Minecraft

[Lord J]

So I saw that Minecraft was mentioned in the free and open source games, but wasn't actually added to the list (rightfully so, given that more interesting part costs 9.99 Euros). I started by watching the various youtube videos, then trying the Classic part, but finally, I could take no more, and bought the alpha.

That's right, not only is there a web based game is good enough for me to purchase, but it's still in its alpha development phase!

Anyway, I'm a little worried about my sleep patterns now, and the idea of actually getting anything done this week.

Similar stories? Anyone else buy the alpha yet?

[Dragoon Knight]

[colour=#005FFF]Oh my yes. Bought it within a few minutes of seeing the videos on YouTube. Been trying to convince others just what a great game it is, but a lot of the videos don't do it justice. Annoyingly, the one that hooked me seems to have disappeared from YouTube entirely. Blast, damnation, etc.

But yes, I've been a proud owner of the Alpha for quite a while. Since I'm also a member of the Something Awful forums, I've been checking out their servers. Some of the stuff they build... they're even developing tools to better view your map as a whole (since the go-to program right now - Cartographer - is pretty poor). I've only really played in one world, but I was lucky enough to build my mountain fortress above a huge natural cave system. Found diamonds within a few hours of exploring, very little digging required. Seam of 8, was really chuffed. Accidentally created obsidian soon after, was most impressed.

I tell you, this game is awesome. It's also quite possibly the scariest game I've ever played. At night, when you hear the xylophone-esque skeleton sound (or even worse, just the twang of its bow) in the darkness... gah! Especially when you're down in the bowels of the earth.

Scariest by far, however, are the bloody Creepers. Ssssssssssssss...[/colour]

[Lord J]

F'ing creepers. Yeah, it was funny, when I started playing it I was sitting beside my wife, and any noise caused me to jump, just a little. I've gotten a little braver now, though. I'm still learning the basics of the game. One problem I have had has been that as the game progresses my screen rate plummets. I started a new game where rendering is much lower, and that seems to be helping so far, but I found myself having to stop and save/reload every 5 mins or so in my old game. I'm going to see if there is anything I can do about that.

The game itself seems to be selling like hot cakes; I wonder how much money the developer has made so far, and again it's still in flipping Alpha!

[Acriku]

Actually Slashdot came out with an article of some controversy concerning the developer of the Minecraft game, Notch alias, that PayPal is withholding upwards of 600k pounds of his from customers buying the game. Might have to try this game out, it seems pretty innovative!

[Calthazar]

Read about it on Rock Paper Shotgun and now I've been playing it addictively, so many hours of sleep missed.. I havent bought it yet but I definitely will pretty soon. I cant wait to try survival mode. Maybe we could set up a Fed2k server :]

Its almost 7 in the morning here and I haven't slept thats how good it is.. and this is the 2nd night like this.

Edited September 12, 2010 by Calthazar

[Lord J]

You haven't bought it yet?!

Dude, the survival mode is what it's all about. The free-form building is fun and all, but you're missing out on creepers, fire, the whole economic system....

A Fed2k server could be fun, depending on what we decided to do.

[Lord J]

Reading this and remembering why I started playing minecraft to begin with. I really should make a compass.

[Dragoon Knight]

[colour=#005FFF]For anyone who's interested, there are an assortment of texture packs out there that make Minecraft prettier, without sacrificing the lo-fi charm of the graphics. The best one that I've found (and the favourite of many of the Something Awful chaps) is the Painterly Pack, which can be found here. There's a readme included with the download, and you can even customise your pack to your liking.

The only disadvantage would be needing to keep it up to date, should Notch change the game drastically and some of the textures go wonky. But the creator is very good at his work, with updates to the pack occurring more or less bi-weekly.

EDIT: Heh, just saw that the Painterly Pack was mentioned on Day 3 of the article Lord J posted. :)[/colour]

[Lord J]

Yeah, I've noticed several of the texture packs. I'm torn between wanting to see some new graphics and an urge to remain "purist".

[Andrew]

http://www.minecraft.net/boo/

Halloween edition?

[Lord J]

Seriously? I bet the people on the minecraft forums are wetting themselves in anticipation.

Though expiring torches annoys me a little.... Still though, it's fairly realistic. A working watch will be pretty cool!

[Andrew]

A working watch will be pretty cool!

probably so people know what time it is and to quit the game. Like some other games have time showing on screen at all times. Of course this watch is to know when day/night switches and how long before it occurs.

[Lord J]

Just finished working on my fabulous 300-meter intercontinental subway system. It's my most awesome construction yet.

In related news, I saw a skeleton riding a spider for the first time a week ago. I kind of doubted their existence, but now I've seen with my own eyes.

...the horror....

[Lord J]

Probably the best series of minecraft videos ever: The Yogscast in Minecraft. It starts with Will Riker and a dwarf trying to survive the night in a multiplayer server, but then things start to get moved around, someone sets a trap for them at the backdoor of their cave, and well... I don't want to give it away. Part of me wants to find and start playing on an rp server, but I just know that it wouldn't be nearly as fun... :(

So now I'm still doing the survival single player and trying to find enough black sheep or squids to build a gigantic black tower under a portal from the nether that just appeared in the middle of the air.

[Calthazar]

I've been watching that too! They are pretty funny though at times I get annoyed at their characters. I also had the same thought though, I briefly explored a MP server and the things that are built as teams are the envy of my SP games, I've never managed to build anything monumental on my own but then again I remake my worlds all the time to explore new environments.

I have yet to see the skeleton riding a spider unfortunately. Did a portal appear in your world?? I had to make mine!

