It has been a long time since I wrote in this blog and thought that today would be a good time to update it. While the guys are busying playing Mass Effect 3, I keep plugging away at Minecraft, oh and I did put in 100 hours into Skyrim, which is a great game in itself. But as always I keep coming back to Minecraft, I guess it's because no matter how immersive a game like Skyrim is, I actually can shape the world of Minecraft like no other. Now add in some questing and some of the depth of Skyrim and I'd never stop.
Anyway I have been spending a lot of time and effort in my quest to defeat the Enderdragon and "beat Minecraft". It has been a long journey, numerous adventures underground, the creation of a vast castle to house my farms and goods, adventures into the Nether taking on hordes of Blazes so that I could create potions (which I never use), and then my hunt for the stronghold housing the portal to The End. At this point I'm working on collecting Ender Pearls so that I can open the portal up and face The End for the first time. I'm not really sure what to expect in the end boss fight, I know that there will be a ton of Endermen there, so I have crafted myself a set of diamond armor, enchanted with extra protection. All in all a lot has had to happen to get to this place in the adventure.
In order to obtain the needed XP for the high level enchantments I got lucky early on and found a skeleton spawner near my home castle. Originally I was excited to get unlimited arrows but shortly after setting it up I realized that I was going to need to start farming XP for the future. So I went to work on expanding the XP trap, I opened up a room 24 blocks away that would funnel mobs to me in addition to the skeletons so that I could earn even more XP. But the flow was more like a trickle, I needed something bigger. At first I went to work on a separate machine, but it was an utter failure. I'm not totally sure why, but I know that it didn't work as I intended so I gave up on it and went to work on expanding the trap that I already had. Plotting out the corners to the room below I started adding floors to the trap one after the other, funneling mobs down the levels until they ended up in the kill location. Now complete with 4 1/2 floors and the added monster AI from the latest patch, I'm raking in XP levels at a time. I'm really happy with the final results.
At night now my goal is to hunt down Endermen, their rarity as made it so that I have actually seen more spiderjockeys in the last couple of days than Endermen. I think I need another 3 pearls to open the portal, so next time I get on it will be grind XP during the day and hunt for Endermen at night once again, but I'm getting close.
I have also been playing a bit with my son on our server. Built myself a nice little X-wing, and we're working on the Ewok village in one of the new jungle biomes. He is really excited to play with me on the weekends, I only wish that he wouldn't get all weird after playing for extended periods of time. It looks like we're going to need to go back to limiting his time online a little better. It's amazing to me what he has been able to create himself and how he uses the wiki to look up other formulas. Essentially he takes a look at what I build and then he copies the design and expands upon it. I'm really proud of him when he gets creative and is willing to play by himself (both in RL too). But as much as his creative skills have gotten good, I've decided that it's time to take his skills up a notch, I've built a zombie arena in our world so that he can take them on as practice for the future. He needs to get used to the idea of fighting them where he could get killed. But with a full set of iron armor, a diamond sword, and damage set to peaceful, I don't think there is much danger. To him it will be a great confidence boost, first we take on Zombies then Skeletons and Spiders, in time he'll be ready to play with monsters, then we can have some real fun.
Anyway I needed to update the blog, just because. Not sure how much gaming there will be in the future with the move coming up so here it is.
Monday, March 12, 2012
Monday, December 19, 2011
Minecraft - Back at it
So after playing Skyrim for a month, I've decided to dive back into Minecraft, what in my opinion is one of the greatest games ever made. It may not be for everyone, but the gameplay for me is just too good that I keep coming back with it feeling like a fresh experience over and over again.
This time around I'm just playing, not doing the Let's Play thing, I could again at some point but for now I'm just playing and enjoying it. And the way I'm playing it on my 1.0 world there are easy entry points if I want to. I've gone back to my old rule set of modified hardcore where upon death I have to randomly spawn myself in the world and essentially start over. By doing this it means that my world will endlessly grow as I play and explore, not to mention that I've have castles spring up around the world that will give the world a nice feel. Who knows one day I could use the world as a multiplayer world, that would be kind of neat. I'm only running one mod and that is Millinare, it's a fantastic mod that adds villages to the game (yes there are villages in the normal game, but... well yeah.)
In my new world I've set up shop in a nice plane area, it's flat and has a huge cave system under it. Not to mention that I found a skeleton spawner within a short walk from my castle, now that is luck! Of course arrows aren't as great as they used to be, but they are still useful for sure. I'd be curious to see the monsters online and see if they still have the melee delay that they used to, which meant that you had to use a bow to fight them. Anyway my castle is taking shape, I have my wheat farm, I've also set up a nice ranch of cows for limitless steak. I'm in the process of making a wall around the perimeter of the castle so that it will truly be a castle. The area around the castle is lit up with hundreds of torches, it's so well lit that I am even able to do construction at night, picking off the random mob that makes it through the lights.
I don't really care about the changes that have been made to combat, normally I'll find a mob let them run up to me and I'll just beat them to death, like I used to. Skeletons are a little more interesting since I have to close the ground on them, dealing with cliffs and those guys can be interesting. So far I haven't taken on any Endermen, I know they hit hard and take a lot of hits so I'm just avoiding them for now until I get my diamond sword. Speaking of diamonds, they are a bitch to find now, I haven't found one yet in this map, but in fairness I haven't gone deep enough long enough yet. I really want to get that diamond pick and have enough left over for my enchanting table, I'm already level 17 so I can't wait to use the system and see what I get. The fact that you lose levels when you do it is kind of lame, but I guess there should be some sort of balancing cost. My son and I did it on our peaceful map with his level 1 character and it's kind of neat, so I'm looking forward to it.
The goal this time, is just to progress and see where it takes me. If I end up killing the Ender Dragon all power to me, but I don't really think that I will. But that will be the path that I'm on, eventually I'll get to that point one way or another. Which brings me back to why I really love this game, I can finish it, or I can just choose to ignore it and do my own thing. I like having a little bit of structure just as much as I like having limitless freedom. And Skyrim is a great game, with tons of freedom and a great story that you can just immerse yourself in, I highly recommend it. But while it might be the best game of 2011, Minecraft to me is one of the best of all time, which is why after 60+ hours of Skyrim, I'm back to Minecraft.
This time around I'm just playing, not doing the Let's Play thing, I could again at some point but for now I'm just playing and enjoying it. And the way I'm playing it on my 1.0 world there are easy entry points if I want to. I've gone back to my old rule set of modified hardcore where upon death I have to randomly spawn myself in the world and essentially start over. By doing this it means that my world will endlessly grow as I play and explore, not to mention that I've have castles spring up around the world that will give the world a nice feel. Who knows one day I could use the world as a multiplayer world, that would be kind of neat. I'm only running one mod and that is Millinare, it's a fantastic mod that adds villages to the game (yes there are villages in the normal game, but... well yeah.)
In my new world I've set up shop in a nice plane area, it's flat and has a huge cave system under it. Not to mention that I found a skeleton spawner within a short walk from my castle, now that is luck! Of course arrows aren't as great as they used to be, but they are still useful for sure. I'd be curious to see the monsters online and see if they still have the melee delay that they used to, which meant that you had to use a bow to fight them. Anyway my castle is taking shape, I have my wheat farm, I've also set up a nice ranch of cows for limitless steak. I'm in the process of making a wall around the perimeter of the castle so that it will truly be a castle. The area around the castle is lit up with hundreds of torches, it's so well lit that I am even able to do construction at night, picking off the random mob that makes it through the lights.
I don't really care about the changes that have been made to combat, normally I'll find a mob let them run up to me and I'll just beat them to death, like I used to. Skeletons are a little more interesting since I have to close the ground on them, dealing with cliffs and those guys can be interesting. So far I haven't taken on any Endermen, I know they hit hard and take a lot of hits so I'm just avoiding them for now until I get my diamond sword. Speaking of diamonds, they are a bitch to find now, I haven't found one yet in this map, but in fairness I haven't gone deep enough long enough yet. I really want to get that diamond pick and have enough left over for my enchanting table, I'm already level 17 so I can't wait to use the system and see what I get. The fact that you lose levels when you do it is kind of lame, but I guess there should be some sort of balancing cost. My son and I did it on our peaceful map with his level 1 character and it's kind of neat, so I'm looking forward to it.
