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...)
Comments
The server is back!
I am going to leave the server on my desktop for the rest of the evening, then switch it to an old laptop (probably around 11pm).
This may provide a comparison on which to judge the effect of server processing power on lag and general gameplay.
I have added the laptop to Hamanchi, but it is not running a server yet using the name 'Minecraft! BigR (not live yet)'.
The LIVE server is currently 'BiggerRob (Temp Lack-of Minecraft Server)'.
I know, great naming ... simple and easy to remember.
Given no one was online, I have taken the opertunity to switch to the laptop, 'Minecraft! BigR' is now live.
Horay I needs me minecraft fix gone a whole day without :D
Admittedly yesterday was down to going out drinking rather than lack of server but still :D
I made some improvements to the skytower
Put in some more sky lights and also made a start on a mine cart compatible tunnel it goes all the way down from behind the "pete is gay" sign to just beyond the big cave.
Also repacked the metals in the chests into blocks (9 ingots) slightly smaller space in the long run though actually at the moment it's more :S easy to convert back one block of metal in a crafting station yeilds 9 ingots.
Wanted to get on last night but Kate has been ill, so I have been working+childcare. Knackering! She's mostly better now but I've got a shed load of freelance stacked up. :(
Very nice texture pack:
http://www.modminecraft.com/2010/11/11/tronic
Quandry tex pack looks good too...
http://www.retributiongames.com/quandary/
And this one is a bit LOTR http://www.minecraftforum.net/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=25676
Really like the first one...very clean look to it!
I tried the painterly pack that has some customisation scripts on the website to make up a specific texture pack to your liking
http://painterlypack.net/
expanded the skylight and joined three together to make one massive if irregular one
hmmm seems like there is a long way to go before minecarts work I had a quick go today but you can't yet delete and reposition them which makes building tracks pretty tricky one sheep stuck in a cart and your buggered.
i'm just going to leave this here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpJXZq3gYtk&feature=player_embedded
Added some signage to the carbuncle
You really can't get the size from that piccy.
Perhaps the carbuncle sign should have been one of those things that remained in the imagarium?
I've started the roof to the acropolis. You can find a ladder up to the builders ledge around the corner from where the smelters are. I've left 180+ sand on to smelt and there is some glass in the store.
If you want to get more sand, there is a big load round the back of the acropolis that needs flattening. Something else that needs doing is a nice path between the acropolis and the main shaft entrance/arboretum.
Oh and what we've been calling the arcropolis is actually called the Parthenon! My bad.
Crikey! It's a biodome!
http://crafthub.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/BioDome.png
Mods! Have been playing with some mods and the only 'must have' is:
http://www.minecraftforum.net/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=55700
And switch everything on. Check the Readme. Minimap is well useful but only gives a top-down, which is ok tbh. Especially if you're trying to link underground bits together. The ambient occlusion stuff makes it beautiful. I'm also running the simple tex pack at the moment, which is a nice change.
Minecraft hookshot mod!
http://asumgames.blogspot.com/2010/11/legend-of-zelda-style-hookshot-for...
put in an experimental neon sign in big cave
looks better in motion. It's basically a redstone oscilator hooked up to a redstone in the shape of letters and a few inverters to extend the range
using what I learnt on the neon floor sign set to work on a redstone torch based tower of evil sign
currently only about half of the tower part is wired to a switch to allow it to swithc on and off later once the whole thing is wired I'll connect that to a redstone oscilator for blinking tower of evil signage
Once I have completed the glass tower I have planned for one end of my road, I intend to extend it the other way towards the TOWER OF EVIL. Ultimately, once Minecarts are working I should be able to turn it into a highway, using the Botanical Fortress as a station/nexus.
So you chaps have built 'the two towers'? Perhaps we should all make a tower, like wizards in an architecturally bereft place. That would make Pete the good wizard. Which is terrifying.
I was thinking about making a wooden village. Am going to start playing with house designs next time I'm in.
mmm...Wooden Village.
Given my discovery that wood currently doesn't stop burning, I reckon that could be awesome.
Yes, well, it might not be the best idea. Especially as you and Big R - and EMW come to think of it - yes all of you - have a fascination with lava.
I do use lava exclusively for strip-lighting, and not for burning stuff down.
At some point I shall convert the Fortress to lava-lighting rather than millions of torches.
Ash just asked me how you set fire to stuff.
Introduce him to the Flint and Steel for starters...when you absolutely have to move that tree right now...accept no substitutes.
Indeed when building the tower of evil sign there were some inconvenient trees nothing flint and steel can't solve.
