Oink Oink Oink

State of affairs:
Before I go into the updating portion of this blog post, let me first give you the state of affairs for our server.  We are officially over one year old.  When we created this server, Minecraft had not been officially released; we were playing Beta 1.9 (I think).  In January of 2011, Minecraft had officially sold its first 1,000,000 copies; by April, it was nearing the 2,000,000 mark.  As of this morning, "Notch" has sold over 8,000,000 copies of minecraft, still reaching almost 10,000 a day, making Minecraft one of the most successful PC games of all time.

As for our little server, it is still trafficked, but not at the same rate it was a year ago.  Some players' machines don't run Minecraft very well; others' interest has waned, and a few of us just don't have the time we used to.  I usually try to jump online at least once a week, and will probably be on more often after my semester ends in December.

I do not want to make it sound like the server has become a land of desolation.  While it does not see the weekly build rushes that it used to, significant works are still being put up.  Below are some of the constructions that have taken place in the very immediate past:

Pig Games - to the death!
With the release of Minecraft 1.4, Jeb decided to finally implement a way of controlling saddled pigs.  All one needs is a Carrot on a Stick!  Just hold it out in front of a pig and they'll go straight for it!  Even better, if you are riding a pig and right-click, you can actually get the pig to run after it.  It turns out that once a pig is running, you don't need the carrot out anymore to direct them.

It did not take long for us to realize the potential behind pig races.  The village now proudly contains the Pig Game Stadium.  Racing, Jousting, Archery - we have it all!  Another feature that was released in Minecraft 1.4 is the Command Block.  Through clever use of this Admin-Only block I have been able to wire a redstone switch for use in the Pig Games.  If you have not already checked it out, you should!

Initially built as a Spleef Arena, it has been repurposed

What's the point of a stadium without a proper statue?

This building isn't just a pretty stadium though. It is a fully functioning battle station! A generous grant of Ender Stone was provided by Dasnar_Ventius to make this a possibility. The stadium features three FULL TIERS of stadium seating. Seats and foot rests.  Due to the Ender Stone's expense, the games commission has decided to host advertisements from high quality products in order to repay Dasnar's loan.  So, remember to enjoy Creep-O-Cola(tm) while you watch the games!

Please remove shoes and belts.

Jousting your thing?  Try your luck here!

Collateral Damage:
In order to supply Ender Stadium with enough pigs for their races, a breeding program was initiated.  Unfortunately, the researchers missed a few sign changes in the formulations.  One unforeseen consequence of this is that the pigs seem to have learned to fly!  No other explanation has been given as to how hundreds of pigs have migrated into JerodFoxx's Skydom!  They appear to have infested everything from his cellar to his rafters!  It is unknown as to whether or not Jerodfoxx plans on hiring an exterminator.

Uhhh, oops?

Pigs really CAN fly!  This is the only possible explanation.

"I'm just going to sit up here.  No big deal..."

"Dammit, looks like there's more doors!"

While it would be easy to assume that Jerodfoxx was the only one affected by these insidious beasts, it appears that this is not the case.  Zanntos' house within the village appears to have also attracted a number of admirers.  These pigs appear to all have saddles, which leads me to conclude the following: only unsaddled pigs can fly.  Also, it seems strange to me that they appear to be congregating at Mordor's doors.  Coincidence?




Sheep Factory Fun:
One of the ongoing projects that I have had is to beautify The Village.  These projects range from adding a fence around the village to remodeling my house.  Easily, the largest beautification project is the Wool Workshop.  The original one consisted of 16 10x10 pens built into a valley.  It could be difficult to find the correct pen, and they often did not hold more than 3 or 4 sheep.  In order to rectify the situation, I built a proper enclosure, and have included a colored pathway leading to the sheep.  Perhaps the most beautiful part is the Pumpkin Roof (still in progress).

It's also worth noting that in one of the pictures you can see a sandstone structure.  The structure is incomplete, but it will eventually become a portal nexus for the server.  Because we have more than 1 year of exploration on the server, it can be difficult to travel between certain points.  I am hoping that this nexus will allow us faster access to new resources as they are added to Minecraft.

Wool Factory: Rooftop Edition.  Just some pumpkins

Factory Floor Photo

Geometric Genius or Garish Garage?

Terracotta Golem #1

Golem! Golem!
The screenshot to the right captures two distinct events.  First, Dasnar_Vientus designed the stone golem pictured here (just outside The Village).  Second, Ubiquitous7 critiqued a number of structures around the server.  Admittedly, many of these structures were mine, and it was mostly an attempt to show me how many unfinished projects I had.  It probably comes to nobody's surprise that this golem got what is easily Ubiquitous7's best rating.





Ubiquitous Uniquitous:
Having mentioned Ubiquitous7, I should probably mention what he has been up to.  In a secret lab far far away, he has been building what can only be known as his fortress of solitude.  The construction appears to be one part engineering and ten parts mad magician.  A picturesque walkway leads to his humble hovel, but what you find inside is far from normal.