The goal this time, is just to progress and see where it takes me. If I end up killing the Ender Dragon all power to me, but I don't really think that I will. But that will be the path that I'm on, eventually I'll get to that point one way or another. Which brings me back to why I really love this game, I can finish it, or I can just choose to ignore it and do my own thing. I like having a little bit of structure just as much as I like having limitless freedom. And Skyrim is a great game, with tons of freedom and a great story that you can just immerse yourself in, I highly recommend it. But while it might be the best game of 2011, Minecraft to me is one of the best of all time, which is why after 60+ hours of Skyrim, I'm back to Minecraft.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Skyrim - Not Oblivion
The highest complement that I can bestow upon Skyrim is that it's not Oblivion. Oh sure it's obviously similar, but the depth and natural flow of the game are just so much better that it's hard to overstate. Walking from point A to point B (I rarely use the speed travel option) will always have something happen that keeps you wondering what is coming next. And while playing Oblivion kind of felt like I was checking off quests on a list, this time around it just feels like I'm being gently pushed in different directions to experience the game.
Since I got it I haven't been able to put it down as I have dove head first into my roll as a one handed bow assassin. My style is to sneak around and use my bow to take out as many bad guys as I can and then finish them off with my sword and board technique. Having learned how to actually block now has given me a huge advantage. But there is nothing like hiding in the shadows with the bow drawn and letting it fly into the chest of some unsuspecting victim and seeing that little 2X damage text pop up. So many great sniper moments that it's impossible to pick just one, but a highlight for sure was taking out a guy on the top of a tower and watching him fall into the river below, thing of beauty.
When it comes to highlight moments, Skyrim has them to spare. I have two favorites so far, one of those coming last night while I was making my way to the greybeards and I just happened to catch a red dot moving on my radar, it was a saber cat about to attack. I readied my shield and blocked his initial attack and then while he was off balance I got a critical animation where I one shot the bastard, kicking him from sword, it was a really, "take that bitch." moment. I'm only level 14 so I felt pretty proud.
My other big moment was the random frost dragon fight I came across while just wondering around. I did a quick travel to get to a cave that I thought I had left some stuff in and instantly see a dead horse on the ground, which hadn't been there before. I look around a little bit and see a dragon flying around overhead. There are a couple of guards armed with bows firing at the dragon, naturally I pull out my bow and go join the fight. I stay back a bit and pluck away, I see no reason to go make myself the main target, and I watch the guards fight the dragon. In the distance I see the dragon pick up one of the guards in it's mouth and shake him around, finally tossing him aside with weapon and shield flying haphazardly away as well. I start thinking that if I want to take this dragon out, I better move in before all of the guards are killed. I go to melee and as I'm hacking at the hindquarters of the dragon, it picks up the last of the guards and throws him aside too. Now the dragon turns towards me, frost breath blasting away. I do what any paniced adventurer would do, I run for it. The dragon giving chase blasting away at me, I realize that if I keep running I'm a goner, even popping potions. I jump behind a rock the dragon still closing in blasting away at me. I use the rock as a shield and fire some arrows back in his direction, trying to dodge his very fast frost blasts, all the while him continuing to close in. Knowing I can't run, I run up to just behind the rock with the dragon on the other side blasting away at it (sure the AI should have gone around, but I was kind of pinned down too, it seemed believable, even as I remember it it does.) My screen enveloped in white as the frost surrounds me and me poking out between shots to get an arrow in. After a couple blasts from the dragon I get my killing blow in and the dragon collapses in a lump, me staring down at it's now lifeless head. My son gave me a high five after the fight too. It's hard to describe how epic that battle really was, to me it's like it played out in some movie as I can imagine my character racing away through the field and then cowering behind a rock. And while that was a great moment, there have been several that were awesome as well.
Another thing that sets Skyrim apart from Oblivion is that the extra trade skill actions actually have a purpose and make sense. In Oblivion I had no idea how to do any of the enchanting so I just left it alone, here I'm improving my armor, mixing up countless potions as I try and figure out what everything does, I enchanted my sword so that it is now the ultimate weapon of destruction, it's just soooooooo much more intuitive this time around. And it makes sense too.
Character skills are also a welcome change, now instead of picking a class you just play how you want and you level up accordingly. This is the BEST system ever created!!! I have hated the idea that you ARE one type of character, now you just do what you do and you get better at it through your skill points. Again it just makes sense. If only they could make a balanced MMO that played like that, oh my I'd just collapse in happiness. I guess AC was kind of like that, but this is more advanced. It really goes back to the reason why I love Minecraft, the game just lets you play it, there is freedom in everything that you do in the game and it makes for a really enjoyable experience.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Minecraft - Making movies
I've really taken to making my Minecraft movies, sure no one is watching them outside of Ayden, but that's ok, it's more a fun thing to do. Every video I hope gets a little better than the last one, and to help that along I went and bought Sony Vegas yesterday.
I have to say that my initial thoughts on Vegas aren't that good. Having used the Windows movie maker which is very easy to use, going to Vegas was a lot more involved, especially considering that I had to pay money for that one. I was hoping for more flexability and a simpler method for adding edits and features, instead it looks like I got a lot more windows and a lot more minor things to play with that I really don't care about. As an indication on how I feel about it, I went into movie maker and made my title screen because after messing with Vegas for 30 minutes I couldn't get it to do what I wanted, but I could in movie maker in about 2 minutes. But that is my day one impression so who knows, I'll keep playing around with it and I'm sure that I'll get the hang of it.
The real problem through all of this though has been the audio. I have been fighting with that issue since day one. Vegas does have some nice features to help eliminate the feedback from the mic, but it doesn't totally solve the problem like I was hoping. That means I'll probably need to go spend some more money on a decent mic, but not knowing if that will make a difference really keeps me from wanting to go spend yet more money on my little hobby. So far I've spent about $100 on everything so a mic on top of that seems a little crazy, considering that I'm only getting about 20 views per video and I can't even be sure how many of those are just me visiting my page.
Another factor that is discouraging is that to make what I consider to be a good 15 minute video it takes me about an hour of editing. My thought is that if I'm going to make the video, better to make it the best that you can. Which again leads to the mic decision.
But saying all of that, I really do have fun with it. Sure I'm probably ages older than most of the kids out there making videos, but I figure I'm just late to the game. =) So it's a little silly to be making movies about playing a video game, but then again what else am I going to do, besides it might open up for me to do some other stuff with home movies. Or it might get my son fired up about doing something creative like this.
Speaking of my son, he loves the movies, heck he tricked his mom the other day into thinking that he was sick so that he could stay home from school to watch the last 2 in the play series. Now he wants me to show him how to make movies as well, we'll see how that goes, who knows, maybe he'll be the internet superstar I secretly wish I was.
The thing is, I think the videos are pretty decent, but I don't really know how to get people to watch them. I've been trolling the boards to self promote and been cross promoting as much as I can, but I don't know, I guess it's like anything, you just have to keep working at it. And for all I know, maybe the videos are just terrible and I'm looking at them with rose colored glasses.
In the end though it all comes down to one thing, and that's not the number of views or the number of subscribers (although it helps) it's about enjoying it. Right now I am enjoying making the movies and sharing my game play. It's the same reason that I started this blog and after a year am still plugging away at it. Well sort of anyway, been a quiet October.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Minecraf - Let's Play
Finally working on my Let's Play series after talking about it for months. There is a link on the right sidebar.
It's a work in progress as it's season 0. Figure I'll work out the bugs and get my audio adjusted before starting the Season 1 Hardcore with 1.9 (official release). If you end up watching it, please feel free to comment (aside from, this is lame), would like suggestions on how to make a good LP.
The LP itself is like this blog, mostly for me. I like writing about playing and I think it would be fun to make some movies of my adventures, at least I'll have lots of pictures now for my blog. If someone watches it and finds a little bit of entertainment value, cool. But I'm not looking to make any money from it with ad revenue.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Minecraft - Game in a game
So I'm talking to my brother and the guys about buying TOR when it comes out, but the nagging feeling that I have is that if I do, I'll be wasting my money because I'll probably still only want to play Minecraft. And then it hit me, I think watching the development of the game is just as much fun as playing it.
I'm the type of person that goes all in on something when I find something interesting. I played as hardcore as I could on WoW back in the day, I'd read the forums, I'd watch youtube videos, etc... A movie that I like is coming out, I'll go looking for clips, I'll read up on back story, essentially if something I think is cool is coming, I'll go dive into it, hell read my Lost blog! It's the same thing with Minecraft.
Before Minecraft I thought Twitter was one of the stupidest things I had ever seen, I don't care if some famous person is going to tell me they're taking a dump. But now I'm like an addict constantly refreshing my phone to see if there has been a new post from Notch or Jeb with some new feature that is coming in the next MC update. "Oh wow, Snow Golems!", "Ravines!!!", "XP? Fuck you Notch!" =)
While I enjoy the adventure on the screen, the entire development has become an adventure in it's own right. What will be coming, how will the latest additions work into the way that I play the game? I can honestly say that I have liked 99% of all the additions, thus with each coming patch I'm excited to see what is next, it's like a little MC Christmas everyday.
I can't remember another game where the development of the game has been as open as this has been. Sure there are betas, but then there is the MC beta which is essentially the transparent development of a major game (sorry it's not indie anymore) over the last year plus. Other games you hear a rumor about some feature, or some big announcement of a single item (live cash AH in Diablo 3) and the gaming world goes into an uproar. With MC there is an uproar everyday on the forums as haters hate and fanboys.... er fan...
What gets me is how Notch and Jeb keep their cool through all the "feedback" that there is on the interwebs. Maybe it has gotten to them and whatever comes next won't be in such open development, I guess we're too close to the end at this point to pull it all back in house, besides I can only imagine the pitchforks and torches that we'd see in Stockholm if that happened.
Not knowing how the future development at Mojang is going to go, I can say that I am enjoying the ride that I was able to get on board for, it's a daily adventure much like the MC world where I never know what is going to be over that next mountain or in the next tweet.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Minecraft - 1.8 I build
One of these days I'll really take the time and put up some pictures. Hell I might even take a video, that's really what I need to do.
Over the weekend I got to spend a little more time in my world, not a lot of dedicated time to go hunting for the stronghold, but time enough to scout out some caves near my house and keep building my now giant house. The structure is simple, the house if built around a cross farm, that grows wheat in 4 directions off of a single water source. I really like the design, even if it's a little big. The great feature of the design is that all drops will either fall to me, or fall in the water and then flow to the outer reaches of the farm. On two the points of the cross I have built structures, the first is my bedroom (initial house) and I also built a cobble generator. I like my cobble design in that the water flow under the cobble block allows the broken block to flow to me, but I should adjust the height so that not as many blocks end up in the lava. The lava problem might just be a fact of life for a generator, but the system works pretty well.
On top of the now castle I put a vault in so that I could increase my storage capacity. I put the vault on the ceiling after reading that Endermen can take a chest and destroy everything in it. I might be sick, but I personally think that is awesome, I like enemy mobs that are trying to fuck my shit up, I say bring it. Heck I even asked if someone could make a mod so that mobs don't burn up in daylight, I think that will add a nice bit of spice to things. Or I'm insane!
When I get back to serious work on my world I'll have to decide if I'm going to try to make a arrow machine out of the skeleton spawner I found. Great location for a spawner too, right in a lava flow, doesn't get much safer than that. In 1.9 spawners aren't supposed to work, but I guess I could ride the exploit while it exists. The spawner is located in a giant ravine, I've made it to the bottom, but man is it a shit storm down there, mobs are just spawning everywhere.
Speaking of mobs spawning, I was playing with my son this weekend on our server (and to confirm mineshafts do spawn in 1.7 worlds) and we came across a spawner. Now we play with the mob spawning off, because he's 5, I think a creeper blowing him to pieces would make him cry. Anyway we find a spawner, actually we don't see it, but I hear a moan. A moan? WTF, that sounds like a zombie. I turn around and there I see it, my son is face to face with two zombies WTF!!! I tell him to just run, he doesn't know what to do, I pull out my iron sword (yes I actually had one for killing mobs in 1.7) and I go to work. I beat them down without too much trouble and light up the spawner before breaking it. As Bdouble0 says, "Fix your game Notch!"
From the dungeon we were able to find a passageway that took us deep underground and to an abandoned mineshaft. It was time to get off, but we marked it as a place to return to.
Next time I get on, I'm going to finish up my ravine, maybe there are some goodies down there, and not black fog (not a goodie). So far in my short exploits around the map I haven't found anything that looks like a stronghold, but I did find a mineshaft to put on my list of places to visit.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Minecraft - 1.8 Initial Thoughts
After MUCH anticipation 1.8 finally dropped yesterday and for the most part I am very pleased with what I see. The following is a breakdown of my thoughts on the update.
First off, for some reason it's a lot more fun. It's the same game, but for some reason it's more fun. It's hard to say why, but I think it has a lot to do with having a goal this time around, which is similar to how I was playing hardcore (FYI, never finished my hardcore, I beat the Bronze, but then started playing online on a public server).
The goal in 1.8, at least to me is to find and clear out a stronghold. A stronghold is essentially a very large dungeon that is randomly located somewhere on the map, beyond 500 blocks from your initial spawn location. But here is where it gets tough, as of right now only 3 of them spawn, so in order to find one, you're going to need to do some exploration. Notch said that the game would require you to explore, sign me up! I've heard that in 1.9 the stronghold will hold a boss, we'll have to see, I guess that would be a good indicator if you really finished off a stronghold.
So in order to find a stronghold, it's going to take a lot of exploration, with hunger now a requirement, I'll need food, hence my base needs to become an actual supply station. Animal spawning has also changed so there isn't a limitless number of pigs to be found and eat from, to counter this, I built a large wheat farm. I was in a little bit of luck with my spawn location, I spawned in a swamp and there were mushrooms everywhere so food has not been an issue. I wasn't really sure if I was going to need a large wheat farm, but not really knowing how the animals were going to work, I figured it was probably a good idea to make one. And one final note on food, cows are like hitting the jackpot for meat!
Speaking of cows, here is one of the real problems that I have with the update, there cows are too rare. Normally I use leather armor to get me going in the game, then upgrade to iron once I find enough, but in order to get underground and get that iron I will make a leather suit, that's not an option now. At my spawn there were 0 cows, only after I did some exploration did I find 3 of them. By the time I found the cows I was already up to about 15 iron, just from finding some near the surface. With cows not respawning, the ability to get a leather set of armor is almost impossible or at least pointless because you'll have iron by the time you find enough cows anyway. This is a serious balance issue.
Exploration and the biomes. I was lucky and spawned in a swamp, now while that doesn't sound like a good thing, swamps are flat, have lots of trees, lots of sheep (useless except for a first night bed), and mushrooms. Finding coal in the swamp was a little tricky but overall it was a good starting location. I was also at the intersection of 4 different biome types, a forest, a desert, and a mountain biome were all bordering me. I took a quick look at the desert and it was vast, just huge, I figure that my stronghold will be in there, just because. The forest is dense with trees, it will be very hard to cut through there and do some serious exploration, can we say fire coming.... Finally there was the mountain, it's large and pocketed with caves at it's higher elevations, I didn't bother to explore in those caves as of yet because I figure there is probably only monsters and coal up there so why bother.
A couple other neat geographical features were the stream that separated the forest/swamp and the mountain. It wasn't a full on river, just a thin stream that ran along the side, the effect of it was great. Later on, on the other side of the swamp I found a large river that separated the swamp from some planes on the other side, that had the 3 cows. And finally there was the ravine, a deep gorge that ran under the swamp. The gorge went from the surface all the way to exposed gold, I'm not sure what level it is down there, but in having gold exposed to the surface, that's deep. With vines from trees dropping down in to the gorge and the river flowing in from various points, it was a great piece of landscape, just begging to be explored.
Naturally the gorge was where I decided to start my underground escapades, through various side tunnels I was able to get about half way down before it got late and I needed to get off. I was still without armor as well so I didn't want to be down there after it had gotten dark. (I'll get to the lighting in a minute) Being unprepared I didn't test my luck too much, but the mobs are the same as usual, skeletons are Olympic archers, zombies are idiots, and spiders are loud and annoying. But what is this black mob with purple nether stuff sparkling off him???
