Wednesday 26 November 2014

Minecraft Creations: The Steelseries Rollercoaster, Lanslide v9.0 Minecraft Comp

Well I missed the last Lanslide due to being in Japan (of course!) but I was here for number 9 and I am proud to say I was victorious once again. This time around we had to make a Steelseries themed rollercoaster and I had quite a few ideas in my head but decided to start off doing some pixel art and lettering of the logo and maybe a track could go around them. I made the letters and logo as best I could in orange as a flat plane then decided that I was going to have to at least re-create one of their products which was going to be kind of hard as headphones and mice aren’t the easiest things to create in Minecraft.

Logo and lettering
But I went to work anyway on a model of the Siberia V3 Prism headphones and I believe it turned out pretty well, damn hard to sculpt out of blocks though. I then did the rollercoaster and just decided to use grey wool to suit the steelseries theme, then made the track up and across the logo, over the headphones, across the trees then back through going across and under the letters, under the headphones then under the ground (cause I can) and back up to the start where I made a little platform.

Finished headphones
Headphones and track
I was finished all this by the supposed deadline of 5pm then unfortunately they extended it as people needed more time so I was forced to think of something else to do, I decided to add some black outline to the logo and lettering and this made it look much better and then I couldn’t decide on anything to do but add another product and the only one left was, you guessed it... a mouse. Man and I though the headphones  were hard, but I pulled off a SteelSeries Sensei as best I could and it actually looked ok. 

Shots of mouse and headphones
Woo block mouse!
So I thought to myself, well that should be enough then began the nervous wait for the judging. There was only two other contestants, one guy made a small coaster in a swamp with a cool feature of using activator rails to trigger fireworks when you got to the end. The ones I was most worried about was a team of two who made a huge tall coaster complete with huge black walls with the steelseries logo and text, it went around everywhere and jumped from track to track even stopping with some funny messages. Despite this I ended up winning as they came second because their “rollercoaster” actually stopped and felt more like a train. 

Finished product
Side shot
So whoop de doo! I won! And I won a steelseries mousepad along with a $100 PLE voucher and another mousepad though this one actually fits my desk so I can use it as backup. Looking forward to next comp!

JD

Sweet, Sweet Victory
Game of cubes

Wednesday 19 November 2014

The Important Pieces of Paper: Skyrim, Dawnguard, ain't no blood in my cup

Release Date: August 2nd, 2012
Genre: Role Playing

Publisher:
Bethesda Softworks
Developer: Bethesda Game Softworks
Platform: Windows, Playstation 3, Xbox 360
Players: 1
Classification: M (Mature)

Hidely Ho folks, well as you can see I’ve checked the list off from another Skyrim expansion that I’m yet to play with only one more to go, lol my brother even mentioned it sounds like an effort but really I did quite enjoy this one. I had decided to do the Dawnguard expansion with my stealthy thief/rogue/archer/assassin type Falunar who I detailed the journey of earlier, for a few reasons one being he uses a bow so presumably he’ll be fine with Crossbows, the other being I would use my 2H warrior Brogan to do the Dragonborn expansion.

I decided to go with Dawnguard because of the crossbows and I ain’t being no Vampire (maybe not this time) so I started the questline by finally accepting the Dawnguard in Whiterun’s proposal to join then headed way off to the most southeastern point of the map to Fort Dawnguard, except I wasn’t actually able to get there yet as it can only be accessed via Dayspring Canyon located in the snowy mists, east of Riften, near Stendarr's Beacon. So I first headed to the Black Briar Lodge which is the closest place and after about 20 minutes of faffing around I eventually found the tiny entrance to the canyon where you meet Agmaer as a fellow recruit and eventually Isran who leads the Dawnguard.


What a nice waterfall, pity it's so dark and gloomy
Fort Dawnguard is pretty cool there is a wealth of items for you to take without stealing obviously, it’s also a very well designed and intricate castle. I didn’t bother trying to find a bed for myself as I already had my own Riverside Lodge house near Whiterun, I just decided to jump straight into the quests. First of which I was commanded by Isran to Dimhollow Crypt to find out who destroyed the Hall of the Vigilant., I tried out the Crossbow I was given by Isran for a bit but soon after just used my Akaviri Dragonbone bow as it was more powerful, little did I know that crossbows were actually damn powerful but I’ll get into that later.

The always imposing Fort Dawnguard
So I did the quest and met Serana for the first time who is one hot looking Vampire if I ever saw one, she actually has an Elder scroll on her back and when asked about it says “that it’s hers” which is funny as because I had finished the main Dragonborn questline I had one too, except mine was the Dragon and hers was the Sun. I can almost hear the banter “Hey I have one too! What yours? Sun? Mine’s the Dragon one, we should totally collect them all!”

