[Brad]

We're live!



On the multiplayer connect screen, just enter mc.applenova.com where you would put an IP address.

If you don't know what Minecraft is, its homepage says simply: "Minecraft is a game about placing blocks to build anything you can imagine. At night monsters come out, make sure to build a shelter before that happens."

There's no official "instruction manual" of sorts, but there are many, many YouTube videos. Some of the better ones include:

• Your First Shelter in Minecraft (basic tutorial, part 1)
• Minecraft: Building a Starting House (basic tutorial, part 2)
• X's Adventures in Minecraft - 001 - Shelter from the Black of Night (first of a series)
• Minecraft Part 1: How to Survive the First Night (first of a series)
• Minecraft Tutorial 01 - How to Survive your First Night (first of a series)
• Coe's Quest - E001: Room With a View (Minecraft) (first of a series)

IMPORTANT UPDATE:

I have enabled user whitelisting on the server. This means that if you're new and wish to join, you must post your Minecraft username in this thread so I can add you to the whitelist.

Texture Pack for AppleNovians

I've decided to create my own texture pack that cleans up the built-in textures and merges with some of my favorite third-party texture packs. See this post for instructions on downloading and installing. The texture pack is currently compatible with beta 1.2_01. If you already know what to do with the ZIP, here it is: AppleNovaBradTextures.zip




Current member list:
(Minecraft = AppleNova)

arteggio=arteggio
Atariboy=Atariboy
blichte1=billybobsky
Bonn89=Bonn
BradSmith=Brad
bryson430=Bryson
Captain_Drew=drewprops
cvek=Chellovek
eije=torifile
Elysium25=Elysum
greychristian=709
InvaderJak=ThunderPoit
jasoco=Jasoco
jmanpro=Jerman
kraetos=Kraetos
Mrs_Turtle=…
remlemasi=remlemasi
RowdyScot=RowdyScot
SpecMode=SpecMode
stretchmonkey=Maciej
turtle2472=turtle
werejack=Robo

[Bonn89]

Just want to say that the Minecraft server is a WIN. Brad and I played until just a few minutes ago, and it was impressively smooth considering the server's limited hardware.

I look forward to developing that world some more.

[RowdyScot]

I'll hop on the MC server when I get the chance! Awesome to see it up, Brad!

[Brad]

Thread split! I figured this deserved a thread of its own, at the very least so we can chat offline about discoveries, issues, requests, etc.

[Brad]

That said…

St Bonney Bonn, I dug a mineshaft under my house and eventually hit a huge system of caves that eventually led back to that spider spawner under your house. If you decide to go looking for natural coal deposits again, I saw several big veins of it through the caves. I lit up the place like a christmas tree; so, you shouldn't have to worry much about hostiles.

Also, I built a "test chamber" underground and confirmed that smooth stone and brick seem to be equally affected by explosions despite brick being harder to break down with a pick. So, brick might slow down griefers, but it won't slow down creepers!

edit: Wow. These caves are bigger than I thought. It looks like I've only lit up maybe half of the whole system.

[torifile]

This game looks fascinating. Does the server house a peristent world or is it instance based? Seems like you guys can interact with one another. Is that asynchronous or do you have to be on at the same time? How does time progress in the world?

[Bonn89]

Brad: Holy hot damn. :O 2 dungeons so far (both within such a small area) AND huge cave systems? This server rocks.

torifile:
The server is persistent; everything you do saves and it waiting whenever you log back in.

When you join a server, think of it as logging into an MMO such as WoW. Everybody can come and go as they please, and interact with either other while logged in.

Time in Minecraft progresses on a day/night cycle that takes somewhere around 18 minutes (10 minutes of day, 8 minutes of night, I believe). Normally, when playing single player Minecraft, if you quit the game during the night, the game resumes at that exact moment the next time you play.

However, on the server, since there are potentially more than 1 person coming and going, the server keeps track of the day/night cycles, and thus when you log in you drop in at whatever time of day the SERVER tracks it as being, no the time of day you last played at.

