The Wind Of Change..

I'm almost finished the library already! Finally. I've completed all the bookcases, making them one block higher and have also slightly changed the lighting. It's still Glowstone but instead of hanging it's embedded, Not just that though, I went around and removed the torches between bookcases at floor level and embedded Glowstone in the floor. I then removed the wall torches, but it was still too dimly lit, so On the same horizontal axis as the floor Glowstone I place one in the ceiling all around the room:

There's only the rest of the ceiling left to do now, a big section in the middle. It's a different way of lighting for me but I think it works.

The other thing is the water elevator. It was time to say goodbye. It sort of worked but you could only get in at the bottom not from where the corridor is, I couldn't ever figure out a way to alter that. Basically, because of my home in the side of a mountain, I needed a water elevator to go down instead of up. I slowly collected the Glowstone back up and used alot of cobblestone I've acquired from mining to fill it up, t'was a sad sad day. When it was level however, before I filled in the wall, I reasoned that I could perhaps actually fit another room there. And I have the cobble frame inside so I don't need to worry about holes behind walls. I can't think of another room I would have there at the moment however. R.I.P. water elevator! It looks so strange now, just having the blank sandstone wall again, perhaps a painting?

In lesser important news, I started changing the ceiling to back lounge upstairs, from wool to snow. The wool started to catch fire, despite the brick, despite where the burning Netherrack was 4/5 blocks below the ceiling. Why now when it's been fine up until now? In hindsight I think it would look better anyway. There was also a terrible storm last night and a Creeper caught me off guard:

That's what happens when you play on hard and go out to look at the lightning! Good job the plaque base for the foundation sign was made of Obsidian eh? Relatively minor damage, but I changed the sign o the gold block which now just reads - "Forged in a mountain. Circa September 2010."

One bold step to the Aether..

Seems everybody is trying this highly anticipated, recently released, mod. I was influenced. Had to uninstall SinglePlayer Commands (Just for flying and way-points!) to have this, haven't tried installing it after yet.

I initially tried other worlds, but I didn't have Glowstone in the "less important worlds" and I couldn't Inventory edit myself any in - wouldn't INVedit in! So I had to use my main world. I backed up all my saves before installing the Aether anyway. Once I got it going I received my first shock

Yes, my gate is floating in mid air. I'm not sure if this is common, but as you can see, I had to build a normal dirt block path out, so I could jump down safely onto the clouds below. (After getting knocked off numerous times by those cloud things that shoot snowballs!) Naturally I punched a tree for Skyroot loogs and made some basic Skyroot tools, quickly finding some holystone to upgrade them all. Not long after this I found Zanite and updated again - apart from my axe as I didn't have enough. Some of these I lost as I died a few times. Also collected some Ambrosium Ore, Icestone, Quicksoil and some Blue Aerclouds as well as regular Aerclouds and dirt.

Been poisoned a few times by the wild Moas! That was fun.. Also by a aechor plant. Have yet to get a Moa egg, really want one. Have built a very basic house out of holystone, but guess I should find a dungeon soon. I like this mod though, I'm not usually one for mass modding at all, but it's fun and entertaining!

More soon!

Silly Things For Aesthetics

That was the title of a topic in the Minecraft forums once - "What are the silly things you've done purely for aesthetics?". Today I've just done another, all though it wasn't a silly one, more of a home improvement. I can't believe I've spent over an hour, a whole hour+, trying to renovate a very small little hallway. This hallway started of when I built the house in the mountain, as a "Dig area" for resources, but with the addition of the back lounge room, over time turned into a connecting stairway/hallway to upstairs. Apart from walls, floor and ceiling the rest hasn't ever been changed since September 2010!:

(Old ceiling shown here)

Today, that changed. Over the last few months I've begun to loathe cobble stairs to the point of having them only where absolutely necessary. I really dislike cobble stairs sticking out in the middle of a room like above, but that was my n00b style back then, it was time for  a change. After pulling down the ceiling, I started putting stairs parallel to where they are, on the other side - basically where you see the fencing. Trouble was I wanted to hide the stairs with a wall. I first found out this neat way of doing it by accident on my testing world, then did it in the multiplayer house shrine. The trouble was I couldn't put a wall up to hide it because the stairs down to the library (starting to look almost done now!) were there. This could only mean one thing.

