I don't think I'll do another open-world map for a while.
Ah, that's good to hear. I've never been a fan of that format. It sacrifices discovery and reward to let the player make choices they don't want to make. And as you point out, it's nearly impossible to balance, since you can't control the tech-up pace. Linear branching is the way to go.
Railways are essential, but consider letting the player do most of the building. There are games just about building railways, because it's that much fun, and it's pretty much the only large construction project you can economically justify in a survival adventure map.
Today I've been playing this map a lot I started off dying, (thanks three_two), and dying, and dying. After I finished my death pattern I ran away into the little hut you gave us. I dug up some dirt and built a pathway along to the "Behind the Curtain," once I got there I started to dig up walls found a chest with a few stacks of ladders, continued digging and found a shaft that lead into water. Before I jumped down I dug around the other side of the wall and came across a chest with three diamond and some sticks so I made a pick and mined up the mass about of Iron that was right next to it. I got 2 stacks of iron blocks and jumped down the shaft and t my surprise there was a Bird Cage with the record stal xD. I left there with glee, a skele nearly knocked my off and i nearly died of starvation (thank god I don't die on normal difficulty when starving). I then fell about a block, died, i then retried my stuff and used the bricks from the rail chest in behind the curtain for the walkway to the JBM. I placed my record in a did I bit of a victory dance while rocking out to C418. After the song ended I then placed the iron block in its respectful position, I then took an hour or two break so please enjoy the elevator music in the meantime....-elevator music-......ok I then came back to my game and continued. After I left the JBM I set outwards to the "FUUUUUUUU Big Tree" (don't judge me if I forgot a U or had to many U's). Getting there was easy enough but getting through all the cave spiders were just a pain, (I still have yet to find the Bird Cage though), I went searching for the Bird cage with no success but it was full of me dying of fall damage I could make a few minutes montage but if it wasn't for falling all those time I never would have found the melons, Yay Farming time! So I went back to my base at starting I made a small melon farm, sadly no water yet. After I bonemeal'd the melon seeds I decided to do some tedious work of lighting up the place and when a creeper blew me up I found the entrance to the dungeon on the Starting Island, I built a bridge with walls, made it to the Bird Cage and got the record "13," so as expected I ran up to the JBM placed in the record and once again rocked out. After completing the easiest record to get I decided to go to the Broken Wizard, (don't ask me why it just struck me as a good place to go to). I got some dirt and built another bridge to the Broken Wizard, I started to explore the area and find a good place to go up to the main area where the Bird Cage is. I found an area, ran around it like a mad because i had no idea that there was going to be hundred of creeper spawners, I got away before they ended up blowing me up and killing me. I looked around some more and found a rail chest with a few stacks of bricks. I went back to the main area and "Tard Pillared" (technical term) up high enough to be at level to the Bird Cage. I started off thinking "Wow this area is so easy but when I went around once pillar I noticed something on three towers surrounding the Bird Cage, Ghast Spawners (Y U SUCH A ****!...lol jk), anyways when I realized that I knew I had to make a roof along with walls, etc. but I had no idea just how many ghasts were going to spawn. After I died a few time and lost about 2/4 stacks of bricks to the creepers below I brought up a chest and dumped all my crap into it and continued to build. I finally got to the Birdcage and had no idea it was going to be the 11 track. I was so excited I actually just jumped into the creepers (after I put the disc in the chest first). I came back got my stuff and went back to the JBM starving and only has half a heart left like every other time I've gone there and placed the record in the jukebox, fell to my death, came back and realized it was a secret room. I found the flint and steel in the chest thought to my self for a second "what the **** am I going to do with all this," I turned my head and saw the nether portal. I went in it got to the nether fortress copy and paste cheap cheaty map thingy....wandered around for while hoping to find nether warts, sadly I did not. I then saw 4 ghast spawners on the roof of something and knew it had to be another bird cage. Got to it died once from creepers/skeles in the building. I came back, broke open the Bird cage and found redstone, almost forgot to mention I found the Godly diamond sword in the fortress :tongue.gif:. Ok back to the topic of me finding the redstone. Yay! I'm glad you did it like that because I though I had to get Silk Touch and get it myself. After I got it I went back to the JBM, placed the redstone, replaced stal just so I could rock out again. I went back to through the nether portal and made another bridge to "Hell on Earth," after a lot of wandering, forest fires, and large blaze tnt traps (I hate you so much for that), I got away from it though so add more tnt :wink.gif: so i was back to wandering and came to ghost spawner on tops of trees so I knew that was a good sign. Went into the middle of all the spawner and saw the bird cage and stole some coal form it and ran off again. Placed the coal, took a picture, and then posted here. Expect more stories tomorrow.
