Minecraft

Muraii, I'm very interested in Block by Block. I think it'd be a great project for kids in cities - Philly and Detroit come to mind. I've already worked with teachers in both cities who came up with the idea on their own, but it's a lot of work for a teacher. Cooperating with Block by Block would be a fabulous tie-in. Is this an open program, or is it still kind of a beta program operating in certain areas?

sithload wrote:

Muraii, I'm very interested in Block by Block. I think it'd be a great project for kids in cities - Philly and Detroit come to mind. I've already worked with teachers in both cities who came up with the idea on their own, but it's a lot of work for a teacher. Cooperating with Block by Block would be a fabulous tie-in. Is this an open program, or is it still kind of a beta program operating in certain areas?

I haven't looked into it more and missed their panel, so unfortunately I don't know. I'm sure their site (I assume blockbyblock.org) will discuss this.

I had a chance to talk to the qCraft folks, too, and watched a demo at their booth. It's a fabulous way to demonstrate quantum-physical concepts. It's not precisely literal. They tried that early on and found it cumbersome and not very much fun. But they've got entanglement and observational dependency and some other stuff.

For instance, one dev talked about an cooperative map that included a bridge. The bridge blocks cohered into physical blocks when looked at from a certain direction but no others. One player would go to a point where he or she could observe the bridge into existence allowing the other to cross.

I can't wait to get home and play it.

sithload wrote:

Wordsmythe, there's a MinecraftEdu tutorial server floating around where new players (educators) can join to learn about how to play and how to build things useful for the classroom. If your friend is interested (or you and your friend), let me know and I'll talk to them about whitelisting you.

The server is run by Stephen Elford (EduElfie); you may have seen some of his YouTube videos floating around.

Initially I think she's more interested in learning Minecraft as a way of connecting with an individual student who loves the game/platform, but the interest may grow into something bigger, and we certainly have other friends in education. Thanks for all the info!

TL;DR: Get back on my lawn.

I will say that it's very easy for mod play to devolve into a whole lotta blowing things up and precious little building. My frustration may stem from an unrealistic expectation or hope that the building platform that also allows for a vast variety of other play modes would be used primarily to create rather than consume. I suppose it's likely that interest would have waned if the mods hadn't propagated thusly, that is, if Minecraft was ever just vanilla Minecraft then interest in building would've subsided anyway. At least as it is we have the prospect of a platform that may gather straying interest toward building efforts.

Anyone check out the new "AMPLIFIED" world-type? They basically took out all the limitations. It creates incredibly jagged, craggy, fascinating worlds. Completely unplayable unless you want to spend all your time digging tunnels (in which case you don't get to enjoy the awesome scenery), but great for a nice creative fly-around. It's a great way to check out the new biomes and trees they added, too.

I don't know, it looks like there's still plenty opportunity to find relatively even land to build on, just with the addition of some absolutely insane land formations. The 4:30 mark was particularly ridiculous.

Also, new biomes? New trees and flowers? I've been away from Minecraft for too long!

Nicholaas wrote:

I don't know, it looks like there's still plenty opportunity to find relatively even land to build on, just with the addition of some absolutely insane land formations. The 4:30 mark was particularly ridiculous.

Also, new biomes? New trees and flowers? I've been away from Minecraft for too long!

They released a huge update on October 30th. It's new to all of us.

Man, and it's still selling, too. They moved a couple million copies since the last time I looked, probably six months ago.

It took the new team a long time to really get up to speed, but they seem to be doing good work now that they fully own the codebase.

The full 'Story of Mojang' documentary is now available to view online, for free. Sorry if it's already been posted.

Grumpicus wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:

Minecraft Papercraft

Print your own. For free.

That's pretty awesome.

Malor wrote:

Man, and it's still selling, too. They moved a couple million copies since the last time I looked, probably six months ago.

It took the new team a long time to really get up to speed, but they seem to be doing good work now that they fully own the codebase.

