FAIL

A little story of my big fat FAIL of trying to find a new chunk in my (now ex) main world. Are you sitting comfortably? Good, then we'll begin..


All I took with me was my bow and arrow, on old used stone sword, the second map, food, my clock and my Enderman pearls (Which I shouldn't have taken with me.) So when I first died it was completely my own fault, I was trying to be a smart-ass. When the map run out, I was in the wide open ocean, so I decided to make a new one - under the water. I had also the materials for a new map. So I was trying to be clever and thought - "I can duck under the water, quickly place a work-bench and make a new map and come up before I drown..". I did, but almost died trying to pick the work-bench under water. I tried to make it back up to the surface, but died on the way up. It was my own fault. The second time I died, I had just dug into the side of a flat wall (border) and got stone tools, but it was getting dark. So I dug into the side of this small mound of Earth, but in the morning, there was a skeleton above me. He must've been under a tree in the shade as he wasn't burning. Evertime I tried to leave though, an arrow whizzed past my head! Then I decided to just dig up through the mound, as it was a small lump of land, and as soon as I popped my head up - the skeleton buzzed an arrow past my head! He had me trapped at both exits! I decided to just make a ru for it in the end, but he got me.


Luckily, I got back in time (With a bit of sprinting), and regained all my stuff. I can't remember how I died after that but I remember going to the nether and deciding to get some cooked pork, but about almost a dozen pigmen turned on me! When I returned to the Nether, I had to try and fight almost a dozen with no weapons, nothing in my inventory to use as a weapon. After dying again x2, I decided to just "Run for the tools", which I managed to get. When I finally get going in the direction from the portal again, I kept travelling in a straight line, but I came out at the back of Mount DOOooooom! After having to go over the mountain from DOOoooom(!), I stayed in the church for the night and went back through that portal by the church in the morning. I came out the other portal again by the snow biome  - in the other direction. I kept travelling in a straight line again, using a boat to cross water. Then I came across this:

I guess it's a border in the water, but it was fun trying to go over it in a boat! It was like that film - The Perfect Storm. XD In the end I just swum over it After crossing miles of water I finally found small miniscule small island with vines hanging from trees! I had found a new chunk! I kept going, but I'm sure I just ended up in an old chunk again. I thought I saw mountains that looked very 1.8ish but wasn't sure. Just gave up in the end.

I deleted my temporary pre-release worlds, and started a brand new world with the official 1.8 release, using whatever world I generated. Went travelling straight away from my spawn point and found this very strange pool of light in a lake:

On "moody" light setting.

"Bright" light setting.

It shows better in the first picture. Immediately I looked up to see if it was the moon causing the light, but it was not. When I jumped down into it I found this strange formation:

A very strange under-water anomaly. There were pockets were I could stand in the open to breathe and not drown, free from the water.

Eventually I died and returned to spawn. I traveled in the opposite direction, and never even noticed there was a ravine right by my spawn point! I don't think it's a very extensive one however and I haven't seen any abandoned mineshafts, yet. There's still some exploring to do however. I started building myself a little temporary shack by the ravine/and my spawn point before going off to do more exploring to look for some flat land to build this "base".

Not far from my home, just over a hill I found this area:

I think this is a good as place to build a base as anywhere. I've already lit up the area ready to begin:

NEXT: Work begins!

1.8 Pre-Release (A bit rant-y?)

Like the title would be called anything else!

I meant to post this over the weekend, but naturally I've been playing around with the pre-1.8 release. After reading about the post, I lasted all of 5 minutes or less of resisting before downloading it. Probably less than that. I really don't give a shit about all the elitist "You're letting down Notch/Mojang" by downloading it etc. Bullshit. It's there to test bugs. It's fine if you really want to wait, but if you're being an elitist snob about it then fuck you. We'll have fun exploring it whilst you're missing out, bitching about "Should feel bad" about it. This isn't towards any that genuinely want to wait mind you, fair enough.

