1.6 Thoughts

 1.6.2
So in my last post I mentioned that I upgraded to 1,6,2, so I will give my bief thoughts on very aspects.

First off, I love horses being in Minecraft. I do think they could do with a little work but some of the crying that they don't fit Minecraft, break the game-play and much more are ridiculous. Yes they do make riding pigs less of an option now, but the way I look at it is: pigs = to go short distances, horses for long distance. As usual it's all about balance in Minecraft, which neatly brings me on to my next point, Mobs..

There is a very love and hate divide amongst the buff to mobs, I am of course referring to Skeletons and zombie. I love the new zombie hordes, as it makes it more of a challenge. I haven't tried it on hard mode yet where they spawn other zombies, but perhaps I should try a new world for that?! I do take the point that they could balance it over the levels, like from "Normal" upwards and not totally unsympathetic. For a few years zombies have been the weakest mob, like skeletons they got a slight buffer to AI and became clever with corners but it wasn't until 1.6 that the biggest overhaul came, and boy was it needed. Skeletons are not OP IMO, yes knock-back is annoying but if you knew how to fight they are still not a problem if you fall back and use cover, corners and let them come to you and do the work for you. Learn how to evade, if your in a cave going down a water shoot out the side of a wall; use blocks to either stop in or build a two-block wall in front of you to stop yourself and the skeleton. all these things can be avoided to some degree with common sense.

BOAT CONTROLS
They are really not bad once you get use to them. Yes even I prefer the old ways with the WASD keys, but I have actually tried and tried again with the new controls, not just tried it once, cried then go off to the Minecraft forums to make a whiney topic. Here are a few tips to help you. Slowing down - Stop holding the forward button and gently float to the shore hitting shift to jump out before you get near shore, or as you approach the shore, do the former and just lightly tap forward to get to the shore. Turning - using your mouse (If on the PC) really isn't that difficult to turn y'know. you just have to be warery to do it early enough as you won't get the instant turn effect you would with A or D keys. The more people practice the easier it'll get/you'll get used to it.

Due to this post being a lot longer I thought, the world #1 Underground Home new, will be posted next time. =)

THE COMEBACK

I know, I know, it's been a while but I am really going to try and get this blog back on track.

I have been busy, busy, busy in the world of Minecraft, taking the decision to change the texture pack of my original world (World#1, underground home) after a life time of Painterly. Substantial changes to my main world - world#2, continuing my world#3 home total re-built into a modern style, and the big upgrade to 1.6.2.


 

Admittedly , I haven't done much more in the way of my underground minecart system that goes under the ocean (And main bridge) to the church and beyond), however; I have made a BIG PUSH into rejuvenating the apartment block near my home. I built the apartments in September 2011 and after I finished in late October Building it was fine but looking back, very vanilla and plain.

I think the mysterious destruction of the apartments roof pushed me into doing the big renovations. The plan is for new side cladding on the edge of the outside of the building, changing all sand levels to sandstone, a brand new roof to replace the old one, window shutters (trap-doors/hatches), window sills and balconies on the far side facing the ocean/Nether bridge. I am thinking about an extension as well for proper stairs up and down, as well as to stop it being so blocky and rectangular shaped. At first I used stone-brick as the accent block, it looked nice against the snow/sand but the repeating pattern I felt was a little too harsh. So after doing one side, I took it all down again and decided to use spruce logs. It is even more of a contrast but will result in it looking highly decorative. I'm also experimenting with continuing the accent blocks round the front, back and sides as well.

 

 

 

The entrance has also recieved a brand new roof canopy and the sandstone pillars have been turned into marble ones from Nether Quartz.

During the middle of this I decided to just upgrade to 1.6.2, I can live without the water shader as I have done before. Thanks to a YouTube video though I did manage to eventually get the mini-map back and working with the new Dev launcher. I then went off to a new chunk to go and find horses and had quite the adventure!

It took 5000+ Minecraft miles, and despite going around some large oceans wherever I could I did have to cross some. Eventually I found a medium sized isolated island with half a dozen horses and a dozen donkeys! I named it Donkey Island. Here's where the problems began. I brought iron ingots with me for the apple and a saddle I had stored for years, but when I got to the island there wasn't a single tree on the island! I went over to a neighboring island and set up a temporary base inside a hole in a mountain and went back to Donkey Island. On another island I went and chopped down the few tree over there (It was pretty barren there too, and I never got an apple!) and went back to my base area and started planting the sapling trees everywhere. By this time it was getting dark again. Over a period of time kept chopping down trees and replanting trying to get an apple eventually managing to do so and turning a barren area in front of my base full of trees! Finally I managed to tame a horse, but getting it back was a whole new adventure!

