Yeah, for an update denoted the "Wild Update," I have to imagine that jungles will be getting some updates like waterfalls, fjords, and perhaps palm trees (coconuts?). I personally loved jungles when they were first released, but over time they became somewhat mundane due to the lack of significant variation among them (like most other biomes) - even the jungle temples don't offer that much. Maybe they could include some unique "Heart of the Rainforest" as the land equivalent to the heart of the sea. I don't know what it would do, though.
Now I'm just spitballing ideas... which is what I've done recently.
My main world, Quintropolis, is at 1.73 GB as of today - I haven't actually explored far beyond 15k blocks in any direction yet, which is why it is so small (though it contains a considerable number of builds, which I'm sure adds to the size). I expect this size to increase dramatically once I update to 1.18 and do some heavy exploring (50k blocks+, etc.), probably a couple years from now.
Maybe this is obvious and you have already tried this, but have you used a creative copy to try locating structures using the /locate command? At least this way, you could determine whether you just have bad luck, or if there really are no structures in the world.
Started a few hardcore world latetly, also been messing around in survival in the latest snapshots. (Currently have a little hut in the middle of a very ddep cave with mineshafts all around. However all this got me thinking so I made a new world in the snapshot as a tester...
I went to my main Minecraft folder and to my main 11 year old survival world and coppied the biggest regions, fishing out all the small ones so far, and also copying thee entities folder over to the new world. (For my cats, dogs, horses, donkeys etc.) Not too many problems or chunk borders so far. There is one chunk border near by, so to give you an idea:
So far I haven't had any complications or reasons not to do this. Before it's mentioned, I will not use worldedit. i don't get on well with it. For the first time in 11 years, I could have structures naturally spawn such as mansions, ocean monuments and most critically strongholds, all of which I've found. The only questions are do I do it, do I keep the old nether or the new one (Better chanced of finding a nether fortress).
Keep in mind I've travelled almost 30 - 50k in almost every direction possible for years for new content/chunks etc.
The one thing I can argue for reasons against it though, is essentially it won't technically be the same world any more but a "Clone world" of the original... That I also would have to seriously weigh up.
Definitely an interesting conundrum, however I am confused - have you been unable to generate mansions, monuments, and strongholds in the existing world? Or are you saying that within the 30-50k explored areas, you have already found them all? I guess at least we now know that 1.18 will alleviate some of this by generating new caves underneath y:0 for all existing biomes - personally, I'll be interested to see how this works out especially considering things like mob caps, building close to bedrock, etc. But good to know that some new content will be available right at home.
I didn't realize you had explored that much, so the conundrum makes sense and I guess it just comes down to what keeps you interested in the game. It's true that it might not be the original world anymore, but... the Ship of Theseus thought experiment comes to mind. What defines the same world? One could argue that any Minecraft update removes the authenticity of the world since the original chunks are all updated.
You could always venture out into a new area, 50k or hell even 100k from your main base, then start over, treating that as a new world, a new base, etc. This way, maybe you always have the option of somehow tying the two "worlds" together in the future, and it can give you the opportunity to start anew (utilizing some of the sleek new terrain in 1.18) while still preserving the history of the world. This is actually something I am considering myself - I really want to fully immerse in the new "updated Minecraft" world, but my plan for this is to eventually start a new base very far away, not actually relying on Starlight, but rather literally building a new world from the ground up somewhere new.
But maybe you're talking about integrating the existing builds into a world with the new terrain. In that case - it's whatever keeps you interested! For me, I couldn't do it, but that's just because I'm already planning to do the aforementioned exodus at some point.
Of course I am biased because I never update right away (in fact I still play in 1.15 and will continue to do so for a while), so for me it does not matter that some of the announced features like the deep dark are being delayed (since I delay updating anyway). This is a great decision, and I'm sure they're learning from the "over-announcing" issue that 1.17 caused in terms of player expectations. If not for this, none of the current announcements would be disappointing in any way. In any case, I look forward to eventually experiencing all of 1.16-1.19 together, as it appears Mojang is finally tackling some of the core issues that have been plaguing Minecraft's flavorless terrain diversity for a while.
What keeps me playing is how I have been able to use Minecraft as a unique storytelling outlet. I don't think of the game in terms of its updates, content, etc., instead just using it as a tool to tell my own stories. I still play in 1.15.2 (it would have been 1.12, however I had already planned ahead of time to jump straight to 1.15), and I have no intentions on updating anytime soon. New content is always welcome, and I continue to follow these updates - they simply do not define how I choose to play the game. I'm always coming up with new ideas that will last for years - even now, I could play in 1.15 for the next decade, and still will be working through my current list of projects. This is because everything for me is about story and the lore, around which I choose to base most of my projects.
This actually expands to exploring as well. Some of my explorations may seem mundane at first glance after having been playing this game for almost a decade - for example, a simple trek to a mega taiga through mountains, plains, forests, etc. However, it's the lore I've created in my head about why that taiga exists, and what it represents in the world, that makes it interesting to me (in fact this is the case in my current world, in which the only major mega taiga I've found is an important war-struck historical land in the world's lore, called Stonewall).
New updates, such as the recently announced deep dark cities, can certainly add some flavor to the lore (and they do!). It's for this reason that I do eventually update, but only if/when my story calls for it.
I usually spend my time in the Java Edition section of the forum posting updates to my survival world, and right now I am developing the third season finale of that world's journal, called Legends of Quintropolis. Quintropolis is a full vanilla survival world that has persevered more than eight years and nearly three seasons, full of features, history, and mythology. This is the first finale which will serve as a full-length film (the other two have been a hybrid of film-like elements and a world tour), and I am looking for two voice actors to fill two very specific roles in the film - one female and one male. If this sounds interesting to you, read on!
Click HERE to view the Quintropolis journal, and follow the story of the first two seasons and what has released of the third season. The format of the world's progress is done in a literary session-based season, each season of which is comprised of 100 episodes. This replaces a traditional Let's Play series, which I simply could not maintain due to time constraints. Instead, I include the occasional video alongside the journal. The goal of this film is to cover the entire season's story in a single video episode.
TITLE: "Legends of Quintropolis: Age of Ender"
SYNOPSIS: The story of the endermen's arrival to Quintropolis is fully explored in a race against time as the Quintropolis gods make their presence known for the first time in thousands of years. As Starlight HQ blossoms to control the known overworld, the threat of Enderquin's siege upon Quintropolis looms near.