Wow I wrote a lot. I should write a novel on my experiences in this map.
As it turns out it's just a hard core none stop action map with very little gaming payoff.
Actually, that's exactly why I picked up this map to begin with, for the kick-in-the-balls type of difficulty. I was looking for a decent challenge and it served its purpose. :laugh.gif:
Reward the player and give them a reason to regret dying.
Easier said than done. A lot of people simply do not care for deaths and will even abuse the fact that it will fill back up your food bar. It's impossible to prevent this. :dry.gif:
As for losing items because of death, if the player cares about his valuable stuff, he's not gonna take unnecessary risks with it and will make sure to only carry disposable stuff in dangerous areas. Again, you can't do anything about it unless the player is too reckless or just retarded.
There is rare items that cannot normally be obtained in this map, you just need to find them. However, Three Two made it quite clear that :
Sadly you have no way to tell how many users start your map and never finish. My guess is it'd be disappointing.
As expected. It's all about the will of the players and if their expectations are fulfilled or not. I've seen skilled players never finishing maps because of reasons such as "I lost too much good stuff, therefore I can't finish it" or "This isn't as easy as I expected". I've also seen some of the most horrible players out there finish difficult maps with only their willpower and perseverance. Incredible, yet funny at the same time.
I made a spawning system similar to foot's, but for some reason it isn't working. My suspicion is not enough signs, but currently I cannot afford to use any more wood.
Which Minecraft version are you playing? If it's one of the recent snapshots, I got bad news for you :
"With the 12w04a snapshot, however, they seem to recognize signs as non-solid, and will avoid walking over them if the drop below is too tall."
I don't think I'll do another open-world map for a while.
Other than open-world, there's always :
Fully-linear map
(1>1>1>1>1)
Offers complete control over what the player has to do/can obtain. Somewhat evil since the player has no choice.
Linear-branching map
(1>n_n-n¯n)
Pretty much the perfect match between control and freedom. Easiest to balance and play IMO.
You can also somewhat mix these up (Like Infernal sky II, being both open-world and having intersections). If you can think of a whole next type of map, kudos to you.
If you do one of these, you should also consider back-tracking between areas. Shortcuts, rail chests or pre-made rails are one way to deal with this. Personally, I think the Nether (Many entrances, many exits) and the End (Many entrances, one exit(current spawn)) are really good tools for this, especially the End. The player might be able to control where he ends up, but only the map-maker can control the entrances. By the way, End portal are invisible if looked at from below (Muhahaha). :tongue.gif:
Amazing map, three_two! I finally finished by accidentally ... falling ... onto the last birdcage I needed. I thought the areas looked amazing and were fun to play in (except for the Citadel, you *******), and the JBM felt more rewarding than just plunking some wool down. Great job my good sir!
I didn't see this asked anywhere yet, but for multiplayer, is there anything special I have to do to make the nether work as it should? I ask because I saw in the readme that we're not supposed to create a portal because one is provided. Bukkit sets me up with a "World One" folder, as well as "World One_nether" and "World One_end"; do I need to move the DIM-1 folder from the Vinyl Fantasy directory and rename it to "World One_nether"?
EDIT: Nevermind, it looks like Bukkit handled it for me.
Well yesterday I was lazy and didn't post an update so here is two days worth of exploring.
Big tree
After I posted my last update about how I couldn't find the Bird Cage in the tree, I found it. It was in the least obvious brach when I went on top and the entire time it was the brach connected to where I made the ladder up to the top of the tree xD so that was a big derp on my part.
Sh*tty X-mas
This area I hated so ****ing much. This area started off with the void fog at the base of it, along with mobs spawning like crazy completely throwing me off my course and into the void. Thanks so much that was the end of my godly Sharpness IV Fire Aspect, Looting diamond sword. I think I cried a little when I starting falling. Anyways after I was done crying in the corner I came back and saw the diamond and gold blocks on the tree. Before I went to go get the blocks I saw the small room in-between all the presents, I went over to the room killed all the silverfish and just took out the record (easiest record to get, ever). After I got the record I pillared back up to my bridge and continued to the diamond and gold blocks. I first took out the gold block heard the tnt and instead of just running away I jumped off my bridge and landed on the floor that the tree was on....fail. I ran back got everything I had before I jumped and went back to my bridge, continued to the diamond blocks, defused the bombs and took the diamond blocks. Yay 9 diamonds, another bonus block and another record xD.
