Notch, creator of the indie game Minecraft has confirmed on his twitter that he will be adding a new dimension to the game. The Sky Dimension, a clear reference to Heaven, the same way the Nether is a reference to Hell. The Sky Dimension is pretty much a series of floating islands generated at random Z-levels (up and down dimensions). I’m sure the technical aspects of it are far, far more complicated than this but that’s it in layman’s terms.
GrenadeApple3 posted a video on YouTube showing what was currently active in the latest release of Minecraft since the dummy data was left in the game, but only accessible through a mod.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWDlLjZqPjE
As you can see on the video posted, the Sky Dimension currently has snow and plain biomes, along with waterfalls and lava in places. The distances between the floating islands makes this place incredibly dangerous with a risk of falling off the map or falling to death completely. Because the Sky Dimension is a work in progress, it’s very unlikely these will be permanent features. It’s possible the Sky Dimension will have unique blocks to it much like the Nether and possibly new mobs.
The only major reason Notch will be working on this is because PC Gamer apparently made a big deal out of it and he decided to dedicate time to finishing it. As you can see from the pictures uploaded here on Imgur, it can be a very dangerous and very erratic environment that can kill you very easily from fall damage alone.
I was kinda hoping the Z limit would’ve been jacked up to a higher level and have the floating islands be above the clouds, but this works really well for what needs to be accomplished. Well, he’s still working in it, so you never know.