Minecraft speedrunning is a popular concept, where a player tries to beat Minecraft as fast as possible. Minecraft was created by Markus Persson also known as 'Notch'.
Original Speedrunning
One Minecraft update added diamonds. This gave Minecraft player named sf17k a brand new idea. To Speedrun obtaining diamonds. On October 17th 2010, he managed to obtain a 2.59. He would improve his time to a 2.56. Soon n4pgamer would get a 1.51 speedrun, however, the footage was sped up, while the timer was not. The first case of cheating in a Minecraft speedrun. People started speedrunning other categories as well, such as entering the nether, and digging to bedrock.
Random Seed Original
On November 18th, 2011, Notch officially released Minecraft, adding the ender dragon, blaze rods, and endermen. Four months after the release, a player named ceto sorcerer killed the dragon on a Random Seed in 1hr 25min 58sec. Soon, multiple players from Japan were speedrunning in Hardcore Mode. The first Random Seed speedrun under 1 hour was a 45.07 by tarokitchen. He improved that time to a 37.43, which stayed as world record for 5.5 years.
Set Seed Original
While people from Japan were focusing on random seed, speedrunners from the USA focused on a different category - set seed glitchless. A well-known speedrunner named Illumina got a 27.36, but like random seed, it was tarokitchen who managed to take over set seed. He found a seed that contained an end portal with 8 eyes (1 in 307,911 chance of spawning). This seed gave him a time of 14.18. However, Illumina beat it with a 13.30. Funderful dropped the time to 9.40. TheSizzler managed to figure out a way to change the terrain, and managed to improve the time to an 8.21, and then to 7.37. He soon got a 7.16 which lasted 700+ days. He was dethroned by Illumina who got a 6.58.
The later history of random seed
After 1000+ days of tarokitchen leading random seed, a speedrunner from Ukraine named Lide beat it with a 25.37. However, Illumina would break the record with a 23.53. A new version was released (1.14), but at the beginning, no one seemed to care. The speedrun.com moderators split the random seed category into 2 sections, pre 1.9, and 1.9+. This made people speedrun 1.9+ more, and new people started to appear. One of which, was the largest Minecraft youtuber Dream. Dream broke the record with a sub 30 in 1.9+. Realbenex broke the record with a 24.38. 1.9+ times were now going faster than pre 1.9, when Realbenex got a 22.18. But Dream would get a 22.03.
A massive update changed Minecraft Speedrunning forever. It was the 1.16 nether update. This update caused a mass increase in speedrun popularity. The record was being beaten constantly by hundreds of different speedrunners. At this point, any Minecraft player could get the world record, because it was so luck-based. The main reason that speedrunning became so much easier and luck-based, is because of the new way to obtain ender pearls which was through trading with the new piglin mob. This change saw many new faces appear into the speedrun community, and some old ones too.
Since the concept became so popular, so did cheating in Minecraft speedruns. Some of these cheaters had just cheated in more of a funny way, not really trying to hide the fact they cheated. However, some people actually tried to hide it and get away with it.
While livestreaming, Dream got a decent run, which he submitted to speedrun.com. The mods, however, while calculating to make sure that the run was legit, found out the luck Dream had, had only a 7.5 trillion chance of happening. Although it was technically possible to get this luck, the speedrun moderators made a decision that it was fake. Dream responded to the moderators, trying to prove that the run was real, but the mods did not listen to him. Dream then finally admitted it was fake and he quit speedrunning forever.
On April 19, 2021, Brentilda got the first ever sub 10 minute run, exactly at 9.36, beating the previous record by 1.5 minutes. So many people tried to beat that run, and Illumina even got into the end quicker than what was in Brentilda's run, but got terrible dragon luck.
However, the speedrun moderators started allowing calculators to find the location of the end portal in runs. This could lead to much faster times. On January 2nd, 2022, Cube1337x beat Brentilda's record with a 9.08 using a calculator. A few months later, sagi_enderman got the first ever sub 9 minute run with a 8.36. Three months later, a well-known Minecraft bridger named Doogile would break the record with a 8.15. Another three months later, zylenox got the world record with a 7.45 (the first sub 8 minute run). As of April 2023, Zylenox holds the world record.
The later history of set seed
By this point, the set seed time was close to 5 minutes, and it was Illumina to get the first sub 5 minute run. TheSizzler broke it with a 4.39. Soon, the times dropped to just over 3 minutes, as more people started to speedrun set seed.
When 1.17 released, a new seed was found that could absolutely humiliate the previous world record. When set seed speedrunners discovered the seed, runs started to be put in, lots of them just over 2 minutes. It wouldn't be too long before someone would get a sub 2 minute run. It was Rayoh, who got a 1.58, and shocked the world.
Soon, an even better seed was discovered, and Rayoh got a 1.48. When this seed was discovered, a lot of sub 2 minute runs were verified and a month after Rayoh's 1.48, he was dethroned by MagneticMaybe, who beat Rayoh by less than a second, with a 1.47. It remains world record today.
This article "Minecraft Speedrunning" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Minecraft Speedrunning. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
