So, Minecraft.

[NuurAbSaal]

The lava killing mechanism is now 3-wide and ensures there is no back-up of mobs waiting to be killed.

I added this little viewing area above the killing mechanism so I can see and hear the mobs dying in my little lava trap.

So do you think Minecraft brings out the best in you?

take care
Tarabulus

P.S.: You might get me to playing this game (*building in this world?). Since I'm clueless, is there a Mac version available?

[kandrathe]

Since I'm clueless, is there a Mac version available?

Download Minecraft.zip (270 KB). Unpack and place Minecraft in your /Applications folder.

[NuurAbSaal]

Since I'm clueless, is there a Mac version available?

Download Minecraft.zip (270 KB). Unpack and place Minecraft in your /Applications folder.

Much obliged!

take care
Tarabulus

[DeeBye]

So do you think Minecraft brings out the best in you?

It's really rewarding actually. These hostile mobs have killed me many times in every way imaginable when I explore scary dark caves. I devoted a lot of resources and time into building a system in which I can watch them die and actually profit from it.

P.S.: You might get me to playing this game (*building in this world?).

Best $27x2 bucks I ever spent. The first few hours I played it I was all "This game is ugly and stupid", but after seeing a bunch of what other people have done with it I was all "This game is incredible". Check out some "Let's Play Minecraft" videos on YouTube.

[NuurAbSaal]

Check out some "Let's Play Minecraft" videos on YouTube.

I watched some really basic videos by SeaNanners what must be years back by now, that's why I started reading this thread. Thought "well, this might the fun!", then forgot all about it . Seeing the cool stuff you and Kandrathe put up here got me interested again. This might even be something for the missus.

take care
Tarabulus

[DeeBye]

I watched some really basic videos by SeaNanners what must be years back by now, that's why I started reading this thread. Thought "well, this might the fun!", then forgot all about it . Seeing the cool stuff you and Kandrathe put up here got me interested again. This might even be something for the missus.

The series I quite enjoy is by Etho. He does some really interesting and elaborate stuff and I like his laid back narrative. Here is his Season 1 (101 episodes). Note that some of the stuff he built back then just doesn't work anymore with the changes in later patches.

Today I didn't get too much accomplished. I squared out a spawning room around a Cave Spider spawner. I think I'll make it into an XP farm somehow, but I haven't decided on the damage method yet. My son and I also went back to the nether and worked a bit more on the Blaze Farm. It's going to be a pretty huge project when it's done.

We also had a moment of panic when a Creeper somehow appeared in our storage room. We killed it before it exploded, but it would have been absolutely terrible if he exploded next to our storage chests. I think it spawned in a small corner that wasn't quite lit up enough, or maybe one of us left a door open.

[DeeBye]

We FINALLY finished our Blaze farm. It was the biggest and most intricate build we've ever done. We copied this design by Etho (I urge you to check out all the cool stuff Etho comes up with). A Blaze farm like is really great because Blazes give 10 experience per kill as opposed to 5 for Cave Spiders/Zombies/Skeletons. More importantly, they also drop Blaze Rods which are important for Brewing.

Here's the thing we built, looking up at it.


The Redstone wiring is very technical. Inside has a system of pistons activated by pressure plates that funnels the Blazes down into a 2x2 "kill room". Most of the damage is done by a precisely-timed system of repeaters that activate sticky pistons with blocks to suffocate the Blazes to near-death. When it turns off, you can just walk up and punch them once to kill them, and collect lots of experience and Blaze Rods. This is the repeater timer on the outside.


This is my son posing in front of the 2x2 kill area as Blazes are collecting. It's completely safe here and they can't attack.


The hardest part of this project BY FAR was disabling the spawner while also building a huge cobblestone cover over it. We died many times. You can't just disable it with a few torches, you literally have to encase the entire spawning area with solid blocks while dodging projectiles fired by both Blazes and Ghasts as you do it. It's 100% safe for us now, because it's completely protected from Ghast attacks and the Blazes can only spawn within the thing we built. The Etho design we used also allows us to turn off Blaze spawning by dropping streams of lava in the spawning area itself.

[DeeBye]

My son and I found a Stronghold purely by chance. We were walking around in the desert a couple of hundred blocks from our home when we both heard the sound of a zombie breaking down a door. There was no village or anything close to us, so I was about to attribute it to some kind of audio bug when by son said, "I bet there's a stronghold below us and a zombie is bashing an iron door". My son is a genius sometimes.

So we dug down and sure enough we found some mossy and cracked stone bricks. After 30 minutes or so of exploring the stronghold we found the end portal. We've never found one before. We barely had enough ender pearls saved up to make ender eyes to activate it.


Killing the end dragon was a bit tougher than we thought it would be, but we eventually did it. I wish I took more screenshots of the actual fight. It mostly consisted of my son sniping the dragon and telling me where it's position was while I took out the healing towers. Some of them were out of range of my bow from ground level and I had to ladder up the sides of them. That was kind of frantic.


After killing the dragon we decided to make an enderman farm to collect ender pearls because they rule. We built a ~150 block walkway out into the distance, away from any end stone blocks. The fences are for safety because my son and I are clumsy and fall off of things a lot.


We started building a 25x25 block platform for our enderman farm and they started piling up really fast when there's literally nothing else they can spawn on. We plan on making some piston/pressure plate thing up high so they spawn there and then fall to their death onto this platform while we just walk around and collect free ender pearls.

[DeeBye]

Enderman farm is complete.


Looking up at it.


At the top looking at the spawning/piston business end.


Looking downwards. Al those endermen are 1-hit kills.


I love my enderman farm.

[DeeBye]

We got tired of walking on the surface to our end portal, so we built a pretty fun powered minecart track to take us directly there. It goes down about 90 blocks and laterally about 320 blocks. We built a pair of rails so we can travel there side by side.


Whee! We encased the tunnel in smooth stone to make it look uniform. This is what minecraft OCD does to us.


I spent a few hours totally revamping our storage room. We've been accumulating too many resources and stuff was ending up in random chests. We just couldn't make sense of it any more. We are now at 90 double chests. I laid out blocks on the floor in front of each stack of chests to indicate what's inside. We'll see if this system works well.


My son started a side project. This is his jungle tree house. The thing in the top right is the beginning of his "wizard tower" (work in progress). The coloured wool underneath is supposed to represent magical energy dripping down. I actually think it looks pretty fun

[NuurAbSaal]

Keep it coming! I'm still amazed at what you can do in the "world" of Minecraft, even if I only understand the basics.

take care
Tarabulus

[DeeBye]

Keep it coming! I'm still amazed at what you can do in the "world" of Minecraft, even if I only understand the basics.

Minecraft is the ultimate sandbox game. I love it so much

UPDATE! (because I haven't updated this thread much)

My son and I designed a nether wart farm, with dispensers using water buckets to harvest it all. My son came up with the nether brick fence and glowstone lighting detail. I like it a lot.


Harvesting nether wart using a water stream is weird. Nether wart can only grow on soul sand, which innately slows down movement speed of things traveling upon the block. Using water to harvest it means it takes a long time for the harvested nether wart to travel to the collection point. I used about 50 repeaters on full delay to make this nether wart farm a one-click affair. It was a fun project


When I took these screenshots I totally missed showing the actual nether wart collection button. I probably also should have shown an "action shot" of the device doing its thing. I'm terrible at this stuff.

Next project is likely a potion brewing room, or maybe to tidy up our end portal landing area.

[kandrathe]

It has been awhile. Sorry about the zombie thread hijack. Are you and your son still playing? I still do with mine. My youngest wants to get into making a mod. I'm trying to figure out how to get him the skills required, without boring or frustrating him. The mod he wants to make would involve transporting you into a random "dream world" whenever you slept in a bed. It would save your characters state, so it would be restored when you exited the dream, either by solving the puzzle to awaken, or by dying in the dream. If you solve the dreams puzzle, you would be rewarded with an appropriate treasure that mysteriously appears in your inventory.

An example would be being trapped inside a giant egg, requiring you to do something with the giant chicken chasing you, without being eaten by him.

[DeeBye]

It has been awhile. Sorry about the zombie thread hijack. Are you and your son still playing? I still do with mine.

Yup!


The new snapshots with the upcoming biome changes have interested us greatly. They really look awesome.

My youngest wants to get into making a mod. I'm trying to figure out how to get him the skills required, without boring or frustrating him. The mod he wants to make would involve transporting you into a random "dream world" whenever you slept in a bed.

That sounds pretty cool. Beds right now are only used to set a spawn point or to skip the night. Kinda boring. A mod that gives another reason to use a bed would be fun.

My son and I recently had a massive amount of fun with Feed the Beast.

http://i.imgur.com/w86JTaH.jpg

[kandrathe]

My son and I recently had a massive amount of fun with Feed the Beast.

Our group started a bit ago with the Magic Mod pack in FTB.

Imgur album 1

Here was our original spawn base. Our style of building tends to be more sprawling above ground farms, with underground processing factories.


Then we moved closer to spawn.


The Main Industrial Center


Steel Making Facility for supplying the rail works.


And, a boat launch for expeditions.


{Continued}

---

But, then, the new version of Ars Magica was released. We weren't that far into it, so we made a new world using the 1.5.2 release of Minecraft and the updated magical mods we liked most.

Our current build is not FTB based, and we are using the MagicLauncher.

Imgur album 2

New home base.


Nearer the nether portal


Underground processing room.


Thaumatugy


Power Nexus


... which is now fed by Chicken Eggs and refuse.


Since we also have Mo's creatures, we farm under ground.


Library and advanced enchanting area.


And, we are getting horses...


... with our Stud facility.

[Chesspiece_face]

My son and I recently had a massive amount of fun with Feed the Beast.

http://i.imgur.com/w86JTaH.jpg

I had a blast with Feed the Beast and put most of my goofing around with it up on Youtube.

There is a lot of really great stuff in there and I absolutely love Microblocks.

[DeeBye]

I had a blast with Feed the Beast and put most of my goofing around with it up on Youtube.

There is a lot of really great stuff in there and I absolutely love Microblocks.

I may have to check your Youtube channel then

Something I came up with that I am pretty proud of is an auto-book enchanter. I'm using the Mindcrack pack, so there is probably a better way to do this with another pack.

I started with a Tier 5 Blaze Soul Shard, with pistons and pressure plates to funnel them down into a kill area.


The kill area is 3x3, with melee turtles doing the killing, Obsidian Buildcraft pipes with Autarchic gates collecting the Blaze Rods, and an Enchanting Turtle collecting the XP.


The Enchanting Turtle runs a script I found online that pulls an empty book from the Ender Chest above it when it gains 30 levels, enchants it, and places the Enchanted Book back in the Ender Chest. Another Ender Chest with an Emerald Pipe extracts the Enchanted Book and sends it to a sorting system.

I'm currently sending the Blaze Rods to a Barrel for storage, but using this to power Generators for EU or Boilers for MJ is easy. I have better EU and MJ production, so I just store them.


Here is a shot of a portion of the Enchanted Book sorting system. Diamond Buildcraft pipes are "smart" enough to route Enchanted Books into the correct Barrel, provided there is already the same book in the Barrel. If it's not the same, it just moves down the line until it finds an open spot.


I ran a timer after I created this and my system pumps out a new level 30 Enchanted Book every ~22 seconds. It's pretty insane.

Here's the Enchanting Turtle script http://pastebin.com/4mdrCL8C

[Chesspiece_face]

I had a blast with Feed the Beast and put most of my goofing around with it up on Youtube.

There is a lot of really great stuff in there and I absolutely love Microblocks.

I may have to check your Youtube channel then

If you do, be warned it's not always suitable for all ages. I think the giant WARNING graphic on the start of the FTB videos would probably clue you in, but you'd be suprised at how many people complain that they watched it with their kids even after that. *shrug*

I really want to get back into FTB, but I haven't played it much for months and it's tough to jump back in to an old world with all the machinations that are running after so much time. I may end up starting a new world but I also played Mindcrack and that hasn't been updated since I've last played anyway.

I also keep debating on if I want to pay cash for a server somewhere. It's tough to know what a good provider is or what is really worth the money. Hrm. If I do spring for it I'm sure there will be spots open for Lurkers that may be interested.

[DeeBye]

1.7 is coming out!

New world generation!

Double the amount of biomes, with new trees/flowers/blocks.
New “Amplified” world option.
Less ocean, more awesome.

New blocks!

Two new types of wood.
Stained glass! With both blocks and panes.
Packed ice, red sand, podzol.
Lots of new flowers, including double-tall versions of current plants.
Portals can be bigger sizes!

Fishing!

Added more type of fish.
Redone the fishing mechanics. Can now catch junk and treasure too.
Fishing rod enchantments!

Maps!

Put them in an item frame and hang them on your wall. They’re extra big!
Lots of new colours for lots of blocks!
Now with less lag!

Achievement & Statistics overhaul!

Now both world (or server) specific.
In multiplayer, it’s announced to everybody when you get an achievement.
You can move your mouse over this in the chat to see what it was!
Some new achievements and statistic types were added.
Zoomable achievements screen!

Multiplayer enhancements!

Servers can now put a 64×64 image called “server-icon.png” in their folder, that you will see on your server list.
You can see who’s online before joining a server; move your mouse over the player count!
Lots of hidden preparation for allowing name changes.

Resource pack changes!

You can now have multiple selected.
They can completely re-do your sounds, adding new ones or changing current ones.
Servers can now recommend a resource pack for you to use.

Chat & command improvements!

New commands to spawn mobs or blocks of any type.
Command block minecart!
Clickable links to achievements and items.
Click on somebody’s name in the chat to message them!

Lots and lots of technical work!

Completely rewrote how the network (multiplayer) works.
Completely rewrote the sound manager.
New graphics options.
Basic shader support testing.

[Taem]

I tried. I played this game three times now, the latest time with my daughter for three hours. Not once did I feel even the slightest inkling of joy or excitement. Without a doubt, bar none, this is the single more boring game I have ever had the displeasure to be forced to play to spend time with my kids. I'm having difficulty grasping what qualities it has that adults enjoy? I tried creation the first time, but I was moved to tears with my boredom at making 3D objects... if I'm going to be creative making artistic objects on a canvas, I'd rather be drawing on paper, and I really don't like drawing. I tried survival today hoping it'd give me something to do in this otherwise pointless sandbox of a game (my opinion), but again, gathering supplies to make "x", when I couldn't even remotely care about building anything at all makes the game oh so much harder to bear, basically three hours of my life I will never get back, despite the time I had with my daughter - not worth the trade-off of almost total loss of sanity on my part. This game needs something to do other than pointlessly creating stuff and running from zombies in the night. To be sure, the most fun I had in this game was killing my daughter when her inventory was full and pretending I didn't realize what would happen.

So I ask you lurkers who enjoy this game, I beg you, what about this game entices you? I don't ask to lambaste you or anything so droll. I ask because I like spending time with my kids, and if Minecraft is something my kids all enjoy so immensely, I'm hoping to find something about it that appeals to me, so that I may enjoy spending time with them instead of dreading it. So what about this game appeals to you? Why do you play this game? And yes, I used to play with lego's as a kid, but always had more fun making solid bricks out of them and throwing them at my friends.