Minecraft

Dig a 2x2 hole out, 1 deep. Use a bucket to drop water into a corner, and then again into the opposite corner. Water Time!

I am interested in trying out the multiplayer. Got a server up and can join it myself, but I don't know if others can.

Arovin, it appears we have similar tastes. I couldn't quite pull the trigger on adding planks to my tree house, and instead opted to only put in raw logs like a dirty hippy elf would.

This sounds like the Dwarf Fortress I could see myself actually playing. I'm cautiously optimistic. (Post more stories, you potential enablers!)

I have a nice underground complex. My method is to build down into a hill, then mine under the terrain into other hills. Sometimes I go out exploring and mine my way back. So I've got a three hill complex started, with a nice covered fort over the main entrance. I built it tall so I can see it from the spawn point and orient.

I then at Paleo's suggestion put a wall around it, so I had a courtyard to walk in. I made that two tall. Later, I started to push out the walls during daylight, so I had a larger courtyard (I want to experiment with growing wheat; I've already grown trees from seeds). And then I started to construct a long stone-walled path down to my spawn point. I discovered I had misplaced the exit from the courtyard into it by one row, so I hacked my way back into the courtyard at dusk figuring I'd deal with it later.

After a while, I went out in the courtyard to check whether spiders were climbing a tree near my wall. I saw a zombie hopping at the wall, so I pulled out the old bow and started firing. After my third shot, something blew up next to me and I died! In my own impregnable courtyard!

What's worse is that as I returned to get back in, there were three exploding zombies around my outer main gate. The third explosion killed me as I tried to open the gate, the previous two having ruined my front wall and left a huge hole where the gate had stood, but somehow not quite doing the job. I finally got back up the hill as day broke, grabbed most of my stuff (my steel leg armor and -sob- my new steel sword were gone for good) and started repairing the front area. I left a lot of the hole and created a thin path over it to the new gate, so as to make approach harder, but I did reinforce the base of the wall and gate with stone to protect against explosions.

Finally, with the gate sealed up, I breathed a sigh of relief. I turned around inside my restored courtyard, only to see a sheep grazing on the interior steps of my fort! Frantically I ran around the perimeter, and I quickly found that when I had opened a hole to get back in after starting the path to my spawn point, I'd left a gap in the wall. That's where the boomer got in, I suspect, and certainly the sheep too.

Never leave gaps in walls. And close your doors; Paleo had a bad run-in with some zombies after a day of exploring the hills. He'd left his gate open...

Now that I learned to [INNUENDO HERE] I am really enjoying this game. I just spent like three hours in this game accidentally. So, enabling story, here we go:

I spawned into the world in a pretty cool area. There were towering mountains all around me and sandy lakes between them. I noticed a shall cave in the surface of one of my mountains so I started working my way up there. As I climbed it got pretty dark and a zombie startled me by falling from higher up the mountainside. First time I'd seen one, it scared me like crazy, and it violently killed me. Fine. Respawn back at the bottom, and harvest some wood so I can build useful things. This time I make it up to my cave and plopped down a crafting bench.

I start to build torches and hollow out my cave more, but it gets dark again, and apparently skeleton archers don't care about my torches, so the started to stab me with their pointy pointy arrows. I tunneled into my cave and frantically closed the tunnel behind me with sand. Phew, I'm safe for now. Since I'm already underground, I decide I might as well start building a nice cave network. I dig straight through to the other side of the mountainside, which is basically a sheer cliff. This is pretty cool, so I build two layers of hallway along the side of the mountainside, with windows all along it. I can look out across the hills and see skeletons, spiders and zombies wandering around. Very cool.

