Minecraft!

[Sousa]

The Minecraft Wiki! It's a great place to start. There's really no point to it other than to goof around; you've got to set your own goals.

For example, I accidentally deleted the world I just showed you guys ( ), so I've set about exploring the new one that was just generated. Lo and behold, ten feet from the place I've decided to make my home base, I find a big overhanging cove. I am in the process of filling it with a pirate ship.

EDIT:

FUCKING GODDAMN CREEPERS BLEW UP MY PIRATE SHIP.

EDIT #2:

Avast & such.

[KevinStorm]

I was playing a few days ago, and I completely lost my house so I killed myself because I knew I could find it from my spawn point. So frustrating.

[Sousa]

Always helps to leave yourself a trail of breadcrumbs. Or set up something that you can see from a distance--a tower with a torch on it or something along those lines. My current house (it's now a house and looks way more pimp than it does in that picture) is pretty easy to find at this point simply because it's the only part of the world where there are virtually zero trees--I'm cutting them down as quickly as I'm replanting them. From the spawn point, though (which is on a tiny desert island--basically, I live in a little archipelago), I can clearly see the prow of my ship. Easy to get home.

[Mountainous Cleavage]

So I was playing the free multiplayer online a little while ago, and came across some guys that literally had the full out Titanic built. The thing was gigantic and, honestly, looked fucking amazing.

[Sousa]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWPk5zlKAEM

Check those out. People are building some amazing stuff in this game.

[Mountainous Cleavage]

The earth is jawdropping. I'd never be able to waste THAT much time, but it is a crazy outcome.

[KevinStorm]

Always helps to leave yourself a trail of breadcrumbs. Or set up something that you can see from a distance--a tower with a torch on it or something along those lines. My current house (it's now a house and looks way more pimp than it does in that picture) is pretty easy to find at this point simply because it's the only part of the world where there are virtually zero trees--I'm cutting them down as quickly as I'm replanting them. From the spawn point, though (which is on a tiny desert island--basically, I live in a little archipelago), I can clearly see the prow of my ship. Easy to get home.

How do I replant trees? I'm running out because I've been building a lot of shit with wood.

[JasonM]

Always helps to leave yourself a trail of breadcrumbs. Or set up something that you can see from a distance--a tower with a torch on it or something along those lines. My current house (it's now a house and looks way more pimp than it does in that picture) is pretty easy to find at this point simply because it's the only part of the world where there are virtually zero trees--I'm cutting them down as quickly as I'm replanting them. From the spawn point, though (which is on a tiny desert island--basically, I live in a little archipelago), I can clearly see the prow of my ship. Easy to get home.

How do I replant trees? I'm running out because I've been building a lot of shit with wood.

chop leaves and it is supposed to drop saplings.

If you plant a ''farm'' in the next figure it will produce loads of wood.

T - - T

- - - -

- - - -

T - - T

As long as there are 2 spaces distancing it from the other sapling, you are OK.

They will grow quite quickly 1-3 days till mature. And then you can chop them down and repeat the progress.

[Sousa]

Yeah, once you've got rid of all of the wood, get into the habit of knocking down the leaves--it doesn't take too long, even without a tool, and you can usually get 2-3 saplings per tree. It's a great rate of return and makes it really easy to replant. Just plant any tree you cut down, and so long as you have enough dirt to fill in holes left by exploding creepers (you will!), then you'll basically have an endless supply of wood. This is also why you should use wood in your furnaces instead of coal--you never have to actually look for wood.

[Mountainous Cleavage]

EDIT: Removed message. Move along, nothing to see here.

Edited October 14, 2010 by Closed and Moved to Archives

[Sousa]

...dude, it's like thirteen dollars.

[Mountainous Cleavage]

...dude, it's like thirteen dollars.

I know, i know, I'm cheaper than free water (N)

Edited October 14, 2010 by Closed and Moved to Archives

[Rocky]

Me and my son have just watched the first 5 X-videos... I'm hooked

Not sure if I'd be able to transfer the addiction into playing though. My son has even caught on...