Land of the Snow Golem
Went in thinking it was stone as I saw it from the starting island. I was wrong. I used my cobblestone generator to make enough cobble to bridge through it. I started bridging until I found the Lapis tower (after I fell off the bridge a few times but survived all of the drops. I mined up the Lapis, dropped it off at the JBM and went back to the tower and saw light coming from down below. I dropped a water bucket down and swam down to the Bird Cage, creepers spawned, I blocked barely surveyed and the creeper were kind enough t destroy all of their own spawners. I grabbed the record and made a mad dash up and out towards the JBM.
Gravitational Challenged Graveyard
Well I checked out the floating graveyard, summary of it:
Lots and lots and lots and lots of zombies.
I started off going to to the very top of the graveyard by placing lava blocks all over, destroying all the spawner, getting killed by a few spiders and fire from my own lava and falling to the bottom of the graveyard. I went back to the nether hoping to find some more loot to use. I found the Smite V sword and knew that this sword was going to live and die in the graveyard. I ran back to the graveyard and destroyed the rest of the spawner on the top layer, I took al the loot out of all the chests hoping I would find the record in one but i got enough gold to make a gold block. Yea! I rinsed and reacted that for the rest f the graveyards and completely passed the tower with the moss stone and thought it was nothing more than a loot chest with torches, continued down and finished up the graveyards and left that place with a bunch of diamonds, gold, a bit of iron, some very good armor and tools. As I was writing this I went back to the Graveyard and checked out the moss stone area found the ladder took the record, nearly got killed by a zombie and ran back to the JBM placed in the record and rocked out once again and finished up typing out this paragraph.
Hey three_two, I mostly just lurk on your thread, but I wanted to tell you that these CTM maps are certainly the best not-made-by Vechs maps out there! Your usage of block types to create dazzling landscapes is just incredible, and you're certainly a pro at WorldEdit and MCedit, because your terrain looks so natural. I'm not a good enough player to play your map, but I've watched tons of LPs of it, and it looks amazing.
The FML minimap coming out tonight, though, that may be more for my skill level. Ooh, I can't wait for it to come out! Make it come out faster, pleez! :smile.gif:
Three_two, I see you're on the topic right now! Are you updating it? Is the FML mini-map about to be out?
If not, will you reply to me with a rough estimate of when it should be ready? I know you said the time was subject to change, but will you tell us how long it will be?
Oooh, I'm so excited! I feel like a child on Christmas Day. There were 24 people on the topic at once before (I think they were anticipating the release!)
Mountains of Blood
I logged on to the map knowing there was a lot more in the mountains of bloods other than a record. I bridged over to the area from the bridge I used to get the Land of the Snow Golems. As I was bridging I noticed the shack on the due of the snow golem area so before i went to the Mountains I bridged over to there, placed a water bucket down swam down, a creeper blew up along with the tnt that was hidden in the shack, that was really mean :sleep.gif: luckily I didn't die from the explosion since I was standing right next to the shack at the time. After that I swam back up to my bridge depressed because I didn't have what was in the chest. I continued my bridged and came to the stone area in the mountains of blood, exploring time. I jumped in lost a few hearts died once to creeper explosions and a little lava.....ran back, got my stuff, lava had stopped most creeper spawners from spawning and I was able to get the loot which was a single grass block which i was so thankful for. I pillared out of the place and ran back to the starting island and placed the grass block down and started the clean up my mess of a floating island.
Floating Island
Most of the time today on my map was that I was working on fixing up my Starting Island. It took about 5-6 hours total to make my island look as nice as I wanted it to. I started off my burning down all the trees but first I made sure I removed the lava block to stop it from spreading any more. I later removed lava from everywhere around even the lava that had been overflowing the sides which took a bit of suicide to remove it all. I went ask for some more grass to spread, etc. and filled in my tnt holes/creeper holes. After i finished that tedious task i finished lighting up every corner of the island and then I planted saplings throughout the area and now my island looks like a paradise although its located in hell xD. Also I made a small lake for aesthetics purposes.