Hopefully that helps clear it up a bit.

[Brad]

What St Bonney Bonn said.

As long as the server is running, time in the world is passing. Mobs (the term for animals and bad guys) spawn and despawn, trees and crops grow, and fires spread. Everyone who connects shares the same world.

Since this game is basically "Legos" on steroids, you could potentially tear down and steal my stuff, and vice versa. So, there are common courtesies/etiquettes that people should follow else they be banned: namely, don't tear up and steal other people's stuff. You can't really draw boundaries to say "this area's mine; hands off!"; so, it's all about using your best judgment. You can also attack each other with your tools, and that's also generally frowned-on.

If you want to see two total noobs learning to play on their own shared server, check out that fourth YouTube link (this one) to get a quick idea of how they can interact.

[drewprops]

OMG!!!
I have no idea what this means.


EDIT: By that, I don't know if I should download a client or get a username from their website in order to get to our Minecraft thingy.

That's all.

...

[Brad]

Ah, yes. The website has gotten a little better, but it's still awfully vague as to how you get up and running.

You can play "classic" mode through the web browser for free. Creating a login name is optional for that. In classic mode, there are no other players, no mobs, no crafting (ie. making tools), and a different set of materials from "Alpha" mode. Classic mode is really like a computerized game of Legos. You can try out classic mode to get a basic feel for some of the game's mechanics before dropping cash on the real deal.

To play "Alpha" mode, you need to create a login and buy a license through the site for €9.95. Alpha mode can be played either through the browser or by downloading the client app. Alpha itself has two modes of play: single and multi-player. In single-player mode, you can create, play, and delete five different worlds locally. In multi-player mode, you connect to a server like Bonn and I have been doing here.

(It's called "Alpha" mode because the game is basically still in the alpha stage of development. There are bugs and there are occasional performance issues, but on the whole, it's stable and playable. Notch (the lead developer) has announced that the game will go "beta" this month.)

Once you create a user on minecraft.net, you can also change your player's "skin" by clicking the "Profile" link at the top of the page. Skinning is also poorly documented, but whole sites have sprung up with downloadable skins, instructions, tutorials, and even self-contained skin editors. Here's my current player skin, for example.



Do note that the name you register on minecraft.net will be the username everyone sees for you. There are potential privacy issues there if you don't realize that and then like an idiot go and register your real name (see: the link URL in the previous paragraph).

edit: Oh, and the minecraft.net site itself is a bit flakey. I was able to hit that link a few minutes ago, but it's down now. Unfortunately, when playing multi-player, the client has to authenticate with minecraft.net before allowing you to connect to a server. So, for multi-player you're sometimes left to the whim of the mothership's uptime. For single-player, you only have to authorize your local computer once, and it'll remember that for perpetuity (I think).

[torifile]

I've got a linode with plenty of CPU time available (when there's not some crazy ass rogue process pegging the processor; gotta figure that one out eventually) and some free RAM. Anyway we can combine the resource of our two linodes to help the AN server out?

[Brad]

Nope. It's a one-server thing. Thanks for the offer, though!

[SpecMode]

Just out of curiosity, Brad, what program did you use to generate the map in the image a few posts back?

[Brad]

The thumbnail showing the caves?

MCMap Live

I tgz'd the world directory from the server, scp'd it to my local Mac, un-tgz'd it, opened in MCMap Live, took screenshots of "uniform" and "cave" render modes, and finally layered the two together in Gimp.

[SpecMode]

Ooooh, thanks! Playing around with it a bit now - I've done a lot of exploring, so I've got a pretty decent-sized map already. Found a pretty good-sized lava cave last night, got about six or seven diamond gems out of it before I retreated; lots of skeletons and creepers sneaking around.

[scratt]

I may well have to try this "minecraft" thing! Seems popular!
Can i haz a squirrel avatar?

Something I got into a while ago is Love. If you like minecraft, but want something even more confusing and complicated then it's worth checking out.

[Bryson]

Much Fun! I built a shed next to Bonn's tower of power.

