Minecrafters, assemble!

[Lenny]

Minecraft players are everywhere - I've been told that the physicists at Durham "out" other physicists by sneaking up behind them and hissing (you can tell they're a Minecraft player by how quickly the run, screaming "CREEEEEPER!").

So, I expect the same is true on the Chrons - for such a large group of people, it would be a crime if there were not a lot of other Minecraft players.

I thought it would be nice to have a thread in which we can assemble and share war stories, seeds for particularly nice maps, screenshots of our latest creation and maybe even the worlds themselves.

---

I started off in the world of MC on a shared map with a couple of friends from Uni - we were all starting out, so we hax'd without qualms ("Server, drop some stone on me, bro! I'm a-building a castle."), until we'd all got the hang of crafting, building and laying down intricate and deadly mob traps.

We still go back every now and then for a bit of fun, but we primarily play on our own maps, meeting up on one of three every now and then for some no hax exploring.

Last night, we went on a hunt for diamond through a supercave I discovered down near the bedrock. Eventually we found three blocks of diamond (to victorious shouts of, "DDDIIIAAAMMMOOONNNDDD!!!") and hightailed it out, blocking the entrance back up behind us.

A moment of crafting later, with a diamond pickaxe in hand, I set about mining some obsidian whilst the other two stood guard.

Within half an hour, we had a portal to The Nether up and running... which, we discovered, doesn't actually do anything in multiplayer.

Anyway, I went back on my own a bit later and took a trip through to the red, burning place beyond.

A few screenshots of my map:

View of my house and moat, big statue to the left (housing my portal to The Nether), floating tree farm behind, and, unfortunately hidden, my crop farm.

Wolfies!

Another view of my statue (unfinished, here)

Some slime we found in the supercave

The Nether!

---

So, what about the rest of you?

 

[CyBeR]

Weren't there some texture packs that made the game look somewhat better?

Had just a short run through the thing. More curious than anything, can't say it grabbed it and held me. I'll probably return to it if it offers at any time some real objectives...or I get a real interest in doing something epic in it.

 

[Lenny]

There are indeed.

I've applied the Minecraft HD pack (32x32 version), which uses larger textures for each block. Here's how it looks:

[

 

[Cayal]

So what exactly is the point of Minecraft? Or is it to just build like using lego?

 

[cornelius]

I'm a minecraft-player. Two friends and I have made a nice little village, surrounded by a wall. unfortunatly one of the friends is on vacation, and the other has other projects he likes to attend to. I hope to get the server folder for myself, so I can at least finish the inn I was making. I've also got a singleplayer world, but most of that is just me "noobing around"

 

[OmahaRenegade]

I STILL have not been able to find any doggies

 

[cornelius]

I STILL have not been able to find any doggies

I got killed by a pack of wolves 5 minutes after the patch. I accidentally hit the dog instead of giving it the bone.

 

[OmahaRenegade]

I got killed by a pack of wolves 5 minutes after the patch. I accidentally hit the dog instead of giving it the bone.

Where are they? do they just randomly spawn in snowy/icey areas?

 

[Lenny]

They spawn in the taiga and forest biomes. They're quite rare (I happened to wake up and find all three wolves harrying my chickens), but apparently you can increase your chances of finding them if you sleep in the forest or taiga biomes for a few nights (for even greater chances, for some forest that borders taiga, and alternate between them each night).

---

I thought I'd build me an underground railway system to another landmass today. I was going along quite happily, until I worked out that the hissing I was hearing was because I was a few blocks above a monster spawner working in overtime...

EDIT: I flooded that monster spawner whilst I opened the ceiling to the light (the chests, when I got to them, gave me five wheat, three iron, and a mushroom).

I carried on my tunnel and have come to the point where I need to turn left and go for about 50 blocks so so that I hit the landmass I'm aiming for.

What do I find as I knock the first block out? An underground lake filled with zombies...

 

[cornelius]

My cousin's character in his single player MC world fell down lava with 18 diamond ores... ouwch.

 

[Lenny]

So what exactly is the point of Minecraft? Or is it to just build like using lego?

There's no story, there are no missions. It's like the ultimate sandbox. You start with nothing and have to mine to get things, at which point people start building whatever they can.

---

Ack. Lava's not a pretty way to go at the best of times.

---

Thought I'd share my rail system.

At either end is a new style door-launcher. A bit further along, on the return journey, there's an up-hill booster and not far after that there are two self-resetting boosters - one for either direction of the journey.

Launcher

Self-resetting booster - reset loop

Both self-resetting boosters (I'm afraid I knocked the cart on the left out of position)

Up-hill booster

---

Has no-one else got screenshots of anything?

 

[Overread]

Lenny you build not alone!
Though I have to admit that thus far I've not done any complicated railroad nor switch setups (I did try to do a complex door opening and closing water elevator till I found out that water didn't flow through an open door). But I have my masterwork which is currently a whole tower lit with a single lava bucket:

And yep that tower goes all the way down to the seabed and actually links into a series of caves I found under there, but thus far I've not done much with that area save mining and cleaning.

