On Saturday morning I bought and installed Minecraft, mainly to see what all the fuss was about.
I finished about 11pm...seriously dangerous game (and apparently there is another update up yesterday). The basic premise is that you are in a fully exploitable world formed of blocks, and initially need to build a shelter at night, to keep the nocturnal creatures away. You start with nothing, and you'll probably need a little bit of background reading to find your feet. I quickly attacked some trees, fashioned a workbench, and then a wooden pickaxe, before hacking out a small cave to live in, and a door to keep the beasts out... After that you'll start hunting some of the various ores, and before you know it you have a 4-storey castle (complete with crenellations, and in my case a glass-bottomed balcony, to allow me to check the door from safety), with a fully functioning mine complex in the basement. You'll start channelling rivers into your domain, and stream lava from nearby mountains.
I sort of forgot there were zombies outside for a few hours, and went about lighting my main storage areas with glass lava-filled pipes. I'm now on a hunt for volumes of iron, as I want to build a mine cart track between my main digging pit and the enormous tower I'm building with the residue. The zombies turn from a threat into a resource, as they drop various items that are of use (string, feathers, meat, and one particuarly nasty breed drops gunpowder).
So yeah, playing it is bad for you...it'll be worse once the developer (a single guy) gets multiplayer working properly, then a bunch of people could attack a world, and probably hollow it out. I did have an attempt at setting up a server, however the PC kept dying once someone connected for too long (might be the PC, it's the one I picked up off Fish, but with an old install of XP from ages ago...)
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I was going to buy it and then realised I have too much on as it is. I really want to play it though. I might buy it in support of the developer.
Setting up a server must be doable, we have the technology after all!
With Hamachi it's disturbingly easy...you connect via IP address once thats done. I had it running (and you may have spotted "Pete's Minecraft Server" on the lack-of group). It was more the relaibility of the hardware that was the issue for me, but I reckon that can be solved with a reinstall...
I did notice your server, I also discovered I can access your shared folders over hamachi too.
No idea whats on there...would guess at old DIVX stuff, probably pinched from a Fishcon? As I said, it needs a re-install...
Ah minecraft it's like a gaping pit of a time sink one minute you are just having a quick go to try it out the next you have spent over a week contructing a skull castle floating in the sky or an undersea fortress made of glass or in my case both plus a rollercoaster mine cart track to take you to each location.
Not tried out the new update with the new portal tech and annoyingly torches that go out but had a great time with the previous version.
Took my first steps into The Nether last night it makes for a fun new addition plus some new blocks to play with. Eternally burning hellstone is pretty cool makes for fun if rather dangerous torches.
Made another portal a short walk away and came out underground in an extensive cave system that was full of good stuff like coal and iron.
Found my railway system that I built to move quickly to my various bases also occationally collects animals that wander onto the track. Had a pig a sheep and a cow sat in mine carts looking confused.
I'm about to start a new game...I think i've learnt enough about the system now to give it a proper go...
Hopefully I'll find more iron this time...very light on it last time.
I'm resisting. I just have too much on. But I want to play desperately.
I did a properly embarrasing session yesterday. The game started me on an icy lake, so I moved off to some mountains in the distance, as I needed some trees to get me going. Spent an hour or so digging down to bedrock (bottom of the level) and constructing a ladder all the way down, lit with torches, topped with a small stone hut.
Then I fell off the ladder to my death, and respawned miles away (you always spawn in the same place), and I have no idea where my mine was...I completely failed to mark it, so from any distance it's invisible :-(
Started again, and will be constructing my initial mine very close to my spawn point...
LOL, classic! It sounds like a beautifully unforgiving game where you make your own bed to sleep in.
My plan for the weekend (well, Monday actually, as I'm at a 40K tournament on Sunday, and fireworks on Saturday night) is to reinstall the spare PC and try to get a stable Multi-Player server going. I think that I've convinced Skunty that he'd like to play it, and I fear what the assorted minds on here would come up with if let loose.
Considering an investment around the next payday (15th Nov) so shall keep an eye on developments.
It is one of those games that takes a few restarts to get the hang of :D
Most of the time assuming you can find your body dying isn't too bad as you just locate your death site and all your items will be hanging around waiting. Of course if you respawn at night and have no weapons and it's a long trek to your cave while avoiding zombies, spiders, and those damn creepers.
Falling into lava is the worst death as it burns up all your stuff that rare and very useful diamond pick ax is dust :S
It would be nice to be able to rebind your spawn point even if it's only a relatively close grid point. The Minecraft world is pretty vast so wandering off exploring is a fun thing but death puts a bit of a damper on that. I guess with portals to the nether and rapid travel that way it's possible to sort that but that requires a lot of forethought and investment of resources upfront.
Aaaaaaaaaaa!
So how was your first night?
