Living World

Persistent Footprints

The world remembers where you walk. Spend enough time on the same route and the grass packs down into a path. Leave a camp alone for a few real days and the grass and flowers start to come back. A dragon fight, a wither kill, or a hard-won raid might leave one small trace nearby — a weathered sign, a stone cairn, or a short book.

0.7.1 is the first public release. It runs on Minecraft 26.3 for Fabric and NeoForge. It is server-side, and it also works in singleplayer. Players joining a server do not need the mod; the changes are ordinary block updates. Removing the mod leaves ordinary vanilla blocks. It adds no new block types, items, progression, crafting, GUIs, or journals, and it works on worlds that already exist — there is no conversion step.

Changes are driven by real player activity, not pure in-game time. Intensity is configurable. The first-launch default is the Noticeable preset: noticeable, but not intrusive.

Worn paths

Walking wears natural ground through three stages. On grass, that is dirt, then coarse dirt, then a dirt path. Sand and red sand compact toward sandstone. Players count most, villagers less, and passive animals a little; hostile mobs are off by default. Sprinting and stepping up or down count more. Creative flight and spectator mode are ignored. On a server, foot traffic from several players in the same area adds together.

Wear applies only to the topmost full, solid, natural block. The ground under a slab, carpet, trapdoor, or other non-full block is left alone, as are player-placed path blocks and non-natural surfaces. When a block advances to a path stage, vegetation above it (grass, flowers, ferns, and similar) is cleared. Unused paths recover one stage after wear stays low for a while.

Default surfaces and stages (at the default formation speed, where one player step adds 1 wear):

Surfaces are configurable. Only vanilla minecraft: blocks are allowed, so removing the mod always leaves ordinary blocks.

Nature reclaim

Abandoned areas — low building activity, enough real time since the last visit, and not a busy route — can grow tall grass and flowers, plus the occasional sapling of the biome's tree, spaced away from other trees. Outdoor cobblestone and stone bricks may turn mossy or cracked. Lived-in chunks, busy routes, and the insides of buildings do not grow over.

Major event traces

A qualifying event may leave exactly one small trace nearby, and only if a safe spot is found: not inside a player build, not mid-air, and not blocking movement. Qualifying events are an Ender Dragon death, a Wither death, a significant raid outcome, or a long-term base (building and foot traffic staying high in an area). A second event in the same chunk is ignored.

A trace is one of: a weathered sign with a short line, a small stone cairn (3–5 blocks), a short book in a nearby chest or lectern (2–4 sentences), or a minor decoration or terrain scar. Traces stay until a player breaks them. The chance is configurable (18% on the default Noticeable preset). Chat notices are off by default.

Village maintenance

Now and then a vanilla village may do exactly one small thing: mend a broken fence or wall segment, add a crop or two to an existing farm, place one lantern near a path or well, or clear tall grass off an existing path. Reputation from trading, or from harming villagers nearby, only slightly adjusts the odds. Villages never build new structures, expand significantly, manage population, or create new entities. This can be turned off.

Configuration

One server-side file, config/livingworld.toml, is shared by all worlds. It is written with comments and the Noticeable preset on first launch.

Presets: subtle, noticeable, strong, and custom. Presets set only how strong the effects are. Every other section applies under any preset. Each system (paths, nature, villages, traces) can be turned off on its own.

Changes apply live: save the file (picked up within about 10 seconds) or run /livingworld reload (op level 2). /livingworld config shows what is in effect. /livingworld inspect shows memory at a targeted chunk or block. Nothing needs a restart.

The Nether and the End are disabled for path, nature, and village block changes by default; a major event there can still leave a trace.

Bad values are clamped or replaced by the default, with a warning in the server log. A broken file never stops the server. Delete the file to regenerate it.

Protection

With respect_build_permissions = true (the default), Living World does not change blocks on protected land:

• a dedicated server's spawn-protection square
• a Fabric claim mod that supports Patbox's Common Protection API
• any hook another mod registers with LivingWorldApi.registerProtection
• for path wear, also ground the walking player could not build on

Steps on protected ground still count as foot traffic. Blocks in the #livingworld:frozen tag are never changed while that option is on (a data pack can fill the tag).

Compatibility

FAQ

Do players need to install this on a server? No. Install it on the server, or in singleplayer. Clients see ordinary block updates.

What happens if I remove the mod? The world is left with ordinary vanilla blocks. The mod does not add new block types.

Will it tear up my builds? Player-placed path blocks and non-natural surfaces are left alone, and the block under slabs, carpets, and other non-full blocks is never modified. Nature reclaim does not plant inside buildings or next to built blocks. Claimed and spawn-protected land is left alone by default.

Does this add items, a GUI, or a journal? No.

Is it heavy on the server? Work is capped: by default, 100 remembered chunks processed per second and 40 block changes per second, per dimension (configurable). An optional TPS guard can skip the mod's work when the server is lagging (off by default). Only chunks with something to remember are stored, with a soft limit of 40,000 remembered chunks per dimension; the quietest and oldest are forgotten if that limit is exceeded.

Made by OrangeDot Studios · GPL-3.0

If you'd like to support the work: https://ko-fi.com/anotherdistraction

NOT AN OFFICIAL MINECRAFT PRODUCT. NOT APPROVED BY OR ASSOCIATED WITH MOJANG OR MICROSOFT.