Hey guys, it's Megakaby again, and today I've got a few special updates! But first, so sorry about the lack of updates, I haven't been keeping up with it that well lately. :\
Anyway, first, I'm starting a new series on my youtube channel called "Joslux Plays..." I've been reading Homestuck, and I'm helping a friend write a story, so that name is actually my character in her story. But anyway, that's beside the point. Minecraft 1.4.6 is out, and it's time for an update!
1.4.6 didn't really add too much, just enchanted/enchantable books and a new chest design for Christmas, but I figured I might mention that, because this post is sort of mainly about my latest project on Minecraft, and that is my PvP arena. PvP stands for "Player vs. Player," and I've sort of put my own little twist on it. Normally a PvP arena would start you off with a certain amount of supplies, with no real way to upgrade it, maybe just the ability to get more things. However, I've added custom potions that give insane effects, and there are enchantment tables throughout the map. Not only that, but there's a decent sized maze of wonders that gives you special potions and items, the arena has multiple floors, and just a whole bunch more. And the best part is, there's no life limit. When you die, it sends you to a room where you flip a switch and it sends you back to the arena, telling everyone that you're back in.I've also been updating it quite a bit, so if you have Minecraft for the computer there will be a download link for it later, probably once I finish another update for it.
Well, that's about it for this post. The enchanted books look really cool, and have an amazing use. You should check them out! Also, I do actually have another blog that I'll be updating pretty soon, I'd suggest looking at that as well.
Alright, that's it. I leave you all with a gift, a Merry Christmas, and a Happy "Doomsday!"
Until next year! -Megakaby
This picture was posted to the Minecraft Wiki, showing off the new chest textures for Christmas. You can find the picture's page right here.
Hey guys, so sorry about the late post, I was traveling a lot during Thanksgiving break. Speaking of which, I hope yours was pretty good too! Anyway onto this fortnight's post.
As you can tell by the title, this Material Reviews is about stone. Why stone? Because it's what you'll be using through most of the game, since iron sometimes takes a while to find, and you'll be needing iron for other things before normal tools.
But yea, since it's a long list of things I figured I'd make the post short, some it up, then show you the video! So anyway, with around 185 durability, the ability to mine iron and lapis lazuli, and a speed substantially greater than that of wood tools, cobblestone tools will be used for a lot of the game. It can be used for a good looking house and many other things which are in the video. It's also pretty blast resistant, and can survive a ghast's fireballs! It's also the most common material in Minecraft and can even be generated with lava and water! So what are you waiting for? Go ahead and try it out!
Anyway, the video covers a lot more, so why not watch that?
Anyway, the title is indeed a quote from an amazing Minecraft animated series going on called "The Noob Adventures." Not quite sure if it's entirely school appropriate, but hey, you could watch it at home!
There's that, but what kind of Minecraft informative blog post would this be without a Minecraft Wiki link? This one will send you to the page for cobblestone, showing the recipes that use it!
Anyway, (I use that a lot don't I?) this has been Megakaby, and until the next post, have a great fortnight!
Hey guys, today we've got something pretty neat about Minecraft: mobs. This post is quite long, I'm just warning you, so if you want to skip down to the video, it's fine. Also, some item names are capitalized, this doesn't mean they're too important, I think it just looks proper. The links will be at the bottom this time, as I'm providing a link to every mob's page on the Wiki, as well as a friend's blog for zombies. It's pretty good, you should check it out.
What are they? Well, mob is short for mobile, so a mob is something that can be killed that isn't another player, such as animals or the night mobs.
Animals got a change about a year ago: they very rarely re-spawn in the world, making breeding them useful. Animals would be cows, sheep, chickens, and pigs, all of which (except the sheep) drop food. However, cows also drop leather, which is used for books and armor, and chickens drop feathers, used for arrows and making writable books!
The night mobs, which won't spawn if you set it to Peaceful difficulty, are mobs that spawn in dark areas such as caves or on the surface at night, and they will attack the player. These mobs are the zombie, which runs up to you and attacks, the skeleton, a ranged mob that uses a bow and arrow, the spiders, one being normal giant black spiders that run quite fast when they're near and they climb, as well as the cave spiders, a special type of spider that only spawns in abandoned mineshafts (I'll get to those later) and poisons the player, and then there are creepers.
Creepers are special. They're basically the image of Minecraft. They make no sound except they're footsteps and when they get hurt, and they look sad. Not because people don't like them or they try to kill creepers, but because these... things will run up to you and basically commit suicide, blowing themselves up in order to kill you. If you haven't guessed from this, they get their name from the fact that they'll creep up to people and explode.
