Explain Minecraft?

[k0smo]

Can someone explain this game to me? It looks very cool, with player creations. I've seen videos of people playing with other players on servers? Also creating their own content. I'm interested in playing, but I want to get a general idea of what to do, where to get started.

[wartywarlock]

Lego in 3D where you never run out of blocks. It has adventure/survival mode but never found that as fun as just building. Especially in a group, creations really come alive with 3+ people working on something. Amazing stress relief, fantastic inbetween raids or nights off, or when you only have 1/2 hour or so to play a game. Oh, and the more redstone stuff is implemented, the more it becomes that mecano-lego hybrid everyone always dreamed of.

[Deleted]

Minecraft is a sandbox game where you can create everything!
Theres 2 different game modes:

1. Survival: In survival you randomly spawn someone in a generated world, you then have to go and gather materials to survive from monsters which spawn during the night/dark places such as caves. You can collect all kinds of materials such as wood, dirt, stone, gold, diamond, iron and so on. You can also craft weapons and other tools to help you get the materials faster. You also have to kill animals that spawn in order to get food, if you dont have any food you'll hunger bar run out and you'll die...

2. Creative: In creative mode you also spawn somewhere but the purpose of this mode isn't to survive against monsters but its to build stuff. You start with unlimited amounts of almost every item in game you also have no health and cannot die and you can fly! This mode is to make stuff without getting disturbed by monsters or having to farm all the materials.

Dunno if you want to know more but you can always ask!

[Malefic]

Minecraft is what's known as a Sandbox game. There's two types of ways to play Minecraft. You can play a survival mode and a creation mode.

Every world/server you join is randomly generated and is as described " 8x the size of the earth " (On the basis each block is 1m x 1m)

In creation mode you have an unlimited amount of resources, there are no monsters (I think, or you can't die) and you can freely build things and destroy things in the world. This is generally where the player creations and architecture come from.

In survival mode you have to personally obtain the resources yourself through digging/mining and build yourself a ' base ' in order to survive the night when monsters/bad things spawn that will kill you (Unless you defend yourself with weapons) since monsters spawn anywhere where it's dark/there's no light. The idea of survival mode is to dig your way around finding rarer materials such as diamond in order to make your weapons and digging/mining materials more effecient.

For those starting out alot of people start out playing the survival mode of the game, but almost everyone eventually moves towards the creative mode. Survival mode is pretty much limited, once you've obtained diamond and have all the shiny weapons and things there isn't really anything left to do, so naturally people start building stuff.

The reason the game is so popular is on creative mode there is no limit, you can quite literally build anything your imagination enables to you imagine and has therefore people are creating new and interesting things all the time. A perfect example the following video which was linked in a news post recently;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J_q5...layer_embedded

Here the creators have used Minecraft to ' build ' some of the levelling zones in World of Warcraft and with video editing have created a World of Minecraft, type of thing.

The possibilities are quite literally endless.

Minecraft also has something called Redstone, which is very confusing (To me at least) and very technical which can be used to create some absolutely jaw dropping things. The best way for me to describe is it's like some kind of electrical source. You can wire it up and do fancy things with it to create contraptions and things that are amazing.

Here's a good video showing the potential of Redstone; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgY7IpZtVNY All of the events in this video are done using things in the game only, no external resources, no hacks, nothing. Sometimes it's jaw dropping the things you can create.

If you want an idea of how to start playing the game etc the best bet is to probably check some of the more popular channels on YouTube for Minecraft Beginner videos. A quick search on YouTube could probably show you the very basics of Minecraft and give you a more clearer idea of what it's about.

Generally though the amount of enjoyment that can be obtained from Minecraft for the price is well worth it.

If as a kid you loved building with lego, or loved building ' forts ' in your bedroom, or your garden, or those model airplanes and things you've love Minecraft. It's like an adults version of Lego (The creative side) but the possibilities are almost infinitely more.

[k0smo]

That's so cool. It does look like an awesome game. Thanks for the info!

[Deleted]

How can you bear the horrible graphics?

They are so horrendous that they are offensive, a NES game in an emulator using HQ4x looks far better.

[Malefic]

How can you bear the horrible graphics?

They are so horrendous that they are offensive, a NES game in an emulator using HQ4x looks far better.

Graphics are not the be all and end all of a game for some people. Aesthetically though, Minecraft is extremely pleasing. I personally don't care about graphics if it's not aesthetically pleasing.

[Deleted]

How can you bear the horrible graphics?

They are so horrendous that they are offensive, a NES game in an emulator using HQ4x looks far better.

The graphics are what actually makes it unique, everyone complains about the graphics but you don't really care when you play it.
It is an amazingly fun game and graphics shouldn't matter if you enjoy the game imo.

[thoukaia]

I'm interested in playing Minecraft, it looks really addictive from the Youtube video's i've seen. I downloaded the game from its website and i registered, but when i type in my username and password i get "User Not Premium" and i cant play at all. My friend told me that premium status is required for Multiplayer only and that i can play offline without paying, is this true?

[Malefic]

I'm interested in playing Minecraft, it looks really addictive from the Youtube video's i've seen. I downloaded the game from its website and i registered, but when i type in my username and password i get "User Not Premium" and i cant play at all. My friend told me that premium status is required for Multiplayer only and that i can play offline without paying, is this true?

I believe that's through the browser version of the game only. Which can be found here; http://www.minecraft.net/play

I'm not sure if it's still free outside of Multiplayer or not, all I know is that is where the free version was initially playable.

[nobodx]

I'm interested in playing Minecraft, it looks really addictive from the Youtube video's i've seen. I downloaded the game from its website and i registered, but when i type in my username and password i get "User Not Premium" and i cant play at all. My friend told me that premium status is required for Multiplayer only and that i can play offline without paying, is this true?

you need to login with a valid (paid) account once to play the game
after that you dont need to enter your account any more (unless you want to get the latest version)

[Blackmist]

It's Dead Space Lego.

[Dakia]

How can you bear the horrible graphics?

They are so horrendous that they are offensive, a NES game in an emulator using HQ4x looks far better.

If you are using graphics as the sole measure of the quality of a game, you are sorely missing out on some of the best games ever made.

[nobodx]

WoW with its crappy grafics

[Tobley]

Just wanted to add something about redstone.
With redstone you can make a basic "on/off" circuit.
This means, with enough time, effort and knowledge you can make a computer inside of minecraft.

There's a group of people that mess around with minecraft and specifically redstone all the time.
They're called "The Voxel Box".
They've made tons of complex redstone creations including a Whack-a-Mole game inside minecraft.
They've also made a rock/paper/scissors game. While these sound like basic things for real life, making redstone circuits to accomplish this is quite complicated.

That being said about redstone however, minecraft has a lot to offer to just a basic architect. Play it and have fun.

PS: Watch out for Creepers D:

[nobodx]

im still trying to build a functional calulator in minecraft with redstone =/

[DarkPhoenix]

How can you bear the horrible graphics?

They are so horrendous that they are offensive, a NES game in an emulator using HQ4x looks far better.

Never judge a game by graphics. Youll find yourself missing out on quite a few gems.

For those that hate the graphics they can install 'texture packs' some of these are 'photo realism' packs which make the graphics more realistic.

[wartywarlock]

How can you bear the horrible graphics?

They are so horrendous that they are offensive, a NES game in an emulator using HQ4x looks far better.

so 8bit with 4x multisampling is higher resolution than 16bit with no multisampling? I AM AMAZED

[Asrialol]

Graphics are not the be all and end all of a game for some people. Aesthetically though, Minecraft is extremely pleasing. I personally don't care about graphics if it's not aesthetically pleasing.

This, personally I find that as long as a game has a nice gameplay, the graphics aren't important.
If you liked games where you built cities, neighbourhoods, etc, then you will probably like Minecraft too.

[Powerogue]

One of my favorite parts is skimming the minecraft forums http://www.minecraftforum.net/forum for new adventure maps. the yogscast runs some of these on their youtube channel, and it's generally a pre-built area, some pre-existing rules (don't break blocks except clay which they might hide secret chests behind, stuff like that) and you follow a plot line. sort of like a quest chain.

I recommend the two "professor grizwald" maps and the gourd avenger series, if you bump into those.
If you don't like the graphics, there are HD texture packs, but you'll always have the blocky aspect, that's part of the game's feel.

edit: adding Eronev Mansion to that list of suggested aventure maps, just played it yesterday-ish. breathtaking.