I had to move the stairs down to said library over by one. I changed all the steps down to the library from cobble to wooden stairs, and the one block gap by the side of the stairs going up, (The back wall behind the fencing above), I brought forward by one. I also ended up closing up the entrance to the stairs with more sandstone and added a door - like it was a private entrance:

I'm in two minds about whether to turn version 2 of these stairs into wood was well? 

View down to the library:

I'm so pleased at how much better it looks! At least the fugly cobble stairs are hidden now, whether I do decide to change them to wooden stairs or not. (Maybe use half-steps?)

When restoring the roof, I needed a couple more Glowstone so I took a trip to the Nether. The Ghasts were really on heat after me. Unfortunately, in the immediate area I have nerfed most of the Glowstone, which meant I had to go flying around the Nether to find more, which wasn't a problem finding, naturally, but I did end up getting lost in the Nether. Whilst finding my way back, or trying to I kept hacking away at the Glowstone above land - not above lava. By the time I got back I had 7 & 1/2 stacks of Glowstone! Don't think I ever have to worry about lighting for a while!

The maze is currently reaching it's third block height with leave blocks, I think that's as far up as I can go without it degrading, but I'll let you know. Three high is still enough that you have to jump with "Steve" only being a two block high character. When I've gone all the way around with the third block high, experimented with a fourth level, then, I will begin the fun bit - designing the interior of the maze.

I'll leave you with an update on the library. Things are getting pretty tall, bookcase wise, in the library now:

WOLF KILLER!

I have so far managed to resist making lots of paintings for "signs" as designated last post, but I have been up to other things however. In world1, my underground home, I've been adding a new dimension to my walls after recently re-doing the floor. All the way along the corridor up to the "nice area" and the lobby stair entrance of said area, I have been doing this:

Hidden door through the waterfall.

I also built a mantelpiece in the "nice area", with a fireplace underneath, not a traditional fireplace however, just space for some Netherrack to set alight. Unfortunately, I didn't have any Netherrack which meant a trip to the Nether. I already had my old portal on a mountain opposite fort no.2, which you get to via the cobblestone sky-bridge. The portal is enclosed in a small enclosed area however. Due to this a very long time ago I had to either dig my way up to the Nether surface (Which was a fail) or dig down. I did dig down to an area which led to the main Nether area, but because of that, my portal is so hidden in that enclosed area. Meaning, if you fly around the Nether, which I did, it's very hard to re-locate it. And easy to then get lost, which I also did.

Wednesday night I got stuck in the nether, my pick run out, I had iron ingots, but forgot to bring wood in my haste for handle. I also forgot my work bench. With no wood for either of those things I was stuck in the Nether. /sand biome (One of my waypoints) on the SinglePlayerCommands buried me underground so I would slowly suffocate, so I had to quickly do /home, which returned me to the Nether. Thankfully I did have some torches spread around the area and managed to find the man made Netherrack block stairs back up to my portal. As soon as I was back through the first thing I did was punch a tree! Well, I used my axe. I ended up going back and making the area more visible in-case I did fly around the Nether, so I wouldn't lose it again. Whilst there I dodged Ghasts to collect plenty more Glowstone - might as well.

With the Netherrack installed and lit in the fire place, I went down to level #7 with the lava pools, I had an idea. I proceeded to go about and take alot of torches down and placed stumpy Netherrack half pillars and lit them:

As you can see, fire doesn't make an area light up very well, but that's not the point. I kind of like it that way because it is the lava pools level, so it makes things a little creepier if only partially lit. In some areas it seemed when initially carving out walls and leveling things off, I had spam torched a bit, so that was an extra reason to do it. I have an excess of torches now. XD.

