Sandbox

Recording Minecraft

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Today I will be releasing my sixth video in my Hardcore Minecraft series, and it represents the culmination of a few side projects and me stepping forth into a very changed Nether. That however is not exactly what I am going to talk about this morning. What I am going to talk about is how I don’t fully understand what lead me to start a Minecraft series after having been largely dormant on my YouTube channel with anything other than the weekly podcast videos for years. The last non-podcast video that I released was me trying to record evidence of an issue I was having with Avengers.

My Minecraft videos are relatively low quality as far as videos go. I am doing next to zero editing… and that is in part because the first few attempts at recording from OBS were using a format that I could not easily import into Adobe Premiere. I’ve since remedied this and that might shift up my workflow to do some stuff like add title cards to the beginning or something simple like that for starts. I like the concept of Streaming, but I always feel super anxious and awkward whenever I do it. I never know what to say and the fact that I am trying to interact with people makes the gameplay experience odd. Truth be told I don’t actually watch many streams and the only time I do tune in is for a few minutes when one of my already established friends is streaming.

I think the way I am recording short snippets of gameplay feels more comfortable because it is a lot like blogging. In order to sit down and make it through a blog post in the morning, I sorta pretend that I am just talking to myself. I am having an internal monologue and not something that is then going to get read by other people. I am letting you into my own thought processes and then just happening to write those down on paper, or in this case the digital page. For my Minecraft videos I have been trying to do the same sort of thing. I talk through what exactly I am doing and why I am doing it, and some of my long term goals.

The big thing that has sort of hampered me to this point is there are projects that I have that are ultimately going to be time consuming. Given that I am playing Hardcore… I have been super hesitant to do much of anything while the “camera” is not rolling for fear that something significant would happen and take place “off air”. However I think as I open up the world a bit more I am going to be spending more time working on those larger goals which are going to make my base feel like more of a home.

That is the other thing that has happened as I have been recording these episodes. I’ve found myself getting rather attached to this little hovel that I started with. I’ve never really started up on a hillside like this before, and I have to say I really like various aspects about it. The problem in the past has always been that it was very hard to tell if it was day time or night time because digging into the side of a mountain at ground level meant that something was always blocking my field of view. However being up high like this and overlooking the nearby village means that I actually have something resembling a proper view of the world.

This is the danger I guess of getting attached to something as fleeting as a hardcore world. There are ways of course to fix this, but they involve some shenanigans. I am enjoying myself and since I am absolutely allergic to trying to turn a profit from anything that I do… it isn’t like I actually need much of an audience to make it work for me. I’ve always sorta felt like an outsider artist that blogs, podcasts and now apparently records gameplay just for the fun of it and can not give two shits about how popular it is. That said I have been a bit shocked at just how many of you have been watching along as I did this particular brand of nonsense.

This is the playlist that I attempt to keep up to date as I release new videos. Right now I am shooting for 20-30 minute segments. They started rather long and have been getting a bit shorter as I recorded the last few of them. So here is the moment of letting you all behind the scenes… I am about to release episode 6 today, and I recorded 7 yesterday and will likely record 8 today. So I am a few episodes ahead of the release schedule at this point. This is going to get awkward as folks share advice because there is going to be a bit of a delay between when I read the comments and when I am next recording something.

As always I am going to plug the REAL person you should probably be watching as I am just a pale imitation. DavidAngel64 otherwise know as X, is the real reason why I am back engaged with Minecraft. In August of 2010 it was his “X’s Adventures in Minecraft” series that sold me on the experience of playing this game as an Adventure and I was completely hooked. As soon as I realized he was back playing the game, I was absolutely going to start watching these adventures on a daily basis. I am doing what I do because I enjoy it, but he is absolutely the real deal in a way that I likely never will be. I still find it criminal that this man does not have more subs than he does, because for me at least this is what started so many future hours of enjoyment. That original video has almost 5.5 million views so I am guessing that he was also the first entry into Minecraft for many people.

For now however I think I am going to keep doing what I am doing because I find a surprising amount of enjoyment from the process. What I am doing is not special or good but going through the motions is currently engaging for me. I sincerely doubt that I will ever gain much in the way of a following, but that is okay because I don’t really need that. I will never turn these hobbies of mine into a career and I have avoided monetizing any of them for fear of tax liability. So for now I am just going to keep piddling around and doing my thing, and apparently occasionally writing about it on the blog.

Bel Bungles Minecraft

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Last week I talked about rediscovering X’s Adventures and the fact that he is currently doing an adventure in Minecraft Hardcore Mode. I also talked a bit about how I thought it might be fun to do the same thing given that I had no clue Hardcore Minecraft even was a thing that existed. Since then I have started recording clips of me playing Minecraft in Hardcore mode and uploading them to my YouTube channel. They are pretty low production value because I am recording them directly from OBS and then uploading them more or less uncut. If you are interested in listening to me ramble while trying to sort out how Minecraft works, then this may be your jam.

