Side Note: The Alpha Worlds

Both have been converted to 1.3, and I even managed to find my way home on my main world - World2! It was a pure fluke however, I decided just to head towards the moon, eventually crossing water until I came across the sides of some mountain that were completely straight from top to bottom. I'm sure you've seen these "Cut-off" mountains before. These ones however looked very, VERY familiar, and I was sure I had passed them before. Sure enough I went back to land near them and came out right by Mount DOOooooom! So I am safe and sound again.


I did admittedly quickly re-do the new park area out the front and the fountain (Which is now a well), but that's all I'm doing on this world. Because the back up was 2 weeks old, I have still lost all the work I did on top of the mountain, the renovation of the library and the works on the water elevator (fixing). And I do not feel like doing all that work again not for a long while. SO when I said I'm leaving the alpha worlds behind. That's what I'm doing. The only thing I did on my underground world on World1 was replace the stumps of trees on the surface, formerly the burning forest. Now infinite log burning has been fixed (:() it looks silly as stumps. All have now been replaced with new trees, seems strange having extra trees in that area now. Again this is all I'm doing to this world and World2.


Some pics just to finish up, the last ever pics for a while of my former Alpha worlds.


Above shot of Underground world entrance as it was:

As it currently is as I leave it:

World2 Gardens and park as it was:

As I leave it:

More news on my new Beta home tomorrow.

6:13

That's the time on Friday when I finally finished the last ceiling of the last room to the ground level! Immediately I also wooded out the area on top so the ground level is completely sealed and the floor of the upstairs is also completely laid:

Because I already had sand stone and after another trip to get more (sand) I immediately laid the walls for the upper floor. This took no time at all as I had already planned to have lots of glass up there anyway. After much crafting of sandstone, and firing many stacks of glass for sand I also filled in the windows. Had a few spiders attack as well - climbing all the way up the sandstone! It 2 windows took a stack of glass each! I took about 84 glass I think it was.

I have made a couple of trips to get more sandstone to finish the interior walls, but unfortunately it has ended with death each time. The first time, I had a full inventory of sand and as soon as it began to get dark I headed home. On the way however, some sand gave way underneath me, must've been against the grassy land along the edge of the shore near a shallow cave, and the ground collapsed beneath me. I fell in to a shallow cave, had to use a stack of sand to build up and face going home with one heart left. Because of the fall, it was even darker when I returned to the surface (Hmph, in hindsight I should've stayed there all night), so although I out-run skeletons, creepers and zombies, I think it was a spider that got me in the end. I lost everything.  It also happened again which makes me hesitant on getting sand for a while. After the first time I kept thinking "Why didn't I turn it on peaceful?!!", it's because I don't do that, I don't choose the easy option when things hit the fan. I play on easy/normal all the time.

Because of this, I ended up making a new front entrance, that firmly establishes that the single door is the front of the house. and the double doors the back of the house. I also recently planted reeds around the water near my mining cave for sugar and paper/books/bookcases. One morning when I went outside though, a creeper was right outside my new front entrance. I tried to back away but got stuck. Sssssssssss... BOOM! Most of the entrance survived, but the flowers and planting around it suffered. Might change the sandstone around the door to glass so this doesn't happen again when I get sand.. Whilst at the front end I also found a tree to take screen shots from a new angle of the lesser seen front end, so here's pictures of the new entrance and from the other angle:

When I can be arsed I'll get more sand although I now have all my coal to replace, lost some iron ore too, though I have enough at home. Also lost my two remaining diamonds. :( There'll be a small farm out the back and a path to the pond/fish pond with the reeds. Maybe I'll make the pond deep and squid might spawn? Right now though I've got replacing to do. Until I get that sand I may also start the fencing around the place..

I Rape Sheep

For wool. (Will probably regret that title later.)

As mentioned, although not my first choice I am using wool for my ceilings as it looks like ceiling tiles because of the stitching around the edging - namely due to my texture pack. The problem is it takes ages and there's never sheep around when you want them, despite all the new torches on the walls around the outside of my house. Then when you least expect it 4 - 5 turned up in one spot.