I knew they couldn't cross really deep water, but I tried my very best to ride the first horse home, until it turned to night. During my attempt to navigate a horse through a forest, I got stuck and ambushed by skeletons! I left my horse immediately and incase it got hurt and tried to lead them away from the horse to fight them.. When all was said and done, and they were dead, so was my horse. I realized after taming a 2nd horse the only way to get home was through a portal, so after securing a second ride, I sealed myself, and said horse in the cave home in the side of the mountain and went mining. I dug a staircase down into the stone and went back up 5 blocks after hitting bedrock, beginning to strip mine when I eventually hit a corner and lava. I tried the easy way of portal making with making a lava bucket and water bucket back up the top where horsey was (Securing him first from dangers of lava in dirt walls) and began making a portal. However the constant up/down of getting lava got tiresome, so I ended up just mining the Obsidian anyway. After lighting it and freeing my horse I soon found I couldn't ride through and so had to push him through as we both entered the nether. The plan, to build another portal (Having mined extra) in the Nether and hoping it would come out somewhere near my home...

After the portal spawned on a bed of soul/slow sand, my horsey and I traved a little way in the Nether up a couple of embankments and I built the next portal... Just as I was about to light the thing up a Ghast attacked, so I went off and dispatched said mob with my trusty bow and arrow. I don't know what happened to the horse, either the Ghast got him or he fell in the nearby spewing lava fall a little way away. Strike two! I lit the portal disymayed and went exploring, collecting Nether quartz and eventually finding a Nether Fortress. (Which was nearer to me than I realized after I headed off in another direction). There I came across some blaze spawners, a wither skeleton (Dropped nothing) and a few chests, which started with rubbish loot but eventually finding ones with another saddle and 2 iron horse armor! I returned to base and waited for daytime, and eventually tamed another horse.. After going through to the Nether and then pushing my horse through the 2nd portal, we came out a bit nearer home (3000+ miles as apposed to 5000+) but still a long way away, and on top of a Jungle tree!

I had to carefully navigate my horse and myself down and made the long ride home! What an adventure! I made a leash (Have made many more since as spares) and tied him of to a lamppost of fences and Glowstone and begun making stables using the stone-brick from the apartments. I went back to continuing the work on them for a while and only just finished the basic stables yesterday!:

I still have to add the cauldrons of water and more hay bales in each, as well as change the floor to stone, but they're almost done! Will have to go get another soon so I can mate them. Yes, there is the start of a new roof on the apartments already! I began yesterday! Work is really progressing fast! I will also make an inner wall to cover the front decorations (Logs). I'll loose a width length at the front of the living rooms and will have to change the window panes back to glass blocks (Double glazing!) but it will be worth it. These will be made out of colored stained clay and allow for much more optimization and customization inside.

That fountain out the front was also finished a long time ago:

 

During the apartments renovation, I also took some of the lights out of the rooms inside to try and get a zombie villager to spawn inside as when I went mining I found a good deal of emerald to add to my collection. I learned how to create a splash potion of weakness and hope to trap one to change it to a villager so I can trade with it. (As there's no hope of finding a village in this old Alpha world!) No luck yet. I trapped one in my underground mushroom farm but when I went back to heal him, 9"After some of my own - away time healing) he was gone! There's no natural light in there either, just glowstone, to bright for zombies and they melt?! When I get my next horse, I hope to go exploring in the new chunk. Need to find a ravine and abandoned mine as melons are the only farm I don't have and the only place I will find seeds is in an abandoned mine..

Next I will talk more about the 1.6.2 changes and World#1 and the proposed changed to the underground home and general direction of that world.

DUDE, Where's My Roof?!

 

So over the last couple of weeks, I've been quite busy with my main world, well the last week more than anything, but before I get to that, I'll take you back a little time before then when I was on a great hunt for some brown mushrooms.