Mountains of Blood Continued
I continued over to the Mountains and and created a staircase down the second shack I've seen in the map I went down but first put most of my stuff in a chest I had placed on the side of the stairs I went down but as i had gotten down to the ground I found the passage in the side of wall with the nether warts and other potion brewing items...YAY! I went back up the my chest placed it in there and went back to the shack. I went inside the Fisherman's shack and found the Sharpness V fishing rod which was the main reason I had gotten the record further up. I continued over the nearest mountain and dug a staircase up and through the mountain until i eventually got to the record area. I quickly took out the ghast spawner without a few spawning which was taken care of quickly with my bow. I then took out the skele spawners without too much trouble. Once I got up to the next floor the magma cubes were soooooooooo much trouble, they kept knocking me away from the spawners even though I was able to kill them quickly but they were spawning nearly just as quickly. Once I finally got rid of the spawners I pillared up to the two other ghost spawners and placed tnt to blow them up before too many spawned. Easy enough I grabbed the record and placed it in the chest in the fisherman's shack. Blood Mountains-Finished
Bad Dreams
This area I had the least amount of trouble in other than Behind the Curtain. I bridged over to it using up most of my cobble I went up high in the area which apparently was out of range of all but 1 ghost spawner which I destroyed without any problem, I continued my bridging to the other side of the area and found the next part which i made a spiral staircase up to little water area which once again I didn't have stop much trouble with when I had brought a bucket so I could get a breath of water whenever I started to drown which wasn't too often since I was sung the respiration helmet I had found in the Graveyard. took me about 15 minutes to find the "not as well hidden as I thought chest" so I felt pretty dumb when I found it and that I had been walking right past it over and over this entire time. Another record down!
Start of Railroad
I brought all the railway supplies to my base after I made a rail line form the back to my starting island so soon I'm going to make another line to the JBM and to the Magma Citadel which is the only record I still have left to get but I can tell already it's going to take me forever to fine the Birdcage in that mess.
Hey there three_two. Just a question - is 'Vinyl Fantasy' supposed to be the name of the series itself, or the map/ Now that you have two, you may want to think about that...
Perhaps 'Vinyl Fantasy' should be the name of the first one, and you should develop a separate name for the series itself - such as 'Record Hostility', 'Painful Muses', ' three-two's Musical Masochism', you get the picture...
Hey there three_two. Just a question - is 'Vinyl Fantasy' supposed to be the name of the series itself, or the map/ Now that you have two, you may want to think about that...
Perhaps 'Vinyl Fantasy' should be the name of the first one, and you should develop a separate name for the series itself - such as 'Record Hostility', 'Painful Muses', ' three-two's Musical Masochism', you get the picture...
Well, played the new mini-map for a while and pretty much got nowhere at all..thankfully having it not set as hardcore means that its less maddening. Trying to treat it as a puzzle rather than jump-puzzle..
It's kinda like playing Super Meat Boy's harder levels. You just have to get in there and get killed a bunch of times while you figure out a successful pattern. I will say, if you haven't rage quit yet, The Hospital Inferno area is the one to beat first. You can walk away from that area with a bed, chests, signs and lots of food and potions (medicine). Seems like mostly trivial stuff but, in a map where I have gone out of my way to limit your resources, a few cleverly placed signs and chests might help you beat the map with some strategy instead of skill. Nah, you'll still need skill xD
Hey there three_two. Just a question - is 'Vinyl Fantasy' supposed to be the name of the series itself, or the map/ Now that you have two, you may want to think about that...
Perhaps 'Vinyl Fantasy' should be the name of the first one, and you should develop a separate name for the series itself - such as 'Record Hostility', 'Painful Muses', ' three-two's Musical Masochism', you get the picture...
Vinyl Fantasy is definitely the name of the series. My flagship maps like the first Vinyl Fantasy will be numbered sequentially with roman numerals i.e. Vinyl Fantasy II will be the next full map. The FML maps will be a side series under the VF brand name. I haven't had a chance to re-organize the thread since release of FML Mini-Map last night but, should be easy to figure out when I update.
I like your ideas but, the name Vinyl Fantasy has caught on so it's best to just roll with it :smile.gif: Eventually folks will realize when they see the name Vinyl Fantasy to expect pain, masochism and hostility!
