August is drawing to a close and comes with several new faces from WSE, a blip with the website domain, and many amazing builds being built or just getting started on. Today I would like to highlight, a cottage near spawn. The cottage was built by BatMan3054 and the farm was built by Swarmhut.
I like the use of bricks as part of the path material, because it really pops against the green of the surrounding grass. I admire how the windows of the building are irregular and somewhat mismatch. The windows of the house make it feel quirky.
The inside of the cottage
Stepping outside to the garden area features your basic crop setup and a outdoor shed. I like the use of the dark oak and the quartz as the retaining wall holding back the hill.
The best part of the build in my opinion is the roof. The roof looks worn down and has a very natural slope to it.
Well that’s it for this FBoM, until then keep on building.
Update: Due to some miscommunication, I incorrectly identified Rudie as the builder. If the builder would get in contact with me, I will update it to the correct person who built this.
As July is coming to a close, with it comes exciting news from Minecon, a redesign of the subreddit and many of fun server runs. FBoM is in its 2nd month and is here to highlight Hachi’s base. The first thing I like about this build is the bottom floor with the checkered pattern used on the bottom floor.
The bottom floor
The diorite fountains are a nice touch, because they contrast well with the blue stained clay.
A closer view of the fountain
Going up the large staircase we enter the main room that houses the bedroom, a living room and a small bathroom. A nice detail that is present is the small canopy above the master bed.
Going up to the top floor opens up into a rooftop balcony great for watching the sun rise/set.
If you want to check out Hachi’s base for yourself, it is located near spawn, behide the farm. You will need to go past my base to locate it.
A few years ago I went to see The Fall. It’s a gorgeous hot mess of a movie, if anyone’s interested. It’s a Tarsem movie, they’re all gorgeous and weird, and kind of hot messes, lol. Anyway, in among all the gorgeous weirdness, was one particular scene shot on an eye-boggling location.
What in the name of MC Escher…?
I dismissed it as a special effect – there couldn’t be an actual place that looked like that. I completely forgot about it until the same location (or, as I found out later, a set based on it) popped up in The Dark Knight Rises several years later.
Behind Christian Bale and his angst…
What.
I did a bit of googling and OMG. Yes. This place actually exists. It’s an ancient stepwell in India called Chand Baori, and it looks every bit as awesome as the movies make them look.
Whoa. That is a lot of stairs.Stairs & stairs & stairs…
Awesome right?
So of course I’m looking at this huge thing and thinking “Hey… wouldn’t look cool if I built it in minecraft?”
Yes. Yes, it would.
This was a bear of a build – digging out the space from the middle outwards took forever even with scads of TNT, and then you would be surprised how long it takes to precisely line up all those stairs. And then doing the fortification at the top. It’s no real wonder I ran out of steam and didn’t do the temple in the middle. Still it looks awesome – goodness knows everyone who visits it for the first time is all !!! when they visit it. My favorite reaction is still Palcto’s “Is this a Death Arena???” (He still calls it that when he visits. XD)
Another view from the corner
I have my view distance set to 350 blocks, which is over the max amount for my phone as determined by the game, but it makes for such good pictures. You can see across the swamp to Wacker Tower in that one.
From the top
It looks super awesome from the top. Just the TEXTURE of it.
Approaching from the swamp.Corner fortification.A looooong corridor down one side of the fort.
Now comes with chicken!
A view from the side.A view from lower down
So about that bit of water filling the lower stairs of this build. Since I wasn’t building the temple, I thought it’d be cool to make the bit of water at the bottom more interesting…
The chicken is not the interesting part.
So as you can see it goes down several more levels under the water. But what’s in the very center?
Lets swim down and see.Hey – where are we?
I’m always creating stuff with the idea that I’m going to turn this world into a more public server someday. So I designed the lower level as a hidden apartment complex. I think Wee Beast does have a base down here, but the rest is empty. In fact, I may not actually be finished digging some of the units out lol. Someday.
By the way – I do design a lot of these builds on graph paper. Here’s a rough sketch of the apartment level floor plans:
Keeps the hands busy while you’re on the phone.
also gives me chance to use netherbrick, which is one of my favorite textures in the game – I just dont get much practical use out of it.
A peek inside one of the units.A corner reading nook
Bookshelves are another big Thing I like To Use A Lot.
Tiny corner veggie gardenWhere does this corridor go?Steps up and out
This way ends up at a stairwell on the west side of the structure.
It’s a long climb.
But if you keep going down the hallway instead of climbing out…
Well first you pass this.
