The Minecraft deity known as Notch released update 1.6 recently which allows Nether Portals to work on Multiplayer Servers like the one I play on.

Since Minecraft itself doesn’t support multiple worlds, we all knew that something weird was going to happen when we built and went through a Nether Portal in another world. Maybe nothing would happen. Maybe each world would have it’s own Nether.

What really happens is a lot less exciting. Every portal in every world goes to the main world’s Nether. Then, if you go back through that gate, it spits you somewhere in the main world (Bunnies).

The first time I tried this, I went through a Nether Portal near the Floaty Stargate. Floaty is a world I spend a lot of time in. I found myself suspended high above some lava with little room to move somewhere in The Nether. Then I went back through before I fell or was killed by ghasts and ended up in the middle of the ground somewhere in Bunnies right by a monster spawner. I died a few times and repeated going back through. I cleaned out the area and Kiashien helped me make a Stargate called Bridge so that I could get out of wherever it was I’d ended up.

I’m pretty good at exploring The Nether. I practiced in our “psudo-nether” world (Stargates Nether1 and Glowstone). These were created using multi-world before the 1.6 update. In those days glowstone dropped less glowstone dust when harvested. I was pretty obsessed with finding a ‘prettier’ light source than torches, torches, and more torches to use in my bases and other creations. So, I did a lot of exploring and digging and building in The Nether. Ghasts were a huge problem because at that point, I couldn’t actually see the ghasts correctly. They would flicker across the screen as if they were in multiple spots at once and I couldn’t see their projectiles flying at me. So, dodging them and hitting them back at the ghasts was impossible. Killing ghasts was all guesswork.

So, when I was given a Nether Gate high above open lava with barely a platform to stand on and a lot of ghasts spawning, I said, “Challenge Accepted”.

I don’t die a lot in Minecraft, but here I died about a half dozen times trying to make a place to stand and walls around the portal.

Each time I died I’d end up in at the Bunnies spawn point by our main base Chuck. It didn’t matter that I’d slept in other beds in Bunnies, which is supposed to reset your spawn point to the bed. I spawned there every time. Each time I’d go into Chuck and hop the stargate to Floaty. Since the 1.6 update, Minecraft disconnects every time you transport to another world using a Stargate, accusing you of hacking. I’d reconnect, then go through the Nether Portal there and end up back in The Nether.

The last time I was there I actually made a lot of progress, but still messed up and fell to my doom. I was back at Chuck and made my way back to Floaty. This time, though, I didn’t end up at that same gate in The Nether. Instead I ended up coming out of a gate in the Nether that was fairly secure. I explored the tunnels for awhile and made the place a bit more homey. I mined some glowstone. I didn’t have a lot of supplies since I expected to end up back at the deathtrap and die again. Once I decided I needed to get some wood and other things, I went through the gate. I expected to come out at Bridge.

Instead I ended up under water at night somewhere. I swam up and looked around. It was a river. The banks had forested mountains. Our Other Places mod told me that I was closest to Bridge, but closest is a relative term since nothing familiar was anywhere in sight.

I didn’t have any supplies on me except netherrack, a shovel, and a flint and steel. Since I had no torches, I placed some blocks of nertherrack and lit them on fire to try to keep the bad mobs from spawning on top of me, then I waited in the water for morning. Things didn’t look any better in the morning. I was very, very lost. Kiashien decided it was okay to teleport me back to civilization since it seemed like the game had glitched.

Some people might decide to do something else at this point, but this just made me want to try again, and yes, possibly get stranded. However, this time I brought obsidian to make a stargate. That way if I was stranded, I could get myself out.

The Nether Gate went to the same place as before. After working for a short period of time, I stepped back into the Portal.



For the love of cheese, where am I now?



Oh, hey. It’s the netherrack beacons I made before! So I did come out at the same spot. It seems like last time the game fast forwarded to me falling and ending up below in the water. I had almost nowhere to stand, so it makes sense that I fell and, no, I didn’t think to look up.

So, now I’m here and I can build a Stargate, right? Actually, I need to build a place to stand first.



Watching night fall was pretty awesome. Since I was so high up I could see it fall on the lower elevations first and progress to other areas.



I worked through the night to build a platform around the Nether Portal. So, now I can build yet another Stargate.

The question still remains, what happened to the Nether Portal suspended over lava?

The better question is what happened to the Nether Portal at Bridge? Is it still there? What happens if I go through it?

I don’t know what happened to the Nether Portal suspended above lava and I kind of doubt I’ll ever find it again.

The Nether Portal at Bridge goes to this new, same spot in The Nether. When you go back through, it goes to this new little platform high in the sky.

This new Stargate, once it’s done, I think I’ll call it Pigeon because it’s kind of annoying and high up in the sky. That and this whole thing has been a pile of bird poop.

To be a useful place at all, there needs to be a way to get down, so I made a leap of faith into the river and started building a staircase…


As you can see, the rain is pooping on my head like a pigeon as I build away.