As of this blog post, there are three parts to the series and each of them are in the neighborhood of 30 minutes. It seemed like 15 minutes wasn’t really enough time for me to actually accomplish much of anything. Seeing as I am not exactly doing this thing to get internet famous and really for my own personal amusement I am sticking to that format. The funny thing about this video series is that I don’t believe I have ever used my name aka “Belghast” as a seed for a Minecraft world. Turns out that seed is really solid because it put me really close to a village.

I need to sort out what exactly I want for a goal, because right now I am more or less going through the same routine that I have always gone through. Initially it was a hunt for Wood, Coal and Shelter and that evolved into a search for Iron. Which will in itself lead to a search for the bounty hidden without the bowels of the earth like Diamonds and such. However I am not entirely certain what my goals SHOULD be. An initial goal was to get a full set of armor, but past that I am going to have to sort out what my long range goal needs to be. I could in theory hide within mines for any number of videos because that is something that is relatively safe to do.

However I somehow doubt that watching me hollow out the innards of the earth is exciting content. I have various projects that I would like to complete, but the challenge with that is a lot of them are going to require large chunks of time to do them. My fear at doing “offline play” and then showing the results is that since this is Hardcore Minecraft… one death means the end of the run and should probably be something that is recorded. I’ve done a few things offline now, but they are simplistic like building some proper stairs or organizing my inventory. Something like “Let’s build an inside garden!” would take significantly more time and also with that brings forth significantly more dangers. I might be able to do the safe indoors tunneling work offline and then do the final bits while recording.

I will have to figure out exactly how to make this work. For now I have been releasing a video each day, but I somehow doubt I will be able to maintain that schedule for very much longer. It isn’t like I have an awful lot of viewers right now, but what are some projects that you would like to see tackled? It seems like a double edged sword because there is a certain act of discovery from not having played in so very long and not fully understanding how the world works. However that also means I don’t know a lot of things that might be interesting to go after.

Hardcore Minecraft

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Good Morning Friends. Sometimes you react to something in ways you didn’t quite expect, and that ultimately led to my lack of a post yesterday. Wednesday we had the swearing in of the 46th President of the United States, and while my friends were celebrating this momentous occasional… for me it felt like I had just finished something terribly strenuous and had hit a wall. Sure I felt elation and excitement for the things to come, but I also felt like this pressure that had been grinding down upon me was lifted and when I finally allowed myself to relax. That pressure had been shaping me in specific patterns that I was not even aware of, and with it gone effectively collapsed. Come yesterday morning I just couldn’t function enough to string together a post.

Gaming is always the salve that I used to medicate my wounds, but I spent most of Wednesday night flailing aimlessly between games. When I did land on something, it was Minecraft a game I have used so many times in the past as a warm blanket when I was not certain what else to do. There is something about the gentle soundtrack and the repetitive sound of mining that orders my nerves. I started dinking around with the beta on the Windows 10 client and started a new world with a random seed. Building a base in Minecraft always takes me back to laying in the Livingroom floor with scissors, tape and a sharpie building a Cardboard base for my GI Joe and Star Wars figures. I just sorta wish there was more to the game where I could create NPCs and assign them specific functions within it.

This is going to be one of those posts where I am not exactly sure what order I should be talking about things, but some background that I feel like we need to get out of the way. I first got into Minecraft 11 years ago and it was this specific video that hooked me. I remember watching this and then buying my way into the then Alpha of the game and the rest was history. We ultimately ended up getting a Linux friend to host a Minecraft server for my World of Warcraft guild and for awhile we spent way more time in that game than in WoW. All of that said it is impossible to explain the impact that this one video had on me, and in turn all of the people that I sold on the notion of playing Minecraft as well. I’ve been a subscriber to DavidAngel64 or “X” ever since but most of the games he plays on the regular aren’t exactly my jam.

Now we scan forward to yesterday and I discovered that Minecraft Hardcore mode is apparently a thing, and not only that but X is doing a brand new adventure series as he explores Minecraft after a very long hiatus. So for those who also had no clue about Hardcore mode, essentially if you take a Death in Minecraft it deletes your save game. So you have one shot and as a result the stakes are so much higher for everything. When we first started playing Minecraft it was shortly after the release of survival mode and everything in the world seemed new, interesting and dangerous. Guildchat and eventually server chat was filled with all of these discoveries we had made. The challenge however is that after awhile Minecraft became a “solved problem”. We knew how to get what we wanted and how the world as a whole functioned, and as such the adventure aspect was gone.

I have to admit I kind of miss the danger that Minecraft used to represent. Granted playing on Hardcore is probably going to make me significantly more cautious than I normally am, but also with that comes a sense of excitement each time I get myself into a situation that is going to be difficult to get out of. I did some research yesterday and it seems that Hardcore mode is only available in the Java Client. It locks the game to the Hard difficulty setting and then triggers special logic if you die keeping you from being able to play that world again… though I think in theory you might be able to do something to recover it and edit it to a different game mode. I believe you are limited in your ability to use addons and maybe those are limited to just texture packs.