I’m a big fan of preserving natural terrain or caves or other generated weirdness in and around my builds, or at least faking that I did so more or less convincingly. There was a waterfall here, but it was only a single stream and flooded the area I needed to put floor, so I dug it a pit to drain into and widen it a little.
Keep walking though, and eventually you come to…
a subway station!
This was actually the first station I had to add to the Netherrack line after it was built, which partially explains why this station was on the other side of the tracks from the rest of them. (Also easier to connect the rest of the structure.)
Sand Baori actually sits on the Granite line as well, via an unconnected subway station on the north side.
Entrance dug under the north wallplatform level
I… might have a subway station formula I adhere to… >_>
Anyway, that’s the build!I leave you with an animated version of today’s cover photo:
sunrise, sunset, swiftly flow the days… (click to animate)
A few more pictures from my very first server run can be found at this post.
Monday night your intrepid heroine and host of the server came home with a horrid stomachache, so I canceled server time for that night. To make up for it I ran Wednesday night instead.
It was a fairly low key evening with a bit less lag and voidspawning than usual and people mostly worked on their own stuff. DoublePositive, anticipating 0.12, built a nether portal behind spawn and finished up stuff in Spawner Land.
Opening who knows when?
Also in the spirit of preparing for 0.12, 576875 went out to the Troll village and started shoring it up against Things to Come. Hachi finished his water temple and made it super creepy by filling the fort part of it with spiders.
Fort and water templeLooking through the water and doorsEeep.
Dyaaagh Minecraft spiders will never not creep me out. And I like spiders in real life! Anyway I hope Hachi posts about it at some point, there was a whole backstory and mythology that went with this build. Maybe when he finishes the companion structures he’s planning.
We were also joined by Batman3054 from Worst Server Ever, who set up shop near DoublePositive’s. And Swarmhut did something adorable besides flit around dressed in a bee suit.
Aww!
There was also a fair bit of players getting bored with stuff between building and trying to reel each other in with fishing lines. I don’t know why hooking other players works (bug? feature?) but it does mean that if you go AFK (which I did a fair bit last night owing to some real life things demanding my attention) you could come back to find yourself sowmwhere completely different, or, what happened most often to me, up a tree with weird structures built around me, lol. Not so sure I like being fished as it always seems to happen when I’m in the chat window and can’t really see whats going on, but it’s a thing, and the gang is trying to brainstorm possible games to make up around it.
At the end of the evening Hachi took off due east from spawn and stumbled into a huge desert waste bordered by jungle and savannah, and across the sandstone village pictured above seated at the edge of it. (We looked. No stronghold, but hey, mineshaft!) Guess I know where I’m running some road this week. Interestingly enough this was a part of the map that I had explored briefly before when I first started playing in it a year ago. Well, “explored” is a generous word, got completely lost is more like it. This was in the very beginning when the world was still Survival, I didn’t know the cobblestone trick yet and hadn’t put together a compass. So I started marking my trail with torches on blocks and swam when I came to the edge. I got lucky and ended up very close to spawn on the other side. I’d meant to go back sometime, but never got around to it until last week when I blundered into the jungle biome on the desert’s other side.
Hachi continued flying far out past where I explored and the new terrain generating made for interesting errors on the rest of our parts – namely have terrain disappear out from under out feet. Note to self, the game does not like it when players get too separated.
Meanwhile in other news, I’m in the middle of three build posts (sigh) and I really must make some posts about my adventures on Worst Server Ever and musings about possible hosting solutions for the game. I’m also working on an out of game but still Minecraft related project for the Wee Beast’s birthday. There are not enough hours in my day, I swear.
Note: Written before update 1.1.0 when the direction of the sunrise/set was fixed. North here is now west.
A fairly low key evening was had tonight, with a concentration on finishing up builds people had started earlier.
5 and Swarm finished the minigame arena they’ve been working on.
you’ll pay full price for your seat BUT YOU’LL ONLY NEED THE EEEEEEEEEEDGE!Step right up and take a shot.
There is spleef, archery, King of the hill, fishing and parkour to compete in. May the best person win!
One of these things is not like the others…
Henry10030 meanwhile finished up his base and topped it off with a giant statue of themselves. Obviously so we don’t forget what they look like, lol.
Hachi’s (question mark?)
Hachi has been working on… well, I still haven’t figured out what this is supposed to be. I just know that it is awesome.
and it looks like a clock from the top!
To the south, Double Positive worked on several mob grinders of various sizes/mobs farms. Hence “SPAWNER LAND” written large friendly quartz letters.
A day view of Spawaner Land.
