It’s really amazing what people have built using Minecraft. Could this sort of build mechanic be used for a 3D design program without the learning curve of something like AutoCAD or whatever is standard these days?
FlyingRamenMonster: Was watching your video as I typed my reply. That fire was crazy! Were you trying to build a firepit when it happened? Amazing little game.
That’s not my video, I just found it and spent several minutes laughing uncontrollably. I may not understand talk of strategy or mechanics, but I think everyone can appreciate the hilarity of accidentally setting your house on fire (especially since I know how laborious it is to build anything in Minecraft!)
Well, at least you tried, that’s all that matters, I suppose. You are right of course…for some people, dark nights and deadly monsters that creep up on you, shoot arrows or blow up in your face, isn’t their cup of tea, but for me it’s like mana from heaven. 
Seriously, this game is like all my favorite games wrapped up into one: SimCity, Doom2, Farmville, Colossal Cave Adventure, even a little Roller Coaster Tycoon throw in.
It’s funny, because I don’t know him. 
Seriously though…ouch, holy freaking ouch. But yeah, I couldn’t stop laughing either.
I have no problem with some degree of danger, but I’m looking to mine with some element of danger of being jumped. Mining wasn’t even an option here, it was just slogging though a continuous zerg of mobs trying to place torches.
Having now explored through the caves on peaceful, I suspect even you may have been a bit overwhelmed. I’m not yet certain I’ve gotten all of it, but I’ve used well over 150 torches–plus several lava-lit areas, 5-way intersections (three on the floor I was on, then had to climb up to where two more branches would have dumped their mobs. Once set of branches went all the way from lower lava-filled levels to the surface (I ended up having to make a compass to find my way back to my stuff)
The first pass-through of a monster cave should always be to light up the entire area first, then come back later to mine. Monsters cannot tear down walls or pass through doors, so use that to your advantage – even a two block high wall of gravel will protect you from lurking creepers.
Indeed, that is an understatement! Numerous times, I’ve had to run away like a scared little girl, only to get hopelessly lost or get trapped in a pit. The largest mob I faced numbered 10 or 15 monsters, clawing their way out of a deep, fully dark mine shaft (I dealt with them by stripping all my gear except for a box of TNT and throwing myself at them.)
I do agree that the overland spawns should be toned down a bit – even at high levels, they are extremely tough to face head on. Still, I don’t think the game would be the same without some constant element of risk, and every time night approaches, your first thought is to seek shelter. One of these days I’ll have to try Peaceful mode, just to experience walking across the landscape at night with no fear of being attacked by monsters. Well, maybe a rabid cow…
The problem is, with cave structures of that size and configuration, it would have just been a constant string of suicide runs–no real strategy, no real chance of survival, just rush through, slam down torches until you die, repeat until you get most of the cave lit up. I don’t find that any more fun than just turning the mobs off in the first place.
When I’ve turned mobs on for overland travel, I’ve found the combat much more reasonable. From what I’ve gathered in the Forums, challenge mode makes no difference as to mob spawn rates, hopefully that’s something that will be looked at.
As it is, I found my session tonight a lot more fun, as I figured out how to make a minecart T-junction work, connect it to a long-range redstone circuit so I can switch the junction from 100 blocks away, and make a booster for the minecart so I can actually get to the junction.
Now I just have to figure out how to stop the redstone circuit, which is traveling close to the track, from messing up the booster.
This game looks extremely interesting to me. Unfortunately, I’m not likely ever to have the free time again to actually explore something like this. Ah well. I can still appreciate some of the projects people do.
To wit, this is crazy:
**Notch **announced the Halloween update, and there’s some cool stuff in there. The main thing I’m excited about is he’ll be (finally) introducing biomes- the environment will be different throughout the world. I’m really hoping that we’ll be given a way to change our spawn points so we can actually explore it.
Yeah, I figured we’ll have to start new games to take advantage of biomes and such, so now I’m just playing around. Made a small sphere (well, it’s small enough that it hardly looks like a sphere, given that it’s made of squares, but I have the concept), a small underwater building, and a way to pour lava on anyone trying to get into my tower.
Granted, lava moves so slow that someone would be able to open the door and walk in, but it’s a start.
On Penny Arcade’s recommendation, I picked this up and am really enjoying it.
I predict that one of the proposed updates will be a huge dark horse for changing the flow of the game: extinguishing torches. As it stands, torches are cheap (a quarter of a stick and a quarter of a coal for each one), and last forever. So you can whip up a big stack of them with little effort, and then throw them around in the caverns you explore with little concern, knowing they’ll stick around. This favors the exploration aspect of the game and minimizes the resource management aspect. But if torches go out eventually, their utility reduces dramatically: they won’t reliably keep your path home lit. You’ll have to use lanterns, which will presumably be made out of iron, which leads me to my current gripe with the game.
