minecraft

Rebooting Minecraft

by

Guild Meeting

I have an exciting evening planned that I have been looking forward to for a few weeks.  One of my long time House Stalwart guild members is here in town, and tonight we plan on having a board game night.  Dallian/Doctor Hannah appeared on Episode 5 of AggroChat, and we mentioned the upcoming visit there.  He lives in the Little Rock area which makes him a neighbor of ours as far as the internet is concerned.  I always think its cool when I get to meet someone in the flesh that I have gamed with for ages.  I think the plan tonight is to play loads of Munchkin and eat pizza at Rae’s house.  We’ve tried to invite several of the locals to meet up, so it should be really fun.  I am contemplating bringing some magic starter decks, but that might be a little too involved.  We’ve been talking with a co-worker about maybe trying to play some magic over lunch soon.  Apparently his wife is super into the game and would probably even come up over lunch to play it.

chickenandtots I don’t really do this sort of thing that often.  I guess the last guild member that I met up with was Lummox who happened to be about fifteen minutes away from where I happened to be staying in Albany.  It is always interesting to see how someone is in real life verses their in game persona.  For the most part, a lot of the people I have met have been fairly similar.  I have to say the closest was probably Urcasio and Ravener, who were pretty much exactly the people I would have expected based on in game interactions.  Since I generally find it easier to meet over food, Dal and I are meeting up before this evening for lunch.  For years I have been talking about how amazing Ron’s Hamburgers are, and more importantly their hot and spicy chicken and cheese tots.  So we are meeting up at my favorite location today around 11ish.  I would love to somehow steal him to town like I managed to do with Rae.  I feel like I am trying to build this little gamer community, one person at a time.

Rebooting Minecraft

Last week one of my new friends Missysmojo decided to try her hand at playing Minecraft. I joked with her that she would end up losing the next three months of her life.  She opted to stream a little bit, and it got me thinking.  It has been years since I have played Minecraft with any regularity.  There have been a few times I patched up my client and connected to the guild server just to see what folks were doing, but I had felt like I had “beaten” Minecraft for some time.  In this last year there have been significant changes in the game, and probably even more before that I really never noticed.  So I thought I would start a brand new game and play completely legit.  No mods, no helpful minimap… just the vanilla client and a texture pack (because yeah that is necessary).  The above video is the results of that process last night.  I am not really sure yet how often I will be streaming Minecraft, but I expect to continue where I left off each time.

For starters…  I am really not used to the game any longer.  I kept trying to “suck in” blocks and drops like you do in Trove.  The low performance of the game frustrated me, because I am not used to it “chunking” and loading in parts of the game slowly freezing my client momentarily when it does.  I am sure this is something I can tweak, because I probably just don’t have enough memory flowing to the default client.  There used to be a tool called Magic Launcher that handled a lot of the memory allocation for me, so I might look into that.  Another dumbass move is I totally thought I was on “survival” mode for the first little bit, running scared from potential monsters… only to find out that I actually was in peaceful mode on the client.  Once I noticed that and changed it things started to get interesting.

For starters, it seems like the creeper spawn rate is insane.  I maybe saw one or two zombies and skeletons the first night after flipping it to a normal mode, but I saw what felt like half a dozen creepers.  I managed to trap four chickens inside my base and I dug a pit like I often do and have them down there for a constant source of eggs, feathers and meat.  At some point I want to try and drag a couple of cows and pigs in there as well so I have all of my livestock needs handy.  Most of the video involves me setting up “base” as I hollow out a mountain, search for coal and finally start digging down into the earth in search of steel.  I encounter a cave with a skeleton spawner in it… and have a pretty epic battle trying to break the cave and torch it off.  I had quite a bit of fun, or at least more fun with Minecraft than I have had in ages.

Bunny Doom

Hex 2014-05-15 23-48-43-201 I love everything there is to love about the Shin’hare, and the fact that they exist makes Hex so much more enjoyable than Magic the Gathering ever could be.  It’s an entire race of adorable evil samurai bunnies…  you could slap that into ANY game and I would play it.  As a kid one of my favorite comic book characters was Usagi Yojimbo… so everything about this deck feeds my enjoyment.  Not to mention that my favorite deck combination in Magic the Gathering was Green and Black… and the Shin’hare are exactly that…  Life and Blood aka Green and Black.  In some ways it reminds me of playing my thalid deck circa Fallen Empires.  I would constantly use that deck to feed my black “sacrifice or I feed” cards.  While I am lacking some of the cards in Hex to make this work really well, the starter deck mixed with a few cards I got from my packs seems to be working okay.