Previously in my underground farm, (Below the wheat farm on the surface) I went into my separated dark room for growing mushrooms and found - there were none! At the time, some of the walls still had dirt elements in them, and typically an Enderman stole blocks and let the light in. Now being an old Alpha world, I new I would have to travel far to find more brown mushrooms to replant, so I set off on a little adventure. Thankfully I didn't have to go all the way to a swamp as I found a nearby cave, one of the few I hadn't explored still. (After two years!) Found red mushroom, found plenty of Iron, coal and eventually, I found some brown mushrooms naturally growing! After returning I was just to the side of my mountain home approaching the front, when I noticed I couldn't see the roof on the apartment block in the distance!

Naturally I thought this was a render distance thing, but then realized my video settings, as always; were set on "Far". As I drew nearer and nearer my main gates I kept saying why can't I see it, why?! Crossing the boardwalk in the sand outside my perimeter, it began to dawn on me, there was no roof. I ventured up to the apartments, and to the top to the roof; or where it should have been all-the-while thinking this was strange as there were no fireplaces anywhere in the apartments! My only conclusion was - on a previous occasion when there was a great storm, it must have been lightning! (If there is a storm though, there is rain, so shouldn't that have put it out?!)

There's not much left to give you an impression, but it was a stacked roof made out of logs, leading up to a flat sky-light. In a way it's a blessing as that design style for the roof was old, and let's face it; not very good. (Apparently I don't have any close-ups of the old roof on how it use to look, just long shots.) So it will be getting a new roof soon, most likely a pitched spruce staircase one.

I have also begun replacing the old fountain that I knocked down at the front of my home, a very long time ago. After resetting my Nether, I went and collected 7 & a bit stacks of glowstone, and stack of quartz, so now the fountain will be re-born in Nether quartz! (As will the re-modelled bathroom eventually, when I get round to starting it! It's not much at the moment, a very simple design, and is missing the upper "Tray" and blocks from protruding from it, (Not to mention water!)

The one I had planned (Planned in my creative copy of this world) was actually 11 x 9 blocks base, but I didn't have enough space so I've had to minaturize it a bit.

The main news is, however, I've been working crazily this last week on my underground minecart system that replaces the one on the surface! With Phase #1 (Under the ocean),  have completely re-done the floor in stone slabs and laid the rest of the track and added Glowstone from my tip to the nether so it's well lit. I've also replaces the cobblestone dividers among the glass to nicer stone-brick.

 

I still have the walls at either end to sort out and finish the dirt roof with glass, but it's getting there! I had already continued round the corner at the end, (Underground by the shore of the church on the opposite side of the ocean.) ; but so far had only got down the end and a little bit round the corner.

As you can see by the above picture though, I have gone round the corner and gone further, much, much further!

 

 

 

 

All the way past Mount DOOOOoooooom! (In the background)

 

And beyond!

 

Obviously, I've still got a long way to go, and I need to make it pretty;but - I just had some crazy, crazy afternoons recently - watching Minecraft videos on YouTube and just tunneling away!  Had to fill in some holes/trenches on the surface where it previously ran, elevated on blocks of wood, but so far so good! Just finished coming out the other side of the next mountain at the rear of Mount DOOOooooom! I really found watching Minecraft videos helped!

I shall keep you updated!

No progress on the rebuild of my world three yet, or my ravine home.

++ UPDATES, UPDATES UPDATES.. ++

So since last time I have upgraded to stable 1.5.2, I still haven't tried Mo' Creatures again with it yet, but, I have re-installed the very nice water shader back from 1.2.5. It's been taken over by someone else now but is compatible with the stable 1.5.2 release.

 

 As you can see I also finally got round the finishing the upper gravel walls around the pool as well. Plans are in the works to make the church a lot taller as well! Still have the bathroom to refit as well - marble (Nether quartz) and continue the newly improved rail line.


World#3
Since the last time I posted about this the new re-build of the home then I've practically done the living room walls and gave it a brand new floor instead of the grass.

As it was:

As it is, as of right now:

 

 

As you can see there's an extra balcony on the front now and a big side window at the top to let in more light during the daytime.

Ravine Home
Those unfinished farms posted last time have all been finished and fully glassed over, i've put a sandstone floor down most of the ravine now and am experimenting with different blocks for the ravine walls:

 

At the moment, I don't think I'll keep the snow, but I'll keep experimenting to see what looks good, especially with the sandstone floor.

