Nether Trip [Ravine Project Post 5]

There have been several suggestions for me to use Nether brick for building stuff. And Nether brick does look pretty awesome. So it was off to the Nether for me!

It didn't take too long for me to encounter my first Ghast. I took it down no problem. But when I wanted to return home so I could resupply, I had a road block...

Here's a cool view of my portal from an elevated position:

When I returned to the Nether, I started hearing what sounded like a wet slapping noise. That's what a Slime makes. But there are no Slimes in the Nether... but there are these guys (I thought they were rare...):

I sliced him up and got plenty of XP from him.

As I explored around more, playing badminton with Ghast fireballs, I noticed a silly glitch:

After exploring for a little while, I didn't find any Nether fortresses. I returned to the overworld and exited the game. Curious to see if any fortresses had appeared anywhere, I went on Minutor (slightly violating my desire to play this map completely legit). As it turns out there was one about a hundred blocks from me, but the part closest to me was encased in Netherrack. After breaking a pickaxe and going to the wrong coordinate pair, I broke into the fortress:

I heard plenty of Blazes around me. According to Minutor I had at least two not very far from me. I didn't really want to battle them so I went on Peaceful mode and snapped this pic.

I could probably make this into an XP farm in the future, as well as a good source of Blaze rods with which I could power my furnaces.

I explored the fortress for some time and decided to start mining it. Once I gathered a large enough amount I returned to the overworld.

I then built a room with Nether brick, glowstone, and sandstone. I also completed the room with light gray wool in the ceiling, and also made a more natural room using cobblestone, dirt, and jack o' lanterns.

Final amusing point: I was doing some mining to gather more coal and stuff (as if I really needed more) and came across a huge coal deposit. It was at least 5 blocks tall and I actually ran into bedrock.

Setting Up the Rooms [Ravine Project Part 4]

I've finished up with laying the stone bricks on the walls of the corridor. I've left the upper dirt layers in place to give the ravine more varied of a look. Both the office and the closet now have stone walls with stone brick along the bottom and the corners.

The first room I went with was adjacent to the closet. As you can see, I may have gone a little crazy with using a mix of materials. I thought it would look nice but it seems a little too... diverse to me. However I could just use that as the theme of the room.

All the way in the corner of the ravine, on the other side of the hall of the underground lake, I had a small squarish room and I decided to make it a Nether room.

Then one of the larger rooms, I decided to use a plank and wool combination. I want the ceiling to have light gray wool. There's a story connected to that: I needed more ink sacs so I went searching for squid. Every time before now I remember seeing tons of squid in the water my house faces. But they weren't there. I found them after some searching and collected their sacs. Then while crafting the light gray dye my game crashed! I loaded it back up and, because the items were in the transition state between inventory and crafting menu, they were gone when I reloaded. All that work for nothing. Need to find more squid.

Another problem I was facing is that I couldn't come up with good combinations of blocks, so I asked on this thread of the Minecraft forum. Here's some things I may consider trying:

• Iron blocks and lapiz lazuli blocks.
• Sandstone and Nether brick (need to find a Nether fortress first).
• Cobblestone and pine logs.
• Stone slabs with something.
• Sandstone with stone bricks.
• Sandstone with pine logs.
• Wool with wood or planks.
• Sandstone with red or blue wool.
• Iron blocks with obsidian
• Bricks with planks and wood.

If you have suggestions, please let me know!

I <3 Stone Brick [Ravine Project Part 3]

I have finished making the rooms for the ravine! There are 21 in total, including an underground lake that appeared right next to it. It took a lot of self-discipline to keep myself from skipping past the room-making stage. At first they were basically the same but when I reached areas that had bends in them I started getting more variety in their shapes. Also for a large percentage of them, they share the same layer of rock as walls. That's going to cause some issues when I try to design each room uniquely.

Most of the lower level's outer walls converted to stone brick, which for its basic appearance looks very nice to me.

Here's the inside of the office. It's not completed yet. It has the dark log rim around its door.

At one point, Enderbro decided one of the rooms needed more decoration. I made sure not to look at him though; he might think I'm insulting him. Yeah, because a difference of one dirt block makes it amazing.

 I cleared the area around the freakish tree that I bonmeal'd into existence. I think I'm going to prune some trees from my tree farm and help it out a bit.

The ravine as a whole now looks a whole heck of a lot better than when I first found it.

And ladies and gentlemen, we're not even close to being done with it. When I finish bricking the walls, I want to add signs outside each door with a room number and description of what is in it. Then I want to use either glowstone or jack-o-lanterns as lighting. Then comes the fun of designing each room to look unlike the others. Along the floor of the corridor I would like to add a strip of some material, and perhaps also a long the wall. It would break up the rather monotone appearance of the place.

The stone lip that constitutes the second level is going to be extended outward two blocks, and a fence added to prevent falling.