This makes me realize how much I want to get out of my cave system though, and see some of the cool stuff on the surface. I go back to my original entrance, open it, reseal it behind me and start hopping up the mountainside using piles of rock to help me up the steep parts. At the top is an amazingly cool garden with trees and flowers. Unfortunately, its getting dark just as I reach the top, and suddenly there are two skeletons right behind me. I help and burrow straight down, sealing the shaft behind me. Now I'm stuck underground, with no idea where I am. I poke my head up a couple times, barely avoiding death, to get my bearings. Fine, I know which way "north" is. Back underground to try and connect to my old cave system. It takes a long time and a lot of changing elevation, but I manage to connect to my old system. Hooray! Now I have a home in the hill with a rooftop garden!

At this point I have almost destroyed all of my pick axes, so I pop out on a quick wood run. At this point I notice a great lava waterfall coming off the side of my mountain. Score! Anyway, I run back into my place and seal it before dark and head back up to the rooftop garden. From all the burrowing I have been doing, I have a TON of stone, so I figure I'll wall up my garden so that the zombies will leave me alone and I can leave the top open. I circle the place several times laying a wall so that it is at least three cubes tall compared to the surrounding terrain. Hopefully that will keep those critters out. Unfortunately, as I'm standing on the wall for the final layer, I fall off it and down a cliffside. (My garden actually has a chasm in the middle of it, part of my wall is on a giant arch.) Now I'm stuck on a tiny ledge! Rage Save + Quit! Now I want to go play more.

TheGameguru wrote:

How do you get back up?? LOL

Here Sir, is you answer!
*As an added bonus you get to watch a sheep take a ride up with me.*

Grubber788 wrote:

This sounds like the Dwarf Fortress I could see myself actually playing. I'm cautiously optimistic. (Post more stories, you potential enablers!)

I've started trying to do a few things besides dig holes. Here are a few.

My home sweet hovel. Not a natural cave; I started by digging out some rooms in a mountain. (I've played Dwarf Fortress too much, apparently.) You can see my crafting table, the door and some storage chests.

IMAGE(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4099/4862195210_eea95214c4.jpg)

Wait... if the door is closed, how did this cow get in here?

IMAGE(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4080/4862195314_fde38228f6.jpg)

It even has a skylight (I figured out if you put sand in the furnace you get glass blocks)

IMAGE(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4095/4862195418_ef4022559e.jpg)

OK, apparently gravity isn't so much a law as it is a local ordinance..

IMAGE(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4081/4862195880_6b840b4b5b.jpg)

I built a sphinx-like thing at my spawn point.

IMAGE(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4096/4862196106_d6d5687420.jpg)

The epic bridge I'm building across the water. I'm wanting to get to that spindly tower in the distance

IMAGE(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4117/4862196282_a2371392b4.jpg)

I've got a server running at home for me and my brother right now, but I found out it's really easy to switch between active worlds too. I'm waiting for Amazon to get some more Motorola DOCSIS 3.0 modems in so I can upgrade my connection, but it's not shabby right now. I just generated a fresh world and haven't even looked at it yet so if you want to try the MP, log in and go nuts. Server is my GWJ username dot com. I'll leave it up unless it kills my connection.

Notes:
Inventory gets lost when you leave.
Chests get emptied.
Everything you build and do terrain wise is persistent.
No mobs, so no food, cloth, rope, etc.

My brother and I had a lot of fun even with those limitations however. I can't wait for the MP to flesh out.

[Edit] Ok, I logged in really quick to see what the server generated. This current world looks good. It actually generated a couple of small "sky islands" even.

Grubber788 wrote:

This sounds like the Dwarf Fortress I could see myself actually playing. I'm cautiously optimistic. (Post more stories, you potential enablers!)

That's exactly how I see it. (Spoiler tagging just in case someone is experimenting with crafting recipes and doesn't want to know what there is)

Spoiler:

I haven't scrounged up enough iron yet to start experimenting with the switches and doors and all that yet though.

LiquidMantis wrote:

I've got a server running at home for me and my brother right now, but I found out it's really easy to switch between active worlds too. I'm waiting for Amazon to get some more Motorola DOCSIS 3.0 modems in so I can upgrade my connection, but it's not shabby right now. I just generated a fresh world and haven't even looked at it yet so if you want to try the MP, log in and go nuts. Server is my GWJ username dot com. I'll leave it up unless it kills my connection.

