Minecraft

[Mully]

Anyone play Minecraft?

Minecraft.net

It's free for the "Classic" version, about $13 (9.99 Pounds) for Alpha version. I bought the Alpha version and it IS AWESOME!

If you buy the game, which I DO suggest, Alpha is different entirely than "Classic". Classic is like LEGO the game/world. You just build and dig. In "Alpha" you start with only your hands. You have to use wood to craft pickaxes, shovels, etc to mine different ores. There is also day and night. Day time, go out and get all the wood you can, kill animals for food and wool (etc), build your house and find a good hill to hole up in for night time. At night time...GET THE EFF INSIDE. There are zombies, and spiders and skeleton warriors oh my. At night time you can fight the bad dudes if you crafted weapons (different elemental swords, bows and arrows (you have to craft sticks and sheer sheep to get string) and more), but you'll spend most of your nights digging and mining. This game is awesome.

The above paragraph is only very truncated to the first 10 minutes of the game.

Minecraft is a sandbox game which allows players to build constructions out of textured cubes in a 3D world. It is currently in development by Markus Persson (under the pseudonym "Notch"). The gameplay is inspired by Dwarf Fortress, RollerCoaster Tycoon, Dungeon Keeper, and especially Infiniminer.[1][2] The game has two variants, Alpha and Classic, both with single- and multiplayer options. Classic includes only the building aspects of the game with unlimited blocks, while Alpha includes monsters and a much greater variety of crafting available, as well as requiring players to mine their own blocks.

Youtube the hell out of this game to learn how to play...I like this series of guides.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_JWS5fb ... feature=BF[/youtube]

[bovine]

Stop it.

[Lox]

I've been resisting the urge to jump into Minecraft. YOU'RE NOT HELPING!

[Andrew, Killer Bee]

Oh my God I love Minecraft.

Fea can't stand it, but I have Reach, Brutal Legend, & Civ all waiting to be played, and yet whenever I have free time I'm playing Minecraft. Minecraft! Buy Minecraft!

[Shellie]

Ive been playing it. I crated this really deep mine. I hit gold and even diamond! Then I broke into lava...and died. Lost what I was carrying.

We have a friend running a server for it, or we might be able to start one.

[Mully]

Tell us the server when you know. Chris Byrd (no relation) and I played multiplayer last night. It was buggy but also awesome.

[Julius Seeker]

In some related news. Minecraft has already sold over 400,000 copies of the Alpha, and has some of the most positive reviews of a game I have seen in years.

link

I think I might just dive in, 15 bucks is easy to swallow.

[Mully]

Julius, buy it now, when it goes beta, it's going up to L20 ($25 - $30).

[Julius Seeker]

For those who are wondering about the basics, here you go:

[Julius Seeker]

Look what this crazy guy did using the demo:

At about 25-35 seconds, I burst out laughing.

[Julius Seeker]

My story:

Alright, so I have made a very large mountain my base of operations; at the summit I am building a very large manor, and a castle fortress around it. It's very fun. I have stairways and passages leading down through the mountain, and about 12 exits around the mountain, with the main exit being at the front of a vast chamber filled with torches. This vast chamber is where my main smelting facility is located; although I usually bring the rock to the summit storage for later use.

From there my mine goes to the root of the mountain where everything is far more systematically set up. I have one main highway 3x3 meters in size (1 block = 1 meter cubed), my mine cart goes down this highway, every ~50 meters I have a branch mineshaft 1 meter wide and 3 tall, where I mine for more iron in particular, each of those branches goes down a considerable distance, and then every 3 meters is a sub branch of the same size which links between the two main branches. This way I sort of have a grid going...

I spend most of my time down in the lower mines mining rock for my fortress, and iron for my increasingly large mine track - I eventually plan to go onto lower levels and get gold and diamonds, right now I will stick to iron level mines - iron is useful.

So I was mining, and delving too greedily and too deep, I wasn't watching paying attention, I missed a step and I found myself falling landing in a vast dark chamber; a natural cavern, I was immediately concerned about how I would get back up to my mine.. That concern soon changed to my immediate situation when I heard a demonic screech, th sounds of foul creatures all around. I began throwing torches around only to discover I had only 2 left....

Not since Resident Evil 1 do I recall feeling this sort of feeling. If this game had the dangerous monster theme from Monster Hunter Tri, I would call this game the ultimate survival and horror title.

This game is seriously one of the very best currently available.

[Mully]

So I was mining, and delving too greedily and too deep, I wasn't watching paying attention, I missed a step and I found myself falling landing in a vast dark chamber; a natural cavern, I was immediately concerned about how I would get back up to my mine.. That concern soon changed to my immediate situation when I heard a demonic screech, th sounds of foul creatures all around. I began throwing torches around only to discover I had only 2 left....

Not since Resident Evil 1 do I recall feeling this sort of feeling. If this game had the dangerous monster theme from Monster Hunter Tri, I would call this game the ultimate survival and horror title.

This game is seriously one of the very best currently available.

OMF, I said the same thing and referenced Resident Evil when talking to a friend. I really like this game for that reason. I build and build and mine and mine, but I avoid going outside in the open air at night time because I am scarred to go out even with the best armor, they will kill you with a couple of hits, also it's easy to get lost. However, when you find a mob spawn point, and get the balls to take them on, dungeon raiding is fun.

I'm just starting to lay tracks and mess with red ore and switches. What did you mean by iron level mines?

I wish getting gunpowder was easier. You can only get it killing a Creepers. I want to use TNT more often.

I haven't seen any of the Oct 31 update.

I wish they would let you invite visitors to your "worlds," like I would really want to see what you did Seeker.

[Julius Seeker]

By Iron level, I mean the depth at which Iron is found. The way the game works is that digging down deep enough gets a player to lava: a certain distance up from that will yield diamonds and redstone; then the next ~15 meters or so will be gold, above that is Iron.

When multiplayer has the bugs worked out, I think a server would be an excellent idea. As for what I have done, I'll YouTube it sometime soon.

By the way, the survival and horror aspect of it is increased when you know that if you die, you lose your inventory being carried, so it is not really in the best interests of the player to give up. I lost a good amount of iron =(


In the latest update (October 31), it is possible to build an obsidian gate which leads to hell. Also new biomes which include rainforest and others (essentially almost everything you'd see in Sim Earth).

[Julius Seeker]

[Shellie]

I should have known to be careful when I started hitting diamond..ugh!

[Mully]

I've gone to hell...aka the Nether (which is a cooler name). The main "stone/rock" found in the nether is Hellstone, which you can bring back to the real world (?) and light a flame and it will burn forever. Also there is light stone, nine clumps of light stone dust will make a lightstone brick, which will light indefinitely (even in water).

The one thing I havent' liked about the update: I have a huge cavern that is full of good stone that used to be bad dude free, but now it's all but over run with creepers and skeletons. I mined the Nether pretty hard last night and died on the way back and lost a crap ton of inventory.