Here's a pic of the room that does all the crafting and cooking of materials:

Before I get back to work, I have a couple things I'd like to make known. I have added a poll to the upper right part of the blog. I'm considering making a Twitter account for this site so that you can keep in touch with me and get more live updates of what I'm doing. Second, I'm already planning what I might do for my next big project. It's pretty cool that ever since I began with the ravine, it's been something I could stick to. Normally I would impulsively hop from idea to idea, without it ever coming to fruition (like way back in the early days of this blog, I could not stick to one thing). This project has been taking a long time for me but it's pretty fun to do it and blog about it.

Now, onto this new idea I have. There's a server out there called the University of Autumn. I've mentioned it in the past. They are currently reconstructing themselves but their premise is to teach people how to play Minecraft. I support it as I'm an avid proponent of education. Having gone through the college experience, I've developed an alternate system of classes and also introduced majors. So I've thought, "Why not build the university anyway?" And that's what I'm considering. The University of Minecraft, Youssarian style. Several buildings on a large campus. This would be quite different from the ravine project, or any other. I would do it in Creative mode, fully utilizing WorldEdit. Ever wondered what I do in Creative mode? I'll leave you with this pic.

Ravine Update [Ravine Project Part 2]

Been slowly working on the ravine. For right now I'm going to focus on getting the rooms dug out. I have about six of them, all various in shape and size. I don't know how many there are going to end up being. My plan is to complete the structure of the rooms then begin with the walls of the ravine. I want to use stone brick since Etho is quite fond of it however I've yet to use it for anything. But I will leave the dirt layers at the top.

As I have said before, the rooms will all have a different theme to them. I don't know if I will have anything inside them or just leave them as unused lots. Probably should put stuff in them. For the duration of posts dealing with what has been dubbed the Ravine Project I will normally do the oh-so-clever post name then "[Ravine Project Part x]" where x is the post number. "Ravines are More Fun than Cities" is technically Ravine Project Part 1 but the numbering system wasn't around at the time.

Unrelated, I'm thinking about the future. Specifically, money and donations. I don't know how many visitors I get to my site but I know there are probably some of you out there that would be interested in donating as a way of providing me incentive to keep playing. I have a lot I still want to do so I don't think I'll be quitting just yet. Actually, I have no plans on quitting. Perhaps in a few months I will set up a PayPal account and put a Donate button on this site. If you donate you will also have the opportunity to suggest a build or map for me to try. Also, people like free stuff. People like Minecraft. Therefore, people like free Minecraft. Something I would also consider doing if sufficient funds existed would be to have occasional gift code giveaways. It would possibly be a monthly thing. I think people would like that.

As always feel free to drop a comment with suggestions of things for me to try. 'Til next time, happy digging!

Ravines are More Fun than Cities!

The City Construction Challenge burnt me out pretty quickly. Probably because one, I had to devote a ton of time to collecting resources. The first stage, where you're limited to wooden tools, was ridiculously prolongated. The second stage was much easier for resource collection yet the requirements were rather high. Maybe Insane mode wasn't such a good idea. Doesn't help that I had like 2 hamlets spawn nearby, introducing tons of lag. And the biome itself does not lend much in the way of terrain flat enough for a settlement. At least, not where I was.

So I left that stuff there and returned to the ravine next to my base. I had glassed the top of it and now began smoothing out the bottom and the walls. It turned out to be trickier than expected. I also noticed that ravines seem to have a single-block wide lip about halfway up their walls. That makes for a perfect second floor. I went ahead and completed that. I also added half-slabs where the floor rises or dips. That makes it so I can run without being stopped. Stair blocks slow you down for whatever reason.

Now the question that faced me was, what would I do with it? I knew I wanted to make a bunch of little rooms in the sides, but what for? Then I had this idea: renting rooms in a ravine! I'd design a bunch of rectangular rooms along the two floors with different sizes and compositions. Some would have, say, sandstone floors, others stone brick, still others wool, and so on.

Each corner of the ravine is roughly high enough that the lip intersects them. This means the stair system can intersect nicely with it, and the slabs allow you to easily get on the second floor. The two corners also have something special about them. One side has a natural underground lake that will become a room, possibly with some kind of lounge in the small tunnel behind it. The other side has a really tall, cramped tree.

Now, the first thing I wanted to build was the office. It'd be simple: the main room would have a front desk with a simple bookshelf behind it, representing the paperwork for renting the rooms. Connected would be a smaller room as an office.

I've been watching a ton of Etho lately. He's become my new #1 favorite Let's Play. His inventions are ridiculously awesome. He has, for instance, make a Slime farm that uses water currents, signs, stairs, and AI pathing in a way the Slimes are automatically sorted by size. It's amazing and I derive a lot of my aspirations from him.

City Construction Challenge

As you have likely noticed by now, I'm not one for great architecture. I have a tendency to build things that accomplish their function, without necessarily emphasizing their appearance. In a game like Minecraft that revolves around building good looking stuff, I'm kind of at a disadvantage.

Several weeks ago I saw this thread about the City Construction Challenge. It has a sort of Age of Empires feel to it. You build certain buildings and accrue enough supplies to advance to the next stage. After some deliberation I went ahead and began it in my Main world. I left the supplies from my base and headed to a different corner of the map.

