Monday, January 31, 2011

Minecraft - Ick's Death Fortress



After a lot of trial and error, here is the working death tower. I did a little peeking online at the way people had made them, but choose not to go with the 1:1 copy, instead I set up the floors in the tower to create a cross where the mobs drop through to the bottom, rather than holes around the perimeter. The biggest issue was that I set the collection point 24 blocks away, which where I was initially going wrong. But now I have my crafting and chests all set up 24 blocks away so that while I'm working the tower is processing, which I in turn make into TNT, 25 so far and a lot more on the way.
The tower itself took more blocks than I care to remember, I wore out two diamond shovels and a diamond pick building it and the tower itself is 21 x 21 and about 20 high, one big cube of death. =) The way it works is that on each floor there is a waterway that is 3 wide and 8 long that leads to a drop point to the floor below. Eventually they all lead to the cactus room where the mobs drop in and are either killed by the cactus where the water carries their loot down the shoot or...
They get to sit in the phone booth of death (I'm saying death a lot). In this little room any mob that hasn't been killed by the cactus (usually the case) falls in and drowns, it can look kind of funny when you have 4 in there at a time. I'm a little worried that a glitch might allow a mob to get out, but so far so good.
After they die, the loot flows down a little stream to the collection point.
After running around out in the world for a little bit, it's always a good idea to come check the spot for any loot that may have collected. The key is that as soon as the chunk with the mobs spawns, the machine goes into action so if you're walking up to the castle, it probably already has some loot waiting at the bottom.
And speaking of loot, I decided that it was time to put a vault in considering that this was going to be my new home for awhile.

I thought that it looked pretty clean.
So after all of my building I needed to cut loose a little and go out exploring and do some cave diving. I found a small cave near the pumpkin patch by the tower and went down there looking for supplies, and I really needed supplies because I was actually running out of coal, not to mention all of the diamonds that I had gone through to make the tower.
As I dove down I realized that the cave I was in linked up to a cave that had previously been explored by I'm guessing Druss. Thankfully there were still a lot of dark areas to take a look in, including a passageway that took me to a huge room down at the lava level. The best part it held 6 diamonds, well 7 but one fell in the lava as I was digging them out. So that was awesome, I was running low on diamonds so now I'm back in business.
Finally before going to bed I decided to go out exploring the countryside looking for more surface coal. I never found any coal, but I did find the mountaintop that Crash had to hide out on one night while he was exploring. I'm amazed that he made it through the night on that unsecured hill with a bunch of torches. Anyway I'm not one for roughing it, so I build a little lookout up there to keep me safe, I also added some supplies in case anyone gets lost out in the woods. If Crash wants to break it back down that's cool, but I did leave up all of the torches on the peaks so it's not really that changed up there.




Friday, January 28, 2011

Minecraft - The annoying death machine

So I've been at work with the giant death machine and I've been trying to do it on my own without looking up the "right way" to do it, why? Because I'm just too damn stubborn to do it! I did take a look at the way the game handles spawns which is critical to know that you need to be 24 blocks away in order for a mob to spawn. Good to know in a cave too.

The tower itself now looks like a giant mushroom, and technically it does work, but the death mechanism needs some work, I guess I'll go get some lava and do it like that. I was really hoping to keep with the cactus like in the first death machine, but it just doesn't seem to be doing the trick.

Oh well I'll keep tweaking it until it gives me what I want, dead mobs. Maybe I just need to keep going bigger?

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Minecraft - Ick's Super Fortress