The lovely Serana, unfortunately she can't be romanced even if you decide to become vampire.
But anyway we escaped the Tomb and then as much as I wanted to take her back to Fort Dawnguard I had no choice but to agree to take her (and the Elder Scroll) to her Father’s Castle Volkihar which is conveniently located on the extreme northwestern point of the map. Well I spose that makes sense both of the factions are located at extreme opposite ends to each other though with the amount of travelling you do back and forth between the two places it would take a year for the whole questline to pan out if done in real time, I do often wonder how long it would take you just walking in game. So we head off to Castle Volkihar and meet her Dad who is also a Vampire and he asks you if you’d like to become one, I said no of course and he then boots me back out to the boat I came in on.

I ain't becomin no Vampire, well this time at least
 So I then limp back to Fort Dawnguard and report to Isran what I did and he’s not at all pleased at the fact that the Vampires now have the Elder scroll, tbh I did ask myself why the fack couldn’t I just have brought her back to Fort Dawnguard but anyway. He then asks you to go recruit a Nord named Gunmar and a Breton named Sorine Jurard to help the cause, Gunmar is a blacksmith who trains and sells armoured trolls which he gives a funny explanation of when asked by Sorine, Sorine is the weapons specialist and is where you get the quests for the crossbow plans. The next quest begins with you talking to Isran who says that Serana has snuck out of Castle Volkihar and come to Fort Dawnguard to tell you of her father’s plans. This seems normal enough it’s just that there are various facts which I either don’t understand or just find plain weird:
  1. Isran hates vampires but he’s let her in anyway.
  2. He hasn’t even put her in a cell.
  3. She’s just standing in a bloody torture chamber which doesn’t have a door but obviously hasn’t been tortured.
  4. She doesn’t have any shackles or muzzle or anything.
  5. Isran just stands there plainly while talking and it’s just the three of us no other Dawnguard.
  6. Once we’ve finished speaking and Isran has given the quest he goes straight to bed (as it’s late at night) but his bed is right next to the torture chamber and Serana and I was walk straight in and stand over him while he’s sleeping
But anyway once that’s finished Serana and I have to find a Moth Priest to read her elder scroll and go on a few other quests to get the (Blood) Elder scroll which requires infiltrating Castle Volkihar discreetly this time and gain access to the Soul Cairn which is a pretty sweet looking place and is apparently where souls go when trapped by Black Soul Gems and is ruled by the Ideal Masters. The quest here involves finding Serana’s mother Valerica and retrieving the Blood Elder Scroll. You can do quite a few things in the Soul Cairn, including other quests where you can acquire a Skeletal Horse, there’s also quite a few new features and objects in the Soul Cairn including fissures which allow you to fill Soul gems and teleporters which look like they spray up black ink.


The Soul Cairn!

So we find Valerica then kill the Keepers, then get into the Boneyard where she is keeping the Elder Scroll but we end up having to fight Durnehviir who we make friends with in the end, though he gives you a shout to use when back in Skyrim so he can fly around Nirn again as he was tricked into banishment to the Soul Cairn and now his soul has attuned to the place.  

Best buddies now eh?
You then go to the magnificent Ancestor Glade and cover yourself with moths to read the Elder Scroll, then go on quite an epic quest  to gain Auriel's Bow which is one epic weapon indeed. While doing this you meet one of the last Remaining Snow Elves: Knight-Paladin Gelebor who gives you a bit of history about how the Snow Elves are an endangered race of Mer that were once the main inhabitants of Skyrim long before Merethic Era and that centuries of underground living and Dwemer slavery twisted the race into the blind, merciless Falmer. So anyway as I ran around this area killing falmer and finding the shrines and pouring water into the scared bowls to get to Auriel’s Chapel and confront Arch-Curate Vyrthur I was lamenting how long this questline was going for until I actually looked up the wiki and found this was the second last quest. The second last quest! And I hadn’t even tried to get some of the better crossbows yet, so I thought screw it there’s still time and dropped everything to go back to Fort Dawnguard and pick up some other quests.

Nnanananananana Mothman!
Beautiful Landscape in The Forgotten Vale
I did some radiant quests including killing a few hidden vampires (most of them were like this) and recruiting another Dawnguard Member though the ones I were most interested in was the Ancient Technology six-part series in which you recovered the plants for various crossbow and bolt designs for Sorine which you acquire as well. It was around this time that I actually looked up crossbow stats and explanations on the wiki and realised that the base damage of the normal Crossbow was 19! The same as a Daedric Bow! And the Enhanced Dwarven Crossbow the best crossbow you could get had a base damage of 22 with is two higher than the Dragonbone Bow! What’s more is that they fire faster and together with the power shot perk can stagger opponents 75% of the time and the enhanced variety ignore 50% armor! 

My enhanced Dwarven Crossbow
Man I almost threw away my Dragonbone bow lol but of course bows are still much more quiet and the bolts themselves do less damage then arrows offsetting the damage of the crossbow which is probably what evens them out, but nevertheless I started out on the quests and went hunting. The quests didn’t take very long as I was only just doing that and some others, was kinda sad I couldn’t use the crossbow more really as I spent most of my time saving bolts and cutting people’s throats which with a maxed out Stealth tree is child’s play, you can seriously stand right in front of some people and they don’t even see you, of course wearing the Nightingale Armor does help too. 

Ready for a Night on the town
 So I did the quests, slit the throats of lots of bandits and shot the rest full of crossbow bolts (some exploding which is kind of funny to watch) and goy my Enhanced Dwarven Crossbow which I wasted no time upgrading and enchanting and made a couple of hundred bolts to use with it. I then continued on with the Touching the Sky, killing two Dragons in the process and getting to Auriel’s Chapel and defeating Vrythur and finally obtaining Auriel's Bow in which Knight-Paladin Gelebor returns and offers to turn any Elven Arrows into Sunhallowed Arrow. An offer which I accepted and I happily ran back to my “Lodge” and started my delicate work of upgrading the bow and making elven arrows of course, of course the delicate work is basically grinding the same sword on the grindstone and this somehow upgrades the item you have of course I drank plenty of Blacksmiths Draught and put on my Silver-Blood Family Ring of course and in the end it was finished! I do wonder what my wife though about me coming home with a woman, though she always stays upstairs.
 
Auriel's Chapel
I then shlecked off back to Gelebor and he turned a whole stack of my Elven arrows into sunhallowed ones. The reason I was going mad crazy about this bow and arrows and not the crossbow and bolts was in preparation the final quest where Isran rallied the Dawnguard and we made another epic trek to Castle Volkihar to end the Vampires once and for all. 

Isran rallies the Dawnguard
This raid was probably the best castle attack I’ve ever done, much better then any Imperial or Stormcloak castle raid, I basically just shot sunhallowed arrows like a madman which were pretty epic as they do triple damage to undead and make a sunlight explosion when they hit hurting other vampires and sending objects flying. The scene when we burst into the main hall was pretty chaotic with armoured trolls rampaging about and weapons, spells and crossbow bolts flying everywhere. 

 
It's time to fire my righteous spears of light
LoL Fat chance abomination.
HOLY COMBO!

But eventually we cleared em all out and confronted Harkon in the Cathedral. The fight with Harkon was pretty straightforward I used Call of Valor and the Sanguine Rose a couple of times in the fight so I had the 3 of us fighting Harkon as well as Serana. It was easy to finish him off as the sunhallowed arrows broke his healing shield and we brought him down fairly quickly, the only hard part was he moved around all over the place.

Oh you bet I do.
So that was that, I did regret the fact that I forgot to shoot a sunhallowed arrow at the sun while we were outside but meh it all worked. I guess I enjoyed this one petty well but was sad that I was not able to use things like the Crossbows and Auriel’s bow for long but I suppose I could have done this whole questline while playing the main game through. Well almost done with these bring on Dragonborn! Course I do have to go back and see what it's like as a vampire at some point.

JD

She ain't gonna turn for you buddy, you messed up, dang!
Because the Night....

Monday 10 November 2014

Minecraft Creations: The Brick Mansion Chapter 6, Supply and Demand and Patch 1.8 The Bountiful update

Ok well first of all I’ll explain the changed post title. Originally the “Minecraft Adventures of JD” post was supposed to be purely about what I do in Minecraft while playing singleplayer, specifically I started a map intentionally to do that. Though unfortunately like always I started plans for a house and it turned into this monstrosity, I even got rid of all my old items so basically even if I did decide to continue on my quest the world would be totally out of date being created in 2012 and all. So I’ve decided to create a Minecraft Creations post title specifically for the Brick Mansion which may not go on for too much longer, but just to break it up from the regular Minecraft creations so I know where everything is and as a testament to it if I am ever satisfied that it is fully finished.

