Material Reviews-Wood

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

Modifications?!

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!

-Megakaby