This is the picture I left you with yesterday:

Don't mind the small holes, they're for glass, skylights to light the dim rooms. Each room is individually lit up now, but with the ceiling on each roof, the one in progress in the picture having been done now, they're still quite dark. In truth this blog has been a few days behind whilst I work on this ceiling as it has been a slooooooow process. This is day #5 of the ceiling now and I have one room left to do. (Bottom left of picture) I have also added the wood floor throughout over the floors that are done and glassed over with a 2nd layer of glass the bio-garden

It currently looks like this:

And that picture is bang up-to-date as of the time of posting this edition on the blog. When I have finished this roof I will will add sandstone (I block level around the edge, on top of the logs to start the foundations of the upper level. Then I have to work out where I want the rooms upstairs, which I am currently doing. I don't want them to be exactly the copy of below but completely different as much as possible, a different layout.

Speaking of the bio-garden:

So still plenty to do.

I have also begun work on Phase #2. All i will say is it's in the forest end, not the snow bio end, between my house and the shore. Already I have cleared a hill 13 layers high and removed the trees so that the area is completely flat  and marked out with a cobble border, it's a big space!:

And the rest of the remaining mountain might have to go too! As it just looks weird... But back to the remaining ceiling I go...

A S**t-load Of Sand

That's what it took to get the sandstone for my walls. During the first and second level there is one room where I intentionally had a dirt floor and had to leave a block gap to let the grass grown in. If you look at the diagram below at the open square center top:

This is because I wanted like a bio-garden area there in the middle of the house, thought it would be nice. A tree will go in the middle, not sure what will happen with the ceiling there but but it will be like an inside oasis. Back to the walls however, and I had to rape my shore line again. The beach area is now completely flat because it has took so much sand. I worked my way up and up, doing the inner walls last each time and building them up at the same time.

You can just see the grass in that room!

By about 4 - 5 blocks up i went around the outside and added holes for windows where I thought the walls looked flat and uninteresting outside:

You can tell this was after the Minecraft 1.3/1.3_01 update can't you., by the shadow in the alcove of the wall!

As you can see it's coming along very nicely now, and is really beginning to take shape. The next step will be to ad another border around the house, (More logs, more insta-trees!) to separate the bottom layer and future top layer like a house I did in Multiplayer. Also, if it was all sand stone straight up it would look boring. Not that it will be - sandstone, I may have one row of sandstone and all glass. And, i swear I just thought of this instead of glass all round, some sand stone wall so it looks really nice!

Some night pictures of the work:

Ceiling work has begun but it takes a long time when you have use wool and have to get lots of it. It wasn't my second, third or fourth choice, but, because of my painterly texture pack, it actually looks like ceiling tiles because of the stitch-work around the edge! What I'll do is have a two log border so the wooden floor for upstairs will hide the wool ceiling from downstairs over the top. I leave you with this recent picture of the work:

Foundations For Life On World3

Preparations have begun, as the smooth-stone went down along the edges of the house where it dips down one block to sand; I begin lining the foundations. I work my way all around the edge with smooth-stone to line the house and also the rooms. I consider putting smooth-stone all over but that would require ALOT of baking and a LOT of coal use. Later in hindsight I realize I could've just use cobble half slabs as I have plenty of cobble from mining.

Already the basic room shapes are forming as I then fill the rooms, namely the two corridors, that I know are going to have wood floors. I still contemplate what my walls might be, once again I consider sandstone because of my texture pack, and how nice it looks. Although that would take a colossal amount of sand, but there is a shore near by.

