Minecraft is free to play for the weekend, possibly longer.

[Arcanum]

Yeah I know we have our NPF minecraft server thread, but I felt like this deserved its own. Due to server problems that Notch (minecraft creator) is currently trying to fix, Minecraft (the full alpha version that usually costs $10) will be free to play until he gets everything fixed.

In his own words:
Until this all gets sorted out, I'm officially calling a "free-to-play weekend", or however long this will take to fix. You will need to have a paid account to play it later on when this gets fixed though.
If you want to keep track of the latest developments, please follow my blog. I also post stuff on my twitter, but there's a lot of nonsense there as well.

So if anyone was interested in Minecraft before but never payed for the full version, now's your chance to try it out. The client can be downloaded here: http://www.minecraft.net/

[Viridis]

I dug a hole and looked up how to build a furnace.


Fun, I think?

[Loyal]

Apparently the crash is due to a huge popularity spike via Penny Arcade. (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/9/17/)

Oh god, the monsters. The monsters. I'm holed up in a tiny, 3x6 dirt shelter with a stone sword clutched to my chest, but it isn't enough, I don't think. They're hanging outside, pawing at my feeble enclosure, trying to jump over to get at me, and I can hear their skitterings and moans.

Their moans. I tried to hang over on the wall and swipe at a few to get them to shut up, but then someone came in and shot at me... so I'm back to shuddering in my little "safe" corner. I want to dig deeper, dig a tunnel to safety, make something productive of my time, but I'm afraid something in the darkness will jump out at me. All I can do is wait, and pray for daylight. Help me.

[EVILNess]

Apparently the crash is due to a huge popularity spike via Penny Arcade. (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/9/17/)

Oh god, the monsters. The monsters. I'm holed up in a tiny, 3x6 dirt shelter with a stone sword clutched to my chest, but it isn't enough, I don't think. They're hanging outside, pawing at my feeble enclosure, trying to jump over to get at me, and I can hear their skitterings and moans.

Their moans. I tried to hang over on the wall and swipe at a few to get them to shut up, but then someone came in and shot at me... so I'm back to shuddering in my little "safe" corner. I want to dig deeper, dig a tunnel to safety, make something productive of my time, but I'm afraid something in the darkness will jump out at me. All I can do is wait, and pray for daylight. Help me.

This is why I say that Minecraft is a Survival Horror game.

[DarkDrgon]

I'm way too picky with my worlds. If I can't find a good enough mountain close to spawn, I try again.

[Azisien]

Just playing normal multiplayer alpha right now, not the survival alpha, so there's no monsters or mortality for that matter.

Game was still addictive as hell for like 4 days but it's getting a little dry right now as my friends and I start our third skyway.

[DFM]

There's also a weekday LP/Journal up on RPS called Mine the Gap if you're interested in reading someone's first impression of minecraft.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/tag/mine-the-gap/

Me I just mine down until I find iron to make buckets, then down until I find lava, then put the lava in the buckets and pour it on shit. Pour it everywhere. The countryside is on fire and you can't walk anywhere. Welcome to my Minecraft world.

[EVILNess]

Never mind, taken down since no one decided to join.

[Viridis]

Getting the Tetris Effect for this game. I wanna tear things apart and reshape them.

Also, set a tree on fire and it's been burning for days in game.

[Arcanum]

This is why I say that Minecraft is a Survival Horror game.

It gets even worse once you convince yourself that Herobrine (http://minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Herobrine) is in your game.

[Melfice]

It gets even worse once you convince yourself that Herobrine (http://minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Herobrine) is in your game.

If that's not bad enough, Notch might be thinking about making Herobrine an actual feature.

[DarkDrgon]

I'm having an issue. I have dug pretty deep into a cavern, and now I've hit a HUGE obsidian/diamond/gold/redstone deposit. this room has pretty much everything. The only problem, is that a majority of it is in the floor, right on top of lava. how should I harvest?

[Wigmund]

If you can, work your way to the lava pool and build stone blocks into the first layer of it underneath the deposits.

[DarkDrgon]

The problem is that I am going from Floor-lava. there is no visible lava, but there is a rather large lake of it right under my feet. I can't dig down anymore.

[Wigmund]

Ah, then you're SOL

[Red Fighter 1073]

Wow major seconded to the person who said it was Survival Horror, I made a nice little house in the wall and I start digging downwards and found that I had dug into an underground cave and I got to meet my new zombie and skeleton neighbors!

They were not friendly. They had a nice little cookout and decided that my brains would be the main course. Needless to say, I've already died once to them and am too afraid to venture into the cave again.

And even though I saw a few tutorial videos about how to survive against enemies, I never knew that zombies could freakin' explode! One guy exploded and only took two of my hearts, but still managed to get close to my house and absolutely decimate it, despite the outer walls being covered with torches.

With all that craziness said, I'm very likely going to buy it anyway when the server comes back on. I'm still wondering why the sound isn't working though.

[DarkDrgon]

I hate the creepers. I tend to cheat, and play in pacifism mode until I can get an ok base going. once I have something livable, I put it on hard and fear for my life.

[Viridis]

I wanna try pacifist just because I'm sick of cave deaths at the moment.

[Doc ock rokc]

worst death so far. Creeper managed to sneak up next to me and detonate. That wasn't the bad part. It turns out that we where on top of a lava spring and right above the lake of death. needless to say I went swimming in the greatest hot tub ever. re spawned far away from my Tower so I have to sneak past zombies and ...and fail miserably. So I decide to hide in a cave till daylight. I hide in the cave they GO TO DURING DAY LIGHT! Needless to say I don't have good runs in this game.

[PyrosNine]

Pyros is a blocky god of death, sending green splodey men, zombies, and skeleton archers to their doom for daring to attack my tower in the middle of the ocean. And despite being a good ways out there, they still try!

My only problem was figuring out crafting, and getting enough string from spiders to make a bow so I don't have to get 12 arrows to the face every time I fight a skelly. It's not that don't see spiders often, but I prefer not to fight spiders mano y mano without a long range weapon or some fire based attack. (Kings Field was hard...). If only one could reverse engineer string into wool or something.

Anyway, I did obtain the needed string when I decided to dig deep down underneath my Tower above the waves, only to take out a "load bearing block" and remove a good portion of the floor beneath me, falling into a cavern where 3 spiders were hanging out.

Needless to say, I have enough string, and a new bitcheon basement, but boy did I seal that one up to make sure no other Arachnia decides to make it their home. Or come home and find out what happened to their wife, daughter, and son spiders.

I do love the part about figuring out how to make stuff and advance. Going from building my house out of sand and dirt to making wood blocks, sticks, tools, weapons, chests, smelters, ginormo tower with an underground minecart to the mainland and a dock for my fleet of boats.

That, and once the sun starts going down, running back to my tower, climbing towards its' highest height, and then building a wall around me just to be extra safe, and wait for morning in complete darkness, because it took me forever to figure out how to make a torch. Because in the dark, you can't tell who just shot you in the face with an arrow, and it makes hopping down into the water to reap bonemeal vengeance silly.

[EVILNess]

Some general tips:

Don't build more than a single wood tool IE A pickaxe. Stone is only slightly harder to get and HOJILLION times better. Also, avoid Gold tools and armor.

The difficulty settings do work, and if you put it on hard expect to be swarmed with creepers and spiders.

Fire spreads from a deceptive distance. Also, Lava burns flammables.

You can kill cows to make armor. Do it. All armor offers the same defense.

Glass is awesome cause you can see outside, which might sound trivial until you walk outside and you don't see the 4 creepers who want hugsssssSSSSSSSSSSSS BOOOOM.

[Wigmund]

Has anyone run into the skeleton spider-riders yet? I've seen people scream about them on the Minecraft forums, but I haven't played Single Player in awhile so I haven't seen them myself. I need to start playing again.

And has Bob given up on the SMP server or is he still waiting for repairs?

[Azisien]

I really want carts to start working better in multiplayer, because we have a transit system going on our server that is a probably few kilometers long. It's even a walled-off system so monsters shouldn't be able to get in.

[Wigmund]

There's another NPF server or is it another group's?