Fortress of Solitude - sunset view

Solitude of Fortress - Exterior perspective

Each floor of his thrustered tower is dedicated to a certain experiment.  When you walk inside, you are greeted with the pulsing of redstone, which generously closes the door behind you.  Upon taking the stairs you are greeted with a sign which tells you exactly what experiment is being conducted on this floor.

The art and craft of being shelfish

Great success, or greatest success?

Experiments include: geometric generators, skylight science, cobblestone creation, and even wine rack research. What I thought was perhaps the most disturbing was was the Stone Slab Shelving section. While many of the other floors had a sensible purpose, I am left wondering what devious plans Ubiquitous7 may be drafting based on this research. God help us all.

Through the looking glass

This room had me... floored...

Well, that's it folks! I hope you enjoyed this edition of When Creepers Attack! I will try to update it more frequently than once every six months. If you have not already seen it, I highly recommend a trip out to the stadium to check out the pig races! If there is interest, I would be up for scheduling a tournament day if this sport catches on.

Continent Content

Before I start the main topic of this post, I would like to take a second to note that I have updated the online map of our server.  The primary updates to the map are "The Watchtower", my glass spiral tower area, Ubiquitous and my lagoon, and the pumpkin hills near "The Village"

Speaking of "The Village", it has come to my attention recently that our landmark designations suck.  In fact, there are only a few proper designations that we've even come up with for our locations.  And even for those, "Old Continent", "New Continent", and "The Village" are hardly proper names.  I have partitioned the map into general areas which should be named.  On the server, when you walk through these areas you will begin to see messages stating that you are entering/leaving these territories.

As you can see, I printed out the map so that my godson could draw our boundaries.

Almost all of the territories I have marked are undisputed; in these cases it falls to that player to find a fitting name.  In the situation that a player neglects to name their territory the burden will fall to me.  And by burden I mean "Vainada" and "Dullandia"  if you're really lucky you might even get "Pumpkinopolis"

There are 3"disputed" areas: C, D and J (the "Old Continent" complex, Server Spawn, and "The Village" respectively).  I propose that everyone submits suggestions for these locations.  Yes, even people who have no proper buildings, or have not logged on in a while.

It is quite possible that I may have offended someone by not including their territory.  I apologize in advance.  Just send me a description of the area and the proposed name if this happens to you.

Named Regions:
A "The Highlands"
B "Hansea"
C  "Eritrea"
E  "Mordor
G "The Lag Line"
H "Tunnel Toll Tower"
K "PumpkinOpolis"
L  "The Plains of Mitch"
M "Enderman's Game"
O "NaiTpyge"
Q "Fort Remote"

Finally, below is a list of the areas by who's responsible for naming them:
A  Kenny
B  Kenny
D  All the people (this area includes the spawn location)
F  Tim
I  Mike/Daniel (first to email)
J  All the people!
N  Daniel
P  Dave
R  Daniel
S  Kenny

I will try to update the areas' names as people send me information.

The Watchtower

Tim here, to show you my latest favorite thing on the server.

This is "The Watchtower" (props to Daniel for the name). You can find it behind Mordor, or just off to the side from the spawn portal in the NetherNet.

 Built purposely to be taller than Mordor, it is tall. Taller than Mordor.

 The view out the front door isn't so great.

A central ladder provides access to all the floors.

 And it goes down too, to some tunnels to other places.

 Each floor is a different architectural experiment. I don't know who built this one, but it's one of my favorites.

High-bandwidth connection to NetherNet!

 I like what I did here.

 This floor is something of an art installation. I recommend it, but only when there're clouds running through it.

 There's also a swimming pool, with an underwater entrance.

 It's pretty nice.

 It also has an above-water entrance.

 And above the pool? A hotel.

 With single bedrooms.

I need to put chairs in here, so it's a nice sitting room.

 The double rooms have nice views.

 This is the current top, the ceiling of the hotel.

 But there's still room to build, all the way up to max_height.

The tower is meant to be collaborative, so please come add a floor or two or three. There's plenty of room. Just don't use any fire or explosives, because oh my goodness that would sad, and keep the creepers out.

Narcissism, Ho!

I have been playing a lot of minecraft on the server recently.  However, I've found that weeknights work better for me than the weekends.  As a result, I've been leaving the server up at all hours.  It was probably only a matter of time, but I think Maptimus Optimus (our server seed) is officially a 24/7 server now.  I am in the process of determining whether my backup desktop can handle our demands.  Unfortunately, this required ordering an adapter I did not have - delivery estimated on May 5th.

Rather than running around cataloging everyone's projects, I decided to focus on the projects I have been working on for the past few weeks.  Since my last update I've been working on no fewer than 6 distinct projects.  So, without further ado, narcissism, ho!

Renovation Proclamation!

I've been inspired by the buildings in The Village.  Whether it be their 'uniqueness' (AmIAnnoyingNow), their decor (Dasnar), or their historic significance (Tim's ruins), the buildings far outshine any of my previous attempts.  While I was on a trip to my pumpkin farm, I realized how outdated my stadium had become.  As a result, it has been under renovation.  Please note that it is still a work in progress:

Renovations are a work in progress.  The exterior is particularly ugly.