I've been pretty busy with work and life so there has been little time to post anything in the way of MC, until today finally. As you see from the pictures above I'm going big on my super fortress, I'm sick of those two other jerks having awesome places and me with only my lighthouse, fuck them I'm going to knock this one out of the ballpark. Oh what you didn't know this was a building competition, oh yeah buddy it's on and my little shitty lighthouse isn't going to be my only structure for very long. Granted I have a working subway system that lets me travel at night but it's just not the same as a big ass building that you can say, "see that, yeah I did it." showoffs!
Of course I mean all of this in jest (sort of) afterall it is fun cubed right? Of course it is. Anyway back to my point, if I had one. I am going to make a super structure that will not only be impenetrable to monsters, but kill them if they even look at the thing. I got the idea yesterday while tooling around with my little death machine under the lighthouse. For fun I decided that I would make a death machine that would kill mobs that I could stand in and just collect items. After some tinkering I got it to work, poorly, but it works. The biggest problems are that I didn't build it big enough or the collection point far enough from the spawn area, so in order to use the thing I have to go do other stuff in the light house and then come back to collect, I guess that works, but it's not really what I was going for. Of course Crash says the whole concept is cheating if you can sit in the collector and just afk your way to items. My take is that it's success and efficiency are purely based on the design itself, so if you make a good one then you'll reap much better benefits, if not then it will suck, right now mine sucks.
So Death Machine #1 sucks, but it did prove that the concept was valid and that it could be done (obviously it could be considering their are lots of them online, but to me that would be cheating). So knowing that it could be done I started thinking about doing it right and as I thought about doing it right it got me thinking about structures that you see in all RPGs, big ass towers and castles that are filled with mobs with a boss hiding out in the structure someplace, well that boss is going to be me, and those mobs, meat for my grinders. I will populate my tower and castle with dozens of mobs and then melt them down for their goodies, wwwwaaaahhhhaaaahhhaaaaaaaaa.
Which brings me back to the super fortress as I am calling it for now, I'm sure I'll come up with a better name later on. I haven't totally decided how I'm going to do it, but I know there will be at least one large tower that will basically be there to generate mobs and then funnel them down to a death machine below. I might make two towers, not sure yet how it's all going to look. The base will have my house which will have a collector that comes right to my crafting spot or vault, and it's going to be big in there. I'm tired of working in these little spaces that really are just studio apartments, nope I'm hollowing out the mountain that the castle/tower is going to sit upon. The other key design in the structure is the cactus fence all the way around the place two layers thick. Sure I could have made it so that nothing could get through by staggering it, but I wanted those bastards to come and die on it, the theme here is death, and oh yes, there will be blood.



Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Minecraft - I'm on a Pig!





It's a little hard to see in there but that is the "Deadman's Party" 5 zombies gone wild, even bringing a cow to the party, those sick undead bastards! I decided that I'd decline their invitation to dance in the hole with them, instead just taking the party favors, like the saddle in the picture above. That's right pig squeal for me!




And speaking of deliverance, how about that super duper cool deliver express system that I've set up on the bridge! I took pictures from both directions just to give some perspective on it's size. I mean it's not huge by any means yet, but it is a good 130 blocks long and works to get me across the water in safety even at night. On the far bank I set up a little station, which is where I'm riding the pig, the eventual track will be enclosed, but I really wanted to keep the bridge open because I think that it just looks so much better.
The plans for the full rail line will take it out over the hills rather than under them, as I want to make it look nice. I'll enclose the line in glass so that it will be safe but still a pleasant vistful ride safe from all forms of evil.
Speaking of evil, let's talk about minecraft.net. Who knew that migrating a web server would be such hell. For the past couple of nights it has been virtually impossible for the other guys to log on to the server as they keep timing out. It could be server side, but I really think that it has to do with the authentication on the website because all the madness started about the same time. Let's all hope that gets fixed soon because I can see the guys getting tired of the crap and jumping on to something else.
I also did a couple other random things, restocked my coal and torches that I had lost from the earthquake, and I did it the hard way. I could have just edited them back in, but what the hell, I was having more fun just doing it the old fashion way. I cleared out a couple small caves near the light house for their coal and iron and I also returned to the never ending cave. I found where the guys had climbed out the other night and went down to go and dig me up some ore. I didn't get too far down before I started running thin on my two stacks of torches (yes the cave is that big, we've been there several times and it still has infinite dark areas to explore). The place was crawling with activity from the get go, everything hiding out in the upper dark areas that were just above the lit lower section, which I was standing in. As usual nothing that my bow couldn't handle but I did have one slip up. I was looking over a ledge and accidentally fell down a couple blocks, not a big deal but as always who was there, Mr. Creeper. I survived but it just goes to remind us all that one slip up and BOOM!!!
In 3 hours last night, I explored a dark cave, fought with all sorts of monsters, mined for materials, killed farm animals, cut down some trees, built a rail station, and attended a zombie party. Game just keeps getting better and better, now if only it would be stable again...
Next project, get wool and make a giant FG logo.



Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Minecraft - I hate you Beta


Well it was a terrible night for Minecraft. Couldn't log in, couldn't relog if something was messed up and then worst of all, chunk errors. As you can see from the picture, half of my lighthouse was removed from the game, including two very full chests of items.
This is where it gets painful and you have to make the decision are you going to deal with this or walk away. After some contemplation I decided that I'd get back on at least to see if the error was a permanent error and turns out that yes it was, oh joy... But I decided that I wasn't going to let it get me down, it is Beta afterall and I guess stuff like this is going to happen. It's not much of a consolation when it does happen, but that is life.
So I set to work making repairs to what was destroyed. It looks like I took off a row of blocks in the width of my lighthouse, but I'll live. I lost the cactus farm, but at least I still had my chest of cactus. I lost several minecarts and part of the track that I had been working on, so a whole lot of iron, but I was able to make repairs and actually finish the rail line over the bridge, and it's pretty awesome, works both directions.
The items aren't that big of a deal either since we can just edit them back in to ourselves, which Drus is going to need to do. He also lost part of his pyramid, I can only imagine that he's going to be pissed. Hopefully Crash didn't lose anything. I think that I'll start making a daily backup of the server as well, just incase stuff like that happens.
As for me, I guess I'll just roll with the punches on this one. You know I lost like 9 stacks of torches and several stacks of coal, but I'll just pretend it was an earthquake and move on. I mean it sucks but what am I going to do stop playing Minecraft, please....

Monday, January 17, 2011

Minecraft - The Carlplex








Thank you Drus for making me feel like an absolute loser, you too Crash! While I have been off toiling away at my lighthouse and my rail line and going off on the search for cactus (did find some after a 2 day walk, but that's another post) these two assholes have been off building massive works of art, jerks. =)
It's been like a week since I last posted on here and as the great blogger that I am I didn't journal any of it, woohoo go me! So rather than rehash what seems like a million things I'll hit on the big items briefly, in bullet form!
- Went looking for Cactus
- Built a death trapish formation in front of the lighthouse
- Dove down into the deepest cave ever, and it was huge
- Started construction on phase 3 of the Ick express line.
Cactus - After watching some videos of people making monster traps with cactus, I knew that I needed to go and look for some. As I've said on here my lighthouse still gets a lot of solicitors so in order to keep them off the lawn, I needed some barbed wire. I set off to the East again since it was fairly flat and I already had one outpost out aways. From the Eastern outpost I travelled another full day then had to hold up for the night making another small shelter. The next day I pushed on into the great unknown East and finally found a desert right as night was beginning to fall yet again. Greedily I scooped up all the cactus that I could find, only thinking later that I could probably just grow more (which I ended up setting up a cactus farm under the light house).
Deathtrap - Once I got back from my cactus adventure I went to work setting up the cactus in front of the lighthouse in a way that could trap potential mobs in it's thorns and rip them to shreds. While it's not a work of art, it does protect the front of my house making it safe to step outside. I even set up a little collector to pick up any items that drop off my victims. It's not great but it gets the job done, plus gives me something to do at night trying to lure mobs into their deaths.
The never ending cave! - Usually when I venture into a cave I don't mess around, I bring stacks of arrows and torches because I shoot first and ask questions later and light the hell out of the underground. Not like Druss pyramid, but you get the idea. This cave which I need a picture for seriously drops down 40 levels right at the entrance with a giant lava fall. At the entrance level the first ore that I saw was gold, good stuff! After walking a little ways in there it was on the wall opposite of me only down a couple more levels, but 3 exposed diamonds in the wall across from me, seriously it was like 5 minutes of exploration to find them.
Later Crash and Druss got on and we joined up in the cave, naturally I got separated again as I go off dropping torches not paying attention to the other members of the class. The cave itself was the largest thing that we have ever seen it went on forever, eventually we were all kind of screwed, they were out of hearts, food, and ammo, and hopelessly lost, I was surrounded by creepers and zombies and out of ammo myself. While I eventually found my way back to the entrance, they took the route of just digging straight up to get out, coming out near the lighthouse which was a very long way away from our original entrance.
Railway - Finally I've started work on what will be a very large expansion to my rail system. I'm building it to the East towards my outposts and starting off with a giant bridge over the water next to the lighthouse. It's going to take a lot of stone and a lot of iron to complete this, but after I'm done then it will be a great way to explore much further away from our civilized areas.