I spent a productive evening starting a new level, and for starters have done my "straight to the bottom" mine, next to the spawn, and with a sighting tower, and a glass safety wall on the ladder. I think it's almost impossible for me to actually kill myself falling down it now...though I did have to do a couple of trips to the bottom to pick up my stuff during construction...
I watched a couple of short videos (below), followed the crafting advice and survived my first night. Starting at the base of a mountain, I dug up. And up. And out the top. Then I created a ladder (no glass, only found out about that long after) and created a couple of viewing platforms. The chap in the videos makes a good point that you should create big stacks high up to navigate. Once, I got caught outside at night and utterly lost. I died, spawned and then had a royal bastard trying to get back home as I had nothing on me to block the entrance of the base off (didn't know about doors).
Before I play again, I want a server to play against because I want to build a massive sky platform built on a spindly ladder (didn't know about glass until I checked the wiki much later). I like building for myself but I think it would be much more fun to build with others.
I prefer minecraft to Fallout:Nev Vegas for sure. Where NV has awe, Minecraft brings the fun.
First night
This vid is brilliant and took me through as I played. His other vids are great too.
It has that classic lego style fun aspect and also zombies all for a tenner
how can you go wrong!
Well, I sat down to work on Chom Isis last night and ended up completing my tower-to-the-top-of-the-sky. I also walled it in with glass. The glass texture is a bit rubbish but as Pete points out, it stops you falling off.
I don't seem to find much ore. Is that found by digging down or do I have to go to another rocky outcrop? I caught myself out last night by wandering too far (can't get lost now though as my super tower can be seen from everywhere) when night came down. It comes down really fast, doesn't it? I got myself safe, tho.
Yeah, you want to dig deep. From what I can work out, the highest concentrations of ore are near the base of the level (though I struggle to find Iron ore as well...Evil Matt may have a better plan, as he's had enough to do mine tracks etc). My normal start is to dig to the bottom of the level (typically 70-80 blocks down), and then have a ladder down...any mining is then done right near the base, and I get a fair bit of Redstone, Iron, Coal and occasional Diamond from that. You'll probably hit a cave system or two en route, which can be explored at a later date.
Another place to check is tunnel systems, as there always seems to be a few veins in there, though take a good supply of torches.
A handy tool, if you are looking for resources is Cartograph, which will show you your world, and you can also select to show just certain blocks 9Code 15 is Iron Ore, for example). From what I've seen is is fairly evenly distributed across the map...hard to tell depth without doing loads of slices, but from an isometric view seems to be grouped near the bottom...
Thanks for the tip. I imagined that digging down might be the solution, given the name and all. Part of me wants to check out the many different cartography programs but I rather like the idea of
Really looking forward the the server. And Co-Op. WICKED.
Big Rob has been doing a lot of Minecrafting too.
Ah, the secret is out!
I'm ahead of the game for sorting out my Blood Angels for Sunday (just a bit of dremelling and magnet work to go...shouldn't take more than half an hour), so I might see if I can spend some quality time this evening re-installing the PC and getting it stable. A patch has come out today which hopefully makes the server a little more robust as well...
My tactic to find ore is to dig in a sort of spiral downwards. I also spent ages digging out my undersea base collecting any ore I found there. I also like to dig out any pockets of shale or mud I find as it will often reveal usefull viens or cave systems to be explored.
Iron ore is found at almost any level I've seen it above ground at times
Diamond you need to go deep same with redstone.
Gold I think is also pretty deep but it's not very useful you can make a gold sword out of it but it's equivelent to a wooden sword so really only for giggles.
My most recent success was using portal technology where I started with one portal in my cave and opened another some distance away in the nether which came out in the real world in an extensive cave system full of iron and coal.
Mine tracks come in packs of 16 so they go further than you would think for the iron they use.
Texture wise lots of people have done replacement texture packs to improve the look of minecraft I've not investigate them as I kind of like it's clunky graphics though I'll admit glass is crying out for something better or some pixel shading goodness :D
A multiplayer server would be awesome we can all set up our own caves and then run a train system between them :D
That app is quite fun needs an update to cope with the nether but there is a workaround.
It seems very little of my base is actually above ground :D
Ok, server is up!
Get thee on Hamachi, and on the lack-of group, then join the IP addess of the MINECRAFT! machine. It's just running a Minecraft server, nowt else. It it can deal with it I shall spend some time on Monday moving it somewhere a little safer (rather than my desk)
I have built a small safehouse next to the spawn point (look for the subtle pointer) It seems that near the spawn there is a bug where you cannot remove blocks (known MP bug), but given its a flat lake not a major issue. Also, MP bug is no damage...
I've done a small mine in the back of teh safehouse, however I don't reckon it's a great location, so may want to move off elsewhere (for example, nearer some trees!)
Ok, not so much a "small mine" or "safehouse" anymore.
If anyone gets on there, feel free to extend the orchard!
