Future Ideas (I)

After I hit 7 years in this world, which I believe is on day 2555 (Currently on 2233), there is the question of future projects as well as the ongoing stuff already. So I have a few ideas, but not much so far.

For one, ever since I made the swimming pool in Beta, there has been this ugly diving board:

Slab platforms attached to a snow pole? Basic doesn't even cover it. There is the potential to make a proper olympic/training platform in it's place but there are conditions. For one, I would have to move the back wall behind it further back and create a nook corner, not a problem however. The current platform just looks so - rubbish.

I have also considered removing the fake tennis court as well in favour of a more garden-y area with patrhways?..

The other project - or should I say problem, is the size of the entrance for the under-water minecart tunnel:

Originally this place was meant to be the aquarium but changed into the waiting room for when you take the minecart ride. It's just too big and I'm looking to cut it in half. The proposal is to cut into the wall where I'm looking in picture #2, a few blocks away from the glass wall. With stairs going up this would lead me into the water just outside the villager farm. I'd want to have a glass docking platform, very modern, as if floating on the water, complete with glass tunnel, to lead onto the stairs.

It would mean the only way in from then on would be to leave the home outside via the back, down the stairs to the platform but it's a comprimise.

Hopefully there will be some more ideas, hence this post title ending in (I), but I will keep you all updated as that's all I have for now.

So this is me now...

One post a year on this blog - apparently, or at least that's what happens everytime I go to say "The blog is coming back!!!111".

As I sit here on a rainy Monday morning here in the UK with a week off work for holiday, I am about to open up and play a little Minecraft for a while. It gets me thinking about this place, this blog and my worlds, particularly my main world which will be almost 7 years old soon! At this point I have played Minecraft for 7 years, the longest I've ever played any computer/console game - ever and it blows my mind that I'm still playing this main world 7 years on.

Autumn currently:

So much has changed in this world that it would be impossible to cover them all, this post would be huge otherwise. So I'll just cover a few main features, before I do that however; I'm currently working on a secret mini-project for the 7th anniversary. Something I've never ventured into before. Earlier in the year on a seperate creative world I made a 3D chibi of my Minecraft skin - but just the head. I decided to impliment this for my 7th anniversary of my main world, which says something as it's a functional world - you won't find minecart rollercosters or pixel art everywhere, it's not that kind of world and never has been.

The other month I re-designed it however in a creative copy of my world, to make it look less rubbish and more detailed, the result is a lot more accurate to the actual Transformer toy head. Currently I am re-creating it in survival at the top of a mountain, I under-estimated just exactly how much green wool it would take. So much so, that I have a 2nd temporary pen for sheep at the top of the mountain. (I'll re-dye them white after it's done and let them go free.)

Behold! The big giant head!

At the moment I have yellow wool for the eyes, but I want it to have glowstone behind yellow glass eventually. Part of me has thought about having redstone lamps so the eyes light up automatically at night, but then i'd have to have an open space in the top of the head because of the daylight sensors.

Another big project I was working on - mentioned in the one and only post for 2015 in December, was the Chunk Plaza project. It didn't have that name at the time and was only the basics of a dirt building on the corner, a boardwalk and some apartment windows dug into the chunk wall with a bit of red. The project was left (Through laziness) over the last year & half, but things have picked up pace this year.

DECEMBER 2015:

 

CURRENTLY:

As you can see, ALOT has changed.If you look in the far left of the last picture you can feintly see the outline structure of a third building coming.

The last time this blog saw Mount DOOOooom it was like this:

These days...

Various buildings have been knocked down and re-built, whilst existing towers have more detail and the stone ground inside turned back to nature. As well as this, some months ago the single block oak plaform that stretched across the ocean and carried the minecart rails, has finally been replaced with a proper bridge.

There's also a monument using restone lamps and glass panes to mark the last six years and the versions at the times of the anniversary:

In other areas, the science lab has had it's rooms swapped in recent months the lab being where the "Community room" was and vice versa so it could be extended and made much bigger. The main bridge has been fully re-junvinated after skipping detail after it's last rebuild. Once thing I embraced was the World of Color update, although I would use glazed terracotta only sparingly, I love the addition of concrete as it's fun and easy to make and really makes up for the muted terracotta and less than fire resistant wool - not that I really build in wool ordinarily.

