Minecraft Thread

Igloo!
I started this humble little build in James's distant tundra, The Gray. It's a vast expanse of pure white nothingness, leaving few notable locations for towns to be built around. I think this ice lake is a fine place to start. I think I'll gradually move towards the shoreline if I build more igloos.

This is the interior, which still needs a bit of work. (I had to use a Painterly texture pack to make the floor into red clay) Those are mushroom chunks lining the walls. Obtainable with a Silk Touch tool, but sadly, that's the only kind of block you can get out of a giant mushroom, no matter where you strike it. It just has the spongy texture all over it.
Incidentally, the materials for the wall and floor were inspired by Korra's house from the Legend of Korra, as seen here (large image):
http://i.imgur.com/WRcV4.jpg

The sugarcane curtain is a really nice touch :)

I just bought Minecraft, and I'd like to try and connect to the server...

My username is MC_MasterK.

I just updated the map of our world. This is current as of Sunday night
http://minecraft.hamsterrepublic.com/ohrss/

Master K, I added you to the server Whitelist

Just connect to the server at creeper.hamsterrepublic.com:26065

Alright, I tried out the server...

And I must say, it's confusing. I spawned in a wilderness, near a rest house with free items. Not many things I could use...I had no idea where anything you had mentioned in the thread were...I was hoping to find a town, but I did find Fenrir's Pyramid and the University in the process.

Then...I found a giant slice of land torn out of the area. I couldn't jump it, it would force me back to the spot I was standing on before. I got lost there, couldn't navigate, and actually got stuck in an endless teleloop.

Confusionnnnnnn!

Welcome to the server! I can leave a chest with some get-you-started goodies in it, just specify and x,y,z and I'll leave it there.

Alas, you've encountered a chunck error/world hole. The best thing to do is disconnect and then reconnect, and it'll be gone.

Best wishes.

Yeah, those chunk errors are really annoying. I hope the next release makes them happen less often *wishful thinking*

I really want to build a nice welcome area around the spawn location. I already marked off the spawn location with cobblestone bricks. Non-mods can't change anything in the spawn zone, so I have to patch those creeper blast holes myself.

I imagine a square paved pavillion around the spawn area, with fences around the edges and ample lighting to prevent creepers from spawning on the inside. There could be chests full of wood, cobble tools, torches, coal and wool, so new users could start out with a decent survival kit. Maybe a bunch of leather too for armor, except leather is kindof a pain to farm

Oh! Farming! yes, there should be a nice big wheat farm and a nice big melon farm There can also be signposts directing people to nearby landmarks (I intended the Temple of Cartography for that purpose, but in reality I think just a few signs around the spawn will be more useful.)

Well, I've built a house in a pretty nice spot, so I'm satisfied! It has a sign that says that it's my house (MC_MasterK), so feel free to stop in! I'm trying to make more beds and the like for weary travellers.

It's three stories high, has a rooftop garden, and a water well for all your purposes. I can build even higher if I so desire.

I also made a mine that gave me a fair amount of Iron, Redstone, Cobble, and one gold ore and 6 Diamonds! I dubbed it Twisted Cavern because of it's design.

Oh, crap! The Birch Church basement is now officially condemned, people, don't go down there unless you want to run amok of mobs in the shadows! The poor Iron Golem down there isn't going to be able to last much longer!

I haven't been testing the weekly snapshots, but my understanding is that mobs still don't spawn on bottomslabs, they just gained the ability to spawn on top of topslabs and on top of inverted stairs.

I finally got an enchanting table! The only thing that really sucks though is how I need experience levels in order to enchant...Experience levels are not easy to come by...if you die, all your levels are gone. When you enchant, it takes away your levels...it's incredibly annoying.

Fear not, for Minecraft 1.3 is coming soon, and with it, some enormous changes to the leveling and enchanting systems!
Experience will be awarded for your everyday "ore-dinary" tasks! Mine some coal? Get some exp from the stone wall! Smelt some iron? Get some exp from the furnace!
Levels from experience will be calculated linearly up to level 16, after which it will become quadratic!
The overall amount of exp needed to reach a "max level" for enchanting is much, much lower - those first 16 levels will be picked up before you even realize it!
The maximum enchanting level will now be 30 instead of 50 - along with that, high-level enchantments are generally much easier to acquire. The main thing that makes a difference now is what material your item is. Poor materials, such as Stone, will never get the highest tier of enchants no matter how many levels you pour into them. Gold gear, on the other hand, can reach top-tier enchantments extremely quickly.

So hang in there! In a few weeks, you'll be able to get all the enchantments you could desire in a quarter of the time it'd normally take now!

@Bacon: A few weeks? I heard that the new update is coming next week. Can't wait for the update, though! IIRC, some things you can do will be write your own books, enchanting system changes, ect...

When we get writable books, a project we should do is make a giant library where we can place all these books. We could call it the Library Of Babel, or the Librarium. There, you could store every written book, not to mention look awesome. It could be full of bookshelves and chests.

There already is a sizable library at Oxford. I'd be happy to contribute to a new library project. The advantage with using Oxford's is:

It's central, and well connected via rails;
It's a university style library - very studious.

If we are going for a new library, I propose basing it on the Bodeian library, the great library of the world:







Sadly I'm not impartial: this is my library, where I spend the majority of my day, every day, and I love it dearly.