The first things as you can tell from the above picture is see how my main world looks in the new lighting. The sunrises/sunsets are even more gorgeous, I think it's be come a new Minecraft hobby, waiting for the sun to rise to take screen-shots where everything's bathed in a pinky-orange glow. The yellow lighting inside will take a little getting used to however, but I have found that by having the lighting on the default "moody" there a lesser need for as many torches outside. That said the lighting when lighting up a cave and the contrasting night sky is a very welcome addition. As is the hunger bar. I always keep food on me anyway, and as long as you keep said hunger bar topped up you won't die. For those complainers, if you keep food on you, now stackable, it takes only 5 seconds to eat, is it really worth bitching about?

Sprinting is okay, although I haven't perfected the sprint-jump yet. I love the new bow mechanics however! Whether fighting by sword or bow, I've become a wee bit obsessive about killing mobs now to get that xp! Even though it doesn't do anything, yet. Speaking of mobs, as well as a play-around 1.8 world, I also had Endermen spawn on my immediate shore area of my main alpha world! They're not too bad, I think it was the third time I killed an Enderman, third being on main world, that I got an Enderman pearl. When I used it against a second one on my main world it did strange things to him and I got another! Love the bow mechanics though. I also love ravines and Mineshafts! I think a user may be right that the Mineshafts spawn a little too much, but I'm sure they can work on that. Love ravines though, they're ace. Only got poisoned  about twice by a blue spider, but it's okay - only takes you down to half a heart completely. as does eating rotten flesh! Did it just for the shit and giggles.

Only encountered 1 NPC village, they're okay but will of course only be fully realised in the second update, and this isn't even the official first update! I love glass panes but there's a lot of places where glass blocks will still do, have to be picky where I chose to put them in my main world. One thing I have already started despite the lighting flaw when placing them is replacing any remaining horrible cobble stairs with Stone brick stairs! They look, much, much nicer, and for this, I love stone-brick!

Some other screenshots:

How many bows can a zombie stand at short range?

Quite a few apparently!

Look carefully for the glowing eyes of an Enderman!

Proper texture pack, but next as good as the first attempt. Perhaps because I wasn't trying then?

Another of my favourites.

Goregeous landscapes:

The way the land now generates, and shots like the above, makes me unsure what I want to do now when 1.8 part #1 officially comes out. I think I still want to do the "base" thing. Not helped by watching the 1989 Batman Movie again for the first time in many years since I last saw it. It was the Batcave that did it! Seeing it again let out a "Fuck yeah!" in my mind as my thoughts then turned to that future Minecraft base. One things I'm still absolutely certain of is less updates on my main world. There will be some but I am still starting over. Just don't know what to do yet.

Boredom = Creativity?

I've been doing some more work on "Waterville", I.E. the house on the water, but to be honest as much as I like houses on the water I'm kinda bored of it already. This is what it now looks like however:

The door in the last picture, goes underneath the stairs and leads to the back door and farm. I was keeping those log masts as is, to keep a "dock" feel, but now I'm thinking of maybe using them as supports for an upstairs? It'd mean the top floor would be bigger than the bottom one, but at least it'd be different and not just a cube.

Also, due to the boredom of it and until 1.8 (Now Monday?), I started building on my other pre-1.8 world here::

I intended to build on this for 1.8, but with the delays, and not knowing whether you still can use seeds, (Might be under "other world options"?). I decided to just go ahead and do it whilst waiting. So far I have cleared the trees and built an oblong shaped house, it's... something a little different.

I will be doing Tudor style beams in the blank sand walls also, and instead of a normal wooden floor (Which I do every single time!) I have a nice faux-lino textured floor. I found quite a lot of clay on one of the shores near me! I just think it looks really nice, and different to my usual. I just hope I can find more to finish the entire floor.

I'll probably keep working on this for what's left of the week, and over the weekend.

Not much going on in my main world, I decided after seeing someone's picture of their nice wide path, to widen my board-walk slightly, so the half-slabs are in line with the Glowstone, thus doubling the width of the board walk. May do that brick wall surrounding the hedge fencing, might as well do something with all the clay I've horde collected.

