Sails, fails, and tall tales

Ok, so if there is any testament to how addicting Minecraft is, it is this: I haven't posted another blog about it since I started on the new server a week or so ago. Yes, it's that good.

Back to the action, I completed my tree fort ship. That is, I added one last little touch:

It now has a sail! I thought it turned out pretty good. Once I finished the fort, I turned my eyes back to the desert. I had been working on filling in the big lake with sand, and I've made a dent in it, though there was still a lot left to finish. I also found my favorite technique to use to fill in the lake. While simply dropping the sand in next to adjacent walls and letting it sink, it was a slow and boring process. I found that I enjoy swimming into the water and seeing how many I could place before running out of air. It certainly made it more fun.

There was something else in the area that was bothering me. The surrounding terrain was variable, with different types of materials. For my project, I need a flat, plain desert to work with. So what did I use to help flatten the area?

TNT, of course!

For example, compare the two photos below, as a before and after shot:

The right side of the pictures certainly looks better after some TNT work.

The next time I played, I thought to myself "Boy, I wish people could get here easier to see my stuff once I get it built." So then I learned how to build a teleporter. While teleporters are not a part of the normal, single player experience, they can be used with an add-on called RuneCraft. I had used them once before on another friend's server, and they were pretty easy to use.

So I created my own. Here is the entry to my teleporter from the spawn point:

And here's the teleporter itself:

All I had to do was right-click in the center of the giant pound sign, and viola, I arrived at my house within a matter of seconds:

It was an easy thing to build, once I figured it out. And yes, it was just as easy to get back and it was to get there.

And all was good... for a while.

About a week ago, version 1.2 came out, with some major additions to the game. Now, my friend, the one who owns the server, was unaware that the update would be automatically applied. So, our server did go down for a little while.

So what does someone who plays Minecraft do when their server goes down? They play single player. And when I did, I discovered something.

The newest update did something that was definitely apparent when I walked near a light source. When I did, this is what I would see:

Animals everywhere! This picture is inside my castle in single player. There are 3 sheep in the room, and a suicidal pig in the window. While the ones in my castle weren't that annoying (including the little chicken hiding under my stairs), the ones who ended up on my minecart path were:

A black sheep ended up on my path, preventing me from getting to the castle without getting it off the course.

Thankfully, Notch, the creator of Minecraft, was quick to release an update that fixed this, among other things.

Once the server came back up, I was hard at work at filling in the lake in the desert. After a hard few hours of work, I had it down to this:

This last little bit didn't take more than 30 minutes to finish, so I was really happy to have it done.

Unfortunately, I also noticed that my teleporters weren't all that reliable. The receiver kept breaking on them. I rebuilt them at least 3 different times, and I kept breaking them. So, as of now, I have ditched the teleporter system, and built my own mine cart system. I just finished working on it, and it works great.

Alright, on to the coolest thing I've built so far in Minecraft. I'll just show you the picture. If you don't recognize it, then you can stop reading this blog now :)

It's a me, Mario! And yes, if any of you who read this have played as much, if not more, multiplayer Minecraft than I have, you know you've seen this before. I'm not the first to build one. However, I felt it was justified, considering that I built it out of new materials that were just released with the 1.2 Beta update: colored wool.

That's about it so far, in a nutshell. I hope to blog a little more about this, we'll see how it goes!

New Server, Day 1

Well, where to start... My name is Linkstheman. I've been playing Minecraft since it was in Alpha, mostly single player. And now that I've been playing for a few months now, and have started playing on a friend's private server, I feel that I should blog the things that I've come across and created.

For those who haven't heard of Minecraft, here's my one line summary of what the game is:

Open ended awesomeness crammed into a world full of cubes.



Ok, let me try it again:

Build it, destroy it, craft it, cook it, kill it, ride it, live it.

Something like that. I guess it's like Lego meets Animal Crossing meets Second Life. It's alot of fun, especially because it's still in development. I definitely recommend it. And it doesn't cost very much to play. Go to www.minecraft.net to check it out.

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Ok, on to the game! The first day on the new server was awesome. As soon as I popped in, I noticed an odd terrain. I looked to my left and right, and saw large sections of sand and dirt missing. The owner and his wife had been playing on it for quite a while before taking it online, so they had done quite a bit of excavating and building. And boy, their house is amazing. It is built into the side of a lake. As far as I could tell, they used quite a bit of TNT to clear out the area. In doing so they created these large waterfalls that just poured right in front of their open faced house. While standing in their house, you could not ignore the constant, soothing sounds of the waterfalls.

They also have a couple of encased, triangular springs of water and lava on their property. Quite a sight!

After exploring the owner's house, I decided I better find my little lot of land to call my own. I then decided to travel east, passing through a mountain and over a frozen lake. I arrived at a small section of forest on a small island. I originally didn't think much of it. Mostly because I had been searching for a specific biome: a desert.

Why a desert, you might ask. Well, ever since watching the Youtube video "In Search of Diamonds" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIhs8_m5qPc&playnext=1&list=PLEC4B95829A46AB5D&index=32
, I got some inspiration to build some neat structures. The first one I wanted to build (hints to come) required a large desert area. And, by some luck of fate, right across from the tree covered island I just found was desert area. I decided this area should be my home.

So, I started to scout the desert I had just found. Now, keep in mind that I need this desert to be mostly flat. I then came across this:

A large lake, or oasis I guess. I need to fill this lake and get rid of it. While I could place some cobblestone just below the water line, and then stack sand on top of it, I don't know if this would get rid of it or not. I also needed an area to dig down pretty deep too. And in this game, I didn't want to run into water while digging, it's quite annoying.

But I put my best shovel forward, and started to gather sand from the hill to the right of the lake. I was able to fill in a good part of it.

It was at least a good 1/4 of the lake. But there's still plenty to do.

By this time it was getting late at night. It then hit me that I hadn't actually made a house for myself. I thought about building it in the desert, but I didn't feel like living like a hermit. So I turned back the way I came and hopped across to the tree covered island. I looked up and found a large tree that would be a perfect tree for a fort. So, I made my first house: a tree fort.

At least, I thought it was a tree fort. By the time I had build the fort up, I decided that I wanted a small platform on the front to oversee my terraform project in the desert. So I built one. I then went down the ladder, turned around and looked at the fort. It actually looked more like a boat. So I said "eh, I'll give it a try". So, I went back into the treefort and added and mast. This is what it then looked like:

So, it is no longer a tree fort, it is a boat. I live in a boat. Here are a couple more photos I took of it:

And here's the view of the desert from the boat:

I've got a lot of work ahead of me, but at least I have my own area to work in, play in, and live in, in the world of Minecraft.