All The Small Things

I thought I posted this, but trawling through the blog I guess not. Whilst in the Nether of my Alpha Mountain home, I found an unlit portal I never knew was there. After getting some flint & tinder I returned and lit it and ventured through. I was a bit anxious as I had no idea where it would take me, but it turned out to be a nice hilly land with a small snow biome. This was all well and good, nice area and all that, but a few days ago I made a discovery. I was wandering in this new land and left it too late to get back, after failing to locate my portal I ventured through some trees and after 5 minutes or less came to quite an extra-ordinary discovery! My other portal!


The very same portal I created after I accidently deleted this world and spawned on the beach. The two portals are literally in a straight line from each other through a small gathering of trees, about a few minutes walk away from each other. I went exploring on here found plenty of sand, more clay which was once rare on this old world. Other that that I've just been doing a lot of small things. When I found the clay I had an idea about what to do with it, an idea I got whilst at work, meaning I couldn't think of anything else during the night - nor could I wait to get home to try it. It was time for the next revamp of the front entrance. One thing that has always slightly bothered me was the cobblestone.

With this texture pack (Painterly) it looks fine, but the front still lacks something, even with the cobble overhang I did I was still like: "meh." So whilst at work I got an idea to replace it with brick, even making it two width to the side of the bay window, shown on the left of here by the birch tree. Unfortunately the four glass above the door didn't quite sit right with me leading to all sorts of problems on what to do with it. Eventually it turned out like this however:

A Tree for a tree - Yeah, the birch on the left burned down, but the one on the right finally grew! After a week!

It looks a LOT more homely right now, It also prompted me to change the back entrance, and yesterday the rear lounge entrance:

I also filled in the middle line in the tennis courts and decided to change the left side wall into the same fort-esq style after all so it matches. Should have done this all along.

Not much else to report, added a bench/chair in the park, and added a gold block behind the plaque in the dinning hall:

I suppose I should finish the library extension. I keep saying this, but it's such a chore making bookcases, gathering so much reed/sugar cane for paper to make books to make bookcases - ugh. Could continue the changing rooms, I have more sand, but no doubt I'll need even more, the sandstone tiled floor is what takes it all.

Distracted

So I returned to my first Alpha world (World1), with the sky-bridges to have a little look around again, and I got distracted on this world! I decided to take a boat trip and do a little exploring, look for new chunks etc. I initially did this because I saw what I thought I was clay out in the middle of the sea. Literally 1 block on it's own surrounded by no other visible blocks on the surface, just visible on the surface. Well, I was right. Not only that but I ended up finding 6 & 3/4 stacks of clay! And I knew exactly where and what I was going to do with it. In my underground city/home , you might remember this room as one of my favourite future rooms on level 5:

Well, I decided to make that pillar the brick, especially as I had just changed the brick on painterly. This opened up ideas for the rest of the room with 2 feature walls (Painterly cookie dough clay blocks) and two sand walls with a wooden floor:

Big difference eh?! I know I need to so something about the ceiling still but this is what started my distraction on this world from a look around/explore to fixing up some of the old areas at last. I even redecorated the immediate outside of the room and built up the rest of the clay walls by the stairs down to this room, (Otherwise a 1/2 or 3/4 wall of clay blocks would've looked weird), for a proper access - not just walk down the stairs and there it is. It now has a wall and door there.

The second find was a... not so much hill, not even a mountain, more of a lump of grass on the sand. I hollowed it out for a temporary overnight Hobbit home. In the morning I found a large sand biome that would sustain any future endeavorers using glass, sand or sandstone for life:

This picture does not do the size of it justice.

So yeah, I got carried away in this world, I fixed the bottom of the stairs between level 4 and 5 so you don't immediately have to fall down the stair hole, or be wary of it when coming down to 4 on the way to five. This also resulted in a new corridor for that bit and I ended up cobbling out the upper section of leevel 4 that the viewing area looks over:

No more walking down into the hole of the next stairwell, at least you can go round now.

Before:

After:

Just because these walls are cobblestone however, does not mean they will stay that way.

I also begun raising the ceiling for the "Nice room" on level 3, despite it being a big undertaking. The problem was, the uneven ceiling overhung, so when you looked out the viewing room above you had smoothstone in the way - which was unsightly for the view and in he way. I'll need to raise the sandstone walls and columns but that won't be a problem now I don't have to worry about sand.

