October 2014

Organization? Everywhere

stargrace October 23, 2014 No Comments

In my day-to-day life, I am one of those people who like to organize everything. I openly admit, I love to clean. I love lists. I have notebooks and post it notes and calendars and organizers all over the place. This carries over into my gaming habits quite easily. I constantly clean out my inventory, arrange my bank space, and organize containers. Of course in a game like minecraft where there are just SO many things, it’s almost a dream come true.

I spent a good deal of time yesterday organizing things. Adding labels to containers, putting everything in its place. I know that may not seem very exciting, after all I wasn’t slaying creatures or exploring dungeons, but it gave me a strange sense of inner peace (on a day where I really needed it after the horrific events that unfolded in downtown Ottawa).

I’m still learning my way around mods. I think I want to learn some enchanting, and I certainly need to upgrade my tools – I have to make a tool forge, something I had been neglecting because I thought I needed 4 iron blocks. Iron is sacred as I seem to use it for everything. Turns out the blocks don’t have to be iron, I can use a number of metals including copper which I have in abundance. Once I have a tool forge created I’ll go looking for gold so that I can make more castings, and from there, more tools.

Exciting times!

Do You Want to Kill a Dragon?

stargrace October 22, 2014 No Comments

When Paul asked if I wanted to go kill Ender Dragon along with Joel and DD of course I said yes! I had never seen a dragon in Minecraft before and this would be a one time server event, so I was incredibly excited. We set out in the form of blaze so that we could fly (and have lava immunity) and after a short walk through some dungeons and portals we were facing the dragon.

DD took care of the healing crystals with her bow (the rest of us forgot to bring one, doh) while the rest of us chased the dragon and attacked it. We made short work of the dragon and for once no one died (yay). It was awesome. A few purple explosions lit up the sky once the dragon was slain and experience dropped to the ground around the fountain that spawned (along with a dragon egg).

Events like these always make me smile, especially if I can go along with friends.

With the dragon dead, we had an 8 minute cut scene to enjoy and then were ported back to our homes. I haven’t decided what I’m doing next with mine but I think it involves replacing the entire stone building I created with decorative blocks, and building up a proper farm (both animal and crops). I also want to expand my mine – there are all sorts of tunnels under my castle that I blocked off for now until I had some time to explore them.

All in all, it was a pretty productive time in game! Can’t wait to see where my adventures lead me next.

Decorating? Really?

stargrace October 20, 2014 5 Comments

There’s a reason I love sandbox gaming, and it is all about the creativity and relaxation I find in creating. This weekend I learned a little bit more about the mods that are currently active on the minecraft server I’m playing on. There are 184 of them. That’s a lot of mods. Not all of them will affect me in game, but I’m slowly learning those that do. Some are still too complex and I have no idea what I’m doing but I’ll get there.

The ones I worked with this weekend were BibloCraft which is quickly becoming a favourite of mine because of the flavour it adds to the game, along with Chisel which also adds some incredible customization. Finally I also started exploring Forestry, which adds things like bee keeping. In the end I ended up “doing” very little in game, but I did get a pretty good grasp on the numerous ways I can customize my place, which I am completely tickled about as you can tell by the screenshot above. I created the tablecloth for the table, along with the chair, a backing for the chair, and then dyed it to match the rest of the room. I also used carpenter’s blocks to create a facade around my entrance, and then used chisel to turn the stones into some pretty decorative pieces. After all that was done I decided my house needed the beginnings of a map, and started the first one along with some potion racks (empty for now), and armour racks for flair.

My home may not be running on power, and I don’t have any automatic farming gizmos or industrial do-dads set up, but it suits me as I slowly learn my way through all of these awesome mods. Eventually I would love to create a better farm, both for crops and animals, and have them automated. It’s nice to automate the ‘mundane’ aspects of the game (farming for supplies, in other words) so that you can spend your time doing the “fun” things.

Speaking of fun, I want to get out and do more exploring too. So far I have spent most of my time in the winter biome that surrounds my home (fitting for a canuck, no?) but there’s some forest close by and some other fun places that I have been itching to do some adventuring in. So long as I stay away from the lava. A work mate went out yesterday and apparently got herself lost in some lava. Needless to say it didn’t end up too well.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!