Fucking excellent! Am feeding big F at the mo. Will get on later. Thanks Pete. :-)
If someone sees Big Rob on steam, please do give him the Hamachi info.
Had a go on the multiplayer server bit of a mixed bag seems like it takes forever to work out the landscape I was first floating in empty space then was on a small block with random parts of the insiodes of mountains in every direction It did eventually work out enough land for me to wander about and find the tree tower. It seems like it's not designed to cope with the lag of my distance to the machine as harevesting stuff is weird I'll attack a tree and it will break up but I get no wood out of it and then the tree regenerates the blocks. Eventually the wood I should have harvested pops into my inventory.
I'll give it another go later it may be that it need to build up some sort of local cache of the level but it seems the multiplayer parts of system needs a lot of work still.
On the server now! ROCKS! Does take a while to sync the map up.
Multiplayer is very dodgy. I was doing loads of stuff that kept coming back. Tried to make a nice moat around the entrance and failed due to the way water works. Doh! I (we) did make this:
There are a number of known issues for multiplayer
http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Known_Survival_Multiplayer_Issues#Surv...
One is that near the spawn point blocks cannot be destroyed (also buckets of water do not spawn springs correctly). The front door is just outside the spawn segment as a guideline. for the mine bottom, the turning left that's blocked off my glass leads to the non-destroyable spawn segment.
The loading issue is probably my broadband being shite :-(
Also, who pinched the iron I was stocking up?
Also, stop writing "Pete is Gay" in big letters...Gill found it far too funny :-(
Also, stop buring my orchard (Evil Matt, I'm looking at you...)
Minecraft is officially the greatest game I've never played.
EMW and I were laughing far too hard over Skype to not finish the letters. The torches were his genius as it was getting dark as I was building.
After exploring your big mine, I wanted to make a big tower to space but blocks kept disappearing, so I started the moat but didn't quite understand how water worked. I tried to fix the dirty great trench but the blocks kept disappearing again.
Is the server plugged straight into the router? Will be better than wifi.
Promise I will be more useful next time.
Our intial efforts in there were indistiguishable from griefing :D
I did move some iron from the forge to the chest next to it so I could smelt the gold I found but other than that I only nicked stone which I figured you wouldn't mind about.
Oh and top marks to Rob for positioning that sign perfectly so that the sun rises over it :D
I put in a ladder for the main shaft using the one off ladder trick to reduce the number needed.
we can keep the stairs for local access or for a minecart when we get round to building one
I've added a couple of markers to help you find your way back if you fancy some overlanding.
While mining out the big room I found some coal and iron ore. I stuck in on to smelt and then the server did the lag hug. I logged outand back in and the smelter was empty. I also found some diamond and tried mining it but it just disappeared! Given that, if I find interesting rock, I'll just bung it in the now nicely labelled crates.
The more complex ores like diamond or redstone dust usually require at least a steel pick to get a block of ore. If you hit them with just stone they are just destroyed and yeild nothing.
I think obsidion requires diamond to yeild a block
Ah. Fail.
Had another bit of a go and widened 'Big cave' to as tall as I can reach standing on the floor and started widening it a bit.
You might see some veins of 'posh rock' left ready to mine. Please do! I would have taken them out but I was worried the smelter might give me trouble like before and so didn't risk burning up good ore and coal. Whoever going in next should find plenty of ore/coal to smelt themselves the right pick-axe and mine it out.
Felt really good making Big Cave. I cobbled together an entrance but time was running short, so it's a bit hurried.
I was thinking that we could build a little town inside big cave with buildings made out of wood/sand/other pretty rock. What do you think?
I just saw the server was down when I got back in, so rebooted it. Tomorrow I shall sort out a harness that will do that automatically, and also move the server somewhere where the cat can't sit on it...
The smelter will run on wood instead of coal it just takes more of it but since wood is renewable and coal isn't it seems a good option. Having said that coal is not exactly scarce :D
oh another little trick I picked up if you want smooth stone like the unmined stuff rather than the cobbles you get once it's mined just run the cobbled stuff through the smelter for smooth un cobbled stone. You can then also use this for some of the other mechanics stuff like pressure plates
I put in a sky light in the big cave it's a lot further down than I thought
it's only a 3x3 might put some more in or expand it now I know where it comes out (on top of the hill behind the main above ground building.
I'm looking forward to what you've done...currently watching F1, then I shall go and have a look...
On a completely un-related note, I came away with a 3rd place trophy from the 40k tournament I went to yesterday...tank-spamming for the win! (well, 3 wins and a draw, and a slightly weird scoring system...)
Question - I found the "monsters spawn" option in the server settings. Default is off. Given that;
1. We can't hurt them in Multiplayer
2. They can't hurt us
Do we want them on or not? My gut feeling is "not" at the moment...as and when they are fixed/damage is on I reckon we enable them (and make damn sure the base is secure first!)