My renovations started by realizing that the second floor in my building has never been properly utilized.  When the stadium was first erected I had expected that it would become my warehouse.  However, it has sat empty the entire time.  The most prominent feature I have added is a balcony.  After a long day's work, I can take in the stars and watch pumpkins grow. Once had retooled the second floor, I realized that a solid cobblestone stadium is an extreme eyesore.  Since stone bricks are not nearly as uncommon now as they once were, I started replacing the structure with them.  However, I soon realized that it was ugly too!  I finally settled on an alternating pattern of stone and stone bricks.  This modern design breaks the structure up into a pleasing pattern rather than a garish glob.  

A view from the new entryway.

The bedroom: now with double-bed, couches, and a view!

Brand new couch and window.

It is a well known fact that I have never experimented with the adventure elements of minecraft. I have never built or used an enchanting table, and I have never brewed a potion. I thought that I should probably rectify this one day, so I installed an enchanting room on the second floor of my stadium. Well... I got as far as designing the 'optimal' room for enchanting, and then I realized it needed more pumpkin. Oh well, Ifind it enchanting. I have also included 400% moar windows in my renovated stadium. Windows are useless without a way to enjoy them, so I have included couches and end tables accordingly.

Enchanting room? Well, that's a matter of opinion.

View from the balcony - a proper shot of Mike's House.

An alcove I built on the second floor.

While I was browsing the blog I realized that I have never included a proper picture of my [in]famous pumpkin farm! The only project that has ever been more time consuming for me to implement is the transcontinental tunnel. Each pumpkin lies on top of a piston that is used to 'pop' the pumpkin, so I need only flip 1 switch and collect the goods. Sadly, my redstone circuit is far from optimal so I may implement a 100% better one at a later point.

The crown jewel of my Old Continent house.  The pumpkin farm!  200 fully automated pistons.

Stadium Standards:
One down, 5 more projects to go. I hope that you all have either alcohol or coffee. I will try no to expound upon the virtues of pumpkins too much.

As if working on one stadium wasn't enough, I decided to test out a new spiral design on the New Continent.  This was partially because my New Continent structure ("Matt's Ego Trip") was removed to make way for the Enderman.  The structure is not complete yet (I am contemplating how I want to implement the next phase), but enjoy the sneak-peak.

It wouldn't be a proper project it if didn't use pumpkins for lighting.

A view of the contextual terrain.

Treasonous Tree... Son?
Ubiquitous has been gradually expanding his territory on the New Continent. His latest project involves redstone clocks and rocket-fuel. I have yet to build on mountainous terrain, so I took up the challenge of this new area. This location is still in its infancy - it currently consists of two gigantic jungle-trees on top of the mountain. Further development is needed before I divulge my schemes, but they may involve TnT cannons.

View of my trees from a neighboring mountaintop.

The base of one of the trees.

Donkey Kong?
This is the working name that I have given to this project. The terrain generated changed significantly when Minecraft Beta 1.9 was released. As a result, we were left with a number of 'chunk errors' - sheared cliffs or sudden biome shifts. One of these boundaries lies along the railway into The Village. I decided to have a bit of fun with this. I have not decided whether or not I want to decorate it with pictures/beds/houseware. Maybe an actual Jump Man?

You gotta' lava this design.  Okay, that one was pretty bad even for me.

Kept in Suspension:
One of the things not [able to be] pictured within this post is that I took down the wooden bridge with pumpkin houses in the Old Continent. While it was a great idea at the time, the project never really took off, and the bridge turned out to be mostly useless. As a result, I took it down. While it saddens me to take down any project, its time had come.

Because I took down the only proper bridge I had built, that got me thinking about building a new bridge somewhere. While I scoured our map for a proper place, I noticed these two cliffs near The Village. I noticed that a small house would fit perfectly between them. Before I knew it, I'd put up a proper house and decorated it. Rumor has it that even Le_Girl approves of the decorations. I am most proud of the washer/dryer cauldrons.

You can't have a bridge-house without a couch and view.

Ovens, washer, dryer, and even counters!

A view of the outside with landmarks.

Village Jail Cell Hell:
While wandering around the village, I noticed that there are a few buildings that have never been implemented. While we have a restaurant, an apartment complex, a library, and a pub, we have no general store or jail.  Also, the village can hardly qualify as a village without a few testificates.  What happened to these poor sods?  About this time I decided to do some excavation near Tim's ruins.  What I found underneath Tim's ruins should shock everyone.  Tim, you're a disturbed individual.

I'll just dig over here.  Yeah, that sounds like a good plan.

What the hell?  Tim.. is this why there are ruins?

Well, I may as well put in some pumpkins.

Oh God, the Pumpkins...
The village was noticably pumpkin free. I found this both eerie and disturbing. However, since the HOA forbids these features I decided to move outside of the village before I started decorating. The picture below is the result of my previously pictured pumpkin farm. While I intended to only guild the valley sides, Ubiquitous requested some additions. Yeah, blame him, not me! Now if only we had some sort of giant melon construct in the area too...

If you're wondering about the white-space, it's because I had to stitch a few pictures together for this shot.  Also, it's worth noting the wall surrounding parts of our village now.