Now I find myself contemplating doing a thing. Part of me wants to start a hardcore game and record my struggles, and then chop it up into 10-15 minute chunks as individual YouTube videos. I realize that this is precisely the exact thing that X is doing right now and that I am just copying this thing I saw… but also I think the struggle of trying to play Minecraft seriously after all of these years might lead to some humorous moments. The last time I played Minecraft with any seriousness was right before The End was first put into the game back in November of 2011. Since then there have been so many updates and so many changes to the way that the game functions. I would in theory once again be forced to explore the world and learn the systems as I go.

I’ve been in this habit for a very long time of when I play Minecraft I am doing so in order to build with some virtual legos. Often times this is in creative mode or at least survival peaceful to allow me to just aimlessly wander and build things. So part of me wants to play Minecraft in a way that locks me down a specific path that I can’t actually deviate from. Sure I know how to survive that first night, but how well will I do when the pressure is really on. How much of my base building skills will be useful when I am desperately searching for a reliable source of food? Things like going for Diamond weapons… become way less important than just finding a reliable source of iron and coal.

I am still not 100% sure I am going to do this thing, but I really think I want to. I just have to set aside some time when I can record in peace.

Kenzie and Walled City

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Kenzie.exe is hibernating

This morning is one of those mornings when I am not exactly sure what to write about, so as a result I figured I would give an update on Kenzie. Some weeks back in a stress filled post I talked about her being diagnosed with diabetes. In the time since then we have begun an insulin regiment in the morning and evening and are going back for another round of tests on Friday morning. The good news is that the insulin has seemingly halted the weight loss, and she may have gained some back but I am not sure if I am imagining that or not. The bad news is that due to some miscommunications the Vet was not able to successfully complete a glucose curve last week and we have to reattempt it this Friday.

A very tiny shoulder mounted Kenzie

Another positive however is that because she has been with me since a kitten, she pretty much will tolerate me doing anything that needs to happen. That is not to say that she does not protest furiously when I do have to poke her with a needle, but she more or less forgives me immediately. I am so thankful that if I were to have any cat come down with this disease… that it is Kenzie, because there is no way in hell that I could have given twice a day shots to Mollie. I can barely even pick her up without her freaking the hell out. Kenzie on the other hand I can carry around on my shoulder indefinitely because I have done so since she was super tiny. Above is photo evidence of this era when she would sit on my shoulder and watch me game.

While not super evident by the fact that I am only level 50… I have been spending a lot of time playing Diablo III on the Switch. This has recently replaced Dragalia Lost as my before sleep game that I am playing while laying down in bed. Last night I was not feeling super great and wound up going to bed around 9 pm and then hanging out and playing D3 until the news came on. I am mostly spending my time going through bounties, and I doubt that I will complete the seasons journey on console… but it does give me something to work towards. Seeing how freaking brutal Kolrath was I opted to play as a Barbarian, and I like the female Barb way better than the male one.

Another thing that has been going on recently is that I have been playing a lot of Minecraft. I opted to start in creative mode and started piddling around on a giant castle project. I started work on this as some point during Saturday and this is around the time of recording the podcast Saturday night. You can see that I started putting up a giant wall but hadn’t made much progress in actually hollowing anything out. I find the whole process relaxing as hell and lately I have been in this weird funk of not really knowing what to play. I could be finishing up Outer Worlds and I could also be finishing up Jedi Fallen Order, but instead I have spent my time building a castle.

This screenshot is from this morning and hopefully shows off some of the scale of this monstrosity. Inside there are four levels worth of construction, and the “ground floor” enters into what is effectively the 3rd floor going up, with two floors below the ground. I am not entirely certain what I am going to do with the 1st and 2nd floor as of yet, but I think the next big project is to build essentially a “keep” on top of the peak that you can see on the right side of the walled city area.

Since I have been building on creative mode, I have not been super concerned with torching things off and as a result I have a basement full of monsters that have spawned in. This is the second floor or Basement 1 depending on how you think about it, and I need to sort out what I have planned for down here. My general idea was that the ground floor would be shops and this floor would be small houses/apartments and maybe the same for the lowest floor, but ritzier houses since everything floats out over a giant underground lake of sorts. I want to build some other buildings out along the countryside as well, because there would be an assemblage of housing NEAR the walled city but not quite in it as well. Maybe build up a walled farm or two that are protected to feed resources into the city.

I am back playing the Java version of Minecraft because for a bit I kicked around starting a server in my home for this map. I also really miss the minimap addon whenever I am playing on the Windows 10 client. Ultimately this is sorta what I do when I am playing the game. I invent civilizations and build the structures that they would have used. The funny thing is… once the process is over I do absolutely nothing with the end product and often times just discard the maps after having spent hundreds of hours working on them. All that ultimately remains is a series of screenshots to prove that I did the thing.