Far Lands or Bust
Template:Short description Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox television
Far Lands or Bust (abbreviated FLoB) is an online video series created by Kurt J. Mac in which he plays the video game Minecraft. The series depicts his journey to the "Far Lands", a distant area of a Minecraft world in which the terrain generation does not function correctly, creating a warped landscape.<ref name="notchblog">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="unwinnable">Template:Cite web</ref> Kurt has been travelling since March 2011 and Template:As of is expected to take another 20 years to reach his destination; the show also holds the Guinness World Record for the longest journey in Minecraft.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="newyorker">Template:Cite magazine</ref>
Episodes of Far Lands or Bust typically act as a sort of podcast, with the game providing a backing track while Kurt discusses recent events in his life, news and science. The show also encourages viewers to donate to charity to reach fundraising goals.<ref name="newyorker" /> This charity was originally Child's Play, for which the show raised over $400,000.<ref name="hp">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="macleans">Template:Cite web</ref> From 2018 to 2019 the charity was Direct Relief.<ref>Template:Citation</ref> Beginning in 2020 the charity is the Progressive Animal Welfare Society (PAWS), from which Kurt adopted his own dog, Juno, in 2017.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> On August 30, 2020, Kurt announced he would no longer be using PAWS as his charity, mostly due to complications with their donation system, instead switching the charity to the Equal Justice Initiative.<ref>Template:Citation</ref>
Format[edit]
The Far Lands[edit]
Minecraft is a sandbox video game which places players in a 3D procedurally generated world. As a player walks in any direction, the game generates terrain ahead of them, creating (in theory) a virtually infinite world for the player to explore.<ref name="unwinnable" /> However, due to computational limits in earlier versions of the game, at a distance of roughly 12,550,821 blocks from the center of the world the terrain generation algorithm behaves unexpectedly, creating a sudden warped landscape.<ref name="radio4">Template:Cite episode</ref> Markus Persson, the original developer of Minecraft, commented that "Walking that far will take a very long time. Besides, the bugs add mystery and charisma to the Far Lands."<ref name="notchblog" /> The name "Far Lands" was adopted by the community to refer to this area. Persson also said it would be "impossible to reach the Far Lands" and Kurt took that as a challenge.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Due to changes to the game's code, recent versions of the game do not contain the same error, and terrain continues to generate normally at distances up to Template:Convert from the center of the world.<ref name="unwinnable" /> Kurt has continued to record his series in version Beta 1.7.3,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> the latest version of the game in which the Far Lands are still present.<ref name="Yahoo">Template:Cite news</ref> Persson estimated in 2014 that walking to the Far Lands would take approximately 800 hours.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Even further out (32 million blocks), the game fails to check for collision, leading the player to fall through the map to their death.
Over 30 legitimate journeys to the Far Lands have been verified as of October 2023.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> About 1/3 have been completed (some using a 1/8th shortcut through the Nether dimension), 1/3 are in progress, and 1/3 have become inactive (including one death, TinfoilChef<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>). For example, in August 2022, this goal was reached by Mystical Midget, after 2,500 hours of walking.<ref name="Yahoo" />
F3 monuments[edit]
In the game, a debug screen can be opened by pressing F3, which displays the player's current coordinates in the world, plus the biome.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In Kurt's journey to the Far Lands, he only presses F3 once the season's charity donations goal has been met to wrap up the season. Additionally, he builds a monument to commemorate the occasion.
One exception to this was when he crossed a point where the floating-point error grew from two texture pixels to four. On August 8, 2020, due to witnessing an increase in the floating-point error jitter, Kurt pressed F3 during a live stream (listed as episode 793.5) to confirm he'd hit the milestone of 4,194,304 blocks. In the next episode, 794, on August 11, 2020, he built a monument to mark the point.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
| Press | Date | Distance (Z) | Season | Episode (overall) | Donation goal | Total raised |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | November 17, 2011 | 292,202 | 2 | 096 | $8,200Template:Ref | $11,724 |
| 2 | September 1, 2012 | 699,492 | 3 | 178 | $29,220 | $70,838.39 |
| 3 | March 6, 2014 | 1,479,940 | 4 | 334 | $100,000 | $186,649.13 |
| 4 | March 28, 2015 | 2,266,779 | 5 | 490 | $50,000 | $66,061.70 |
| 5 | January 22, 2017 | 3,116,936 | 6 | 640 | $60,000 | $71,431.83 |
| 6 | August 31, 2019 | 3,857,848 | 7 | 755 | $50,000 | TBD |
| 7 | March 6, 2021 | 4,856,980 | 8 | 815 | $8,200 | $18,093.04<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> |
| 8 | April 1, 2022 | 5,765,878 | 9 | 828 | $4,200 | $4,680 |
| 9 | May 30, 2023 | 7,396,358 | 10 | 847 |
Notes[edit]
- 1.Template:NoteInitially $820, but raised to $8,200 after goal was reached in under a week