This film is a sequel to my previous film, the second season finale, called The Day Techtropolis Fell, released in 2016. You can watch this here:
It also follows up on the Legends of Quintropolis video series that premiered after Session 200, but it only lasted 14 episodes before I had to axe it. A few other videos were released afterwards, leading up to the initial confrontation with Enderquin in Session 250 - the mid-season finale:
ROLES:
Violet (female) - The sole villager found on Quintropolis Island after the day Techtropolis fell, who carries an ominous truth throughout the unearthing of the mystery behind the endermen. She is a principal character in the series, portraying both scared and ominously confident vibes at the same time. Her development in the series is steep, and you can find some of this in the aforementioned journal.
Mayor Sensha (male) - The mayor of Starlight City was responsible for calling the villager invasion which caused the fall of Techtropolis. He finally makes an appearance, and his relationship with my character is quite complicated as we grow further to understand the mysteries that lie beneath the world.
The other characters are voiced by me, including Enderquin, but these are the two I cannot emulate myself.
REQUIREMENTS / TO APPLY:
A decent microphone and Discord - you do not even need to play Minecraft, as this is purely a voice acting project (I have already done most of the filming with the characters). I can help you configure the appropriate settings for recording. You will be given the script and context of the scenes (we will of course discuss these things ahead of time, so you fully understand the story of Quintropolis as it relates to this film), then you can record the scenes at your own time. My goal is to make this as easy as possible.
To apply, you can either post below, or send me a message, including why you are interested and perhaps what voice acting experience you might have (this is not required, but helpful). If you do have some examples of your voice, please send those too so I can get an idea of how you will fit the character. I won't ask for your age, but I do need you to be mature (and not your version of mature, but my version, which means having some sensibilities about you and being able/willing to explore dark and socially relevant themes which are presented in this film).
That's all for now - feel free to explore the journal and learn more about the story (there's a lot of it, so don't be overwhelmed - I'll be able to synthesize it succinctly during our initial discussions). And if you are interested and able to perform one of these roles, please apply!
I think repeatedly replying to this thread with no context is not allowed
it is bumping an old thread to the top repeatedly.
Hello Tarnings,
I'll admit that initially I was pleasantly surprised to see a comment to this journal - I don't usually expect those nowadays. However, your reply isn't exactly warranted in this case - I've been repeatedly replying to this thread for years, because it's my personal world journal, and an evolving story (so not sure about the lack of context you speak of).
I can't tell if you have read more than beyond the dates listed on the post. But since you did take the time to respond, I'd encourage you to instead engage with the material in a meaningful and positive way. It's written for your enjoyment, after all.
This session was originally supposed to unveil during June, because there are some specific real-life parallels, the seeds of which have been planted for many, many years. There are some extremely important revelations in today's story-centric Quintropolis chapter.
Of course, this is one of just many developments of today's session, which is really a PART 2 from the previous one. The establishment of Quintropolis as a nation now requires some very important planning, and today I'll be going through this planning and outlining all of what has been incorporated so far. This session will therefore be a great refresher on Quintropolis's geography, as we will be revisiting every single location in some form or another. I would actually say that this session is extremely approachable for anyone who might be new to the journal!
I recommend revisiting the prologue Secret of Stonewall story of Session 200 before engaging with this session!
Session 276 - "Starlight City and the Story of Stonewall"
“What do you mean I built this place? I’ve only just found it!”
“Are you Joey San?” the villager asks.
“Well… yes, I am…” again, they can just call me JOEY.
“Then you’re credited as the founder of this city according to our history books.”
I don’t know what is going on. I have never seen this village until now! However, it’s interesting that despite never seeing this village before, this is EXACTLY where I intended to erect Starlight City. As such, the fact that the village claims to already have incorporated – it’s all a bit mysterious. I should put this mystery aside for now, though. I need to find Okonopolis.
I’ll try to change the subject rapidly.
“So, what do you know about Okonopolis?” I ask the curious villager.
“Oh, we’ve been getting letters from that place for a long time – however, these letters would come from different directions. So, this is why we think the city does not exist.”
“Who would be sending the letters then? And what are the contents of these letters?” I’m getting a little pushy – but I need answers.
“Oh, the letters haven’t been anything too special – not besides the recent call to action regarding the wind patterns. In terms of their origin – we think they may come from our neighbors simply disguising themselves under the name Okonopolis.”
“I see… So, these neighbors you speak of… Are you referring to Megapolis?”
“Megapolis? Haha, no, we could just hike there if we wanted to trade with them. Obviously, I’m talking about Delta – our southern neighbor – and Quarica, our neighbor far west. We do also have some relations with a city called Omar which we believe is far north – but, we rarely hear from them. How do you not know this?”
Have these villagers been developing their own nation without me? That’s the only thing I can think of. But then the whole mystery about Starlight City already existing has me confounded. At least I now have some sense about where these so-called “cities” are located.
“I see – alright then. I’m going to continue mapping the Starlight City boundaries to prepare for further development.” I’m getting right down to business now.
“Have fun,” says the villager. But his tone seems somewhat ominous. I don’t like it.
So, as I map the land west of the chunk border, I make notes on my discoveries – including an abandoned fort of some sort, plus some other villages out here. I think that first village comprising my exchange with the knowledgeable villager is a good spot to establish the center of the city’s business and trade district.
^ Here, you can see most of the western segment mapped out, all the way to the coast.
^ Next, we have the map segments just east of the previous one.
And here is the mushroom island we discovered way back in 2015, called Loveland. It’s technically considered within the planned borders of Starlight City, although I do have plans for how I want to develop it in the future. Finally, it is getting mapped.
Back at Starlight Treehouse, here you can see the full map of Starlight City as it currently is mapped:
Notice the green waypoint on the far right located on Quintropolis Island – this is Starlight HQ. Then you see the chunk border created from 1.7, with everything west of that only now being explored and mapped. It’s several thousand blocks across – you’ll notice that the land resembles a diagonal slant. There is further land north and south, but I’ll be exploring this later on.
For right now, I intend to establish a connection to that knowledgeable village in the center of the mainland, which will be the center of the city’s business district. We’re not yet ready to develop the city now – but this is what we have been preparing Starlight HQ to handle for the last eight years. Indeed, once we’re ready to begin, the city’s development will be quite intense. It will not take long to achieve a NYC-level business district in this area, with the current resource farms we have.
This hub will be dubbed Starlight Central, being the first stop off the Q3 highway. It’s not far from Starlight HQ – only a few hundred blocks west. This is also not the final hub at all – I actually want to start developing the Nether expressway terminals like airports! So, eventually all major cities connected to the expressway (Starlight City, Megapolis, Utopia, etc.) will have hubs just like the Nether Hub which covers Starlight HQ. Different amenities and things will eventually be added later on to the terminals.