Last night I got in and played a few hands against the AI, mostly because it was getting late and I didn’t want to deal with people.  I am anxious for when trading comes into play, because of my group of friends I think I am really the only hardcore bunny player.  I should be able to help some of them out with cards they are looking for and bolster my bunny army.  My all time favorite card is still the Uzume, Grand Concubunny.  Not only is the artwork adorable, but the card is insane when you get it out into play.

When I first read this card, I assumed it would start dropping the 0/1 battle hopper tokens that the other Shin’hare cards do on the table.  While that would have been good enough, considering the normal concubunnies you have to expend resources and tap them to get this effect.  The real effect however is so much better, in that it summons a random non-unique bunny card into play.  This can be ANY card, even ones you don’t currently have in your deck.  It is literally generating cards for you, but the problem is this makes the card and insane aggro magnet.

I need to formulate some ways to protect the card, because really it is too damned valuable to not have it on the board for more than a few turns.  Hopefully soonish I can get together with my other friends currently in the closed beta and play some actual matches.  I feel like Kodra is in a completely different league with me, and like to play a style of magic that I do not… but this will not stop me from attempting to beat him.  He royally kicked my ass in hearthstone, but it didn’t stop me from coming back for more.  These type of games for me are about the moment to moment play and not whether or not I win.  In fact that can pretty much be said with any game I play, I am just not that competitive.  It is about the journey not the win conditions.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Hot Coffee and LFR

by

Snowed In

Good morning everyone, hopefully you are staying warm out there.  Here in the central part of the country we had a mass of ice and snow dropped on us.  Generally my point of reference is when two school districts on opposite corners of town call schools the next day, I decide I am going to stay home.  Since this happened I put in a day of vacation for today and slept in.  Apparently my absence was noticed, since I have already received tweets saying that a snowstorm was no excuse for not posting.

I think we probably got an inch or two of ice last night and then over night that got covered up by three to four inches of snow.  Which to the northerners probably doesn’t sound like much, but here in Oklahoma we get glaze ice that is nearly impossible to drive on.  Additionally we really do not have the infrastructure to remove large volumes of ice and snow…  since we only go through this at most once a year.  Over the last three years we have had really mild winters that never really produced much in the way of an ice storm.  While this is nothing like the 2007 or 2011 storms, it is far more significant than anything we have seen in years.

Hot Coffee and LFR

Wow-64 2013-12-01 11-26-26-29

As a result I am snuggled up on the sofa with my fuzzy pants and my fuzzy blanket and a thermal shirt blogging away on my laptop.  I just finished off hot oatmeal and some hot coffee, and the only thing of any substance I really have planned today is to play some World of Warcraft.  I have five 90s in various states of gear and the easiest way to get upgrades for them is through the LFR system.  As much as I have railed against pugging in the past, something odd happens if I pug as DPS.  I simply stop caring much about the success or failure of the group.  As a DPS I can compartmentalize things and focus only on what I am doing and stop caring that the group is burning down around my shoulders.

As a Tank or a Healer… I simply cannot do this.  I have to care about the group and how stupid they might be acting.  My job relies on them doing their jobs.  When playing one of those group roles I simply cannot stomach pugging or lfr, it ends up stressing me out way too much.  However apparently as a DPS I have the patience of a saint.  I keep plugging forward towards the goal and right click reporting anyone who is too abusive.  It all seems simple and pure, and in an odd sense relaxing.  It’s like I have reached into my brain and flipping me into DPS empties me of “fucks to give”.  That is not to say that I don’t care about me keeping up my end of the bargain, but I simply don’t care as much about others not doing so.

So my intent today is to run as many LFR instances as I can this week to try and get my tribe of alts gear.  The hardest thing seems to be weapons, and as a nice side benefit from these runs my blacksmith seems to be getting quite a few motes which will help him upgrade the weapons of those who have not gotten their turn at the LFR treadmill.  That is still one of my biggest frustrations that I hope they will address in WoD.  Crafting resources like Spirits of Harmory should be bind on account.  I like the feeling of all of my characters working towards a bigger goal, its like I have my own little imaginary guild.  Anything that adds to this feeling is a positive for me, since you have earned the item on one character already.

Trove Patch

I am sure at some point today I will be hopping into trove.  Yesterday they seem to have had another patch.  I am really impressed at the speed at which they do updates.  This one seems to be mostly a patch full of tweaks but one of the more interesting points is that the block destroyer is no longer an item and no longer works in adventure mode.  This could have some odd ramifications since I know I used it in adventure mode quite a lot.  Another needed note is that they reduced the quantity of treasure chest spawns in the desert and frost biomes.  Normally nerfs like this meet a groan, but this one was really needed.  There were times I could see 6 treasure chests on screen at a single time. 

