Minecraft

Discussion in 'Other Games' started by Loerwyn, Dec 19, 2012.

  1. Loerwyn

    Loerwyn Member

    Do I want to, really? It's £18! That's expensive I think!

    But really, I enjoyed messing around in Manic Digger but I found Terraria's gameplay WAY too limiting and had too much emphasis on surviving and crappy gear, plus I found the visuals kinda annoying on a 1600x900.

    So, really... as someone who likes to waste time, make a mess of things and get frustrated, will I like Minecraft? Or should I just get it because I'll never stop wondering?

    Also: Minecraft. You may discuss it.
     
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  2. OmniaNigrum

    OmniaNigrum Member

    I have never played it, nor even seen it. I really do not know if it is worthwhile. Many people seem to enjoy it though, but many people are idiots too...

    Here is my suggestion to find out if you like it.
    https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=minecraft

    *Edit* BTW I bet it will be on sale sometime soon if you wait a bit.
     
  3. Loerwyn

    Loerwyn Member

    I've waited a year or so. Nothing.
     
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  4. OmniaNigrum

    OmniaNigrum Member

    Alright. I sit corrected. I guess they are especially greedy over there. That does seem like quite a bit of money for what little I have seen of the game so far. Anyone here play Minecraft? If so, please tell us about it and if you think it is worthwhile.
     
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  5. dbaumgart

    dbaumgart Art Director Staff Member

    It's actually really fun, especially if you have other people to play it with you.

    We do a couple hours of gaming and beers time after work on Fridays at Gaslamp and we've started up a minecraft server. People are building all kinds of things -- Joseph made a Skyrim-style tower which Daniel put a portal on top of and he's now working on a Minecraft version of Big Ben. Sean made a train station over a subway I dug from my half-build "Wizzard Tower" over to Triolo/Moom's Falling Water (ish) style house built over a lake.

    I was dismissive for years 'til I tried it -- it's shockingly engaging. (And reveals, I think, just how much Terraria isn't all that creative, if I may put it like that, though it is engaging in its way as well - but for many reasons that Minecraft did first and more elegantly.)
     
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  6. Loerwyn

    Loerwyn Member

    Hm. That might have just swayed me. I think I know what you mean about Terraria, it's limited by being 2D. You can go left, right, up or down. You can't go towards or away. And, on top of that, it seems less about building and creativity and more about LOL KEEP DIGGING BISHIE.

    And don't let me on the GLG Minecraft server. I'd probably fell a forest or murder all of the cows.
     
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  7. OmniaNigrum

    OmniaNigrum Member

    Althea, there are times you really remind me of myself. I too am a riot in multiplayer games. No, not the laughing kind. The "Ow My Gawd! Who Killed All The O2 Recyclers and Carbon Scrubbers?" (Space Station 13 is fun as hell if you want a multi game to purely mess with people. I *Love* being the AI. I allow the first random person to wander to the core access and they give me crazy rules that I then have to follow.)

    Hell. I did not mean to write a book on it. Check this link if you have an hour to spare and want to see how chaotic it is.


    Yes, 99% of this post is entirely unrelated to Minecraft. Shoot me.
     
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  8. Kazeto

    Kazeto Member

    Yes. If you like to waste time doing a lot of various nothing occasionally, then you'll find it fun. I don't know if it's worth £18 (it likely is, if Pounds are your country's currency), but that is because I've bought it when it cost 5$ (alpha and even before).

    Playing with people on servers is one thing, and playing on your own is another thing, both can be fun depending on what kind of server are you on, what mods (if any) do you use or plan to, and generally on your playing style.

    And on that note, creating underground lairs is easier than creating floating castles - at the very least you don't need to go out to gather 10.000 blocks of cobblestone because you just gather it as you drill down to make place for your lair's rooms. Also, when making buildings out of planks, fences are a good substitute for windows (because they can be seen through but block mobs just as effectively, and they don't require you to smelt sand into glass, which can be difficult if you started in the middle of an ice biome with no sand in the vicinity). And last but not least, the first three iron ingots always make into a bucket, it's a farmer's best tool (because making food farms without water is sort of harder, though by no means impossible, and you need a bucket to move water to a location convenient to you).

    Oh, and green silent mobs are arseholes, kill them from range if you can.
     
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  9. Loerwyn

    Loerwyn Member

    Just farted around for 20-30 minutes in the online demo. Even with it pausing itself frequently and repetitively, I quite enjoyed it. I also took two baths in lava.

    EDIT: Sod it. Bought.
     
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  10. Loerwyn

    Loerwyn Member

    Yeah, okay, I think Minecraft's pretty cool. Stumbled upon this just around the corner from where I'll be building my initial stronghold.