Let’s look at the current map of all incorporated lands within Quintropolis – this will provide a better idea at the current geography we are working with, as well as how our expressway system will need to be setup:
1 - Starlight City - The center of the world, and the city I have planning to construct for the last several years. Home to all of Quintropolis Island (including Starlight HQ), the Inner Circle, Emerald Hills, Fall Damage, and a vast amount of land which has yet to be developed into a NYC-style first world city.
2 - Megapolis - Our new Quintropolis capital, home to Techtown, Enderquin HQ, and incredible biodiversity. I have specific architectural ideas for how I want to develop this city. This is also the oldest established city in Quintropolis, having emerged from Techtown - the very first original village which was considered an ancient city back in 2014.
3 - Stonewall - The historic land of war, largely undeveloped, home to Aftermath and the Ice Realms, and a very diverse selection of landscapes, which unfortunately have gone mostly unexplored as the city has been troubled by supernatural war.
4 - Utopia - One of the newest and fastest growing cities to be introduced in Quintropolis, Utopia is home to our new clay-mining quarries, Witherquin Waters, and the first of the explored 1.13+ chunks. Most of the marked boundaries remain unexplored.
5 - Rogusta - Conversely, one of the oldest cities with a wide range of biomes in a relatively small space. Rogusta's primary feature is a historic village which served as a base for a while during exploration of the eastern lands, though most of the land is undeveloped.
6 - Stanland - An important agricultural city which is mostly governed by Starlight HQ, home to the SANA, our first explored ocean monument, and the birch wood forests we have almost entirely mined out.
7 - Rainbow Cliffs - Home to the monumental savannah plateau which is the tallest natural feature in Quintropolis. This is technically not a city - not yet, because it has no villages/residents.
8 - Icaria - An oceanic mountain base which was used for mining of stone blocks like andesite, diorite, and granite.
9 - Shavland - A largely undeveloped land which was the primary source of spruce wood and other taiga features during the early game. I intend to develop this area into a 'mountain backwoods resort' type of town, focused on camping and other outdoor features.
10 - Loveland - Newly-named but founded back in 2015, this is the first mushroom island discovered in Quintropolis, home to the first mooshrooms which made their way back to Starlight HQ. This is technically considered part of Starlight City.
11 - Candyland - Home to Gravity Gorge and prior to that our principal mesa quarry (but this has now moved to Utopia), this is currently the furthest city from Starlight HQ, and the edge of the planned Starlight District.
12 - Fort Ficont - This is the first mention of this island which sits between Starlight City and Utopia, and nothing will be disclosed on the island's purposes as of yet. Originally mapped as part of Starlight City, it will eventually become something else entirely...
“Excuse me, sir – what are you doing here?” This villager interrupts me while I’m trying to get things done. Does nobody respect my diligence?
“Hi there – I think I spoke with one of your council members earlier… I’m connecting your village to Starlight HQ so I can begin development of this city.” I figure an up-front approach will be easiest here.
“Do you have a build permit for that?” he asks.
“I beg your pardon?” Build permit? Who does this villager think I am??
“A build permit. You know, to show you have permission to build here…” Okay, guy – I’m not an idiot. I know what a build permit is.
I laugh just a bit.
“I don’t need a build permit; this is my city!”
“Uh huh… wait here please,” he says, before he hurries back to the village.
I can’t believe that now I’m dealing with this garbage. Seriously? Permission to build outside the village?
“Hi there – can I help you?” a second villager asks. Still not the guy I spoke to earlier, but I don’t see him at all. I’m getting annoyed.
“No, actually, you cannot. I’m good, thanks.”
“Do you have a build permit for this?” the second villager asks.
“WHAT IS WITH YOU AND YOUR BUILD PERMITS??!! NO, I don’t have a build permit! I have NEVER had a build permit!! That has NEVER existed! Did I need a build permit to erect the high-tech metropolis of Starlight HQ which is about to give you and your village new life? NO. Did I need a build permit to completely rule the Netherworld and turn it into my personal expressway? NO. Why are you bothering me like this…”
Am I losing control? I might be…
The villagers stare for a moment – all of them in the village.
“Actually,” the villager starts, “if Starlight HQ is on Quintropolis Island, then you do need a permit for that. I’m pretty sure you were unable to show one a few years ago when the council of Techtown came by – is that correct? Do you have one now?”
I just stop for a moment to process what this villager just said to me.
“No…” is all I respond with.
“Uh well that’s grounds for arrest… considering that place has also violated several building laws within the city.”
“What? Do you have a mayor I can speak to? Somebody with some authority that knows what in the world is going on?” I’m losing patience with this conversation.
I wait a while, and I even contemplate running off. But then I remember that’s exactly what I did back in Session 200 and the consequences of that proved to be great. I’ll wait and engage in this conversation.
“Hi, how are you today?” I’m guessing this is the mayor…
“Hello there – are you the mayor?”
“Yes, you can call me Mayor Sensha. So, it seems you have finally come here to address your crimes.”
Well, that’s a big leap forward I didn’t see coming…
“Crimes? I know nothing of these crimes! Are you trying to tell me that you had every village invade Starlight HQ because of some build permits? I built this world from the ground up!”
“That’s just it, Joey – you didn’t. You have so far demonstrated authoritarian control over the villages, lack of regard for the natural ecosystem that has now resulted in shifting wind patterns, and you started a war with gods in the land of Stonewall. These are very big problems that you’ll need to answer for.”
“Wake up, Mayor Sensha. This world you live in has so much more potential than any of you realize. That’s what I’ve been trying to show you from day one! We can make Quintropolis better – together. Megapolis is already on board with the development of the city. Techtown’s principal council members now live on the island which I am building FOR THEM.”
The mayor appears to contemplate my statements. I don’t think he’ll see things from my side, though. I never realized that the Techtown invasion actually originated… from Starlight City…
“You mean Boshtok and Drexel?” he asks me. “Oh yeah – they’ve been reporting everything to me.”
“Of course they have… I guess we’ll need to have a conversation about that-“
“Are you so entitled that you don’t realize the impact your actions have had on the world around you??” the mayor asks with concern. “Put aside the build permits for a moment (though, we’ll need to get back to that) – you started a supernatural war several years ago by fulfilling the Secret of Stonewall. You clearly have no idea what you’re doing. Do you even know where that mythological story came from??”