Then there's wolves and ocelots, both tamable, the wolves will attack things and the ocelots mostly sit on your things, but they also scare creepers.
Wow, there's a lot of mobs to cover, because we still have Endermen and the Nether mobs, as well as one special mob. Endermen are 3 blocks tall, have twice as much health as the player, teleport, and won't attack unless you look at them or attack them. They also take damage from being in water, and they pick up blocks. They seem to be from a different world, so perhaps they're just curious about ours...?
And now, the Nether. Zombie Pigmen, (yes, Pigmen) also called Pig-zombies, are the most common mob in the Nether. These can be a real pain in the neck to kill, because once you attack one, you'll hear EVERY Pigman from within around a 20 block radius, and ALL OF THEM will try to kill you, making these quite terrifying to a new player. They hold golden swords, which don't do any extra damage but it does explain why they drop gold nuggets when they die, and they won't attack unless provoked.
Ghasts... The giant white jellyfish-looking flying things that shoot fireballs. These things suck. They really do. You can hear they're sad cries throughout the Nether, even when they're 100 meters (blocks) away, and they shoot fireballs from 16 meters away as they try to gain altitude. However, they can also see the player from 100 meters away, and will begin to move towards them from there. On the Minecraft Wiki, it does state that if you can hear a mob, it's likely that it's already after you. This still reigns true with the Ghast. However, it's worth it to kill them, as one of their drops, a Ghast Tear is required to make a potion of regeneration.
As I said, this post is long, we still have 4 more mobs to cover. The Blaze is my absolute LEAST favorite mob. I hate them, despise them. These guys are worse than the Ghasts! They only spawn in Nether Fortresses, (once again, later post) either rarely on the bricks it's made of, or spawned from the monster spawners placed within. Sadly they are required in order to begin brewing potions, as a Blaze Rod is part of the recipe for a brewing stand. As you may have guessed by their name, they shoot fireballs, and are the second official flying mob in the game. Sure, they're hurt by water and snowballs (because they're basically made of fire), but they shoot fire, making it very hard to kill. Assuming you don't die from being set on fire, though, it's very rewarding. Blaze Rods can be crafted into Blaze Powder, used for a potion of strength, or, when combined with a slime ball to make Magma Cream, makes a potion of Fire Resistance.
Alright, Magma Cubes and Slimes. I get to cover these at the same time because they're basically the same. Slimes, like Magma Cubes, are a special type of mob. Slimes will only spawn underground in certain areas of the world at layer 16 or below. (I'll explain that later, but for right now, that's where diamonds are found.) Slimes and Magma Cubes have 4 sizes, tiny, small, big, and huge. Huge slimes, however, can't be found naturally within the world, and need to be spawned using special programs. Big slimes split into 2-4 small slimes, which split into 2-4 tiny slimes, which give 0-2 slime balls. Magma Cubes are the same way, only they spawn anywhere in the Nether (although I've only ever seen them at Nether Fortresses) and any of the sizes can drop Magma Cream.
Wow... Maybe I should've thought more about this earlier... We actually have just a few more left, I promise.
Silverfish! No, not the flying bugs or the actual fish, but the smallest, most bothersome mob in Minecraft (still not as bad as a Blaze). They spawn in blocks inside Strongholds (another thing to be explained later) and usually aren't to much of a problem. Just don't go mining in a Stronghold, and if you do, make sure to punch the blocks with your fist first. Blocks that Silverfish are in can be easily broken with your fist, and once attacked, will call its friends. Because they have this property, Silverfish can overcome a player within a few seconds.
Should've stated this earlier, but look out for spider jockeys. Normal spiders have a 1% chance of being a spider jockey, being ridden by a skeleton.
Iron Golems and Snow Golems are made by the player, (shown in the video) and will attack other mobs for you.
You can trade with villagers that spawn in NPC Villages, they sometimes have decent items to offer.
Giants. No need to worry about these, they were removed, but I thought I might as well add them as a little bonus. They're HUGE and deal quite a bit of damage, but other than that they're normal zombies.
And now, the grand finale. The first flying mob, although it wasn't official and it's not supposed to fly... squids. Yea, squids. They only spawn in water, drop ink sacs, and when a server is really laggy, you can tell because sometimes squids on laggy servers will appear to fly across the sky. This brings up a lot of pictures of squids flying, some that I've seen have the caption of "Go home squid, you're drunk." I don't get the reference, but it's funny nonetheless.
Anyway, if you guys were tortured by this lengthy post, just remember I had to type it all! Anyway, my friend Marcus has a blog on zombie survival, check that out! And if you want to know any more about the mobs, including how to find slimes, the Minecraft Wiki Mob Page has every mob that I covered here. I've also got that video, so be sure to check that out as well!