With other rooms filled up with a temporary floor of dirt, the base of the house slowly fills and takes shape. Sandstone is definitely the way I decide to go, and so it doesn't look completely plain I add a log border. For this I do get bonemeal of the skeletons who I kill now I've turned the hardness back up, or get it from them when they die in the mornings. It's a beat of a cheat, but I use the bone meal for a repeated insta-tree. It serves me well for an instant tree and as much logs as I need until the bonemeal runs out. Eventually however the floors get filled and the logs complete the border of the downstairs level of the house:

Next up, is where the fun begins. The mass gathering of sand to make sandstone to begin the walls. At first they will just be built up, holes can be done later for where I want windows. This is where the new house, my new home is about to take it's grand shape.

Day 1: Planning!

So I generated several worlds, but wasn't finding a good new starting point, this current one was average at best. A hilly area, a shore - not too far away and water, not much in the way of mines. This is the area:


Click for full size:

To get a better idea here's the surrounding area from a height:

 above block build:

To it's left:

and right:

and behind me:

A very nice place for sure, but the only thing that was making me consider it was this flat, but very long and big patch of sand:

A large area of sand, one block deeper lower than the rest. I could either level it out or plonk my house in the middle, however I was already beginning to get another idea - using that whole sand area for a house. Sure a few of the corners would need altering but, I would keep where it went in however, so the building wasn't perfectly square, that is boring and I like little alcoves. After going around and making these alterations, I went of to mine and get some cobble in a nearby mounting, making a door hole in a mountain so as not to take a chunk out of the mountain and spoil the surrounding beauty.

When I returned I built myself up as high as Minecraft would let me on a single block and took an ariel pic to begin making a floor plan (As well as those above, left, right, behind land shots):

This would be my template to design with. I went into paint and added Black lines around the edge of my area and saved it as a different pic, then cutting it out in Photoshop and giving it a slight transparency before overlaying it on the existing picture as so, making note of where the sun and moon were:

This whole area is to be my home! Already I can see so many ideas and plans! This is with the plans for rooms at ground level:

The top left narrow corridor being the entrance and stairway up, with the connecting "L" shape underneath being the living room and possible kitchen at the far, maybe a more nicer sitting area to its right to complete the "L" shape. The corridor going to the goes to the back area with maybe one room being a storage room.

Tommorrow, I begin the foundations!

It's Over - End of an Era Part 2.

Over the weekend I was playing about with generating new worlds, - not to start a new one, just to see if I would get anything could and the inevitable happened. Something I always feared accidently doing and that I would do one day... Clicking on the wrong world. For the second time, my main world, which has been with me since Alpha and started in October was deleted once again.


It had been a few months since last time and I forgot how to resurrect them, although something told me to make a new World2 folder and put the level.dat file in there. You see, it was backed up, but a few weeks ago, all the recent building on top of my mountain base, it's connecting bridge to the a nearby mountain, the new outside park (outside my front boundaries with another waterfall and decorated nicely with flowers all gone. However, this level .dat tricked worked - but I was in the middle of nowhere. It would be pointless making a compass as I have a new spawn-point, Cartograph doesn't work well any more and Cartograph G won't give me any pictures. Minetograph takes to long for a simple rescue map. I considered temporary homes - until the day I could get diamonds - to get obsidian, to make another portal to bypass a shortcut (Hopefully) home. That was the plan.


After a few deaths and a few temporary homes out there it began to hit me - it's time to close the chapter on both these old Alpha worlds. I could still work on World#1 and my underground city, but my love is not there, especially with having to find my main world (World2) again. This is not the end of this blog however. I was going to type here, that, IF I find a new suitable world I like, I would start anew and catalogue it here, only this time with a full early pictorial of the world before building that I never did with my Alpha worlds, as I never had that idea back then. Since then I have found a world yesterday and begun. so there is no more "IF's". I leave you with the last ever pictures of my old main world as I bid on a new world and an ambitious new project...


*In some pictures the texture pack has changed from HD to a custom painterly pack, just fancied a change.

Large 180 view, click to see full size.

Finished work on top of the mountain:

Filled that HUGE empty room, - dining room

Where we all end up...

Three more were added behind these on various dates through February.

The library update:

A fresh challenge however, awaits.....