“I… I found it in a dungeon under the island. I was mining for-“
“IT’S A MYTH, Joey! That’s why it’s called a mythological story. That is NOT the story of Stonewall! For you to believe in that story and take that as the true Secret of Stonewall – you are blinded by your own arrogance.”
“Then educate me.”
At this point, all the other villagers retreat indoors as night falls. Things are tense, but it seems we might be getting somewhere. The Secret of Stonewall was fake? I’m willing to learn more.
“Please. Everyone I meet seems to know so much about this world more than I do – all these ancient cities and stories that I don’t get the chance to understand on my own! Has it not occurred to YOU that maybe I am just trying to understand this world because nobody gives a damn to help me do so?”
Again, a brief silence as Mayor Sensha thinks about my frustrations. Clearly, we’re both in some troubled waters.
“Come inside,” he invites me into the church.
“Stonewall is a land of intense rivalry between ancient villages. While it’s true that it was home to the ancient civilization of kuli aleilm, there is no evidence to suggest that the gods had any interference into the civilization’s eventual destruction. That was always the myth to cover up the truth.”
“Everything started when a specific group of outsiders entered the village. Kuli aleilm had not seen outsiders in a very long time – generations, in fact. These outsiders had interesting quirks, different professions, clothes, and behaviors. But for them, it was all the same. They did not realize that the villagers of kuli aleilm viewed anything outside their borders as potentially dangerous. It was misunderstood by kuli aleilm, and they were afraid, thinking that the outsiders were there to kill them.”
“But the outsiders intended to make kuli aleilm their new home. However, the residents had a particular way of life – and they viewed the outsiders as trespassing on their land. When the outsiders made their way into kuli aleilm, they tried speaking with the villagers, but nobody would acknowledge they were even there. This upset the outsiders, who did not understand why they were being treated so differently. One of the outsiders spoke loudly at a craftsman to get his attention, but only at that point did kuli aleilm acknowledge the outsiders, and with disdain. Fearing for their life, they violently killed the outsiders by stoning them against the village’s outer walls – all just because they were different. This is where the modern name ‘Stonewall’ comes from.”
“The violence at the village borders caused an uproar around kuli aleilm’s borders. Some villagers stood with them – others were wholeheartedly against their violent behavior. A civil war broke out, bloodshed collapsing the village entirely from within. One village spoke of a particular spiritual entity that they would use in the war to destroy kuli aleilm – a power that only comes from the Netherworld. Contained in the nether star, this is the power of Witherquin – the god of death and the underworld.”
“When you awakened the Witherquin demons for the first time, you unleashed the very power that Witherquin wanted you to free. For millennia, all the villages of Quintropolis vowed to protect the world from the myth of the Netherworld. You see, villagers do not enter the Netherworld. It is no place for a villager, but we have understood this fact. Even from the moment you first entered the Netherworld, you brokered a connection between the two dimensions which has never existed.”
“So, you see, Stonewall erupted from civil chaos, and the emergence of Starlight HQ – along with the freeing of Witherquin – has had a rippling effect on all the villages who have sworn to protect Quintropolis from another civil war. We do not understand the impacts of this event, because it has never occurred before. All we have done is try to warn you about what it will cause. You said yourself – that you do not understand this world. That is the one part you have been correct about.”
“…Wow…” is all I can say, as I sit in dismay reflecting on the fact that the Secret of Stonewall was a lie. But was it?? Again, I must remain vigilant. In the back of my mind, I always consider that the villagers may come up with whatever story they desire to get me to change my ways.
…But then, that’s exactly what they’re fighting for. And for me to dismiss what the mayor is saying – that would be both foolish and inconsiderate. This is a very sad story, indeed – a truth I wouldn’t have thought possible among the villages.
“What’s done is done,” I begin to respond to the story. “Maybe I cannot change my actions from the past. But I’m not like the villagers at kuli aleilm. Although I may approach things differently… recklessly, even… I have the same goal as you. Starlight HQ was designed to protect Quintropolis from war – not just civil war, but supernatural war. The gods have kept you captive for so long. Don’t you think it’s time to show them that you are not their puppets?”
I can sense that Mayor Sensha and I have finally hit some middle ground.
“We’re on the same side, Mayor. Enderquin has already been defeated,” I choose to share this fact.
He does not seem surprised.
He responds ominously: “One does not simply ‘defeat’ a god, Joey.”
Then he leaves the church, lights out, as I just sit there alone. Waiting. For nothing at all to come next.
Finally receiving some closure on the great day that Techtropolis fell all those years ago, we've got some work to do. And a lot of it comes up next.
Maybe I'm late as usual, but you already know that's how things go nowadays. The world never dies - it just... cries? IDK, I tried to do a little rhyme, but perhaps it wasn't the best paradigm.
Anyway, I'm actually at Session 280 in real-time, so uh... maybe it's time to catch up on the updates! Time permitting, I'll hopefully be churning these next few out, because there is A LOT to cover.
This was a particularly fun and exciting exploration-based session - one of significant importance as we hone back in the "context" and story-based narrative of Quintropolis.
Session 275 - "Trade World"
Our new tropical farms have been a very great success and have given the Aqua Lounge a necessary improvement. As this build continues to grow, we also have more work to do on these farms. Let’s look at the MISC, for instance – we can now use the kelp farm as an automated input, and the sea pickle farm as an output. These can then be connected to any of the other targets we have already set up!
Additionally, we need to begin thinking about the “overdrive farms” I mentioned in Session 272. The sea pickle farm may not be necessary to overdrive, but the kelp farm for sure needs to be included on the “overdrive” list (so, we will make eight more kelp farms underneath the Aqua Lounge and use Starlight Overdrive to control how many of them are active). I think, between new MISC links and all the new farms for Starlight Overdrive, we have our work cut out for what needs to come next in the base.
To start, I’m going to blow up half of the –
KNOCK KNOCK
Huh? Must just be a nosy skeleton. Anyway, as I was saying, the first step is to destroy all the –
KNOCK KNOCK
Okay, maybe a REALLY nosy skeleton. Let’s go take care of that real quick…
“Drexel? What are you doing here? How did you even find this place?” I ask the nosy neighbor.
“To be fair, it’s a small island. We’re adventurous, like you.”
“Fair enough. What brings you by? I’m working right now.”
“We’ve received a letter from Okonopolis. And you need to read it,” he speaks urgently.
“From where? I’ve never heard of that, and I have founded every city in this world.”
“Apparently not, because Okonopolis is the oldest living city in the world. How do you not know that?”
“Disregard my comments. Where’s this letter?” I’ll just act like I know what he’s talking about.