Got the flashing tower of evil sign almost all going just need to wire up the last few letters
the wiring loom is a bit crazy and I may have a go at refactoring some of it later but currently it all works and I've installed a extended oscillator for a pleasing blink factor. Stll had one redstone torch on one of the 'E's I just couldn't find a connection for.
Maybe extend it or do another sign that has more complicated logic to light each letter individually in sequence
Can't wait to see it. Will pop my head in tonight after putting F to bed.
Found a convient cave system that runs right to tower of evil if you head past the sky tower I marked the entrance with torches and a sign then follow the obviously dug pasageway
Had a good wander about last night. The Tower of Evil is looking fab, the blinking sign gives it a certain Vegas charm. I love Pete's tower too - it has a stark utility to it and is quite a sight up close.
Most mental award goes to Big Rob, who is trying to create a floating lake by laying down a glass bowl and then digging underneath it. It's right next to the Parthenon. It's the sort of lunacy I don't think I've ever dreamed of.
I started experimenting with little wooden and stone houses up on the hillside. Some of the hillside near me has a load of sand, which I want to replace with earth so it's nice and grassy. If you want sand, please take it from that hillside!
Thanks to Rob H for providing me with diamonds so I could get a diamond axe.
I'll be needing sand, as I have another 5 half-height glass towers I want to build (and perhaps an additional 16 quarter-height towers outside those...)
If you need earth (yeah, I know...it's pretty common) I have a chest full of the stuff...at some point it's going down the waste disposal...
Loads of sand in the big cave and also by the village.
I had a bit of a clearout on the sand patch near your hill...took away 20 x 64 blocks, thoguh will undoubtedly be needing more at some point!
Hopefully tonight I'll get some time to continue work on the glass towers.
WOW! I'll start rebuilding with earth.
Aparently Rob has finished his lake lunacy last night.
The bowl is complete, the underside still needs clearing and lighting, then maybe a few viewing walkways can be added.
I am also considiering creating another smaller bowl of water, hovering above this large one, perhaps with a waterfall between the two.
You're going to end up with Pandora (from Avatar) in glass.
Had some problems logging in last night so didn't get anything done in crazy world. Instead experimented in single player with water lifts and water ways think I can make nice glass aquaduct going over the mountain between tower of evil and main base maybe link it to big cave via the sky tower.
Also saw an awesome auto boat dispenser design that I recon I could rip off. Pity I've got so much to do this weekend real life is getting in the way of minecraft time :D
So the water lift is now working it goes from the big cave to the sky tower quickly.
See if there is a boat running if not grab a boat from the chest put it at the far end of the slope near the chest and jump on the boats occasionally get stuck so jostle them free and then leave the controls as otherwise you'll end up exiting the water fall randomly at speed.
ride up to the skytower jump out of boat to get off there or ride it back down again to big cave.
Later I might add refinements like a stop at ground level or a boat dispensor perhaps a more exotic boat call system.
Occationaly the physics gets confused or miss fires and you end up flung out or the boat breaks but there are plentu in the chest
EMW - wicked! Will check that out later!
Big R has reset the server, apparently it had thrown a nullpointerreference exception. Is much more stable now.
Pete - there is load of sand in the village. I'm also on the scrounge for 1 more diamond because I accidentally used up my diamond shovel. What a prat.
Something has gone funny with the server again.
java.io.EOFException
Well, I hope that does not happen too often; the process locked the CPU usage at 100%! Forcing a save resulted in me getting booted out before the operation completed (although it did complete).
I have restarted the minecraft server app again and it seem to be running fine (again), infact is seems to be using half the amount of processing time as before ... I am guessing the speed step has kicked in.
Lightswitches?
I'm working a lighting system for the glass skyway. I don't want to use torches or lava, so am going with redstone. I had hoped that redstone wires emitted light, however my experiments in my darkroom have confirmed that they don't, so the new plan is a series of light-switches along the route, linked to redstone torches (nice low-level lighting)...
...however I can't get wires, switches and torches to work. From my reading up, if a Redstone Torch is connected to a tile that is powered by an alternate means, then the torch should go out, however I can't seem to get this to happen.
Key
----
P - pressure pad
w - Redstone Wire
R - Redstone Torch
PwwwR
My understanding is that if the Pressure Pad is activated then that would power the wire (which is does), and the torch should go out, as the wire has another power source. If the pressure pad is NOT activated, then the wire would still be powered by the torch, which would come on.
What actually happens is that the torch stays on irrespective of the status of the Pressure Pad. I've also tried switches in place of the pad, also to no avail...
Where am I going wrong here?
That's how I understand switches to work. What is the redstone on? Were you doing it on glass blocks?