This video has a few things missing, in the post later today I cover the mobs that I missed (Villagers, Giants, Spider Jockeys) as well as the mobs added in 1.4.2 (Witches, Wither Skeletons, Wither) and an extra mob as well!
By the way, the update came out on October 25, 2012, so there are a few things I missed that I'll cover in the next post that goes over 1.4.2, since I write these nearly two weeks before they get released.
Here's the video! Many things were updated for Minecraft within a few days of the update, so another post will be out today covering the rest (don't worry, it's just a video).
Anyway, I believe this has gone on long enough, so until next time, have a great fortnight!
-Megakaby
Hey guys, it's Megakaby, and I've been starting my posts like my videos! Anyway, yesterday was Halloween, and I swear, in Minecraft yesterday the chance for undead mobs to spawn with pumpkins on their heads was severely increased! It was pretty funny seeing all of them with pumpkins, even though they were still as harmful as usual. Anyway, Halloween used to be one of my favorite holidays, but I've stopped really doing anything for it. So yea, this was just a neat little post for Halloween, not really an "official" post, but yea. Anyway, new post in about a week, next time it's on mobs! It took a really long time, and remember, I also had to include the 1.4.2 update mobs, so make sure to check it out! And until next time, have a great half-of-a fortnight! (See what I did there?)
-Megakaby
(By the way, I'll have a picture and a short video here, probably by the end of the day, so if you see this message, come back at around 7PM and there should be a video. :) )
Today I'll be starting a "series" of posts called "Material Reviews." These posts won't be one after the other, but I thought it'd be interesting to have something like this. If you want me to do more things like this (I already have one in mind), go ahead and tell me in the comments.
This Material Reviews post will be about wood: wooden planks, logs, and the items you can make with them, as well as where to get it! If you want more info on this material, the Minecraft Wiki is a great place to check, I know I link to it a lot, but still, it's a great source of info.
As you may have already guessed, wood comes from trees, making it a very common renewable resource. Not only can you use wood as a nice-looking building material, it is also required to get stone near the beginning of the game. Wood is also used to make sticks, used for making tools, bows, fishing rods, and many other items, as well as wooden pressure plates, which I'll tell more about in the Redstone post next time. Wooden Tools have the 2nd least amount of uses, or "durability." They're also the slowest tool. For the actual mining speed for picks, check out this page.
Due to the massive amount of uses for wood, I would say it's one of the most versatile blocks in Minecraft! Not only is it required for so many necessary things, like crafting tables and torches, but it can be used as a fuel, as well as being cooked/smelted/burned into charcoal, an easier-to-obtain copy of coal!
Also, it's not only just one type of wood. There are 4 types of trees: Oak, Birch, Spruce/Pine (I'll mostly call it Pine, it didn't get an official name until recently), and Jungle, meaning there are 4 types of wood, one from each. And since Minecraft 1.2.5, there have also been 4 types of wooden planks! So if you don't like the color of normal Oak planks, you could use Birch or Pine instead!
Anyway, this has probably gone on long enough, I believe I've covered everything, but if not, you can always check the video below, I'll be recording and putting videos there that will basically be alternatives to reading the post, and I'll explain everything in the video that was in the post.
However, since I'd still like it to be watched but still be optional, I might leave out 1 or 2 things that aren't very important and I'll put them in the video. If you find what's missing, post it in the comments of the video or the post, and I'll think of something for the first person to get it, maybe a reference in the next post or something, nothing too special.
(EDIT: Yes, I know. I forgot paintings and signs. Put a stick under a trapdoor for a sign, and surround a wool block with sticks for a painting. So sorry guys.)
But yea, until next time, have a great fortnight!
-Megakaby
Yes, mods. Mods, or modifications to the game, are one of the key features of Minecraft! Minecraft is open source, meaning people can take the files of the game and edit them to create mods, texture packs, and so much more! Before you begin asking what mods actually are, I'll just get right to it.
Mod refers to a modification of the game files to add things, or make things better, ranging from a simple mod like TooManyItems (yes, it's all one word) or Not Enough Items, which allow you to just spawn in whatever you want, to really complicated mods, such as the Aether mod, which is so big I'm going to put it into a different post! These mods make for some really interesting features for Minecraft, and makes it so much more interesting, because without them, even though Minecraft can be played however you want, some people want a challenge, and mods give them that challenge!
Texture packs, though, are quite different, yet the same! They are modifications, but are classified as texture packs, because they don't change the game, only how the game looks. This lets people play the game with a different feel for everything. Below is a picture of some pickaxes from different texture packs.
