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April 21, 2015October 5, 2017

The Four Guardians

Note: Written before update 1.1.0 when the direction of the sunrise/set was fixed. North here is now west.

One of my MCPE builds on Fisher Price® My First Creative World™ was a giant zombie. It was a challenge figuring out what color blocks to use, and working around the fact that unlike skins, blocks have the same texture on all four sides. But the statue got built with the necessary fudging of detail and it lurked on one side of several incarnations of my scavenger hunt world, at least until in some of them, Wee Beastie TNT’ed them to the ground. ‘Cause, you know, Giant Zombie.

Fast forward to my infinite world, and a pretty patch of shoreline and a small island out from the mainland, and I thought, what the heck, I’ll rebuild the Giant Zombie. And then I thought, nah. I’ll build FOUR of them. Get all Lord of the Ringsy. So I squared off and expanded the island and built these four colossal gentlemen quietly menacing onlookers in each direction. Though it’s really hard to menace anything with hordes of chickens sprouting out of your feet.

Its a long way up... — Its a long way up…

A vast white room... — A vast white room…

This was actually the first subway station I built on the north/south line. (When I add more, it’s gonna be called the Netherrack line.) It’s a little smaller than subsequent stations, since I was still figuring things out, and the only one with stairs on the platform instead of in a space behind the wall. The rest of the stations got more standardized over time, but this one gets to be quirky because it was first.

Not pictured – I should have gotten a picture of the island from the sky during a creative run, because the water around these guys? FILLED with chickens. There is a circle of flapping white specks around the island. Yes, there’s a spawner somewhere. Occasionally they get down into the subway and hop a minecart. Chickens in minecarts are way funnier than they ought to be.

And thusly ends the tale of the four.

UPDATE (6/28/15): About that aforementioned picture:

Also these guys have since acquired names. They are Icky, Stinky, Yucky and Clyde. Don’t ask me which one’s which.

World: Main
Location: 551 64 16
Creation Mode: Creative
Build completed: Summer 2014

April 20, 2015October 5, 2017

Taking the Scenic Route

Most of this weekend’s build work included laying a ~1115 block segment of road running from a brick house* I’d mostly finished a few weeks ago (just had to add the roof) to the mostly unexplored northwestern shoreline. This was slightly more of a pain in the neck than usual (literally at some points throughout Sunday even) because after last Monday’s server session I’d left my game set on survival for Reasons.** After having my game mostly creative for the past little while, I’d kinda forgotten how arduous building a Large Thing in Survival mode is, even if you’re using Plug to cheat a little with regard to tools and inventory. Arduous, but somehow satisfying.

Anyway, I did finish the road (and the house, which I’m calling Rose House, not Brick… hoooooooooouse***), and since Survival mode did slow me up a little it meant I had time to stop and appreciate the scenery along the way.

I was experimenting with a different roof shape on this house. Very unsure if like.

We’re getting ready for boats, hence the dock in the back. Also if you look carefully through the water you can see the double basement.

Off in the distance... — Off in the distance…

I really love having my view distance hacked to 255 blocks. it doesn’t seem to slow up my gameplay much, aside from an uptick in chunk errors. Still, a view like that… worth it.

Tiptoe... through the tulips... with me... — Tiptoe… through the tulips… with me…

I have a horrific compulsion to take pictures at sunset. Minecraft sunsets are just so PRETTY now.

I decided it would be really cool to have the road end emerging through this cave. I wanted to take a before picture first through.

Also can I just say I love that Plug gives you access to coordinates? It makes road planning way easier.

But this road ends emerging triumphantly through a cave!

The other thing I like to do is if I found something super pretty, I like to stand in one spot and take a lot of pictures. This is the first time I’ve spliced those time-lapsed screenshots into one picture though, and I like how it came out. Might print and frame it even.

So yeah, now we have come… to the ENNNNNND OF THE ROOOOOOOOAD.****

Meanwhile in B plot land, 576875 showed up for a bit on Sunday afternoon to work on the farm they’re building across from Spawn House so players don’t have to go ranging far and wide for food. It’s coming along nicely. As of last night it did not have a roof, 5 put that in tonight.

By the way, holy cats, it’s actually really hard and frustrating trying to lead livestock into a confined area. I’d only done it with sheep before, and they’re dumb enough to follow you relentlessly anywhere so long as you’re holding wheat. Cows, pigs and chickens aren’t nearly so cooperative.

