Minecraft! (single player dwarf fortress)

Aeon221 · 2011-09-29T07:49:47.000Z

Fugitive:

1.9 prerelease 2 is out now, available here. I think Endermen are now supposed to have a more limited set of blocks that they’ll move around, and mainly just ‘natural’ ground stuff like dirt, sand, and gravel.

It should also include the new animal husbandry system, and the scoring system based on xp earned. Edit: Also, more music records, ender pearls are usable as teleport stones, bottles can be made out of glass blocks in the bucket shape, hardcore is available as a new game mode.

Animal-Husbandry.jpg375×523

Zylon · 2011-09-29T07:50:42.000Z

Anyone getting glitchy rendering when in fullscreen (F11) mode on a widescreen monitor? Runs fine if I just maximize the window, but in fullscreen mode, when underground, I’ll often see right through to the sky when turning quickly.

sharaleo · 2011-09-29T08:02:38.000Z

Hey Zylon, can’t help you with your issue, but thanks for letting me know there is a fullscreen mode, I had no idea!

GuildBoss · 2011-09-29T11:56:55.000Z

1.9 PR2 introduces Hardcore mode for the…hardcore. I cannot wait to start up a new video series!

More randomness, but don’t want to spoil too much:

Enderman offer a bit more challenge in battle
Ender Pearls now have a use
Mobs breed
Spiders have a new drop
Potions are coming

Eric_Majkut · 2011-09-29T12:09:53.000Z

Notch (perhaps jokingly?) posted a screenshot on his Twitter showing Ultra Hardcore mode. Instead of your world being deleted when you die, you instead lose the premium status of your Minecraft account. That means you get to buy the game all over again! While I doubt he’ll actually include it, it WOULD be funny to see the situations that arose from it.

Pogo · 2011-09-29T12:15:00.000Z

HumanTon:

Very cool. The actual terrain generator is amazing, but they need to work on the spawn point placement. You can start on a treeless desert island in the middle of the ocean - or you can start in the middle of a forest with an exposed vein of coal two steps away. They should make sure the spawn area has the minimum needed resources, Civ-style, or else throw out the spawn point. Otherwise you just waste time exiting and re-creating the world.

Err, what? Why would you restart a world? You never have to walk far to find either a tree or a hole in the ground that will quickly lead to harvesting stone and coal.

Theodore_Rex_DX · 2011-09-29T12:18:22.000Z

Pogo:

Err, what? Why would you restart a world? You never have to walk far to find either a tree or a hole in the ground that will quickly lead to harvesting stone and coal.

With the new terrain generator, it’s very possible to find yourself in a weird location with no trees closeby at all. Like on a mound of lifelss sand surrounded by miles of ocean. It’s rare but it happens.

Pogo · 2011-09-29T12:29:50.000Z

Theodore Rex DX:

With the new terrain generator, it’s very possible to find yourself in a weird location with no trees closeby at all. Like on a mound of lifelss sand surrounded by miles of ocean. It’s rare but it happens.

Well, yeah, definitely restart a world if that happens or if it just doesn’t appeal to you right away. I just don’t base my decision to keep the world on whether or not I can readily get coal, especially with the charcoal addition.

Creole_Ned · 2011-09-29T15:01:29.000Z

Can a 1.9 PR1 map take advantage of all the changes in PR2 or is a new seed/map needed?

chequers · 2011-09-29T16:56:48.000Z

Only new areas would get the new terrain.

benloran · 2011-09-29T19:50:16.000Z

Pogo:

Holy hell that is an amazing seed.

Although those coordinates… is that southeast? If the game’s sun is north, that’s positive X and Z values… more like East NorthEast

Bye bye island world.

Nevermind, it’s kinda of bugging out for me, not loading whole loads of terrain.

That sucks that it’s bugging out… but to answer your question, I think it was just south of where I spawned. I was under the impression that spawn points aren’t part of the seed though, so it might be a different direction for you.

Pogo · 2011-09-29T19:53:06.000Z

I think I found the general area but I’m not finding that awesome hole in that screenshot. Gotta run around some more.

SlainteMhath · 2011-09-30T16:58:12.000Z

I know there is a ton of love for this game, but I’m brand new to the MC experience and so far I’m regretting the $22 purchase. My son wanted to buy the game after playing around with the free version, and I caved since it looked like he was having a lot of fun with the free version but couldn’t save anything (frustrating).

First of all, $22 for a beta? OK, I get that it’s more “work in progress” than true beta, but sheesh. Secondly, I had to give them a cell phone number for text message verification of my credit card. This screams “hinky” in the worst way. I’ve never had to verify like that before with anything, and it makes me very nervous that some Sweedish server (or wherever the Minecraft guy is from) now has not only my CC info but a cell number for me as well. Ugh.

