Hustlin' through the Old Republic - Revan's back and Interior Decorating Star Wars style

Hello again damn it’s been a while since the last post, a good 7 months since the last Hustlin’ through the Old Republic post and about 3 months since the last post of any kind, So welcome back and here we go. Of course as I had to mention in the title the Shadow of Revan expansion has arrived along with a new storyline and missions, new flashpoints, new planets a new level cap and a the new Discipline system which I’m still not sure I fully understand. Revan who if you didn’t know is quite an influential figure if his SWTOR wiki page is anything to go by but I spose all you need to know is the Dread Masters are gone so and he’s the new big bad boss guy of SWTOR. I must say I really enjoyed the Forged Alliances storyline lead-up quests to this point as I never really saw it coming but it all made sense in the end.

The main players in the Shadow of Revan Expansion: Satele Shan, Jakarro and C2-D4, Theron Shan, Lara Beniko, SHae Vizla and of coure Revan!

(NEW EXPANSION SPOILERS AHEAD!)

I must make a brief recap of the events that started the Forged Alliances questline which basically led to the Shadow of Revan Expansion. Your character started off by talking to a droid on the fleet as per usually who sends you to a new mission floor of the fleet, there you find either Colonel Dark and Theron Shan or Darth Arkous and Lana Beniko (plus another random third person) who tell you that they are setting up an attack on the Jedi Temple/Sith Academy on Tython/Korriban. So you go to the enemies homeworld and attack and kill a few bosses, however after debriefing you then find out that your own planet is being attacked then race to defend that one however once you repel the invaders they mention something about a grand plan and that your efforts are in vain blah blah blah etc so there’s definitely something up. This part is represented by the Assault on Tython and Korriban Incursion flashpoints which is part 1 of the series whereTheron and Beniko (Now working together) have worked out that Dark and Arkous must be working together.

Korriban Incursion, Empire Side - Save the Sith Temple!

The next part has you travelling to Manaan which is quite a beautiful looking planet all covered with ocean, it’s here that you undertake the Depths of Manaan flashpoint where you meet Jakarro and C2-D4, and raid the lab of a a Selkath geneticist who was constructing cyborgs and shipping them to Darok and Arkous. It was at this point that Shan and Beniko understood that the two were now part of the Order of Revan, and the cyborgs were in creation to serve Revan himself, who wanted to recreate the Infinite Empire in his image.

Manaan - Quite a beautiful planet

In the third and final part of the You then go to Rakata Prime which if you didn’t know is the home planet of the Rakata species and the central world of the Infinite Empire though they are now reduced to Tribal culture. You fight through them and the Revanites and eventually the initial soldiers of the new Infinite Empire and shut down the newly created Star Forge. You eventually confront and kill Arkous and Darok and then Revan and his fleet appear and he tries to bomb you to smithereens after a short speech about how he’s back in full force with the Revanites in tow. You manage to escape of course and Theran and Lana announce they have been accused of murder by their respective organisation and will go into hiding thus ending the Forged Alliances questline leadup to the new expansion.

Rakata Prime - Home Planet of the Rakata

 (End of spoilers)

And that was that for the time being well now return to your regular programming of my new character! That’s right after getting my Assassin to 50 I decided it was time once again to create a new character. Now I was at a bit of an impasse with this one as ever since I created my Jedi Guardian I’ve wanted to create a Jedi Sage but told myself I already had a Jedi and Sith character so needed to create a non-force user to which I thought I should make another Empire character such as an Imperial Agent. But I eventually decided on a Trooper Vanguard which although it was a non-force user it was Republic again so I was forced to create an Imperial character for this time. The thing that was stopping me from creating an Imperial Agent (or a Smuggler for that matter) is that I wanted a character with healing abilities but the Operative and Scoundrel DPS trees were largely focused on stealth and close range attacks, something that was pretty much exactly what I did as a Sith Assassin so I wanted something different. The only other choice left was a Bounty Hunter really so I decided to go a Bounty Hunter Powertech as they have a healing specialisation and abilities and also a DPS specialisation (Arsenal) that focuses on long-range combat which was what I wanted to do.

Heehee, look at me and my little pea shooter.