“Come to the Inner Circle.”
I guess Starlight HQ’s updates will need to wait for another day. It looks like we have pressing matters to take care of. Maybe even our first efforts at diplomacy.
“Joey San, welcome sir,” says Boshtok as I make way into the household that I built for them. Apparently, there are two other villagers here as well.
“Just Joey is fine. This isn’t a tyranny,” I attempt to reassure him, knowing full well what the villagers think of me. “Who are the guests?”
“Guests? How silly! These are our children,” says Drexel. It’s funny, because I didn’t even think these two could make children if they tried.
“Joey, meet Staz and Ibram,” Boshtok brokers an introduction to the apparent new residents of the Inner Circle. And Staz is already trading Frost Walker II books.
“I didn’t build a home for them,” I speak to Drexel.
“It’s okay, we can cozy up in here for a while. Besides, we know you’ll return to build more homes later.”
He’s not wrong about that.
“Show me the letter,” I request.
“Right, down to business.”
Boshtok reveals a letter from inside his mailbox, which I never built originally. In fact, I notice a lot of new things around the circle that I did not build. I guess this is what happens when you leave “adventurous” neighbors alone on your island.
TO THOSE IT MAY CONCERN
For the first time in centuries, the wind patterns have shifted in Okonopolis. This behavior is unusual, as we have been able to track these patterns consistently for all time. We request that our neighbors at Delta and Quarica help us to identify the cause of the shifting patterns, as they may indicate a change in Quintropolis’s climate. If this is the case, then further investigation may be necessary to determine the cause. Protecting the natural ecosystem of Quintropolis is our primary goal, and we take these concerns seriously. Any threats to this ecosystem will promptly be eradicated. Please help us to investigate the changes, and we will be grateful for your services.
Sincerely,
The government of Okonopolis
“Hmm,” I ponder for a moment. Why have I never heard of this city, which Drexel described as the oldest in Quintropolis? How does he know about it? And why have I never heard of Delta or Quarica? Clearly, I’m missing some big puzzle pieces about this world.
“So, have you paid a visit to Delta? Or… Quar, Quarica?” No, I didn’t stumble trying to pronounce it.
“Sure, let’s just pack up and go!” replies Drexel, but I sense an uncanny sarcasm in his tone.
“Yeah, all you’ll need is a compass and a map!” adds Boshtok. They’re ganging up on me. I should know why. I don’t.
“Okay… but I can fly. Perhaps I might be able to visit these ancient cities,” I offer.
“Ah, so you know where they are? Perfect, you can take us to them!”
Now, I understand the conundrum. Barely.
“How would Okonopolis, an ancient city, even be able to track wind patterns? I can’t even do that, and I have the most sophisticated tech in the world here at Starlight.”
“Clearly that isn’t true,” replies Drexel.
“I’ve heard, but don’t quote me, that the Okono District has tech from other worlds, far exceeding anything here,” Boshtok adds.
“Okono District?” I am dumbfounded. Completely dumbfounded.
“Don’t tell me you honestly believed that the world revolves around you and Starlight, Joey.”
I certainly will not tell him that. But I clearly have a lot to learn about my world… I mean, our world.
“I have a plan,” says me, but it’s only half true.
“Unless this plan involves tearing down Starlight HQ to correct the wind patterns, I don’t think there’s a way out of this investigation. It’s worldwide.”
“No, no. There is no way that one, highly sophisticated (might I add) metropolis of a base can affect the world’s entire climate. No way,” I am in denial of the most basic facts about climate change.
“Your pride is your weakness, Joey,” adds Boshtok. “It’s your choices that will make for your ultimate demise.”
Wait just a damn minute. Where have I heard that exact wording before? Verbatim? Don’t remind me.
Something is going on here.
I need to take off.
Any more time spent there, and I would have likely lost my mind. So many questions. So few answers. I won’t lie and suggest that Boshtok is wrong about my pride. It’s true – I have literally spent the last seven years building a world in full belief it was my own.
But this could all be a ruse built by Drexel and Boshtok as a way to make me think differently – a façade. I mean, I already know what they think about Starlight HQ – it’s no surprise they directly asked me to tear it down. It’ll take more to convince me otherwise.
I’m taking a flight far north, beyond anything I have personally explored, in search of this ancient city. I won’t believe it’s real until I see it with my own eyes.
A BAMBOO JUNGLE!!
I never thought I’d find one so soon! Wow, this is amazing. This jungle is not much further north from the areas I have explored of Megapolis.
My first encounter with pandas! This is amazing – after all these years, the wonderful world of Minecraft never ceases to put a smile on my face. This is mostly because I practice delayed gratification, of course.
Here we go – a northern village! Let’s see what we have here…
“HELP us!! A zombie siege is approaching!!” I hear tormenting cries of help all over the village! Perhaps I can help.
…or maybe the iron golems can take of these bastards.
“Hello!” I try to make some conversation with the villagers the next morning, but nobody seems apt to talk with me.
I did find an interesting array of underwater ruins right by the shore not far from the village – and inside that, I found a map to another buried treasure. Let’s see where it is!
ICE SPIKES!! This is now only the second time I have found this rare biome. What’s most notable is the rather close proximity between this and the equally-rare bamboo jungle. To have both biomes in such a close range – this needs to be connected to our expressway!
Wow, this is some seriously amazing and strange terrain generation. It’s moments like these that I am reminded why I love exploring. I’m geeking out over all these little discoveries.
A coastal ice village! The first of its kind in this world – I should say, another first discovery for Quintropolis.
^ A beautiful view of the ice spikes from beyond them. I’m already planning how to incorporate this, the coastal ice village, and the bamboo jungle into the current incorporated land of Quintropolis (specifically Megapolis).
“Sir, sir!!” I hear as I return to the village that previously wanted nothing to do with me after I saved them from the zombie siege.
“Hello there, you missed me, I take it?” Yes, I’m getting a bit cocky.
“We want to incorporate! We want to incorporate!” This villager, and several others, join out to meet me. I’m a little confused as to what is going on, but my ears remain open.
“I beg your pardon?”
“It’s an honor to meet you, Joey San.” Again, these villagers treat me like a god. My encounter with Enderquin made me realize this is NOT what I want!
“Just Joey is fine, thanks… Now what do you mean, you want to incorporate? You want to become a city?”
“Yes, yes – we have laid out maps and documents for the incorporation of Megapolis. In fact, we have already taken the liberty to clear space for a government building. Let me show you!”
The villagers take me to a cleared area where they think a government building should go – a perfect spot actually, right at the base of the mountain, on the outskirts of the village.
