World #3 Update // Putting The NO in Snow

Since the last update I've been busy shaping the look of the new house, in dirt to begin with - just to get an idea of shape and scale. I Googled "Modern Homes" in the image search and found a home I really like and really, really wanted to emulate. Before I started building it in rough with dirt however, I removed the stone border foundation of the old house as I realized I'd just have the same size house or shape.

(Old picture):

Shaping the new home:

 

 

 

 

 

With the actual house I liked how the different parts of the buildings are different heights, so have also replicated this. The actual pointy roof to the rear of the house will actually be lower. I've started bricking the building behind the wooden veranda and to it's right, the building with the proposed half-slopey roof; I have begun putting up the snow walls from collected snow in the nearby snow biome.

 

 

 

The mountains above were covered in snow, which is what the biome used to be when it was built in Beta. (Now confirmed it was in Beta.) It still rains there but it is only coming down as rain not snow, so I am vastly removing the snow from the snow biome and turning it into plains inadvertently! Luckily the old snow biome runs for many miles after these mountains.

I also have two pet Komodo dragons! Two wild ones started attacking me and dropped eggs when they died, so I tried breeding them with torches surrounding them on the ground outside. I have named them Rex and Tyrannus!

Tearin' It Down!

World #3

So I've decided to tear the whole thing down and start again.

Originally I decided not to and to patch things up after the cave golem damage. Outside, things weren't too bad but on the inside, there were too many internal walls knocked down by the cave golem.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The plan was to just patch up the walls and rebuild, but after thinking long and hard, and deciding a "roll back" on the world [From an earlier backed-up save] was too much of an easy option. In a way it's better, as this was built in either late Alpha; or early Beta. Like my two beginner worlds before them - World #1 and world #2 (My main world still), my building style has changed drastically for the better. So it's fitting in a way I start over. I still have a hard copy of the world as it was however, before all the damage.

Over the last 3 days or so I have been steadily knocking it down block by block from the roof down:

 

 

 

In a way it is a little sad to see it go, but as long as I have the hard back-up copy it will always exist. I'm more excited to see what the new build will look like, it's going to be a very modern home, ultra smart and fancy with the transfer to the Soartex texture pack.

Read about the story of this old home: Here.

Underground homes // Posh homes // 1.5 Prep // **** YOU OGRE!

Ugh it's been too long! All through March I've been meaning to make a post, it's always been in the back of my head - "must make a new blog post" but I keep forgetting! Too much irl stuff. So let's start with the main world - World#2:



With the release of 1.5 - The Redstone Update out, I will be preparing to move my Nether and then reset it. I very much want the new Nether Quartz and marble from it (As well as daylight detectors) so when the time comes, not only will I reset my Nether, I will take down the old Portal room - the portal, Netherrack, lava and all; and move the whole room elsewhere. Not only will I get a Nether, but hopefully a new spawn point within the Nether, so I can find lots of Nether quartz. To do this I will be moving the portal room further down to the very base of the mountain, way past the mob area, past quite a few lava pools to an area when I blasted down to Bedrock many many moons ago. The place needs fixing up first and I will have to remove all the Netherrack, lava and existing portal - but it will be worth it. I won't actually destroy the portal itself until Mo' Creatures updates to 1.5. (Rei's Mini Map is already there.)

The old, current and very small portal room:

 

I haven't done any more to the underground minecart system lately, and the library is starting to fill up with books, but it's a long way off completion yet. Apart from that there's not a great deal more done, I do have a few more new renovation ideas though. The outside of the apartment block is basic to say the least, so I tested on my creative copy of this world, a way to make it more aesthetically pleasing. So an upgrade to make it more pretty will happen, and I'm also currently re-lighting the board-walk with Glowstone. Due to the Nether move however, I don't have enough Glowstone to do this yet, so I'm placing said block, (under glass), every four blocks for now. Already it's much brighter at night.

 

 

The original idea was to have Glowstone all the way along the board-walk under glass. Whether I still do that remains to be seen. Also when I go fully over to 1.5 the bathroom is getting a marble make over, I've already experimented in the creative copy of this world, including having to drop the room down by one block (Due to the room above it), and made the working shower a lot, LOT more aesthetic!

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Yes, World#1!