Alright following up on my post back in September, I've made a Server for SMP if anyone would like to join send me a PM

Edited February 7, 2011 by Calthazar

[Lord J]

Yeah sometimes they aren't very bright, they haven't got a clue about how to hit and dodge, and using the water in one of the more recent epis was pretty silly considering that they could've used gravel. But it's a load of fun.

No, I opened it from the nether, it just came out on the top of the world instead of on a mountain or something. It's over a big lake, so my tower should be impressive if I can amass the seven stacks of black wool I need for it.

The only real reason I managed to see a skele on a spider is that I was fairly high up looking down on a plain with probably around 20-30 mobs. I tried to save the file, but unfortunately it doesn't save mobs where they are.

[Lord J]

I'm experimenting with mods and textures (yes, I finally decided to install a texture) lately. It's been pretty fun, though I'm a little disappointed with some of the textures, they just don't look nearly as good as you would hope, but I've settled on jolicraft for now. I've tried the planetoids mapper, and I really liked it, so now I'm trying this. I could imagine a Fed2k server based around this (perhaps with a few modifications). I'll let you know what I think after tonight.

EDIT: First impressions on a tiny map; it's beautiful! Thank goodness I managed to find an oasis fairly early on, so I'm going to survive the first night at least. Across from my spawn were some ruins, so that will be a fun place to explore once I'm suited up. I wonder what it looks like under the stone level....

[Andrew]

Minecraft Ghibli World

They took a bunch of Ghibli films and recreate them in minecraft.

Those films rock :P

[X3M]

I like to kill mobs with just dropping sand on them :D

Especially the creeps.

[Lord J]

Minecraft IRL

This guy is crazy and awesome. And my minecraft hero. The awesomeness starts at about 1/2 through, though I would suggest seeing the original episode of American Pickers: Mole Man, as Ron discusses how the mine started.

[X3M]

I build my very first automated MOB killing factory. First floor is done, I am planning on adding at least 4 more floors. 5 total. But maybe 3 is optimal.

[Lord J]

So, I haven't been playing minecraft for a little while, primarily for two main reasons:

1. I've become hopelessly obsessed with Dwarf Fortress.

2. The framerate issues became too much to bear. I would start with a fairly decent framerate that would drop to something like 4fps in ten minutes or so. Even little modifications to the video settings only brought it up for a little while, and storms crippled it.

For 1, I'm still fairly addicted to DF, though I'm taking a little break because I've seemingly solved #2. I know, I know, I should have downloaded optifine a long time ago, but the adf.ly thing confused the crap out of me. So I basically just figured out how it works and installed it, and, holy crap. I'm loving minecraft again. Also, I'm using the yogbox mod package, so that makes things very interesting.

[Dragoon Knight]

[colour=#005FFF]I'm glad that you can return to doing what's important - diggy diggy hole. :D[/colour]

[X3M]

How it got boring:

Mob factory has a total of 3 levels.

Kinda had over 1000 TNT within 2 days. Gathering sand was the hard part.

Started to create a crater which goes straight down, and expanding this crater. Planning on a big box of notching. And in the middle a floating castle. Very boring project if you ask me. I quieted after creating about 64x64x16. Planned on 64x64x64.

I am finding diamond way to fast now. But the method creates a mess.

Got my achievements 3 times in a row, easy to reset them, just let the computer crash, not just the game.

Even on hard the mobs are useless now, because I have way to much arrows. About 5k in those 2 days.

No real use for the bones, except, creating a jungle. And of course letting it all on fire again.

What to do with the feathers? I already got plenty of arrows.

Created a minefield, watching from behind glasses. After a while, you don't want to clean up.

Started on suicide on purpose. Walked a long way from home as well. About 30.000 meters. I guess, only close to home, has some interesting mountains.

Used bones to get about 30 dogs, but of course critters stopped spawning. Walked away from home for more dogs, still no critters? Might be my version, O well.

The lighting effects of glow stone is worse then torches, that's a downer after the work. I guess my ballroom is not lit very well.

Creating a library was rather much work, but the results, are again a downer.

So yeah, the fun has dropped to such a low amount that the fun is; gone. Nullified. Terminated. Awaiting v1.8.

O well, I started SC2 again. That bored me after only 2 days this time. Is it just me, or is the AI really dumb these days?

O well, my board game is reaching a new prototype completion soon. But my cousin doesn't want to design his own army. He is still busy with...

Minecraft...

If there was just an item, more use full then TNT, or a more power full TNT. Then I would like to play again. In v1.8 perhaps?

Then I reminded myself, I could burn sheep, cows, pigs and chickens :).

[Lord J]

So... this might sound complainy: it's not, exactly, really it's mostly an observation.

With 1.8 the game has gotten ridiculously easy. I used to wander around caverns shaking in my proverbial iron greaves. Now I've got iron running out of my ears, I have a (growing) base in a ravine, and I haven't died yet. I just experienced three creeper explosions, but because I've got a little wheat farm going, I'm fine. I regularly go out hunting (for mobs and more iron), and I'm probably going to need to replace my plate armor sometime soon, but that won't be a problem because I have something like 20 iron blocks to work with.

Given this huge change, I think I'm going to start focusing on construction more than survival. I have done primarily survival up until this point (interestingly, I'm not as huge of a fan of building an epic glass house as some), but I'm amassing great piles o iron and not as much cobble (due to ravines and natural cave systems). I'm really looking forward to the rest of the adventure update, particularly npcs (I haven't found an npc village yet in the map that I just started) and a use for experience.