More details can be found on my official "Updates of a 6 years & 11 month" thread on the official Minecraft forums, which includes a world download. Links also to the side.

One year laaaateeerrrr....

Thinking about restarting the blog, but not sure where to start?

Updates of my worlds? Could take a few posts to cover them. What I'm doing at the moment? If I do I will be writing for myself again rather than a wider audience, just what I'm up to.

(Creative.) A new dawn, a new day for this blog?

Continuing the 1.8 Update!

Well it's been just over a year since I last posted and I'll begin exactly where I left off! Last time I was converting the old emergency minecart exit into a bunny home, suffice to say this was completed a long time ago and extended into the back. As was the new bathroom (Former rear lounge over-looking the pool) which last year was only just being started in it's conversion:

Of course it was finished and looks a little more lived in over the last year:

You can read what else changed in my world in the ye old (Now inactive) thread at the official Minecraft forums: Here.

The biggest project I'm working on in my main world however, is a very ugly chunk border I've had for years - pretty near my home:

I've already made a connecting bridge from where the dirt stairs are in the top picture, and am embarking in a massive project to re-generate the chunk in the bottom picture by turning it into, apartments, possibly a hotel and provisionally shops as well:

This project could very well at least take a year, not to mention I had to find new sheep after a creeper jumped down into my temporary sheep pit! I would want the mountain part of the buildings to be white/various hardened clay which also means a lot of travelling to get that much clay.

Currently I've also been converting my mob are at the very base of my home in a mountain. Up until yesterday, I build an indoor battle tower which has been replaced. At the bottom I built a new skinny core up to 24 blocks high with a long cross-ways on top of it that houses 2 block high 3x3 spawning pads for mobs. The sides of these pads have trapdoors making them think it's full block and in between the pads there is running water. They spawn on the pads, try to cross to the neighboring one (Mistaking the trapdoor for a full block) and fall into the water which travels them to the central hole that is the top of the core - leading them to their death (Or 1 heart/half heart) after the fall. Most only require a one shot. Hoppers go into the chests at the bottom.

This was all done from a video tutorial.

As the very bottom floor no longer needs to be covered in complete darkness, I am currently renovating it to make it look better. Up to now it's always been the stone of the mountain with cobble patches.

Main World - The BIG 1.8 Update

First up I will cover the updates, then will share my plans now I have updated this world to 1.8. First up after moving the old emergency Minecart exit, I realized I could use the space for something else if I opened up the area - previously a 3 - 5 block wide tunnel. After blocking it up, then un-blocking it again I finally thought of a use - a bunny home.

I was looking everywhere for somewhere to put them in the future and I didn't want them to go outside - or in with the dogs. Of course I will need to decorate it before hand,  I decided on patch work walls with wool (Needs patches of blac) and hay bale floor, the work so far:

Another thing I've done is finally get rid of this monstrosity from 2010! (Originally made of cobble.)

You can see how synthetic it is where the dirt is extended out from the mountain to meet the stairs, this was long over-due. My idea was to cut it right down until there was a 1/4 of stairs left and take the extended synthetic dirt filling supporting it right back - all the way back to the bare mountain wall revealing the original mountain wall again. From the stairs - a short gravel path by the birch tree farms up to the mountain wall where the stairs will now continue inside the mountain:

Meeting up with the adjoining path at the top:

With the remaining stairs left I put dirt up the sides of course to make it look more natural.



 1.8 plans

Doors & Fences - It goes without saying of course I'll be going around changing doors frantically, I already experimented on the creative copy and there won't be many original oak doors left. Similarly I will also look at fences and fence gates - whatever suits best.

Painless stained glass blocks/panes - Everywhere? Well almost. After updating the painterly texture pack to 1.8 I really wasn't sure about the very plain look without borders - until I changed the glass canopy ceiling of the back dining room porch, which currently looks like this:

Now looks like this:

I've used the red sand = red sandstone = red sandstone stairs. and yes it's blue in my world! My lore is that you have to smelt it (Even though you don't actually), and it loses it's color in the smelting process. In the first new picture I have also made the old cobble fort walls more HD being 3 blocks wide instead of just 1, it makes it look even more old, but then it was built in Alpha!

The main bridge - I said I might pull it down and with 1.8 that time has come. It's been there - and made of cobble since 2010 and hasn't really changed much over the years:

No bridge:

Earliest version:

No change in Beta!:

2011:

Autumn 2011 - present

So what to replace it with? Already I have taken spare older saves and tried a number of different designs, but one stuck with me. It is a work in progress however:

The roof platform underneath the main roof has since gone and there will be an underneath platform as well for fishing.

