Minecraft

[Reverend]

Robert Maxwell wrote:

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Yeah, I've seen that trick, I just need to try it out sometime. It looks pretty cool!

It's bloody dangerous mind. It's so easy to misjudge and incinerate yourself and fall off the tower (sinking into the swamp optional.) Just make sure you're within a reasonable distance of your spawn point and am not carrying anything too valuable other than the buckets!

I've recently hot upon 2 HUGE cave systems (from which I've already harvested a whopping 150+ iron!) and am starting to have real trouble not getting lost. Anyone know of a reliable way of navigating these things? I've thought about using trails of redstone dust, but it seems a bit labour intensive and won't help much with irregular vertical spaces. I got turned around twice and it took me near to an hour to find my way back out again.

[Iasius]

Reverend wrote:

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Anyone know of a reliable way of navigating these things? I've thought about using trails of redstone dust, but it seems a bit labour intensive and won't help much with irregular vertical spaces. I got turned around twice and it took me near to an hour to find my way back out again.

When I don't know how to get back through the tunnels, I usually just dig upwards until I get to the surface

I sometimes use signs to indicate which direction I went when there was a split in the tunnel. I've also started to wall off sections that I don't yet want to explore. I leave a thin opening so I can see it's not a mob spawner later on.

[Canadave]

Well, I officially explored (and then got lost in) my first cave last night. Quite the adventure.

I've also been slowly building this (some dramatic night shots taken on peaceful):







It's not terribly grandiose compared to what other people have made, but I'm rather proud of it.

[Reverend]

Iasius wrote:

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When I don't know how to get back through the tunnels, I usually just dig upwards until I get to the surface

I sometimes use signs to indicate which direction I went when there was a split in the tunnel. I've also started to wall off sections that I don't yet want to explore. I leave a thin opening so I can see it's not a mob spawner later on.

^In that instance, digging up wouldn't have been feasible. For one thing I'd been doing a lot of mining and was down to just half a stone pick and it wouldn't have lasted all the way up. The cave system was down deep, I had broken into it while digging my subway tunnels, which were only 20 or so blocks above the bedrock, plus I'm pretty sure I was under a lake.
I do make a habit of walling off tunnels, but usually only after I've mined it out. Perhaps I should to both and mark it somehow to distinguish between a dead end and an unexplored passage. Either way, vertical areas are still always a tricky prospect. I think I get into the most trouble while rushing around, dropping torches in all the dark areas so I don't get mobs spawning behind me. I once got ambushed but FIVE creepers, two zombies, a skeleton AND a spider. No exaggeration, there were loads of the buggers and it cost me the five diamonds and 20 iron I was carrying since I couldn't find my way back from the spawn in time. Been paranoid about lighting my way ever since.

[JarodRussell]

Robert Maxwell wrote:

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The laughably poor graphics kind of grow on you after a while. It is really a lot of fun once you get accustomed to it, but it depends on whether you like very self-directed games with no set goals.

Oh I know such a self-directed game with much better graphics than that.

[Iasius]

Reverend wrote:

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^In that instance, digging up wouldn't have been feasible. For one thing I'd been doing a lot of mining and was down to just half a stone pick and it wouldn't have lasted all the way up. The cave system was down deep, I had broken into it while digging my subway tunnels, which were only 20 or so blocks above the bedrock, plus I'm pretty sure I was under a lake.

I make it a point nowadays to always carry a crafting box and some wood with me when mining. That way I can always make more tools should I need them.

I do make a habit of walling off tunnels, but usually only after I've mined it out. Perhaps I should to both and mark it somehow to distinguish between a dead end and an unexplored passage. Either way, vertical areas are still always a tricky prospect. I think I get into the most trouble while rushing around, dropping torches in all the dark areas so I don't get mobs spawning behind me. I once got ambushed but FIVE creepers, two zombies, a skeleton AND a spider. No exaggeration, there were loads of the buggers and it cost me the five diamonds and 20 iron I was carrying since I couldn't find my way back from the spawn in time. Been paranoid about lighting my way ever since.

I've had similar experiences. In one cave in particular I died a couple times because it was so large and there were so many skeletons there.
In the end I dug my way around to find a better entrance that didn't lead directly into the open area and I could move forward cautiously from there.

But it's not like I don't die or get lost anymore, it's just gotten rarer.

[Robert Maxwell]

JarodRussell wrote:

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Oh I know such a self-directed game with much better graphics than that.

Well, don't keep us in suspense...

[TheGodBen]

Reverend wrote:

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I once got ambushed but FIVE creepers, two zombies, a skeleton AND a spider. No exaggeration, there were loads of the buggers and it cost me the five diamonds and 20 iron I was carrying since I couldn't find my way back from the spawn in time. Been paranoid about lighting my way ever since.

Were you near your spawn at the time? Because there's an anomaly with the monster spawning mechanic where they're more likely to spawn on chunk 0,0 which is the chunk that you spawn on. I had a similar experience when I was exploring a cave but was continually ambushed and was unable to light it up before a new monster would attack. When I checked later on, that section was in chunk 0,0.

JarodRussell wrote:

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Oh I know such a self-directed game with much better graphics than that.