Well yes here it is, the much awaited (well not by me) 1.8 Bountiful Update is the biggest update yet, with a wealth of new features added to a game really already flowing with them, and to be honest I can’t keep up. Changes for me in my world really only mean I have to change around my Brick Mansion in some way, so with an update like this, I was like damn, this is gonna be a lot of changing, and change it was. But anyway, let’s first go into the changes, which there are a lot of...

One of the shorter 1.8 videos, still goes for 10 minutes instead of like 30 heh

One of the most prevalent changes is that you can now change your Minecraft username, obviously they are going to work on some sort of unique identifier to stop bad people from changing their name and causing havoc. Also difficulty is now per world not global so you can finally have one or the other when you’re switching worlds. There’s also new skin customisation, I think you can wear jackets now too. There is also a new Spectator game mode allowing you to actually noclip around the level and look through other players eyes. There has been a cascade of new blocks inc Granite, Andesite and Diorite  which generate in pockets within stone terrain apparently slightly larger size and more in abundance then gravel. There are new Ocean monuments which are generated underwater in Ocean Biomes with all new blocks inc Prismarine, Prismarine Bricks, Dark Prismarine and Sea Lanterns, where you can find Guardians and Elder Guardians in the center which apparently has 8 gold blocks.

A well made feature of the new Ocean Monuments with Gardians and Elder Guardians

World spawning is now much more customisable which will be fun to mess around with different settings. In addition to the new blocks I’ve mentioned before you can also get polished, Diorite Andesite and Granite and also Red Sandstone. There is also a new type of dirt called Coarse Dirt which is a mixture of dirt and gravel where grass does not grow, but can be made back into normal dirt too. In ocean monuments Guardians and Elder Guardians drop Prismarine Crystals and Prismarine Shards which are used to make Sea Lanterns, and also Wet Sponges. You can also now make Slime Blocks and bounce on them like a trampoline.


A simple example of a slime block trampoline made with pistons.

And finally, Fences, Fence Gates, Doors, Slabs and Stairs now appear different depending on what type of wood you used to make them,  most just change colour (appropriately) but the new doors look awesome with the dark oak door looking like something out of a formal victorian household and the Jungle door looking very hobbity with sort of mushroom shaped holes, the Acacia door is almost not there at all. An interesting new addition is Banners which can be adorned with many different colours and patterns and man can you do a lot of combinations, ‘decorating’ is done by adding dyes to a blank or coloured banner, and then adding more to the current banner to decorate it more resulting in “Over a quadrillion possible combinations” apparently. An Armor Stand can now be made allowing you to finally place that armor away when it’s safe and view your beautiful skin texture.

Armor stands with various armor pieces.
Many new Mobs are now in including Endermites which are sometimes spawned by Endermen teleporting away which basically act like silverfish but the funny thing is Endermen hate them too. Guardians and the boss Elder Guardians as I’ve mentioned before ‘guard’ the Ocean Monuments. Rabbits are here! (including a very scary one which you may remember from a certain Monty Python movie) they can be killed for a variety of things including rabbit hide, raw rabbit, cooked rabbit and rabbit's foot and can be guided or bred using carrots, golden carrots or dandelions and are also used to create Potions of Leaping where you can jump super high. There’s also a new “Depth Strider”  boot enchantment which allows the player to move faster in water and is probably specifically for exploring ocean monuments. There is now Iron Trapdoors and you can colour beacons with coloured glass.

Two Rabbits I caught while adventuring in a Mega Taiga Biome at the Bluewire Lan, unfortunately didn't have amy more carrots to make them breed.
And that about it for the major changes, you can check out more here. So without further ado I will now yak on about the latest changes to my supreme Brick Mansion or rather to the lands around it...

With my magnificent house pretty much finished I spent quite a bit of time pondering what to do with the outside, at first I thought of gardens and whatnot but then I thought there was enough gardens inside (which is kind of strange I know) and if this house is going to be self sufficient it’s going to need some farms, or a farm, a big farm. Though the first thing I had to do was extend the wall around the east side of the house, it took a bit of trial and error but I got it done, instead of the usual cobblestone wall I had before, I put an overhang of I cobblestone block at the top as well the wooden plank walkway so there was essential a two space walkway instead of 1, it looked quite good when finished especially with the stone stairs mixed with the wood. Because of the extra weight I added some support at various intervals of the wall which also looked pretty cool, I might take this moment to remind everyone that this wall is meant to stop monsters getting in not people hence the simplicity.

4 block high wall, keeps monsters out and doesn't make the house feel like a fortress.
Now it was time for farming, I had to look up all the things you farm to make sure I had everything but it turned out ok, I think I got an equal amount of melons, pumpkins, carrots and potatoes, and lots of wheat and possibly a bit too much sugar cane but anyway. I made sure the place had enough light for during the night by placing long rows of fences with torches on top of them. Speaking about the design I’m a fan of having water right next to crops in single block rows, I now know that a single block of water can hydrate crops 4 blocks way but I like the way I’ve done it cause it’s kinda nice looking but may change it in the future. Taking advantage of the new 1.8 changes I created a well out off the small patch of water near the crops that goes right down to bedrock and used dark oak slabs and fence poles as decoration as well, I also made a rope out of acacia wooden poles as it was a nice orange colour, I also made a small rotunda with chests underneath as a sort of storage pavillion for gathered crops for transport to the main storage centre.

The crop farm, well and storage pavillion.
 I then thought I’d need some livestock so I fenced off a few sections of the front gardens creating pens for pigs, cows, horses and chickens, complete with water troughs and shelter from the rain or sun. Now that I had the area around the house planned out I had to change the location of the iron door entrances, I also made the main entry into my “land” with a twin double door. I also made two new staircases coming down from the pool deck as it was obviously now safe to come down and also serve as a main entry and exit point to the east side of the house.

Animal Farms!
Made sure the stairs were well lit heh
I then decided to update the inside of the house as per the 1.8 changes and the first thing I thought of doing was taking advantage of the new Prismarine blocks for the indoor pool, this basically meant replacing the entire wall of the pool with prismarine bricks, the floor with dark prismarine and adding lots of sea lanterns to brighten up the pool area. I then updated most of the flowers and plants in the house, which was quite a few I even added some bigger flowers here and there. I updated all the doors depending on what kind of wood they were near, the dark oak doors worked well as formal doors for the cinema I also changed my bedroom’s personal balcony to be entirely made of jungle wood since I can now do that. I also added some armor stands with armor to the armory lol no it was actually the forge.

Big flowers!
Dang those dark wood doors are fancy.
I also realised I had forgotten about the cacti and cocoa beans so made two smalls farm around the northeast and southeast corner and grew a huge jungle tree and covered with cocoa plants which don’t really know if that’s how it’s supposed to work but meh their growing. I finished off the outside with gravel paths leading everywhere starting from the entrance to the house, and added some rows of tulips near the entrance so I could tiptoe through them.

One of my Cacti farms, my Coca bean tree and the many gravel paths going around.
 While looking around the house I realised that my secret way into the undercroft of the house through the pond near the entrance probably needed a way into the house, so I dug a hole which came up through the water in the centre pyramid of the lobby which was pretty fun. I made a secret exit from my room which involved making a long ladder all the way down from my room through the sauna pipe into the undercroft of the house then into a specially made tunnel with minecart track which led to a shaft up to the surface and an exit hidden by dirt just outside the walls. I might add another secret passageway that goes from down in the mines all the way to the NPC village in the future.

The hidden trapdoor and the tunnel leading down to the Minecraft track
Spot the hidden exit (it's usually covered by grass)
One of the last things I did was make use of the new banners, with over a quadrillion different designs I’m sure I could make something good, though unfortunately I couldn’t think of anything unless I found some way of putting the letters “JD” on there, so I just went with a blue background and red upper “chevron” (it’s interesting to see the actual names of these banner/flag designs). So in case you didn’t know that’s the Melbourne Football Club jersey design, I’d hate to resort to football but that’s all I could think of. SO I placed these banners everywhere it seemed appropriate inside and out of the house. I also decided that the space to the right of the entrance need a bit of a sprucing up so I made a flower bed thing but I may actually try to change it to a different colour grass or maybe just no grass I dunno it just looks a bit weird with the same grass around where it obviously doesn’t inside the house as the floor is either wood or carpet.

Proudly Displaying my Banner both inside and outside the house.


So the house is relatively finished, never thought I’d say that heh, sure the outside is a bit crude and could do with some prettying up (especially the west side) but I can decide when to do that at some other point but for now I can bask in the knowledge that my biggest house ever is finally finished, and what an experience it’s been, I remember first starting out in June 2012 and thinking that “this is gonna take awhile” though I have been building it on and off. The sad part is I’m kinda alone here, but I don’t mind, and of course I can always open it up to Lan (While at a Lan!) and invite some homies, after having backed up of course.

Ahh bliss, nothing like a job well done, time to finally sit back and enjoy, if there wasn't so much damn maintenance to be done.
So that’s that for this topic for now, I’ll see if I ever add to it again but basically it will always be here as a milestone topic.

JD

A flythrough (or around really) of the outside of the house.


A flythrough of inside the house (sorry about the weather)

Look at what I have created!  *crickets*