Minecraft: Can you dig it?

Currently there are several versions of Minecraft. I played Creative mode (which is one of the two currently free modes) and decided to go ahead and purchase the game. I didn't realize that Alpha Minecraft was so in-depth and interesting.

The link to the site is hither: http://minecraft.net/

In this intro post I am going to mainly talk about Minecraft Alpha's Survival mode. I will touch on a few of the others in the beginning, to get them out of the way, but most of my blathering will be about Alpha Survival.

The basic Minecraft game is essentially nothing but building and destroying. The entire game is on a huge 3D grid. Everything in the game is block based, which leads to a sort of "3D pixel art" kind of feel to the entire game. On the official site is 'Creative Mode' which is absolutely nothing but creating and destroying, so mostly pixel art or the occasional roleplaying.

Not so obvious, however, is the "hidden" Survival Classic mode.
http://www.minecraft.net/survivaltest
http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Survival
That's really all I have to say about that one.

From these modes eventually evolved inDev, which was replaced by infDev, and replaced by Alpha. inDev continued from Survival Classic in that blocks took time to destroy, and could not be destroyed immediately. It also brought on the existence of crafting materials. One could create a pick-axe out of tree trunks and stone deposits in order to mine gold or iron, or craft a bow out of some sticks and string.

From inDev came infDev. It took the map generation to a whole new level. It made maps seemingly infinite. While they are in truth finite, they are 8x the surface area of our Earth, meaning it would take several years moving straight forward to reach the end going from the center.
Video:


And finally from infDev evolved Survival Alpha. I'm not entirely sure of all the changes, but I do know I love this mode. It's the kind of total freedom gameplay one used to only be able to get from text-based games like Dwarf Fortress. One can dig up, re-place, and destroy blocks at will. There are monsters that come out at night, giving player reason to build a home. Many items can be built, such as doors, glass tiles that act as windows, a flint and stone to start fire, a bow and arrow, even mine carts with tracks.


The game itself is constantly updated with new features, so there's no point in listing them all out here. Instead, I'll show you videos of what is possible.



I'm sure you get it. My praise for this game is infinite.

If you want to play minecraft Creative multiplayer, it's free, and fun. Just contact me somehow and we can set up a game!

This game is...strange.
Not bad, but strange.
So in fact it's an infinite sand-box builder game, where you can build your own...everything and create chalanges. Am i right?

Casted wrote:

This game is...strange.
Not bad, but strange.
So in fact it's an infinite sand-box builder game, where you can build your own...everything and create chalanges. Am i right?

The Alpha of Survival has no multiplayer yet. There's been talk of a large persistent world, other people suggest servers.

I like to think of it as a sort of blocky Second Life, at that point.

Looks very interesting, and it's almost hard to believe how huge the world is. May look into this some time soon.

EDIT: Well I tried to play it, but with no luck. After taking about 30 minutes to load, it encountered an error. Maybe once I get a better computer.

Drifter wrote:

Looks very interesting, and it's almost hard to believe how huge the world is. May look into this some time soon.

I think i'm going to get a copy of that.

I played a very early build of this and at the time it seemed promising but unfortunately a bit pointless. It looks like people's creativity has managed to expand it and squeeze more potential out of it. I'll go back and have a look at it now, thanks for the info art.

I highly recommend buying the game now. It's Ten euros (which doesn't convert in any sensible way to any currency, because it's such an unstable currency) right now but will be double that when it releases.

Not to diss the euro or anything, but it converted 10 euros to $12.00 a few weeks ago, and now it's $13.19, and I don't even know what it will be like two weeks from now.

My point is, buy the game. If you buy it now you get it for 50% price and free updates forever.

I bought this for myself yesterday for my birthday (which happens to be today) and it's fucking awesome.

Fucking awesome indeed. Got it today, been playing multi-player with some friends and building towers that go through the clouds.

Also, there should be an RWEP server.

Basicly I know nothing about this game exept that I think it was made by a swede(?)

Yepp, it was. He was on the economic news today bragging about how he got 5 awards for the game.

It's because Minecraft rocks faces.

Guys, I have a great idea. And I take full credit for this, but we should totally have a RWEP server.

Ok, seriously though, just wanted to say that MineCraft SMP is more then playable finally, and lots of fun. I realize that its been like this for a while, but a) this topic needs more activity anyways, and b) I've been gone so I have to make up for all the lost time.

I'm currently on a server with my friend and his friend and some of my friend's friend's friends. We already have s well-established Main Base, and we have recently established a second base far out, on what was originally an 8-day hike, and what I can now do in 3 or 4 days if I go straight through it without stopping to gander at shit (We have outposts along the way so that you can shelter for the night). The second base is still under constant attack from creepers, so I guess that it means it isn't solidly established yet, but it's shaping up to be real nice. It's got tons of glass, so it feels real open, and since I/we are trying to learn from past mistakes on our first fort, this one is going relatively painless, and there are even a few ways in which this fort improves on the other already.

We have someone who seems pretty dedicated to the mining part of MineCraft, which works well because I much more enjoy the crafting part. So he mines the resources, and I get to use them.

Everyone share their MineCraft stories so we can get excited about it again and get motivated to try and find someone who can host a server.

I don't have many "good" Minecraft stories, but here goes:

Me and my friend/house-mate Josue were playing on another friends server. While I was busy building a tower on a cliff that went into the clouds (that's just my thing) Josue was building a great big bridge and a tree fort somewhere. He then had the poor judgement to start irritating the other guys by trying to destroy the giant stone Swastika someone had built (don't look at me.)

Anyway, he logged off for a while but I stayed on to keep building my tower, then he logged back on. When I asked why, he said it was because one of the other guys had posted a picture to facebook of his bridge in flames. Sure enough, I went to check it out and found his bridge and tree-fort completely destroyed, with only a sign saying "this is what happens" to commemorate it. Not just that, but afterwards everyone adopted a kill-on-site policy towards him if he was spotted near anyone's property.

Not that I feel sorry for him. He snuck into my tower and stole some things from my chest. Luckily, the tower overlooks everything and he was easy to spot.

why are you playing on a server full of nazi sympathizers

I'm not, but I am (or was) playing on a server with a bunch of man-children who find that kind of thing funny.

the term "man-child" makes me cringe, but ok, I guess. The "was" part is important.

What cool shit have you guys been making? We recently made a tiny transport cart rail between our farm at the bottom of the mountain, and our fort at the top. You click a button, and it sends the cart back and forth at will.

I made a great big tower. Have I mentioned that I like those? That and a few small forts not interesting enough to dwell on. I did start carving out a fortress in the side of a cliff, but thus far it hasn't gone quite as I planned.

Our second fort is looking quite nice. It uses ton of glass. We have lots of windows, and big ones, and some glass ceilings and domes and floors, and sometimes instead of stone walls, we use glass walls. We also have a huge glass terrarium connected to our mountain/fort, where we grow our trees and sugar cane. We recently had a mob trap installed, so now we have a steady stream of gun powder, arrows, etc.

I'm thinking of going off and establishing a third base.

Screens. I demand them.

I would have, but our server just went down, and I'm not sure when it will go back up...

Oh balls.

I should really start playing this game more.

I've been making a fortress in the side of a cliff, with a big stair case leading to the entrance. It's not very pretty to look at, though (I'm still fairly new to this.)



There's a few rooms inside, including one with a spiral staircase that leads to the surface and, of course...



... into a big tower.

The first step to making your Minecraft World look good is getting a graphics pack. I personally suggest Painterly.