What is Minecraft about, anyway?

Janx · Jul 9, 2012

I've seen Minecraft on the radar lately. Some friends were playing it on xbox, so I tried it.

I'm hooked, though I still have no clue what I'm doing or why.

the graphics are deliberately bad. Bad as in made to look lo-res retro.

the game play seems to be what the Lego games SHOULD have been. Tear up the current environment to get blocks to make it look like how you want it.

On top of that, at night, the monsters come out. So you have to hurry up and fortify and secure your position.

That's actually kind of fun. There aren't any other games like that (well maybe tower defense).

Thus far, I have built a tower with a deep moat as my shelter. It has a glass observation deck on the 4th floor so I can look out and watch the incoming horders. Only the spiders can get onto my tower (not in), as they seem to jump or climb down the moat and up the wall.

What do other people think about this game?

Any basic advice for a newb?

Stumblewyk · Jul 9, 2012

I've played it a little bit. Don't have much in the way of advice though. Just wanted to chip in with my two cents on the game.

I honestly think it's the closest thing we've ever had to a true open-world exploration game. I've frequently toyed with setting up my own server, and hosting all my Internet and RL friends and in a shared world, where we can build our little forts, maybe share defenses or raid each other. I just don't actually have the time or inclination to finally do it. =/

But I'm pretty sure the game would be more fun playing in a world with actual people in it, competing for resources (maybe sharing...) and interacting with them. As such, I got bored really quickly playing by myself in a wide-open world where the only other "things" were food, or trying to explode next to me. And I'm that guy who refuses to play multiplayer with strangers. =/

Zaukrie · Jul 9, 2012

Only that every teenage boy I know (I have sons in that age group) plays it....so if you have an addictive personality, don't start.

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Blastin · Jul 9, 2012

It is 8 bit, pixilated crack.

Got hooked about 3 months ago.

I have a server for my daughter and myself, that can hold 20 players. If any one is interested in a shared, cooperative world, send me a PM. Right now it's just my daughter's sandbox mostly, but if there is some interest I would reset.

frankthedm · Jul 10, 2012

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0nSuffTYiw]Mining All Day Long - MINECRAFT SONG by Miracle Of Sound - YouTube[/ame]

Following review is slightly NSFW.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wgQvij3rVE[/ame]

Whizbang Dustyboots · Jul 10, 2012

My 5 year old adores it. Ironically, it's been the gateway into him getting interested in Lego. Originally, he just liked it because of the (easy to kill) zombie fighting, but he now is into building ever-cooler structures (thanks to watching all the lively Minecrafting YouTube scene).

Blastin · Jul 10, 2012

Wow...that Zero punctuation video is......spot on true.

Janx · Jul 11, 2012

zombies are easy to kill?

I guess I'm having flashbacks to my first night after I skipped the tutorial.

The horror. The horror.

My restart fixed all that I watched the tutorial, but I realized during the first time that time does not pass DURING the tutorial. So you can run around, prep, build and explore to get ready before you finish the tutorial and have you fort built before night begins. Much smarter.

I built me a wood hut with a door, dug a dry moat about 6 blocks away, then took the dirt and made a wall on the inside edge of the moat (leaving me with a courtyard around my hut.

Later, that hut became a 4 story tower with the top floor being an all glass observation deck. I roofed over the courtyard to the wall giving me a new indoor courtyard and an outdoor courtyard. I'm growing trees on the upper deck, and trying to grow wheat in the inner courtyard.

I have a door and a double-trap door drawbridge to enter my little fort.

It's pretty safe, though I still haven't found a way to prevent spiders from getting onto my fort.

I had a pig randomly appear on my upper courtyard, but he disappeared after a few days. I have yet to figure out how to corral them so I can breed them and finally heal up. Pigs seem to teleport in and out of my game area (it's in a large naturally walled area, they can fall in from beyond, but shouldn't be able to get back out of my area.

I'm also surprised there aren't more people who play. It seems like a reasonable segment of gamers are Builders, and that's what Minecraft is for.

IronWolf · Jul 16, 2012

My 8 year old son has been playing the heck out of the game! He loves it.

Janx · Jul 16, 2012

I now have a shared MC360 world where we've built towers up to the cloud deck (one all the way up 63 blocks from sea level is the max height).

We have sky bridges linking the towers. Each tower is over a higher landmass that we can then mine down into. We don't touch the unsecured ground surface except to build the bridges and the towers.

This game does open up an interesting side note about game style preferences.

My wife likes story. So she loves DragonAge. My friend Paul also doesn't like MC because there's no story. He opted to play Lego Batman instead of MC with us.

I like story in my RPG games. But I also like building. Even in RPGs, I'm always building an organization, civilization, nation, business or empire. It's never just about my PC's evil twin trying to conquer the world and how I feel about that.

PS. Does anybody have any tips on the following:

How to capture AND contain animals so they don't spawn out?

How to stop monsters from spawning inside my lighted house with multiple closed doors despite being lit every 12 blocks?

How to dispose of a creeper that is trapped on the top floor of my fort without blowing him up? There's a sanded off stairwell above and below him so he can't escape, but it makes getting to him more complicated.

What is Normal or Hard difficulty like (We're playing on Easy because that's what the tutorial started at). Our method of building keeps us indoors at night, so we seldom deal with monsters.

Besides the terrors of the NetherWorld (never been), do the dangers in the OverWorld ever increase? Creepers are currently the most dangerous enemy. They are out 24/7 and the explode, destroying structures and thus letting in more enemies.

It would be interesting if things escalated, to further justify all the fortifications we built. Otherwise, it's all rather siller over-engineering.