They will however get RIGHT up in your grill though.

While fishing the above pictured cow out of the river and trying to lead it back to the farm, I stumbled across a house built by mathguy04 a few sessions back.

One of the reasons I’m really enjoying having guest players is that they bring some fresh ideas and building styles into my world. For example 5’s farm system of placing down a square of water for the crops, placing a slab one block over it, and then having a floating glowstone block above that as a crop light. I also really liked how mathguy framed the giant bay window of his house entirely with doubled slabs, which gives it a neat look. So yeah, live and learn. Reminds me, his house is missing a bed, I may go back and leave one and a houseplant for him as a housewarming present.

Hopefully I’ll have more news from the open server front soon. I’m open all week but haven’t been advertising it much. Hopefully I’ll get a few more folks in later in the week or over the weekend. Also I’m so behind on the build posts front. I’ll tackle that project this week I think.

* she’s mighty mighty… letting it all hang out ayyyy she’s a brick… HOOOOOOOOOUUUUSE… sorry, couldn’t help myself.

** Reasons being I wanted to hack in iron doors for the prison build, which is coming along. Hopefully done this week.

**** …for exactly this reason.

**** Its apparently just that kind of post. 😛

April 13, 2015October 5, 2017

Server Time, and MCPE 0.11.0 news!

Monday night server time was had tonight! I only had two guests tonight: 576875 and Team Heath Bar, but a good time was had arrowing mobs, adopting wee cows (one of whom THB has dubbed Mr. Moo) and 5 has started a farm at the Spawn House so folk coming in don’t have to scrounge around for food, initially. I’m starting to quite look foward to my weekly visitors. 🙂

In belated OMG! News, turns out the rumors swirling about the MCPE 0.11.0 beta were legit, and y’all lucky folks with Android devices do indeed get to beta test it. Some of the pictures released are massively exciting. While I’m envious of my Android compadres as a non-jailbroken iOS user, I am still excited because beta test now = update SOON.

So what am I excited for in MCPE 0.11.0? Lots.

Boats! Cause swimming/flying across oceans is a pain.
Skins! Steve I love you, but you and i need to see different people and as a black lady gamer I’m tired of playing as a goateed white guy. Sorry not sorry. I made a new skin that’s all ready to go even.
“new” mobs! Bats, Squids, fish and cave spiders may be old news to all y’all PC Minecraft players but they will be entirely new to me. Doesn’t seem to be ocelots yet, so I’ma have to be patient for a while longer before I can have a creeper scaring kitty cat in game.
Dyeable doggie collars! Cause being about to tell which dogs are who would be nice, lol.
Gamemode Switch! For real, not just hacking the level.dat! that’d be real nice because creative mode with no flying and still getting hurt? Not fun. Might as well be playing in survival with Plug on spamming the give command. 😛

I am cautiously excited about the option to make old worlds infinite. I don’t know if I’d be up for going back to either the Hunt world or the Dreamscape world and expanding them that way. Honestly, if I could find some way of dropping both worlds and their accompanying projects somewhere in my current infinite map I’d do that instead, seeing as I’ve sunk so much time into the current map. I am glad to finally be able to rename my main world though – not that I’ve thought up a good enough name for it yet.

So yeah – SOON.

There doesn’t seem to be a WBC up on Reddit this week, as the sticky post has been hijacked by the MCPE 0.11.0 bug reports posts. Which is good, in a way – In among the other stuff I want/need to do this week, I need to seriously sit down and actually finish the prison dungeon build I’ve been working on for awhile, and then start sketching up the next couple of builds I’ve had percolating in the meantime, not to mention do some exploring in uncharted territory. Still on the lookout for a PC mapping tool that will work with the MCPE leveldb. And I need to make posts about my other builds too. So much to do, so little time!

April 12, 2015October 5, 2017

At the Circus!

All right, Crazy Busy-making Stuff is over with for a moment, so time to catch up on posts about my MCPE builds!

I finished the circus a hair too late for the Reddit WBC it was created for, but it still came out cool and I’m pretty happy with it. It gave me something to do with the dead flat mountain space on the main subway line between the Crystal Palace and the Castle. I’d briefly considered starting a giant train station build there but I think that’s ultimately going to go north of the castle.