Finally, having gotten past all that, I got the game downloaded and installed. My son was having a blast with it until it started giving him Out Of Memory errors every few minutes of play. A sweep of the internets led to a download of the Java .JAR to run instead of the Windows executable. Hopefully that fixes the memory glitch, but I’m less than thrilled at having spent $22 and potentially opening myself up to credit card and cell phone abuse only to have to do technical support to even play the game.

SpoofyChop · 2011-09-30T17:02:14.000Z

I think some of your criticisms are quite valid.

I understand why Notch didn’t want to make this a Steam game but I’m also kind of disappointed. It would make the payment hassles easier.

As for the tech issues, there’s definitely some serious bugs in the code. I actually upgraded from 3gig to 6gig primarily to see if it would help MC.

So that’s another $50 down the mineshaft :D

Marcin · 2011-09-30T17:09:21.000Z

I haven’t had any out of memory bugs.

“potentially opening yourself up to CC abuse” - you mean they should’ve gone the corporate security way like XBoxLive or PSN? Oh wait …

The phone # I can’t help you with. I never had that happen for any number of dodgy e-retailers including ozon.ru, BMT Micro, whatever I bought Minecraft from, Impulse or Steam. I suspect it’s your own card’s security, maybe that Secured By Visa thing?

Fugitive · 2011-09-30T17:10:33.000Z

Slainte Mhath:

Secondly, I had to give them a cell phone number for text message verification of my credit card. This screams “hinky” in the worst way. I’ve never had to verify like that before with anything, and it makes me very nervous that some Sweedish server (or wherever the Minecraft guy is from) now has not only my CC info but a cell number for me as well. Ugh.

Hmmm, I never had to do that. Maybe it depends on the card provider you selected, and it’s their policy? Also, they don’t do a good job of showing it since they bury it in an iframe instead of its own page, but the payment is processed by a separate site, MoneyBookers, so it should be secure.

For the memory problem, the easiest fix is to turn the render distance down to Normal.

Pogo · 2011-09-30T17:21:16.000Z

Slainte Mhath:

I know there is a ton of love for this game, but I’m brand new to the MC experience and so far I’m regretting the $22 purchase. My son wanted to buy the game after playing around with the free version, and I caved since it looked like he was having a lot of fun with the free version but couldn’t save anything (frustrating).

First of all, $22 for a beta? OK, I get that it’s more “work in progress” than true beta, but sheesh. Secondly, I had to give them a cell phone number for text message verification of my credit card. This screams “hinky” in the worst way. I’ve never had to verify like that before with anything, and it makes me very nervous that some Sweedish server (or wherever the Minecraft guy is from) now has not only my CC info but a cell number for me as well. Ugh.

Finally, having gotten past all that, I got the game downloaded and installed. My son was having a blast with it until it started giving him Out Of Memory errors every few minutes of play. A sweep of the internets led to a download of the Java .JAR to run instead of the Windows executable. Hopefully that fixes the memory glitch, but I’m less than thrilled at having spent $22 and potentially opening myself up to credit card and cell phone abuse only to have to do technical support to even play the game.

I understand your frustrations, but you knew it was in beta before pulling the trigger.

Give it some time, and I imagine when your son shows you some project he was working on, it’ll all be worth it.

Bluto · 2011-09-30T17:33:05.000Z

Oh god, Swedes are going to be calling you in the middle of the night.

RobotPants · 2011-09-30T18:21:02.000Z

Do you have an issue with using Paypal?

SlainteMhath · 2011-09-30T18:25:13.000Z

Bluto:

Oh god, Swedes are going to be calling you in the middle of the night.

Yes, haha, funny. Sorry if I seem a bit paranoid, but I’ve never had to verify a credit card (it was a VISA) by entering a phone number then using a code the merchant texted me before. That seems weird, and with all the hacking going on (PSN, several big merchants, maybe Xbox Live) it makes me a little nervous. I initiated the purchase directly from the main Minecraft webpage, figuring that would be the most secure and direct place to purchase from. I didn’t realize it was available on Steam or I would have purchased there.

We were still having the memory issue, so I took the advice above and reduced the view distance to Normal. Thanks for the tip.

Despite the technical issues my son is enjoying the game, and I will admit it looks like a lot of fun uncovering all the resources and making stuff out of them. He’s already got a nice house and a bunch of stuff created in only a couple hours of playing around, so I imagine by the end of the weekend he’ll have some really cool stuff to show me.