Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Kind of screwed

So if anyone is reading this that was directed from the let's play directory, I'm kind of on hold for a while. I found out that my new computer won't be showing up at home until July 8th so I won't be playing any Minecraft until then. I do have a older computer that my brother gave to my son, and while it's great for a 4 year old, the computer itself is more than twice that age so it's not really possible to play MC at the level of quality that I have come to expect. Make no mistake while MC might not look like much, it's a beast to the wrong computer, to play on my son's computer we have to set the graphics to fast and the draw distance to short, otherwise the game will shut down. So really it's a good time to take a break from MC, no reason to get burned out on it playing in "crappy" mode.

In the meantime I'll probably be playing some Terraria (if that runs on there) or I'll GASP fall back to my Xbox some more, I mean I do need to finish Portal at least. On the bright side it doesn't look like Notch is anywhere closer to releasing 1.7 so maybe the timing will be just right and that will come out on the 4th, mods will get updated and then presto I have a new power machine to play it on. Hey I can dream can't I.

So if anyone has been reading this on an ongoing basis, thanks for reading. I'm not done writing nor done playing MC, but I won't have any good tales to write about MC for at least a couple weeks.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

New Computer & Portal

Well that wasn't going to last long, there is no way that I'm going to go without my computer for more than a couple days. So yesterday afternoon after my other post about not having a computer I went ahead and bought a new one.

Here are the basics:

6 core 3.3GHz AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition
16GB DDR3-1866 RAM
2 Radeon HD 6850 2GB GDDR5
120 GB SSD with 450MB/s read
600 GB 10,000 rpm
2 TB 7200 rpm

I'm hoping that will run Minecraft ok. =)

I also have a feeling that should do well with Skyrim.

So after buying a new computer, what is the first thing I do (hasn't delivered yet)? I get on my xbox and download Portal since I've never played it. Yes Portal 1, it's supposed to be one of the best games evar! So ok I'll give it a spin, for $15 ($20 since I had to buy M$ points, Damn you Bill Gates). After about an hour I'm on puzzle 16, seriously you can fly through that game if you have any idea how the portals work. Considering that I have seen plenty of the game in motion I had a pretty good idea of what I was doing, but it still was tricky at times to see how the puzzles worked. By the 16th puzzle with the turrets, that was when things got interesting. I'm not really sure how to progress through the level quite yet. It doesn't feel impossible by any means, but it wasn't an automatic, go to A then B then C, so that was pretty cool.

What got me though was that the turrets kept freaking me out when one would see me behind glass (I'm thinking it's unbreakable, not totally sure yet though). I mean the game is kind of creepy to begin with, Glados talking to you the whole time and pretty much nothing else, it's a very isolated feeling. So as I'm working out the turrets my son comes walking in the media room and scares the crap out of me. It's 10:30 at night and behind me I hear the door opening up, freaked me out. Keep in mind I'm playing this game in a media room with a 9 foot projector TV and surround sound, so any noise or movement in the room really gets my attention fast.

Great way to play though, I really like playing up there on my Xbox. I've done it with the computer a couple times (raiding in WoW and stuff) but it just doesn't seem to work the same. I'll have to play some MC up there with the new computer. And yes I could play MC on the xbox once that comes, but really I'm a PC guy, and I'm not sure how MC will be on the xbox, but who knows.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Day 5 and still no computer

It's day 5 and I'm still without my computer. My hope that it was just the power supply is quickly being dashed as I talked to my IT guy at work and he said that it sounded more like a problem with the processor or the motherboard. The thought of having to spend 3500+ on a new computer is pretty painful, but being without my computer is like losing my left arm. Oh sure I can survive, but is that really living? IS IT!?!?

The other issue is that I don't play as many differnet PC games as I used to, I play Minecraft 95% of the time on my computer so can I really justify spending that type of money on a good computer so that I can play MC... Well of course I can and will, it's retorical. The question is how much power do I need? And when I buy a computer I usually buy a lot of power.

Ugh, I'm going through painful withdrawls, hopefully it might be the power supply, but I have a sinking feeling that there really is a bigger issue that I'll need to deal with...

Monday, June 13, 2011

Computer - You're a damn toaster!

I haven't been able to play any Minecraft for the last couple of days because I've been off living life with my wife, which is awesome, but then when I got a chance to get back on, my computer, angry at me decided that it needed to blow it's power core. (How is that for a run on sentence?)

