Zion

"Zion."

Have you ever felt that vanilla world-gen could have a lot to be desired? What if there were more than farm animals roaming the plains? Or fish in the sea? What if you could lose yourself in the world so seamlessly, that you happily forgot the rest of the game existed?

Welcome to Gaia. THIS is what I always knew the Minecraft experience could be! Not a race to bedrock. Not an endless chain of tech mods... but to what end? They forgot that the journey, the FEELING of being in the world, was the most important part! :)

Gaia isn't just vanilla + spice. You see, Gaia is a complete overhaul of EVERYTHING while maintaining a vanilla feel! So those who've never played modded MC before can intuitively pick up and play. But be careful... not all the animals are so friendly! It's survival even during the day, as it should be.

Release the Kraken!

"Release the Kraken!"

To get the most out of this pack, I HIGHLY recommend installing "Optifine: preview_OptiFine_1.12.2_HD_U_E4_pre4" (in the preview versions of Optifine's website, it seems to run better than the Release "HD U E3") and SEUS renewed 1.0.0 shaders (to install just drag and drop the .zip file to the shaderpacks folder). I tried them all, and this one was definitely the best IMO. It's well optimized. Remember to allocate more RAM to this pack in the launch settings java arguments (4-5 gb if your computer can handle 16+ draw distance, and you'll want a far draw distance with this beautiful, expansive scenery).

Options tips: When you install optifine, you'll need to keep Render regions and Dynamic updates off (open gl errors). I recommend going into mod options > dynamic surroundings > config > individual sounds > and turning off any other sounds you find annoying (gnat and bees are disabled by default). I also recommend "Better Grass on" in quality video settings. Turn walking sounds to 25% in the sound settings. "Riven's Algorithm" works best for me in BetterFPS, but you can actually click on the .jar file in the mod folder and run a built-in benchmark to see which is fastest for you!

"Where the Buffalo Roam."

A lot of work and testing went into this modpack. Here are some of the behind the scenes features:

Well-thought-out and playtested selection of mods for gameplay. Faithful to vanilla style, but expanded slightly in gameplay and greatly in decoration.
Dynamic Surroundings mod lets you hear and feel the world like you never have before!
The pack uses Biome Bundle, but I changed the configs to edit out all the floating biomes except for Flying Forest. Not only were they eyesores, but they caused tremendous lag.
The Wild Zoo and Animals mod configs were heavily modified to present believable and unobtrusive biome spawns and spawn rates. Spotted Hyena was removed (problematic). A particularly scary animal now only spawns in jungles and swamps... you have been warned!

Here's the current modlist:

Apple Skin (hunger and saturation bar): AppleSkin-mc1.12-1.0.9

Better Animal Models: betteranimals-5.2.1

Better Foliage: BetterFoliage-MC1.12-2.2.0

Forgelin: Forgelin-1.8.2

Better FPS: BetterFps-1.4.8

Biome Bundle: Biome_Bundle-1.12.2-v6.1

Bonsai Trees: bonsaitrees-1.1.3-b156

Ceramics: Ceramics-1.12-1.3.7

Chisel: Chisel-MC1.12.2-0.2.1.35
Connected Textures Mod: CTM-MC1.12.2-0.3.3.22

Clumps (XP visual mod): Clumps-3.1.2

Comforts: comforts-1.12.2-1.4.1.2

Cooking for Blockheads: CookingForBlockheads_1.12.2-6.4.70

Dynamic Surroundings: DynamicSurroundings-1.12.2-3.5.4.3
OreLib: OreLib-1.12.2-3.5.2.2

Familiar Fauna: FamiliarFauna-1.12.2-1.0.11

Fast Leaf Decay: FastLeafDecay-v14

Ferdinand's Flowers: Ferdinand's+Flowers-1.12.x-1.10.4.1

Foam Fix: foamfix-0.10.5-1.12.2

MrCrayfish's Furniture Mod: furniture-6.3.0-1.12.2

Here's What You're Looking At: Hwyla-1.8.26-B41_1.12.2

Just Enough Items: jei_1.12.2-4.15.0.279

Journey Map: journeymap-1.12.2-5.5.5b7

Natural Fauna + (ZAWA addon): NaturalFauna+Mod-1.12.2-1.3.2

Open Glider: OpenGlider-1.12.1-1.1.0

Open Terrain Generator: OpenTerrainGenerator-1.12.2+-+v6

Pam's Harvest Craft: Pam's+HarvestCraft+1.12.2zd+Surprise+for+Yogcast

Optifine: preview_OptiFine_1.12.2_HD_U_E4_pre4

Quark: Quark-r1.5-155
Quark Oddities addon: QuarkOddities-1.12.2
AutoRegLib: AutoRegLib-1.3-30

Serene Seasons: SereneSeasons-1.12.2-1.2.16-universal

Simple Teleporters: simpleteleporters-1.12.2-3.0.2

Tree Chopper: TreeChopper-1.12.2-1.2.4

Vegan Life: veganlife-1.12.2-1.4.0

Wearable Backpacks: WearableBackpacks-1.12.2-3.1.3

Zoo and Wild Animals: Rebuilt (ZAWA): zawa+-+1.5.5+(1.12.2)
Bookworm: bookworm+-+2.2.0+(1.12.2)

Gaia: Vision Quest