And add another (5) to the list. My buddy and one of his former co-workers recently got into the game and bought it for me for my birthday/Christmas, and his two nephews. Assuming you were referring to minecraft (PC) proper.

Minecraft was announced for the PS3. Surprised it took so long- would love to know if that was a condition of their deal with Microsoft or if the delay was due to the developers.

demonbox wrote:

would love to know if that was a condition of their deal with Microsoft

Yup.
Exclusivity deal.
Relevant Tweet from Notch.

I really want to know when the Xbox One version will be out. I will probably buy it but I am not sure if I could give any strong reason why I would want to buy it a third time.

Snapshot 14w02a Ready For Testing! YAY! http://www.minecraftforum.net/news/1...

They really did an overhaul on the Enchanting/Repairing of items.

He talks about the new blocks at the start and finally around the 7:15 mark which I should have linked he talks the enchanting. Enchanting now takes Lapis but at least what it looks like is you can do multiple items with the same enchants. It may be a bug from what they say in the video but I think that is cool because if you are replacing your picks you can get the same enchants as long as you keep enchanting the same type of item. Repairing just became a joke. I mean for what seems a maxed out weapon like in the video it took 7 xp levels to repair it.

The trading system changed a bit for the better I guess. The old system of getting the new trade by using the last one changed apparently.

Personally, I think it completely fixes repairing items. Previously it took as much effort to repair those perfect tools as it did to make new ones, but with repairing being cheap, I can imagine not even needing to grind for enough levels to fix things like a nice mining pick, or that magical wither skeleton hunting sword.

I did like exploiting the old trade system, but it looks like there are going to be lots of nice new trades. Even zombie flesh for emeralds! Suddenly I'm not throwing away all that "useless" zombie flesh anymore.

but with repairing being cheap, I can imagine not even needing to grind for enough levels to fix things like a nice mining pick, or that magical wither skeleton hunting sword.

Hard to make, but easy to keep, seems like a very good system to me. It's a strong motivator to make the items, because they'll genuinely make my life easier, instead of being just another problem.

This is a construction site just a stone's throw from my home:

IMAGE(http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3808/12422151765_077f005170_o.jpg)

So what does the seed look like?

Norfair wrote:

So what does the seed look like?

Nothing unusual. I spawned on top of a mesa.

Norfair wrote:

So what does the seed look like?

Humid, subtropical. Rolling, gentle hills and flat valleys in the east, semi-mountainous rolling hills in the west, some urban biomes in a somewhat triangular formation.

Baltimore.

muraii wrote:

Baltimore.

I was looking at the biome characteristics in the Cary NC area, but yeah, kinda works for Baltimore too. Average temperatures and rainfall aren't too far apart.

Did you get a odd email?

Someone requested a list of all users bound to this e-mail account.

I've gotten that several times now. So far I've gone unhacked.

My son got super upset when I said we should start a new lan world when 1.8 comes out.

We've killed the dragon and need one more skull to call the wither, have an Etho style mob system for loot, a blaze farm, an Ender ender(two 12x12 pads, no pistons), a zombie villager farm with auto lights, a skeleton drop xp farm, and more.

I've let him go creative for short periods, to make fun redstone toys, TNT cannons and such, but other than the blaze farm, it's all legit.

I didn't expect him to be so attached to it, but he says it's a special world because we did it all together.

We're already on snapshots, but it's a long trek to find new stone.

It sure has been fun doing this together, learning how to make mob farms and spawner traps and auto brew stands, almost all legit. Plus I have him trained to put torches on the correct side of the cave(left side going in, all others are wrong), so that's nice.

The worlds gotten a bit big. A fresh start would be nice. But he was really bothered by the idea. Huh.

Can you set up multiple worlds? Or just switch the world back when he wants to visit?

duckilama wrote:

My son

I hope minecraft is still around when my daughters are old enough to understand it and play it. Its really a great game