    [​IMG]
     
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  11. Daynab

    Daynab Community Moderator Staff Member

    I somehow cannot get into sandbox building games, not because I don't want to though, I feel like Minecraft and Terraria are great games, just that they can't hold my attention.
     
  12. Haldurson

    Haldurson Member

    I actually bought Minecraft during it's early days, because of all the great word of mouth. But I just couldn't get into it. The problem wasn't so much that it's a sandbox building game (although that certainly was an issue), but was more about the interface and crafting in it. I hate a bad interface -- if the interface is bad enough, I simply will not even try to learn how to play a game, simply because I find it too much of a struggle. Honestly, I was a lot less particular when I was younger, but I simply do not have the patience now to deal with that. I'm sure it's come a long way from when I first tried it, but I had such a bad experience with it that I don't even want to download the latest version. No desire whatsoever. (oh, and all those cubes looked pretty much identical to me and looked nothing like the pictures of them on the wiki).
     
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  13. Kazeto

    Kazeto Member

    By itself, it didn't really. In the unmodded Minecraft crafting is still something that has to be memorized. However, there are mods which fix that, and installing them isn't all that difficult if you have a working brain; the one I'm using is called "Not Enough Items", and it pretty much gives you a list of blocks and items when you open the inventory with clicking on the block/item on the list showing you all recipes used to make it and all recipes it is used for, and the same about smelting too.

    The same about the cubes looking identical - downloading a texture pack usually solves the problem of the blocks not looking the way you want them to.

    Sure, it is weird that the solution to many problems of the base game are solved by mods, but that's just the sort of game it is.
     
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  14. Alistaire

    Alistaire Member

    I'll tell you why Minecraft is better than Terraria (and why you should listen to me):

    1. I played Terraria for a long time, thinking Minecraft was a ripoff. Then I got MinecraftSP, which is pretty much Minecraft without multiplayer. And it was better.
    2. Terraria has all kinds of lag issues; if you get lighting up to maximum, it will pretty much break the game. Minecraft, on the other hand, runs way smoother on maximal graphics.
    3. Terraria is a dead game, Minecraft gets weekly content updates.
    4. Terraria modding has never gotten off the ground. Minecraft, on the other hand, has a huge modding community.
     
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  15. Loerwyn

    Loerwyn Member

    Big problem with Minecraft I encountered was the fact it's SO easy to get lost when looking for other biomes, and the game hit a crawl when it rained in a jungle area.

    Might need to fiddle with the settings. Maybe some mods will help counter that.
     
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  16. Kazeto

    Kazeto Member

    That is, unless you get to the real "maximal graphics", which is Optifine + GLSL shaders + dynamic lighting (moving light sources, essentially) + 64x64 or higher resolution texture pack (the default being 16x16, and the maximum resolution seen for those is 512x512; I'm only saying "64x64 or higher" because there aren't many 128x128, 256x256, nor 512x512, not going too much into either "realism" or "cartoonism", so many people consider the 64x64 packs a good tier for their resolution) + "extreme" viewing distance (512 blocks far, with 256 being the normal maximum), in which case your computer might need somewhat more powerful innards not to start puking lags on you.

    Yes, it does. Sadly, every mod is version-dependant (yup, really, there is seldom an update which does not break all mods until they are updated), and because of that there are many older mods which never . It's not like it's not possible to update them on your own, of course - in most cases you only need a reference sheet for what is what (since you'd be working on obfuscated files and will want to know what value or file from the older version became what value or file in the version you are updating the mod to) and a rudimentary knowledge of Java (in fact, the creator of IndustrialCraft started barely knowing how to code, and he learned how to do Java by modding Minecraft, with his later additions to the mod being really innovative and more advanced than your usual run-of-the-mill mods; I know about that only because I have a really long chain of conversation via private messages with him archived somewhere, but that was a long, long time ago, like two or more years back) - but that means that unless you are willing to spend the time doing that (or know someone who is willing to do it for you), there are many great mods which aren't usable anymore (like RedPower made by Eloraam, or most things made by KodaichiZero, or even the Aether collaboration mod).

    It generally slows down when it rains unless your gaming machine is a monster. It seems that in-game rain soaks your CPU for whatever reason.

    And if it's about getting lost, there are three possible solutions.
    First of them is to get a minimap mod (more about it below).
    The second of them is to start by mining down until you get iron and redstone, then making compass, and then using a compass and paper to craft a map; use the map when you are in the middle of your "home", "settlement", "fortress", or whatever it is, and just explore knowing that you will be able to use the map to return home (if you get a second empty map, you can clone the one you explored, and then "craft" a zoomed-out map from one of them by surrounding it with paper; two maps of varying zoom is usually enough not to get lost unless you are a really bold explorer).
    The third one is to make a sky road of sorts, starting with a sphere in the sky which is used as a base, and then making a road from it to checkpoints in various biomes; because it's easy to notice a road in the sky, it's hard to get lost if you are diligent in building it (that's what I usually tend up doing with my thousands of cobblestone blocks later).