As you can see, they're quite different, but they're all pickaxes! These texture packs are DokuCraft (top), just a pickaxe I found (left), and the normal everyday iron pickaxe from Minecraft's original files.
Well, this has been fun, but sadly, this is the end of this post. So until next time, have a great fortnight!
Alright, first things first. I did forget to include a bit more introductory info, so to answer some questions, this blog will be about Minecraft, both parts of the game and mods, or modifications, as well as updates to the game, because Minecraft is constantly being updated. Hope this helps!
As I said in the "intro" for this post, Minecraft is always being updated with new things, mainly because of the massive amounts of bugs (errors in the game) that need to be fixed. These can range from being just bothersome to becoming a huge issue that could crash the game or even corrupt worlds!
Anyway, since the "official" release of Minecraft last November, the developers have been releasing an optional weekly snapshot. These snapshots are labeled a certain way. If it was labeled "12w38a," that would mean it was made in 2012, week 38, and it was the first snapshot of the week, in case a second version is released later in the week. This allows people to download a work-in-progress version of the next update, effectively allowing people to beta test the game as if it was never officially released! This also helps with bug fixing, and allows the Minecraft community to give feedback, as well as getting the updates better and better!
Normally I don't download these, but I decided that this week I should just try it out on my survival world and have a bit of fun with it. (I'll probably be posting about that survival world at some point.) Anyway, below is a video of the latest snapshot, 12w38a, showing what was added since the last update. It includes a bunch of new sounds, a few new items, and a new boss battle!
Anyway, if you just want to read about it, or you just want to get it yourself and mess with it without knowing what was added, the Minecraft Wiki page almost always has all the info, and you can download it from Mojang's website. (Mojang is the company that made Minecraft)
This is a video by AntVenom about the snapshot for this week, I'll most likely have one of my videos up on here soon.
I apologize, but I just couldn't think of a saying this week, I'll probably think of one later and edit this, but in the meantime, have a great fortnight!
-Megakaby
Today marks the start of this blog. It's mainly going to be about Minecraft, and the things that I mess with in it, along with updates and such. I might not constantly update, but this blog will be helpful to some people, like I'll explain what the things are, so if I say I did something, people won't just wonder what it is. I also have a youtube channel, go to it if you want. [1] Anyway, yea, this is my new blog, and I'm hoping that, unlike most blogs, it won't just die after a few weeks.
Minecraft is essentially a game where you survive and build, and build to survive. Monsters spawn in poorly-lit areas, such as caves or the surface at night, monsters such as the undead and giant spiders. Survival is essentially like living in the Industrial Revolution, but you're alone, and you have a few things to help you, such as enchanting tools, and potions to give you increased/decreased abilities. To start out, you must unrealistically punch down a tree by holding down the left mouse button. In Minecraft, everything is made of blocks. Even the character. So the trees as well are made of individual blocks that "pop" as they go into your inventory. To progress, you would press "E" to open your inventory and place the wood into the crafting square and making planks, which you would then turn into a crafting table and sticks by filling up the square with planks and filling half of it vertically, respectively. Place the crafting table (which I might also call a workbench or a crafting bench) with the right mouse button, and right click it again to open up a bigger crafting area. To make the tools you will need, you must use sticks and either wood planks, cobblestone, iron ingots, gold ingots, or diamonds in a certain arrangement. Taking "M" for one of those materials and "S" for sticks, the "recipes" go like this:
MMM
S for a pickaxe...
S
MM
MS for an axe...
S
MM
S for a gardening hoe...
S
M
S for a shovel, and...
S
M
M for a sword.
S
The type of material used for each tool matters, some are stronger than others, and last longer as well.
You will normally start with planks to mine stone and coal, going to stone to mine iron, iron to mine gold, redstone, and diamond, and diamond for obsidian to go on. (I'll explain what it's for later.) I would suggest not using gold for tools or armor, because it's very weak, even if it does mine fast. That's basically the tutorial for a first day in Minecraft. One small tip though: daytime only lasts ten minutes, and on the first day, if you've never played before, I would suggest not being outside when night falls.
Also, if you want to learn more about Minecraft and don't want to wait for my next posts, go to the Minecraft Wiki.
One of my videos showing what to do on the first day (I wasn't very good in this video, because I had just started making videos. Just bear with it please):
Just as a test, I want to have an ending saying for the end of my posts, so for the next few posts I'll write a different saying at the end, tell me what you think each post. The one that gets the best feedback will be my official "outro" saying.
Anyway, I hope you guys have (I can't believe I'm saying this) a Mega fun time in Minecraft!
-Megakaby