 I must take this point to mention that the new Discipline system was not in effect then but is no so I will now refer to the talent trees as disciplines er paths I think it is. There is an online discipline calculator at Dulfy.net here, Dulfy.net is a great resource for SWTOR news guides and info and is possibly the ONLY place you can find certain things like the Discipline calculator but anyway

The discipline system makes picking your talent points and skills ever so easy in fact it’s practically the same as WoW’s new simplified talent calculator which adopts a style akin to Diablo 3 where you choose one of three talents every 15 levels and also get rewarded one or two abilities every 15 or so levels. The SWTOR version works in relatively the same way, you follow a line of main abilities and talents as you level up, then you pick your “Utility Points” on the right which are sort of like extra talents which let you specialise your role. And that’s basically all you have to do, tbh I was glad SWTOR still had the old talent trees as I was kind of sorry to see them go, but then again I really wasn’t the type of person to chop and change around my talents so I guess this streamlined way is better for me I guess.

Video describing the new Discipline system

So anyway I created a bounty hunter named “Txan” and because I had unlocked the Miraluka race for all classes I decided to go with them. The blind Miraluka races special feature is the various eye-coverings and headdresses that they wear which look pretty cool though the majority of them are very big and outlandish with bright colours that obviously do not tie in with the unify colours option. I found that although they are initially only available to the Jedi Consular Class they still have a variety of technological eye coverings one of which was particularly subtle not like a damn sheet over your head

It's Txan!, he has probably the smallest eye covering option the Miraluka had, goes well with the scar

Playing the Bounty Hunter was pretty fun, wasn’t too much of a scrounge-from-nothing story but it was good enough, you join a ragtag  bunch of mercenaries/slicers/hunters etc and they want to nominate you for the “Great Hunt” which is apparently some big bounty hunter thing, you meet your first companion Mako right then and there as well, and man is she cute, even before I selected the customisation that made her white, damn I’m racist. I’ll to take time again to state that the rocket boots are awesome and I loved zooming around on them.

Mako! with Customization 2

For my advanced class I decided to go a Mercenary for their long range DPS and healing capability, I went with the Arsenal discipline as it’s the main DPS one. I must admit it’s fun being long range most of the time unlike my Trooper who is either tanking or spends most of his time shooting and smacking enemies up close my Mercenary is able to finish things off from afar which was much more relaxing doing flashpoints as I wasn’t in the thick of it for once. I even tried my hand and healing and didn’t find it too bad, just had to change the Cylinders to the combat support one, one interesting thing at that point was that when you had the healing cylinder on you could shoot a ally with your rapid shots default attack and it would heal them, but this has now been replaced with a separate ability which kind of sucks but meh.

Not healing here but meh it's group work

I spent quite a bit of credits, well not me I guess my richer characters have for my Bounty Hunter, ever since the Cartel Market packs had come into play there was always hundreds of speeders on the Galaxy Trade Network most of which were with ‘adaptable’ sppeds so you could use them no matter which skill you were at. I originally started out with the Amzab ZB-8 but didn’t like it cause of the leaning-over position then went with the Ubrikki Crimson Claw which I got for free from a guildie as they were going for a dime a dozen. Then while looking on the Cartel market on my guardian I found the Razalon family which looked pretty ridiculous so I went with the FC-6 as it was the flashiest cheap one there was, the end result being that I know have 3 speeders on the one character, oh well lol.

The Amzab ZB-8

The Bounty hunter story is ok I guess, Mako is mostly Light-side orientated though there’s been at least one time where she’s preferred dark which kind of surprised me, but damn the amount of times I watched a dark side option with my finger on the escape key was a lot and damn you’re a badass, smacking women to the ground then shooting them, it was pretty damn graphic for Star Wars at least. The ship you get is kinda cool though it looks a bit too much like the Jedi one inside but ok I guess, space missions were fun. The starting world Hutta wasn’t exactly pretty, just a Toxic waste dump where your constantly working for Hutts of course (and some Evocii)  Having finished Dromund Kass I have earned a pretty silly looking suit of armor (especially the helm, I’m now up to Balmorra getting used to the changes.

You lookin at me?