The Endermen, overall I have to say I'm not really that impressed, but I don't dislike them either. I found my first one in a small little cave, it was just doing it's thing not taking notice of me. They look great, the tall skinny black figure and those glowing purple eyes, they really do look great in the dark. But they're kind of pointless too. On the forums A LOT of people are bitching about the Endermen, because they break their buildings, honestly I was disappointed that they weren't more aggressive in that regard. Before I got off, it was night time and I decided that I'd get up on my roof and see if any Endermen would spawn so I could learn a little about them, watch them build. Just my luck, one of them spawned on a hill near my house. He picked up a dirt block and and... and just walked around aimlessly carrying it the whole time. Now I know that they have very limited AI, but I never saw him place it or pick up another block, he was a tall zombie with a block in his hand, that I better not look directly at. When day came the Endermen burst into flames just like the other undead, I decided that this was a good time to look at one of them. While on fire, he turned and looked at me, getting all smoked up and pissed off that I was looking at him, and just when I thought that I might shoot a charged arrow at him, he fell over dead. I really didn't want to fight him, I was just messing around to see how the mechanics worked so that I'd know in the future.
Speaking of charged arrows, I love charged arrows! I only had 3 arrows that I had found from a couple of random drops but there was a creeper outside my house that just wanted to blow me up. I decided that this was a good chance to test the new bow mechanic. I charged that puppy up and shot him right through my door, it was great the arrow stuck in the side of his head and the impact that it had sent him back a few blocks, it was very satisfying. The second shot, killed him, yes two shots kills a creeper, that is awesome! Swords will also do double damage if you jump and hit with them as well, useful for sure, but the bow is now OP in my opinion, but I like that too.
In my couple hours of play I did take some damage, no longer are you able to just eat and be healed, nope, healing is now over time. A LOT of people are complaining about that on the forums, after all it is the internet, but I like the way it works. The hunger bar doesn't deplete that fast, in fact I hardly noticed it until it got to about half way. When the bar is full, you heal over time, so taking a stray arrow or some light fall damage gets healed up automatically if you're full. For me this worked great, before if I were down a heart or two I'd just let it be, now those are healed up for me, fantastic.
And finally, the lighting. The new lighting system is amazing! The transition from day to night is so subtle that you don't even notice it if you're working in a lit area, and it looks great. Torches have a soft orange glow to them, the moon give everything a slight blueish hue, it all looks very nice. But I can't say enough about the day/night transition, it's phenomenal.
Overall I was very happy with 1.8, I never found a village or abandoned mine, but I'm sure I will. The new small features like the hunger bar and the strongholds are great additions in my opinion, the game now has a sort of purpose to it, we'll see if that holds up once I get going.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Mass Effect - Initial thoughts
So my brother has been on my ass about playing Mass Effect, so I decided that I'd give it a go. Also when I saw the trailer for the third game in an ad window and thought to myself, "That looks badass" only to realize that I was looking at ME 3, that told me it was time to get onboard with the whole ME thing. That's not to say I'm done playing Minecraft, far from it, just need to play something else for a bit, but I still want to play Minecraft so we'll see if I make it through ME, think I will though.
The funniest thing about playing ME is that my brother didn't like Dragon Age in large part due to the amount of talking that you have to do early on, which I admit is a draggggggggg...... So what is the second thing that you have to do in ME? That's right spend 2 hours talking to NPCs to get various quests and look around the Citadel, oh joy. I called him out on it and he said that it probably had more to do with the fact that later on you get to shoot and blow things up, fair enough dodge.
Talking to all of the NPCs was really getting boring, eventually I wrapped it all up and got to start shooting people again, at that point I began to give a shit about all of the talking again. Seriously they should have balanced that just a little better, I mean I like talking to NPCs, it's an RPG I expect that, but the whole feast or famine thing stinks, maybe ME 2 is better. But after I started fighting again then I started to take note of the codex and actually look for stuff to read or listen to in it, before it was just trying to get through the conversations. The codex though is pretty cool, there is a rich background to the universe that I want to keep diving deeper into and really learn about the world that I'm playing in, I love that sort of thing.
Mass Effect is recognized as a classic in many circles and I can see why even in my early stages in the game. The reason, is that I care about what is going to happen, this early on I'm curious about the characters and how the story is going to play out. Anyone that just dismisses video games for their potential to tell a story is just blind to their potential. Sadly some of the main press that this game got when it was released was that it had a 5 second sex scene in it, ignoring everything else about it. I don't really know how I feel about sex in video games because you do have kids playing them, but then again sex and violence do exist outside of video games, just turn on the news and bamm there you go.
Anyway curious to see how it all plays out, looks like an interesting game and I'm happy to have started playing it. I kind of hope it's not too long so that I can finish it and move on and get back to Minecraft, but that's just me being stupid.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Minecraft - Death
So last night (about a week ago now) I decided that it was time to take on that first boss, what an utter failure I was in that endevour. I really had no idea what to expect, but I was thinking that it probably wouldn't be that tough, boy was I wrong. The fight starts when I pick the boss in what I now know is his closed eye, after that all hell breaks loose, I hit him and then get hit myself flying around the room each time that I get hit. Hearts are dropping quickly and that's when I realize that I hadn't set up my hotbar to handle food. Normally this isn't a problem, even when a creeper attacks me I have time to get clear and eat, not the case here. In the end the boss makes short work of me and all of my items explode in a grand explosion.
So after the death it was start over time. I set the game to peaceful and returned to the location of my death to get the diamond pick in order to create my new portal. I also stuck the other items in a chest there so that I could get them back after I beat the boss. I figure by then I'll be armed up anyway, so it's a neat little prize for me.
I then gathered up some materials so that I could make a new portal. Entering the Nether I took off in some random direction and eventually established a portal to come back through. Upon entering the surface world again and waiting for daylight, I tossed all of my items into the water so that they would despawn, including the diamond pick (which I might need if I die before setting up another portal, can't die now, no pressure).
Back to square one I went. 1500 meters from my original starting point. Thankfully the area that I arrived in while geographically boring, did have an awesome little island on it that was just begging to be made into my new base of operations (picture to come). From there it was back to the basics, find coal, kill cows, arm up, etc... But that's ok, I kind of like that part of the game so no big loss. The real fun is where the adventure takes me, will I find another skeleton spawner, or find my diamonds quickly? As of now I've seen gold, but most of my underground explorations have been lateral staying mostly at iron level. The cave system that I uncovered is pretty spread out, but so far not a lot of vertical drops. I figure that I'll find diamonds pretty soon, once I find a way down I think it will spread out and I'll find some.
After finding diamonds I'll need to prep for my trip back to the original starting point so that I can connect the two bases. My rule is that I have to make it on the surface first then after I find the portal I can then use the portals again. Still using the portals won't be easy, that's a lot of Nether to cover with Ghasts shooting at me. Should be interesting.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Minecraft - The Adventure continues - Aether
So in my last play session I did a little more exploration of the Aether. I found a good deal of the various blocks, but nothing amazing, it's really just like the base world, but the penalty of death is a lot greater since you can basically fall off of the world and die. Not really a concern for me since it's one death and I'm out anyway, but it does add that extra little element in there.
After looking around a little bit, I did discover all three of the types of dungeons so now the final part of my adventure can begin. Deciding that it was now or never I armed up and made my way into the bronze dungeon, which is actually quite grey. First thing that happens, a damn sentry stone pops up and then attacks me. I'm thinking no big deal since they're basically slime, turns out those little bastards blow up like Creepers, but don't leave a crater. So that slowed me down quite a bit. My thought is that they spawn when you either step on them or place blocks on them, so to counter that I have decided to build a little walkway through the dungeon. The whole place didn't go in very deep, I walked down a hall, turned a corner and saw a room that had a large block in the center of it. I can only imagine that the block is the boss, as I've read he requires a pickax to kill. And that will what I do tonight, it's time to kill that bitch and finish up my quest. I read that the gold boss is a bitch, so I can see myself getting killed right there at the very end, and the world being sent back into darkness as the hero is killed, no happy ending this time.
And you know what, from an RPG standpoint, I love the fact that I can fail. Oh sure I'll respawn and do my little thing and do it all again, but the idea that I have been working towards the final boss and in my own little story, setting the world free from this beast, it's pretty neat. Imagine if Link didn't defeat Gannon (or whomever) at the end of the game, instead he died. Then the world has to wait for another hero to come save them from the monsters. How many years go by, how long do they live under oppression? I always see epic adventure movies with a jaded view, I mean in the end you know the good guys win, but they aren't supposed to know that. Like Frodo, destroying the ring, we knew he'd make it, but he didn't, and what happens if he didn't? So I know that eventually I'll beat my game, but will it be this time around? It's kind of hard to describe, but it works for me, I feel like the hero, because failure at this point would set me back so far, villages will be left empty, all my loot is abandoned, all the progress wiped out in a single misstep. If you're going to play an RPG it's nice to become invested, play the roll, that's what I'm doing. I really hope Notch makes 1.8 something amazing.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Minecraft - The adventure
A lot of people like to dismiss 1.8 because of it's adventure additions somehow taking away from the creative aspect of the game, personally I'm excited. In the meantime waiting for 1.8 I'm working on my own little adventure, I have three mods loaded up, Millenaire, Anther, and Surviorism. My goal is to defeat the Gold dungeon on Anther without dying once in the game, my own little RPG.
