Minecraft

[Snotty]

I love this game, and it will probably see me through to civ5. the best £8 Ive spent in a long time. Its got a 'just one more block' feel to it when you have a grand plan for a project.

The game has no specific aim or goal - its a sandbox game. some people compare the game to having an enormous box of lego, a box which has an infinite procedurally generated world in it also.

The game has a couple of modes currently, creative and survival. creative has unlimited blocks for building and such. Survival mode has you mining, farming, chopping trees to get your blocks with the aim of surviving the night, which is no easy task. Ive gained a healthy fear of the dark in this game

I play on a survival multiplayer server. I log in every day to find suprising creations others have made. I have been attempting to recreate the 7 ancient wonders of the world, perhaps you can identify them ?







Having played more than my fair share of civ I also made a great library



bearing in mind each of these is made with a variety of '1m³' blocks.

Will be back to post more stuff later. www.minecraft.net

[Al B. Sure!]

What does this have to do with StarCraft?

[DrSpike]

Nothing - that's why the thread is called Minecraft rather than Starcraft.

[Harry Tuttle]

Looks kind of fun, but how exploitable is the game? Can I capture zombies and unleash them upon my enemies?

[Snotty]

The game is written in java, and has a wide variety of community made mods. So I guess technically the game is as exploitable as your ability to code.

There is an intention to create an adventure mode, wherein players can create dungeons for other players to explore. There is already a complex mechanics system, allowing logic gates to control a variety of switchs, doors etc so traps are a very real possibility. I havent dabbled with this system yet

Currently I can only create pig spawners, not the most scary mob. I assume this will change for adventure mode.

When full survival rules are implemented in multiplayer I guess you could destroy all of an opponents torches, and so provide dark areas for monsters to spawn in his base

Heres a few videos i liked, showing a few different aspects of the game

combat and inventory management (does get a bit loud! so watch your max volume)



Simply Epic



Great tune, and a variety of good examples of different buildings

[DaShi]

I'll wait for Worlds of Minecraft. I'm sure the dwarves will dominate it.

[Snotty]

You jest but I would put money on exactly that happening.

Heres a good video of what you need to do to survive the first night in minecraft, showing important information like how to make your first workbench, lights and tools. There are also good text guides to if thats your preference.

[Snotty]

About 110x100. 4 days of building, without /give
Based on Battersea power station

[Snotty]

Minecraft got on the front page of penny arcade, with not one but MORE comics. Thats a huge plug!

http://www.penny-arcade.com/2010/9/17/





Maybe we get monsters today in multiplayer <3 Watch this space, or, you know, notchs update blog

http://notch.tumblr.com/

[DarkCloud]

Thanks for the link especially to X's buildings--the videos are great.

And your factory looks impressive.

[DarkCloud]

If you're registered on his forums, I have an idea if it hasn't been mentioned yet that perhaps could be added to his list-- have they considered adding a "backpack" so people can carry more items in their inventory?

[Snotty]

Minecraft is FREE for at least this weekend - everything, survival mode, multiplayer mode...

Basically the server died under the weight of people trying to update, so now minecraft is legitimately free until it gets fixed

Thanks dark cloud, and thats not a bad idea. most players end up with rooms full of chests to keep their assorted junk in. Even more reason to extend your house

[Snotty]

Minecraft is still free, although the Main site, forum and minecraft wiki are all suffering under more load they can handle right now. A victim of its own success.

The rock paper shotgun 'mine the gap' series sum up the experience in words far better than I ever could http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010...the-gap-day-1/

This is a great trailer someone made

[Harry Tuttle]

I hate you Snotty. I have averaged 4 hours of sleep a day this entire week.

[Ninot]

Is this game a resource hog? And how long did you spend on any of those creations? It looks like a monumental time sink.

[Snotty]

Ive seen minecraft run on 2 computers that can only run old games. Its in java, and while the older and graphiccard less computer had to have the draw distance turned down it still run the game and was playable on it.

This game is indeed a monumental time sink. The lighthouse and temple took about 6 hours to do, the gardens and library around 8 - waiting for trees to grow and interior decorating took up more time

And Harry, Im sorry. I started dreaming in blocks on day 1, i look at buildings and gardens and wonder how i can build them in blocks.

[DaShi]

Been tinkering around in Survival with this. Mostly just playing as a mad man obsessed with a naturally made tower, which is what I'd do if really trapped on an island. I've built a small home within the mountain next to the tower, secured the area around the mountain and tower with a 3 block high wall, and have a series of tunnels to mining areas and my spawn point. Found and neutralized a spider spawn point, but haven't done anything else with it yet. I've recently build a path going up the tower and a waterfall going off of it for easy descent. Now I'm collecting materials to build an island in the sky from the top of the tower.

It seems that when you die, the objects you were holding have a pretty fast decay. I was disappointed to fall off the tower holding about 64 rails only to never find them again.

I find the engineering aspects of the game to be pretty interesting. Such how to most easily collect massive amounts of stone and transporting them up the tower. I'm considering building a massive crater next to my base. It should use less torches overall than tunneling and be a lot safer since I can open any caves to daylight.

Anyway, the game reminded me of this:

[DarkCloud]

>>It seems that when you die, the objects you were holding have a pretty fast decay. I was disappointed to fall off the tower holding about 64 rails only to never find them again.

I think it depends on the objects. If you have glass on you, it tends to smash when you die. It is also possible (I did not yet test) that falling causes you to lose more things than just being blown up by a creeper, for example.


Just FYI, A 3 high wall is not necessary. All you need is a fence which counts as 1 1/2; or to be extra safe, you may need a 2 high wall. (I've accidentally knocked pigs over the fence before.

Re: Your crater. Don't forget to cover it over with a glass ceiling, so you don't accidentally fall in !

[DaShi]

I made it 3 high because it's still possible to jump on a 2 high from a nearby one high ledge. And skeletons can jump to shoot you over 2 high walls. The crater is planned as an incline toward the center. It will be a huge scar on the earth. >

[Ninot]

Thanks a lot guys. I've lost so much time on this game this week. I got a different game going at home and at work.

[Ninot]

I have a question however: do you guys know if theres a way to know if there will be a lot of one resource in an area? I'm having a real tough time finding iron to build my railway with.

[DaShi]

I've found that the resources are pretty well distributed. You can dig anywhere and find what you need, except for maybe gold and diamond.

I haven't been playing much lately, but my last project involved that giant crater I was working on. I've walled in and leveled out a huge span of land that I plan to turn into a giant hole. Currently, it is covered in torches so I can work on it at night. I expect it to yield all the materials I will need for construction.

[Ninot]

Right now im building a giant tower to look out over my property, but I keep falling off the damn thing and dieing. I'm too stuborn to build any kind of scaffolding, so I'm trying to hang by a pixel and build from the outside.

[DaShi]

I found a natural tower and built some scaffolding around it to I can go up quickly. It doesn't take too long and is really convenient. Make it with steps so you don't have to jump all the time. For going down, I have a waterfall on one side. I also tunneled all the way beneath my tower and found some iron, red stone, and a zombie spawner.

[Snotty]

There has recenlt been a 'crouch' function introduced to stop falling off when trying to build blocks horizontally when on toip of the block. Hold down shift (right or left Im not sure) and you can walk over the edge of a block , and therefore easily place another block below you.

[DaShi]

Be careful though, if you walk to the edge of a block and release shift, you will fall off the block

[Snotty]

Theres a couple of little odd bugs with crouching, if you place a block below you that is affected by gravity (ie sand) then if it falls it will make you fall too

[onodera]

I couldn't get into Minecraft for several weeks, until today. When I found a floating island next to a tall natural cliff, I had to get up there. When I got there with some cobblestone, I knew I had to build a house there. And as soon as it was built, I knew I had a home. That was the turning point. Now it has a nice front garden, and I want to build a star-gazing gazebo in the back. Have you ever noticed how beautiful are the square stars of Minecraft, slowly drifting across the sky?

[Harry Tuttle]

I bought the game on Monday, an early birthday gift to myself. I've been playing the free version that was offered. I've recently been working on a fairly large cavern that to my surprise was connected to a huge cave system complete with lava and water.

Weird thing that happened when I spawned - I spawned in a closed, dark cave. I had no idea how to get out until I blocked my spawn point with sand and suffocated myself. I was then able to pop out on top of the hill directly above the cave.

[DRoseDARs]

I've been playing this since August when Rock, Paper, Shotgun had a 1 year followup article on it. It's like digital crack; I haven't had "One More Turn" syndrome this bad since Civ 1.