Notch didn’t seem to put much effort into calculating a proper ratio between the resources put into crafting an item, and the utility of the product. Like stone tools are 50x easier to acquire than iron tools, but iron tools are only 2x as good. And an axe is nowhere near as useful as a pick, but they require the same amount of resources to create. I think he cared a little too much about the mechanic of crafting things by laying out their shape on the crafting square.
But that’s a pretty small gripe. Very fun game overall. I highly recommend it.
Yeah, it’s been announced that, with the new update, torches will eventually burn out (but you’ll be able to relight them with a flint and steel). The new, permanent light will be lanterns, but their construction method hasn’t been announced.
The wailing and gnashing of teeth on the forums has been legendary. In an attempt to mollify the scorned fanboys, **Notch **also added that existing torches will automatically be updated to be lanterns, so nobody will have to run around relighting their existing maps.
And you’re right, the designer didn’t really think this through. I give him props for making a simple, addictive game like this- on his own, no real prior experience. But honestly, that’s something most game designers wouldn’t have let go live. In this game, light is everything- it’s arguably the most important, necessary game function. Something which provides eternal light should have been costly right from the beginning.
I suspect we’ll see a tool durability rebalancing eventually, too- iron tools don’t last near long enough.
Honestly, I kind of find myself hoping some professional game company will take his idea and run with it. The idea of Minecraft is remarkably addictive, but I’d love to see what experienced game developers could do with it.
You think that’s hard, just wait until torches have limited lifespan…it’s confirmed for the next update. (Lanterns will replace torches as permanent light sources.)
Regarding torch-planting, I’ve devised a strategy for how and where to place torches, so they not only create light but also indicate where you’ve been in which direction the exit lies. For example, if you see a narrow staircase spiraling up and to the right, you place two torches on the left wall with the right torch a little higher than the left, like this: , ’ (That way, you know on sight that there’s a passage spiraling up and to the right. The beauty of the system is that it works in reverse going downstairs, so the same two torches will tell you what you need to know in both directions!) A single torch on the floor indicates a dead end, three torches positioned like an arrow indicate a place of interest, etc. It’s an invaluable system which is critical even for getting round your own caves and mines.
As for the Megacaves, well…don’t know what to tell you, except that it can’t be done in a single pass, that’s fer damn sure. I don’t know if those labyrinthine monstrosities can ever be made 100% safe. 
I’ve talked with someone who knows the dev team and he says they are aware of the combat imbalances, but since the game’s only in Alpha, they can’t spare time to fix those issues yet. (Alpha is for adding features, while Beta’s for bugfixing and tweaking.) So be patient, it will all get ironed out eventually.
Hopefully Notch will implement some kind of fast travel/recall system – it’s an absolute requirement for a game of this scope.
Whew! That’s a relief, I wasn’t relishing the prospect of having to relight all my torches.
Hopefully, when the game gets released, there will be multiple difficulty modes which actually make sense, instead of only Peaceful (Nights are 100% Safe) or Easy/Normal/Hard (Days 100% safe, Night spawns MONSTERS FROM HELL!!!)
You can also build a scale model of the USS Enterprise (Star Trek:TNG one) in Minecraft (kidjanot…check it out).
Wow, that’s insane. Clearly that guy has no life.
Now, excuse me as I get back to my 1:1 scale recreation of every level in Ultimate Doom, Doom2, and Quake. (no joke)
It’s imported from a model. It took like 20 seconds to do.
Patch notes mention something about portals to Hell level where going a few paces and then porting out takes you a long distance on the regular map, but I don’t know how reliable that will be (or how dangerous).
I’m having a hoot with this game. I started my first day by simply digging a hole into the side of a mountain, collected wood and coal to make some torches and a door, lit my little hidey-hole up and crawled in.
Since then, I dug into the mountain, discovered caves, lava, a stream running inside, and I’ve built it all out into a big mountain fortress.
The monsters add an element of danger, but basically I’m treating this like the biggest LEGO set ever invented. As a kid I was always making ‘forts’ and digging tunnels and making cool caves out of hay bales on the farm. Now I get to do it at home on a grand scale.
I’m sure I’ll get tired of it at some point, but right now it’s a lot of fun. Certainly well worth the $10 bucks.
I’ll bet the demographics of people currently addicted to this game will skew very strongly with people who used to play with lego blocks, erector sets, lincoln logs, and other such toys. (Are these toys even popular today? Kids these days…) This game stimulates the imagination more than any game I’ve played in a long time.
I watch a lot of “Let’s Plays” on YouTube (yes, I have no life, none of us do, and we are all content with that) and right now, neary EVERYONE is playing Minecraft. This is unusual because LP’ers stick to specific genres (RPG, console, sims, etc.) so it’s clear that this game crosses multiple genre boundaries.