A change is as good as a rest

After enjoying some of the newer features in Minecraft for several years now. It's easy to forget what the experience was like back during the old alpha days. I'll list a few of the differences that stand out for me.

Probably the biggest shock that awaited me was seeing just how bright and green the landscape is.

After being used to the muted, and often ugly gradients of the modern Minecraft biomes. It's nice to play in such a bright and colourful world. I'm sure I'll miss it when I update in the future.

At this stage in the game the only animals are sheep and pigs. They'll spawn in any lighted area. Grass, dirt, sand, or stone. More than once I've been startled deep in my mine by a sheep as I turned a corner.

Food doesn't stack. This is before the hunger bar, so I can understand why our ability to instantly heal with food would be limited. However it's a pain in the arse to store food. I recall when first playing the game several years ago hoping for a compromise. The idea being that food could be stacked, but could only be eaten when a single piece was held in the hotbar.

Tall grass isn't part of the game yet. It's absence was a bit of a head scratcher until I remembered the old method of gathering seeds. Seeds for wheat are acquired by turning grass tiles into tilled soil with the hoe.

Shift clicking isn't in the game as of yet. I miss it dearly.

When placing three stone blocks horizontally on the crafting grid. The output is a stone pressure plate. Not what I had expected. That was when I realized that cobblestone makes stone slabs. This is before cobblestone slabs were introduced.

Lastly my dislike of redstone ore has resurfaced. It's mining time is higher than other ores. It's there to simply act as an annoying speed bump when trying to mine.