So the life of my computer is now lived in 15 minute increments while it can stay on, until it shuts off suddenly without warning. In those brief moments I was able to go online and order a new power supply that I'll have on Wednesday. Which means that 1.7 will probably come out on Friday then then I'll have to wait for my mods to get updated again.

And speaking of mods, I really want to check out the survivalism mod with the new random spawn on death, I've been waiting that for a long time, can't wait to give it a go. Of course, I never die so there isn't much to worry about =) (famous last words). Either way I'll be setting it to 1 life and then do what I do best, thriving in MC. =) So cocky!!! You hear that Notch, bring it on 1.7! I'm not afraid.

Here is the link to that mod, if you're reading this, go give it a shot.

http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/349163-166ssp-survivalism-v142/


"You will be, you will be..." - Yoda / Notch

Friday, June 10, 2011

Minecraft - Some pics

I've been meaning to get some more pics up from my world, so here they are. We spare no expense in my kingdom, as you can see we have hired the best sentry that money can buy.



A couple nature pictures, for the first time in what seems like forever I have a map that is pretty neat looking. These are unedited pictures.

DOUBLE WATERFALL!!!! What does it mean?

It's a little hard to see, but there are two diamonds way the heck down there. My thought was, ok well I know they are down there, but that's not going to happen anytime soon. In my trek to get down there though I did find a skeleton spawner. Woot!!!


Now for a couple castle pics, I pretty much only make buildings with function so they aren't overly elaborate. This shot is from the courtyard.




A look from the nearby mountain. Since the shot I added a little bit to the front of the castle, I'm in the process of building a rail line between the castle and the village. The actual distance is about 200 meters, so it's not huge, but it will make getting back and forth a little easier. Problem is that I have ran out of gold (how often does anyone in MC say that???) So I'm going to need to go back down below and see if I can dig some up.


Wow it's midnight, time to get to bed.


I love Minecraft, I really hope that 1.7 kicks some serious adventure butt, I have high high expectations.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Minecraft - SSSSSSSSSSSSsssssssssss

I've played a lot of Minecraft over the last 8 months, generally I think that I'm pretty awesome at the game. Not that I can make a computer or anything, but as far as staying alive, I'm pretty kick as at it. Which is why nights like last night are a nice reminder that I'm never as good as I think I am.

So I'm playing my village hardcore world, and I have to tell you, it's nerve racking knowing that one death and it's over. Anyway I was down doing my diamond exploration so that I could put Mr. Red on the timer so to say. Actually found 6 diamonds so that was nice, naturally I didn't head for the surface or anything, naw I made a pick right there and started mining up Obsidian. Oh sure that was only allowing monsters to spawn all over the place around me, but I'm a badass remember, screw those guys I can take em. Actually I didn't really think about the spawning issue until after I had mined up some Obsidian so by then it was too late for it to make a difference so what can you do.

I mine up my Obsidian (woot portals!!!) and make my way back up to the surface. The first thing I find are three skeletons hiding out behind a wall taking pop shots at me. I was really hoping that I could get them to kill each other off, but no such luck. Since they were kind of trapped behind a wall they were easy to kill off, but without my little arrow machine, wasting my arrows is a little painful.

I made a pretty big mistake when I went digging up those diamonds, well not really a mistake, but I wasn't as complete as I normally am about clearing out a cave before taking the goodies. I left a lot of darkness unexplored in the cave, so on my way up I was confronted with confliction from my desire to get out of the ground and my desire to explore that darkness. Near where the diamonds were was a vast expanse of darkness that I had been probing into with a torch here and there. I thought, "Oh I'll give it a quick peak and see if I see anything." And that was when I saw him emerge from the darkness out of the corner of my eye, a creeper. This time the bastard had the drop on me, I tried to turn and face him, but instead I was looking at a rock. I tried to back up, move away from where I thought he was, but it was no use, I wasn't going to get out of this one. As anyone knows the timer on a Creeper isn't that long, but in this case it was an eternity, I can only imagine what it really feels like to know that you're about to be in serious danger, they say time slows down, it did for me, but this was only a game.

KABOOM!!! Realing I survived the blast, I can picture as my character hobbled off to the safty of the light. I imagined my bloodied body pushing past walls of rocks, broken and beaten, stumbling along the way. My hands shaking from the unnerving blast I drug myself to safty, all the while hoping that nothing else would find me in my battered state. Finally I reached the comfort of what must have been 50 torches and starting eating. My health that had been full at the time of the blast was reduced to 3 hearts and my iron armor that was 9 1/2 was cut in half. I was one of the lucky ones, looking at the blast radius it didn't appear to have been a big blast, good thing too because that Creeper was basically giving me a hug when he went. After that, I stopped messing around and made it to the surface.