And I have to say there is a great feel playing the game like this, each decision I make is part of a series of choices that will get me to my end goal, while still working in the framework of the original MC concept. My first house was built on a small sand island, safe from mobs. The first real cave system that I found had a very exposed opening that I sealed up with my second house. The next thing I found was a double dungeon one of which had a skeleton spawner (I could have only dreamed of a double skeleton dungeon). In order to set up my mob grinder, I went looking for cactus (naturally I ended up just making a drowning trap) but in the process of looking for cactus, I discovered a village. I set up a little house there near the village so that I could have a home in which to trade with the Normans.
The next thing that I did was do some exploring to check out some of the amazing land formations that my seed generated, lots of high vertical mountains with large overhangs. In the process of checking those formations out, I came across a small Indian village. I set up a house near the Indian village, but then headed back to my main area. Tired of making the long run from the cave opening to the skeleton spawner I decided to dig up and make a new entrance so that I could access it more quickly and in safety. So I set up yet another little hut on the surface that leads down to the skeletons. After securing the skeletons it was then time to get back to work on my main quest, and for that, I needed diamonds.
Into the depths I returned looking for the passageway that was going to take me deep enough to find those diamonds. When exploring caves there are two things that I really hate finding, large vertical openings which generally mean Creepers raining death on me, and large rooms with several ways to go in them with sharp 90 degree angles that you can't see around. This time it was the large room with lots of openings. Initially it wasn't a big deal, a couple zombies, I cleared them out and then started to light the room up. Oh and I hate piles of gravel! Anyway I'm making my way dropping a torch here and there and then checking behind me to see if I was still safe. And lo and behold there is a Creeper within steps of me. Panicked I switch to my sword as I struggle with my controls trying to get clear and into a better position to take him out. I whack him once with my sword then having bought a split second I switch to the bow and start firing wildly at him. In the end I got him, but not after sending my heart into full racing mode, I had to pause the game for a second I was so worked up. Mind you I had full health and full armor, so I probably could have survived a blast, but the game just gets me worked up.
After the Creeper episode, there it was, exposed diamonds one level below me. I was able to clear out the surrounding area without too much trouble, dug up my 5 diamonds and then made my way back to the surface. Once reaching the surface I crafted myself a diamond pick axe and a diamond sword, Act 1 of the adventure was over, getting outfitted with diamonds and the ability to get to the Nether. So I went and dug up some obsidian and placed a portal near my first house.
When I stepped through the portal I was welcomed with a fantastic view of the lava ocean, which my portal was placed directly on a cliff overlooking. It was a very very very dangerous position where if I had taken one step forward I would have been high diving my way to my death. I went about placing cobblestone around the portal, but as nothing is ever easy a flying octopus decided to come welcome me to the Nether. Firing away with fireballs he put out my portal (I always keep a light on me so I was fine). Eventually I got my little house set up, safe from Ghasts and safe from high diving my self into the lava. My final activity was to secure the portal from the normal world so that I wouldn't re-enter to a Creeper. I headed over to the Norman village and dug up some rocks from the exposed rock nearby, then did a little trading with them before heading back. In the end I finished protecting my portal and now I'm ready to start a quick Act 2 of acquiring glowstone so that I can make a Anther portal.
My point to all of this rambling, with a goal, the game plays like an RPG, and I love it. It's a sandbox, but I can win it, with no one telling me how to do it. The random world presents me with opportunities and challenges that I have to figure out how to solve. There are side quests, do I want to go spend time in the villages? Do I want to explore? Do I want to craft a giant castle? But in the end I know what I want to do, and everything that I do is working towards that goal. If die, then it's back to the beginning and the adventure expands and continues, but is a different adventure at the same time.
And I have to say there is a great feel playing the game like this, each decision I make is part of a series of choices that will get me to my end goal, while still working in the framework of the original MC concept. My first house was built on a small sand island, safe from mobs. The first real cave system that I found had a very exposed opening that I sealed up with my second house. The next thing I found was a double dungeon one of which had a skeleton spawner (I could have only dreamed of a double skeleton dungeon). In order to set up my mob grinder, I went looking for cactus (naturally I ended up just making a drowning trap) but in the process of looking for cactus, I discovered a village. I set up a little house there near the village so that I could have a home in which to trade with the Normans.
The next thing that I did was do some exploring to check out some of the amazing land formations that my seed generated, lots of high vertical mountains with large overhangs. In the process of checking those formations out, I came across a small Indian village. I set up a house near the Indian village, but then headed back to my main area. Tired of making the long run from the cave opening to the skeleton spawner I decided to dig up and make a new entrance so that I could access it more quickly and in safety. So I set up yet another little hut on the surface that leads down to the skeletons. After securing the skeletons it was then time to get back to work on my main quest, and for that, I needed diamonds.
Into the depths I returned looking for the passageway that was going to take me deep enough to find those diamonds. When exploring caves there are two things that I really hate finding, large vertical openings which generally mean Creepers raining death on me, and large rooms with several ways to go in them with sharp 90 degree angles that you can't see around. This time it was the large room with lots of openings. Initially it wasn't a big deal, a couple zombies, I cleared them out and then started to light the room up. Oh and I hate piles of gravel! Anyway I'm making my way dropping a torch here and there and then checking behind me to see if I was still safe. And lo and behold there is a Creeper within steps of me. Panicked I switch to my sword as I struggle with my controls trying to get clear and into a better position to take him out. I whack him once with my sword then having bought a split second I switch to the bow and start firing wildly at him. In the end I got him, but not after sending my heart into full racing mode, I had to pause the game for a second I was so worked up. Mind you I had full health and full armor, so I probably could have survived a blast, but the game just gets me worked up.
After the Creeper episode, there it was, exposed diamonds one level below me. I was able to clear out the surrounding area without too much trouble, dug up my 5 diamonds and then made my way back to the surface. Once reaching the surface I crafted myself a diamond pick axe and a diamond sword, Act 1 of the adventure was over, getting outfitted with diamonds and the ability to get to the Nether. So I went and dug up some obsidian and placed a portal near my first house.
When I stepped through the portal I was welcomed with a fantastic view of the lava ocean, which my portal was placed directly on a cliff overlooking. It was a very very very dangerous position where if I had taken one step forward I would have been high diving my way to my death. I went about placing cobblestone around the portal, but as nothing is ever easy a flying octopus decided to come welcome me to the Nether. Firing away with fireballs he put out my portal (I always keep a light on me so I was fine). Eventually I got my little house set up, safe from Ghasts and safe from high diving my self into the lava. My final activity was to secure the portal from the normal world so that I wouldn't re-enter to a Creeper. I headed over to the Norman village and dug up some rocks from the exposed rock nearby, then did a little trading with them before heading back. In the end I finished protecting my portal and now I'm ready to start a quick Act 2 of acquiring glowstone so that I can make a Anther portal.
My point to all of this rambling, with a goal, the game plays like an RPG, and I love it. It's a sandbox, but I can win it, with no one telling me how to do it. The random world presents me with opportunities and challenges that I have to figure out how to solve. There are side quests, do I want to go spend time in the villages? Do I want to explore? Do I want to craft a giant castle? But in the end I know what I want to do, and everything that I do is working towards that goal. If die, then it's back to the beginning and the adventure expands and continues, but is a different adventure at the same time.
Friday, August 5, 2011
Minecraft - I am a coward
So after watching some Legendary map videos I decided that I needed to jump back in the saddle and play some serious Minecraft. I went about my normal process of punching trees, killing sheep, yada yada yada. But I noticed something, I spawned in a forest and I was having a lot of fear wondering in under the trees. Naturally I took the only sensible course of action and burned down the forest so that I didn't have to worry about day time monster spawns.
