe the solution you'd like.

Switch back to vanilla

Describe alternatives you've considered.

A new folder structure similar to /dimensions/<namespace>/<name>/ or /worlds/<namespace>/<key>. This is basically vanilla structure but raising dimensions folder up by 1 layer and enforcing vanilla dimensions into the non-standard-dimension folders

Other

No response

masmc05 avatar Oct 19 '25 19:10 masmc05

Returning to the vanilla world folder structure would be the best way as it would get rid of both the world migration and then the additional manual world migration should the user wish to switch to a different platform. I don't see any point in making our lives even harder with yet another world migration and deviation from vanilla. If it's going to be changed it should be changed to the vanilla way imho

Toffikk avatar Oct 19 '25 19:10 Toffikk

I personally consider the vanilla format objectively much worse for meaningfully managing worlds.

Dimensions get hidden in multiple subfolders, with the entire folder structure depending on a somewhat artificially chosen "main" world (=overworld). Especially for operations such as adding and removing worlds to the server, this makes it terrible to work with.

For example, if you have a build server and one of your builders wants to add a singleplayer world. Currently, you simply copy the folder from /saves/ and you are done. If we turn worlds into proper vanilla dimensions, you then either have a ton of useless files lying around if you simply copy it, or you need to manually pick apart the world folder, only copying the region/poi/entities folder (currently). And in any case you need to manually create a folder structure of namespace and key, just to add a world. '

Replacing the "main" world in any way is also much harder. Currently you just change the name in server.properties, done. All your other worlds stay unaffected by this. If we align with vanilla, all dimensions of the old "main" world would be gone, and you would need to manually move them over to the new one.

At least in Vanilla you also need to set up a datapack for it to actually load the dimension. Hopefully this could be avoided on Paper, but that would be even more cumbersome.

TL;DR: I see no reason to change to an inferior system just to say that we aligned with vanilla now. I rather hope Mojang improves theirs first, e.g. by making the overworld, nether and end normal dimensions like any other custom one.

Malfrador avatar Oct 19 '25 19:10 Malfrador

There's a machine issue / pr about this that is old. Basically waiting for mojang to update their current format.

Owen1212055 avatar Oct 19 '25 21:10 Owen1212055

for reference: https://github.com/PaperMC/Paper/pull/7594

Toffikk avatar Oct 19 '25 22:10 Toffikk

this would be so bad for world management

J0T0S0 avatar Oct 22 '25 08:10 J0T0S0

I am absolutely against a new custom structure Either don't touch the current format or go back to Vanilla with the addition of subdimensions Basically every "overworld" has its own root and every subdimension should be located inside this root

NonSwag avatar Oct 22 '25 09:10 NonSwag

Swapped the alternative and main solutions, as seems like majority (including myself) are for vanilla folder structure rather than the structure discussed prior to issue opening

masmc05 avatar Oct 22 '25 09:10 masmc05