I wasted so much time chasing these down because seriously…  you cannot bypass a treasure chest.  I figure at some point over the next few days I will be making a new video as I am sure the server has reset again and I will have to collect more weapons and gear.  If there is anything you would like to see me cover let me know.  I am not above having a purpose for my videos even though they are mostly just me roaming aimlessly around the wasteland.  I hope you all are safe and happy and warm, and that if you did get the snow and ice I did, you also had the presence of mind to take a vacation day.

Trove Feature Suggestions

by

Contest Complete

 

Over the holiday weekend I schemed up a contest as a way of getting rid of my spare Trove Closed Alpha key.  The basic idea was for folks to post in the youtube comments a feature they would like to see added to the game.  While I was not absolutely flooded with responses, I did get quite a few of them.  Of them quite a number of them were really insightful.  As I said during the contest I would be collecting all of the results and compiling them in a single post.  Since the contest ended late last night, here goes nothing.  I am leaving the content of the comments completely unedited.

Trove Feature Suggestions

 

XHeavenZX22

I would like to see pvp/duels

Zyckou

My thoughts will focus towards the combat system, even if I wanted a lot of things.  I think that Trion should make the combat system more dynamic.  Now, battles are way too soft and boring to be enjoyed.  If, as the developers said, they focus on exploration, the combat system is the core of the game and they should make it great and complete.  Imo they should AT LEAST:  – add the base of MMORPG battle:  physical and magical damage (and reduction), status effects (poison, stun, immobilize, knockback, etc…);  – add a dodge mechanism, this way you greatly improve the dynamism, and you can also for example allow bosses to have greater skills that you have to dodge;  – we should known the monster level we encountered, it seems pretty obvious but it not the case today.  – add different classes.  I think I’m not the only one to hope for this one, I think everybody want to play in various ways, for example to play a ranged character.  They should allow to customize the way we play our class, maybe with a classic tree builder system.  I also think that the M2 skill should be bind to the equipped weapon, and the other skills linked to your class, but these changes are not as important as the above ones.  Hope to test this soon to give you a more in-depth throught of the game.

Miz Ick

I think it would be cool if you could link cornerstones with friends, and they would become neighbours or something. Also, cornerstone options where you can adjust who can and cannot build/manipulate terrain in your cornerstone. I would like to see easy party systems to keep track of the friends you’re playing with. 
It would be really cool if they made content that needed a group to complete, AND had class/party dynamics similar to the trinity (traditional mmo) combat. What I’m trying to say is unique classes that work well together with other classes. 
I could spend all night thinking up fun stuff, lol . Good luck all! 
edit: I would love to see a pvp realm, where when you step out of "friendly territory" you go into pvp mode.. mua hahahahaahaa

Guitarstroke

I think player created instances would be cool. Kind of like being a DM, you could create a world for others to play and share

Vellauno

I would love for the cornerstones (private piece of land you bring with you from world to world) could be turned into massive vehicles like boats, ships, flying castles and/or moving fortresses.

Game By Night

Awesome video and thanks for the offer, Bel! There are two things I would like to see. First, is some kind of whimsical story with charming voice over ala LittleBigPlanet and Stephen Fry. The game’s art style just oozes charm and begs for good narration. Second is some equivent of Minecraft’s redstone. Building is great but could you imagine an MMO with player-built trollies and rollercoasters?!

Aymeric Bruzzo

Hello, Nice video :D; I’d like to see some building block ( that we can craft maybe?) that can float in the air and move back and forth, and maybe some that breath fire, for maze/ obstacle race etc :D

Lorenzokwant Kwant

I like having a key like all the another people who want a key to but my ideas are adding new weapons like a bow and a axe and  my another ideas is for blocks doors and signs so people can create a home where nobody can walk in because it have a door what only the owner of it can open and a sign is for tips or warnings (example) like you walk to a dungeon and there is a sign says danger across fearless

Jack Buxley

I’d love to see the game adapt more toward the play style of traditional ‘grinders’ and ‘builders’, to compliment the adventure aspect already implemented.
These changes wouldn’t need to be supremely vast, but small additions in all branches add tones to the longevity of the game. There could be simple additions such as rare minerals which spawn underground (and don’t alter those who don’t want to mine) to a crafting system for furniture and other miscellaneous items.
Looking forward to seeing more!