"Daddy, I can hear monsters... That means it's night-time"

I'll keep watching for now, and decide whether or not I'll get later. Not too expensive at all for what it is.

Even in Australia it'll be about $13-$14 on the current exchange.

[Mountainous Cleavage]

Fucking creepers wrecked my first hideout. Walked out my front door to kill a spider that was climbing around, and got jumped on by another spider, followed up by two skeletons and a creeper. A few deaths later, I've lost a good portion of my belongings, including my hideout. I gathered all I could and packed up what chests were left, and now I've camped myself into a tiny cave to wait out the night before I go and build myself a brand new hideout, this time in the middle of the fucking water.

[Sousa]

The water fucks on your map?

I've got a rather nice-looking little greenhouse on the roof of my base now--I'll probably have to adjust the stairs later to make them look nicer, but they're made out of cobblestone, and I have plenty of that to spare. I'm really loving the layout of this new world, although my base of operations is right near the ocean, meaning that it's pretty easy to accidentally dig a bit too far and find a room flooded. There's a great network of caves literally right at my front doorstep, and they're well-stocked with iron, which I'm using mostly to make minecart tracks for my next big project. I've also stolen a lava spring and 88 megafucktons of coal from there.

Last night also marked another milestone: my first dungeon! It spawned zombies and had two chests inside; I got my first bit of redstone, some iron ingots, and a shit-ton of saddles. Dungeons are, I believe, the only source of saddles in the game; they let you ride pigs, which isn't really that interesting aside from holy shit you're riding a pig. They're also the only source of mossy cobblestone in the game, which is nice--got about 50 blocks of it. The monster spawner cage whatsit is still there; I plan to put some water under it and turn it into a factory for harvesting feathers.

[Rocky]

I'll probably buy the game tonight after work...

I watched the entire X Adventure: Green Series and a couple in onf the Blue Series..

I'm addicted just by watching movies. Even my son's addicted..

"Daddy I saw the red-stone, you can make doors open with it."

[Rocky]

I have a problem with random Zombies appearing within my compound. yet I can not, for the life of me, find where they are coming from..

And after digging for about 150 tiles spaces west from a pint that was about 30 spaces down from the surface.

I still haven't come across a damn thing. Sure I got coal and Iron but I already had plenty of that.

I started and alternate world where I'm playing like a homeless guy.

I just spend my time running around looking for caves with nothing but a few picks and a sword.

If there looks to be a few creatures around I spend the night on a single stack of dirt several blocks above them all

Can you stand on trees?

[Sousa]

Is your base well-lit in all corners? It's entirely possible they're spawning out of one little part just out of sight. Alternatively, are you digging underground in your base? They might be coming up from there.

You CAN stand on trees, and that's actually one of the better ways to collect high-up branches when a tree grows too tall. The leaf tiles tend to disappear when there's very little surrounding them, though, so be careful.

Stately Sousa Manor in the new world is coming along nicely. Compare it to the previous nighttime shot of my pirate ship, where you can see it in the lower right corner. Here's what it looks like--from the other side--right now:

I've been cutting out of that hillside gradually--my goal is to eventually level off the entire island and replace it with a sprawling, multi-purpose island estate. So far? It's basically two connected structures and a ship.

This is the main structure--my house, if you will. Workbenches, chests, furnaces, and bucketloads of goodies are inside. Those two tall gray stone structures on either side are chimneys--I've set up two fireplaces inside.

Here's the fireplace! The room to the left leads to the tower and some lava I've collected. That thing on the far right is a staircase. There are two of them in the middle of the room, which I don't particularly like because they take up so much floor space, but I was trying to play around with them and see how I liked them. I'll probably replace them with either one more efficient spiral staircase or a ladder.

Here's the other entrance. The two water pits are perpetually refilling springs, which is pretty easy to get set up: simply fill two buckets with water and dump them on either end of a 3x1 pit in the ground. They'll automatically fill in the middle. From there, any time you scoop out the water in the middle square, the spring will refill itself. Very handy and basically an infinite source of water.