We are still plagued with connection issues around 7:30 pm evey server run. I’ve tried prioritizing udp requests, periodically dumping the phone cache , closing all background app, etc and nothing really seems to help. Fortunately it seems to only be a thing in the earlier parts of the evening. More incentive to make this a Proper Server, though I did have a conversation with Hachi today weighing the pros an cons of running an Android mobile emulator (more stable, working mobs, not glitchy gameplay / max 5 players, lag) vs pocketmine (more people on at once, better computer resource management, no lag, php programmable / mobs and game behavior glitchy as all get out). All of that are problems for Future ARBT to tackle at some later point; Present ARBT needs to log off and get some sleep!
Note: Written before update 1.1.0 when the direction of the sunrise/set was fixed. North here is now west.
I kinda fell off the face of the earth in terms of updating various blogs and journals. Sometimes real life (and chronic illness, unfortunately) catches up with me. I want to post on Monday’s server run (it was quiet due to problems with new settings in the updated Plug PE) and take pics of the various things 576875 and Swarmhut have been building. I’ll get around to those posts at some point, but here’s the big exciting news – aside from retail spaces and the food court 576875 is building on the mezzanine, Grand Central is finished!
It’s going to be a very very VERY long time until I work with any kind of sandstone again, lol. Several weeks of a big build using nothing but and I am thoroughly sick of looking at it. Still, I’m really proud of this build, it came out awesome and even though I have a few problems with the final build (mostly aesthetic stuff)… yeah.
But enough blather. PICTURES. There are many.
The Terminal from the road.Looking northwest.a view from the top.
So in preparation for boats, I dug some small canals around the station so that it wouldn’t entirely block off the river surrounding it on three sides. I honestly should have built one straight across on the north side. Might still.
Looking at the station from the North.Northeast CornerPeeking in from the North windows.South entrance.window illumination outside
I took lots of pictures inside the Grand Concourse. Mostly from similar angles, oops.
Dim and empty.Sunrise.View from the floor.Information needed?I sort of made Orion and then put more “stars” around him.Looking south.MoonriseLooking East from the roof.I like the pattern of light here.One of the corner antechambers.
I’m not sure what to do with these rooms in the corners. Maybe additional reading/waiting space?
I haven’t managed to do much in terms of retail space (the real Grand Central is packed with shops), but there are at least four spaces under the grand staircases that I’ve managed to do things with.
some delicious cake for sale.No one seems to be here.A book for your journey perhaps?Flower shop.
A quick peek downstairs to see what 576875 has been up to.
Staircase down.Food court in progress.
Looks good so far!
Finally my favorite thing – stand on the roof of whatever I’ve built, batman style, and enjoy the view around it.
The road rambles on in the distance.The road stretching east.The river and flatlands to the northeast
So yeah, there you have it. And now I have a tiny chunk of home in my minecraft world. 🙂 I suppose I ought to get cracking on expanding the subway in its various directions, lol. Soon.
World: Main Location: -1665 65 -3 Creation Mode: Creative Build completed: Post date
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.
Yes, they are connected.A door inside!Its a long way up…Shoulder level!balconies and doors connect the four.A view out of an arm.Interior of Head #1Interior of Head #2Interior of Head #3Interior of Head #4There were stairs going down too.A vast white room…Wait, more down?down down downFour Guardians subway station
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:
So. Many. Chickens.
Also these guys have since acquired names. They are Icky, Stinky, Yucky and Clyde. Don’t ask me which one’s which.
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!
What? A circus? Awesome, lets go.Up through the mountains!
Carving stairways and roads through mountains is kind of a pain, but at least the views are nice from up here?
I see the Big Top!Tickets, Please!
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.
Ticket obtained! Lets go in!That’s one way to make a tightrope. Or should I say tightfence?2 out of 3 rings visible.See Mr. Hmm’s performing dogs! In ring #3 – Hmmph’s Wild exotic mooshrooms!Farmer Hmp’s Rainbow Sheep! Here for one day only!…is that a sheep on the tightrope!?The Purple Sheep of Pachysandra Island!
Which of course means I now have to create a Pachysandra Island somewhere and fill it with purple sheep…
Would you like to buy a flower?
I apparently have a thing for flower shops. Be nice when you can actially buy things with emeralds…
HMM. one hot dog please!No idea what’s going on here, but maybe we should move along.Popcorn, getcher fresh popcorn!Wait – a Freak Show? Ooo.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
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.
Palcto finds the Crystal Palace
Another view of the Crystal Palace
too many chickens!
“Is this a death arena!?”
EclipseSun finds some giant zombies.
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.
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.