Bridget TruLove

I’d like to see unicorns. Or maybe just ponies. No wait, bro-nies!  Unicorn bro-nies.
Seriously, though, thanks for vid, Bel!  (And mail me that code ASAP. ;p~GeekSprinkles

Nick Hoff

Dang, after reading through all the comments here, all the good ideas are gone! XD
I’d love to see customizable pets in the future. I think it would be really cool if you would have to sort of rescue them from dungeons and then they would be your partner. I live this sort of aspect most from Kotor, even though they are frok different genres.
I would like the key because I want to be a part of this game in early development but I can’t buy it as my financial situation sits, and I don’t have the time to sit around the subreddit all day hoping for a key.
Thanks, and good luck to all! :D

TheMagicRobot

Mounts, minions, guilds, custom capes, and crafting recipes out the wazoo!

Daniel Brown

This game looks awesome, and I’d love a key for the alpha!
My suggestion would be leaderboards/rating/voting on the structures and buildings. There could be different categories of awards; Aesthetically, decorative etc. leaderboards would work the same, you’d get a global and a local category here. The people with the number 1 position could get special rewards in their account to redeem?

Magneticsyndrome

Hey man, awesome idea with the random number generator!
I have to say, I’d love to see a lot of features.  One I was really hoping for is falling blocks, like if you destroy the bast of a tree, it falls down, I feel that really changes the perspective of the game.
I’d also love to see some flying type of item/class, like jet boots or a jet back, with some kind of a short burst of flight. 
I also want to see some really big world bosses, ones you’d need a few people to take down! That really appeals to me, I’d absolutely love something like that. 
Thanks for the added chance for this man, I really appreciate it! I’ve been having horrible luck with all the current contest, and I’ve been so close. Hope I’m lucky! haha

Kwongger

I really want to see some Town/City/Faction features. (MC I know, but I think that the devs could put a twist on it ;)   
I’d also LOVE to see a party/group system (with Private Text/Voice chat of course).  I think It would add to the community part of the game 😀
I REALLY want to WIN!     GOOD LUCK TO ALL!

TheTrueLasec

Awesome vid man! i already love the game but i guess i would like to see a rework on how the ingame avatar looks? his face looks so long. Another thing is mass quests, like a main story line different to each server or world, and then multiple quests creating a side story line like in various RPG’s! I really want this game too cuz i wanna make some vids on this too, it looks sick!

Josh Geoff

I think that having pets that follow you around would be cool.  I would also like being able to customize your weapons (such as color, name, designs). since i have not played the game i can’t know what is in it. but i would have many more things to say then too. I have liked and subscribed, so i’m all good, see ya’!

Grayson Soldahl

I would love to see programmable minions! That way you can build kingdoms like in adventure time. By programmable minions I mean npcs that you can create and determine a function for them such as crafting, building, security, etc. It would add a whole new way to play the game!

Michael McGlade

I’d very much like to see this game done right and one of the biggest gripes I seem to always have about online multiplayer games is the poor implementation of the chat and community features in game.
I’d very much like to see guilds/clans be a keystone of this game. Getting together to do massive dungeon raids, large scale boss fights, or even attack opposing guilds. It would help drive a real, true sense of community as players strike bonds with allies and clash swords with foes.
As far as the chat interface goes, I think World of Warcraft did it best. Have three separate tabs on the chat box; Chat, Loot, and Combat with the ability to create additional tabs and modify existing ones. Without this, servers would be filled with players talking over one another while messages pertaining to obtained items or money and critical strikes against monsters flood the chat logs even further.

Paul Zelano

crafting would be a great idea.  A talent tree of some sort would also bring it closer to the MMO side of things.  Its hard to really say what I would want, I mean its already a cross between two types of game genres (MMO and Building game) right now and that seems to be pretty good from my point of view.

Drumroll Please

2013-12-04 06_27_07-RANDOM.ORG - True Random Number ServiceFor the sake of fairness I created a Google doc that you can see here, and dumped everyone’s names into the list.  All in total we had 20 contestants.  I then went to Random.org a free random number generator and put the range in as 1 to 20.  I hit the generate button and the results ended up picking 10.  You can check out the screenprint of the results right justified in this paragraph block.  If you refer to the list that means that our winner is Bridget TruLove aka GeekSprinkles.

I want to thank everyone who commented greatly for their results.  I will be cross posting this over on the Trove Reddit so hopefully the Trion folk will benefit from your work.  Additionally it would be really amazing to do something like this again in the future.  So maybe just maybe they can throw me a few more keys over the months of alpha to do other contests.  I have a few ideas that might be interesting.  Basically I want the end result of any contests to benefit the community as a whole.  Additionally let me know what you think.  Was this a useful idea, or do you think I should have changed the prompt slightly?  I will be contacting Bridget TruLove to pass out her key, I doubt in any circumstance she will not accept it, but if she for whatever reason does not… I will be doing another roll off against the list I posted.