When I get enough brown wool, I'll probably replace the dirt in the floor as well. Will I continue this now I've started it again? Time will tell..

For a full reminder of the floors to the the underground city/home, see: Here

World2

Back on my main Alpha world meantime, the mountain home/base, I went exploring in a cave located a few hills past the swimming pool. It was one of the more newer caves and I managed to replenish my gold I lost and all the iron ingots/Iron ore I lost and even managed to score 6 diamonds to give me a diamond: sword, pick and shovel. Just one more and I could've had an axe.. Subsequently I l have lost almost these from boating to another opposite island returning at night, again. Due to this, I decided I was tired of losing boats, and stuff and began building another bridge, this time out of Netherrack. After a fall however I swan back to the shore and got shanghaied by Skeletons. It's very hard to see your stuff underwater. I managed to get my diamond pick back but lost my diamond sword and shovel. I did get some new doggie friends also, due to which I removed the cacti from out the front in case I want to go walkies with them. Something I had considered doing with the cacti for a while. They're all replanted further back behind the wishing well & park, where it's more dark - great for collecting at first light from the mobs!

Can't think of anything else, found a dungeon in that cave though and got a green disc in the chest! Nice music. A dug out room a little way down the stairs from the portal room now serves as a spawn room as well. After the bed glitch, I couldn't figure out why it still wouldn't work with doors, mountain all around it and spamming it with torches - it still wouldn't work! I kept spawning two mountains away from my home -very annoying. Seems two thick walls IS essential and there was one wall that didn't meet this so when I finally cottoned on, I bricked it up with cobble and now it works like a dream.

Guess I can fill that trench in two mountains away - already for another portal, the main reason for going to the cave in the first place to get diamond to get obsidian.

The irony.

Fire! (Plus, large Gallery Coming)

So I was in my Alpha Mountain home, pissing about with the front entrance again, when I had a small accident. With the slightly changed front entrance, It bugged me that the overhang of cobble on both the window behind the lava and over the front door were at different levels. (OCD again!) I began correcting this but must have removed a vital block as the lava fall somehow reached across to my wool ceiling inside:

Thankfully, thankully(!), that sandstone support at the center top of the picture stopped it spreading, otherwise I would have lost the entire roof! It's easy correctable and has as already been seen to but it's just as well it happened as what I planned after. For this old Alpha world, world2 (And later my other worlds) I am making a full gallery for the Message Board which will be updated all the time with changes. Because of the number of pictures, this gallery will only be  posted on the message board.

This will be the most full gallery ever, of this world. Every room covered. I spent a Minecraft day, just going round taking pictures of what I thought looked good. It will have the lesser seen portal room, the completed doghouse outside (Now has glass.), shots show the improved front entrance with the new birch trees all around the place replacing the old trees (Just inside the perimeter.) and much more. I've just got to make the folder and rename the screenshots to their usual type filenames before mass uploading them. My Photobucket account only ever seems to have Minecraft screenshots these days. I'll probably do that this morning.

I'm also doing a halfway house, as where the world was deleted a second time, the route to the old spawn point/graveyard is now encased in water. In other words, there's an ocean where it once was. I finally got round to removing the dirt beans to that place last night - them being three blocks of dirt up from the ground with a torch to mark them as a map marker/beacon. They're obsolete and not needed now. Anywho, one the way back I once again see one of those places that has the side of the mountain completely flat. Only this has three flat sides of a mountain down to the sand floor/water pool. I have been looking at it lately and keep thinking it'd be a good place for a stop point ior... to have something in that slot. So a half-way house it is:

The beginnings of that roof, the wood floor and the row of cobble - all at the front is the only things I've had to add.

Not done any more to the fishing area/Captain's quarter's in my Beta world, world3 yet. It is the weekend however so I have 4 full days to do plenty. Doctor Who pending, must watch the new Doctor Who series this weekend.

Mega Post II

So this was meant to be a small post about how I was having a small break from my old alpha world - world2, (Yeah, that didn't last long with 1.5), and how I returned to the docks on my Beta world on World3, but I never got round to posting that. Maybe it's just as well as I was idly going about things. Since then 1.5 (and subsequently the patch 1.5_01), has been released, so I have too much to post now!