You may have notice in those pics the the church across the bridge has disappeared also! The original idea to was to just double the height, then I thought about how I could make it much bigger. one crazy idea involved boxing around the mountain around it and clearing out the inside but instead I settled for something much simpler. I decided to build on the grassy area behind the current church, although I would have to impede on the mountain a bit it would give me the length for a nice long church hall. It is still going to be double height and it would enable proper sized widows with proper stained glass. The old church would have to be demolished of course and incorporated.

Works:

I've also made more than a major push on the half-way house (last half of post.) You may remember in late 2013/early 2014 I started expanding the chunk walls either side. Last time I left the living room I had just added log timbers and trying to think of what to use for the walls:

Well I abandoned that fireplace, it all started with just making the living room windows full length instead of regular size, but then ideas expanded and I ended up turning it into a more rounded bay window - and that was just the start! I also begun changing the floor at last whilst I did this.

Later on, I Googled "Log cabins" to get inspired then looked at interiors and found one that did just that. Enough to put a peak on top of the chunk wall just above the spruce roof over-hand outside. This meant extra windows and light and a much higher peaked roof! Once i did this though, the chimney was off-center with the inside of the new roof so I had to adjust, which meant going over  into the storage room.

Now it's even on both side of the chimney but cut's into the storage room. So as the storage room is a bit smaller I mad an alcove - which turned into a set of stairs and building an extension above the storage room as well!

 

Extra Area: (For Anvil, incinerator & water source?)

I have also begun extending the science lab:

Looks like I will be getting a brand new look lab in 2015! Here are the plans:

• New walls with a feature back wall and 2x white-boards.
• Brand new floor using one of the new stone types.
• New bench design for the potion stands
• the ingredients lab (Spider eyes, glistening melons, flasks and water source) will also be extended back to match the new length of the main science lab.
• The new & improved Ingredients Lab will be come an area in it's own right with the new room length, It will now be a sterile room for handling featuring a small decontamination area between the entrance. (IE between two glass walls separating it from the other room.
• The other room being - a seating area and a small kitchen area. (As they will need to wash their hands!) Quite excited for doing that, it's really needed I think compared to the current lab .

I did contemplate a redstone testing area as well, backing onto the science lab but am not sure. However, that's not all!

I'm currently re-developing the rear lounge that over looks the pool & tennis court. (Above the V.I.P. room), again from playing around on my creative copy of the world. Not matter how I try to re-furbish it, it either doesn't look right or is too similar to something I've done. Then I had a brief thought about turning it back to nature and leaving it as a hole as it was back in Alpha. However, what I might do is very radical. After playing around, I decided to make that a much bigger en- suite bathroom to what I have.

Imagine that sized room as a bathroom! It's possible! The existing bathroom would become a new corridor, still leading to the V.I.P. room. The only problem I might have is not being able to have a working shower like I have now because of the space to hide the redstone, and; the ceiling being practically underneath the top of the mountain

Formerly:

 

Works:

Old bathroom:

With the new works there is no longer space for the stairs around the new bathroom location (Leading from the lounge extension up to the mountain roof top), so they have been filled in, no more direct access to the mountain to - from inside at least. I used the rest of that width to fill out the new bathroom shape. The hut on top has also been knocked down, thinking of making another private garden by removing the fences and copying my border walls of bricks, railings and bushes?

 A brand new idea (Only yesterday) was to extend the changing rooms by the swimming pool, further back into the mountain. Also: Maybe re-building my diving board but that means taking the back wall behind it back by 4 blocks, but it's achievable.

Bucket list:

• Nether bridge - Complete re-design (Maybe in the style of a nether fort) or demolish completely.
• Replace fencing with new type fencing or new standard iron railing/stone-brick block formation (As seen above ground by back patio)
• Fill new bunny room with bunnies!
• Decorate new office (Structure of room dug out in 1.7.10 - behind storage area, entrance to left of lava incinerator.)
• Improve dock?
• Finish off Library bookcases now the re-furnish is long done. (Mass cow farming)
• Finish off interior rooms, Half-way House.
• Finish off Mount DOOOOMMM.
• Finish off interior furnishing for apartment block!!!