The other thing I did for the [then upcoming] 1.5 is update the texture pack for World#1, my original first world from 2010; when I then started making an underground home in, back in - 2011?

The painterly texture pack hadn't been upgraded since 1.4.2, so whilst I originally went to the site to upgrade it to the stable 1.4.7 [At least], I also made one for 1.5. I also made a 1.5 one for the above World#2. Anywho, the point it is, It is time to continue, I'm ready! With the way I felt with my building style changing in 2012 and being ready to renovate world #2 above; I am now ready to do the same for my underground home in World #1! I'm ready and I'm feeling it! So from 1.5 onwards I will take to continuing upgrading my underground home, especially the very abandoned level #7 area, deep underground with all the lava pools.

That is not all...

If you have followed this blog long enough you may remember this house that I built and planned in a sandpit in the middle of a forest:

 

It's been so long since I did anything to this world - it doesn't even have it's own banner! [Yet!]

Anyway, after I concluded building this home it was like, "Well what's next?" I was stumped for a while although I did have plans to make a dock/fishing area, as that was the nearest spot adjacent to water. Now though, I have new plans! I think I will convert this home to a modern home, and try and make it everything that the 1.9.5 world should have been. I might also change the texture pack to what I used on that world - Soartex fanver. Already I started making a few aesthetic changes. Instead of a standard 3 x 3 window:

For some reason, despite being next to a snow biome there are a lot of cats wandering around, I dunno probably due to Mo' Creatures more than anything. These are my plans for this house though!

Just after I made the screenshot for the "Aesthetic change", waiting for day to turn to take more pictures, a Cave Ogre spawned in my home:

 

 

 

The bathroom got off lightly, but the kitchen and biome-room are completely desecrated, walls are down and it's a complete mess.

Now I'm not sure, should I do a roll-back from a back-up save? (I only changed a few windows prior.) Or shall I use this as even more of a reason for a rebuild/restructure/modernzation, and just carry on?  

World Holes, Orgre Holes, & Library News!

 
An unusual thing happened when I loaded up my main world - two strange world holes. Or at least two very large holes. In retrospect - maybe it was the work of an ogre given there was a bottom to these holes. Thankfully they are away from the house on the beach, although they took come cacti away. Due to this unnatural event, which I thought was a world hole, I did change gamemode to fill the holes. I thought it was only right as it was something out of my hands and would take infinite amounts of sand to fill. Something else did happen with ogres though, and it wasn't good!

 

 

Before the carnage:

 

I was inside my house and I could hear the sounds of an ogre near by, but as I ran around - desperate to find and stop it it was absolutely nowhere to be found! Later at the rear of my mountain home (Home embedded in a mountain) I found the damage, a huge gaping hole where my back entrance to my home used to be (Just a door left); and the viewing area/room was completely destroyed too!

As I went to get some materials for a quick patch up job i found another huge hole on the landing that led down to storage.. Alot of the grey wool walls were smashed, the ceiling, some glass, and being next to the dining room - on the other side of the wall, he had been in there too.. As I looked up I found where he had spawned, apparently there was a big hole above the ceiling of said landing and that's where he was, not sure what happened with the back entrance. I went into the dining room and he had smashed a dividing wall from said room to the future kitchen.

After the patch up:

 

Back entrance after the patch up:

 

Some pictures I didn't take I was too dismayed and couldn't bring myself to take them. There is good new though! Remember I was going to change the art gallery to the library? Well I think I've finally committed to starting it! Last time I showed you it I had gutted the existing walls and put coloured wool where the glass would be:

 

 

The other day I gathered the wood I needed, 3 different types + dark logs for this job, and began work! At first putting all the glass in then slowly getting rid of the cobble at last and changing it to an old fashioned old library!:

 

I've made a good start! I should also mention that a good while back I did customize the paintings for this painterly texture pack. I kept a few of the Monet paintings but replaced most with ones of Turner - my favorite painter. Anywho, expect updates now on this project!

As of this post, the back entrance has been restored to it's former glory, the landing down to storage and the dining room have all been fixed. The viewing room (With the water window), is currently being restored slowly.

 

Return To Alpha #6 Coming Soon!