So yeah I was having a small break from my Alpha world, world2, and the changing rooms by the swimming pool. Whilst on the break, I returned to my Beta world and the docks. I did flatten the new shops I started to create. They were too flat looking at the front and there wasn't enough room to build there really. I t would have spoiled the landscape building up the land with dirt that high to build them. I have also decided - not, to go ahead with the hotel. I don't think it's really needed for a docks and a fishing port. In it's place will be where the shops can be found. I'm still trying to decide the look however. I have begun the captains quarters however and was very inspired by this picture:

I really like this place! So I've decided to build something similar, the frame is currently being built and what I shall be continuing with for a while:

Minecraft 1.5

Released with different tree saplings, power boosters for rail, achievements and weather, which not only sees the return of snow, but rain, thunder and lightning! The last I have been dead excited for! After doing a few achievements on my Alpha world, I made a new world to fulfill some of the other ones, just a temporary one though, and not one I've kept. It was in this world I got my first taste of rain - and it absolutely pissed down! I wandered for a while to a snow biome as I was desperate to see falling snow again, oh how I have missed it! After a bit of an explore I went back to my Beta world and was wandering back from the docks when I about a dozen - or just under, wolves! I nearly jizzed. With 17 bones on me and only managed to tame 5 as the last one was a greedy little bastard who took at least several bones to tame. I think I've got 14/15 in that world now. Back on World 2, the Alpha mountain base/home, I attempted to ride a pig off a cliff! Silly pigs, they're so stupid, so close to the edge then turning the opposite way. Believe it or not I had never ridden a pig until then. It just never appealed to me. Now I realise just how inane and boring a pigs life is in Minecraft!

This post was going to say I had no luck with weather on any of my pre 1.5 worlds, not even my beta 1.4 world, but that changed later on. I put the first Alpha world, with the sky-bridges, back into the saves folder and had a little wander, nice to have a little reminisce on my first full world. I left it on and went to lay down on the couch for a bit in case any weather turned up, but I started falling asleep. The volume wasn't high, but high enough, enough to wake me up when I heard a deep rumble. Slightly confused and dozy from sleep, I looked across and saw the storm on my World1! Thunder and lightning! Not only was it enough to wake me up, but enough to spring me off the sofa and watch for a while! I was beginning to worry some Mincraftians were right with their concerns about no weather on their own world.

Morning Interruptions

In the morning I returned to my Alpha mountain home/base, and had an idea to turn my water emergency exit into something more easier with rails.. It also mean I could try out super-powered boosters. During this however I was was disturbed by a deep rumble and HSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS No, it wasn't a creeper! Rain had finally come to World2. The hissing was because of the rain falling into the lava fall that flows outside the front of my mountain base/home.

I have also built up my dog home as I have even more of them on this world too. (After an adventure travelling to another opposite island and seeing many doggies on a small Island I had passed on the way. I lost my stuff solving fighting off the spiders and skeletons, and when I spawned the two I had spawned in the house with me! I found more after also.). The pen for the doggies was getting far far to cramped, so after finding out my pet slime had de-spawned, I dismantled the slime hut and used that space to extend the dog pen.

I did finish the two-rail emergency escape, and I have also removed the floor lighting outside like I said I might do. The only exception being on the sand out the front amongst the cacti. As I write this, I failed to bring birch saplings back from another island (The one I was at earlier) after I left it too long to get back and lost my stuff on the way back due to mobs at night. I went back though and have literally just finished turning the upper section of the tree farm into a birch tree farm. So now I have a regular tree farm and behind it in the upper farm is now all birch. I am thinking about changing the trees around my base to all birch? This is what prompted the farm, but I'm not sure on this idea yet.

Here's a picture of the extended doggie home and a little plaque pillar I made:

So that is that, band up to date - to the minute.

Footnote: As I was uploading these photos I came across a lost picture of the first ever world I attempted! It never lasted or became long term. I built a home on top of a mountain and realized it was quite a trek down to the bottom each time to get resources, so I dug into the mountain and created a stairway all the way down! (or it would have been) It was so long and deep I used to call it the stairway.... to Hell! Unfortunately, it's not a good photo with the pause screen over it:

What is interesting though is the version. It was back in Alpha, version V1.1.2_01. I've checked wiki and that came out September 23, 2010, so I have been playing it since late September as I suspected. World1 - with the sky-bridges, the earliest screenshot also shares this date, so World1 dates back at least to September 23rd 2010 also. World2 - The earliest screenshot is from 1.2.0 in Alpha but that's when I had to change the lava fall out the front to water, so I had been playing it a little while before then. So I must've started the second world, sometime between 23rd September 2010 and October 30th - the Halloween update.

