http://minecraft.net/

We have an official SpecialAttack Server:

SpecialAttack.net Freebuild

On and on my little game blogging goes on. =)
This one, unlike BLC and Plain Sight, might be more of an acquired taste but for me it took all of like one hour to fall in love with.
I've been aware of the existence of Minecraft for like a year but I never really got into it until some buddies of mine decided to explore some servers out of pure boredom.

So what is it? Weeell - it's a multiplayer sandbox building/survival game written in Java. You may play survival mode, which isn't finished yet, so I'm not gonna go into much depth about it, or the ever so popular freebuild mode, where you literally can do whatever you like using 1 m^3 blocks. Yes, there have been games where you could build environments for yourself but none of them offered such elegant simplicity. People create AMAZING stuff out of these voxel-like elements, making pixel art, 3D sculptures, giant castles, underwater bases - just whatever.
And everybody is free to add to or subtract from the created content!

Initially I was like any new Minecraft player, destroying other people's stuff because it's fun (most servers make backups of maps and have dedicated admins, so it's not always possible) and drawing giant cocks everywhere. It wasn't until I realized how poor my vandalism looked compared to the mind numbingly cool structures everybody else was making, so I decided to make an artistic and sophisticated mega-grief by building a 100x200 giant 3D cock on one of the servers. I created plans in Paint.net and such but I didn't realize how big my project was in reality - a 100x200 m penis, basically. I managed to lay down the basic grid for the coordinates and the first layer but then gave up but it still gave me a lot of joy. ;-)

From then on I discovered how cool it is to create stuff other people can see, walk inside or even expand upon. It's like a builder's Wikipedia!

For now the game is free to play but prepurchasing it (which I did) gives you access to custom skins and a much more feature-rich development client. There are already dozens of third-party applications out, like map editors, custom servers and clients although I create reference structures mostly in the awful performance wise but very intuitive to use Paint3D.

Anyways - once you start building you literally can't stop until you finish your project and then it's ready for everyone to admire. Here's a sample of the stuff I made (many things got wiped in server resets):




And here's some pixel art I took a picture of because it was close to my Pedobear (yeah, it's relatively easy to build it using sprites as reference):



Ah, and here's my custom Pedobear skin:

http://minecraft.net/skin/skin.jsp?user=Lim_Dul

Once I read more about running servers and see how many resources they use (well, a map is like 5KB, so I guess not much :-P) I'll probably ask for a SpA Servers where the more creative minds like i.e. McMoist will surely manage to create some epic stuff. ^^

Go and play it while it's in beta!

http://minecraft.net/

_________________
War does not determine who is right - only who is left. - Bertrand Russell

Reminds me of this:




But I think Minecraft is nothing for me.

_________________
Ze Ãœbermensch

As you'll notice the hero I made is from 3D Dot Heroes. :-P

Anyways - Minecraft doesn't have any sort of gameplay in freebuild mode - 3D Dot Heroes might use voxel characters but isn't centered around building.

_________________
War does not determine who is right - only who is left. - Bertrand Russell

Thanks to SaintK's kindness we now have an official SpecialAttack.net Freebuild Server. ^^
I loaded two levels - main and builder - the latter will be for people with builder rank only, so that it doesn't get griefed.

Amazingly somebody already built something on our server. :-P

Anyways - register on

http://minecraft.net/

And join our server here:

SpecialAttack.net Freebuild

_________________
War does not determine who is right - only who is left. - Bertrand Russell

This is great except for all the nobs who ruin the game for everyone else by randomly destroying everything.

Oh wait that was me

totally awesome game. Simple and good On my fifht flag

_________________
"Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving."

Wow! The response to our server was quite amazing! Several SpA members joined including the griefing Greasy and destroyer of worlds SaintK but others like Mr.Green, NabNab, MrEvilPoni and TheGreatEmu actually started creating stuff - just like random people that joined us due to the server being populated. ^^

We have two active maps so far: main, where everybody can build and grief and which is a big mess and builder, where only builders (promoted by OPs) can build while others can just watch.

Here are isometric mock-ups created with Isocraft:



And here are actual screenshots:

Overview of main:



Obligatory Ryu and Pedobear by me:



Some dude started assembling sprites:



Mr.Green's Tower, featuring a water elevator. :-D



DrNabNab's Tower:



MrEvilPoni's Cheese Monsterâ„¢:



You can join the builder map using the /goto builder command (you will not be able to build unless promoted to builder). Main will be cleared regularly. I'll import some Cavern, Desert and Lava (!) maps since they are cool. :-D

P.S. We had the first natural disaster in builder - I accidentally put an active water tile one layer too high when trying to fill a guy's swimming pool and it ended up flooding the whole level. ;-)
Luckily some admin commands later everything was back to normal. :-D

_________________
War does not determine who is right - only who is left. - Bertrand Russell

:<

Quick question, what are the dimensions of the maps you can build in? Is it limited space or?

I am in the creative process of creating a gaming table for Flames of War (WWII game) and was wondering if I could use this to try out some table layouts just to get a feel for how it would look :p

_________________
Da boyz need themselves a Nob they do

I'll make you a builder, McMoist, so you can build in builder (cause I herd you like building, dawg ;-).