Need to start those "sign" paintings and add wool ceilings to the overlooking viewing room in the "nice area" and the ceiling in level 5's "one up, one down room". As a reminder, this is the room:

Still need to figure out what I'm going to use this room for!

Last night however, I spent a very, very long time starting an idea I'm bound to regret starting! Before I get to that however I should mention my dogs. I have 20 dogs, and recently I found out they share a spawn rate with the other animals. So if you have lots of dogs the neutral animal mobs spawn rate might suffer. I decided to keep, just two. I couldn't bring myself to kill the other 18 though, so I took them out from their kennel for a walkies to battle mobs. Despite the very poor health of some to begin with, they actually lasted a lot longer than expected. When I reached the last 1 however, I was almost, almost tempted to keep him as he beat 17 others in staying alive. Since reducing my pets I have noticed a much bigger spawn of pigs, cows chicken and sheep at night! Especially sheep. The bad thing however, is that now, almost every night 4 - 5 wolves spawn around my house! So now I have to protect my precious sheep! I let the wolves wander, but if they kill a sheep, that's it, they feel the sharp end of my bow and arrow. This has happened and I've been forced into a life of wolf killing, something I never wanted to do in the first place! The dog kennel itself, I have chopped in half, I was going to pull it all down for a much smaller one but decided just to half it instead. Still plenty of room for two doggies.

The thing I started, was a maze. I decided I really wanted one. Choosing a spot was hard, I didn't want to level another mountain like I did for the pool and tennis court - but I needed a relativity flat land.  I ended up choosing the top of a mountain over looking my base:

Had to extend the back of the mountain out for size.

And begun work...

Let's hope I don't regret starting this project!

I had to sleep through the night just now to bring you that last picture, when I awoke there was a creeper outside my bedroom door, the main outer entrance door. With 15 arrows I opened the door and let him in to shoot him to death, but despite being far enough way, he shot his load. Will have to rebuild the side entrance to my bedroom exterior wall now! Also blew some of the glass out from the window wall/long window along the main frontage.

Fuckin' creepers!

Déjà vu

Didn't think I'd be posting again so soon, but last night I continued on world1 and really got to work on those farms I talked about on level 4 of my underground home. Before, I already had the reed pond, but I wasn't sure how I was going to lay out the area for a wheat and mushroom farm. Especially as I had been knocking walls down, as well as a hole underneath the ground level, but it's worked out pretty well. I sort of knew how I was going to shape the farm, but once again i tried making a trail of dirt from level #1 down to level #4 to grow grass down there. Underground.

I kept my computer on overnight again, but kept it on peaceful this time so hundreds of mobs would spawn behind walls. I've only just laid dirt on that top level by the wheat farm, so it'll take time to grow. Around by the top left corner, where it's dark, there's a one up/one down area for the mushroom farms, the "down" bit being a natural hole.

The door, (If you can see it on the right), leads to another small cave which I've turned into a cactus farm. Plenty of green wool to be had soon:

This morning as I laid the last cactus, I have wandered if I should make a livestock room, lit well to spawn cows, pigs.chicken and sheep? The other idea was having a storage level? Maybe? I have my little shed on level one (As well as another wheat farm around the corner from it), but that is only meant to be a small storage shed. My other stored stuff is all the way down on level #7 (lava pool level) where my makeshift home is. I need somewhere large though where I can have separate chest for each material - wool, wood, cobble etc.

I've just had another idea as well, but I need to open Minecraft and take a screenshot before this will make sense. Done. Okay here is where my makeshift home is behind the double doors in the first picture:

Other angle:

Lava corner:

So what I'm now thinking is, instead of that makeshift home behind the doors in picture #1, maybe I should have this entire immediate area as my home?! It's plenty big enough!