Monday, January 10, 2011

Minecraft - My minecart system

It's not the best set up ever as I'm sure it's dripping with newbness, but it works and I am fairly proud of it. Maybe one day I'll figure out switch plates and redstone, but for now what I needed was a quick way between points B and C, and this does it.



This is the starting and ending point for the lighthouse station. There has been a problem on the original line with carts launching on accident when you get out of them, so in order to at least limit that I decided to take out the rails at the end point. This way if you accidentally bump the cart it's far less likely to go shooting down the track requiring maintenance.
Here is what it looks like with the cart at the end of the run.
Again it's nothing special, but this is the starting launcher for the system. You push up and fall into the slot and it zips you along to the next booster. I'm sure someone has a nice perpetual system on youtube that I could look up, but part of me wants to keep the system my own, even if it's not perfect.
A problem that I was running into was the return shot was getting slowed down by the launcher going the opposite direction. In order to fix the problem I just made the route go around the launcher and rejoin at the ramp, thus the direction wasn't an issue and I wouldn't have to worry about losing momentum.
This shot just illustrates how the diversion takes place.
The next issue that I had to contend with was that I was down about 20 blocks from station B. After doing a little research online (yeah I know I said I didn't want to do too much, but there is a difference between pretty and working, I needed working). The cart that you're riding in is glitched with the one on the launcher ramp and it sends you up the path in fact giving you speed, physics be damned!!!
Here is the other side of the up launcher. In order to prevent the return track from getting messed up with launcher I made a side track that goes along the other side and hits a booster at the bottom.
This is the launch point from station B. I used two vertical boosters when coming into the station from the lighthouse and the launch here is a simple hill that runs into a booster a little further on the track.
I also went back to the first rail line and changed the docking points to the ones like the one at the lighthouse in an effort to better stabilize the system from errors. Right now it's not perfect, but it works pretty well. The best is when I'm riding and have to go through a chunk error and I can see the inside of the world, that's just cool.
Another thing I was thinking I might do with the line since it does go through a portion of the super huge cave, is put up glass along the side so that you can see into the cave just for ascetics.














Sunday, January 9, 2011

Minecraft - Drusszan's Greenhouse



What did you do this weekend? Oh we went out to a bar, saw a movie, did this, did that. How about you? I dug a big ass hole. You'd think that I'd have something more interesting to talk about after a whole weekend, alas nope I dug a big hole for the second arm of my subway system. Ok well I guess it is pretty cool to be able to make it from Drus's mountain palace to the lighthouse in 2 minutes (about 500 blocks away) so yeah I dug a hole, but it had a purpose. I should get some pics of it, but you know what it's a minecart track and there really isn't too much awesome in the means of looking at it.
"Unfortunately no one can be told what the subway system is, you have to see it for yourself." - paraphrase Matrix
Hey good time for Fraps Ick ole buddy. Shut up inter logic!
I did actually finish out the cave from earlier, there was nothing too crazy down there, the normal mix of a couple mobs but nothing serious or interesting took place down there. That is if you don't count the 6 diamonds that were down there. Sure you can go strip mining for diamonds but seriously that reminds me too much of grinding in WoW so I'm not going to do it, I'd rather go adventuring for mine. Well there was one funny thing that happened in the cave...
Drus came out to see this huge cave that I kept going on about, sadly he learned the first rule of minecraft, don't die straight down. There was some coal that I left laying around, and naturally it was right on top of lava, so old Drus got sizzled for his troubles. And speaking of lava, the next thing that I'm going to do is go dig out some obsidian, there will be a black castle with lava pouring from it's walls soon, I just need to go find the place for it.
In looking for a place to put the castle of evil, I trekked out to the East looking for location, clay, and cactus, struck out on all three, but made a little outpost in the middle of nowhere out there. It's just a hut for exploration, nothing special.
So yeah a whole bunch of not much this weekend, but some stuff if you consider the minecart cool, hell it's practical so that is awesome in my book.
The pictures at the top are from Drus's greenhouse, and that seriously is a crapload of glass that he used.
My to do list:
1) Mine obsidian - zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
2) Find location for evil castle and start work
3) Going to be some adventuring, I'm out of iron so it's only a matter of time before I'll need more, esp if I make a third route to my new castle
4) Roam the world making little outposts in the middle of nowhere. - That sounds like fun too.

Friday, January 7, 2011

Minecraft - Hardcore Chicken

I'm going to just come out and say it, I'm a coward, a scared little girl when it comes to playing games in the dark. When a mob jumps out at me even after two months of playing the game I lose total control of my mouse and freak out, thankfully I lose total control of my motor skills so often now that I'm able to regain control much faster than I used to. And I'm actually pretty decent at FPS games!!!

I've also noticed that some people are actually reading this blog now (yes all like 2 of you out there) so in the future I'm going to start taking more pictures to post. I know I should just get my butt on Fraps and make a real movie, but my playtime is usually pretty limited so I don't want to waste that time rendering and uploading movies to youtube. Maybe it's not as hard as I'm thinking, but how can I deny the awesome power that is MC??? But anyway I'll work on getting more pics up, usually I post this blog from work (ssssshhhhhhhhh don't tell them) so I have to e-mail the pictures that I take to work then upload them. Well I could just post them and then come back and edit the comments later, oh no that would make way too much sense...

Where was I? Besides talking in circles about being lazy? Oh yes last night's adventure...

So after completing the lighthouse with it's cool lava lamp at the top and other mindless creative projects like the subway (ok that's still pretty cool, that should be the first video) I thought it was time to roll up my sleeves and take a trip into the darkness again, with the idea of finding more iron for future rail lines. There were plenty of caves around the lighthouse so at daybreak I headed for the nearest one.

The cave itself had a very vertical drop into it and at the bottom a cavernous room that was just gigantic. I took my time to look for the best way to drop down which was to make a short little **** AAHHHH IM FALLING!!!!*****

Bam! Drop down 6 blocks into the darkness to quickly find a creeper next to me welcoming me to hell. I regained control quickly and sent him back to the darkness from which he came with my supercharged bow of death. Then a zombie came up from behind me, I whizzed around and sent 5 arrows into his chest dropping him in a cloud of dust leaving only a feather behind. Then it was torch time, one here, one there, another, it was no use every where that I placed a torch I was greeted with yet another dark passageway. The cave system that I had fallen into was huge, large dark rooms, tunnels into all sorts of different directions in the ceiling linked to the main chambers with single block paths, every turn was another monster to fight and I was surrounded by the sound of unseen spiders and zombies.

I'm pretty conservative in how I go exploring (see coward) so I only brought about 100 torches and 100 arrows with me, the problem was each mob took 5 arrows to kill (I have a sword but on multiplayer it's kind of hard to time right) and with all of the passageways I was starting to run low on torches as well. To make matters worse, I didn't remember where I had fallen into the cave. When I fell in I was instantly in combat and running for my life so I was short on supplies with no idea where I was.

MMMOOOOOOOOOOO

Ah yes the usually annoying sound of the constantly mooing cows, I was near the surface. I'd wait until daylight and then punch through. Turns out that I punched through back to the surface only 10 blocks away from the light house, oh this was perfect! I enclosed the cave exit and connected it to the entrance that I had made under the light house for some mining, was an absolutely perfect turn of events.

So I restocked up and went back into the never ending cave system. By the end of the night I'd have explored and mined it for over 2 hours and still hadn't finished it all up. Most of the top section is "cleared" but there is still a deeper section that I need to get to next time, but more on that in a minute.

SSSSSSSTTTTTTttttttt
sssssstttttttttttttttt <--- Spider sound

In my exploring I heard a gazillion spiders someplace, finally I found it.


A spider spawner, the mindcrack series writer Guude would have been so happy, infinite string!!!

I don't think that I'll make a trap, but I surrounded it with torches just in case I want to in the future (note there are 8 torches around it now, not the 2 in the picture). Got some iron from the chests as well. And speaking of loot, I forgot, in my initial decent into the cave I got into a fire fight with a pair of skeletons and was lucky enough for them to hit each other with one of them killing the other and dropping me a gold record, now if I only could find some extra diamond to play it. (Yes I have two diamonds in storage but the pick is more important than music).