Anyway. Pictures!

Carving stairways and roads through mountains is kind of a pain, but at least the views are nice from up here?

It’s always a little tricky designing spaces for villagers to stand in (lunch counters, ticket booths, any sort of service type place) and not have them wander off. you end up getting rather good at overhangs.

That's one way to make a tightrope. Or should I say tightfence? — That’s one way to make a tightrope. Or should I say tightfence?

See Mr. Hmm's performing dogs! In ring #3 - Hmmph's Wild exotic mooshrooms. — See Mr. Hmm’s performing dogs! In ring #3 – Hmmph’s Wild exotic mooshrooms!

Farmer Hmp's Rainbow Sheep! Here for one day only! — Farmer Hmp’s Rainbow Sheep! Here for one day only!

...is that a sheep on the tightrope!? — …is that a sheep on the tightrope!?

Which of course means I now have to create a Pachysandra Island somewhere and fill it with purple sheep…

I apparently have a thing for flower shops. Be nice when you can actially buy things with emeralds…

No idea what's going on here, but maybe we should move along. — No idea what’s going on here, but maybe we should move along.

Wait - a Freak Show? Ooo. — Wait – a Freak Show? Ooo.

Quick, the ticket guy isn't looking... *sneaka sneaka* — Quick, the ticket guy isn’t looking… *sneaka sneaka*

Don’t do this in real life, kids.

Behold, the terrifying and explosive Creepers!

Observe the horror inducing Skeletons and Zombies!

Tremble at the sight of the Zombie Pigmen! Straight from The Nether!

Marvel at the Mildly Annoying Silverfish!

And that’s the end of it. I might put more tents in at some point and there was a cave system underneath that I hadn’t had a chance to map out yet, and the grounds are overrun with loose sheep with colors not found in nature and chickens.

World: Main
Location: -745 78 -34
Creation Mode: Creative
Build completed: post date

April 6, 2015October 5, 2017

Open Server II: Electric Boogaloo

Thanks to Brandon, 57, Kidzilla, and Mathguy for coming!

To everyone who was having connection problems, ARGH! I’m sorry, I’m not sure what was going on.

The good news, considering people really liked coming in and hanging out, I have decided to do open server weekly. So see everyone next Monday at 6!

I am a little behind on build posting – I am working on entries for the Circus (which I missed the WBC deadline for – oops) and the Four Guardians, but due to aforementioned main computer problems and a show on Saturday I have to prep for, those might be delayed for a bit. I also promised tonight’s players that I’d write up how to host external players on your pocket devices. All that will happen at some point, it just might be next week sometime!

Thanks again, y’all.

March 28, 2015October 5, 2017

First open MCPE server run!

Well, after getting the domain and port forwarding right and figuring out FINALLY how to switch the main world back to Survival (I’ll post a tutorial on both later), I posted a “hey my world’s open, come visit!” notice on /r/MCPE this evening. I wasn’t expecting too many visitors – hell, I would have been happy if one person showed up. Happily I had four, and to those four, especially /u/Palcto and /u/EclipseSun, I say thank you for making my first MCPE server run pretty epic.

Sadly the allotted 3h of game was cut a little short by an incoming call from the husband (note to self, Plug PE does NOT play nice with phone calls). Such is the hazard of running a server on one’s iPhone. But still I’d say a pretty successful first run and I’ll definitely be doing it again.

Good Stuff:

I am frankly flabbergasted that it took two hours into a 2.5ish hour run for the game to crash. Between the general bugginess of MCPE especially with Plug PE going, and the unreliability of my net connection lately (sigh *COMCAST*) I was expecting the game to be yo-yoing way more than it did. Nope. Pretty smooth and stable. We only seemed to have problems when teleporting players with laggier connections around, making them fall through a not-loaded-yet world. Oops.

Bad Stuff:

Plug PE’s give command is borked. I can .g stuff to myself fine, not so much to other people. Also had a frustrating problem with amazing disappearing/reappearing chests. >_< Also the .in command does NOT hide you from mobs. I spent most of the game invisible near spawn (mostly so people didn’t spawn into oncoming zombies) and would get knocked about by spiders and skeleton arrows constantly. Yay diamond armor I guess. 😛

Interesting Stuff:

It apparently takes about 2.5 hours to see almost everything in the main world. Palcto found just about everything (I suspect the Hellfire Library was missed, as it’s a little off the beaten path and possibly the maze under the castle). Something for next time then.