Oh how I wish I had started the blog back then! But to find out roughly when these world were created is great news!

About that room...

Do you remember I redid the rear lounge floor, but couldn't decide what block to decorate with?:

Well after coming off Minecraft, I had to go back on about 5 - 10 minutes later because I had an idea what I can use, gold blocks. Some people hoard their ores like Diamond, I don't, I use them. I also use my Iron ingots too, but gold, tends to unintentionally gets hoarded. After all it's only gold blocks and clocks, (Heh, that rhymes!), that you can make with them. I don't intentionally hoard them, but they're so limiting. So I decided to melt them down and turn some of them in to gold blocks:

Part of me gets tempted to add another material in some of those other squares, but, we'll see..

The swimming pool is coming along nicely, though filling it is a bit awkward. I did extend the pattern on the walls round the sides  in the end and am currently working on the first of the two changinf rooms but I need more sand first, especially for the sandstone. I did another stream as well, this ones an epic 2 hours long but also includes an up to the minute tour around the place from 52 minutes on in the stream:

Stream No.2

During the stream I lost two of my doggies to a skeleton attack and went down to at least five, but have tamed more and am up from seven to about eight or nine now. The stream went okay, got between 5 - 7 viewers, up on last time. Here's the latest pic from poolside:

Given that I'm using less torches to lit the outside, I might remove the under-floor lighting it's not bright enough and to replace all with lava under glass would mean constant trips up and down to get the lava. Still thinking about flattening the steps by the pool that lead back to the diner, when It could just go straight across , now there's no building at the top of that hill.. Also made a fiery... well, it's not so much a beacon but more of a tribal pot (cobblestone) of fire. (Netherrack on fire) on pole supports. This is out the front of the base, pretty near the wishing well.

Off to decide on the stairs before work!..

Pools

It's not quite full yet, but I am having fun trying to fill it! All the marble slabs around the edge are done and the initial outline for the markings of the tennis court. I think I'll continue the wave pattern around the edges to the edge of the marble slabs, then next, I guess the changing rooms. I made a little stream finishing the pool but it's not very interesting:

http://www.justin.tv/leangreen76/b/283756400

Note: There's no commentary as I don't have a mic.

If you hear background Minecraft for a while, say if I'm in my inventory, it's because I had the channel up on my browser. I muted it so it wouldn't be heard. I was trying to keep an eye on the chat but forgot the sound would be picked up. Also, please be aware, it was my first ever stream, so I am knew to all that.

Rest Bite + Lost One, Found One.

I took a little rest bite from the works on leveling the mountain for the future swimming pool and tennis courts but here is a picture in the mean time:

I created some hollow rooms, as you can see, in the back room for changing areas. I might have benches, showers and toilets in them in the future. The main thing I wanted to do was do a wave/mosaic pattern on that back wall to give a sense of perspective to these pictures. My main concern right now is that there might not be enough room for tennis courts - not for doubles, but just a single court at least.

In the meantime, whilst I had the break I finally changed the floor in that back room, the stone and wool really wasn't working for me. I don't think the wool floor really goes with the clay walls either.

As it was:

As it is now:

Brightens the place up! I really need something for those single sand blocks though, another material for decoration, but I'm not sure what yet. I also lost two of my doggies. :( I was low on health, outside the front of the home by the mountain - and a skeleton appears. I was literally chased around the fountain and got hit and died. After spawning, I climbed over the first mountain hill and was on the the way to the next and home, when my doggies appeared next to me. It was strange. Unless I hit that skeleton before dying and then when I spawned they transported near me? They were all in the pen all sat down, but the fight was pretty near them. So here I am, it's night I'm near my base but there's a load of creepers around, I have no materrals, tools or weapons and my dogs are with me. There was also a load of creepers. If I had attempted to try and run pas t then inevitably they would explode and lose my puppies. What to do?

I had to get back to get my stuff. I rushed them , trying to get past them without getting near them but inevitably some did and I lost two of my pack from 6 down to 4. :( Another two - three were wandering around my base, but I hardly had any bones. I managed to tame one and go back up to 5 wolvies at least.

Back to work on the pool tomorrow.