“Now, maybe you can help us construct the building?” They ask.
You know what? This is the first time I have encountered a village that has actually WANTED to be part of the incorporation of Quintropolis as a country. Every previous encounter has been very opposed, including the current council I have invited at the Inner Circle. It’s like pulling teeth trying to get them on my side. But this village here? Everyone is ecstatic… Was it really this easy? I guess I never really considered that, well, everyone is different! I always assumed it was me versus every village in order to accomplish my goal of establishing a country. This was wrong on my part.
“Here is a map for you to map the lands of Megapolis. We have been focused on developing the village, but maybe you can work on exploring the rest of what’s around us,” they say.
I am filled with positive energy. These villagers are 100% on board with my city development project. They clearly know about it from the Techtown invasion back in Session 200 – this must mean there are other villages which stand with me, too. I must find them!!
And so, I lay out the foundations for what will be the CAPITOL of Quintropolis. The one village which is so adamant of incorporation must be where the capital resides.
“And so, on this day, Day 5775, I now declare Megapolis – comprising this district, the explored lands north of Quintropolis Island, the bamboo jungle, the newly found ice spikes biome, and the incorporation of Techtown – the CAPITAL CITY of Quintropolis, which now erects this day as a republic.”
Here we are, at a new village thousands of blocks north, which I am designating to be the center of diplomatic relations for all of Quintropolis. With the help of these enthusiastic villagers, there is a lot we can get done.
^ I’ve begun establishing a trade network with them, as I will do for every village in the new country. I have mapped out all the explored parts of Megapolis, getting a sense of direction about the new land, which I will host back at Starlight HQ for further research and planning.
BEES, BEES, BUZZY BEES!
East of the capital village are FOXES and SWEET BERRIES – two new introductions to Quintropolis! Foxes I have been unsuccessful in catching, but I certainly stocked up on some of the delicious berries which currently only exist here.
With Megapolis established, we will begin work on expanding the trade network beyond the borders to where I want to construct Starlight City – the one world city which has been in the planning stage for years. Hopefully, we will be able to locate the currently fabled city of Okonopolis in this process.
^ Here, we are flying across Quintropolis Island, now heading west to cross the 1.7 chunk borders for the first time in history.
Creepers Point is the west-most bit of land on Quintropolis Island. In the distance, you can see the chunk wall that has separated Quintropolis Island from the rest of the world. This is not even a thousand blocks from spawn – yet, I have never ventured west across the chunk border in the last eight years.
That changes today.
HERE WE GOOOO!!
I am immediately greeted by a new 1.14+ coastal village on the border – proof that I’ve never explored this land in the past.
I’m a few thousands blocks inland now, and I see this strange structure. What could it be?
Very interesting… but there’s nobody here. I guess I’ll leave it be for now.
Here is a neat taiga village – one of the first I have discovered in this world.
The trade world expands!!
Aha, finally a village in the far west wilderness, which I have never explored. The winds move in this direction, so I must be getting close!
“Excuse me,” I flag down one of the villagers.
“Yes, may I help you?” he asks.
“I’m looking for a place called Okonopolis. Can you help me?”
“Join the club! Everyone is looking for it. We personally don’t believe it exists.”
Hmm, that’s a curious conclusion. But I need more.
“So, where exactly am I now?” I ask the villager, who seems to understand the conundrum.
“You’re in Starlight City,” he surprises me.
“Huh?”
“You should know that. You built it.”
The world of Quintropolis is expanding. That's how diplomacy works. But, there are some very important things that need to be discussed before the consideration of when it's time to establish Starlight City. Indeed, there's much more going on outside the little comfort zone I've made within Starlight HQ.
Next up... Session 276 - "Starlight City and the Story of Stonewall"
Nice - I'm a big fan of domes and really anything spherical, so naturally I'm attracted to the bee dome design. Quartz is also a go-to building block for me, although deepslate I haven't yet had the pleasure of experiencing (I'm still in 1.15.2 and will stay that way for a little while). I anticipate that once I get my hands on it, I too will start slowly replacing the ol' diorite and andesite constructions... because it does exude a much sexier appeal indeed.
Last year, we did a colorful build session with Gravity Gorge.
This year, I've got something more symbolic planned, but that will be in a few sessions. For today? We're picking back up where we left off three months ago... in a very small pick-up session.
Session 274 - "Update Aquatic"
Only recently did I ever venture into new chunk territory to acquire the new 1.13 blocks and items (I say “new” like they came out yesterday, but recall that I’m among those who tend to wait years before updating – so for me, they are still new). That was in Session 263, when we explored the new aquatic terrain. We built a storage area and collected as much as we could from the new biomes.
But now, we need a way to farm all those items so that we can expand the supply. Today, we’ll be turning our attention to these tropical updates!
By nature, these farms are niche projects, and not very necessary in the bigger scheme of our developments. But, they are still resources, and I pride Starlight on being a hub of resources. As such, I’ll be working to include two principal farm projects in today’s work: the kelp farm and the sea pickle farm.
First, however, I’m setting up an area deep in Starlight Outback near Vax Valley, which will be our turtle farm. With all the turtle eggs I’ve acquired, it’s time to introduce turtles to the base, so that we can begin collecting the turtle shells.
Maybe “farm” is the wrong word here – it’s a turtle sanctuary, as I don’t intend to kill them.
That done, we are moving onto the kelp farm, which is quite easily an observer-based farm. I have torn out the old “squid shooter,” which gives me plenty of hoppers that I can now reuse for something more useful.
The kelp farm now replaces this inside the Aqua Lounge.
Of course, I have two sides of the kelp farm: one side smelts it into dried kelp, and the other leaves it alone. Both funnel into the minecart hopper, which can then be called up to the pantry like the other items to be sorted appropriately.
The kelp farm is purposefully designed small. First, it’s completely automatic, so it will always be harvesting just like the sugar cane farm, as long as we’re in the chunks. As such, having a slower farm is best as it will prevent the storage from getting overloaded too quickly. The second reason is because I plan to include the kelp farm as part of the “overdrive” farms that will be enhanced by Starlight Overdrive. That is to say, I will be building a carbon copy of this farm eight more times, underneath this area, which means we will have the option to multiply its output. Not today, of course. I’ve already picked out a session that will be dedicated to the overdrive farms.
The sea pickle farm will probably not be included in the overdrive farms, because I’m already going to build one of the fastest designs out there by Ray. Nice job on this design, because it will fit succinctly underneath the beach behind Starlight Castle.