So then it was time to get back on my Ass or Assass, or Sith Assassin that is. As far as I remember I had finished my Story quest and given the title Darth Imperious and was basically up to questing on Ilum. Though I actually started out by doing some of the new Forged Alliances Flashpoints including the Battle of Rishi, Assualt on Tython and Korriban incursion, all out of order unfortunately (doh!) Ilum is quite a pretty planet (especially the sky), so I finished off the quests there and did the Battle of Ilum and the False Emperor and it was good to see the Empire Side of things though it did make me wonder who would be the new leader of the Sith (maybe me?) lol. So then I decided it was on to Oricon! as I now knew it gives you a new set of gear, though technically I hadn’t been in my Eradicator armor that long.

Ilum, some very nice sky

Oricon Empire side wasn’t too much different, just dealing with different people. The Pristine Seeker’s armor is pretty damn cool, very demonic looking, it was pretty funny as you do the quests you get a different piece of armor and mashing it up[ with the Eradicator armor looked kind of weird, there was one point where I wasn’t even wearing a robe lol. I was experimenting with more dyes and tried the primary purple dye which looked ok.

Oricon, not a very nice place

After that it was finishing off the level 50 extra tidbits inc Section X on Belsavis and the Black Hole on Coreilia, not that they meant much just wanted to see the Empire Side of things. I completed the Depths of Manaan flashpoint and a few others and pretty soon pimped out my Pristine Seeker Gear with 172 mods from the Rishi mod vendor and moved my black/red dye module from my eradicator gear to my new gear and was looking pretty sharp.

You dig my horns baby?

After that I decided to finally claim my Dromund Kass stronghold (or apartment), yes as part of the Galactic Strongholds expansion each subscriber gets to purchase the Coruscant or Dromund Kass apartment for 3 credits! Yes 3 credits. I wasn’t really too enthusiastic about the player housing as you had your own ship that was enough in my view and was scared to try it out as you know what I’m like with interior decorating especially in Minecraft, though it wasn’t too bad as when you purchased a stronghold you automatically got a set of basic additions such as chairs, tables, couches, beds, banners and carpets. Your mesley 3 credits only give you access to three rooms, one being the entry foyer, so I said to myself that’s fine with me! As you can to spend quite a lot of credits and/or cartel coins for the full thing, so I just decided I’d make these three rooms look as good as possible. So I began decorating which was pretty easy, you just have squares to put things in and you can move them around a small area once placed, in addition to the decorations you can buy from vendors, the GTN and the Cartel market you can also gets decorations as loot from questing and doing flashpoints which was nice.

Your Dromund Kass Stronghold/Apartment tower

Look it's me! though you actually have to pay to get the balcony.

I made the entry room sort of like a utility room with Decoration vendors and the three banks: normal cargo hold, guild cargo hold and legacy storage. As you may have guessed legacy storage allow you to store items that can be accessed across all characters which is a great feature, I also installed a Galactic trade network kiosk which is kinda weird because it can only be placed on a wall but when you place it it’s way too high and you can’t get it down low enough but anyway. I made the large room a hangout for my companions with beds and entertainment and made the other room my bedroom with Ashara there of course. Last things were some lights and banners around the wall and roof and you also get various commemorative paintings and pictures of bosses you have downed in raids. With everything added the place looked a lot more homely though I don’t like the way it’s ALWAYS raining on Dromund Kass.

Some shots of the different rooms, really do need to give it a bit of work.

So that was that for Uxan, next up was Makeb and the Hutt Cartel Expansion (finally!, I feel like i’m way behind with him). It was then on to my Trooper Gxan who was just starting Tatooine, nothing really groundbreaking just got through the story missions, with one particular interaction being  interesting as a girl asked what she could do to show her gratitude and you could “insinuate” that she could have sex with you but boy Elara didn’t take that well when I tried it out at first. The other funny thing was that there was an option to tell Elara that “I won’t let her get between us” I also  got those damn datacrons on the Sandcrawler by riding the incredibly slow balloon again , this time with no trouble though. I finished the story mission on Tatooine meeting Fuse who been imprisoned after he refused to harm innocent civilians and I chose to stop the self-destruct of the bomb but let the Imperial Commander escape,

Ah the beauty of Tatooine.

I also let Fuse live cause of his change of heart. I then went on to Alderaan where I got all political again though I did like the story where you have a prisoner from house Ulgo and rescue their wife and daughter, I had a lot of fun choosing dark side options just to see what happened (basically smack the crap out of him) then going back especially where right at the end you could betray them and leave them to be executed. Nothing much else happened apart from a Empire guild raiding house Organa’s cantina, so I confronted and killed Gearbox in his battle mech, wasn’t fond of that guy anyway. Always loved going back to Alderaan though, really is (or was) a beautiful planet.

Alderaan Politics, even worse then ours, and that's saying a lot

Sadly though it was very beautiful, much more so then Tatooine

Oh c'mon guys this is just silly

The last part I had to do was confront the final two members of the original havoc squad, Wraith and Harron Tavus aboard their ship The Justice (hah ironic name right?) So you sneak aboard pretending to be a fellow Republic deserter and then kill Wraith then confront Tavis and choose to either kill or capture him. I chose capture as he was an ok guy. So that was that for the time being, we destroyed (almost) the entire traitorous Havoc Squad and now we’re the new Havoc Squad, not fully manned yet of course. So then that our Commanding officer orders us to get some R&R and report back to my ship’s holo when I’m ready for duty. This was quite a departure from the other two Jedi and Sith story missions where they didn’t seem to stop just kept going with the next thing that had happened. Maybe the life of a humble Trooper is less glamorous and more orderly lol.

"So, we meet again Lieutenant"

 So that was that for that month or two months maybe, I’ve actually started another session since then, dang it has been awhile since the last post. Well hopefully I’ll be able to do more in the near future now that things have slowed down, can confirm in my last session I bought and pimped out my Stronghold on Coruscant, got my Guardian to 60 and finished off the Shadow of Revan expansion, and also did Balmorra on my Bounty Hunter before stopping to play GTA5 yes GTA5 I’m finally gonna do it wooo anyway cya for now.

We shooty-shoot-shoot it up in the Taral V flashpoint

JD

A Jedi's house is neither a Castle nor a Fortress

My Usual Spiel: Duke Nukem Forever: Had fun, nuff said

Release Date: June 10th 2011
Genre: First person shooter
Publisher: 2K Games, Take-Two Interactive
Developer: 3D Realms, Triptych Games Gearbox Software
Platform: Microsoft Windows, Playstation 3, XBOX 360, OSX, OnLive
Players: 1 & Multiplayer
Classification: T (Teen)

Well well, Duke Nukem Forever the game that I heard people were waiting forever for then it came out. My earliest memory of the Duke Series was the very first Duke Nukem from 1991 which I played on my cousins computer, this was an early platformer very similar to the first three Commander Keen games where you walk around and jump and shoots robots and collect chocolate bars and cola and the like. I then played Duke Nukem 3D at times but never fully through, only playing it at friends houses.

The original Duke Nukem

I never owned Duke Nukem 3D game and played mainly for the T&A though it was a blast playing with friends. Thinking about it now gives me that odd nostalgic feeling that wants me to play it again but I’ll know I’ll just play it for a bit then be discouraged. In any case it was probably the most full-on game I played and we all played it just to do that one ‘Red Light District’ level with the strip club.

Though I can say I didn’t feel the same nostalgia and passion for the game that apparently everyone else did inc Scott Ramsoomair. I was too heavily involved with Doom II, Quake II and possibly Warcraft 2 (Lots of two’s!) to really pay much attention, plus I would have had a hard time getting my parents to buy me that game.
 

Now in 3D oh my was this shocking when i first played it.

I heard a lot of the apparent “development hell” of Duke Nukem Forever over the years, it seemed that the game was never going to be released. Not that I was waiting but of course I was interested in seeing the final result, I like reading stories regarding business mishaps and mistakes and following the drama and speculation that comes with it, and Duke Nukem Forever was no exception. When It finally did come out I thought to myself well I’ll have to at least try it and I must say it wasn’t bad, it was pretty damn fun. Sure it had the mixture of modern-day and classic shooter elements but I found it fine to play, most of the jokes were funny, the nostalgia and references to the old game (that I could recognise) were good and the parodies that it did were pretty entertaining too, oh and T&A lots of T&A (well rendered this time :D).

Epic Main Screen!

Right from the starting company logo’s you see Duke lighting up a cigar then the flaming Duke Nukem letters and a US flag in the background then the action packed intro of Duke destroying aliens and kicking ass then finally the menu screen with Duke standing next to a pigcop corpse and a flaming barrel smoking a cigar, you can really tell, the game has the attitude turned up to 11. It gets better when you start the game too as soon as the screen lights up you’re staring through the eyes of Duke taking a piss into a urinal, ahhh they’ve really nailed it haven’t they, with Duke 3D you had to at least wait until you got further into the level.

Duke doing what he does best.

What I enjoyed the most was the high level of interactivity you were given with unusual tasks such as drawing  an attack plan on a board, signing a book for a fan and punching an annoying idiot in the face. The whole process was linear as I suspected (wouldn’t want any other way really it’d get too complicated) and I had great fun walking though Duke penthouse palace and looking at all the grandeur and photos and screaming fans outside the door, makes you feel like a well, King!

Adoring fans

Of course when he actual alien invasion starts again (yes again) I like it how you have an actual communication from the president saying not to get involved but of course Duke doesn’t even consider obeying that, not that you have a choice anyway. Basically the first part of the story is a tour of Duke’s domain which is apparently a penthouse suite at the top of a casino (called the Ladykiller) and apparently a TV studio below which has a show on (Damn! it’s Late) and a secret technological base inside somewhere called the “Duke Cave” oh man these names lol.

Yes they are goddamn Sharks in the Casino Aquariaum

So Duke basically fights to defend his city from the Aliens once again through various areas including Duke’s Casino the Ladykiller, Duke Burger, The Duke Dome stadium, the desert and the Hoover Dam all located in Las Vegas. The game basically plays like a first person shooter but there’s loads of interactivity that differs from the normal experience for example at one point you have to operate a remote control car to push a battery through a small space and the aliens have these odd looking plants that shrink you and you have to run around as a mini-duke with a hilarious voice doing jumping puzzles and you even drive a remote control car. One of the most innovative things I did was move the robotics arms and rotate a stature of myself so I could use it to climb up to the next level, that and maybe driving a small cherry picker around and using it to run over enemies and get to higher places.

Man I used to love remote control cars

The locations are pretty damn cool, almost everything revolves around Duke in this world, well obviously, and the various signs, posters and names for things are of GTA quality humour I mean the strip club is called Duke Nukem’s “Titty City” :P but there’s some better examples. Duke pad, Museum and casino all look great and what you’d expect, I especially liked driving around in Duke’s Monster Truck “The Mighty Foot” and tearing arse across the Nevada desert on the way to the Hoover dam and running over aliens and pigs while you do it. There’s also heaps of things to see and read like Dukes’ photos up in his pad or the various strange and funny signs and billboards.

The Mighty Foot!

I’ll say it now that the tits, arse and semi-nekkid women are back and better than ever, from the very start you meet the “Holsom” twins and various female admirers but it really ramps up in the stadium parts which is what I was really wanting to see. The reason for this was in the first game there was the strip club of course at the start and there is one in this game too as part of an ‘interlude’ section but I’ll get into that later, then there was the story of the aliens capturing hot females and using them to birth alien spawnlings etc (whatever their called) and you encountered them throughout the game. This one is no exception except the graphics look a hell of a lot better, as you force your way into the dome via wrecking ball you go deeper into the hive and find various naked girls bound by tentacle vines standing upright or dangling from the roof struggling and whimpering and with some their bodies exploding into small insects so you’re better off shooting them or smashing them in the face with your gun to kill them.


The Alien Hive Level with the Holsom Twins and other captured women.

 Duke does take this in light saying “sorry babe it’s better this way” or “why do they take the hot ones” but man, I love that this kind of stuff is still in games as it was one of the main things I wanted to see in the new games and seeing it as a kid was pretty effed up. The strip club portion is pretty much what you’d expect, lots of wandering around with topless girls and then a lap dance at the end wa-chow! I’m worried we’re becoming a totally PC state where nothing controversial is allowed or quickly removed but if this stuff is still happening then I’ve got nothing to worry about hopefully.

Yehh Baby!

The gameplay in Duke Nukem is pretty straightforward for a first person shooter you can run, jump (not far, Duke is too heavy lol)  and melee attack which is often used with a gun in your hands, instead of health Duke now has an “Ego” meter which depletes as he takes damage and fills back up when he isn’t, you can increase the ego cap by doing things like looking in a mirror, weightlifting, shooting hoops in basketball and basically anything that would make Duke feel good. Which is an interesting way of doing things but worked ok I guess. At the start you are mainly punching and throwing things at the aliens but further on you get all kinds of weapons such as the pistol and shotgun to old favourites such as the Ripper, Shrink Ray and Devastator, you also get to mess around with Alien weapons such as the AT Laser and Enforcer, my favourite weapon was probably the rail gun as it did a lot of damage and was accurate so it could kill most enemies in one shot.

Using the "Duke Vision" and about to crack some aliens in the face

Speaking of weapons you could only carry 2 at a time and ammo was scarce so you have to swap weapons quite a lot to deal with the situation which was a bit of an annoying modern-day limitation, fack Duke should be able to carry all those guns anyway. I didn’t have much trouble running around smacking and shooting things, was pretty easy to manage some of the guns were pretty fun to use like the shrink ray.

"Now that I've shrunk him I think I'll just stomp on him and save some goddamn precious ammo"

The graphics are pretty much what you’d expect from a game of the era, pretty good, some areas like the Casino, Duke Burger and the Alien Hive looked amazing, not to mention the T&A heh Everything is basically on par as far as I can see, some rough models but otherwise good. The Music is great, I dunno why, it’s just so appropriate that it works with all the somewhat cheesy rock and metal. The sound is fine too, gunshots, splatters explosion, aliens and crying, screaming, moaning women, check. Not really too much else to say about the sound and graphics are all good.

Down but not out!

Duke Nukem was pretty much everything I expected it to be, funny and ridiculous, because I never had the rampant nostalgia of Duke Nukem 3D though I did find it pretty damn groundbreaking the first time I played it, though this was kind of groundbreaking as well,  the Boss fights are pretty epic, you’re fighting giant Alien queens and massive hulking monsters then punching them in the balls and ripping their heads off to finish them off, one of my favourite fights was with the giant eel under the damn which tried to crush you with its body. I also love the way the game attempts to do so many things some poorly but it’s all part of the fun, you’ve got things like fixed turret shooting then you’re on to driving a Monster truck through a canyon then you’re doing a western style shootout through an old abandoned town. it takes off so many things and Duke’s humour though lowbrow and sometimes annoying really adds to the flavour of the game.

Much epicness of fighting the Alien Mothership

I'm unfortunate to say I didn't really try the multiplayer mode, as I didn't really find any local servers and didn't really want to bother as it was technically an afterthought, the singleplayer was fun but I really couldn't be bothered after that.

Would I recommend this to friends? Oh hell yes, all I’ll say is, just play it once, you’ll have some stupid fun and get a boner, unless you’re a girl that is, which makes me think actually what would girl gamers think of this? Meh too philosophical for Duke I think, Hail to the King!

Score: 7/10

Things I liked:

• Packed with ego and testosterone.
• Funny dialogue and bravado from Duke
• Lots of different activities
• Fully rendered T&A and still has the kidnapped women subplot :D
• Not half as bad as people said it was.

Things I didn't like:

• Can only carry two guns at a time and limited ammo available.
• Ego-based health is kinda silly and needs other ways of recharging
• Feels slightly unfinished but I spose you can't complain at least it was finished at all
• Little replay value though I have played it twice, multiplayer mode almost overlooked

JD

I wonder what cereal Duke eats for breakfast?

Minecraft Creations: The Spruce Forest Tower

Hey all its JD here back with yet another story of failed attempts to play Minecraft to its full extent and as you should, but of course I’ve got a new idea though but will go into that later. This creation was made on the Oceanic-Craft Minecraft server and new one which I found while looking for a non PvP server. I did actually try Addstar MC though I found the map to be absolutely chock full of creations and there was no untouched landscape in sight. I basically only stayed on Oceanic-Craft long enough to join and town build a house then leave to play SWTOR (again) but I’ve been back on from time to time and am thinking of trying again so I write a full  adventures post featuring the leave and return in the future. This one will be focused on the “Spruce Forest Tower” that I made out of spruce wood in a forest :D

