Minecraft

[BackWoodsCoder]

www.minecraft.net

Anyone else here playing this game? It's been eating up all my free time lately. I'm looking forward to when the multiplayer survival mode is completed.

[abhijit]

Now you're trying to get us hooked.

[Shaggy Hiker]

The link was broken. I guess that means that there was a mine accident. I hope BWC isn't trapped behind mounds of spaghetti code. It would be a pain in the butt to drill through all that to pull him out of there. Considering the general apathy, he could be there alot longer than the Chilean miners, by which time he might just morph into a code monkey subsisting on Java, PHP, and other controlled substances.

[JuggaloBrotha]

[BackWoodsCoder]

The link was broken

Yah, his website sucks and since the game is so popular it often crashes (or it could just be down for some updates). Since he released it for sale he's made close to 6-7 million in sales so the site deals with tons of traffic.

Juggalo - lol saved that one, all the fellow minecraft nerds in my office (IE the ones who got me hooked) all had a good laugh over that one. Some of the stuff people make in this game are just plain crazy, such as the guy who made the 1:1 replica of the enterprise.

[BackWoodsCoder]

Actually I'm wrong about the website, apparently some %^%^&%^ers from 4Chan are executing a DDoS attack on the site because the games creator isn't releasing updates as quickly as they like.

http://kotaku.com/5669766/minecraft-...yline=true&s=i

[Shaggy Hiker]

Ok, so, now that we can't figure out what you are talking about, how about just telling us what you are talking about: What kind of game is it? What does it do? What does it require?

[JuggaloBrotha]

Actually I'm wrong about the website, apparently some %^%^&%^ers from 4Chan are executing a DDoS attack on the site because the games creator isn't releasing updates as quickly as they like.

http://kotaku.com/5669766/minecraft-...yline=true&s=i

4chan FTW!!!

Ok, so, now that we can't figure out what you are talking about, how about just telling us what you are talking about: What kind of game is it? What does it do? What does it require?

See pic

[BackWoodsCoder]

Ok, so, now that we can't figure out what you are talking about, how about just telling us what you are talking about: What kind of game is it? What does it do? What does it require?

www.minecraftwiki.net

Take a poke around in the wiki, but the premise of the game is simple. The game generates a random world (of which the horizontal playing surface is about 8 times the surface size of earth) and sticks you in it. There is no point to the game other then mining down, collecting different types of blocks, and building objects with the blocks. There are a few types of enemies in survival mode which come out during the night periods and are spawned in dungeons.

But other then that you start off with nothing, start collecting some wood, build a work bench, then build some tools, then use those tools to collect more blocks to build with. The game randomly generates giant cave systems to explore which contain different types of ore. The ore can be smelted to create things like iron and gold ingots, which can in turn be used to create new objects such as rail cart tracks and armor. Weapons, tools, and armor degrade with usage so you have to re-build your tools depending on how often you use them. Some blocks can only be mined with certain tools (IE you need an iron pickaxe to mine gold ore when you find it), and the material you use to build a tool determines how long it lasts before you lose it (IE stone pickaxe degrades faster than iron)

As simple as the premise of the game is, it just sucks you in as you spend time digging down to find ore and collect blocks to build with.

As for requirements the entire game is written in java (ugh, but notch is a java junkie) so it's very CPU intensive, even though the graphics look simple and out of 1988 you'd be surprise at how much it taxes your CPU. I have to limit my frame rate, turn the rendering distance down to the smallest level, and turn off the "fancy" graphics option to make the game playable. But if you have a somewhat recent machine (my desktop is about 4 years old) you'll most likely be alright.

[wossname]

Timeshifter raves at me all the time about this game on MSN (well, he mentioned it once, in passing). That's the only reason I don't play it. Apart from having a life that is.

Actualy, I don't even have a life and I won't play that crap.

[SambaNeko]

A succinct description I heard from someone is, "Legos for geeks." Seems like its popularity took off because Penny Arcade made some comics about it. I tried it for a little while, didn't swoon.

[Shaggy Hiker]

So it is server based, but is it subscription based? Is it multiplayer? I'm not so much into either of those because I don't really want to keep paying for a game, and I'm not all that into social networking (present company being the only exception).

[SambaNeko]

No, not subscription based; in fact if you buy it now, you're promised all future updates for free and you're paying half the price that the developer plans to charge when the full release hits (game is still in "alpha" now).

[BackWoodsCoder]

Is it multiplayer?

It has a multiplayer mode, but you can play by yourself if you want.

Legos for geeks.

Yah, that's pretty accurate, there's a lot you can do in this game. I'm messing around making logic gates with redstone and switches right now.