East, west, home is best

With some basic infrastructure completed. Plus a cache of materials available. I now have the opportunity to start expanding the town.

This homely little cobble house is modeled after the first house I had built in Minecraft. Some of it's features are characteristic of a lot of my builds. Such as double wall construction and skylights.

The interior contains the basic necessities; a crafting bench, chest, and furnace. The rest is filled out with basic furniture.

If you have never seen the bottom of the tree, you cannot know how tall it stands

To help ensure a quicker and easier harvest of wood supplies it's generally a good idea to set up some sort of tree farm. There's no real standard layout that everyone follows. I've decided to go with a setup I had seen on some old servers I had played on.

The building itself is essentially a greenhouse in it's design; rounded off at the roof and at the top of the base windows to avoid Minecraft box syndrome.

The two doors and the walkway leading up to them are a consequence of the central wall of chests. It's a minor example of how building in a spontaneous manner can lead to results outside of the norm.

 

The tree plots themselves are 6 X 7 in size. Touches are at each corner, and two are placed in the middle to ensure adequate lighting.

The tree farm is worked by chopping the plot. Replanting and moving on to the next one. By the time you work your way around the farm the first plot will be ready for harvest again. This allows you to harvest until you question what you're doing with your life.

The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones

Onwards to what is by far the most adrenaline pumping experience minecraft has to offer; that is of course landscaping.

This is the minor work I've completed so far. It's enough to plop down a few buildings. I'm trying to sort of keep to the contours of the terrain the best I can. I don't want a large flat, boring town.

Put your best foot forward

I've seen other Minecraft players make reference to how they spend their first night in a hole in the ground, or a dirt shack. Often in hiding and just waiting it out until the sun rises again and the monster threat is gone. What I don't normally hear is what they do afterward with these temporary shelters.

My own refuge for the night is almost always just a hole in the wall. After I've spent the day collecting wood supplies, I'll tunnel my way into the side of a cliff and begin work on what I call my workshop. This square room 11X11 in size is where I do the majority of my crafting. It's design is almost always the same. A crafting bench in the center surrounded by planks to form my work table. Three blocks of floor space around it. Lastly chests line the walls containing my supplies.

From my workshop, I'll expand outward to form my industrial complex. I'll sink a mineshaft during that first night. Later attach a forge room to smelt my minerals and stone. Then branch out and create a warehouse to store my material overstock.

A little different from the Minecraft standard of a large house or complex containing everything needed. But that's how I roll.

A change is as good as a rest

After enjoying some of the newer features in Minecraft for several years now. It's easy to forget what the experience was like back during the old alpha days. I'll list a few of the differences that stand out for me.

Probably the biggest shock that awaited me was seeing just how bright and green the landscape is.

After being used to the muted, and often ugly gradients of the modern Minecraft biomes. It's nice to play in such a bright and colourful world. I'm sure I'll miss it when I update in the future.

At this stage in the game the only animals are sheep and pigs. They'll spawn in any lighted area. Grass, dirt, sand, or stone. More than once I've been startled deep in my mine by a sheep as I turned a corner.

Food doesn't stack. This is before the hunger bar, so I can understand why our ability to instantly heal with food would be limited. However it's a pain in the arse to store food. I recall when first playing the game several years ago hoping for a compromise. The idea being that food could be stacked, but could only be eaten when a single piece was held in the hotbar.

Tall grass isn't part of the game yet. It's absence was a bit of a head scratcher until I remembered the old method of gathering seeds. Seeds for wheat are acquired by turning grass tiles into tilled soil with the hoe.

Shift clicking isn't in the game as of yet. I miss it dearly.

When placing three stone blocks horizontally on the crafting grid. The output is a stone pressure plate. Not what I had expected. That was when I realized that cobblestone makes stone slabs. This is before cobblestone slabs were introduced.

Lastly my dislike of redstone ore has resurfaced. It's mining time is higher than other ores. It's there to simply act as an annoying speed bump when trying to mine.

Starting in alpha

Like many, I've fallen into a bit of a trap in my Minecraft gameplay experience. I'll install some interesting looking mods. I'll play the map for a little while, and then when the inevitable Minecraft update comes in it's continuous development cycle. I'll find that I need, or just want to start over. Either because a mod has stopped updating, or some block IDs had changed (easier to manage these days with most mods config files), or I just can't be bothered. It's a cycle I'd like to break.

So I'm going to set up a bit of a challenge for myself with some simple rules.

No cheats.

Mostly pertains to inventory editors.

No mods.

The game will a completely vanilla experience. Goodbye my beloved minimap.

No texture packs.

I'm stuck with making my buildings look as attractive as possible with the “retro” dev placeholder sprites that come default in Minecraft. A somewhat tall order I might add. I may make an exception for the newer gravel texture and revert it to the old version when the time comes. I've never warmed up to the new texture.

Every building must be useable.

Not a very specific rule. A monument isn't exactly useable. But the purpose of this rule is to prevent shell buildings. Often other Minecraft players will show off their work. Displaying an intricate exterior while leaving the inside bare. The building has no use.

This blog is just to document my experience and give my impressions of the changes that come as I slowly progress through the updates.