On the surface I set up the nether portal in the courtyard of my castle, looks pretty awesome where I placed it. I'll have to get pictures up when I get home and post them. But either way, game is on now, how long will Red last before he meets his end? How large will my castle get before I am finished off? Will the villagers get to build a large village with their activity radius reduced to 100 meters? Only time will tell.

Friday, June 3, 2011

Minecraft - No choice

Well what can I do? I have to get the survivor mod now, the designer added in a function to create a random spawn point once you die. This to me is the greatest development since the development of the game itself.

Looks like I'll be starting over, yet again, but I have no choice, I must it IS my hardcore mode created!!!

Woohoo!!! Time to donate some money to this guy for making my dream come true, I might actually cry I'm so happy... Ok not really, but I'm excited.

I'll set it to 1 live and rock it on hard!

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Minecraft - Village Day 1 again

So the Millenaire mod got an update yesterday that I had to use. It was the ability to turn the village generation on and off. For me this is a great update, now I can start in a new world but not have a village right on top of me when I'm starting. I really liked the idea of having to go and find a village, and while when I turned the generation back on one spawned right away and told me where it was, it was in the distance a little bit so the generation was exactly what I wanted.

So yet again I started a new hardcore world, and that's kind of what I hate about mods, when MC gets updated, they have to get updated. And then you just have a mess of waiting around for the mods to get updated and it's just a hassle rather than turn the game on and go. That being said I do think that it's worth it to add a mod or two, the right mod can add life to the game rather than the endless sandbox that it is. Not that I'm complaining about the sandbox, that's what makes it great, it's the progression like I have said before.

Anyway I'm not here to ramble on about that crap, my new world is an interesting one (yea!) Lots of sand, not a lot of trees, and some interesting hills that seem hollow because of how their caves pop out of them. There is also loads of wild grass, I think I already have a stack of 64 seeds from just clearing out the top of a hill for my house. With all of those seeds I almost have to make a farm.

There isn't really much else interesting that took place last night, established my base, found the village, yada yada.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Minecraft - Village Day 1

Now that we've settled on 1.6.6 it was time to start my hardcore game with the villagers. I have to say, Millaire (or however you spell it, yes I'm too lazy to look it up) is a great mod, a little laggy, but it's great. I do wonder if the lag has more to do with 1.6.6 than the mod, I'll need to play some vanilla to double check.

I spawned in and went to work right away building my new home base. It's an interesting spawn, there is a spider dungeon right next to the spawn and the village is right next to the spawn as well, with a giant mountain next to it. The other interesting feature is that there is a huge area of exposed stone right next to the spawn that had a good deal of coal in it. Additionally there is a forest to the South that I'll be chopping through. Granted I could just go to the village and trade them for wood or other items, but I'm going to hold off my interaction with the village until I get me some diamonds. The reason is that up until you find diamonds you're still pretty much trying to get by, but once you have diamonds and obsidian then you pretty much can do anything. So once I get to the "end game" then I'll start to really play with the village because I don't feel like I'm breaking the progression if I wait until I've hit the cap of my progression. This was the biggest problem that I had with the mods before, they eliminated the progression, sure they made it harder, but with humans dropping loot, it was too easy to get ahead in the game. The other thing was that I felt they broke the balance of the game, it's not to say they aren't great mods, I just didn't really like the feel.

Now by adding the villagers, the "end game" gets extended. Once I'm conquered the world, I can go and play with them and build up their village. In building up the village it will look like a real Red nation for my hardcore game. So the game will evolve but the core of the game won't change. If there was a way to start with a fresh world and then have the village build up after I was established then that would be awesome, and I could if I added them in later, but I wanted the first one to be near the starting location. It would be pure awesome if they popped up after I had tamed the land, like in one of my earlier posts, but what can you do.

My initial building I've decided to go big early, in part because I don't know what to do about the lag (was tempted to play vanilla due to it). My starter home is going to be made of sandstone as a reflection of the amount of sand that is around the starting area, it just seems to fit, and I always go cheap and build with dirt. I guess if I really wanted to be cool I could not allow myself to build with dirt, but really that would have to be a day two thing, humm maybe I could do it, probably could... Heck I do have a lot of glass on the first night and a bed.

Tonight I'm going to see if I can clean up the lag by messing with some settings, but I think it's the mod so I'll probably just be stuck with it, ahh fighting creepers should be just that much more interesting.