Will try and post more often.

1.5.1 Upgrade // No- Creatures // World #3 // LEGIT Ravine Home

So I finally upgraded my main world to 1.5.1 after Mo' Creatures updated, unfortunately though; I couldn't get it to work. I started with a brand new clean, vanilla Jar file, and follow the instructions, but it just wasn't working no cretures. Then, it kept crashing Minecraft. I never had any problems when I did it for 1.4.7 and I used all new updated versions of the GUI jar, Forge and the other one. Still nothing. So although I am in 1.5.1 it's now mostly vanilla apart from Rei's Mini Map.

Just before I updated I made a back-up save of my main world and took down the old portal that I said I was going to do from the old Portal room. I haven't removed all the Netherrack from that room yet, but I have got a lot of it down. The new portal room is now down all the way past the mob area (The old one being half-way down the stairs to said area), through another room full of lava pools - it's at the very bottom of the mountain after all; and and past another few winding dug out corridors. The area it's in is where I blasted to bedrock a few years ago, to see how much left of the mountain there was. So I did have to build up the big crater in the floor, covering the bedrock, but it is here, surrounded by lava pools; that the new portal area is situated. I backed up the old DIM files for the current nether as well and removed them in the save file; upgraded to 1.5.1 and reset my Nether. Despite the portal generating on a small island of Netherrack, (Just enough to house the portal) and being surrounded by lava, I have a nice new portal. The new Nether Quartz is abundant, and I already have a stack and a half. I played about with it in the crafting table, not actually to create stuff, but just to see the methods, more-so for the special "Decorated" Quartz blocks.


World #3 Update

 

As you can see, I haven't done a great deal more except continue the snow walls, finished bricking; and added the half-slopped roof to this side of the house. The only trouble with the half slopped roof is, I wasn't sure how to finish the top of it off, keeping in mind it also over-hangs at the front to create depth.

The over-hang of the stairs just - stops, when it gets to the top, not sure how to improve this yet. I have also started the roof round the back of the house as well:

 

Compared to the real house I'm basing it off, I realized the dirt building withe the flat ceiling, shouldn't actually exist! I think it's where the central staircase up is located, but this was done first before I actually had any idea what the building was going to look like.

I am also starting a new project, before on my creative world, I made a cave home and was going to do a legit version of this, but that changed when I created a new 1.5.1 world. So I was going around, looking for a nice cave, and having great trouble finding one - when I spotted a ravine. Pretty soon the idea changed and the save went from Cave home to 1.5.1 Ravine home. legit.

So this is the ravine in question:

 

 

 

The actual idea came when I thought that the main body of the ravine could be come the grande "Main entrance", a great hallway if you will leading off to other areas (Caves)  being rooms. There is actually another ravine as well full of lava. At one end there's a cave that goes down, but not very far at all dropping off into the ravine itself, which is full of lava. So I carefully dug my way down, turning off into the mountain and creating the rest of the way down to the lava ravine floor with cobblestone blocks. I plan to strip the sides of the main ravine down  so there smooth, no over-hangs, apart from a little at the very top, just as a reminder that it's a ravine.

The natural ravine, floor level:

 

 

After clearing shots:

 

 

 

As you can see by the last picture, I made a natural way up as their was not waterfall from the top to access the ravine. It's also because I got so excited at the thought of this project, I went down to explore and forgot to take any wood planks or even logs with me, so I literally had 1 wood planks and couldn't make sticks. I was very fortunate where I chose to make the stairs as half way up I just hit dirt, luckily as my pick was about to break and I had no idea how much I had to go up. Thank-heavens for dirt! I will naturally cover the top of the ravine with glass to shelter from the rain and mobs dropping over.

Opposite where I had made the stairs, there was another little cave but it led up to the surface not downwards. I only found this area after making the stairs as maybe it might have been a better way down. Anyway, as it broke to the surface there was a fairly flat area, which I realized would be a good area for any far, as food was getting critical at this point and I needed to star being self efficient as soon as possible.

 

 

In the last picture the two small farms are just round the corner (After a dip to a cave) from the wheat farm. In time this area will be home to all my wheat, melon, potatoe and carrot farms.

Since I began making this post I have glassed 3/4 of the top of the ravine top. More news will follow soon of the continued update of this new project!

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!