Don't let the graphics fool you, this game isn't a basic 8-bit game, it is resource intensive. It frequently uses between 1-1.5GB of RAM when running, and it frequently suffers framerate issues when exploring new chunks. Making the graphics look better would just make an already resource hungry game even worse and it would have even greater difficulty running on older PCs. Presumably, it will be optimised in beta so as not to be quite as resource-hungry as it is now, but by that time changing the graphics would be a mistake as they have come to be part of its charm. A more detailed creeper skin wouldn't be able to express the same sense of threatening sadness that the current skin does.

Iasius wrote:

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I make it a point nowadays to always carry a crafting box and some wood with me when mining. That way I can always make more tools should I need them.

Wherever I go, I always bring a crafting box, 64 sticks, 64 planks, and at least 32 logs. That's probably overkill, but it makes me feel safe.

[Robert Maxwell]

TheGodBen wrote:

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Don't let the graphics fool you, this game isn't a basic 8-bit game, it is resource intensive. It frequently uses between 1-1.5GB of RAM when running, and it frequently suffers framerate issues when exploring new chunks. Making the graphics look better would just make an already resource hungry game even worse and it would have even greater difficulty running on older PCs. Presumably, it will be optimised in beta so as not to be quite as resource-hungry as it is now, but by that time changing the graphics would be a mistake as they have come to be part of its charm. A more detailed creeper skin wouldn't be able to express the same sense of threatening sadness that the current skin does.

Very true. Notch has also said that, even though they've hired an artist, the game's graphics will not become higher res or anything. It makes my Pentium 4 desktop chug already, even with the graphics turned down. It's really not hard to see why considering it's pushing a lot of polygons and has a completely deformable environment. I've noticed if you change the flow of any water it really nails your CPU--the water calculations seem to be pretty intensive. The light calculations are also known to cause some issues which are being worked on.

I'm sure there's some performance enhancement that could be achieved but I imagine the "easy" stuff (frustum culling, backface culling, etc.) has already been done. What's hard is optimizing loading/rendering when you can completely deform the landscape and immediately expose blocks that weren't visible before (think Creepers, TNT.)

For me, it seems like the biggest resource hogs are water and having a lot of chunks active at once. If you wander a great distance in a single session I believe all the chunks you passed through remain active and in memory for the duration of that session. This is pretty easy to optimize for single-player (purge all chunks from memory except the one the player is in and all adjacent chunks) but would be really tough for multiplayer. And I think that's the issue: development is currently focused on completing multiplayer so the game can go to beta. Performance enhancements that would only benefit single-player seem to be waiting for beta.

[Canadave]

Robert Maxwell wrote:

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Very true. Notch has also said that, even though they've hired an artist, the game's graphics will not become higher res or anything. It makes my Pentium 4 desktop chug already, even with the graphics turned down. It's really not hard to see why considering it's pushing a lot of polygons and has a completely deformable environment. I've noticed if you change the flow of any water it really nails your CPU--the water calculations seem to be pretty intensive. The light calculations are also known to cause some issues which are being worked on.

Yeah, my home machine is pretty old, so I have to keep the draw distance on short, or else it really chugs at times. It can be kind of annoying since I can't see the sun too well, but the alternative is mistiming jumps on normal, which can be deadly if you're inching down a mineshaft.

I also litter my path underground with copious amounts of torches. In fact, I even like to put a door at cave entrances, just to prevent that slight chance of a creeper wandering in behind me...

[Robert Maxwell]

Canadave wrote:

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Yeah, my home machine is pretty old, so I have to keep the draw distance on short, or else it really chugs at times. It can be kind of annoying since I can't see the sun too well, but the alternative is mistiming jumps on normal, which can be deadly if you're inching down a mineshaft.

I also litter my path underground with copious amounts of torches. In fact, I even like to put a door at cave entrances, just to prevent that slight chance of a creeper wandering in behind me...

I put torches all over my caves, too. Whenever I feel like I'm lost deep inside a cave system, I dig my way to the surface and set up a lighted entrance so I can find it again in the future. I need to make signs so I can label routes within the mines, though. Too easy to get lost as it is.

[Canadave]

^ Yeah, signs are a damn good idea. I wasn't carrying enough wood on my last subterranean expedition to make good use of them, but I definitely will next time.

[What's his face]

froot wrote:

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Awesome base, but beware when buliding with wood - if you put fire or lava (torches are okay) anywhere near that stuff, you could be out a roof! The heat from fire and lava can set flammable blocks on fire, even from a bit of a distance.

No kidding

I was trying to clear a tree out of the way so I could build a house. I decided to set it on fire instead of taking it apart, cube by cube.

Anyways, this happened:

Whoops!

[Sephiroth]

i've only played the freebie version *with a laptop keyboard and control pad, I think i'm gonna buy a USB mouse* and the way I tend to play is to strip mine and then build up a fancy base

[JarodRussell]

TheGodBen wrote:

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Don't let the graphics fool you, this game isn't a basic 8-bit game, it is resource intensive. It frequently uses between 1-1.5GB of RAM when running, and it frequently suffers framerate issues when exploring new chunks. Making the graphics look better would just make an already resource hungry game even worse and it would have even greater difficulty running on older PCs. Presumably, it will be optimised in beta so as not to be quite as resource-hungry as it is now, but by that time changing the graphics would be a mistake as they have come to be part of its charm. A more detailed creeper skin wouldn't be able to express the same sense of threatening sadness that the current skin does.

Wait, very low graphics AND ressource intensive? LOL.