I host games.
Note: Written before update 1.1.0 when the direction of the sunrise/set was fixed. North here is now west.
Just for laughs last week I took a long wander towards the north on the road with the GUI off taking snapshots of interesting things along the way.
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.
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.
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. 😛
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.
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.
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.