I tried it out and it seems to work pretty well. Might be just because nobody was on it.

Something else I figured out. You can't actually mine in the starting area. I went around and mined a trench around the starting area to help people figure out where it is.

Also since smelting doesn't work every five to ten minutes you can type /iron into the chat window and get four iron bars. Helps out a lot.

I decided to make a massive forest. I must have planted 500+ saplings!

IMAGE(http://i36.tinypic.com/98d7hx.jpg)

I am thinking about exercising some gamesmanship in order to find my spawn point. I figure I can put all my gear in the chest and get myself killed (so I don't lose anything). That will regenerate me at my spawn point where I can mark it with an obelisk or something. If I do this in the daytime, I am pretty sure I can make it back to my fortress even bareass naked.

My thought on getting back to the fort in subsequent events is this. My spawn point is on the beach and my fortress is on another island with a beach access. For now, I'll probably just find the obelisk and build an enclosed outpost there. Next, I'll install a small chest that I will equip with a boat or stock of boats. Then, if I die, even at night, I'll have the ability to make the relatively safer journey back along the water crossing instead of having to risk attack on land. The eventual plan, though, is to connect them either by walled skyways or tunnels with motorized mine carts.

I read the farming rules and thought I might try to kill two bird with one stone by building a combination land bridge and crop farm. Instead of transporting water, why not build a passage across a strait by putting in triple rows of dirt. You can use the center row as a pathway and till the other two. Put walls and gates along the entry points on either side and (as long as mobs don't spawn in the water) you'll have unmolested crops and a restricted access to your island.

My nearest island is not that tall and I'm thinking of using it as a tree farm. Since mobs can't jump more than two blocks, I figure I'll just build up cliffs until it is inaccessible except from locked stairways. Then I'll plant trees in rows long the top.

I think I've figured out how to make building overhangs. I was frustrated at the inability to make medieval barbutes on my fortress. They are very useful in that you can shoot arrows down the length of your wall where the bad guys have no cover, but you do. Then it occurred to me, why not build a temporary scaffolding out of gravel. Then when you're done building the overhang, you can simply remove it from the bottom with a shovel. I'll let you know how it goes.

Overhangs actually aren't that hard. If you stand at the very edge of the top row of blocks you can just see the edge of the row you are on. You can attach a block there. Once the first block is up it is easy to target its side and fill out the next row of your overhang. (Check the picture of my bridge above which is pretty much all overhang.)

Norfair wrote:

Also since smelting doesn't work every five to ten minutes you can type /iron into the chat window and get four iron bars. Helps out a lot.

Thanks! My brother and I were trying to make buckets and we never could get smelting to happen. Another weird thing is that I kept having to open and close doors to get out, otherwise I'd get blocked in an open doorway.

Too bad the dev is on vacation a lot through August, it'll slow down the server development a bit.

tanstaafl wrote:

Overhangs actually aren't that hard. If you stand at the very edge of the top row of blocks you can just see the edge of the row you are on. You can attach a block there. Once the first block is up it is easy to target its side and fill out the next row of your overhang. (Check the picture of my bridge above which is pretty much all overhang.)

Cool. That makes my plan of constructing a "safe" skyway a lot easier.

Where do mobs spawn? I can't tell if they are randomly scattered or if they come exclusively from those nasty spawn boxes I discovered in a cave.

My belief is that the friendly mobs turn into nasties when I'm not looking.

AAAAnnnd enabled...

So, I logged into LM's server "just to take a quick look at MP". Soon enough I found myself exploring a cave complex near the spawn(You'll know I've been there by all the torches which I'm happy to see are persistent). After which I began to develop a deep underground lair. Then Yoyoson logged in, and he and I spent some time trying to hit each other with various tools and whatnot. I then invited him to go spelunking and took him down to my lair where he soon fell into lava(muahahaha), but we found that upon death he respawned in the same spot where he died. Fortunately he got out of the lava before he died the first time.