I decided to use Insane mode of the challenge due to its heavy building requirements. This will give me ample chance to practice architecture and design. Something I've been wanting to do is look at designs on the Web and copy them if I like them, so as to add a little variety to my style. The only two exceptions to Insane mode rules are: I'm playing on Easy mode and I can use seeds from tall grass to make bread, which I can eat. I'm also making this a little more difficult by doing this in a mountain biome. I find mountain biomes to be the most magnificent and beautiful.

I have already made it past stage one: three buildings, a wheat farm, and 10 units of edible food.

A couple hamlets for Millenaire spawned not too far from me. This enables me to have more convenient access to supplies, but has the unfortunate affect of introducing a lot of FPS issues. At times I will have four Millenaire settlements all active at once. Because of this, I've been playing on Peaceful. I probably would be on Peaceful anyway when exploring caves.

One of the Millenaire settlements actually spawned right next to a Testificate village. There's really not too much to it.

That's a combined shot of the Testificate village and the Millenaire hamlet. Yes, a whole four buildings in that village. Three Testificates dwell in it.

I have begun with stage 2. One of its requirements is a town hall. I've decided to build it on lower ground. I really want to have all my projects on high, level mountaintops.

Something I hope to do is, after getting the challenge completed, add another stage: the redstone/piston stage, where I utilize redstone and pistons to automate things and generally make them cooler.

Odds 'n Ends

I haven't done too much since the New Year's build. Here's an update on the past week or so.

During some free time I remodeled the Persistence. It mostly was replacing one type of block with another.

• Planks became stone.
• Logs became Netherbrick.
• Fences became Netherbrick fences.
• Torches became glowstone.
• Stone roofing that previously existed became stone brick.
• Along the sides, top and bottom of the balloons I added a strip of Netherbrick with occasional glowstone to give it the appearance of having framework holding it in place.

Doesn't look too bad to me.

I've also considered making a sort of graveyard in memory of previous deaths that will inevitably come. Here's what I have thus far:

Both of these were made on my Creative, non-legit map where anything goes. If I like it I will remake it on my Main map, legitly. Speaking of my survival map, I have a little bit to report there. I have done quite a bit of cave and mineshaft exploring, resulting in the accumulation of more resources. I'm drowned in iron at this point, yet I'm still wearing my original set of leather armor. It's still mostly healthy.

I've set up pumpkin and melon farms. At first the had dismal outputs but have since then began churning out crops at a better pace. It's kinda silly and unfortunate how melons are basically re-textured pumpkins for the most part, but it does simplify growing them.

I modified my waste disposal system in my house. Originally it was just a lava pit in the basement. When I saw dirt blocks adjacent to my chest would occasionally set on fire, I added a row of stone half-slabs to prevent that as well as make it impossible for me to walk into the pit.

The water and sign you see are part of the disposal system. Signs won't burn in the presence of lava and stop the flow of water. If you drop items into a water stream, it will float in the direction of said stream. So after about ten minutes of positioning and digging the tunnel for the water, I had a disposal system that spans all three level of the base. On the upper floor it appears as a source block in the corner, on the lower floor it is a waterfall, and in the basement it is as you see above. There's no danger to me. The bed the water makes between the lower floor and basement isn't tall enough for me to get sucked through. Indeed this could possibly double as a crude water elevator.

Something that has been pressing on me is the relative shortage of logs I have. Thus I set up a tree farm on the swampland immediately north, adding a dirt bridge to make movement easier. I also chopped down pine trees in a forest to the west. Now I have something like 13 stacks of wood, and wish to focus on getting more birch wood.

But the biggest project on here, somewhere around 1,200 blocks at least, is a mob trap. It's designed to have mobs spawn in darkness then fall through a hole via water currents. The trap is 28 blocks in the air so they die once they reach the bottom. I could probably outfit this to have water channels which float drops to my base, or at least near it. Additionally I could add a platform just high enough they can be killed with a fist or stone sword. Using water currents and an iron bar for safety, I could have an XP farm!

Definitely not the prettiest construct, but oh well...

Now, my list of things I want to do in the future have increased by two:

• Inspired by Leangreen76's Minecraft, I would like to build a glass ceiling over a ravine, add floors with rails, and perhaps establish some kind of little settlement inside it. That would be pretty neat.
• Build some kind of building or perhaps a hanging house on the cliffs somewhere in a mountain biome. I don't know how people think the new terrain is ugly. I rather enjoy the expanded biomes and especially the mountains. Those rolling hills are beautiful!

I look at the maps that Minutor and Cartograph G generate and I see the world is starting to fill up, at least in my immediate vicinity. In probably a year and a half I've played Minecraft, never have I made anything this permanent and expansive. Partially it's because I have definite goals I'm looking toward such as the Ultimate City and defeating the Enderdragon.

Finally, if you would like a couple suggestions for live stream sites that frequently have Minecraft, check out QubeTubers and Precipice Games. I tend to be around those places a lot, so there's a chance you'll encounter me.