I had another problem too, there weren't any good caves around me either. There were a couple small ones that I was able to pull a good deal of iron and coal from, but neither of those caves needed more than 5 torches to finish out. So I ventured out a little bit away from my island home, there was a small sand bar out about 20 blocks from the shore, perfect location for a house. As I was saying I went exploring a little and found what looks to be a decent cave. I jumped in and started my exploration but I really didn't get too far. It has been awhile since I really explored a cave and the whole time I was terrified that I was going to find a creeper and get blown to pieces. I'm not really sure why I was as scared as I was, it might have to do with the fact that I've been playing on peaceful so much that the loss of control over the world has me for a loop.
I never ended up seeing a Creeper, I almost wanted to so that I could kill one and feel better about myself. I did find a zombie, enough to get the sword swinging but nothing crazy hard, strange thing, the zombie seemed to be faster, I know it's all perception but for some reason in my head he was quicker. But the real problem came when that skinny white bastard came out of the shadows shooting arrows at me. As usual I lost control of my mouse and did my crazy dance. I turned and ran for it like a little girl.
That was when I realized the true gripping power of Minecraft, you never get over the mobs. Sure you can get used to them, but you'll never truly be over them. Take a break for awhile and sure you can jump back in and explore caves in near perfection, but all it takes is one surprise mob scaring the shit out of you to bring it all crashing down. I know that I'll get used to them again, and it won't be such a big deal, but the fact that a game I have been playing since November can still scare the crap out of me, that's impressive.
Until I get a bow, they're dead after I get my bow.
I had another problem too, there weren't any good caves around me either. There were a couple small ones that I was able to pull a good deal of iron and coal from, but neither of those caves needed more than 5 torches to finish out. So I ventured out a little bit away from my island home, there was a small sand bar out about 20 blocks from the shore, perfect location for a house. As I was saying I went exploring a little and found what looks to be a decent cave. I jumped in and started my exploration but I really didn't get too far. It has been awhile since I really explored a cave and the whole time I was terrified that I was going to find a creeper and get blown to pieces. I'm not really sure why I was as scared as I was, it might have to do with the fact that I've been playing on peaceful so much that the loss of control over the world has me for a loop.
I never ended up seeing a Creeper, I almost wanted to so that I could kill one and feel better about myself. I did find a zombie, enough to get the sword swinging but nothing crazy hard, strange thing, the zombie seemed to be faster, I know it's all perception but for some reason in my head he was quicker. But the real problem came when that skinny white bastard came out of the shadows shooting arrows at me. As usual I lost control of my mouse and did my crazy dance. I turned and ran for it like a little girl.
That was when I realized the true gripping power of Minecraft, you never get over the mobs. Sure you can get used to them, but you'll never truly be over them. Take a break for awhile and sure you can jump back in and explore caves in near perfection, but all it takes is one surprise mob scaring the shit out of you to bring it all crashing down. I know that I'll get used to them again, and it won't be such a big deal, but the fact that a game I have been playing since November can still scare the crap out of me, that's impressive.
Until I get a bow, they're dead after I get my bow.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Minecraft - Redstone is FUN!
Ok so an odd thing happened on my way to making a LP series, I started playing MC with my son on his build world. So now instead of looking to play the hardcore adventure that I was originally going to play, I find myself working hard to make cool stuff to show off to him and my brother on the build server. A sugar farm? Sure why not, a cobblestone generator, yes, a castle that has extensive use of redstone in it, HELL YES!
Up until this past week I have never really played with redstone that much, but now I find myself actually jumping in my strip mine digging for it instead of diamonds. What's more I get really excited to find gold, so that I can make powered rails. Who is this guy?
So it's not like I'm going to go off and build myself a MC RS computer, but my castle is becoming lots of fun. Originally I was just going to make some random castle out in the middle of no where so that I could show it off to my son and my brother, but then things got weird. Instead of torches I thought that I'd use glowstone but I didn't want to make the glowstone super visible, so I tucked it away into the wall so that it gives off indirect light, I think that it looks great. What is the next thing that a castle needs, a moat. So I got to thinking about how I was going to dig the thing out and then looking at the my castle wall with the openings that I used for light, I thought that maybe I could use those openings as flood gates. I had wanted to do something with pistons, but I just couldn't figure out a good enough idea for them, this was that idea.
So tinkering with some regular pistons I set it up so that hidden in the walls were source blocks of water that were blocked by gravel. Originally I was going to put the source block on the piston itself but I was getting strange issues with that so I decided that I wouldn't move the water, just what was in front of it. Using some redstone under the ground and hiding the pistons and water under a set of stairs, a hidden flood gate was created. Now knowing that I could do the flood gate I went around to the rest of the wall and set up flood gates all around the castle wall so that at the flip of a switch my castle was surrounded by a moat, or I could turn it off as so desired. It's pretty damn cool looking, I'll get a picture, or a video up from it.
The only problem that I was having with a working moat was that I needed to get across it. I thought about placing and off switch on the outside, but I'd still need a way to get over the castle wall, hence a drawbridge was needed. The problem with a drawbridge and no sticky pistons was how to make it, but keep it hidden. Sure I could have a drawbridge that would be created with a switch, but the problem was that if you could see the pistons, what is the point, just make a bridge. It was about this time that I thought ok maybe I don't make a bridge that goes over the wall, I just make it go to the wall and I'll place a door in the wall. It wasn't a very good idea because I wanted the entrance to be hidden, but it would work. So digging out under the surface of the moat I placed some pistons with gravel on top of them, just like the flood gates and made it so that when they triggered they would rise up from the water creating a walkway. It worked like a charm, as was so cool looking, but I had a problem with the block closest to the wall, when I triggered it, it wasn't high enough to block the water so it remained under water. Thankfully the solution to that problem also solved my getting into the castle problem as well.
Where the water poured out from the walls, there was a water block a little higher than the rest of the water moat along the wall, I realized that if I placed a gravel block under it, I could use that block with a piston to block off the water when I raised the bridge, thus giving me a dry bridge. The bonus to creating a dry bridge was that the gravel that would block the water opening would be one block below the top wall block when it was raised, thus giving me a makeshift stairway over the castle wall when the bridge was raised. I now had my hidden bridge and my hidden entry into the castle, but what to do about the bridge switch...
For the bridge switch I thought that I'd make a gate house to keep the switch protected for obvious view. Not sure who was going to break in and use it, but I was using my RPG imagination so I just rolled with it. My thought was that if someone came to the castle they shouldn't know how to get into the castle, yes they could cheat and use blocks, but I was in the RPG zone. So for the gatehouse I decided that I needed a secret entrance. My problem with making a secret entrance was not knowing how I was going to do it without sticky pistons, with them it would have been cake, but having to use the basic pistons, that was going to be tricky. What I came up with was a pushing system using 4 pistons, 2 on one side and 2 on the other side with 2 blocks between them. The button triggers activate two of the pistons and move the blocks revealing the opening to the house. Then when I want to close it, the other two pistons move the blocks back into place hiding the entry way. The neat side benefit that I created was a locking mechanism on the inside so that the blocks could not be opened if the lock was set on the inside. Again, nothing a pick axe couldn't take care of, but that's not the point.
So there it is, with some redstone I made a retractable moat, a retractable bridge, and a secret entrance. I'm not sure what I'll make next but I'm thinking of making an hidden underground passageway that when triggered reveals a hidden staircase. Not sure what other fun things I might do, but it's a heck of a lot of fun to play with the redstone and pistons. Eventually I'll get back to adventuring, but for right now I'm trying to make my son's world interesting and exciting for him. Once finished I'll show off my castle to him and I hope that he'll be impressed, he'll either just build blocks to get around it all or he'll want me to build him one. Either way it's a lot of fun, there really is this cool factor in making this stuff, I'm going to need a lot more redstone, who knew?!
Up until this past week I have never really played with redstone that much, but now I find myself actually jumping in my strip mine digging for it instead of diamonds. What's more I get really excited to find gold, so that I can make powered rails. Who is this guy?
So it's not like I'm going to go off and build myself a MC RS computer, but my castle is becoming lots of fun. Originally I was just going to make some random castle out in the middle of no where so that I could show it off to my son and my brother, but then things got weird. Instead of torches I thought that I'd use glowstone but I didn't want to make the glowstone super visible, so I tucked it away into the wall so that it gives off indirect light, I think that it looks great. What is the next thing that a castle needs, a moat. So I got to thinking about how I was going to dig the thing out and then looking at the my castle wall with the openings that I used for light, I thought that maybe I could use those openings as flood gates. I had wanted to do something with pistons, but I just couldn't figure out a good enough idea for them, this was that idea.