At this point I'm feeling pretty good about myself. The gigantic cave is lit 300 torches later, and I'm starting to tell Drus about it and the amount of iron that it has (3 full stacks so far, lots of rail ways) and then I see a little darkness up in a corner that I missed, well crap will I ever be finished? So I hop my little digital redshirt butt up there to drop some torches and what do I find????

You guessed it a frakin Creeper SSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHH **BOOM!!!***

I couldn't get my bow out fast enough and my instinct was to run, so I dropped down where I was climbing up, but it was no use, he thought that I needed a new hat so he jumped on my head before I could do anything.

No I didn't die, but he got me pretty good, and his buddies were right behind him coming for me as well. Rapid fire bow into action!!! Lesson here, don't ever start to think that you have a place covered, as soon as you do a fucking creeper will drop on your head.

Now fairly convinced that the place was clean I went to work clearing out the remaining materials, even coal, I just thought the picture below was a lot of coal in one spot.


Finally it was getting late and I needed to get off, but there was one thing that I kept hearing that was throwing me off, I kept hearing a damn chicken. I'm guessing that I was at least 20 to 30 blocks below the surface so it wasn't coming from up there. Maybe a chicken fell down where I came in and he was up there, but I never saw him. But it was just a chicken, I mean I was curious, but he wasn't a priority. And then right before I was going to head back to log off I see this...

It's a little hard to make out, but that is a chicken egg down in the lower regions that I haven't yet explored. That is one hardcore chicken down there. And as such I can never call myself a chicken again because that would be disrespectful towards that brave chicken that ventured to the center of the Earth, and taking his kids with him!!! To you brave brave chicken I salute you, you are a far braver man than I, shit you don't even have torches. May you be an example to us all.
Until next time. I have a feeling that we'll see some more guild runs this weekend. And I'll get more pictures for anyone that might actually be reading this.


Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Minecraft - Flaming Farm Animals

And now for something completely different, I present flaming farm animals. Suck it PETA!!!









Minecraft - To hell with Smokey the bear

So last night I bribed my son to help clean up all of the toys upstairs because we had the cleaners coming in the morning and the place was a disaster. So in securing his help I told him that if he would help that we could play on "the game" for a little bit, he doesn't even know what it's called, it's simply "the game". And he worked his little butt off to clean that house so that we could do some playing, ah children.

So we get online and I'm not really going to do to much becuase I've got him sitting on my lap and he really doesn't like the monsters that come out at night so we were just going to take a ride on the subway a couple of times and I figured we'd wonder around a little bit. He then tells me that he wants to build a house, ok let's do that. (Naturally I didn't take a picture of our house) By the time night falls we're in our little house without a whole lot to do so we decide to start digging and maybe we can find some materials, who knows. Within a couple minutes we found some iron, I told him, "this is iron, we need this to make more railroad tracks." Instantly a little light blub pops up over his head, understanding why we want to go looking for iron.

When the day light comes he wants to go and see our "other house" the light house, so we head East. Along the way we run into a couple of holes that somehow I didn't see before and marked them with torches for later exploration becuase he doesn't like going into caves where the monsters are. But we did see some exposed iron, to which he was saying, "we need to get that iron." Ah I'm so proud... =D

Finally we make it to the light house and we go up to the top to finish up the observation deck. As I complete the project I take a look out into the distance and I see this...



Out in the distance is a fire raging. I'm excited becuase no one lives in that area so it isn't Drus going all pyro this time, no this is a natural fire. It was almost bedtime for my little co-pilot but, We have to check this out!