[Loyal]

Do monsters know how to climb ladders? I have a house built on top of a cliff, and I'd like to make it less accessible if possible.

[Viridis]

Floating wood blocks are still burning. Lit some more up and reproduced it.

Anyone know what's up with that?

[Azisien]

Signal fires! Certain wood blocks become immortal and on fire forever at this point.

I actually use them to mark different islands and continents for night-time travel.

[EVILNess]

Do monsters know how to climb ladders? I have a house built on top of a cliff, and I'd like to make it less accessible if possible.

Nope, and thank god.

[Viridis]

Signal fires! Certain wood blocks become immortal and on fire forever at this point.

I actually use them to mark different islands and continents for night-time travel.

Ah, thank you. I had fun with some flint and as it stands, a lot of the landscape is permanently on fire. :dance: Any idea what determines whether or not a block becomes immortal?

Also, tried making one of those monster spawning>drowning rooms but it just isn't working. :frown: Monsters simply are not spawning in the dark room I provided.

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

Ah, thank you. I had fun with some flint and as it stands, a lot of the landscape is permanently on fire. :dance: Any idea what determines whether or not a block becomes immortal?

Also, tried making one of those monster spawning>drowning rooms but it just isn't working. :frown: Monsters simply are not spawning in the dark room I provided.

You're better off finding a dungeon and using the creature spawner in there.

[Viridis]

Trying to build a tower-fortress-island out of leaves. We'll see how this goes.

[EVILNess]

Mobs do not spawn within a certain radius of you. Which means you will never have something spawn on top of you.

[Viridis]

Hm. With that in mind, would a tall, tall pole be as safe as a small, lit room at night? How high would you have to go for the skeletons not to be a danger to you?

[Loyal]

Monsters seem to have difficulties pathing vertically. If you build on top of a cliff or some very hilly terrain you'll be absolutely safe at night even with your doors wide open.

They don't seem to spawn anyplace that's well lit either, so torches help.

[Azisien]

Indeed, monsters spawn in shadows. Keep safe zones well lit with torches. It's not like torches are hard to mass or anything.

[DarkDrgon]

I have a dilemma. I can either Make my floor of stone and the tops of my towers into Obsidian, or have obsidian floors throughout the ground level of my castle...

decisions, decisions.

[PyrosNine]

The way the wood burning forever works, is if you set fire to the top of the wood, not the sides, it will burn forever. I have built a lighthouse so I can see my tower/castle from anywhere I go adventurin'.

Also, if you dig a tunnel beneath your house, and that tunnel goes into caves where you mine, remember to put a door between that tunnel and your house somewhere. If you built it, enemies usually won't spawn on it or in it, I think.

For my tower, I have no door or ladder, but rather I swim under side of my tower and up into a shaft that leads to a door. Even though monsters won't swim underwater, i have managed to somehow get a cow stuck in there, so that's why I put in a door.

My actual house is being built upwards from my tower, being out of reach from Skelly arrows,with mid-air wheat fields and a pool with water fall, where I keep my boat now, as I can ride the boat up the waterfall (physics be messed up!)

My dungeon (a series of interconnected caves) is under my basement, sealed off by a metal door that only opens with a button. Whenever I need stuff from mobs, or feel in an adventurous mood, I draw my sword, my good pickaxe, and take some cooked meat, and go spelunking. Zombies, Skellies, creepers, spiders, and lava, oh my! I walk back later, near dead from a creeper that leaped down from above in a tunnel hidden in the darkness, a tunnel that I then followed and marked with a torch, that lead to lava and gold, and heal up, wait for morning, and make a nifty gold hat. Ohhh yeah!

[Eldezar]

i got the game when it first came out, and for some reason it didn't stick with me. I read the guys first time through adventure and thought i'd give it a try.

Damn everything that is minecraft. I've been up all night playing it. If I didn't have to go to work till 1pm then I'd damn it to hell.

[Wigmund]

The Free Weekend is finally over, but to keep the site from crashing, it looks like Notch has disabled sound in Minecraft.

I've decided to take this as a sign to play on Peaceful until sound returns.