Minecraft

Ancient Warfare – Minecraft Mods

stargrace January 13, 2015 No Comments

I decided to play around with a bit of Ancient Warfare on my home server. I’m still using IceHenge as a mod pack, and it’s still providing hours of enjoyment. I’ve also still barely even touched on most of the mods. Ancient Warfare lets you create (very delicate) NPC to do most of your basic chores. The ones I have pictured above are a fish farm and an ink sac farm. Both items are heavily used (well, food, not fish per say, but fish is easy) in the creation of ancient warfare items. Ink sacs are used for research, and fish can be cooked and turned into food for your town hall, which the NPC will wander up to when they’re hungry.

Next I’ll create some couriers to pick up the goods and drop them into a building I’ll designate for it. I’ve also created a cow farm, and have a wheat farm in the works. I haven’t learned how it all works yet, but I’m getting there slowly. There’s a lot of tutorials online, but it does require some trial and error.

I also made some barrels for storage, making things much neater. I have so far been unsuccessful in finding a Nether Fortress in order to find some blaze mobs so I can get a rod. I need two of them, one for a torch that will prevent mobs from spawning in a 64 tile radius, and a second one to create a brewing station. I did quite a bit of exploring in the nether and had a lot of fun, but without any success at finding the rod I want. Still, my little town is coming along well, and I’m excited about whatever I decide to work on next.

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

Those Lazy Minecraft Days

stargrace January 6, 2015 1 Comment

The urge to play Minecraft came once again (as it does every few weeks) and I decided to check out what was new with Icehenge, which I run through Technic. The technic launcher has been completely revamped, and on top of that Icehenge 2.2.0 was released. Lots of new goodies have been added, including a hat mod that is pure fluff (but so much fun). At first nothing was working for me – then I remembered I need to have Java 7 and not 8 in order to make things work. I really dislike java, in every form. It has been nothing but a hassle.

I started a new server on my computer and had fun wandering around exploring the world, one of my favourite things to do. I set up a home base (but didn’t like it that much) and was promptly swarmed by zombies and skeletons. I wasn’t very fond of the world, so I started a new one which is much friendlier to beginners. Home base has been set up and I’m ready to begin exploring. To my north is an active volcano, along with an ice biome. My home base is set up in a cherry grove, which gives me lots of nice red wood to make items out of (like my entire house). There’s a few islands and lakes to the East, and I haven’t explored to the West yet. I haven’t explored all of the mods available (there’s just way too many) so I’m looking forward to getting back into it. Minecraft has always been one of those completely relaxing games that I can play in my spare time without too much hassle.

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

ExtraLife Ends, and Games Begin

stargrace October 27, 2014 No Comments

Now that the excitement from ExtraLife is over, it’s time to relax a bit. Thank you to everyone who supported me through my streaming endeavors and helped to keep me awake. It was awesome. I played through all 24 games in 24 hours and had a lot of fun doing it. Hopefully everyone had a lot of fun watching me, too.

I’ve been trying to learn how to create more things in minecraft. I started out by trying to create an enchanting table. Unfortunately it uses a few items that are really hard to get. I’ve got the diamonds for it but I don”t have the obsidian, I found a mod that will help me create obsidian except that requires steel. So far I haven’t found a way to create steel. I created a blast furnace, but that creates a different type of steel which doesn’t happen to be the one I need. This is how things typically go for me, I choose something I want to learn to create, and then I have to follow the path backwards making all of the items that will let me create the main item. The reason I want to create the fancy enchanting table is because I made a force sword, and I want to enchant that. At least it’s a project for me to work on, and I have a fancy blast furnace.

November is going to be a busy month for me. For those who are familiar with my events, every year I run a Gamer Secret Santa, and I’ll be running that again this year. Registration should open around mid November, so don’t forget to check back! There’s also NaNoWriMo which begins the first of November. I’ll be writing horror this year, a genre that I have absolutely no experience in. Why? Because I like to challenge myself of course! I haven’t decided if I’ll be posting the story public or not, I may decide to post it chapter by chapter, or I might just keep the embarrassing moment to myself, we’ll just have to see.

I hope everyone else had a fantastic weekend, no matter what you ended up doing. Happy gaming!

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.