So I finally recorded some more of my Return To Alpha Series after a long gap, and I recorded a long two hour session so that should make for two further episodes. I was meant to record on Saturday but I forgot and then in the evening I was falling asleep as I watched the film Looper. It's not a statement about the film though, I did enjoy it - thought it was good. not amazing but a good film and I really really like the premise of the story. I didn't fall asleep for long though so I didn't miss too much.

So yeah, I recorded very early in the morning on Sunday and will be editing episode #6 tonight and hopefully will get it up for the next day - Monday, Tuesday latest. In the meantime, here's a recap with the last episode, Episode #5:

Return to Alpha is a series where I explore the old Alpha days again, building a home and how different things were way back when. This is not because I hate newer versions, as I always play in 1.4.7 and enjoy the updates; but more of a retrospective series. I use hindsight using influences on how my building style has changed, taking knowledge I have gained over the past 2 years playing Minecraft, doing things with more skill and understanding that I diddn't have back in Alpha 2 years ago.

The HUGE 2 Month Gap Post!

Apologies for not posting in the last two months, hopefully this one will thrust me back into the swing of things! Unfortunately I had a lot going on in real-life in December, and I only had 1 draft ready to post in January; too much real-life stuff going on. So although I've only been playing very off/on here's what I've been up to!



In December I was on my creative version of world#2, and I was thinking about moving my Nether portal. (Not the first time I've had this idea.) Since the Snow Golem farm fail down by my mob area, I had been thinking about using the room for a different area. So on this tester world, I built  a lead up to the Nether portal in the next room, which is a long walk-way of nether -brick surrounded by flaming netherrack. A long walkway up to some netherbrick stairs and the portal is just round the corner, it's a much better area. and I think I come out somewhere different  in the nether, not far from where it was but slightly different.

When I went through, I was not expecting this:

 

Since when did bats spawn in the Nether?! My original theory was they spawned in the cave and went through, but as it was rebuilt there wouldn't have been time for that many to go through.. (Unless it was in the time up to that?) They definitely were not there last time I went to the Nether!! POST UPDATE: Since I made the draft for this post i have decided to place it in another location, even further so I get a bit of a different spawn in the Nether.

Phase #1 of the underwater tunnel was almost completed before the new year. The initial glass tunnel is all done, all I have to do now is a bit of decorating and laying down the rest of the rails. Phase #2 has begun which sees the tunnel continue underground from the church all the way round to Mount DOOOOoooom(!) and beyond.

This is not THE big news though.

I have now decided I need to up my game and have installed Mo'creatures for constant use in all worlds.

One good thing is I can turn Enderman down to 0 frequency, they may be easy to kill but they have always p***ed me off with their block stealing. In it's place though, there will be things like the undead horse mobs, ogres, werewolves, wraiths and plenty more to make up for it. It does mean I also have to be a lot more careful in my worlds now! No matter what hard level I play on! I've already had to do a couple of repairs. The last thing I want is an ogre smashing up my place, I might legit cry if that happened. I'll probably have to wait for 1.5 before I can update again, but so be it. I'll look forward to that as I will be resetting my Nether - again, (4th time?) so I can get the new Nether with the Nether Quartz - which I love! Already on my creative copy of this world I have transformed my bathroom into a marble haven!

Speaking of the marble/Nether Quartz, I also experimented in the creative copy with the new blocks related to this new ore and the daylight sensors to create a light that comes on when it turns night time. I created two versions, the standard version:

The second version is little a "Little Man", I call it the Ayatollah:

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Surprisingly I have picked this world back up recently as well. Not a great deal has changed on the inside, but I do now have a minuscule carrot farm after obtaining one from a zombie. On the outside however, I have create a multi-storey animal farm with sheep, pigs, chickens and at the top, cows.

Today, now that I use Mo' creatures I did have the bunnies in place of where the sheep were, but after the initial few, I had nowhere to put them. This is why they ended up in with the sheep. Trouble was there were little window slots and they kept escaping so I had to border them up until I could replace them with glass! Then, every time I put one back, two more would escape! Every time I went to put one or two in, a few would come towards the gate, in the process I was so concerned for the rabbits; (All named after Watership Down characters) that all the sheep escaped! In the end I let them all run free because it was too much hassle getting them to stayin there. So that's why there are fewer sheep in there. Also a wolf spawned in there before all that and ate some before I killed him.

There's probably load more news, but I wanted to get something up; something posted today. Hopefully more news soon.