Yeah, stupid fun. I think I'll really enjoy this.

hmmm 13 bucks for zombies and skeletons? I played the free version on a multiplayer server and built this huge pirate ship, it was pretty cool. But if I could build teh ship and defend it against zombie / skeleton mobs? nice. I might pick this up tonight and goof around with it.

Started up a new map yesterday. I saw a huge towering mountain across a lake from the start point so I made my way over there and found something pretty awesome. It wasn't so much a mountain as a ring of mountains, the interior chiseled out like a canyon. It was completely filled with caves that lead from one side of the mountain ring to the other, as well as up and down. Heading down a bit, I found an interior lava flow at about ground level. I think I'm going to excavate beneath it. My plan is to make a big impressive stone bridge with two lava fountains pouring lava into a basin beneath it. That'll be my front door. Then inside the fortress I'm going to dig a big spiral staircase centered around a 3x3 area of open space with a cascade of lava pouring down the center, all the way down to the bedrock. If I leave the stairs exposed to that, I shouldn't need to put up any torches. Maybe I'll leave one block between the stairs and the open pit as a railing (it would be great if you could make actual railings).

Usually how I play this game is I spawn, I look for an interesting and beautiful geographical feature... then I burrow down under it and look at nothing but stone and dirt for a few hours. Must be all that Dwarf Fortress.

Anyone know if you can grow trees underground? How about if you have a glass skylight?

I thought of a way to use buttons and explosive blocks to make a "countdown," or really any kind of text you only need to show up once. You just need to stack a lot of sand and gravel behind a solid (un-explodable) wall with a window exposed, then explode one "frame" at a time. You could probably even get the timing right to scroll automatically.

After watching that cannon clip, it kind of makes me wonder how well propulsion is modeled. I got the impression that the blocks that ignore gravity are fixed in place and the only way to move them is to destroy them. I hope that's not the case as I'd love to make some explosive-based elevators and maybe a rocket to ride. Once.

Robear wrote:

After a while, I went out in the courtyard to check whether spiders were climbing a tree near my wall. I saw a zombie hopping at the wall, so I pulled out the old bow and started firing. After my third shot, something blew up next to me and I died! In my own impregnable courtyard!

I've read that enemies can spawn anywhere "dark." I don't know how it determines what qualifies as dark but I've never had anything spawn inside my own underground fortress, which has a torch every few feet. It's only logical that the game not draw a distinction between inside your fortress and outside, because how does it know which is which?

Hopped on Liquid's server for a bit this morning. Being able to show off the cool stuff you build is really neat. I like the stuff folks have done already. It would be nice if there were an easier way to sign your work than the way Danjo figured out.

You mean Danjo "Hollywood"?

Since people seem to be digging the server I went ahead and configured backups with versioning. There's an hourly backup that keeps 24 versions and a daily backup that keeps 6. Should make it easy to rollback if a griefer comes through and tears up someone's tree fort. Should anyone want the world to load up in singleplayer just let me know. It's small and all you have to do is rename the \world\ directory to fit in your \World[1-5]\ list.

LobsterMobster wrote:

Anyone know if you can grow trees underground? How about if you have a glass skylight?

No skylight is needed just enough torches

From Minepedia:

IMAGE(http://www.minecraftwiki.net/images/e/e0/UndergroundTree.png)

A tree that was grown in a cave. Note the torches under the tree that gave the necessary light.

How long does a tree take to grow to full size?

Paleocon wrote:

How long does a tree take to grow to full size?

3-4 Day night cycles

Arovin wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

How long does a tree take to grow to full size?

3-4 Day night cycles

So about an hour? Cool. Time to plant a tree farm!

Oh, and how do you get at the high up leaves? Is it even necessary? Do they block the sun and make it harder for trees to grow in the future?

I wish there was a compass you could make. I get all kinds of turned around.