    If you want mods which are purely about aesthetics and performance, then I recommend these:
    - OptiFine
    - MAtmos (Minecraft Atmosphere in short)

    Then there are the utility mods:
    - Not Enough Items (can be used as a cheat mod, but with just one click of a button you can turn it into a mere recipe book, the usefulness of which is really high)
    -Rei's Minimap (if you really don't mind that it amounts to a cheat because there's not point in making your own maps if you have it, it's a great tool for a beginner because it makes getting lost nigh-impossible)

    And then the other mods that I happened to like (I'm not using any industrial-themed mods simply because I like doing everything myself, but I can make a recommendation if you want me to, it's not like I never did use them):
    - More Pictures (it increases the number of picture frames available for in-game pictures; it requires you to either have a texture pack which supports this mod, or to add the new pictures yourself, but it's a great thing for decorating your buildings)
    - Atmos Mobs (adds many minor neutral creatures, most of which serve just to enhance the world, though some can be used as a source of food or other minor resources)
    - Balkon's Weapon Mod (adds a few new types of weapons, many of which have their uses, and is overall rather balanced; also, there's nothing like hunting creepers with boomerangs)
    - Chest Transporter (it makes it possible to craft an item which allows you to move a chest to a new location without first moving the content; when you use it you move slower and can't jump as high, but most of the time it is really handy if you want to move any chests)
    - HarvestCraft (a rather small mod which adds a few growable plants to the game and more food recipes; more variety is always welcome in that area and the mod is quite well-balanced).
    - More Stackables (this mod makes it possible to stack some items, like doors and signs; appears to be a cheat mod on the beginning, but in reality it just reduces tedium)
    - Backpack mod (adds craftable backpacks to the game which are like chests that you can carry with you and access from your inventory; good if you don't want to be bothered by full inventory that often, but still sort of cheaty if it's about "balance")
    - Wireless Redstone (adds craftable wireless redstone signal senders and receivers; not really unbalanced but it does allow one to go around a few problems with making redstone circuitry, so many players consider it cheaty; I don't but whatever)


    Just be careful to follow the install instructions (for as long as you make an appropriate backup and check the requirements, which are always easy to find, it's not hard to install it manually) and you will do fine.
     
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  17. Alistaire

    Alistaire Member

    If it rains, the game lags really bad yes. You should turn off the weather effects or just find shelter.

    Also, you should NEVER start adventuring if you don't have some kind waypoints. I recommend any minecraft player to watch paulsoaresjr on Youtube. He pretty much teaches you how to survive in Minecraft.

    Also, if you're too lazy to watch it;

    - If you're caving, place torches on the right as you venture through the caves. This way, it's easy to find your way back to the surface (follow torches on the left)
    - Try to build big structures or dirt pillars as waypoints. Even smarter is adding a small torch in the right side aswell. This is usefull if you're venturing in other biomes without a map.
    - Try to farm as fast as you can. Bread is the most consistent food source in the game, and it will cost you only 3 wheat.
    - You learn recipes by crafting them a lot.
     
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  18. Loerwyn

    Loerwyn Member

    I'm playing my imported demo map, and on peaceful, so surviving isn't much of an issue yet. Just wandering around, getting a feel for the game, spelunking and all that lot.

    Also using Unmined as my map. It loads your world file and gives a not-too-detailed overworld map, so I know where I am once I'm on the surface.
     
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  19. Alistaire

    Alistaire Member

    I did that aswell; just playing on peaceful. It might seem good, but you miss everything nice like that. You'll find yourself lost way too often, and ragequit when you've built your huge castle and can't find it back.

    Playing on easy is more of a challenge. Just get some wood, make a pickaxe, find a nice stone wall where you can start digging a 3*4*2 or so house, and add a bed. After a few days you'll find yourself equiped with iron tools and maybe some experience from killed creepers, and it all feels more worthwhile.

    Also, if you want a great map seed; try my name. It has like interlocking caving systems all over the place. Also, it's an island, so you won't get lost at all. You start close to a nice beginning cave, where you could dig some shelter.
     
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  20. Alistaire

    Alistaire Member

    Oh, and of course one thing; don't get lost. Stay close to your house if you know you'll get lost easily, and die in the process. This is even worse if you don't have a bed.
     
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