Odds & Sods

Just thought I'd share what I've been up too. I've only been meaning to posts this for the last 5 days or so. The 8th passed where Jeb said maybe to a 1.8 part release, there is now speculation that it maybe on Thursday. (Unsubstantiated.)


Alot of people are complaining about the hunger bar, after last post I don't think it will bother me. I always keep food on me anyway, everyone should. If you have a farm or mushroom farm it's it's easy to keep food if you don't want to slaughter animals. Although mushroom ingredients take 3 inventory slots, as long as reserve those three slots for it, it's fine. Wheat only takes a single inventory slot. Many people are over-reacting to the hunger bar, I may have had concerns but it's still never bothered me. Even snouts on pigs are causing controversy! They're just snouts!


So what have I been up to?


Well on a clone of my main world I have been experimenting with the idea of a mixed hedge and brick wall turning from this:

I'm not sure about it yet. I think I like it and have plenty of clay blobs in my chests from my travels. (So much so I had to re-organised my mixed general materials chest, making a separate one just for the clay.) I also moved one of the living room walls back two blocks. Though, this was only because I was trying pistons for a secret entrance down to the portal room and lava pools instead of iron doors. It failed. Trying to fit it in an already pre-exiting room is not easy. In the end I gave up, but opted for a more natural open doorway down. Taking the wall back looks nice too with the additional window line, it also make's the room look longer.


Before:

After:

I had to redo the stairs down slightly creating a bit of a cobble column just inside the doorway, meaning slightly twisty stairs.


Oh and because of the new water shade, and mainly through boredom waiting for 1.8, I started lining the inside of the pool with the blue gravel now and some additional Glowstone. When I built the pool I didn't really worry about how it looked inside the pool as you couldn't really see it, but now with the water shader mod, it was time for change! The gravel at least makes it alot easier to see each level of the pool from 5 blocks down to 10 to 20. The additional Glowstone of course also helps.

I've also started changing the roofs in the changing rooms this morning, at last. From drab stone to snow blocks.


Speaking of snow blocks, I did also solve that problem of where to put the urinal in the bathroom:

I need some additional lighting around there though, and wooden doors have changed to thick iron ones.


Also because of the water mod, I started this little house on the water:

I'm not sure if I'll keep it yet. It's a bit cuboid at the moment, But I've a few ideas, to keep a "dock" feel. A few things to make it a little bit different. I was going to change the wood to sand to go with the logs, but I really wanted to keep a mariner feel/a fell of what would go with the water.


Will have to see how it goes.

You did WHAT With The Water?!

So the other day on the front page of minecraftforum.net, there was a spotlight on this mod - the Minecraft Water Shader.


Now I have never heard of this mod to make water realistic, but as soon as I saw the video, I had to try it out! It's like that nice water in the Minecraft rip-off Fortresscraft. It's photo realistic and reflective and very very nice! It was incompatible with mod loader, but I believe there is a version now that is compatible with that. It didn't affect me because I don't use loads of mods anyway. My first words after installing it on my main world were - "THIS IS F***ING A-MAZING!!" I looked into my swimming pool and I was there for a good minute because I was so mesmerized! Here are the screen-shots I took:

Since these pictures I finally fixed the current underneath the dock after I got home from work today with a mixture of buckets and placing wood blocks. Fixed it at least! Not easy to place water when the current keeps bobbing you up and down, especially underneath the dock! This new mod which I will never NOT use(!) makes me want to build a home in the middle of lake now! Or build a town with a water theme.

Speaking of which, as 1.8 may now be even further delayed, I need a little temporary something - so I may well create a little town. I used to have a world for my own independant server, but couldn't get enough people to play. (Plain vanilla server though, no Bukkit/worldmods etc.) So what I have done, is move that world into my saves folder, and I may build a town  with this world. I need a theme however, and all I have on this world (As well as nothing in my inventory at first,  apparently.) is the original build on there, which was just this small information center:

I may well tear this down completely to start again. I may use a water theme, to show off the new water shader mod, but I need to get in my head what I want it to look like first, only then can I really start. I shall be looking for inspiration on Google images after this blog post. Not much else has gone in my main world, apart from setting the rest of the entire Nether tunnel bridge alight. On world 3 I added some piston fence gates in the 2 high fencing and am replacing torches inside the house with Glowstone embedded in the walls. No much else really.