The other thing I forgot whilst I opened up Minecraft to take that screenshot, (And it's only because I was in my original noob house from Sept 2010 earlier), is that - because of this separate painterly pack for this world, I forgot I changed the paintings to signs. Whilst opening up minecraft to take that screenshot I ended up putting a "No fishing" sign above the squid pen on level #1, a proper green with white letters "exit" sign by the side of my emergency exit and a "Warning: Farm fields. Please watch your step" next to the entrance of the farm level. I had to stop before I got too carried away as I got so many ideas in that moment. Ideas like the warning stripe all along the way along the emergency exit corridor with arrow pointing signs to show the way to go, and all sorts of signs everywhere. Tonight I might make an access of sticks and use all the yellow wool I have (As I'n not likely to use yellow wool) and create as many signs as possible!

Guess I know what I'll be doing tonight! And posting about tomorrow!

This and That

I've been making a few small improvements lately, as well as keeping to my promise in the last post. I have completed three "gates" on the Nether-bridge now, and lit them and work is going very well on the library, which as well as just continuing to make bookcases, I've also started changing the walls. I've got a mock up of this world on a "test world" and tried many, many different combinations for wall textures for the library, but couldn't settle on one. At last I went with contemporary.


On this test world I had a great idea for an accent to the side of the stairs at the outside entrance, sadly it involved logs, and with lava so near by - it wasn't an option. I tried half-blocks on the stone like on the brick wall but it still didn't look right, all half blocks looked even worse. So I kept thinking and thinking about half-blocks and came up with this mixture of sand and sand stone half-blocks:

Still don't like those clay blocks, ever since 1.5 where wooden stairs now burned  - I've never found a good replacement. Tonight I changed them to cobblestone stairs, it looks okay, but I'm not completely sold on it yet.

Also did the back:

The Nether-bridge:

Still might change the design on the gates, not that keen on them.

And lastly the library:

Will change the ceiling to wool blocks too, white wool for my "Asbestos ceiling tile" look.

Added lava down two sides of Mount DOooooom! but kinda bodged a bit up. Shame there's not infinite burning logs any more. Had to widen the top of the fort as well (must be even on all sides dammit!), so it now looks chunkier. Logistical nightmare though. Rain has just sort of stopped so here's an updated picture:

That's all I really have for today. =)

EDIT: Just took a screenshot of the new overhang, at the front of the entrance, no more clay blocks, better? worse? Meh, can't decide:

Deadlines

Haven't been doing much except decorating the inside of my multiplayer house shrine and then digging out a basement underneath it like the original. Not much really. I have decided to set myself a deadline however.


With the 1.8 update not coming out until late August, some rumors saying September, I set myself some deadlines to do by the end of then. By the end of August, I intent to:

• Finish the library upgrade
• Finish the nether-bridge
• and finish the Multiplayer house shrine

I didn't add - finish Mount DOOOOoooom, as that's a big project. IF the adventure update is not until September, at least I'll have those things done by then ready for 1.8. Which I cannot wait for! Grrrr!

Night of The Living Mobs

In level #3 of World 1, in what was going to be the original bedroom, I have begun the farms, or at least one of them. The rest of where I demolished needs work. I filled the floor you see from the viewing area with dirt, made a small controlled explosion, (This went very wrong at first and one block destroyed most of the floor), filled the floor - again and made a pond surrounded by reeds. I've also paved the floor all the way up to the door to the entrance of the "Nice area" on level #3, and patched the wall replacing any dirt, cobble or gravel with smooth stone to match the rest.


I should also mention I made a separate painterly pack for this world. (But kept certain attributes like the look of sandstone and half-steps.) At this point when searching my .minecraft folder for the relevant screen-shots, I realized I've lost my entire screen-shots folder! I tried to re-install Millienaire, but it failed, so I deleted the entire folder, I moved saves over, texture packs, statistics but I've forgot screen-shots. All those pictures - gone! NoooooOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooo...