There were seriously 1000 trees on fire in what was once a huge forest. We looked around for a couple of minutes but I didn't really go exploring it becuase it was time for my son to go to bed. So I logged off while the fire was in full swing, which means that the chunk fire is locked in due to a bug or glitch or something. So when I logged back on, the fire was still there and I'm guessing will be there forever now.
So I get on and Crash is on and he's telling me about being lost in a cave that he is digging. I'm like "Dude come here you HAVE to see this!"
"Man I'm lost" - Crash
"Do you want me to port you, this is amazing!" - Ick
"Naw I'm good" - Crash
"I'm sending you an e-mail, go check it." - Ick
once he got to me he was in awe by it as well. About that time Drus logged on and we both started telling him about it. Not wanting to waste time this time I just used the /tp command to get him to us. From the distance we were all like WOW, and when the morning came we went venturing forth to see it first hand.
We get in there and there are drops from dead animals all over the place, cows on fire, sheep on fire, pigs on fire. Drus is going around trying to kill off cows and he accidently hits Crash and kills him, quick /tp. Then Drus gets too close to a tree and catches on fire /tp Once we're all alive again we go looking for the source of all this madness, and just as I expected there it was, a lava flow right next to what was left of a tree.
Seriously this is the most amazing thing in a game ever in my opinion, why? Because it was completely unscripted! The random code just generated a lava flow a little too close to a forest and presto you have an incenerated patch of land. You litterally never know what is going to happen next in this game, and I'm very excited about the patches that are coming that are supposed to add NPC villages and other stuff, I can only imagine what crazy stuff that will bring to the table.
I love Minecraft!!!!



Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Minecraft - Picture time

Last night was kind of a slow night, I didn't get on until late so I wasn't really feeling too industrious with any new big projects. I did get my mine car track going between my house and the old area, but I'll need to do some research on how to make the thing go faster than walking speed. Granted having an auto run option is nice, but seriously if I put in that much iron I want it to fly. The tunnel itself is about 200 blocks in length, I now have a lot of stone to build with, but more on that in a moment.




Drus was busy at work on his very inaccessible mountain palace, seriously there is no easy way to get up there, I'm going to build some stairs or a ladder or something, I mean it's crazy, here is a picture, and remember there is no easy way up.


I mean it's cool, but seriously, that's way up there for having to hop up the mountainside. Not to mention that it seems like a damn Creeper sanctuary up there, I think I got blasted twice my last visit up there. But since Drus has been hard at work, I decided to take some shots of his place.






It's funny because he was asking me if there was a way to keep the fire going in his house, I told him that he could go to hell and get some dirt/rocks from there. I think that he thought I was messing with him because he didn't know about the nether region of the world (does it work in multiplayer?). So I think he has a new goal after he completes his palace, he's going to go hunting for diamonds to make that pick and make a portal.





But it's not like fire is a big issue for him, he set the entire region on fire last night after he learned about making a flint and tender. The pyro burned up the entire center region between his house and Crash's and then some hillside north of his palace. Here is one picture that I got, and no it's not the space ship from Independence Day that's setting everything ablaze it was Drus.

That building floating up there is Crash's place, and it is huge, 40x40 just under the cloud line, I told him that he needs to make a portal to get up there, but I'm not to sure that he liked the idea. I think I'm going to just start calling that place Nax.

But this all leads me to what am I going to do with all of that stone that I have? I really don't want to do something normal, but I don't want to go all floating city either. I do have my lighthouse that I need to finish up, but that just isn't going to have the wow factor that these guys did. I'll think of something, but it also has to fit into the look of the world, I mean I could make this huge structure but if it's an eyesore then what is the point, kind of shatters the feel.

Monday, January 3, 2011

Minecraft - Guild Run


A whole bunch has happened since my last post on here, the biggest of course being that we got the server running on my machine and the performance is soo much better. A lot has happened, but I'm going to key in on two things, last night's little adventure and my son's reaction to seeing a train in the game and the evil that comes with that...


Last night was the first time that the three of us were all on at the same time and Crash suggested that we do a guild run, as a joke. Naturally Drussan and I jumped at the idea because that sounded like lots of fun to me. So I headed to the midpoint between their two homes (I live out in the middle of no where) and watched as Drus jump his way down from his mountain palace, man he needs to make some stairs (I'll have to get a picture). And I stared up at the ID4 spaceship that is taking shape over what used to be the starter town (I'll need a picture of that too). Mind you the space ship is so damn big and creates such a shadow over what was a town that there is generally an army of monsters underneath it waiting for anyone that goes there, starter town my ass!


So we meet up next to what I think is going to be a good cave and in we go, Crash and I clad in our iron armor and Drus in a teeshirt and jeans. Our "tank" goes in first (Crash) and is quickly welcomed underground by a creeper that blows up in his face, and then a second one that I think we killed off, and then a third. It all started off pretty quick, and was a promising start to our adventure. Quickly we spread through the cave tossing torches all over the place lighting it up, only to find out that it was a pretty small hole. It did have some iron so it wasn't all bad, but it was not the epic adventure that we were hoping for.


