Simple tutorial

The Nether is an important part of Minecraft - without it, players wouldn't get some of the coolest (and rarest) materials in the game, nor the chance to fight zombie pigmen and ghasts. But should Multiverse stop you from using the Nether? Of course not! This article explains an easy way of setting up multiple Nether worlds managed by Multiverse.

Summary

• Create Nether portals like you would in single-player.
• Nether portals in world X look for a world called X_nether, and take you there if it exists.
• Nether portals in world X_nether look for a world called X, and take you there if it exists.
• Redirect Nether portals by "linking" two worlds: [[/mvnp link X Y|Command-Reference#link]].

What you need

Before you begin to use Nether portals, you'll need...

• To install Multiverse-NetherPortals.

Getting started

Note: you may skip this section if you know how to create a standard, single-player-style nether portal.

Once both the Core and NetherPortals plugins are installed on your server:

1. Log in to your server.
2. Gather up at least 10 obsidian, as well as a flint and steel.
3. Create a portal in the usual (single-player style) shape. It should have an internal size of 2 x 3 blocks and a total external size of 4 x 5 blocks.
4. Light one of the inside surfaces on fire with the flint and steel.

You should see the inside of your obsidian frame light up with purple portal tiles. Congratulations - you made a nether portal!

Behavior

By default, Nether portals behave similarly to how they do in single player: they take you to a Nether world. However, with Multiverse 2.0, there are some added features you can use to make your Nether portals even better; moreover, Multiverse 2.0 makes one Nether per world a reality, instead of having one Nether overall.

Standard

When you have multiple worlds, what does it mean to go "to the nether"? With Multiverse, the nether gets interpreted following a few simple rules:

• Each world gets its own nether by default.
• For a world named X, the Nether world is named X_nether.
• If a Nether exists for a world (e.g. X_nether is already a world), the portal takes you there. Otherwise, nether portals do nothing in that world - the plugin will not create a nether world for you. (The converse is also true, for players already in the Nether.)

Without any customization, that's it. Each world gets a separate Nether, and those worlds behave just like any other Multiverse world - the only difference is that they have _nether at the end of their names. (Bold users can even change the suffix in the Multiverse-NetherPortals configuration file.)

Customizing ("linking")

Inevitably, there are users who want to use Nether-style portals to teleport to other regular worlds. With Multiverse-NetherPortals, this is easy! Just link the two worlds together.

"Linking" worlds involves setting the destination of nether portals in one world (call it X) to another specific, usually non-nether, world (call it Y). To link all the Nether portals in X to world Y, run:

/mvnp link {end|nether} X Y

Now, when your players step into a Nether or End portal (depending on what was specified in command) in world X, they'll be taken to world Y instead of world X_nether or X_the_end. What's more: all the normal Nether options still apply, including portal auto-creation (if specified) and distance scaling.

Keep in mind that links are not two-way. You can link X to Y, but if Y isn't linked back to X, nether portals in Y will take you to Y_nether, not X.

Of course, what good would world linking be without world unlinking? You can remove the link between X and Y by running:

/mvnp unlink {end|nether} X

After that command, Nether or End portals in world X will once again lead to world X_nether or X_the_end.

Linking and unlinking works in both normal and nether worlds - you can leave world X pointing to X_nether, then link X_nether to world Y. More complicated configurations like this can literally let your users walk "through hell and into another world."

World scaling

By default, the standard single-player Minecraft Nether uses something called "distance scaling" - for every chunk you walk in the Nether, it's equivalent to eight chunks in your regular world. A similar effect is - naturally - possible using Multiverse. But first, we need to take a brief diversion into how the scaling works.

A little math

To begin, every world has a "scaling" associated with it. This scaling can be any positive number: 1, 2, 100, and 0.42 are all valid scaling values. Using these values, we then say that the "scaling factor" from world X to world Y is:

SF(X,Y) = scaling(X) / scaling(Y)

So if world X has scaling 6 and world Y has scaling 2, then the scaling factor from X to Y is 3.

What does it all mean?

We've tossed around a bunch of numbers here, but what exactly is a scaling factor? This definition is very important in world scaling, so remember it well:

The scaling factor from X to Y is how far in Y you can go by walking in X.

For the more mathematically inclined, this can also be expressed as:

dist(Y) = SF(X,Y) * dist(X) = (scaling(X) / scaling(Y)) * dist(X)

Let's consider an example. Once again, we have our two worlds X and Y. Say that X has scaling 2 and Y has scaling 1; then the scaling factor from X to Y is 2. Now our friendly player Alice walks 100 blocks in world X; that's the same as walking 200 blocks in world Y. Player Bob, on the other hand, isn't so smart: he walks 100 blocks in world Y, then moves to world X and finds out he's only gone 50 blocks.

How does this work? Look at the math:

• For Alice: dist(Y) = (2 / 1) * 100 = 200
• For Bob: dist(X) = (1 / 2) * 100 = 50