The collection spot will be housed in the snow lounge, right next to the rabbit farm and water breathing potion storage.
To activate the farm, you just press the lever and leave it on. It produces a whole chest’s worth of sea pickles in a relatively short time, so you really don’t need to leave it on very long (this is also why I don’t need to add this farm into the overdrive farm unit later).
It literally just hides underneath the beach out behind Starlight. I may consider having an access chamber up here if not just to protect it, should a creeper or something else blow up right here. But for now, it’s in the back of my mind.
Really, the last thing I want to do today is spice up the look of the Starlight Bay, at least from where the Aqua Lounge is sitting. This means using some of the beautiful new coral blocks we obtained a long time ago!
Corals everywhere! I’ll slowly expand these colorful additions throughout the rest of the bay, perhaps even integrating a new water-based segment of Starlight HQ at some later date.
And… that’s all for today! In terms of aquatic updates, this is definitely a good progress report, and I don’t want to get too ahead into the next project, which is not so small scale.
Tropical updates DONE! A very "intimate" session if you will as I settle back into Quintropolis after a few months, now it's time for something very much the opposite...
Getting sand from trades isn't efficient - much better to just use a desert as a sand quarry. You can just fill up your inventory in minutes with an Efficiency III shovel or higher. Bring a few shulker boxes with you, and you can get enough sand for all your concrete, TNT, and glass endeavors. The time spent collecting all that sand would still be faster than the time it would take most farms to net the same amount of resources. So I don't see any real "wasteful use" of such a common and easy-to-stockpile item.
They still won't generate in any amount that would be worth trading though. I'd silk touch them for decoration but that's about it, the majority of emeralds would usually come from villager trades which is pretty ironic considering the game is meant to be about mining.
I'm not against being able to farm infinite amounts of something from a trade but there should still be incentives to actually mine for it.
I would almost support the replacement of emerald ore with a different novelty ore such as the long-proposed ruby ore (or, rather, a variant of it that isn't red) for this reason alone. Emeralds are currency, which negates their usefulness as a mined ore when it's not likely anyone would be mining for emeralds. Having said that, you could say the same about gold farms. Why bother mining for gold in a mesa biome if you can farm it indefinitely? It's really more of a bonus feature than anything else, IMO.
Granted, 1.17 is giving us new reasons to visit mountain biomes, so it's not like there are any real drawbacks from the current system.
Smaller sessions make for faster updates, and oh how we have a fun project today! Or a few of them, as always.
Session 273 - "Block Party"
You already know that I’m a completionist, as was clearly evidenced when I built a full storage room just to organize all the types of tipped arrows, despite the fact that I rarely use them (because they are difficult to acquire). But, I always make sure to build everything at the appropriate time, in the appropriate place. Today, that trend continues as we finally address a significant chunk of blocks that have so far been completely missing from Starlight HQ, and Quintropolis as a whole: glazed terracotta.
There are a few places in which I have used glazed terracotta, but they have not been widely acquired throughout this world, despite being in Minecraft for a long time. Why are we finally getting around to them today? Obviously, I have some specific uses for them.
For this, we need to build a separate storing/smelting room for the glazed terracotta. I’m looking to build it close to the original clay/glass storage room down in the SRF storage cellars.
To do that, I need to move the paper mill which I have been using for paper storage.
I can easily squeeze that storage room on the bottom floor, directly underneath the stairwell to the Diamond Mine. This keeps it completely out of the way, so that we can fully utilize the space for other builds. Such as the smelter we’ll build today.
This is not a very complicated build – it simply takes space and resources to construct. I’ll simply be sorting all the clay colors before they go into the smelter, so that there is one furnace per color (I don’t expect we’d be using this contraption that much wherein we’d require faster rates).
Two chests for each glazed terracotta color is more than enough – I don’t even have more than one chest for each regular stained terracotta.
Voila, a beautiful colored way to denote the chests!
Since the storage is on the bottom layer of the cellars, I can use the top layer for input. The stained terracotta storage is just next door – so, I can select which blocks I want to smelt and simply throw them into the hopper column here. They will sort through the system, smelt, and automatically store into the correct chest. Nice and easy.
Next, we’ll need a way to send items from Starlight Compressor to the glazed terracotta storage. Recall that all items that funnel through Starlight Compressor will head into a chest minecart, at which point they will be extracted in the regular furnace room. That furnace room sorts out all smeltable items, except stained terracotta, because that would make for too many sorters (additional sixteen of them).
So, I’ll install an option to have the minecart go directly to the glazed terracotta smelter, which would be ideal for when you return from a mesa, for instance, and you want to smelt all the terracotta into glazed variants. Return home, take STAS right here to the compressor, and drop off all terracotta for smelting. Everything else is done automatically!
Installing this feature is a simple track switch mechanism. You can see how it works above – pistons will simultaneously change the track layout, forcing the corner track to change directions. Easily, we’ll have the minecart rest atop the hopper column (the same one that extends from the terracotta smelter), so that it’s quick and simple. You can see that I’ve chosen the location for this smelter quite meticulously.
I ran some tests with Starlight Compressor and found it to work beautifully, even if getting additional wires installed back here was a healthy challenge. And, I’ve gotten a good head start on my glazed terracotta supply, which requires a stained terracotta supply, which requires a regular terracotta supply. So, I’ve gotten a mesa trip or two down, and there will be more to come!
Next, I’m itching to construct another modifier. I can’t help it, because we almost have all the plugins that are on my roster for Starlight HQ 3.0. So, let’s fill up the modular mixer and get to it.
We’re finally getting down to this unfinished segment of the tangent floor, which has been reserved for three modifier plugins: Starlight Limiter, Starlight Corkscrew and Starlight Echo. The first two can be built together within a day, and I know exactly what they will do. So, we’ll do those two together in a later session, and choose to knock out Starlight Echo today.
This is a ridiculously simple modifier, compared to the absurd scale that Starlight Overdrive is going to be. Very simply, all this plugin will do is offset the time between input and output (cause an “echo”, if you will).
It will enable this repeater chain I’ve built above (to the right under the red clay), at the beginning of the modifier chain (you can see other modifiers above), which will cause a delay between when input is received and when output is created. This can be useful for some scenarios. For instance, say I toggle the nether wart farm, but I don’t want the potion brewer to start brewing potions until I get there (as it takes roughly 10 seconds to get there from the nether wart farm, sprinting). Maybe I decide at the last minute that I want to change the potion it brews. Well, having a delay will allow me to make this change before brewing begins.