More to follow hopefully.

Thoughts After Pax

So I've been following the PAX stuff that happened over the weekend, watching as many videos as I possibly could, and thought I'd do something a little different today and give my thoughts on some of the upcoming 1.8 stuff.


When 1.8 first was announced I couldn't wait to see how the new lighting would look, and still can't wait to see how it makes my main world, the Alpha one, look. Now I'm really looking forward to the bow, I think it's an excellent improvement on what was already there, making them much, much better. On the whole I don't think there's anything I really don't like. I do have some concerns with hunger, not the idea, but the way it works, but I won't be able to give it full consideration until I actually try it. I like the abandoned mines and rivers, I was thinking if I find a ravine should I build a home/something on one? I hope you can pick up those cobwebs in the mines or create them legit now. I'm really neither here or there on the NPC villages, especially if 1.8 is going to be updated in two parts with the actual NPC's being added to the villages in part two. I guess I'll have to wait and see what the NPC's actually do. I'd only ransack a town if it was too close to where i wanted to build, generally I would be friends with them.


If they do add poisonous spiders, it will make trips to caves alot more fun. (As well as ravines, strongholds and abandoned mines of course!) We don't know yet whether Enderman only spawn above ground... Some people are really overreacting with Enderman, first just to them and now the often seen "fortifying my house ready for Endermen" threads. I'm not worrying about it, as far as we know they can't enter your homes and they can't remove placed blocks, so I'm not worried or freaking out about meeting one. I'll deal with it however I deal with it at that moment.


That's all I can really think off at the moment, there may be a part II, maybe  not. We'll see.

Small update, small changes..

Just a little update of what I've been up to over the last 4 - 5 days+.


The main thing I should mention, the biggest thing is a change to the megabuild project. I'm not doing an ancient sand town any more, decided to just build a great big house - still using Invedit. I've kept the fort-style walls however. So now, it's gone from this:

To this:

It's very bland at the moment, but that will change. There's actually a mistake also. The middle of the front is meant to be forward of the side rooms not "in" as shown, will change that. Probably add multiple windows as well to the front rather than just one. I'm happy with my hallway - the last picture, but I've still the floor to do. Also found a nice way to do lighting on the walls as seen on the left of the last picture. I'll still do updates but only from time to time on this project.

Main World

One main thing I've done, is a switch in the bedroom. Where the bedroom extension is/was, is now the new bathroom and vice versa the old bathroom now the extension. The reason for this is because I wanted a working shower, which meant using Redstone and pistons, and the original bathroom which originally was an extension itself out of the side of the mountain was far too small. Also here is the new bathroom:

It's missing the urinal, but I might change the wooden doors to the VIP room into iron doors, but I will have to change the look of them in the painterly pack. (The last ultimate, final version for this world?!) Might have it where the mini corridor is between said VIP room and door to bathroom. Been laying around with the front entrance again, from this:

To this:

I like it, but, I'm really not sure about the roof. The way it's done is very slightly Japanese-ish. I really wanted to make the door open with the doorbell. It meant changing the double stairs to a single staircase and therefore making the double doors singular as well. I had to move both over to the left by one. The one good thing however is that the doorbell is now on the inside of the brick wall to your right, easier to reach than before - having to lean over.. It works though, doorbell chimes, door opens. I'll do the bay window roof when/if I can ever decide on a decent roof.

I also went and nerfed more Glowstone this morning because I had an idea about doing extra lighting around the high pool walls:

As you can see I also changed the steps going up to the main path. This is because there were two snow blocks (From the dining room ceiling) showing up between the steps. I tried just putting steps over them but it ruined the flow of the steps, making them over extend at the bottom. Cobble steps look ugly and wooden steps wouldn't be right, so I built these twisty steps up. From another angle:

Also changed the half-way house into a wooden home (because I like wooden homes/log cabins/huts: