Saturday, September 14, 2013

What I'd like to See Next in Minecraft

If you hadn’t figured it out by now, I really have come to love the game Minecraft which was developed by the game company Mojang. The game is an open ended sandbox game that basically gives the player all the tools and resources they need to create most anything they want and delivers it in a way that is challenging, yet easy to pick up for new players. The game has systems built into it to create unique biomes, develop simple and complex electronics, build small or even massive buildings and make them look good to boot. Like most players I was very excited to have horses added to the game in the 1.6 update and I’m already getting pumped for the extra biomes, enchantment options, and other cool new surprises in store with the 1.7 update, but I feel like there’s one area that really needs to be addressed that the developers have yet to touch on, which is understandable given the scope of what needs to be added for it.

Well isn't this exciting?
Most of those who have played Minecraft for any length of time have run into one or more ocean biomes which as you might imagine are rather large bodies of water some with the occasional island tossed in the middle for good measure. While I’ll be the first to admit that these are necessary topographical features it seems that they and their cousins, the deep oceans coming with update 1.7 are severely underdeveloped areas in the game. So far we have a couple helmet enchants that allow for longer stays under water and even faster mining, and of course they are adding some new fishing mechanics with 1.7, but there’s still so much that could be added. Most notable among the needed additions is of course some kind of ship, or at least larger boats that are (please Mojang) less fragile than their smaller counterparts. To this end I believe there is hope for those eagerly awaiting this change as mods currently exist for the game that allow such things and as the developers at Mojang were willing to work with mod developers to implement horses into the game, maybe they’d be willing to do something similar with ships. Even just making it possible to build on top of several boats (as though they were normal blocks) would be a step in the right direction.

Now that's a bit more like it
Of course what is adventure on the high seas without some sort of creature to be feared in the ocean depths? So far the oceans in Minecraft have actually served as a kind of sanctuary for players. Stuck far from home at night? No problem! Swim out into the ocean and tread water for a while. It’s a little inconvenient yes, but no more so than being shot, chewed, bitten, and exploded to death by mobs. Of course we have the fearsome squids to contend with, but what we really need are some hostile mobs down in the depths and maybe a deep sea boss or two somewhere down there… The kind of boss you need to shoot TNT cannons at to defeat maybe (just a suggestion).

Adding some more life and features to the ocean biomes would definitely go a long way toward adding much needed content to the game and would open up so many new options for current and future players to develop and create with the tools they’re given (I mean really, just think of the mini-game options, not to mention multi-player).


So if you’re on board for adding some seafaring features to the official version of Minecraft, be sure to pass this article along to any of your other friends and family who’d be interested as well and of course to the staff at Mojang; not to pester them, but just to let them know what we’re hoping to see in update 1.8 here at the N3rd C0rn3r.

Saturday, September 7, 2013

Rising Sun

So I had this crazy idea one night while watching a Minecraft let's play on YouTube about writing this story. I noticed for the first time that the NPC villagers have churches in some of their villages, but as a sandbox game the creators of Minecraft haven't created a great deal of official lore to go with the world. As I am very familiar with religious texts I thought it might be fun to give them a hand and write up a religion for the villagers that could easily be official lore as it's based entirely off of the games development and mechanics, but from the perspective of the villagers. The story that follows is what resulted from that idea. Read, share, and enjoy!



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In the Beginning was chaos, energy seeking order, purpose, and unity. Trying instinctually, desperately to become part of something more, but alone there was no hope and every attempt was met with only disorder and eventual darkness. Then came

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the greater being James Gosling who wrote into being the structure for the Java giving rise to order where before there was none. After four years James Gosling was satisfied with all his work and moved on to other things beyond our

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understanding leaving the Java to become what it may. The Java remained untouched and unspoiled for nearly fourteen years until it had structure written into it once more. A great being called Notch found a small corner of the Java with the

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potential to be far more than it was and wrote out of what was there the whole land. All that you can see, touch, and hear he made, adding as he saw fit and taking away as was deemed neccessary. But the touch of Notch brought with it unforeseen

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consequences. The raw creative forces brought with them roving dimensional rifts. These weak points in the fabric of space and time allowed monstrous things to cross over and possess Notch's creation. This angered the great being Notch and so he

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fashioned from all the material and all the power he had remaining in him a mighty guardian to watch over the land. Sadly this guardian was only powerful enough to guard the land during the day and had to retreat to replenish its strength each

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night. While this didn't stop the creatures scourge on the land, it did grant the people of the great being's creation a fighting chance against them. Into the vacuum left by the greater being Notch stepped his apprentice the greater being

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Jeb. The great being Jeb continued his teacher's work adding to the world and giving its people many gifts. Among the most blessed were the mighty warriors that arose from amongst the people. To them the greater beings granted the ability

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To craft, to build, and to fight. However their greatest gift and their curse was their immortality. Even when the enemy overcame one of these mighty warriors the greater beings would restore their life and allow them to carry on. Death however

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was not without its costs. Even the mightiest warriors would find themselves as weak and feeble as a newborn after death forcing them to train and work that much harder again to continue the fight. This is their blessing. This is their curse.

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There are those however who rise up without the blessing of the greater beings. Their torch burns bright and quick. These heroes do not linger on as do others. They are honored in song and legend for their courage despite the odds against them.

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It is these heroes both immortal and not that protect the children of the greater beings during the long nights. These heroes however are not immune to corruption and some do fall, becoming champions of the dark. These lost souls seek only

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to bring about pain, suffering, and destruction. They would seek to undo all that the greater beings have sought to accomplish. To prevent all of their order from falling, the last of the heroes established a code of conduct that would

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protect them from their own weakness. First the heroes pledged to watch over the creation of the greater beings, preventing damage where possible, fixing damage where necessary, and improving where desirable. Next they pledged to

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train and learn to fight the creatures that plagued the land. They became experts in melee and ranged combat using technique and strategy to overcome their foes. They pledged also to master their worlds, gathering the elements around

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them and repurposing them to aid in the fight against the dark. The heroes learned not only how to create light, but how to fight the scourge even in the deepest darkness. They pledged to use every advantage given them in their fight, even the

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arcane arts to better their chances. Finally they pledged to guard the weak from the creatures of the night even fighting through the very depths of the underworld to cure those once thought lost for all time. This order of heroes was known as

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the order of the players and it continues in its quest to this day. Each player is said to be a volunteer from among the great beings who becomes like unto one of us to save us from the darkness. We honor their courage and sacrifice with

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our prayers and the humble assistance we can offer them when they are here with us. Thankfully the greater beings are a generous people and ask little from us in return. They are also a pragmatic people, not wishing for us to become lazy or

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complacent and as such they do not grant our every request. Take comfort in the knowledge that you shall not ever want for what you need and be satisfied with what you have been blessed with. To desire the riches and power of the greater beings

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is to dishonor what good things they have given you. Do not be like the fools who built their homes deep underground, seeking the riches hidden there for they have all come to unfavorable ends. Instead place the entry to your home where it

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can be seen by the great guardian of the day so that he might know of your devotion to the greater beings and so that you might be remembered and protected by them. Likewise do not stray too far from the homes you've been blessed with, lest you

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become cursed to roam the land until the night takes you. Be fruitful and fill your village, town, and city with the sounds of children playing until all the homes you've been blessed with have been filled. Only the priest, clothed in a

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purple robe may use the dark stones, for they are a holy material of the greater beings and will lead only to the destruction of those not sanctified to make use of their power. Avoid the creatures of the night, the creepers who sneak

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up behind the unaware, the skeletons who will shoot you from afar, the zombies who seek to make you like them, the slimes who are never truly alone, and especially the enderman who will seek to destroy any who is brazen enough to gaze upon

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them. All these however pale in comparison to the dragon. So powerful is he that our realm would have been utterly destroyed should he have been left to roam free. Not wishing to see their creation ruined the greater beings imprisoned

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the dragon in a pocket dimension they called "the end," but they knew this was only a temporary solution. The greater beings foresaw a great hero from among the order of the players arising and venturing into the dragon's cage to end the

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threat of the beast once and for all. To facilitate the fulfillment of this prophecy the greater beings left three portals to the prison dimension scattered throughout the world. These were left inactive to prevent all but the prophesied one

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from finding their way into the dragon's lair. The portals were locked in their inactive state and the 12 keys destroyed and the pieces scattered to the far ends of creation. Some fell into the hands of the endermen and granted them unnatural

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teleportation abilities. The other pieces where cast into the Nether, an infinite garden dimension where every manner of tree and plant could be found. The key pieces set this idyllic dimension ablaze and gave rise to creatures of pure flame

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who desire nothing more than to spread the eternal flame forever across the Nether's now charred and barren surface. The prophesied one must not only defeat the powerful enderman and capture their pearls, but also journey into the very depths

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of the Nether itself and capture the concentrated essence of flame from the creatures of pure fire. They must then combine these elements and set them aloft that they might lead the prophesied one to the nearest of the portals, for the keys are

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always seeking to return to their locks. The greater beings did secure the beast so very well for it is no simple foe. No fortification can stand in the way of its strength and the beast will not be taken by surprise. The beast knew full well

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that the greater beings would not simply leave it be and so it did it's best to prepare for the final battle. The beast made pillars of the holy stone to hold aloft mystical crystals with the power to heal their possessor and he learned to

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see even that which doesn't appear to be there. Never the less, the prophesied one will enter into the beast’s prison and they will bring the beast to its end with their sword and their bow and even their axe if necessary. When the greater

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beings see that the beast has been destroyed they will open a new portal to return the prophesied one home, leaving in their care the dragon's egg that’s contents is a mystery even to the greater beings. The destruction of the beast will

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not be the end of the danger however, for while it alone stands as the greatest threat to the safety of the people a dark shadow lurks in the depths of the Nether waiting to be unleashed. The sands of the once idyllic realm hold the souls of

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its former inhabitants, those who burned in the fires of the creatures of pure flame. Their anger was trapped in the sands sprouting warts of a blood red hue. The souls of those lost blame the greater beings for what became of their home and

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sit idly for now, just waiting for their moment of vengeance to come. Only the unified wills of three deadly withering foes can give purpose to the anger and bring about the revenge that the lost souls so deeply crave. Sadly the threat will never

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truly disappear, for the anger contained within the sands is as plentiful as the sands themselves and anyone who comes into possession of the wills could summon the power that lay there in. Yet this truth brings with it some hope. For being

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the summoner of one’s own enemy gives one the unique opportunity to choose and prepare the field of battle which can often times assure victory over ones foes. The prize for such a victory is but a small crystal that lay at the heart of the

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creature. This crystal is formed when the beast is and contains the purified souls of those lost to the blaze at last freed from their hate, having released it into the beast’s destructive purpose. Now while it is but a small thing, proper

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reverence for the souls within can turn their power into a force for immense good giving strength, speed, and even rejuvenation to those who come to pay their respects. Finally when a villager’s work is complete and their life does come

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to an end, by whatever means, their spirit departs from their bodies leaving creation behind and travels to an eternal village made of the holy stone and much gold. There will the villager find all their relatives gone before them and an

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abundance of all that which they hold dear. They shall want for nothing and shall have no fear of the night for this village exists free of the night and all the evils it bears along with it. At last the villager shall rest in peace

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knowing that their life has been well lived and that the long struggle with the night, while not over, is no longer their burden to bear. Blessed are those however who live to see the final days of creation, for their struggle will end suddenly

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and without any pain. Very suddenly a darkness will fall over the world, but unlike night. This darkness will swallow up the world whole leaving little more than a ghost of creation behind to mark its passing. Yet even in this end there is

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hope. For the eternal village will escape the end of creation and even the consuming dark of creations end holds the hope of new creation where once the world had been. And thus the cycle will begin again; creation, correction, consumption, and

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back to creation repeating endlessly, over and over again for so long as the greater beings will it to be so.

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If you liked this story and would like a copy that you can copy/paste into your own Minecraft world or would like to read more original Minecraft themed stories like this one you can find them at: http://www.n3rdc0rn3r.blogspot.com

Saturday, July 20, 2013

The Old Republic - A Game worth Waiting for

I’m sure many of you have heard of the relatively new MMO from Bioware and EA called Star Wars the Old Republic. The game has been out for a little over a year now and I have longed to play it since day one. I made a fair attempt when it first came out running it on my then 4 year old laptop however even on lowest settings the graphics card just couldn’t handle the game’s level of detail. Determined to play anyway I started overclocking my laptop’s modest graphics card and managed to make the game playable, if extremely laggy. I made it to level 19 before I could take no more and decided to take a break from the game until such a time as I could put together a computer capable of running it. As those who read my last post now know, I finally completed that computer and naturally I wasted no time at all installing the game and beginning my adventure in a galaxy far, far away.

As it had been nearly a year since my last experience I decided to make a new character and come back to my old one later. I had initially regretted not going with my initial instinct and choosing Jedi Knight, so this time around I followed my gut. I’ve got to tell you I couldn’t be more pleased. It took a little while to get accustomed to the idea that my character has almost no ranged ability what-so-ever, but you quickly grow accustomed to that. It wasn’t long at all before I was hacking my way through hordes of enemies trying to save the people of the Star Wars galaxy from all manner of threats and growing more proficient as a character and a player through the whole thing.

The new computer is so much better in fact that I decided to run the game on highest settings which it is breezing through and I must say I’m very pleased with my experience thus far. I was always of the opinion that story was more important than graphics, but now that I’ve seen them at their best I do have to appreciate what they bring to the table.

The game itself is very well done of course. For me the intellectual property, story, and crafting system are what makes or breaks a game. World of Warcraft for instance has a great crafting system and a decent story, but having never played the Warcraft games I couldn’t get into the intellectual property and as such I got bored with it. Star Trek Online did a fantastic job with story (at least initially) and their space combat system was very well done. The crafting system however was appalling, not surprising considering that it was added after the fact and was completely superfluous (by the time you could craft something it wasn’t as good as what you already had) and the ground combat system was just as bad which really ruined it for me. The Old Republic however manages to avoid these pitfalls by focusing on what they do best. Naturally I love the IP; Star Wars is a great universe to play in no matter what kind of character you prefer to play. They give you the choice between playing for the Republic and the light side and the Sith Empire and the dark side, but that doesn’t mean you have to be all good or all bad. You can play the pragmatic hero if you’d like or the noble villain, whatever floats your boat is available. Moving on we have the story itself which in typical Bioware style is a branching story with multiple dialog options that will move it one way or another. Interestingly each story is custom tailored to the class and advanced class you’re playing which means that there are 24 fully developed stories that currently exist within the game and of course there’s no shortage of side quests for them either. Finally there’s the crafting system which I have to say is even better than the one in W.o.W. There are 6 different crafting skills and since you can only have one crafting skill per character that means to do it all you’ll need six different characters. However you can also choose gathering skills to collect the materials for your crafting skill and mission skills which help you to acquire the harder to find materials that let you make blue and purple items as well as occasionally grant you schematics for items you can’t otherwise learn to build. Naturally the crafting skills and their related gathering and mission skills are interrelated which generates the need to trade one craft for another thereby fostering a thriving virtual economy and a cooperative player experience.


The only downside to The Old Republic that I’ve come across so far is their subscription system. Presently the game is free to play, but as a free to play player you’ll end up being heavily restricted initially. You can always improve your lot by purchasing cartel coins to unlock extra features typically available only to subscribers or you could subscribe and get everything right away (including cartel coins to permanently unlock certain features in case you can’t remain a subscriber). Still if you really like the game, it’s not too much to ask that you support it in some way and I’m certainly happy to do my part here at the N3rd C0rn3r.

Saturday, July 13, 2013

New Computer

As you all may have guessed from the title, that glorious day in the life of a nerd has finally come and I find myself writing this on a brand new computer! This fact is made that much more satisfying because I didn’t order this computer from some manufacturer as a stock model, nor did I even customize an available computer, but rather I bought the parts and put this one together myself.

It’s been a dream of mine since my last year of high school (and I’ll not tell you how long ago that was, but suffice to say it’s been plenty long enough) to build my own custom computer and thanks to a rather large tax return and some left over money from cashing in my vacation at work I was finally able to achieve that dream. Now I’ll give you a tour of the new rig and what exactly I have in store for its future upgrades.

The Case
Apparently you can teach an old case new tricks
The most obvious feature is the case and unfortunately this is where I had to cheap out a bit. Thankfully I already had an excellent case that I had purchased for a previous computer that was large enough to accommodate the new system components for the time being. Naturally I intend to upgrade this later, but for now it will do nicely. The case sports front mounted USB 2.0 ports and front mounted audio inputs. It has two rear mounted fans as well as a side mounted fan (all 80 mm) on the window and has enough space behind the motherboard securing plate to tuck away cables to keep airflow patterns unobstructed. Naturally the case is made of aluminum to help dissipate ambient heat and it has space for 4 80mm fans for a front intake system, though given that I’m keeping the whole thing sealed save for the output fans and the front vents the negative pressure created makes these somewhat unnecessary.

The Motherboard
Knowing as I do that the motherboard is the backbone of a computer system I dropped the, at the time $300+ to get what I considered to be the best board offered with the greatest potential for forwards compatibility allowing me to upgrade, rather than replace the system to keep it competitive for several years at least. I went with the Asus ROG (Republic of Gamers) Crosshair V Formula board offering AMD chipsets, 3 PCI-E slots (for graphics cards), USB 3.0, Giga-bit Ethernet connection speeds, and most importantly an on board hardware raid controller. This board is not only incredibly fast and well built, but offers great options for expansion, upgrade, and of course overclocking that will more than pay for themselves over the lifetime of the rig.

The Processor
Knowing that when it comes to the processor there’s no real upgrade option, just overclocking or replacing I opted for something that was reasonably powerful, but not so expensive that it would prevent me from finishing the computer right away (other things did that, but we’ll look at that later). As such I went with the AMD FX 4170 which actually comes ready to be overclocked so the need to upgrade would be well in the future. You may have noticed that I have chosen AMD for this system instead of the more popular Intel solutions. That’s because AMD is better. Essentially the two companies accomplish the same thing using different processes with the main difference being that AMD’s method produces less heat than does Intel’s. Less heat means faster processing and thus I have been a fan of AMD since the K7 and I’ve never looked back. While it may not be the very best processor out of the box, 4.2 GHz is nothing to scoff at and the room for overclocking is there (not that it really needs it so far).

The Graphics Card(s)
Now we get to the best part. Keep in mind that I started building this computer about a year ago and at the time, one of the best graphics chipsets you could get was the AMD HD 7850 which I decided to get on an Asus board to maximize compatibility in my system, the theory being the fewer companies involved the less likely I was to encounter compatibility and driver issues that so often plague custom builds. So far that strategy has paid off quite nicely. The issue came with the first graphics card not working right out of the box. The screen displayed only intermittently and would otherwise just scroll up over and over, too fast and too blurry to accomplish anything with it. Unfortunately I couldn’t confirm that the issue was the graphics card until I could get another one to test the theory. One year and $200 later I finally managed it and low and behold it was in fact the graphics card, so now I have a working one and the old one will get sent back to Asus (as it’s under warranty) and I’ll get a second one to add to the system giving me for the first time in my life a dual graphics card computer and unparalleled performance. Initial tests are promising as Starmade now runs at close to 600 fps (where on the old laptop it was around 60) and I can run The Old Republic on highest settings without more than a minor hiccup in the graphics whereas the laptop needed to be heavily overclocked to barely run the game on lowest settings. The best part is that’s just one card.

The Memory
Wanting the best I went with Corsair as my memory company and currently have 16 GB installed. Later, when I have money to buy the second set of sticks for it I’ll upgrade this from the vengeance model to the high performance Dominator series for superior performance and overclocking potential.

Future Upgrades

Naturally I’d like to eventually add a third graphics card to the system, though I’ll likely hold off on that until the two I have start having trouble. As I mentioned already a memory upgrade is already planned as is a case upgrade. The current power supply is more than sufficient for all my power needs so It will remain for the time being, though given what I’m planning the new case will likely need room for two power supplies, just in case. Eventually the processor will need an upgrade, though better heat-sink solutions will come first allowing me to overclock the processor further. First up though is the solid state raid array using Corsair’s solid state hard drives and the on board raid controller to really truly maximize read/write performance all of which will be mirrored to a large external drive using more conventional recording technologies. Given some time and a good deal more money, you can expect to see some awesome upgrades to the new system in my N3rd C0rn3r.

Saturday, July 6, 2013

MC PvP 6: Rich

Hey there guys and gals. I’m sorry it’s taken so long to get a new article out to you. I just started a new job and wouldn’t you know it the day I get my first check is the same day my computer starts being uncooperative. As a result of both events I’m going to have to scale back my blogging just a bit to a single article each week, but this also means I’ll have a little more time to work on each one hopefully resulting in better and lengthier content with more to update you about, and boy do I have some updates for you today.

My farm is completely finished with the possible exception of wanting to add a chicken farm, but that’s a little ways out. After camping out a group of four chickens for nearly fifteen minutes I’ve determined that the chicken egg laying has been disabled on the server which means getting the feathered foul up into my base is going to be a little trickier than merely tossing some eggs at the wall. Now the reason I actually do need the chickens is for the feathers so I can make a couple book and quills every now and again to publish my Minecraft themed stories on the server, but I’ve got a stockpile for the moment that should hold me over until I can get the materials to build a temporary staircase and lure some chickens up it into my secure home.

Since the last update I’ve managed to completely finish the cactus farm which will now produce well over a full double chest of cactus over the course of 8 continuous hours of afk farming (essentially while I sleep) which for the moment usually earns me around 50k dollars by selling it in the shop at spawn. I’ve used this wealth to purchase 6 skeleton spawners, 2 zombie spawners, 2 diamond blocks, and a full set of diamond gear which I’m enchanting using the recently set up mob farm and enchanting areas of my base supplemented by the also recently set up potions brewery which has already produced a full double chest worth of potions to help tip the tide in PvP combat. I’ve also used a few of these (namely fire resistance potions) to help in the set-up of a hidden base somewhere deep in the Nether. I’m working on plans for a gold farm, but the limitations of the Nether are making the process a little slow. I did however manage to cover the whole thing with lava though making it virtually TNT proof as the lava-monster raid strategy is completely useless in the Nether. I may ultimately set up a zombie pigmen farm at my main base and use the Nether base as a secure chest storage location.

I’ve also managed to expand my tree farm to six spots instead of just four despite the fact that the spawner room now takes up a large portion of the free space that once existed in my base. Of course I’m also still producing carrots, watermelon, netherwart, and sugarcane for use in potion making and enchanting and I’ve set up a small brown mushroom farm to help make fermented spiders eye. So far my efforts to procure a cave spider spawner have been thwarted repeatedly, but I’ll continue trying regardless. Additionally since it looks like I’ll have to build a staircase to get chickens up into my base I’d might as well try and get some cows up there as well so I don’t need to keep buying leather at the shop and so I can eat some tasty steak instead of carrots.


Well that’s about it guys. I’ve got a new story in the works so hopefully I can get that out to all of you soon and I look forward to getting you guys up to date once more sometime next week. Until then continue to “pown” in your N3rd C0rn3r.

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

MC PvP 5: AFK Farming

Something that I’ve mentioned on a couple of different occasions, but have yet to really explain is afk farming. Now for most you’ll be familiar with the concept of afk or away from keyboard, but for some this may be a new concept and I thought it’d be appropriate to take some time and explain it as it’s likely going to play a role in your own pvp strategy.

A Semi-Complete Fully-Auto Cactus Farm
The first thing you need to know about afk farming is what it is. Now in Minecraft crops will only grow if the chunk they’re in is loaded. A chunk will only be loaded if a player is in range of it, so for those who build their bases closer to spawn you’ll likely have your farm running 24/7 regardless of whether or not you’re actually actively playing at the time. This can be quite handy for obvious reasons, but makes your base more vulnerable to raiding. If however you build your base further out the likelihood that another player will be in range often enough to keep your crops growing is limited and as such you’ll need to employ afk farming. This involves staying logged on even though you’re not actively playing. For example you could log on to the server and just leave your character to sit in range of your farm while you go to work, read a book, or enjoy a movie. When you come back your crops are all grown so you harvest, replant, and repeat eventually selling the crops at spawn to provide money for things you need to effectively pvp.

A more advanced system involves full automation which is often accomplished through use of redstone, but can also be done via other means. A fully automatic farm will allow you to sit tight for longer periods without needing to return to harvest and replant as these things are done for you. These types of farms are most often made using cactus, melons, pumpkins, and sugarcane, but can also include mushrooms and even chickens if you’re clever. Of course if you’re on a factions server, afk farming can be something your faction splits into shifts so no one person has to stay logged in all the time.

The obvious danger is that your character will be standing somewhere without you at the controls. This makes your character vulnerable to attack and it’s why farm security is one of the most important aspects of afk farming, though shockingly it’s one of the most overlooked. Often times it’s you’re extremely valuable resources like diamonds that get the best security, but I personally believe that your farms should be nearly as well protected in order to keep your character safe and to protect your source of income.

Finally it’s important to remember to check the game occasionally even with a fully automatic system as accidental loss of connection will occasionally occur and if left un-resolved for a long period of time could seriously cut into your profits. While afk farming you’ll also want to make certain that your inventory or pause window is open to make sure you’re not logged out for inactivity.


So there you have it, a crash course on afk farming. I hope this helps you set up your own farms and I look forward to seeing you server-side. Until next time, thanks for visiting my N3rd C0rn3r.

Monday, June 24, 2013

MC PvP 4: Nearly Complete

Well hello again everyone and welcome to the latest article in my Minecraft PvP series. As you likely remember from the last article I was well under way trying to get my new base completed. I did manage to set up the early farm infrastructure and I’d been using the money earned from that to purchase more cobblestone to finish my base out with. Today I’m happy to say that this portion of the base building is complete and I’m now completely incased in cobblestone covered entirely with water. Obviously it won’t keep out the most determined, but it will make getting in a very costly process with little reward.

Eventually cactus will line the lower section as well
This is of course only the first step to base completion. To help offset certain costs I’ve taken the four rows at the ends of each farm and used them for sugarcane, carrots, melon, and netherwart so I needn’t buy these things each time I need to make some potions. I’ve also planted 4 oak saplings inside the base with only enough room for them to grow one of the smaller versions of each tree and in such a way that they won’t interfere with the farm set-up. This is due more to a fluke than to good planning, but I’ll gladly take it. Now I need to buy considerably less for each project I do as wood and brewing materials are plentiful. If you’re wondering why I went with oak as opposed to birch which would naturally grow the shorter trees it’s simply because I wanted a readily available source of apples as well.

Next up on the “to do” list is the automation of the cactus farm using hoppers. So far I’ve got 2 rows completely automated, but there’s still a good deal of work to be done. The idea is that the water streams on the above level (which I’ve decided to leave to save a bit of money) will push the broken off bits of cactus down into the line of hoppers on the lower floor. This will attach to hoppers surrounding the sand blocks supporting the cacti on the lower level allowing a fully contained system that doesn’t require exposing the hoppers to the outside. Once the two main hopper lines are complete I’ll be able to afk farm much more efficiently and progress toward completion should speed up quite a bit.

Once complete I’ll have the money to get the resources to start raiding some nearby bases, though it seems as though there’s little construction happening anywhere near me.


Finally, if you read all the articles on my site, I’d first like to say thank you and you’ve probably noticed that I’ve started an Original Minecraft story series. These tend to be a bit longer so I’ll be writing a new one only once a week (typically on Sundays) and then I’ll make two in game copies which I’ll be giving away for free at spawn on Sunday evening. If you’d like to try and get a copy of one of the books, then I’ll see you at spawn once I’ve finished in my N3rd C0rn3r.

Sunday, June 23, 2013

Reckless Abandon

Below is my first ever (though definitely not my last) original Minecraft themed story, formatted so that you can copy/paste it into a book and quill in the game if you'd like to. If you do I'd ask only that you leave the referencing tag at the end so those that enjoy these stories can find more of them. Thanks to everyone for all your support so far and I hope you enjoy Reckless Abandon.



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It was a day just like any other. The square sun rose over the extreme hills in the distance bathing the land in light and burning away the monsters foolish enough to stand out in the open as it made its daily debut. Little about today seemed
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especially unusual. Steve was running low on iron and so it was time for another trip down into the mines to extract the relatively common, but immensely useful resource from its long entombment in the dirt and stone that seemed so prevalent down
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there. Steve needed the iron for a massive overhaul of the mining operation itself. He wanted to make it as automated as it could possibly be, but of course that meant a great deal of manual labor up front to get the materials needed to set up the system.
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"Those hoppers sure do use a lot of iron," Steve said to himself as he gathered up a few pick-axes and shovels for the long day ahead. He paused for a moment and stared at the armory considering a sword, bow, and some arrows, but after a moments
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consideration he decided against them. Because the automated system wasn't set up yet he'd have to carry all the gathered materials back himself and he decided he just couldn't spare the room in his pack for the extra gear. Little did he know that
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this one decision would end up making this day a potentially fatal one. Armed with picks and shovels and nothing else Steve made his way down into the mines dug out near his little home. The first couple levels had been completely dug out already so he
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headed for level three only 9 or so layers down from the surface, but far enough that natural light didn't ever touch the blocks at this level, at least not without help from Steve. Making his way down the ladder Steve could hear the soft drip of water
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leaking through shallow tunnel roofs and the occasional crackle of the flame at the top of the torches evenly spaced throughout the mine tunnels. He reached level three quickly and found his way to the next area ready to be mined, pulled out a fresh pick,
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and started digging. On and on he went, burrowing through dirt and rock stopping only to gather coal or iron encountered along the way or to switch out a broken tool. It must have been at least an hour into his work when the tunnel he'd been digging
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suddenly opened up on another, somewhat wider tunnel, one Steve hadn't dug. It was quite dark and led off to the left for quite a ways before it hit a wall of any sort, however it seemed to not go very far to the right leading Steve to believe that he'd
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hit the very end of a tunnel. Strangely there was a bit of iron just to the right. Steve had to wonder why anyone who made a tunnel like this would leave behind an iron vein. Wood braces held up the roof of the tunnel and cobwebs had affixed themselves to
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the corners formed by these braces. Sections of mine cart track were visible on the floor, though several sections were missing and though this portion of the tunnel was dark, Steve could see light from torches a ways down the tunnel to the left. Steve
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pulled a torch out of his pack and affixed it to the wall immediately in front of him, jamming the grip into a crack he found there. "If whoever dug out these tunnels left this iron, then they probably left even more further down," Steve said thinking
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outloud. One thing was for sure, his tunnel hadn't been giving him nearly as much iron as he'd been hoping for and exploring these pre-dug tunnels would be much easier than continuing to dig his own. With that thought Steve made up his mind to take a
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look around and see if he might not be able to improve his fortunes somewhat by mining what had been left behind. Having made his decision he pulled out his pick and made short work of the iron vein to the right and then set off down the left tunnel. As
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he went Steve continued to place torches making sure the path back to his own tunnel was clearly marked. The last thing he needed was to get lost down here. As Steve rounded the left corner at the end of the hall he saw another iron vein and made
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straight for it. Greedily he hacked away at the iron rejoicing in his lucky find of these tunnels. Steve quickly gathered the iron visible on the surface, but there was more beneath it and he needed only take a step in to reach it. Steve ducked in to the
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small opening in the wall realizing too late that the place he'd intended to put his foot was actually a hole to a vertical drop deeper into the tunnels! Steve tried to catch himself, but it was no use and he fell for a terrifying moment that seemed to
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extend to encompass several eternities until he landed with a sickening thud on a hard wood platform. Steve was reasonably sure he'd cracked a bone in his leg, but he was still able to stand on it with only minor discomfort. "Oh, well that's just great
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Steve!" he yelled at himself, feeling foolish for having made such a rookie mistake. As Steve picked himself up he took a look around at his new surroundings. He was on a wooden platform that crossed the gap over a huge underground ravine. Steve took one
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look back up the hole he'd fallen through and knew there wouldn't be any way to climb back up that way and so it seemed he'd have to find another way out. He placed a torch right below the hole to mark where he'd come from and started hobbling up a long
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wide tunnel that seemed to lead back under where he'd been. If he was lucky he'd be able to find a tunnel that went back up and connected with the system he'd been in right before he fell. If he could find those tunnels, he'd be able to find his way back
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from there. The tunnel seemed to go on forever and it wasn't too long before Steve placed his last torch. "Oh, no," he said out loud, "I don't have any torches left!" He finished, his voice taking on a hint of panic. If he wanted to get out of here, he'd
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have no choice but to continue through the dark of the tunnel ahead. Steve began to feel his way further down the dark tunnel being extra careful to make sure each step placed him firmly on solid ground before committing. After several tense minutes that
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seemed more like hours Steve found his way to the end of the tunnel which turned left and thankfully began to ascend. A wave of relief washed over Steve as he felt the path start going upward toward a now not so distant light source. Unfortuntely his
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relief was cut short by the sound he heard from behind him. There was an eerie hiss of a sort accompanied by the skittering of multiple legs over the cold stone surface of the tunnel. The sound instantly turned the wave of relief into an icy chill that
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ran down Steve's spine temporarily immobilizing him. If that sound was what he thought it was, he could be in very big trouble. He fought through the paralyzing fear and managed to look back over his shoulder to see a set of beady red eyes staring back at
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him from the tunnel ceiling. This is what he'd been afraid of. This was a cave spider; a small blue spider with a deadly poison bite that could end the already injured Steve if he played this wrong. Realizing how truly desperate his situation had become
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Steve felt the overwhelming urge to run for the light up ahead. Steve took off up the sloping tunnel praying there were no holes along the way. The spider leapt after him looking to poison him and live off of his corpse for several days at least. Steve
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Pressed on, his injured leg throbbing painfully as he sprinted down the tunnel. If he could just reach the light any other spiders he encountered wouldn't attack him, or so the stories had always said. Something about bright light made them lethargic
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and passive. The light wouldn't save him from this one though. The adrenaline from the chase would keep it focused enough to continue attacking him, even in the light. Steve pulled out his last pick as he ran. It was almost dead, but it's the closest
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thing he had to a weapon. "Oh, why did I leave the sword behind?" he asked himself full of regret about the ill-fated decision. There was no time to dwell on his mistake however. The light was just ahead and Steve skidded to a halt in its comforting glow
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as he turned to face the pursing spider. The cave spider leapt up aiming for Steve's head, but Steve with a desperate swing of his pick caught the spider in mid-air sending it flying back. Undeterred the spider made another leap, this time dodging the
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frantic flailing of Steve's pick and managed to sink his fangs into Steve's already injured leg causing it to explode with a rapidly spreading burning pain that felt like molten iron scorching a path through his veins. Steve gave the pick a final solid
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swing knocking the cave spider off him and flinging the head off the handle. The spider landed a few feet away clearly dead with the shattered remains of the pick sticking out of its abdomen. With the immediate threat having been dealt with Steve, using
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his good leg pushed himself up against the wall with the torch on it, where he sat cringing in pain from the spiders bite. He could feel the poison spreading, drawing ever closer to his vital organs where it would do some serious damage, potentially
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killing him if he didn't do something quickly to stop it. A quick look around confirmed that this was indeed the system of tunnels that led back to the one he'd been digging and as such it was already quite well lit. From this angle he could see a
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chest sitting flush with the wall across from him that he hadn't noticed before. He crawled over to it with his last ounce of strength just barely able to lift the lid as he felt his life slipping away from him. Inside was some iron, a pick, and...
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bread! "Oh, thank goodness!" Steve exclaimed grabbing the bread and greedily gobbling it down, hoping that it would give him the strength to overcome the effects of the poison before it finished him off. Steve ate his fill and waited, hoping against hope
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that this lucky break would somehow ultimately save his life. Minutes passed as he sat there feeling like death itself, but as suddenly as it had come on, Steve could feel the turning point in his bodies fight against the effects of the poison. The
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searing pain began to subside and Steve could actually feel his strength returning. After several more minutes of thankful rest Steve slowly tried to stand and found that even his injured leg felt better. He took a couple careful steps to make sure he
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was ready to travel once more and having been satisfied that he was feeling better he ate one more bit of bread leaving him one last piece and began a slow, but steady walk back up the tunnel and to his home. The ladder back to the surface was challenging
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to put it mildly, but he made it back to the surface where thankfully it was day time still, though the sun was making its way down toward the horizon. Steve made the short walk from the mine to his house crawling up the stairs and practically kissing the
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threshold of this safe haven. Closing the door behind him Steve went to the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of glowing liquid which he then drank, setting the bottle aside for later use, and then hopped into bed, ready to put the events of the day behind
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him. His sleep that night was so deep that he didn't even dream and the eight hours of night passed by in the mere blink of an eye. Steve awoke feeling one-hundred percent better and decided that he needed to create a reminder for himself, to never go out
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unprepared again, even if it meant making a few more trips back and forth. Steve gathered up some materials and the last remaining piece of bread from the abandoned mineshaft and created a frame, which he placed the bread into. He then took this and
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hung it on the wall above the door to the armory as a reminder of the previous day’s events. From then on any time Steve thought about going out without weapons to save room in his pack he would see that bread and remember that such a decision almost cost
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him his life. That was a mistake he was going to make sure he never, ever made again.
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The End
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If you liked this story and would like a copy that you can copy/paste into your own Minecraft world or would like to read more original Minecraft themed stories like this one you can find them at: http://www.n3rdc0rn3r.blogspot.com