So tinkering with some regular pistons I set it up so that hidden in the walls were source blocks of water that were blocked by gravel. Originally I was going to put the source block on the piston itself but I was getting strange issues with that so I decided that I wouldn't move the water, just what was in front of it. Using some redstone under the ground and hiding the pistons and water under a set of stairs, a hidden flood gate was created. Now knowing that I could do the flood gate I went around to the rest of the wall and set up flood gates all around the castle wall so that at the flip of a switch my castle was surrounded by a moat, or I could turn it off as so desired. It's pretty damn cool looking, I'll get a picture, or a video up from it.
The only problem that I was having with a working moat was that I needed to get across it. I thought about placing and off switch on the outside, but I'd still need a way to get over the castle wall, hence a drawbridge was needed. The problem with a drawbridge and no sticky pistons was how to make it, but keep it hidden. Sure I could have a drawbridge that would be created with a switch, but the problem was that if you could see the pistons, what is the point, just make a bridge. It was about this time that I thought ok maybe I don't make a bridge that goes over the wall, I just make it go to the wall and I'll place a door in the wall. It wasn't a very good idea because I wanted the entrance to be hidden, but it would work. So digging out under the surface of the moat I placed some pistons with gravel on top of them, just like the flood gates and made it so that when they triggered they would rise up from the water creating a walkway. It worked like a charm, as was so cool looking, but I had a problem with the block closest to the wall, when I triggered it, it wasn't high enough to block the water so it remained under water. Thankfully the solution to that problem also solved my getting into the castle problem as well.
Where the water poured out from the walls, there was a water block a little higher than the rest of the water moat along the wall, I realized that if I placed a gravel block under it, I could use that block with a piston to block off the water when I raised the bridge, thus giving me a dry bridge. The bonus to creating a dry bridge was that the gravel that would block the water opening would be one block below the top wall block when it was raised, thus giving me a makeshift stairway over the castle wall when the bridge was raised. I now had my hidden bridge and my hidden entry into the castle, but what to do about the bridge switch...
For the bridge switch I thought that I'd make a gate house to keep the switch protected for obvious view. Not sure who was going to break in and use it, but I was using my RPG imagination so I just rolled with it. My thought was that if someone came to the castle they shouldn't know how to get into the castle, yes they could cheat and use blocks, but I was in the RPG zone. So for the gatehouse I decided that I needed a secret entrance. My problem with making a secret entrance was not knowing how I was going to do it without sticky pistons, with them it would have been cake, but having to use the basic pistons, that was going to be tricky. What I came up with was a pushing system using 4 pistons, 2 on one side and 2 on the other side with 2 blocks between them. The button triggers activate two of the pistons and move the blocks revealing the opening to the house. Then when I want to close it, the other two pistons move the blocks back into place hiding the entry way. The neat side benefit that I created was a locking mechanism on the inside so that the blocks could not be opened if the lock was set on the inside. Again, nothing a pick axe couldn't take care of, but that's not the point.
So there it is, with some redstone I made a retractable moat, a retractable bridge, and a secret entrance. I'm not sure what I'll make next but I'm thinking of making an hidden underground passageway that when triggered reveals a hidden staircase. Not sure what other fun things I might do, but it's a heck of a lot of fun to play with the redstone and pistons. Eventually I'll get back to adventuring, but for right now I'm trying to make my son's world interesting and exciting for him. Once finished I'll show off my castle to him and I hope that he'll be impressed, he'll either just build blocks to get around it all or he'll want me to build him one. Either way it's a lot of fun, there really is this cool factor in making this stuff, I'm going to need a lot more redstone, who knew?!
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Computer - finally
It finally arrived last night and just in time too, I needed to use it to remotely land the space shuttle, yes it's that awesome!
So after the prep work of getting all of the needed software and drivers on to it I was able to fire it up and see how it could play Minecraft. Interestingly enough I was only getting about 150+ FPS when playing at far draw distance, I really was expecting more, but I guess that is still pretty darn good. I also loaded up Oblivion so that I could see what it looks like at max settings, but as of yet haven't actually played it.
Getting back to MC, I have the family server up and running. Last night my brother and I messed around with that, just doing some odds and ends to see that it was working. After he got off I decided that I would go strip mining for diamonds so that I could get my portal and obsidian generator going. I was able to get the portal up and I think it looks badass. Little dark in the picture, but that's kind of for effect anyway. Reminded me of a moongate in Ultima.
The only problem with the portal is that on the Nether side it formed right in the middle of a river of lava! I tried to build up a little wall around it so that it could be safe, but instead I turned that river from flowing around the portal to flowing onto the portal. I'll have to go back in there and clean that mess up my next time in, maybe I'll record that...
Speaking of recording I made my first LP test video. It's only 30 seconds long as I was using the trial Fraps just to see if I could do it. Now that I know how to do it, I can get to making my little series this weekend. Hopefully it won't suck, probably will, but I'll try to make it entertaining.
Here is a link to test video if anyone wants to watch the test video, it's not really worth watching though.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Getting excited
So my computer has finally shipped and I'll have it tomorrow evening. Probably won't get to play on it too much since I'll need to get some stuff installed on it, but I'm sure I'll stay up late just to spend time with my new addition.
My goal is to start up a lets play starting next week. I'll start recording episodes and see how they go before posting anything, basically I'll have like 5 in the can before I start posting them so that I can stay ahead of the game a little once I really get rolling. That's also only if I think they are good, well decent, well worth 10 minutes of someones time to watch for some lunch time entertainment. I'm going to play my version of hardcore where I can't die or else I'm forced to portal myself to some random location, I'm debating on using millenarie, I probably should because it adds a nice little distraction, so I think I will. Only problem is if the game is updated and the mod isn't, but I should be safe since 1.8 is supposed to be the next update.
Speaking of 1.8 that is my real goal, once that starts up I'm going to start season 2 of the LP so that I learn it as I play it on the videos, that should make it fresh. No mods once 1.8 is live though.
The other thing that I'll be doing is running the server for my son and my brother. That's just going to be a build server since my son can't handle mobs at this point. I'm thinking what I'll do there is build a little town with stores for all of the resources and a nice railway to go between locations. I'm going to need a goal on that server to keep me busy while I play with my son. Most of my time will probably be spent helping him, but I'll toss in a building or two to keep spurring his interest and creativity. Not sure what my brother will be doing, but hopefully he'll play with us a bit.
Man it seems like I've been waiting forever for this computer to show up and the chance to finally play some real MC again. I'll probably be so rusty that I'll get killed instantly, oh well good times!!!
My goal is to start up a lets play starting next week. I'll start recording episodes and see how they go before posting anything, basically I'll have like 5 in the can before I start posting them so that I can stay ahead of the game a little once I really get rolling. That's also only if I think they are good, well decent, well worth 10 minutes of someones time to watch for some lunch time entertainment. I'm going to play my version of hardcore where I can't die or else I'm forced to portal myself to some random location, I'm debating on using millenarie, I probably should because it adds a nice little distraction, so I think I will. Only problem is if the game is updated and the mod isn't, but I should be safe since 1.8 is supposed to be the next update.
Speaking of 1.8 that is my real goal, once that starts up I'm going to start season 2 of the LP so that I learn it as I play it on the videos, that should make it fresh. No mods once 1.8 is live though.
The other thing that I'll be doing is running the server for my son and my brother. That's just going to be a build server since my son can't handle mobs at this point. I'm thinking what I'll do there is build a little town with stores for all of the resources and a nice railway to go between locations. I'm going to need a goal on that server to keep me busy while I play with my son. Most of my time will probably be spent helping him, but I'll toss in a building or two to keep spurring his interest and creativity. Not sure what my brother will be doing, but hopefully he'll play with us a bit.
Man it seems like I've been waiting forever for this computer to show up and the chance to finally play some real MC again. I'll probably be so rusty that I'll get killed instantly, oh well good times!!!
Monday, July 18, 2011
Fianl Week?
The problem with not having a computer to play MC on is that I don't even have anything good to post on here anymore. Sure it's not like anything I said was interesting before, but it was for myself a distraction from the humdrum of reality. Thankfully I should have my computer by the end of this week, it's built at least so that's a start, now for FedEx to lose it it for me.
It finally came to a breaking point this weekend, I couldn't take it anymore and I ended up firing up a world of MC for myself. After spending a good deal of time working with my son on his world, I just had to mess around with some stuff to see how it worked.
