# Map seed

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> Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Map_seed.md
> Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map_seed
> Source revision: 1347688479
> License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)

{{short description|Number or string used to procedurally generate a game world}}
In [video game](/source/video_game)s using [procedural world generation](/source/procedural_generation), the '''map seed''' is a (relatively) short number or text string which is used to procedurally create the game world ("map"). This means that while the seed-unique generated map may be many megabytes in size (often generated incrementally and virtually unlimited in potential size), it is possible to reset to the unmodified map, or the unmodified map can be exchanged between players, just by specifying the map seed. A map seed is a type of [random seed](/source/random_seed).

thumb|The "new game" screen in ''Factorio''. In addition to specifying the map seed itself, ''Factorio'' can also encode all the map settings into a single ''map exchange string''.
Games which use procedural generation and include support for setting the map seed include ''[Ark: Survival Evolved](/source/Ark%3A_Survival_Evolved)'', ''[Minecraft](/source/Minecraft)'', ''[Factorio](/source/Factorio)'', ''[SCP – Containment Breach](/source/SCP_%E2%80%93_Containment_Breach)'', and ''[Terraria](/source/Terraria)''. For ''Minecraft'' especially, there are websites<ref>{{cite web|url=http://minecraft-seeds.net/|title=Minecraft Seeds - The Best Minecraft Seed List!|work=minecraft-seeds.net|accessdate=1 July 2016|archive-date=30 June 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160630221232/http://minecraft-seeds.net/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://minecraftseedhq.com|title=Minecraft Seeds - Minecraft Seed HQ|website=Minecraft Seed HQ|language=en-US|access-date=2018-11-13|archive-date=2018-11-13|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181113165733/https://minecraftseedhq.com/|url-status=live}}</ref>{{non-primary source needed|date=February 2020}} and articles,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Morton |first=Lauren |date=2021-11-30 |title=The best Minecraft seeds for beautiful, interesting worlds |url=http://www.pcgamer.com/best-minecraft-seeds/ |url-status=live |access-date=1 July 2016 |website=pcgamer.com |archive-date=2016-06-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160627164552/http://www.pcgamer.com/best-minecraft-seeds/ }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2021-12-01 |title=The best Minecraft seeds |url=https://www.pcgamesn.com/minecraft/30-best-minecraft-seeds |url-status=live |access-date=2021-12-04 |website=PCGamesN |language=en-GB |archive-date=2021-11-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211123183130/https://www.pcgamesn.com/minecraft/30-best-minecraft-seeds }}</ref> dedicated to sharing seeds which have been found to generate interesting maps.
thumb|The effect of loading a map originally generated in ''Minecraft'' 1.6.4 in ''Minecraft'' 1.7.2. The map seed is unchanged, but the map generation algorithm has changed, leading to a discontinuity where new chunks are created beside old chunks.
The map seed only has meaning in the context of the algorithm used to generate the map (often<ref>{{Cite web |last=Kozelek |first=Tomáš |date=2015-11-13 |title=Friday Facts #112 - Better noise |url=https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-112 |url-status=live |access-date=2021-12-04 |website=Factorio |archive-date=2021-06-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210619044104/https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-112 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2011-10-21 |title=How do games like Minecraft generate entire worlds from a seed number? |url=https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/18840/how-do-games-like-minecraft-generate-entire-worlds-from-a-seed-number |url-status=live |website=[StackExchange](/source/StackExchange) |access-date=2016-07-01 |archive-date=2016-08-16 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160816025743/https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/18840/how-do-games-like-minecraft-generate-entire-worlds-from-a-seed-number }}</ref> based on [Perlin noise](/source/Perlin_noise)). So if the map generation algorithm changes, the map generated by a given seed will also change. Such changes are particularly obvious in ''Minecraft'', where they are handled (or rather, not handled) by simply generating any newly explored chunks of an existing map using the new algorithm, leading to obvious and jarring [discontinuities](/source/Classification_of_discontinuities) after upgrading.

Favorable seeds can be used when [speedrunning](/source/speedrunning) video games by specifying the map seed manually.

==References==
{{reflist}}

Category:Procedural generation
Category:Video game terminology

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Map seed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map_seed) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map_seed?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.