Above also shows the new domed roof and hedged fencing. I say domed, it's more square.. Also, squids spawned in my small farm! So I decided to relocate it and turn the farm on level #1 into a squid pen. Due to the relocation I have turned the temporary home on level #1 more into a small storage shed, this is why it looks different along there.

Anyway this reed farm, I tried to grown grass down to it, and left my computer on overnight. In the morning dozens and i mean dozens upon dozens of mobs had spawned in the holes behind the walls! It is underground after all so there are a lot of holes behind walls! I collected about a stack of bones, maybe more. However, Instead of putting them away, I grabbed some cobble and went to fill in some of these holes. Some went so far down that, when I died, I had no way of knowing exactly where I was just then. I lost my diamond tools and many, many stacks of cobblestone. I was a little bummed but pushed on with re-flooring the corridor to level 3 as mentioned above.

That's all that's really happened recently, I've been keeping an eye on the STEAM sales and have brought a good few things so have been playing those. Hopefully I'll have something more interesting to post next time. :-/

World #1 Comeback?!

So the World #1 Beta idea didn't go as planned, but it was an interesting experiment. The only trouble with that is I really loved that new look wooden home I built! However, last night I began thinking about the old world#1 from the Alpha days, where I was building an underground home. I haven't touched that world in a very long time! I reasoned last night that now with pistons, legitimate leaf blocks, that maybe I might get more inspired on the underground project, so copied it over to my main saves folder (Effectively putting it back), and had a fiddle with it.


If your not sure what the underground project is, see: Here

Already I have started making a few changes, I couldn't help myself. For level one I added some low bushes instead of the fences, originally these were two blocks high, but it didn't look right so I've kept it to one block. I've also removed the armour dispenser in favour of an infinite water spot. (I tried a water dispenser like in World2, my main world, but I couldn't remember how I did it!) I also changed the front entrance a bit, but that was mainly due to changing the cobble stairs to slabs, I find I'm often not liking cobble stairs these days.

Now I'm tempted to make a pitched glass roof instead of the current flat one, too give it more oomph. Especially as the entrance is so basic.

I also finished making the walls "higher up"/leveling the ceiling in the "Nice room" on level #3. Whilst doing this however there was a row, two high, above the sandstone walls that had to be converted. It wasn't until I was ground level that I realized how nice the contrast at the top of the wall looked between the two materials - sandstone and smooth stone. Of course smooth stone doesn't really compliment sandstone that well, so after fiddling with the entrance to the room (Because the double doors were off center), I got an idea to have a log border at the top all the way around. This also meant going behind it and closing up as much of the natural holes above the ceilings as possible where zombies, skeletons and creepers lurked. I hate going into a room and hearing mob noises because there's a natural hole space behind a wall or above your ceiling.

Here's a recap (With the old HD texture pack at the time) of how we last left it:

And shots taken last night:

I need to make some more cakes now as I scoffed after being injured. Gone are the horrible cobble steps! BAM! - A better water feature, it's not a fireplace, it's a waterplace! That water runs down behind a 3 block infinite water placement, it's more of a water-wall than a waterplace I guess. As you might see, I've started turning the ceiling into wool blocks, but have currently run out of wool. It's took 2 stacks already!

The entrance, because it wasn't centered and looked funny, from the outside going in, had to change from double doors to a single door. I also did a strange accent of glass by the door, both on the inside and outside. Didn't like the cobble steps coming right down the middle outside the room either, and despite still using cobble steps there, for now, I've got them coming down the side, instead of straight down the middle from the floor. I really want to back the corridors leading up to it nice, instead of a patch work of stone, cobble and dirt - both fall and walls, but I'm not sure what materials to use yet, has to be really nice. I'm hoping the new look entrance to the "nice room" will inspire the rest of the corridors look.

With the change of the outside entrance to level #1, I no longer have the reeds outside, which means one of the levels might end up being a farm level - reed, cactus, mushroom, don't really need a tree farm as I'm surrounded by them on the surface, and I already have a small farm on level #1.