Sheff

Is anyone here playing Minecraft?

I'd been randomly stumbling upon articles and talk about the game, but pretty much ignored it until, for some reason, something compelled me to buy it last night without so much as watching a gameplay video.

I'm still confused what I'm doing with it, but I stayed up too long last night and went to sleep after I built a stone house with a roof and a door. It was a sense of accomplishment.

It seems the next step would be multiplayer, since my stone house on the beach is pretty lonely without anyone else. Are there any servers people here play on?

mhg83

This thread will probably grow multi page when the 360 version comes out It looks like a fun adult version of legos. I'm still waiting for a steam release though.

Nausicaa

I bought the game about a year ago when it first started blowing up. I've played it on and off since then. The game has definitely improved a lot, and I think the new 1.8 update will really take it to the next level when it finally lands.

I just really enjoy finding and exploring huge caves and discovering all the different resources to experiment with crafting. I've been playing the last few weeks and build a pretty large railroad and charted out several maps of the surrounding areas. I've also been experimenting with the pistons, which are pretty cool.

I recommend always having this site open in the background:

http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Crafting

And also don't be afraid to spawn a few random worlds before you really settle in. It's worth getting a cool one because once you start really building out a world, you will be reluctant to start all over again.

I'd search the official mincraft forums for servers to play on. I'm not really into the multiplayer in this game, but there are a lot of different servers offering different things, from crazy builds to structured RPGs.

Nifty03

Minecraft is out of Beta, version 1.0 is out.

http://www.minecraft.net/

davidh777

I came into this thread thinking you were talking about Minesweeper

twikoff

my son and one of his friend's walmart build
they were pretty proud of this.. this video is just of the outside, they also did an inside one


<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ZmJQ7NWmDoU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

starman9000

After watching the documentary on this, I think I want to take the plunge.

2 questions:

Does it ever go on sale on PC?

Does anyone here have any experience comparing the 360 and PC versions?

wlj

i have it on XBLA and my smartphone, but I haven't played it very much

shumway

My kids play it on both 360 and PC. There are mods galore on PC, as you would expect, and there are more objectives that are not yet available on 360. There are also crazy custom servers like one of their favorites is a PvP imitating "The Hunger Games." A friend of mine that pays attention to the road map for the 360 version says that they are expecting to have all objectives added within the next 2 updates.

cruzness

It's another one of those games that I will try out sometime this year.

shumway

Ask Origami about it sometime. He can go on and on about the game and you might find out some things to sway you either way.

cruzness

You're not into it?

shumway

I've never tried it. I've watched my kids play loads of it. I think it's a fantastic idea and Lego execs should shoot themselves for not thinking of something like it first. I've just never felt the desire to play it myself. Origami down to my almost 6 year old boy (6 of them in total) play it.

Nausicaa

I still play it from time to time. The game has really been perfected in a lot of ways. The world generation is fantastic and offers tons of variety, and there are now lots of dungeons and villages and things to find and explore. I also appreciate they finally raised the max and min heights in the game world - you can now build really high and dig really deep.

The crafting is even more abundant as well, tons of new materials and items have been added and you can build all kinds of fun stuff. Plus, some of the mods offer crafting options well beyond the base game (Steampunk mods and things). There's just a ton to do.

I like the survival aspect. Starting out in the world with nothing and building things and exploring. This is the one area the game has flaws though, in that there isn't much progression in the base game. You can build a city, but no one will come to live in it. You can build epic mines, but you can't build machinery to automate them (although with mods you can do this, there are large bores and things). There are no civilizations and villages and villagers are all kind of generic and boring. Basically, the game could have expanded to a Dwarf Fortress style rogue like, but instead remains kind of a basic survival/rpg/construction game. I haven't explored mods enough to know if there are any that modify the game this drastically.

Definitely worth whatever it costs these days though. And they are still updating it, so I think it will only get better. I would only buy it for PC, provided you can run it with max draw distance (reqs aren't terrible, but surprisingly high). The game controls much easier/faster and you'd be crazy to pass up all the mods, as well as first dibs on any feature updates. Plus, who knows what will happen when the new XBox comes out.

starman9000

Thanks for the feedback. I'd prefer the PC for sure, but do have some XBL points burning a hole in my pocket. I guess I'll try the demo and go from there.

My 4 year old was playing it on an ipad this weekend and loved it, but it looks like that version is very limited so I don't think I want to taint my view with the kindle version.

lopper

My wife (who is God awful at games, especially those with FPS-style controls) and I used to play this on the Xbox every night after our daughter went to bed. We really had a blast.

It's really fun to co-op a world there.

cruzness

Thanks for the info guys. I may look more seriously at this as a game for the family to check out.

shumway

I bet your girl will love it. Mine do.

wmansir

I'll just add:

There are some really great technical and visual mods, but the ones for AI are really not all that great. There are mods like "mo' creatures" that will add more wildlife and monsters, but they aren't very intelligent and few if any add much to the "story".

The be fair I think most people looking for more than a survival/sandbox experience get it from the multiplayer aspect. There are many servers where people build their own communities, or if you want a story there are tons of custom maps you can download to play alone or with friends. The last few updates have added some major features to help custom map builders, whether they are building adventure/story maps or a game/battle maps.

Also, the reason the game requirements are so high is because the PC version is written in Java, and poorly written at that. It's gotten better as they have brought in better coders, but Java just isn't the platform for a game like this. The Xbox version is ported to a C-like language and in many ways it is much better for it. The Xbox ports are several releases behind the PC so they are missing features, but the game generally runs smoother and has a much better online experience. Server issues for the PC version are very common (lag, disconnects, freezing, etc) even with very powerful host machines.

nickdawgy

I tried the trial for this and just couldn't get into it. Seemed too involved and confusing.

Am I crazy?

LosingMyMind

You're not alone. It's a waste of time.