Saturday, June 22, 2013

MC PvP 3: Finally Farming

Hello everyone and welcome back to my Minecraft PvP series. So when I last posted I had just begun construction on a new base after encountering some difficulties with the last one (namely that I was unable to grow anything) This thankfully proved not to be the case for the new base and I was able to set up some temporary farms to help me get some money to finish the construction. Well luckily they did just that and I was able to get enough cobblestone to start the lower level including a waterfall catch. Now as most of you are probably aware, one of the best ways to protect your base is to completely cover it in water to prevent the effects of TNT explosions. However if your base has yet to be sealed (like mine at the moment) this water coverage provides a means for people to get to your base assuming of course that it’s not on the ground. Since I’m still working on it, I didn’t want any unwelcome visitors just yet. I also managed to set up the basic structure for my cash crop the cactus. This is a pretty simple setup for now that is simply a row of sand 8 blocks long with 4 cactus set on it every other block and water set on either side to bring the broken off bits of cactus to me in order to expand the farm or sell for other materials. Because the server automatically removes entities every now and again I will eventually replace the water streams with hoppers, though that’s a bit down the line as iron is a bit expensive. Still it’s a necessary project and once I’ve got that going I can start making the things I need to do some epic PvPing.
The Cactus Farm (so far)

Since the cactus farm doesn’t actually take up the whole area I’ll also set up some other basic farms to provide food and brewing ingredients so I don’t have to buy them every time I’d like to make something. I’ll definitely include melon and netherwart. Be sure to let me know in the comments if you think there’s anything else I might need.


Now you may have wondered why I’m not using obsidian for this base and that’s an excellent point, it’d be far safer if I was. Well there are two great answers for that. First, obsidian is very expensive and the base is rather large so doing the whole thing up in obsidian to start with is just a crazy idea, it’d take way too long and issue 25 might see me finish my base, which I imagine would be pretty boring for you guys. Once I’ve got the farm going full tilt I’ll upgrade it, but for now cobble is fine. Second of course is that I have very little of value there are the moment. There’s some sand, some cobble, some cactus, and lots of water, things easily found anywhere on the map. Raiding the base would be a waste for anyone and so the best protection isn’t absolutely necessary just yet (though I’m sure it’ll get there eventually). Hopefully the next post will see the completion of my new base and the first stage of my cactus farm done here at the N3rd C0rn3r.

Friday, June 21, 2013

Game Dev Tycoon Review

If you’re not a fan of Greenheart Games, I imagine you soon will be when you play their new game “Game Dev Tycoon,” which casts you in the role of a video game developer back when the whole thing first started and takes you all the way up through the next generation of console gaming and beyond.

Graphics & Sound
Because the game is a simulation less effort was invested into the graphics and sound, though that’s not to say that they’re bad. As you might expect the graphics are somewhat more basic that other games might be, however they easily get their points across and it’s not challenging to identify your settings and the details that fill them. The sound is of good quality and the track, though repetitive is catchy and still not an irritant after several solid hours of gameplay, a feat not often accomplished by other similar style games.

Gameplay
My Splash Screen
The game starts you off as a brand new software developer working out of a garage and starting with a meager $70k to develop your first game. If there were any doubt about what to do first it’s quickly dispelled as “develop a new game” is you’re only starting option aside from just sitting there and watching your monthly costs eat away at your startup money. Even if you find a winning theme and genre combination right off the bat and balance your focus correctly, don’t expect reviews for your first game to be better than 6s. Better ratings come with time and experience and for now 6s are awesome.

As you continue other opportunities will open up for you. Research is your first option and at the start all that’s available is “research new topic” (which is great because it costs nothing except research points) and the well worth saving up for “create custom engine” which opens up the option for you to design your own game engine in order to utilize the new technologies you keep researching thereby improving your games.

Once you get your first hit game and make you’re first million dollars you’ll be presented with an option to move to a new office. I’ve found that accepting this offer immediately tends to result in bankruptcy and so I stayed in the garage till the next gen systems came out, researching the whole time and then made a new engine and moved into the new office. From there things just got better and better. Seven hours later I finished the game (but don’t worry, you can keep playing afterwards if you want to).

Object lesson

The best part about the game is that it’s designed to teach an object lesson, or at least the pirated version is. The two versions start very much the same way, however once you reach a certain point you start getting messages in the pirated version that you “lost x amount of money because of piracy” to the point where it becomes impossible to develop new innovative games and still keep from going bankrupt. While it may be slightly exaggerated, one can definitely see the point and I find myself glad to have spent the $8 for the game to avoid the piracy hassle in my N3rd C0rn3r.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

MC PvP 2: Relocating

Well it’s day two for yours truly on the MineFrenzy PvP server and unfortunately it got off to a bit of a rough start. After setting up my initial base and pouring time and resources into it I discovered a very unfortunate problem that means it’s going to be impossible to keep a base where I’d intended; crops will not grow there. As you may have guessed this means that I was attempting to set up a base in the Nether which seemed like a good idea until I ran into that particular problem. Now I’m not sure if I was just doing something very wrong or if Nether growth has been disabled to force farm building to be in the overworld, but after several hours of afk farming using multiple crops yielding no results I figured something was up. I went ahead and tested the same basic setup on a singleplayer world and what hadn’t happened in hours on the server took a few minutes there and thus I decided I’d have to tear down the base, unclaim the land and start fresh somewhere in the overworld. So the next several hours involved me burning through picks reclaiming most of the materials used to build the base and then heading back to spawn. 

To minimize any potential losses I dumped what I wouldn’t need for the journey to a new base location into my enderchest keeping with me only the necessities and the least valuable items that wouldn’t fit in the chest. I then made my mad dash out the back of spawn (again) and proceeded to walk, and walk, and walk gathering valuable resources as I went. When at last I arrived I began the long process of setting up my base once again, hoping once more that the secrecy of the location would help prevent any incursions for the time being (not that I’ve got anything valuable there at the moment). 

Since I didn’t have nearly enough resources to complete the base I set up a couple temporary farms on the roof (which is all I’ve got finished for now) to help bring in some more money to complete the project. This time the plants grew and by the end of the night I had myself a tidy sum to use the following day for further base building. Hopefully I can have the basic structure finished in just a few more days. Because of the expense of the materials I’m purchasing I did try to make a cobblestone generator, however it seems that this has been disabled which will be interesting for anyone attempting a lava monster based raid as the lava just pushes the water out of the way rather than making cobblestone from it. I’ll have to try and find some way to overcome this issue when I start raiding. At any rate, I’ve decided to go with a large cactus farm as 8 are sold for $100 and they’re really easy to make automatic meaning I can afk for hours without having to do a thing in my N3rd C0rn3r.

