| Epic Cactus Quest

Aaron and I went on an epic 3 hour quest to find the elusive Cactus plant.

Along the way we found and cataloged some huge dungeons for later group fun. There was one incredibly neato mountain we came across with waterfalls and all that.. it was amazing. I took a screen shot of it, but I don't think it does it justice.

Lots of really interesting canyons, waterfalls.. fights with creepers, zombos, skeletons. The worst was the creeper who hid out on top of the tree canopy so we couldn't see him, and we were running around in this forest trying to escape and he jumped down right in the middle of us... AAAAAAAAAHHH! lol good times.

After wandering around 3500 blocks away from spawn, we got separated in the night. Aaron wound up locating a biome with cactus in it (FINALLY).. only to be shaken out of his hiding perch by a horde of angry skeletons, creepers and zombies. He fell to his untimely death.

But, I was able to locate his defensive tower and GOT THE CACTUS PLANT.

Along the way, we saw some new and interesting things, befriended a wolf which then promptly decided to go drown itself (I blame Aaron's B.O. for that).

Strangest find of the night had to be a pink sheep. I've never seen that before, lol.

So, stage two of the Epic Cactus Quest is to return home victorious with the seeds of the Cactus plant, to begin a farming operation at Castle Slaytanic so that we shall never want for Cactus again.



By complete and total chance, I made my night hideout tower right on top of a dungeon area. I was surrounded by no less than 10-15 monsters on the ground, which made for a fun sunrise when they caught fire!




Really cool mountain:

That's a solid tutorial.

Lol, we both used "imutable". Funny.

Yay! You can be our redstone logic gate monkey. I'm a reasonably smart guy but that shit hurts my brain.

Did you see the video where the guy made an 8 bit computer out of Minecraft redstone? Lol

Thanks for helping out a poor noob guys. Yeah that wiki is what I've been leaning on -- having that on the iphone while playing definitely helps!

Definitely want to get into making circuits/plates and start building cool shit. Rude I think you could totally build this or this.

Sometimes coal is exposed, sometimes you have to dig a little. If you hunt around you SHOULD find some, eventually. Once you get into a groove with mining, it's never too hard to find what you need in your exploring.

It reminds me a lot of rouge-likes in that there are so many little details that aren't explained outside of other players, experimentation, or just dumb luck.

Here's a single player map generator I'm going to try soon that I'm hearing fun stuff about: Primordial Desert - It creates this desert world with very few trees and resources. It makes traps and more intricate dungeons that you'll find in the normal game. Looks pretty neato.

Edit: That site Enron linked is great! Wish I had seen it. Their basic tutorial is much better than that other one I dug up: duplo-time!

But yeah, come into multiplayer soon. It's basically like we're all playing single player games and doing our own tang with the ocassional "come check this out" :)

| jr0n gets sucked in

Yeah, it is a little rough at first, but the little tips from the guys helped and the minecraft wiki is very helpful. Especially the section on block types and craft options.

It's great fun. Plus the Higher-Res texture maps help make it a little less chunky when you play full screen.

D>M>

Aww, mean joke guys, I'd love to play GURPS Gilligan's. "Iagon reaches for Ginger's sweating bosom." Anyway, I logged in for a few minutes to check out Castle Slaytanica. Very nice! Took a dive off the pool, ran down into some caves and got creeped out. I'm going to fool around with singleplayer and get my feet wet.

I actually managed to survive the first night in SP without any torches (built a high structure, dodged skeleton fire for a few minutes, then ran around avoiding spiders). This time I'll actually make some torches.

I watched the videos on the website, and they point you towards finding coal... which I absolutely can't find. Is it now inside mountains or something? Then I poked around and saw you can make a furnace which makes charcoal. I love the breadth of stuff you can craft, but you definitely need a reference, there's really no way to figure this stuff out on your own. But hey, it's Beta so that makes sense.

Lol'd at GURPS: Gilligan


Also, that beginner's guide is not terrible, but it's a bit off.

For instance, an axe will greatly speed up harvesting of wood from a tree, but you can use anything from your bare hands up to a diamond pickaxe and they will all generate wood blocks you can pick up.