Stuff to fix/think about for next time:

It’s been so long since I’ve run/played this world in survival that I’ve not only forgotten what’s in all the chests everywhere (answer: lots of good stuff still) but I’d forgotten to do things like leave minecarts in the subway stations for folks to use. Whoops.

Player Pictures!

EclipseSun has a different shader pack, so I asked him to post the screenshots he took, and holy crap, some of the builds look amazing in it. Palcto also took screenshots of his adventures.

A pretty sunset and a glimpse of the subway running underwater.

The subway looks really cool in EclipseSun’s shader/texture pack.

Looking back toward Spawn House. EclipseSun needs an apple.

March 27, 2015October 5, 2017

A world of one’s own

One of the reasons I wanted to start a Minecraft blog was to share my experiences with it as a game, a building medium, an adventure, and a platform for particular kinds of social interaction, be it collective, competitive or antagonistic. The game is a unique environment for all of these things.

A couple of weeks back, a friend, who also has a son about Beastie’s age, posted an article from the Atlantic titled “The Overprotected Kid.” It caught my interest because I have long bemoaned the bowdlerization of playgrounds as they went from the monkey bars and elaborate wood, chain and tire structures I remember from my own childhood to the installations of plastic and rubber matting that are more concerned with preventing the lawsuits of parents than challenging their increasingly sheltered offspring.

The article introduces an “adventure playground” -a different sort of play space for children. Instead of the sterile, secure structures we come to associate with playgrounds, the adventure playground is something of a junkyard, littered with discarded furniture and toys. Rather than being trash however, these are provided to give children building materials. A chair and a broken table seem like excellent starting points for a fort. Instead of a structure providing a limited scope of play, an adventure playground is essentially a huge sandbox where children are essentially turned loose to make of it what they will away from the all too omnipresent gaze of parental supervision. (The children are supervised, but in a very hands-off sort of way – kids are left to do what they will, resolve their own conficts and overcome their own challenges.) Over the course of a day, the items provided in an adventure playground may be destroyed, used to build new things, and even set on fire.

This all sounded very familiar.

Even before I started playing I have marveled at the explosive popularity of Minecraft. I have been especially fascinated with its popularity among grammar school-age children, and I believe reading the above article provided a clue as to why kids are drawn to this game: it provides a virtual adventure playground for them. It is a space essentially belonging to them, containing challenges, dangers and obstacles to overcome, where parents can be escaped. In the tightly leashed, stranger-danger influenced, constantly supervised worlds of kids today, there is a lack of this space in reality. Minecraft seems to fill this gap for many kids no longer allowed to leave the safety of their own yards and the line of sight of well-meaning parents.

I have also wondered why I have been so drawn to the game in the year that I have been playing, and I think my motivations are somewhat similar. As grownups, despite what our children think, there is so much within our lives beyond our control that an entire world to escape into and reshape as I see fit is very appealing. Taking out ones frustrations of the day out on a few zombies doesn’t hurt none either.

I don’t have any world shattering conclusions about all of this really, but as a part time parent I find all of this interesting and troubling. It is so easy to blame video games for their influences on children’s behavior and lack of activity when a lot of insight could instead be gained by examining why children are drawn to particular types of games.

March 25, 2015October 5, 2017

Wacker Tower

I mentioned I liked browsing Brutalism tumblrs and other images for inspiration for Minecraft builds. One day I happened across a pictures of the Blue Cross Blue Shield building in Chicago, IL.

Apparently Hertz has been around a while.

The building still stands, although it’s been given a bit of a facelift and the more generic moniker of “55 West Wacker.” (It nevertheless has made several “Chicago’s ugliest buildings” lists, which seems a little unfair – I’ve seen way uglier examples of Brutalism.) It also now has very tall neighbors on all sides but the front, rendering all those pretty windows useless and making the building itself look a little squat by comparison. Nevertheless something about this building held my attention. Maybe it was all those pretty windows.

Oh hey look, I figured out how to make WordPress galleries work, go me.

Every floor has different colored carpet, or a different (often purposefully hideous) checked pattern

Third floor. The rest of them are pretty identical.

