Features// Minecraft

Posted 28 Oct 2010 17:47 by
It wasn't until my second trip into the server that I realised what I dickhead I had been. Rule one of Minecraft: “Don't fuck with other people's shit”. It was a rule I didn't understand until I had finished my first full project: an underground nightclub close to the main town centre called 'Chasers'.

It started as a simple idea sent to Mat Murray by email. “We should totally make a nightclub”. Shortly after that we were busy discussing ideas and planning structures. That night I naively logged onto the server, thinking I'd only be on for an hour or so. Five hours later I was finishing off the feature glass wall overlooking the sea, in front of the main dancefloor.

The thing that hooks you with Minecraft is the timing. In order to make good progress on whatever you're working on make sure to schedule about 30 minutes. This means that progression has weight to it; it may time and effort to achieve your goals but they never seem out of reach.

So you keep playing. With the next landmark only 30 minutes away, you think to yourself that you'll just do one more bit and then log off. However, with a lot of the 'work' in Minecraft requiring little thought, your mind wonders onto what needs to be done next, and before you know it time has passed as though it never existed and all you have to show for it is a bitching nightclub in a fictional world.

A Fictional World?
I never thought of it like that. I never saw Minecraft for what it was. A game. When Chasers was finished, it was in a world that I had moulded visited by many people, and it was being discussed within the server's community.

Some games you'll pick up, play and work on but when it's switched off, it's all gone for no one to see. Minecraft is a living, breathing world that exists even if you are no longer there, and that is what makes all your work feel worthwhile What you have created exists. Chasers was there to be seen by anyone who happened to stumble across it.

There is of course a downside to a fully creative environment offered in a local community's server: 'Griefing'. With the ability to create and build comes the ability to destroy and ruin. You might be able to construct a lovely home for yourself, but everyone on the server has the ability to smash the shit out of it. Surely within local communities this wouldn't be a problem, would it?

SPOnG contributor (and FFXIV eviscerator), “CampfireBurning”, logged on one evening as he had done for the past few weeks to work on his huge cave some more. The effort he put into it was clear to see. Flowing waterfalls, decaying ceilings and a huge mass of open space, all encased underground. When I first saw it, my breath was slightly taken away. It looked wonderful in spite of the average graphics, and it was clear how much effort he had put into it.

But then things went awry...

“I was sort of expecting it to happen”, Campfire explained as he began trying to make sense of it all, “Someone kept messing with Moosegrinder's place and he's a good lad, people like him. The server didn't have too many people at the time, but people's stuff kept getting flooded with water or lava, or having their windows smashed or whatever.” I sensed more than a hint of anger behind his words.

“Every morning the first players to log on would find a load of holes in the cathedral floor.”

(Ah... well... erm, yes. I suppose I was to blame for at least one of those holes.)

“The cave system was flooded out by whoever was messing with me. I mean, I'd flooded the far end, but it wasn't so bad, and it was down deep. Someone must have used a bucket to transport a water source from there, and flooded the top of the the cave system.”

If that wasn't enough, outside the entrance to the cave there was a sign left by the perpetrator

“The sign simply said 'Campfire is a massive fanny.'”
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Comments

deleted 28 Oct 2010 21:43
1/2
I would really love to play this game, but I know its something that would rule my life cost me my family and job, also why I don't play any other MMO my personality is far too addictive for this stuff and reading this stuff here makes me want to play it even more....
jonathan 2 Dec 2010 00:30
2/2
yes you are right i have lost my family and job due to games like this it is not the game its self its my obsesion with games i cant help my self gaming is now my life :(
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