Magma Citadel
Bridged over to it dropped tnt on a few ghast spawners explored around a bit and still have yet to find the Bird Cage so I'm not going to do another update until I get around to the map and find the Bird Cage :/
Haven't posted anything in quite some time. Me and my friends got through the FFUUUUU Big Tree and started Behind the Curtain... And I have to say, it wasn't that bad. We switched it back to hard about half way through the tree (as it was getting too easy), but so far it hasn't been rage-inducing.
Of course, that will likely change.
We've decided to take a break though, as I just got the last piece of a new computer I've been planning to build for a few months, and it's much better than this current laptop... So expect some LPs to show up soon.
I must say, the map has been great fun so far. I do have a quick question though - any intention to make the new map SMP-compatible, or is it designed to be SSP only. I ask because I'd like to do an LP of that with my friends, but if that would break the map, we might just do it individually.
Either way, from the screenshots it looks to be quite interesting. If it's the same quality as the first one (and no doubt it is), this series is looking to possibly surpass Super Hostile in my opinion!
Ah, that's good to hear. I've never been a fan of that format. It sacrifices discovery and reward to let the player make choices they don't want to make. And as you point out, it's nearly impossible to balance, since you can't control the tech-up pace. Linear branching is the way to go.
Railways are essential, but consider letting the player do most of the building. There are games just about building railways, because it's that much fun, and it's pretty much the only large construction project you can economically justify in a survival adventure map.
Can't wait for the videos!
Today I've been playing this map a lot I started off dying, (thanks three_two), and dying, and dying. After I finished my death pattern I ran away into the little hut you gave us. I dug up some dirt and built a pathway along to the "Behind the Curtain," once I got there I started to dig up walls found a chest with a few stacks of ladders, continued digging and found a shaft that lead into water. Before I jumped down I dug around the other side of the wall and came across a chest with three diamond and some sticks so I made a pick and mined up the mass about of Iron that was right next to it. I got 2 stacks of iron blocks and jumped down the shaft and t my surprise there was a Bird Cage with the record stal xD. I left there with glee, a skele nearly knocked my off and i nearly died of starvation (thank god I don't die on normal difficulty when starving). I then fell about a block, died, i then retried my stuff and used the bricks from the rail chest in behind the curtain for the walkway to the JBM. I placed my record in a did I bit of a victory dance while rocking out to C418. After the song ended I then placed the iron block in its respectful position, I then took an hour or two break so please enjoy the elevator music in the meantime....-elevator music-......ok I then came back to my game and continued. After I left the JBM I set outwards to the "FUUUUUUUU Big Tree" (don't judge me if I forgot a U or had to many U's). Getting there was easy enough but getting through all the cave spiders were just a pain, (I still have yet to find the Bird Cage though), I went searching for the Bird cage with no success but it was full of me dying of fall damage I could make a few minutes montage but if it wasn't for falling all those time I never would have found the melons, Yay Farming time! So I went back to my base at starting I made a small melon farm, sadly no water yet. After I bonemeal'd the melon seeds I decided to do some tedious work of lighting up the place and when a creeper blew me up I found the entrance to the dungeon on the Starting Island, I built a bridge with walls, made it to the Bird Cage and got the record "13," so as expected I ran up to the JBM placed in the record and once again rocked out. After completing the easiest record to get I decided to go to the Broken Wizard, (don't ask me why it just struck me as a good place to go to). I got some dirt and built another bridge to the Broken Wizard, I started to explore the area and find a good place to go up to the main area where the Bird Cage is. I found an area, ran around it like a mad because i had no idea that there was going to be hundred of creeper spawners, I got away before they ended up blowing me up and killing me. I looked around some more and found a rail chest with a few stacks of bricks. I went back to the main area and "Tard Pillared" (technical term) up high enough to be at level to the Bird Cage. I started off thinking "Wow this area is so easy but when I went around once pillar I noticed something on three towers surrounding the Bird Cage, Ghast Spawners (Y U SUCH A ****!...lol jk), anyways when I realized that I knew I had to make a roof along with walls, etc. but I had no idea just how many ghasts were going to spawn. After I died a few time and lost about 2/4 stacks of bricks to the creepers below I brought up a chest and dumped all my crap into it and continued to build. I finally got to the Birdcage and had no idea it was going to be the 11 track. I was so excited I actually just jumped into the creepers (after I put the disc in the chest first). I came back got my stuff and went back to the JBM starving and only has half a heart left like every other time I've gone there and placed the record in the jukebox, fell to my death, came back and realized it was a secret room. I found the flint and steel in the chest thought to my self for a second "what the **** am I going to do with all this," I turned my head and saw the nether portal. I went in it got to the nether fortress copy and paste cheap cheaty map thingy....wandered around for while hoping to find nether warts, sadly I did not. I then saw 4 ghast spawners on the roof of something and knew it had to be another bird cage. Got to it died once from creepers/skeles in the building. I came back, broke open the Bird cage and found redstone, almost forgot to mention I found the Godly diamond sword in the fortress :tongue.gif:. Ok back to the topic of me finding the redstone. Yay! I'm glad you did it like that because I though I had to get Silk Touch and get it myself. After I got it I went back to the JBM, placed the redstone, replaced stal just so I could rock out again. I went back to through the nether portal and made another bridge to "Hell on Earth," after a lot of wandering, forest fires, and large blaze tnt traps (I hate you so much for that), I got away from it though so add more tnt :wink.gif: so i was back to wandering and came to ghost spawner on tops of trees so I knew that was a good sign. Went into the middle of all the spawner and saw the bird cage and stole some coal form it and ran off again. Placed the coal, took a picture, and then posted here. Expect more stories tomorrow.
Wow I wrote a lot. I should write a novel on my experiences in this map.
Well, it is an open world kind of map, exploration is the motto here. :mellow.gif:
Actually, that's exactly why I picked up this map to begin with, for the kick-in-the-balls type of difficulty. I was looking for a decent challenge and it served its purpose. :laugh.gif:
Easier said than done. A lot of people simply do not care for deaths and will even abuse the fact that it will fill back up your food bar. It's impossible to prevent this. :dry.gif:
As for losing items because of death, if the player cares about his valuable stuff, he's not gonna take unnecessary risks with it and will make sure to only carry disposable stuff in dangerous areas. Again, you can't do anything about it unless the player is too reckless or just retarded.
There is rare items that cannot normally be obtained in this map, you just need to find them. However, Three Two made it quite clear that :
With that in mind, you cannot expect rare items to fall from the sky just like in Spellbound Caves. :blink.gif:
As expected. It's all about the will of the players and if their expectations are fulfilled or not. I've seen skilled players never finishing maps because of reasons such as "I lost too much good stuff, therefore I can't finish it" or "This isn't as easy as I expected". I've also seen some of the most horrible players out there finish difficult maps with only their willpower and perseverance. Incredible, yet funny at the same time.
Which Minecraft version are you playing? If it's one of the recent snapshots, I got bad news for you :
"With the 12w04a snapshot, however, they seem to recognize signs as non-solid, and will avoid walking over them if the drop below is too tall."
Other than open-world, there's always :
Fully-linear map
(1>1>1>1>1)
Offers complete control over what the player has to do/can obtain. Somewhat evil since the player has no choice.
Linear-branching map
(1>n_n-n¯n)
Pretty much the perfect match between control and freedom. Easiest to balance and play IMO.
You can also somewhat mix these up (Like Infernal sky II, being both open-world and having intersections). If you can think of a whole next type of map, kudos to you.
If you do one of these, you should also consider back-tracking between areas. Shortcuts, rail chests or pre-made rails are one way to deal with this. Personally, I think the Nether (Many entrances, many exits) and the End (Many entrances, one exit(current spawn)) are really good tools for this, especially the End. The player might be able to control where he ends up, but only the map-maker can control the entrances. By the way, End portal are invisible if looked at from below (Muhahaha). :tongue.gif:
What difficulty? (I assume extra difficult)
Which Minecraft version? (I assume 1.1)
Other than that...
My F2 key is ready...
Cubic Wolves, Deal With It
EDIT: Nevermind, it looks like Bukkit handled it for me.
Well yesterday I was lazy and didn't post an update so here is two days worth of exploring.
Big tree
After I posted my last update about how I couldn't find the Bird Cage in the tree, I found it. It was in the least obvious brach when I went on top and the entire time it was the brach connected to where I made the ladder up to the top of the tree xD so that was a big derp on my part.
Sh*tty X-mas
This area I hated so ****ing much. This area started off with the void fog at the base of it, along with mobs spawning like crazy completely throwing me off my course and into the void. Thanks so much that was the end of my godly Sharpness IV Fire Aspect, Looting diamond sword. I think I cried a little when I starting falling. Anyways after I was done crying in the corner I came back and saw the diamond and gold blocks on the tree. Before I went to go get the blocks I saw the small room in-between all the presents, I went over to the room killed all the silverfish and just took out the record (easiest record to get, ever). After I got the record I pillared back up to my bridge and continued to the diamond and gold blocks. I first took out the gold block heard the tnt and instead of just running away I jumped off my bridge and landed on the floor that the tree was on....fail. I ran back got everything I had before I jumped and went back to my bridge, continued to the diamond blocks, defused the bombs and took the diamond blocks. Yay 9 diamonds, another bonus block and another record xD.
Land of the Snow Golem
Went in thinking it was stone as I saw it from the starting island. I was wrong. I used my cobblestone generator to make enough cobble to bridge through it. I started bridging until I found the Lapis tower (after I fell off the bridge a few times but survived all of the drops. I mined up the Lapis, dropped it off at the JBM and went back to the tower and saw light coming from down below. I dropped a water bucket down and swam down to the Bird Cage, creepers spawned, I blocked barely surveyed and the creeper were kind enough t destroy all of their own spawners. I grabbed the record and made a mad dash up and out towards the JBM.
Gravitational Challenged Graveyard
Well I checked out the floating graveyard, summary of it:
Lots and lots and lots and lots of zombies.
I started off going to to the very top of the graveyard by placing lava blocks all over, destroying all the spawner, getting killed by a few spiders and fire from my own lava and falling to the bottom of the graveyard. I went back to the nether hoping to find some more loot to use. I found the Smite V sword and knew that this sword was going to live and die in the graveyard. I ran back to the graveyard and destroyed the rest of the spawner on the top layer, I took al the loot out of all the chests hoping I would find the record in one but i got enough gold to make a gold block. Yea! I rinsed and reacted that for the rest f the graveyards and completely passed the tower with the moss stone and thought it was nothing more than a loot chest with torches, continued down and finished up the graveyards and left that place with a bunch of diamonds, gold, a bit of iron, some very good armor and tools. As I was writing this I went back to the Graveyard and checked out the moss stone area found the ladder took the record, nearly got killed by a zombie and ran back to the JBM placed in the record and rocked out once again and finished up typing out this paragraph.
Progress Picture
Cubic Wolves, Deal With It
The FML minimap coming out tonight, though, that may be more for my skill level. Ooh, I can't wait for it to come out! Make it come out faster, pleez! :smile.gif:
If not, will you reply to me with a rough estimate of when it should be ready? I know you said the time was subject to change, but will you tell us how long it will be?
Oooh, I'm so excited! I feel like a child on Christmas Day. There were 24 people on the topic at once before (I think they were anticipating the release!)
I was just reading your previous comment... This new map is Rrrrreeeeaaalllyy difficult xD good luck!!!
Mountains of Blood
I logged on to the map knowing there was a lot more in the mountains of bloods other than a record. I bridged over to the area from the bridge I used to get the Land of the Snow Golems. As I was bridging I noticed the shack on the due of the snow golem area so before i went to the Mountains I bridged over to there, placed a water bucket down swam down, a creeper blew up along with the tnt that was hidden in the shack, that was really mean :sleep.gif: luckily I didn't die from the explosion since I was standing right next to the shack at the time. After that I swam back up to my bridge depressed because I didn't have what was in the chest. I continued my bridged and came to the stone area in the mountains of blood, exploring time. I jumped in lost a few hearts died once to creeper explosions and a little lava.....ran back, got my stuff, lava had stopped most creeper spawners from spawning and I was able to get the loot which was a single grass block which i was so thankful for. I pillared out of the place and ran back to the starting island and placed the grass block down and started the clean up my mess of a floating island.
Floating Island
Most of the time today on my map was that I was working on fixing up my Starting Island. It took about 5-6 hours total to make my island look as nice as I wanted it to. I started off my burning down all the trees but first I made sure I removed the lava block to stop it from spreading any more. I later removed lava from everywhere around even the lava that had been overflowing the sides which took a bit of suicide to remove it all. I went ask for some more grass to spread, etc. and filled in my tnt holes/creeper holes. After i finished that tedious task i finished lighting up every corner of the island and then I planted saplings throughout the area and now my island looks like a paradise although its located in hell xD. Also I made a small lake for aesthetics purposes.
