2014

Diving into Tinkers’ Construct

stargrace October 6, 2014 No Comments

It’s not pretty (yet) but pictured above is the start of my tinkers’ workshop. I decided that if I was ever going to get comfortable with minecraft mods, I would have to actually start taking advantage of them and not just building manual farms. This is me taking one very tentative step. I started off by reading a book I had in my inventory. It taught me the basics like how to create a blank pattern, a stencil table, a part crafter, a pattern chest, and a tool station. I also learned how to create a tool forge but I don’t have the seared bricks for that yet, so it’s not pictured. Pictured is also one of those neat lamps that I stole from the dungeon I was in yesterday, they provide great light and are way better looking than the torches I have scattered around. I will probably replace the rest of the torches with those lights tomorrow, and I may make the walls all one matching stone (maybe using builder blocks) instead of the ugly miss matched dirt stone and marble. In the center I plan on creating the Smeltery, which uses a lot of supplies that I just don’t have.

53 Sand, 52 Clay, 52 Gravel and 105 units of fuel

I have the gravel, but I have had a rough time trying to get clay. There’s sand in abundance, so I should be able to collect everything tomorrow.

All of these stations allow me to create new types of tools, and customize them. They also let me repair said tools at the tool station so that I don’t have to worry about constantly breaking them and creating a new one from scratch. The more I read the more interested I got – and then I got completely confused as I read on automation of this system. Honestly, I think I’m far from automated-anything in Minecraft, but that is certainly a “one day” goal.

It feels weird to be so “old school” when it comes to this game and then come face to face with so many ‘new’ types of technology through mods. It has changed the game (for me at least) quite a bit, and requires a thought process that I wouldn’t have expected previously. I find that I need to focus a bit, or else things just don’t get done. Speaking of which. Still no success in getting components to breed my chocobo’s. Those lovely greens are just way too dang rare. Maybe I’ll have better luck tomorrow.

The Greatest Adventures

stargrace October 5, 2014 1 Comment

Building things is great fun and I could probably spend hours (and in fact have spent hours) doing it – but there’s more to minecraft than just that. Especially if the server you’re playing on is using mods (which of course as I have mentioned, mine is). One of the fun things to do is randomly find these dimensional doors and step through them. If you’re lucky you’ll end up in this really awesome dungeon looking type place (I may have stolen some of the lights) with neat things all around to look at – but eventually you’ll probably walk through a door and end up in limbo, which is not so fun. Limbo includes eyeballs teleporting you as you frantically try to walk towards a spot of red water on the mostly black map – that will port you back to civilization, some place also random.

I escaped, without any new treasures to boast of besides the screenshot but where I ended up was just a few feet away from another bandit castle. I had to be sneaky, their ranged arrows always hurt me pretty bad (what do you mean I need to get some armor..) so I built myself a little fortified wall and dug my way into their castle after they killed me the first time. See, I can be taught.

I was richly rewarded for my adventure in their domain, and it was awesome. I found another catapult which I placed atop my own fortress of laughter, a bag of force, a music CD and last but not least – an entire boat.

I’m on a boat!

I love exploring. There’s so much to see, especially when that involves going over to the neighbours (who are a few thousand paces away from my location) and nosing around their homes. I found a cow and chicken on the road (the chicken of course was attempting to cross it) and accidentally stole some potatoes. My neighbours place take advantage of the tech mod packs, which I have no idea how to even get started with. Automatic mob farming systems? Complex power grids and all sorts of weird awesome stuff that I have never heard of before. I know it won’t be too long before I sink my teeth into all of it, but for now I have been focusing on the ‘basic’ aspects of the game.

I set up a farm, started breeding cows for meat and leather, and have a few chocobo hanging around while I grow their food of choice so I can attempt to breed them (my ultimate goal at this time) because I want different coloured ones. Why? Because I can.

While all that is going on, I’m also attempting to decorat my (so far) very bare castle. I added a rainbow bed and a beautiful desk yesterday, but besides the craft room which is completely covered in storage chests (plus my forge and craft station of course) the place is empty. It’s time to fix that!

Old Game, New Fun

stargrace October 3, 2014 1 Comment

Turns out that a small group of my friends run a heavily modded Minecraft server, running the IceHenge modpack. Now, all of this sounded like jibberish to me. I have never played Minecraft with any mods before, I had always just played it “straight out of the box” as it were. I have absolutely no experience with anything that so many others talk about and have talked about for years now.

That being said, I REALLY wanted to play. I love Minecraft, those who are familiar with my preferred style of game play know that there’s very little I love more than a good sandbox. I dove in head first and before I knew it hours had ticked by.

I declined any starter gear, forgot to waypoint the spawn and simply wandered off. At night. I survived (barely) while frantically trying to reacquaint myself with whatever it is you DO in Minecraft, including what the heck I should craft first.

Eventually I found myself in a snow covered territory, perfect for this Canadian lady. I decided to set up my home, and started digging a basement. Of course as soon as I opened up my tunnel a bit a huge cavern opened up under my floor filled with a zillion mean creatures that killed me ten times or so.

Good times.

Seriously, I don’t mean that sarcastically. I giggled away and had so much fun! I started with the basics. Made picks, swords, some iron armor. A storage chest. A random skeleton dropped a backpack filled with goodies (yay). Endman is no fun and is probably the only creature in game that scares me due to the ‘persona’ of the mob, including sound effects.

Eventually a friend logged in and showed me the way back to the spawn. I marked it on my waypoints, and then proceeded to travel to three other homes and waypoint those locations as well (including the location of my new home). I created a large castle to live in (the first floor at least) and have to decide what I want to do next. I’m thinking I need to learn how to create some farms (both plants and animals) and delve into the magic side of things a bit. There are just SO many things to create and do in game that I find it astounding (and awesome).

Needless to say before I knew it hours had passed and it was time to call it a night. I had so much fun. I understand that Minecraft may be ‘old news’ but dang if that game can’t be a lot of fun.