The next room over features this lava incinerator for getting rid of unwanted blocks--I'm pretty sure the fireplace does the same thing, but I wanted a lava pit as well. Once I can get another bucket, I plan to set up an infinite lava spring much as I did with the water, at which point I'll start doing awesome shit with it.

You could see this in the first shot--it's on the roof of my house. This greenhouse is designed for growing crops. I haven't started yet, but I plan to once I start digging deeper underground. I just think it looks pretty neat.

Here it is from the top of the tower!

There's the ship from the top of the tower. Now that I've cut out the secret cove (I'm going to turn it into a dock instead, since the cove--as neat as it was--was really too small for a good-looking ship), I've noticed that the back of the ship looks really flat. That's probably going to be my next project.

The real purpose of the tower--beyond being just a big awesome tower--is to give me something to do when I'm holing up at night. The shot is dark, but you should be able to see the beasties roaming around. I pick them off with my bow and collect the spoils the next morning. Good times.

[Sousa]

Double-post, yeah, but I thought you guys might like this. I've been putting off gradingworking diligently on two things I've wanted to try in Minecraft for a while: a glass bubble underwater and a minecart track, considering the one I made in the other world went belly-up due to lack of iron. This time I've got iron out the wazoo. So I combined the two projects.

Behold the bubble! It looks cool at night from the outside, so I took a shot. Notice the glass path going down and the giant tower on top of it; that's how you get in and out.

Inside the bubble isn't very interesting right now; I just wanted to see if it could be done. I'll likely use it as a secondary place for storage; I've been using the ship for that, but the ship's not as easily accessible and is dangerous to travel to at night. The underwater bubble can be reached from my base fairly easily; the connecting track is at the top of the tower.

Here's what the whole system looks like in action. The one on the right is the tower I showed you guys in the last post, while the tower on the left is new--taller, but narrower, and far enough up that it's more difficult to snipe monsters. Those wooden paths between them are minecart tracks.

To get to the bubble, you start at the top of the tower attached to stately Sousa Manor. The minecart goes pretty quickly; I had a blast building this thing. Notice the glass as the track gets close to water level; that keeps the monsters off.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Once the minecart drops you off and you do your underwater whatever, it's time to pack up the minecart and climb the second tower, which I have uncreatively dubbed Skyway Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. Here's what the bubble looks like from the top of the tower--it's still visible thanks to the torches and looks kind of neat.

The tracks here connect right back to the manor tower--in short, you leave exactly where you come in. That's why this second tower is so tall: to give the minecart the necessary momentum to carry it back to this already high starting point.

And here's the new tower from the first one.

Making an underwater bubble takes some time--you basically have to fill in the breathable area with dirt, surround it with glass, and then dig up the dirt--doing so creates breathable air pockets. Wood and cloth also work and can be burned away with flint and steel easily, provided you have the materials to spare. Time-consuming, but I think it's worth it.

[Rocky]

I had a very similar idea to your bubble.

Except I was just going to connect my "estate" to a random Island off the coast

and have the tunnel have clear glass ceilings...

I'm guessing all this underwater work would pay off if/when they add fish into the game.

Here's my newest estate with a heavily cordoned off back entrance.

I have a little garden about to be started... All I need now is something to grow.

Have a little bridge going out of the garden area. had a lamb stuck under there. Gone now

Going through the door there are 2 small storerooms (one on either side) then a flight of stairs into the main chamber

A very empty main chamber. I have a Mine Shaft on each side just past the visible windows. and I will look to do a couple more just in behind me at some point.

Each chamber is roughly beneath the gardens in the previous pic and I will continue in this direction to get my water tunnel started.

I haven't ventured too far on the left side but went down about 5 layers on the right and ended up around the corner from a Zombie Mob Spawner.

I got 4 torches to each corner before I got stealth attacked by a creeper, who also destroyed my torches.

Haven't gotten around to heading back there yet as I am doing this

The area is abundant with Coal and I haven't had too much trouble finding Iron, I still have a couple of Iron pockets to clean out actually, and a Coal one near the Dungeon.

Might continue in the morning before work.

Edited October 17, 2010 by Rocky Feller