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

MC PvP 1: Getting Started

Hello everyone and welcome to my first ever Minecraft PvP blog series. In this series we’ll go through the PvP experience (and this is all new for me as well so we’ll be learning together) and see what all it has to offer. I’ll be playing on the new MineFrenzy server at mc.minefrenzy.com. This server is being hosted by HaydzSoulutions primarily for Youtubers to record on. However it is open to the public as well and I very much feel like the goals of the server are in line with making a blog series and as such this server is where I’ll be building, fighting, and growing my way to the top (hopefully).

Day 1
Spawn
First thing was first of course and I decided that I’d be playing without any donator advantages, though should you decide to play on the same server definitely consider donating to support the server (you get cool stuff for it too so it’s worth it). This decision means of course I’ll have to work twice as hard to get the resources I’ll need to survive and conquer, but I’m sure I’ll manage.

As I only started with a little cash and some basic tools and weapons (a stone sword, axe, pick, and shovel) I opted to vote for the server to get some extra coin. On the MineFrenzy website under voting are six different links that lead to places you can vote. For whatever reason the second to last in the list would not let me vote due to some sort of captcha issue, but we still got plenty of money for voting on the others and thus it was time to head out.

As I’ve never really PvP’d before and didn’t have the money to start hack and slashing right away, I snuck out the back entrance and went way, way, way out to set up a base, hoping secrecy would keep it safe until I had the resources to establish better defenses.

Sneaking Out of Spawn
Once there, which took a good deal of time, believe me. I set my home and teleported back to spawn to pick up some necessary resources which I then took back to my new base location to start building. One very important step in this process was making sure to claim the land. You can only do this if you’re in a faction so you’ll need to either join one or create your own. I, for security reasons opted to create my own, KING. I then claimed the land I wanted and began to build. The reason this step is so important is because if you don’t do this people who are not a part of your faction will be able to place and destroy blocks and access your chests without any problem making it easy to steal your stuff. Distance is a good way to keep your stuff safe, but claiming your land is even better.


At that point it was getting pretty late and I had to call it a night, but as you can imagine I’ve got some grand plans for the future of my new N3rd C0rn3r.

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Pandemic II Review

Pandemic is a web based flash game some of you may be familiar with already while others of you might not. The premise of the game is that there is a new disease of your own making that is making its debut on the world stage. As it infects and potentially kills more people you earn evolution points which you can spend to make the disease hardier, easier to transmit, more infectious, and more lethal. You can also remove traits that make it more noticeable so people are more easily exposed without knowing it.

Gameplay
You start off the experience by choosing your difficulty. There’s Relaxed which is kind of your easy mode. This mode tends to go faster and not all the traits for diseases are enabled so you’ll get a little less variety. The other option is Realistic which opens up all the traits, but tends to take longer.

Next you’ll choose a disease class; virus, bacteria, or parasite. Each class has features that make them more capable in some categories and less so in others. Viruses are very infectious but weak against environmental factors, bacteria are more drug resistant and less effected by environment but earns evolution points slower. Parasites are the slowest evolvers, but they tend to be much less noticeable than the other classes and thus tend to spread further, albeit more slowly. In addition each class has a different set of symptoms that can be added to it to help spread the disease or make it more lethal.

Once you’ve selected a disease class next up is naming your disease. This could be anything you want and if your score’s high enough will get posted on the leaderboards when you submit your score at the end.

When you’ve decided on a name and entered it click done and the game will take you into the world you’re about to try and destroy. The game will start up paused and you’ll get a tutorial pop-up letting you know that there’s basic information available about the different parts of the game if you’ve never played before. Honestly the tutorial section doesn’t tell you anything that you can’t get from just playing the game once or twice so if you read anything read the interface section so you know how to move around and do stuff and then start playing by clicking the “x” in the upper right corner of the tutorial pop-up box. This will clear the screen so you can see the world and un-pauses the game. To pause it again, click the pause button at the bottom of the screen just right of center. Next to it you’ll also see your speed controls allowing you to speed up or slow down the progression of time. Once you’ve gotten the hang of the game you’ll rarely take this off max speed.

Since you start off with 4 evolution points the first thing you’ll want to do is open the disease window by clicking the disease button on the bottom bar just left of center. This opens the information panel about your disease and presents you with some basic options. Divided into 4 categories; Traits, Transmission, Resistance, and Symptoms. Traits are inherent to your disease and can’t be changed so aside from acquiring a basic familiarity with these you won’t need to worry about this section. Transmission contains different methods for how the disease is spread and includes rodents, insects, water, and air. If you don’t have any of these the disease is transmitted strictly through human interaction. The next section contains resistances where you can make your disease more likely to survive and thrive in different environmental conditions as well as make it more resistant to potential drug treatments. Finally you have symptoms, which almost all make your disease more noticeable, but more often than not also make your disease more infectious and more lethal. At first you’ll only have the first tier of potential symptoms available which are the same for each disease class and include sneezing, coughing, fever, sweating, and vomiting. You can spend evolution points to unlock further symptoms with more impressive effects. You can also spend points to sell symptoms, which is good early on to help your disease go unnoticed for longer.

Once you’re done tweaking your disease you’ll have some more areas to check out.  The icon in the bottom bar in the middle is your evolution points pool and will increase as the number of infections increases. The button next to disease is labeled world and will provide you with overall statistics and a convenient list of regions that are clean, infected, or forsaken (completely killed off). That section won’t become real important until later in the game. Finally you have on the left side of the screen the breaking news column which will let you know what’s going on in the world and where your disease is spreading to (and how countries are reacting to it). Basically as you play you continue to improve your disease until you’ve killed off all those that you can.

Graphics & Sound
Honestly the game is not terribly demanding as far as graphics and sound go. It’s pretty simple in this department. Music consists of a single short track that just repeats and thankfully can be shut off through the menu. Graphics are just your basic contrasting colors and some icons to indicate what each region has and whether or not it’s currently operating, nothing too fancy, but very clear. You should be able to run this game on pretty much any computer.

Conclusion

I’ve been playing the game for several days now and I must admit I rather enjoy it. While it’s missing some things I really think it should have (like airborne diseases being carried across oceans by wind or storms) it’s a fun game and I feel confident in saying it’s easily worth a few hours of your time. I hope you enjoy your experience with Pandemic II in your N3rd C0rn3r.