There was a natural cave here when I started building the tower. It was mostly walled off by the pools but I carved out this stairwell down to it so I could continue to mine for materials.

The southeast roads. You can see the sheep farm I built to supply all the carpet. Also 3 houses.

Another look at Baori from the top level (which isn’t the roof!)

This building was my last big MCPE build in cheat-less Survival and as such it was a pain in the butt. It’s the reason why there are five nether reactor tower corpses across the samd biome (for all the glowstone and quartz) and spruce trees in an oak biome. And the poor rainbow sheep in the farm. Even with the Shear button I still accidentally punched all of them at least once getting carpet. And I still haven’t cleaned up all the supply trunks from in front either – figured their content’s’ll be useful for when I get bored and switch back into Survival. Still, oddly enough, for all the time and frustration in building it, it’s probably second only to Seuss Library in my list of favorite builds so far.

World: Main
Location: -120, 71,-427)
Build Mode: Survival
Build completed: Early October, 2014

March 23, 2015October 5, 2017

Take the train!

As part of a weekly challenge about subways on the MCPE subreddit I made a video of my subway. The video’s a little long, boring and dorky, but it does improve about halfway through when Beastie shows up and wants to know what I’m doing.

March 21, 2015October 5, 2017

Seuss Library

I surf a lot of brutalism galleries. I find the architecture style hideously interesting. It doesn’t help that UMass Amherst isn’t too far from me, so I’m confronted with many intensely ugly buildings on a fairly regular basis. The other fun thing about Brutalism is that examples of it are really fun to make into MCPE builds. Weirdly enough, they do not look anywhere near as ugly within the cubed off aesthetic of a Minecraft world.

My second brutalist build is based on the Geisel Library at the University of California, San Diego. It looks quite a bit like a UFO crashed on campus and then people just shrugged and filled it full of books.

This is the inspiration for this build. Yes, that is a real place!

Just for the record I’ve never been to California, let alone this campus, so I had to improvise a lot of the inside. I do think I did a pretty good job approximating the outside though. Lets take a tour!

It's a long path from the road to the front of the library. — It’s a long path from the road to the front of the library.

There's the road all the way back there. — There’s the road all the way back there.

BTW it is a super pain in the ass getting villagers to stay in one spot. Hence all the glass panes on the ceiling. Good thing they compliment the info dest.

The guys at the Skull Cafe are not so busy.

Nope. They just keep jumping on the stoves back there.

Such pretty work tables! And cozy couches!

It was fun figuring out how to get “houseplants” inside without just having ugly exposed dirt blocks.

A flower shop? In a library? Sure, why not.

So lets go downstairs to the basement!

It isn't a proper library without a creepy basement of stacks — It isn’t a proper library without a creepy basement of stacks.

Lots of stacks. We might be searching awhile.

These pictures aren’t really conveying what a huge basement of stacks this really is. You’re seeing a glimps eof maybe half of them.

I really don’t know what is with them and setting random animals loose in my builds but at least the library cows are funny. Anyway…

Up to the "UFO" part of the library! — Up to the “UFO” part of the library!

Level 5 has some cosy reading areas! — Level 5 has some cozy reading areas!

It's much more inviting up here. — It’s much more inviting up here.

Because these guys will follow and aggressively HMMM at you.

Level 7 is the widest floor. Lots of work and read space.

So this is what an all-nighter looks like.

Also whoops, forgot to finish slabbing over the ceiling – you can see the wool blocks holding up the table upstairs.

Looking up to the skylight on level 10. Quite a climb!

Level 10 isn’t part of the original library design, but a rooftop workshop felt somehow necessary.

Okay, back outside.

...this needs some sheep or wolves or something. — …this needs some sheep or wolves or something.

This took me maybe three solid weeks of work to finish up and furnish, but it’s the build I’m happiest with so far. I may go back and add more light at the base of the “UFO” at some point, as I’m afraid if I switch this to creative that dark area is going to be a ripe spawning area for hostiles. Also go back through and make sure there are no further patches of ceiling I forgot to slab over. and maybe give that poor cow a companion to roam the basement with…

Original Reddit Post
imgur album

World: Main
Location: from the road: (-1113, 69, -463) Library front: (-1137, 65, -526)
Build Mode: Creative
Build completed: December 14th, 2014