[Brad]

Great success! That makes three of us setting up camp.

I've also set up a house out on the water and cut a path through one of the nearby sand bars, and I plan to stock the house with lots of boats in case anyone wants to go sailing out on the waters.

A note about harvesting trees: new trees won't grow on the land on their own. So, chopping down the forest leaves you at risk of depleting all of the local wood supply, forcing you to go farther to get more. To augment that loss, also chop down the leaves until you get saplings to drop. Plant the saplings on grass where they can get direct sunlight from above, and a new tree might grow in a few (in-game) days!

[SpecMode]

I logged in and walked around a bit (didn't build/change anything). Very nice little setup y'all have got there! Much cleaner and more colorful than my stuff; I use cobblestone for pretty much everything.

[remlemasi]

Originally Posted by SpecMode I logged in and walked around a bit (didn't build/change anything). Very nice little setup y'all have got there! Much cleaner and more colorful than my stuff; I use cobblestone for pretty much everything.

I agree! I'll be setting up my fort in a little bit.

I must say, those towers with the glass floors are epic. Who made those? How long did it take? I went down and saw the "Spider Dungeon" sign and immediately went back up. Way too scary. And where is a good place to hide that is totally safe? Are the towers safe even though they're open to the top? I read that hostiles can spawn anywhere!

P.S. -- Thank you very much, AN, for giving me another ridiculously addicting time-wasting activity.

[SpecMode]

Hostiles spawn in dimly-lit areas and (with the exception of spawners in dungeons) spawn a certain minimum distance away from the player - I can't remember exactly how far, but it's a considerable ways off.

[RowdyScot]

My work schedule the past two days has been horrid. I'm hoping to hop on tonight. Looks like you guys are already having a blast!

[SpecMode]

Alright, I think I'll be ditching my single-player world and switching to the AN server. Playing with other people around (or even just having their buildings present) makes it a lot more fun.

[torifile]

Screw it. I'm in too.

[Brad]

Originally Posted by theelmerguy I must say, those towers with the glass floors are epic. Who made those? How long did it take? I went down and saw the "Spider Dungeon" sign and immediately went back up. Way too scary. And where is a good place to hide that is totally safe? Are the towers safe even though they're open to the top? I read that hostiles can spawn anywhere!

The mostly-cobblestone tower with the spider dungeon at the bottom (and the adjacent house connected to it) is Bonn's. He used to have a sign up on the door to the house, but he must have either taken it down or it was blown up by a creeper.

Keeping signs at entries is an excellent way to keep ownership straight. Here's the crafting recipe for a sign. You can put signs on the side of most blocks or you can set them on the ground and they'll stick up on a post.



Like SpecMode said, hostile mobs can spawn pretty much anywhere it's dark. So, to be truly safe, you need torches, lightstone, or fires on top of the towers too. (I've cheated the local economy here a bit by giving a bunch of lightstone to Bonn; normally you can only gather lightstone from the hellish Nether zone, but the Nether doesn't currently work in multi-player.) The glass floors/ceilings are great because sunlight always comes from directly above, even at dusk and dawn, meaning you can let daylight all the way deep into a cave both to use fewer torches and to indicate the time when you're far from the aboveground.

[torifile]

I created an account. My username is Eije (from a book I'm reading). I'll be on later today. I'm mostly a night gamer since the family keeps me too busy during the day to do anything but wrangle kids.

[Kraetos]

Why oh why oh why would you do this during finals week?

ಠ_ಠ

I've been avoiding Minecraft because I know how much of a timesink it is. Once all this finals bullshit is over I'll be joining you all.

[torifile]

When did youtube start doing obnoxious pre-roll ads?

[torifile]

This game looks awesome. I just watched that first video and it makes much more sense now. Looking forward to wasting time.

[billybobsky]

I kinda want to tear down a mountain and make a gigantic open air, pit mine, better to keep the monsters at bay during the day.

Perhaps that will be the project i begin tomorrow when i log back on..