 When I joined Oceanic craft I quickly found a city to join which was the inspiringly named “Megacity” which was run by a guy called “Silent_Puppy” he offered me a place inside the city but I said I’d set myself up out in the nearby forest.(I’m so antisocial and nonconfirmist)

The location off to the southwest of Megacity

I had the idea for a sort of “tower in the forest” woodland style house. I didn’t have any particular inspiration (I never do really) though I spose you could say it was a sort of “forest outpost” tower gawd I dunno I have the picture in my mind but can’t think of anything. I was thinking of a sort of like a layered tower rising up from the trees, something simple, you know? The city was actually right on the worlds edge and you could see the actual wall when you went closer, it was actually kind of ominous as I had set myself up in the forest halfway between the city and this giant blue forcefield.

My Hidey Hole, you can see the ominous blue forcefield.

I had to dig a tunnel and make a hole in the ground for a safe place to work and retire as usual, the forcefield was actually removed alter so I wish I had waited till then to build as I would have been able to go further out.

My temporary underground home.

Well the premise was pretty simple, I started out with a rectangular base with cut out edges with the intention of making the lowest part the biggest and getting smaller as it goes up sort of like a pyramid, a very small and thin pyramid at that. I was originally going to make the entire thing out of spruce logs but that of course would require a heck of a lot of logs, so I just used logs for the trim and made everything else spruce as to keep to the theme of the forest. I started building upwards getting smaller as I went, I just put ladders as the way up as there would not have been room for stairs and built up as far as I could until it would have been silly to make the highest floor any smaller. I built a balcony with a roof and fence around on the top which although being further down the hill then the main city had a good view nonetheless.

An early shot of the semi-finished tower

View of Megacity from the very top of my tower

Most of the wood I got from the forest around spawn as I didn’t want to deforest the area around my house and man did the spawn area end up looking pretty sparse lol despite my best attempts to replant them.

I hack down trees in the night and by day I build.

After I had made steps and a door to the house I decided that I just do the interior level-by-level and create holes for the windows as I went along, the bottom level was obviously going to contain all the chests and furnaces and be the main building and resource level, I also made a some armor racks with some leather and iron armor to put on there.

A shot of the tower after finishing the first three levels

The ground floor with barred windows

The next level I of course hard to put in a pool table and bookshelves (as you do)

Te Pool Room, unfortunately didn't have enough room to make the sticks

Flower pots really do brighten up the room

 The level above was my bedroom which I made with a chest, bookshelves and the usual music box, I also added in shelves with flower pots where I could and made sure I had a bedside table.

One of the nicer bedrooms I've made

The highest room was pretty damn small and all I had in there was an enchanting table and some bookshelves ironically I only had two as I had used the others for decorative purposes but who cares I could always use the one at spawn if I needed powerful enchants, not that I was going to get that much xp in any case.

Mini Enchanting room! Needs more bookshelves i know.

After this I decided to make a trim around the edge of each level like up the top then decided that It’d be better to create a thin balcony around each level which ended up looking pretty good, so I could make doors out of each side too. I created iron bars for windows on the bottom level then make glass windows for the upper levels, which reminds me I should try doing coloured glass panes at some point, I also put some carpeting down and made use of the server shop to buy coloured wool which was quite useful, I also visited someone’s personal shop to buy sugar cane for paper.

Some shots of the finished tower

After finishing that the place was pretty much finished, I made sure to put some paintings up where I could and I unfortunately forgot I was going to add carpet and double-floor the levels so unfortunately you can see the carpet on the roof but meh it’s all good. 

Unfortunately I came back one day to find Megacity in ruins but my Tower still standing as Silent_Puppy had decided to make it another claim so thanks to him for doing that as I still needed the place standing for screenshots, apparently most have moved to the Oceanic City which I think is the main one on the server so I’ll have to have a look at it, anyway more on that later.

A previously expanded but now griefed Megacity :( Taken from the top of my tower

So that was my first creation on Oceanic-craft, hopefully more to come once I get back to Minecraft after my SWTOR subscription runs out.

JD

A walkthrough of my tower, trees are looking pretty sparse nowadays, reminds me of what I did to spawn :D

My place among nature.