The first thing that I decided to do was work on strip mining, ok now that doesn't sound like any fun, but I wanted to test a couple ways of doing it to see what was the most successful way of doing it. Pretty much it is the 3 block line every 2 lines that I did, served me well, found like 20+ diamonds so I'll call it a hit. But my goal when playing for real is not to strip mine, I was playing on peaceful here since I don't trust the computer not to lag when a Creeper finds me. The highlight of this little project was a 10 diamond vein, that's the largest that I have ever found.
The next thing that I thought that I would try was some work with pistons. I'm thinking that once I get going for real on the LP series that I'm going to need to not look like a total idiot and know a thing or two about using pistons. I have some of the basics down but I was left with one serious problem, I don't have any slime. According to the wiki there is supposed to be slime on peaceful, but in all of that digging that I did in my search for diamonds, I haven't seen a single one. Square little bastards!
My final project for yesterday evening was a failed attempt at an obsidian generator. Ok it was kind of a crappy effort to begin with so it quickly became a cobblestone generator. And it's a kick ass cobblestone generator if I must say so myself. I'm not really sure how everyone else makes them, but mine was so awesome that all I need to do is hold down the mouse button and it automatically breaks it down and collects it with 0 downtime, and completely safe, as long as no cows try to push you into the lava part. The way it works is that I set up a small stream to flow into where the lava flows out, they hit and form the cobblestone. The cool part is that the stream continues under where the cobble is formed so the broken rock then keeps flowing in the stream. The stream takes a 90 degree turn and I stand in it breaking the cobble while it flows right to me to get collected. Then as a final touch I made the generator housing the cobble and the lava out of obsidian so that no matter how long the mouse was chopping there was no way for it to break the obsidian behind it, thus breaking the wall and letting the lava out. Then I covered the lava in glass to give light at night and save on needless obsidian.
I'm sure that everyone has already made a cobble generator at some point, but it was my first and I thought it was cool. The next thing that I'm going to do with it is set up a rail line that will send the cobble to a point some distance away so that I could make a giant stone castle if I desired and not have to carry the stone all the way there. Sure it's not really needed, but it will be fun to make a real use for a rail line. I love rail lines, I just can never think of anything cool and useful to do with them.
It finally came to a breaking point this weekend, I couldn't take it anymore and I ended up firing up a world of MC for myself. After spending a good deal of time working with my son on his world, I just had to mess around with some stuff to see how it worked.
The first thing that I decided to do was work on strip mining, ok now that doesn't sound like any fun, but I wanted to test a couple ways of doing it to see what was the most successful way of doing it. Pretty much it is the 3 block line every 2 lines that I did, served me well, found like 20+ diamonds so I'll call it a hit. But my goal when playing for real is not to strip mine, I was playing on peaceful here since I don't trust the computer not to lag when a Creeper finds me. The highlight of this little project was a 10 diamond vein, that's the largest that I have ever found.
The next thing that I thought that I would try was some work with pistons. I'm thinking that once I get going for real on the LP series that I'm going to need to not look like a total idiot and know a thing or two about using pistons. I have some of the basics down but I was left with one serious problem, I don't have any slime. According to the wiki there is supposed to be slime on peaceful, but in all of that digging that I did in my search for diamonds, I haven't seen a single one. Square little bastards!
My final project for yesterday evening was a failed attempt at an obsidian generator. Ok it was kind of a crappy effort to begin with so it quickly became a cobblestone generator. And it's a kick ass cobblestone generator if I must say so myself. I'm not really sure how everyone else makes them, but mine was so awesome that all I need to do is hold down the mouse button and it automatically breaks it down and collects it with 0 downtime, and completely safe, as long as no cows try to push you into the lava part. The way it works is that I set up a small stream to flow into where the lava flows out, they hit and form the cobblestone. The cool part is that the stream continues under where the cobble is formed so the broken rock then keeps flowing in the stream. The stream takes a 90 degree turn and I stand in it breaking the cobble while it flows right to me to get collected. Then as a final touch I made the generator housing the cobble and the lava out of obsidian so that no matter how long the mouse was chopping there was no way for it to break the obsidian behind it, thus breaking the wall and letting the lava out. Then I covered the lava in glass to give light at night and save on needless obsidian.
I'm sure that everyone has already made a cobble generator at some point, but it was my first and I thought it was cool. The next thing that I'm going to do with it is set up a rail line that will send the cobble to a point some distance away so that I could make a giant stone castle if I desired and not have to carry the stone all the way there. Sure it's not really needed, but it will be fun to make a real use for a rail line. I love rail lines, I just can never think of anything cool and useful to do with them.
Monday, July 11, 2011
Another Week
At some point I'll get to talk about Minecraft again, that is once my computer finally shows up. The company told me that it will be shipped by the end of this week. So I have been without a "real" computer for about a month now, hopefully I'll get a birthday gift and it will ship tomorrow, that would be nice.
In the meantime, my son has been playing Minecraft on the old Alienware and he's gotten pretty good at it. His goal this weekend has to build a huge tower, and with a little help he was able to make one that reached up to the clouds from just above sea level. I gave him a little help with it, but for the most part he was able to do it himself, even the jumping up a single layer of blocks at a time about 50 blocks up without dieing, and he doesn't know about the shift key, that's pretty impressive I think.
Hopefully by next week though my son's world will be abandoned as we fire up the family server. I'm not sure that he really gets what it means when I tell him that he and I along with Uncle Crash will all be able to play together, he replied, "But Uncle **** is on vacation?" Ah youth, but hey he is 4, forgive him for not understanding how the internet really works.
Until next week (hopefully) And I am going to do the Let's Play of my single player exploits, not sure if it will be entertaining, but I think LP's are cool so I have to try and do one myself.
In the meantime, my son has been playing Minecraft on the old Alienware and he's gotten pretty good at it. His goal this weekend has to build a huge tower, and with a little help he was able to make one that reached up to the clouds from just above sea level. I gave him a little help with it, but for the most part he was able to do it himself, even the jumping up a single layer of blocks at a time about 50 blocks up without dieing, and he doesn't know about the shift key, that's pretty impressive I think.
Hopefully by next week though my son's world will be abandoned as we fire up the family server. I'm not sure that he really gets what it means when I tell him that he and I along with Uncle Crash will all be able to play together, he replied, "But Uncle **** is on vacation?" Ah youth, but hey he is 4, forgive him for not understanding how the internet really works.
Until next week (hopefully) And I am going to do the Let's Play of my single player exploits, not sure if it will be entertaining, but I think LP's are cool so I have to try and do one myself.
Friday, July 1, 2011
Still waiting
I'm getting excited, I should have my new computer by next weekend, finally some Minecraft again. Over the last couple of weeks I've been playing Terraria, it's good, but it's just not as good as Minecraft, in my opinion. I think the thing that sets it apart is the first person perspective. In Terraria, you can see the danger coming a mile away, except for those damn worms, or the danger doesn't have as much of an impact. In Minecraft the danger is usually hidden, waiting to jump out at you and kill you when you least expect it. The first person perspective also puts it right there in your face.
That's not to say that Terraria isn't a fun game, it is, and I'm really glad to see that Notch has decided to take some notes from it and implement them in MC, I can't wait to see what the villages and NPC's are like.
Next week I'm going to try and start a Let's Play series, I'll download Fraps and enter the 21st century. I don't know if my videos will be worth a crap, but I've really been wanting to try it so it's finally time. Might as well make the most out of my super computer since I'll have it. One nice thing to look forward to, I'm 36 years old so you won't be hearing some high pitched 13 year old on the mic in mine, that has to be some sort of plus. =) I'll probably just be boring as hell though since I NEVER die in MC. And no I'm not doing some no torch crap, at least not initially, maybe if it goes well, I'll do that in season 2.
That's not to say that Terraria isn't a fun game, it is, and I'm really glad to see that Notch has decided to take some notes from it and implement them in MC, I can't wait to see what the villages and NPC's are like.
Next week I'm going to try and start a Let's Play series, I'll download Fraps and enter the 21st century. I don't know if my videos will be worth a crap, but I've really been wanting to try it so it's finally time. Might as well make the most out of my super computer since I'll have it. One nice thing to look forward to, I'm 36 years old so you won't be hearing some high pitched 13 year old on the mic in mine, that has to be some sort of plus. =) I'll probably just be boring as hell though since I NEVER die in MC. And no I'm not doing some no torch crap, at least not initially, maybe if it goes well, I'll do that in season 2.
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