Indoors we get a first level with a pool and a sort of hanging lamp thing (didn't turn out too well and I might just remove it and put another floor in).

Up one level and we get to the main living and working quarters of the construction. This part was originally just a floating tower till I built down to the seabed. Sadly most of those chests are awaiting filling after all the building.

 

[Overread]

One level up from there and we get to where the tower opens out. Bigger floors with a glass middle to let some light in from the sky (though as you'll find out not much gets through that these days). It also has the four attached towers now as well with one (behind me in this shot) made into a stairway up through the tower.
The level above this is pretty much identical save that it has no rim around the base of the main walls (that is only on the first level because the lava has to be pushed inward for the more slender lower levels of the tower).

At the top we get the attic of the building - where you can see the start of the lava flow around the outside of the building, and a small view of the surrounding areas through the glass. The middle point of lava is somewhat cheating on my one bucket rule, but it really only exists to drip into the middle of this level.

On top now and you can see how the upper 4 spokes of lava are split into their respective channels to light the lower levels. This took a bit of work to get the spread of the lava just right so that it reached the edge channels.

Now this is way up in the clouds, way above in fact in the second tower part. This is the generator (as I like to call it) which splits the single first bucket of lava into the four long lava falls that make up the main beacon part of the tower.

And finally a look up at the last section - that single fount of lava that reaches to the tallest point I can build to.

 

[Lenny]

Nicely done! The "generator" is particularly impressive - very few can claim to understand the liquid flows in Minecraft. I've been playing around with water recently, making a glass-ceiling incinerator (I can watch the victi...er, blocks float down the water to be deposited into a block of lava) and an egg farm (lots of chickens bobbing about in water which funnels eggs into a channel and down into my basement).

I tried to build a lava beacon in the days before I had a compass so that I could find my way home. Total disaster!

How long did that take, then?

Also, what's that I spy to the right-hand side in the third picture of the second post?

 

[Overread]

Took a few days but I was building it slow mostly in spare time. As for what is lurking off to the right its the prototype. It actually all started as a natural floating island over some water with a little wooden shed and tree/crop farm. Then I built a tower addon to put the chests in for common stuff (like cobblestone) which I tend to get a lot of (I tend to mine with a big X*X shaft going all the way down to the bedrock). Then I had the idea of lava lighting it and it kind of grew into a mini home.

but being a bit small and cramped I decided to start fresh with a bigger home! The old one I kind of blew a hole or two in with some TNT for fun

As for the flowing water I've yet to build a working trap - I tried building one but it never seemed to work that well and I gave up with it after a while. I'll probably revisit trap building since I've got one or two monster spawners dotted around.

 

[Lenny]

A natural floating island? I've only just found one of those, and it's a long way above ground level.

Also, I've just found a surface lava lake!

It's been six night/day cycles since I set off exploring from home, with the view to die and respawn in my base when I'd had enough. But I found an epic pumpkin patch and then a huge deposit of clay, so I changed my plans and decided to walk home.

Turns out I've been going in the opposite direction to my base...

I got lost, so downloaded a program called Cartograph G to map out my world into a handy image:


Click to view a much bigger version

You can just about see my base (complete with statue) in the middle to the right. The orange patch at the far bottom left is where I'm stood...

 

[Overread]

Ahh I tend to get lost in caves so never do much wandering around - but I had heard that there was a mapping option, just never used it. Got it now though and works a treat! Though it really shows that I need to wander around a bit more!

 

[Lenny]

I got home in the end! And when I did, I started a massive remodel, which I've just finished.

I've moved all of the entrances to my buildings (apart from my main house entrance) underground and excavated a second level underground (a couple of days ago I decided I needed to expand and so I excavated the entire area under my garden) which, tomorrow, I'm going to turn into my obsidian farm (going to make a portal to The Nether there so that I have access to a decent supply of lava) through means of a fancy water system in the ceiling. If I get the time, I'll try and get a video of it in action (and maybe of my entire base).

On my way home I also took screenshots of nice scenery for my scrapbook - I'll try and remember to upload those tomorrow.

---

I think I've found a problem with wandering - my save has gone from 7mb to 39mb! Having had a look at the actual files that make up the save, I have a feeling that I can delete a few without affecting the chunks that my base is on.

If not, I know that there are map editors available, so I'll simply start a new map with the same seed and splice my bases on to it.

 

[Chel]

I suddenly remembered there was a Gaming-forum here and had to check if other Chronites play Minecraft. Of course you do!

So here are some screenies of my ever-growing WIP, hope you enjoy!

First the gatehouse to my castle, the first thing you see currently when arriving by train:

Then the first view of the castle - I love this view, it's just a few steps from the first screenie but so different:

A few steps more, half way down the stairs, shows the little bridge to the courtyard and the castle itself.

And the castle at night, seen from one of the walls:

The Dining Hall I built yesterday, complete with thrones:

More to follow...

 

[Chel]

I felt like building a prison. Mushrooms are taking over!

A solitary, currently empty cell:

And of course, the Torture Chamber:

My husband and I are building a Dutch/German/Danish town:

The backyard well in the town: