Minecraft and the wolves within.

So much has happened in the Minecraft world that I hardly know where to start. I believe that when I left off over a month ago I was talking about Andrew expanding our castle wall. Also, the fabulous ship that he built and the fact that the lava was glitching through the cobblestone and setting the bookshelves on fire. Yeah, that sucked. But hey, I have a lot more news this time around.

We'll start off with something a bit comical. I still don't even know how this happened. The game can get a bit laggy at times (the worlds are huge), so on occasion I'm shooting arrows and they're not firing. My best guess is that I shot a bunch of arrows, they were delayed, and then I walked into them. Talented, right? It was funny. I mean, clearly we were having repeated death issues. He was engulfed by lava. Twice.

Following the completion of my triforce above the entrance to our castle, I decided to build another beautiful monument: Kuribo's shoe. Anyone who has played Mario 3 (Andrew we need to fix this disgusting problem of yours) experienced the thrill and joy of world 5-3. Is Nintendo ever going to bring it back? I hope they do. Hear my plea! I want more of Kuribo's shoe! The opportunities for its use are rife! Maybe in Super Mario 3DS? Perhaps that's wishful thinking, but that's all I've got! Either way, this was quite the undertaking because of all of the black wool that was needed. Many squid were slain and sheep sheared to construct this boot. Eventually I'm going to add Mario's head the top, but we're working on other projects at the moment.

Back in March I experienced this rather epic chunk error. That would be our lava covered library split perfectly in half. I thought it looked pretty badass.

Some of my favorite moments in Minecraft occur after I haven't played for a few days and Andrew has gifts for me. He surprises me with 64 item stacks of red flowers, yellow flowers and as much wool as he can find. If he's had some particularly fruitful days then I get a special gift of clay or even ink sacs from squid! What a gentleman, right?

Our latest project has us building a train depot. We're in the process of connecting our homestead with another guy that plays on (and runs) the server. There aren't actually trains in Minecraft, but we're building a very nice depot all the same. It has a very tall glass ceiling, pillars, elegant stairs and an almost complete underwater viewing wall. I'll be putting in some classy couches soon. Andrew added a waterfall elevator (it takes some getting used to) that leads to an open spaced plaza. He did a nice job of connecting the train depot area with our pit digging area.

Speaking of the pit, it's coming along nicely! We're starting to get down deep enough to find diamonds (!!!) and Andrew has already dug down the edges to the admin rock. Because of all the caverns that occur that far down it's getting a little difficult to dig consistently. There are pitfalls everywhere and we die a lot while we're working on it. At this point I think he has found (and obsidianized) all of the lava flows, so at least that danger has been abated.

But back to the plaza area! It contains a lot of smooth stone, which means we've been doing a lot of furnace cooking. We have to be really careful with the smooth stone because if we misplace it, and then have to break it down to remove it, it turns into cobblestone! I think we've done well though. He included a nice grassy area off to one side and I decided to build an extensively girly garden. Girly things are bound to happen from time to time. I told him I needed some more yellow flowers to complete my colorful masterpiece and he suggested that we do some off-site exploration. He brought up the fact that we'd been so engulfed in construction that we hadn't had a chance to explore in a while, so I agreed.

What followed was extensive traveling and a rather epic cave structure. We got lost, plain and simple, and filled our pockets to the brim with loot from the caves. I guess I forgot to take a screenshot (shame on me) but we found not one, but TWO dungeons, and both of them contained cocoa beans!!!! This means we can make cookies! I am so excited! It was really only when we were ready to head back home that we realized how lost we were. Fortunately we had found gold and red stone, so he set to making some compasses that would point us back in the general direction that we needed to go. We set up camp near a familiar landmark and proceeded to get the crap attacked out of us by creepers and skeletons. The 1.5 update really seems like it includes greater mob spawning. 

Although, it could be the addition of rain (which makes the landscape dark enough to spawn mobs) creates more opportunities for mobs, and there aren't actually more being made at once. If that makes sense. Either way, we got blown up a few times just trying to cook some things. Eventually I put up some walls and started to dig for coal. It was a rough few in-game days, heh.

The most exciting recent addition to Minecraft is the wolves! This patch was released a few weeks ago and I about peed myself when I found my first wild wolf. Andrew and I loaded up on bones to feed them and then we set off trying to find some. They're pretty uncommon so we had no idea how long it would take to stumble across some. I started yelling (in game) when I found one and quickly took a screenshot. When they're wild they have these silly lazy eyes. After you give it a few bones it decides to love you and it becomes tame. It suddenly wears a collar and its eyes become friendly.

Say hello to Sir Woofington (the 1st!)! Since finding our first wolves, we have found many many more. I believe that we have fifteen each. We keep them parked in the town center (another project that is being worked on!) for the most part and only take a handful at a time when we go hunting for wool and leather. When the wolves are running free they tend to get in the way and you can accidentally hurt them. Or, if you're like me, you can accidentally hurt someone else's wolf and said wolf will fucking murder you. So, lesson learned; don't try and shoot a creeper when it's close to someone else's tamed wolf. You will not survive. 

And speaking of creepers, I took this shot while working on Kuribo's shoe. It was silly to watch Andrew baiting the thing, its tiny feet flopping around. He drew it in close enough for me to get with my bow. I'm proud to say that I'm a fairly decent shot in-game, haha! Stupid creepers.

-MJ

Posted in: creepers,kuribo's shoe,minecraft,rain,wolves,wool