By the time we got back to the surface it was nighttime, thankfully there were no mobs waiting for us, this time... After standing around for a minute I told Crash to go off looking for our next cave. We headed South towards the sea and came across snowy hills that led to an iced over body of water and a very cool looking peak in the distance, but sadly no holes to dive into. We headed back to the mainland, throwing snowballs at each other as we worked our way back and then found a small hole that we could use to hold up in for the night. The cave was pretty boring, had some coal but nothing too awesome. I got bored and started digging down to see if there was anything below us, as I dug I heard the familiar sound of a spider behind the walls, yes there was a cave down here.


Crash and Drus started digging in different directions and presto we found it, a large cave system deep underground that would become our adventure. As we entered we fanned out, Crash and Drus headed in one direction lighting the way and I in another direction following the darkness and lighting it up. It didn't take long for us to get separated and I was lost from the group. By the time I found them, Crash was AFK hiding in a hole and Drus had found out that lava is hot, killing him. Crash got back and between the two of us we cleaned up Drus's gear and put it in a chest for him to retrieve and then Crash went up to the surface to help Drus get down to us. While they were coming I ventured forth and quickly got into combat with 3 skeletons playing in an underground river, which I damned up. Again we spread out looking for our ore loot, and then the text came in...


"What is blue ore?"


Drus had found diamonds!


Worried that he'd dig them up and then get jumped Crash and I descended down towards him to help secure our booty. A 6 vein! That's huge, each getting two diamonds, and then it was time to get the hell out of there with our "purples". Up near the surface Crash had built a door so that the cave we were in would be safe, and he was going to log out. But something was telling me that we weren't out of the woods yet with the way Drus was messing with that door, not to mention there was a creeper standing right behind it. He'd never open the door would he?


BOOM!!!!!


Yeah he would. And then another


BOOM!!!!


By now the entrance way is a huge smouldering crater with a zombie trying to hop through to us. Crash said fuck this and went and dug up another hole to get out and made his break for home. Drus and I waited until the sun came up and then made our break for it. Thankfully no mobs in the way, and we were able to get our loot home safely. I even made a little box that says diamonds on it in my house.


It was a great evening and a lot of fun. The randomness of it all really adds to the experience and time just flies while playing it.


But I have a problem on my hands, my son LOVES minecraft, and he's only 4. I happened to be playing it while my daughter was asleep and he came in to see what I was up to. He sat down on my lap and I showed him that I was making a lighthouse. Then we started cutting down trees, going into our house when the night was coming to avoid monsters, killing cows and pigs and chickens, and finally making the trip to Crash's underground lair where he had build a train system. Holy crap my son about burst with how awesome he thought riding in the little mine car was, and then went Crash happened to get online he lost it, he thought watching him ride the car was the greatest thing ever.


Knowing that we were spending a little too much time on the game I told him that we needed to get off, and he wasn't too happy. I had to distract him once we got upstairs with some wrestling and burying each other in blocks to take his mind off it. And then when it was time for bed he asked me to wake him up in the morning so that we could play "the game" before it was time for him to go to school. Oh we have a problem on our hands, I'm going to have to set up play limits for him. It's not like he was never going to find video games, I mean he's a boy and he's my son so it was coming, but I was surprised at the form that it took. At least MC is about as G rated as you can get, scary as hell sure, but it's violence is so basic that it's nothing to worry about. As a side project though I think that I'm going to spend some time with him on the guitar as well so that he will continue to develop a love for that too as a way to balance out the games. While I have to admit that I think it's cool that he's playing the game with me, I have to keep things in perspective because playing a video game can become out of control fast and I don't want him to become addicted to them like I am. Some play is healthy and normal in my opinion, but marathon sessions are dangerous especially at his age so some limits are in definite order. I'm thinking 30 mins on weekdays and 1 hour on weekends, but only if he asks to play, I won't bring it up. That seems like it would be reasonable and not any worse that sitting in front of a TV and watching a movie.


So until next time...


Look down, look up

my hand is now filled with diamonds

anything is possible when you play Minecraft

I'm on a pig!