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Minecraft and that New MMO Smell

June 17, 2013 by 8 Comments

Tonight, as I played on our freshly wiped FTB Minecraft server, I realized how similar a fresh start in Minecraft feels to a new MMO.  The first day is all about getting a feel for the terrain, figuring out where you want to begin your new life, and then getting to work.  I realized I was squirreling away items and hanging onto every advantage I could find.

Like playing a new MMO for the first time, everything feels dangerous.  Even though I’ve played Minecraft for hundreds and hundreds of hours, having nothing but a wooden pickaxe then coming face to face with a creeper still makes me scream like Blaine from Rat Race during the airport scene.  Soon that fear is replaced with apathy, and eventually I cease to appreciate all of the little things that I used to treasure.

Just like Minecraft, my favorite part of every MMO is the beginning. I crave it.  I wish it could be relived over, and over.  When World of Warcraft came out there were so many people starting to play that Blizzard kept creating servers months and months after release.  I made a new character on all of them, and on 3 of them I went from 1-60 and did server first raids.

Anyone else love the fresh start in a brand new MMO more than anything else? There’s just something magical about it.

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Having fun in a MMO Slump

June 4, 2013 by 14 Comments

MMO slumps are always an interesting time for me.  Right now I’m between MMOs as I wait for FFXIV A Realm Rebort and WildStar to launch.  I’ve been tempted to go back and play WoW during this 7 days trial Blizzard is running; anyone who ever had an account can come and play completely free for 7 days. A lot of my friends have gone back to quickly run all of the raid finders to see the content.  I logged in tonight because I never uninstalled, and signing up for the trial was instant and no pain at all.  I just can’t see myself seriously playing WoW.  I’m not playing because I need my WoW fix, I just feel like I’m missing out if I don’t take advantage of something free.

Marvel HeroesMarvel Heroes came out today.  Graev and I have been waiting for this one for many, many months.  We both signed up for the founder package and bought a hero like five months ago (or whenever it first came available).  I picked up Rocket Racoon (because I have an unhealthy obsession with small characters, especially when they are animal-like) and Graev bought Hulk.  Marvel Heroes is free to play, and you can install and play entirely through Steam.  If you haven’t been following the game, think of it like Path of Exile meets a high instanced MMO, or Diablo 3 but when you run out of town you see lots of other players fighting the same monsters as you.  It’s hack n slash with Marvel super heroes.  We’ll write up a more formal review after we log enough time to give adequate impressions.

Minecraft Biofuel Setup

This massive tank holds like 18,000 buckets of apple juice.

Minecraft is still my go-to-game.  Our community server is getting more and more packed each night.  I built a workshop, mined out miles of caverns, and collected an enormous nest egg of materials. One of my friends is really fond of building worlds with one of the mods (this stuff is way above me) and I had her create me a really bright, colorful, cheerful world.  I built a castle and warlock tower with Graev (he wrote about this a few days back) and I have relocated most of my building to a new workshop.  I’m in the process of assisting… or rather watching… one of my friends build me a biofuel system.

Check out the screenshot on the above/left. On the surface is a cart that goes around on a track planting and chopping trees.  It deposits those trees, wood, and apples into a box that sorts them down into machines which burn the wood into coal, juice the apples, and convert the trees into mulch.  In the end I get apple juice and some sort of biofuel.  My goal is to have a renewable energy source to fuel my crazy storage system that uses gregtech ME stuff.  I won’t even pretend to understand any of this stuff.

Animal Crossing: New Leaf comes out on Sunday, and between all these other games I’m almost not even bothered by the fact that there aren’t any great MMOs to play.  This might be the first slump in years where I think I’m okay with them taking their time to get it right.  I say that, but in a few days I’m sure I’ll be complaining about wanting a virtual world.

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Back To Basics In Minecraft

May 25, 2013 by 6 Comments
minecraft wizard tower

Wizard Tower in Minecraft sitting on the border of two magic zones. We’ll be doing all Thaumcraft stuff here.

Keen has been playing a lot of Minecraft lately and trying to get me to join him. I resisted for the most part until recently when I felt a creative jolt and spent two Saturdays building a Wizard Tower. We’re actually trying to get a whole fantasy kingdom thing going on. Keen is working on a castle and eventually we plan on building a town and maybe an airship dock. I like creating buildings, but that is pretty much the extent of my enjoyment in Minecraft these days.

I’ve never really been a fan of mods, which I’ve probably blogged about before, and now Minecraft is full of them. Our community server runs so many complicated and convoluted things now to the point it makes my head hurt. You can basically build an entire infrastructure to mine and sort for you. Build a solar paneled robot, jetpack, laser gun, etc. Oh what’s this? Nuclear reactor? Why the hell not?  I mean, wow… I remember when this used to be about digging holes and trying not to get blown up. ‘Course there is nothing wrong with this stuff and loads of people enjoy being able to create complex machines and automated slaughterhouses but I find it hard to get into something when it feels like I need a specialized degree to understand it.

But anyways… Here is the twisty wizard tower I built. I styled it to look like it’s been magically torn out of the ground. Part of the lower wall is blown out and floating mid-air and the upper room has detached. I plan on building a giant brass telescope on the roof but I haven’t gotten to it yet.

So why am I posting this? Well, it may not grow, tend, and harvest its own wheat to automatically bake into bread but I’m proud of it and somebody must might care, right?

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Conglomoblog: Minecraft, SWTOR, Job Hunting

April 16, 2013 by 11 Comments

Life has been crazy lately.  I spend more time working on campus to finish up the last of my finals (graduating in a week!) in one day than I do sleeping and playing games.  I apologize for the lack of updates around here, but it will improve in just a matter of days.  After that, until I can find a job (Which I am actively looking for — anyone want a marketing guru?) I’ll have plenty of free time.

I’m also bound by a few NDAs right now.  If not for forced silence, I’d have quite a bit to share about a few games.  I want to talk about Marvel Heroes, for example, which is an action RPG set in the Marvel universe, but I can’t just yet.

To kill what very little free time I have, which has mostly been extremely late at night (read: after 10pm), I’ve been playing Minecraft again.  Our community has another server set up, and we’re playing a mod compilation called ‘Feed the Beast’.  It’s neat, challenging compared to Tekkit, and a lot of fun to hop in and build.  There’s something about building, tinkering, and letting my creative (or lack thereof) manifest itself in a game.  Why can’t more games be a blank canvas like Minecraft? So simple, so fun.

Let’s see, what else am I up to lately?  I played a 30 minutes of SWTOR tonight. A friend of mine is playing again just to kill some time and play some battlegrounds.  I had fun playing the single-player game 1-50.  The game is quite charming looking once you get past the low level armor that looks like it’s painted on.  Animations are extremely smooth.  I love what they did with the interface changes.  I hate the F2P crap, but it’s free. As I continue to play, I’ll refine my thoughts and keep you posted.

That’s all for now! Things will pick up again very soon.

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