Regarding creepers, I lol'd when the guy said they only destroy within a 3 block radius. It's easily double that, and I've seen them go off when they are 2-3 blocks away from you.

If I was to give some advice to the beginning Minecraft player, it would look like this:

1. Make sure you have a place of shelter for night time. In our Action Team world, there are a number of places to take refuge. The huge castle is probably safest at the moment, and there are Eric's submerged house and Rood's lighthouse and the various mines close to spawn / castle. I only suggest the Castle because it is relatively creeper and spider proofed.

1a. You can access the castle by climbing a ladder at the end of the dock/pier on the south side, or by placing a block at the end of the drawbridge (west side) and jumping up (please turn around and destroy said block so monsters can't do the same thing). There is also an access point on the north side of the wall by the hill / trees but it's a little harder to get at. There is currently no entrance from the East.

2. Get tools and defensive weapons. In our world, we have enough shared resources that it should be easy to get at least stone tools and weapons to start off (sticks and cobblestone will do). You will need 3-4 pickaxes, maybe one regular axe, one sword. Get yourself some wood. First order of business.

2a. TORCHES. You can't effectively mine without them. Wood blocks > wood panels > sticks. Sticks plus a block of coal or charcoal on top of them in the crafting table = 4 torches.

2b. Consider armor. Especially boots and pants. When you fall, they absorb a lot of the damage. This should be a high priority for you as soon as you get some surplus iron. As you advance and will consider battling bad guys, chest plate and helmet are a good idea to absorb a beating. Diamond is the most rare mineral but also the strongest armor / tools and also causes more damage due to speed / raw damage stats. Gold is almost as fast but very soft and wears out quickly.

3. Always carry a good amount (20+) of sand or gravel with you. It makes going up or down a hell of a lot easier because they fall downwards when there is an air gap beneath them.

4. Immutable law of MC: NEVER DIG STRAIGHT UP OR DOWN. Lava will kill you and destroy your stuff. Falling gravel / sand will crush you and kill you.

5. If you die and have valuables on you, you have 5-10 minutes to get back to your death scene to recover loot. Anything that fell into lava is gone forever.

6. Don't be frugal with torches in mines. Once a block of floor gets to a certain light level, monsters can spawn right in the middle of everything and WTFPWN you. Note: Slimes will spawn in regardless of light level.

7. Use F3 to get coordinates for important places you visit and/or want to remember and to check depth from surface (64)and above bedrock, (which is around 0-5).

8. If you're going long-distance exploring, take a compass (always points back to spawn). Never know when you're going to be running for your life and might get disoriented otherwise.

Hey Jon, April Fools! We haven't been playing Minecraft at all. We've been playing GURPS: Gilligan's Island. Pass me the coconut headphones, little buddy! :)

jk!

Here's a pretty good beginner's guide to Minecraft:
Minecraft Basics

Real short version, gather some resources, build some tools, gather more resources, build shit, x-scape from monsters.

| OMG OMG OMG

I can't GET IN... I'm getting the shakes over here! lol

Yay! More Minecrafters!

We're going to need to expand to 6 players, lol.

All right, finished my Insanity playthrough on Mass Effect 2, and it's been a while since I played a hentai game so I picked up "Minecraft." What am I supposed to be doing? So far I'm just punching stuff while sheep wander in the distance.

| My lil' Webster

Tamed a wolf :) Made him a little dog house which I'll never let him leave.

Yeah, 128x was pretty, but a slideshow. 64x looks fine to me!

Also, due to Rood's non stop bitching and complaining, I put in a dock on the south side of the castle, lololol.

;)

I suspect moving from 16x to 64x shows a lot more benefits than going from 64x to 128x will. The old law of diminishing returns... I didn't get a chance to test run 256x yet. Not sure how the old rig will hold up, but I may try it once I get some fun in on multiplayer at 128x.

I'm completely terrified to try the 128x textures. Afraid because I think I'll fall in love with the look but my computer will choke on it. lol

Ah what the hell, will go try them out here and see how it looks.