Link's Adventures in Minecraft: 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: