186 replies to this topic

[MinDonner]

I know there are a bunch of threads about cool Westeros stuff that's been built in Minecraft, but there doesn't seem to be anything at the moment about actually playing the game. I just started it at the weekend on the XBox and holy crap it's addictive. The long hours in the office are especially bad cos all gaming sites are blocked, so I can't even get my fix by researching cool things to do with redstone or whatever. Hence, topic!

Right now my world is pretty basic; it looks like some kind of Extreme Hills setup with an ocean and some swampy bits, so I've just got one small farmhouse (my original shelter, where I started clearing the trees away and now have some animals in pens and some wheat, sugarcane and pumpkins growing) and a more elaborate residence I'm slowly excavating inside a nearby mountainous island. My main mine is underneath that and I just started finding diamond and redstone yesterday, just in time to also mine some obsidian a bit further on. Also means I can now replace my map, which I lost very early on in a giant-spider-related incident on the farmhouse roof. Who knew they could jump that high? Fuckers.

Anyway, for those that play it, what sort of cool stuff have you built? What's your local landscape like and which is your favourite? (if you've even bothered to explore more than one). Etc etc.

[Crown]

I've spend dozens of hours playing LAN with my cousin on the computer. We've had treehouses, pyramids, underwater houses, fortresses, etc. Unfortunatly we always lose interest when we starting finding diamond, because we have no idea what we want to do then (taking into consideration that we built the houses like we wanted them).

[AlexT]

I'm scared to play Minecraft. Everything I've heard about it (including this) makes me think it will take over and destroy my life.

[MinDonner]

It's pretty dangerous. I only started playing cos I got killed a few times in Arkham Asylum, got annoyed, and thought I'd download the Minecraft demo just to see what it was like, for something different to do. Luckily I don't have much of a life to destroy.

[MisterOJ]

I've never played it before, but I've seen a lot of folks talk about it - but I still don't really understand it.

Is it just a big sandbox game where you mine mats and then build stuff with it?

[Crown]

MisterOJ, on 06 February 2013 - 08:33 AM, said:

Is it just a big sandbox game where you mine mats and then build stuff with it?

Yeah, it's an endless sandbox (horizontally) in which you can harvest materials, craft items and build structures.

[MinDonner]

Imagine that Libertarian paradise of legend - a whole infinite world full of resources, where the determined individual can pull himself up with his bootstraps, using nothing but bare hands, gritty determination and whatever tools he can craft from what's at hand...

...but yeah, basically you get dumped in the middle of a randomly-generated landscape, could be desert or jungle or mountains or (if you're unlucky) the middle of the sea, and you have to make food and shelter from whatever you find nearby. Punch a tree to get wood. Make a pickaxe out of wood so you can mine stone. Collect up all the stone and build a castle. Cos at night, fucking scary monsters come out and kill you. Make a sword. Chop the grass down and get wheat seeds. Make a hoe and you can plant your seeds and grow wheat. Use the wheat to entice sheep, which you can shear for wool - at least, you can once you've found some iron ore. And some coal. And built a furnace to smelt it in. And so on and so forth. And that's not even getting into the fact that you can even make rudimentary electrical circuits once you have the right sort of elements, which you can use to automatically, I dunno, shoot arrows to harvest your wheat which is then carried by a hydraulic delivery system to your barn...

...and there's some shit about building a portal to an alternate dimension too, which I don't even start to understand yet. Or, you could just build a big house out of gold. I don't think there's any actual point to it, but my god it's compelling.

[MisterOJ]

So do you automatically have the "recipes" to craft all these items, or do you have to acquire them too?

And the monsters that come out at night. Is it really at night? Does the game keep track of time like on Animal Crossing?

I'm starting to get intrigued by this game. Which is probably a bad idea...

[Crown]

MinDonner, on 06 February 2013 - 08:43 AM, said:

...and there's some shit about building a portal to an alternate dimension too, which I don't even start to understand yet. Or, you could just build a big house out of gold. I don't think there's any actual point to it, but my god it's compelling.

There is a goal.

MisterOJ, on 06 February 2013 - 08:54 AM, said:

So do you automatically have the "recipes" to craft all these items, or do you have to acquire them too?

And the monsters that come out at night. Is it really at night? Does the game keep track of time like on Animal Crossing?

I'm starting to get intrigued by this game. Which is probably a bad idea...

All recipes are available from the start, but some of the resources are very hard to obtain.

Yes, there is a day and night cyclus, you can either build a clock or look at the sun or moon to see when it is about to become night or day.

Edited by Crown, 06 February 2013 - 09:01 AM.

[MinDonner]

It's not real-time like Animal Crossing, a day lasts about 15 minutes or something? but the sun rises and sets - you can tell the time by where the sun is in the sky, and the moon has phases. Some of the monsters hang around in the daytime too, the most annoying ones that explode and blow up your painstakingly-constructed fences, but zombies and skeletons burn up when the sun rises. And certainly the XBox version gives you the recipes for the items automatically - I believe the PC version doesn't (or at least didn't used to) - which is just as well as I really hate having to experiment with that shit and would probably have given up.

[Crown]

MinDonner, on 06 February 2013 - 09:04 AM, said:

It's not real-time like Animal Crossing, a day lasts about 15 minutes or something? but the sun rises and sets - you can tell the time by where the sun is in the sky, and the moon has phases. Some of the monsters hang around in the daytime too, the most annoying ones that explode and blow up your painstakingly-constructed fences, but zombies and skeletons burn up when the sun rises. And certainly the XBox version gives you the recipes for the items automatically - I believe the PC version doesn't (or at least didn't used to) - which is just as well as I really hate having to experiment with that shit and would probably have given up.

You're right, the PC version doesn't give you all the recipes, so this is very useful. It's impossible to remember all the recipes.

Edited by Crown, 06 February 2013 - 09:07 AM.

[Clueless Northman]

MisterOJ, on 06 February 2013 - 08:54 AM, said:

I'm starting to get intrigued by this game. Which is probably a bad idea...

RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!


About recipes, you don't need to buy or find them, but at times, you'd also need to check the Minecraft Wiki to see what you need and how to do it - because there's nothing in-game to indicate it.

Day-night cycle is something like 20 min long. So if you play on normal, you know you have 10 min to find a good place to dig a hole when

MinDonner, on 06 February 2013 - 08:43 AM, said:

or (if you're unlucky) the middle of the sea,

Yeah...
I wanted to try the 1.4.X version after 12 months away from Minecraft. Got stuck in the middle of an Ocean biome, on some quite small island, at least 3.000 blocks from the nearest continent. Good thing is, no risk of any mob coming here since the island is small enough that I could lighten it all. On the other hand, I can't get any animal, and only had wheat to begin with (have imported melon and pumpkin now).

[AlexT]

MinDonner, on 06 February 2013 - 08:13 AM, said:

It's pretty dangerous. I only started playing cos I got killed a few times in Arkham Asylum, got annoyed, and thought I'd download the Minecraft demo just to see what it was like, for something different to do. Luckily I don't have much of a life to destroy.

Hmm, well based on this and the fact i have to finish 15 or so building projects at work in the next month I think I'll be giving Minecraft a swerve for the time being! Thanks for the very timely warning!

[Red Templar]

AlexT, on 06 February 2013 - 07:22 AM, said:

I'm scared to play Minecraft. Everything I've heard about it (including this) makes me think it will take over and destroy my life.

This.  I've purchased it for my Kindle Fire, but I'm afraid to play it.  I've yet to even bring up the app.

[Rhom]

How is the mobile version?  If get it for the iPhone is it as enjoyable as the PC version?

[Crown]

Rhom, on 06 February 2013 - 11:07 AM, said:

How is the mobile version?  If get it for the iPhone is it as enjoyable as the PC version?

No. I tried it, and it's horrible. The controls are annoying and it is a shitload of versions behind the PC version.

[DivisionByZero]

I think this gives a pretty good idea of what you can do in Minecraft: http://www.youtube.c...h?v=vIhs8_m5qPc

My kids have actually found all sorts of amusing Minecraft-related music videos and some of them are pretty catchy!

[Ser Ennepe]

the mobile version is quite okay if you aren´t interested in all the redstone and nether stuff (although you can get glow stone and other nether things with a reactor you have to build). It is currently Alpha 0.6 or so.

[MisterOJ]

DivisionByZero, on 06 February 2013 - 11:18 AM, said:

I think this gives a pretty good idea of what you can do in Minecraft: http://www.youtube.c...h?v=vIhs8_m5qPc

My kids have actually found all sorts of amusing Minecraft-related music videos and some of them are pretty catchy!

So you can go around seeing stuff that other people have built too? Is that on the Xbox version or just PC? Because right now, I'm putting pretty strong odds that I buy this tonight on my 360.

[Crown]

MisterOJ, on 06 February 2013 - 11:23 AM, said:

So you can go around seeing stuff that other people have built too? Is that on the Xbox version or just PC? Because right now, I'm putting pretty strong odds that I buy this tonight on my 360.

You can play singleplayer, LAN or multiplayer. If you play with someone else (or with a lot of different people on a server, not sure if this is available for xbox) you see eachother's buildings and you play together, which is a lot of fun. I'd highly suggest you to buy it for the PC though. The xbox world is limited and the version is behind on the PC version.