I saw that you can make signs that you can write messages on. I imagine they are much more useful in multiplayer mode, but I think I might use them to mark my mine directions just so I don't get lost.

Also, I had an idea in the shower regarding an oubliette trap and wanted feedback to see if it would work. I have a problem with the exploding zombies camping out my front gate. I have plans to make a secondary gate, but even still, I don't have a bow and arrow so I can't safely dispatch him from distance. Enter the drop trap.

I noticed that dirt is not subject to gravity, but gravel is. Moreover, a dropped block of gravel will actually kill. So if I make an overhang over the doorway that is sufficiently high enough that it won't activate the explodo-zombie's activation radius, but is also directly overtop of it, can I put a gravel block on top of a dirt block and simply dig out the dirt when the zombie is next to the door? Will the gravel dropped from height kill it? Will it explode once it is hit?

Paleocon wrote:

So about an hour? Cool. Time to plant a tree farm!

Oh, and how do you get at the high up leaves? Is it even necessary? Do they block the sun and make it harder for trees to grow in the future?

Yeah, a tree needs sunlight to grow. The leaves, if they cast a shadow, will likely prevent growth.

ZaneRockfist wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

So about an hour? Cool. Time to plant a tree farm!

Oh, and how do you get at the high up leaves? Is it even necessary? Do they block the sun and make it harder for trees to grow in the future?

Yeah, a tree needs sunlight to grow. The leaves, if they cast a shadow, will likely prevent growth.

Hmm. So I need to build a pruning tower.

Paleocon wrote:

I wish there was a compass you could make. I get all kinds of turned around.

I saw that you can make signs that you can write messages on. I imagine they are much more useful in multiplayer mode, but I think I might use them to mark my mine directions just so I don't get lost.

Also, I had an idea in the shower regarding an oubliette trap and wanted feedback to see if it would work. I have a problem with the exploding zombies camping out my front gate. I have plans to make a secondary gate, but even still, I don't have a bow and arrow so I can't safely dispatch him from distance. Enter the drop trap.

I noticed that dirt is not subject to gravity, but gravel is. Moreover, a dropped block of gravel will actually kill. So if I make an overhang over the doorway that is sufficiently high enough that it won't activate the explodo-zombie's activation radius, but is also directly overtop of it, can I put a gravel block on top of a dirt block and simply dig out the dirt when the zombie is next to the door? Will the gravel dropped from height kill it? Will it explode once it is hit?

I dropped gravel on a cow and it killed it so I think that would work, it was one of those one in a million occurances because I didn't know there was gravel above AND I didn't know a cow was on the other side, I was just digging and BAM. I also don't dig straight up anymore, I'm apparently good at finding the few things that obey gravity.

mrwynd wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

I wish there was a compass you could make. I get all kinds of turned around.

I saw that you can make signs that you can write messages on. I imagine they are much more useful in multiplayer mode, but I think I might use them to mark my mine directions just so I don't get lost.

Also, I had an idea in the shower regarding an oubliette trap and wanted feedback to see if it would work. I have a problem with the exploding zombies camping out my front gate. I have plans to make a secondary gate, but even still, I don't have a bow and arrow so I can't safely dispatch him from distance. Enter the drop trap.

I noticed that dirt is not subject to gravity, but gravel is. Moreover, a dropped block of gravel will actually kill. So if I make an overhang over the doorway that is sufficiently high enough that it won't activate the explodo-zombie's activation radius, but is also directly overtop of it, can I put a gravel block on top of a dirt block and simply dig out the dirt when the zombie is next to the door? Will the gravel dropped from height kill it? Will it explode once it is hit?

I dropped gravel on a cow and it killed it so I think that would work, it was one of those one in a million occurances because I didn't know there was gravel above AND I didn't know a cow was on the other side, I was just digging and BAM. I also don't dig straight up anymore, I'm apparently good at finding the few things that obey gravity.

When it killed it, did it still leave a hide?