Mountains of Blood Continued
I continued over to the Mountains and and created a staircase down the second shack I've seen in the map I went down but first put most of my stuff in a chest I had placed on the side of the stairs I went down but as i had gotten down to the ground I found the passage in the side of wall with the nether warts and other potion brewing items...YAY! I went back up the my chest placed it in there and went back to the shack. I went inside the Fisherman's shack and found the Sharpness V fishing rod which was the main reason I had gotten the record further up. I continued over the nearest mountain and dug a staircase up and through the mountain until i eventually got to the record area. I quickly took out the ghast spawner without a few spawning which was taken care of quickly with my bow. I then took out the skele spawners without too much trouble. Once I got up to the next floor the magma cubes were soooooooooo much trouble, they kept knocking me away from the spawners even though I was able to kill them quickly but they were spawning nearly just as quickly. Once I finally got rid of the spawners I pillared up to the two other ghost spawners and placed tnt to blow them up before too many spawned. Easy enough I grabbed the record and placed it in the chest in the fisherman's shack. Blood Mountains-Finished
Bad Dreams
This area I had the least amount of trouble in other than Behind the Curtain. I bridged over to it using up most of my cobble I went up high in the area which apparently was out of range of all but 1 ghost spawner which I destroyed without any problem, I continued my bridging to the other side of the area and found the next part which i made a spiral staircase up to little water area which once again I didn't have stop much trouble with when I had brought a bucket so I could get a breath of water whenever I started to drown which wasn't too often since I was sung the respiration helmet I had found in the Graveyard. took me about 15 minutes to find the "not as well hidden as I thought chest" so I felt pretty dumb when I found it and that I had been walking right past it over and over this entire time. Another record down!
Start of Railroad
I brought all the railway supplies to my base after I made a rail line form the back to my starting island so soon I'm going to make another line to the JBM and to the Magma Citadel which is the only record I still have left to get but I can tell already it's going to take me forever to fine the Birdcage in that mess.
Picture of My Starting Island Remodeled
Picture of the Monument's Progress
Perhaps 'Vinyl Fantasy' should be the name of the first one, and you should develop a separate name for the series itself - such as 'Record Hostility', 'Painful Muses', ' three-two's Musical Masochism', you get the picture...
Ooh, I like "Musical Masochism".
It's kinda like playing Super Meat Boy's harder levels. You just have to get in there and get killed a bunch of times while you figure out a successful pattern. I will say, if you haven't rage quit yet, The Hospital Inferno area is the one to beat first. You can walk away from that area with a bed, chests, signs and lots of food and potions (medicine). Seems like mostly trivial stuff but, in a map where I have gone out of my way to limit your resources, a few cleverly placed signs and chests might help you beat the map with some strategy instead of skill. Nah, you'll still need skill xD
Vinyl Fantasy is definitely the name of the series. My flagship maps like the first Vinyl Fantasy will be numbered sequentially with roman numerals i.e. Vinyl Fantasy II will be the next full map. The FML maps will be a side series under the VF brand name. I haven't had a chance to re-organize the thread since release of FML Mini-Map last night but, should be easy to figure out when I update.
I like your ideas but, the name Vinyl Fantasy has caught on so it's best to just roll with it :smile.gif: Eventually folks will realize when they see the name Vinyl Fantasy to expect pain, masochism and hostility!
No progress.
Magma Citadel
Bridged over to it dropped tnt on a few ghast spawners explored around a bit and still have yet to find the Bird Cage so I'm not going to do another update until I get around to the map and find the Bird Cage :/
Of course, that will likely change.
We've decided to take a break though, as I just got the last piece of a new computer I've been planning to build for a few months, and it's much better than this current laptop... So expect some LPs to show up soon.
I must say, the map has been great fun so far. I do have a quick question though - any intention to make the new map SMP-compatible, or is it designed to be SSP only. I ask because I'd like to do an LP of that with my friends, but if that would break the map, we might just do it individually.
Either way, from the screenshots it looks to be quite interesting. If it's the same quality as the first one (and no doubt it is), this series is looking to possibly surpass Super Hostile in my opinion!
Thanks for the fun map(s) three_two!