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Minecraft Thread


Diamond Smurf

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http://www.minecraft.net

If you don't know what this game is, I feel sorry for you. A quick YouTube should set you up. It looks like a lame game at first glance, so give it a chance. Some links to YouTubers who play Minecraft if you wanna check it out.

JX23

SeaNanners

davidr64yt

awesomemattg

A video describing the game:

An article from the Toronto Sun:

http://www.torontosun.com/entertainment/videogames/2010/10/01/15546896.html

‘Minecraft’ retro funRight now, there are two groups of gamers in the world: Those who haven't yet heard of Minecraft, and those who are hopelessly, helplessly addicted to it.

An indie, downloadable PC game by Swedish programmer Markus Persson, Minecraft has gone from an obscure title circulating among diehard gaming fans to a global phenomenon that's redefining what makes great games great. And earning its creator staggering amounts of money in the process.

Minecraft is difficult to describe. At its most basic level, it's a first-person world-building game with an almost shockingly retro look. At the beginning of the game, you're dropped empty-handed onto a giant, randomly generated island, and your goal is to, well, survive.

Survival isn't all that difficult in Minecraft. You don't need to eat or drink, and the only threats to your safety are the zombies, spiders and other extremely lethal critters that come out at night. You do need some kind of shelter for protection, but that could literally be a hole you dig in the ground and then seal up behind you, until the sun rises again and the monsters drift away.

But there's no fun in that. The fun in Minecraft comes with the realization that you can transform this world into something of your own design, one block at a time. Chop down trees, dig through rock, create tools, forge weapons, lay down mine cart tracks, build a towering castle or a subterranean fortress ... the sprawling, physics-defying landscape of each Minecraft world is your personal sandbox, and what you do with it is limited only by your imagination.

I first heard about the game a few weeks ago during a visit to the Epic Games studio in North Carolina. Lee Perry, one of the senior designers on the Gears of War series, asked if I was playing Minecraft, and I said no. With the fervour of someone who has recently found religion, he described the game to me as best as it can be verbally explained, then whipped out his iPad to show me some of the many, many fan-made YouTube videos of elaborate Minecraft creations. I promised I would check it out.

I didn't get it at first -- what the hell is this, some kind of old-school 3D Zelda game with no storyline or characters or anything else in the world? Then I started exploring. And chopping, digging, crafting and building. I started to understand.

And then the monsters came, and I was genuinely scared. Silly, blocky, 8-bit zombies growling somewhere outside the door of my hastily dug cave were making me quiver in fear. I waited and waited in the dark -- I hadn't yet figured out how to craft a torch -- willing the sun to come back up. And then I resumed exploring, digging, building...

Yep, addicted. Hopelessly.

I'm a big believer that better graphics don't necessarily make a better game. The closer something looks to reality, the harder it is to be fooled into thinking it's real -- the uncanny valley syndrome applies to digital landscapes as well as digital humans. But because the Lego-like Minecraft world looks so basic, it's easier to become immersed in it. There's no illusion of reality to be disrupted.

As I trundle around the world of Minecraft, I find myself gazing in awe at these randomly generated virtual rock formations, terraced hillsides, dark caves and towering cliffs, wondering what I can build there. It's simultaneously liberating yet lonely, a digital last-man-on-Earth scenario that tickles some deep part of players' brains. I've spent literally hours at a time simply digging elaborate fortresses of solitude into rock faces, trying to turn this hostile world into a comfortable home.

And I'm not alone. Minecraft has a free trial version, with the full game selling for about $14 at www.minecraft.net. And man, is it selling. In one recent 24-hour period, the game logged 25,936 paid registrations, grossing Persson more than $360,000 in a SINGLE DAY. And that's for a game that's still technically in pre-release, with no publisher and no advertising other than word of mouth on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and gaming forums.

And now that you too know about Minecraft, prepare to join that second group. And get digging.

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Lol I've been thinking about making a thread on this for a few days. Glad somebody did.

This game is freakin' awesome.

Survival mode is great...

Although it sucks, it's pretty sweet how I had all diamond armor, and drowned because I was digging underground and hit water above me. Lost all of my stuff and had to start from scratch. Lol.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...

Anyone else enjoying the new Beta?

A lot of people are saying there's a lot of lagging but I haven't noticed any difference.

The only 2 new features I've noticed so far are:

-Decaying leafs (They don't stay there anymore)

-Throwing eggs (Causing damage to enemy)

Apparently there's a "secret"

On a side note I've finally really got into the game I started building a city with castle walls around which will connect to 3 more locations. Love my location! The terrain is amazing!

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