Also, was Dekar a.k.a. Antilux the one who made the Shoop Da Whoop? If so, then builder status is guaranteed too. :-D

I'll clear main later tonight, probably. I already checked how backup and restore works and it's perfect. I have 35 map states saved, including the very first one. I'll create a wall with some info text, which is what I saw on another server. ^^

@Crovax - map size is set upon generation although there is a development version of the game that has infinite (!) map size. On our server main is 128x64x128, builder is 256x128x256. Designing maps in this would be a real chore, since you have to build everything manually. I'd get a proper voxel editor to work in 3D, perhaps Paint3D, even though it has performance issues.

http://www.paint3d.net/

Otherwise even Minecraft Map editors like Omen might be an easier tool to work with.

http://www.minecraftforum.net/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=80

_________________
War does not determine who is right - only who is left. - Bertrand Russell

Yes, I built it.

don't want to do anything fancy, just layout, not gonna recreate sicily or something :p

Just the footprints of the roads, buildings and fields :p

_________________
Da boyz need themselves a Nob they do

By the way - Minecraft development slowed down slightly due to its author moving places but the indev version (available for supporters) sports cool stuff like fire and multiplayer survival mode, where you actually have to mine and craft stuff and can die. :-D
I have no idea why this game is so addicting despite its awesomely shitty graphics. ;-)

McMoist said he didn't receive the confirmation mail for his account - you don't need that, you can login straight away.

Also, many people have asked how you can fly and move quickly in Minecraft - you have to use the World of Minecraft client:

http://www.worldofminecraft.com/Minecra ... r_Download

It even allows you to run Minecraft in fullscreen mode (what an elusive feature in games! ;-) after reload.

I tried generating some additional maps for the server today but was only satisfied with how the "caverns" (/goto caverns) map turned out.

The other maps look so-and-so since the current non-dev version of Minecraft doesn't support custom sky textures etc. - in indev Hell levels look cool as shit. :-D

_________________
War does not determine who is right - only who is left. - Bertrand Russell

My Cathedral, note the homerface on the back <-- (Not made by me )





McMoist's ship. Lim-duls secret hideout on the back.





Caverns-map





Antilux's huge "IJI" structure

Anti still is me

Iji is so huge, Lim had to remove 64³ = 262k blocks to create the hole it is in. Height wise, its twice as tall as any other building on the map.

And Lim named the corner after me.

editz: everytime i read my post i find new errors

Awesome

_________________
a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a pig

I laughed out loudly when I saw the water-spouting Shoop-da-whoop face on the caverns map. :-D
There have been some other pink-stuff spouting sponge monsters added too. ^^

Main has been wiped (not by me) and I agree with the decision since it was a mess. Several hours later people have already created a bunch of awesome NEW stuff. I was amazed. When I joined the server I had to re-log because I thought I misclicked on the list. ;-)

One of our OPs made awesome Half-Life character sprites on builder. ^^

I'll make a newspost about our server soon, as SaintK suggested.



P.S. As expected main is periodically griefed but the newly designated OPs keep the map clean. Due to no build restriction in main our server quickly became one of the most popular servers in Minecraft - after just two days! :-D
I'm thinking about clearing up a second layer on builder below the first one, since so much underground space is being wasted. Especially Dekar's IJI painting made me realize this. The next builder map I'll make will have the ground level set much lower.

_________________
War does not determine who is right - only who is left. - Bertrand Russell

Cocks, Pedobear...

Lim, you need to get out of puberty.

_________________
All roads may lead to Rome, but all Wikipedia pages eventually get you to the Third Reich. - m3n

See? Now I'll have to make a depiction of you sucking on a cock in game. :-P

_________________
War does not determine who is right - only who is left. - Bertrand Russell

In that case take your cock, this way you don't need many blocks.

_________________
All roads may lead to Rome, but all Wikipedia pages eventually get you to the Third Reich. - m3n

At least more than if I had to model your brain. ;-)

_________________
War does not determine who is right - only who is left. - Bertrand Russell

My first attempt, heh.

Commander Keen that is, not the thing to the right.

_________________
slurper

Someone surrounded the main spawn with indestructible blocks...

Giving strangers op status that allows them to op other strangers is a brilliant idea.

Nah, the CometWolf guy was around since day one of the server. I didn't notice any unusual behavior until recently. :-P

_________________
War does not determine who is right - only who is left. - Bertrand Russell

I build a sonic! yesterday

yay

Although I think it would be really cool if we'd have some more empty templates to work with. Was really hard to find space for my sonic.

_________________
Da boyz need themselves a Nob they do

Best thing to do i think is just create area's;

Builder_A
Builder_B
etc.
etc.

This way when an area runs full you can easially create a new one, and people can follow its logic. It's a shame to delete stuff.

Yeah, we have two new maps now - builder2 and grassland, the latter of which has a randomly generated landscape and is probably more suited to building castles and such. ^^

_________________
War does not determine who is right - only who is left. - Bertrand Russell

I'll get someone to setup a WoM section on the website. We could list all relivant area information there if we want.