To create this behavior, obviously we need to make sure that the MISC is linking the nether wart farm to the potion brewer (I don’t remember the link number off the top of my head, but it’s in the link map). Then, we’ll just plug the Starlight Echo into the MISC via the modular mixer. Easy! Two AND gates, and the modifier is installed into the mixer.
The only limitations of this plugin are that we cannot adjust the length of the delay without getting deep into the underground wiring (which the UI is supposed to prevent us from having to do). That’s why I think five repeaters is a good option, and later on I can conceptualize ways to build a way that we can adjust it from up here (that’s the biggest limitation for most plugins right now).
With that project done, yet another plugin (three sessions in a row, now?), we’ll finish up the session by looking at why I wanted the glazed terracotta smelter.
Back in Session 267, we began building the Starlight Solace Center. I mentioned that I had a plan for the floor, but I never divulged much of this plan. Today, I share it with you, and I think a few pictures are all that will be necessary to showcase what I wanted to accomplish:
A full block party down here! I’m really looking forward to finishing this build, which mostly will involve the roof. I haven’t figured out exactly what type of roof I want to build, so we’ll wait to complete this another day.
For now, it’s time to enjoy a bit of solace as we embrace a new day in Starlight HQ.
Now that we're getting into the finer resource farms/projects for Starlight HQ, I'd say it's about time to turn our attention to the Aqua Lounge and what we can bring to it. After all, it hasn't been touched since 1.13 released...
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Yeah, for an update denoted the "Wild Update," I have to imagine that jungles will be getting some updates like waterfalls, fjords, and perhaps palm trees (coconuts?). I personally loved jungles when they were first released, but over time they became somewhat mundane due to the lack of significant variation among them (like most other biomes) - even the jungle temples don't offer that much. Maybe they could include some unique "Heart of the Rainforest" as the land equivalent to the heart of the sea. I don't know what it would do, though.
Now I'm just spitballing ideas... which is what I've done recently.
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My main world, Quintropolis, is at 1.73 GB as of today - I haven't actually explored far beyond 15k blocks in any direction yet, which is why it is so small (though it contains a considerable number of builds, which I'm sure adds to the size). I expect this size to increase dramatically once I update to 1.18 and do some heavy exploring (50k blocks+, etc.), probably a couple years from now.
0
Maybe this is obvious and you have already tried this, but have you used a creative copy to try locating structures using the /locate command? At least this way, you could determine whether you just have bad luck, or if there really are no structures in the world.
0
Definitely an interesting conundrum, however I am confused - have you been unable to generate mansions, monuments, and strongholds in the existing world? Or are you saying that within the 30-50k explored areas, you have already found them all? I guess at least we now know that 1.18 will alleviate some of this by generating new caves underneath y:0 for all existing biomes - personally, I'll be interested to see how this works out especially considering things like mob caps, building close to bedrock, etc. But good to know that some new content will be available right at home.
I didn't realize you had explored that much, so the conundrum makes sense and I guess it just comes down to what keeps you interested in the game. It's true that it might not be the original world anymore, but... the Ship of Theseus thought experiment comes to mind. What defines the same world? One could argue that any Minecraft update removes the authenticity of the world since the original chunks are all updated.
You could always venture out into a new area, 50k or hell even 100k from your main base, then start over, treating that as a new world, a new base, etc. This way, maybe you always have the option of somehow tying the two "worlds" together in the future, and it can give you the opportunity to start anew (utilizing some of the sleek new terrain in 1.18) while still preserving the history of the world. This is actually something I am considering myself - I really want to fully immerse in the new "updated Minecraft" world, but my plan for this is to eventually start a new base very far away, not actually relying on Starlight, but rather literally building a new world from the ground up somewhere new.
But maybe you're talking about integrating the existing builds into a world with the new terrain. In that case - it's whatever keeps you interested!
For me, I couldn't do it, but that's just because I'm already planning to do the aforementioned exodus at some point.
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Of course I am biased because I never update right away (in fact I still play in 1.15 and will continue to do so for a while), so for me it does not matter that some of the announced features like the deep dark are being delayed (since I delay updating anyway). This is a great decision, and I'm sure they're learning from the "over-announcing" issue that 1.17 caused in terms of player expectations. If not for this, none of the current announcements would be disappointing in any way. In any case, I look forward to eventually experiencing all of 1.16-1.19 together, as it appears Mojang is finally tackling some of the core issues that have been plaguing Minecraft's flavorless terrain diversity for a while.
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What keeps me playing is how I have been able to use Minecraft as a unique storytelling outlet. I don't think of the game in terms of its updates, content, etc., instead just using it as a tool to tell my own stories. I still play in 1.15.2 (it would have been 1.12, however I had already planned ahead of time to jump straight to 1.15), and I have no intentions on updating anytime soon. New content is always welcome, and I continue to follow these updates - they simply do not define how I choose to play the game. I'm always coming up with new ideas that will last for years - even now, I could play in 1.15 for the next decade, and still will be working through my current list of projects. This is because everything for me is about story and the lore, around which I choose to base most of my projects.
This actually expands to exploring as well. Some of my explorations may seem mundane at first glance after having been playing this game for almost a decade - for example, a simple trek to a mega taiga through mountains, plains, forests, etc. However, it's the lore I've created in my head about why that taiga exists, and what it represents in the world, that makes it interesting to me (in fact this is the case in my current world, in which the only major mega taiga I've found is an important war-struck historical land in the world's lore, called Stonewall).
New updates, such as the recently announced deep dark cities, can certainly add some flavor to the lore (and they do!). It's for this reason that I do eventually update, but only if/when my story calls for it.
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Greetings all!
I usually spend my time in the Java Edition section of the forum posting updates to my survival world, and right now I am developing the third season finale of that world's journal, called Legends of Quintropolis. Quintropolis is a full vanilla survival world that has persevered more than eight years and nearly three seasons, full of features, history, and mythology. This is the first finale which will serve as a full-length film (the other two have been a hybrid of film-like elements and a world tour), and I am looking for two voice actors to fill two very specific roles in the film - one female and one male. If this sounds interesting to you, read on!
Click HERE to view the Quintropolis journal, and follow the story of the first two seasons and what has released of the third season. The format of the world's progress is done in a literary session-based season, each season of which is comprised of 100 episodes. This replaces a traditional Let's Play series, which I simply could not maintain due to time constraints. Instead, I include the occasional video alongside the journal. The goal of this film is to cover the entire season's story in a single video episode.
TITLE: "Legends of Quintropolis: Age of Ender"
SYNOPSIS: The story of the endermen's arrival to Quintropolis is fully explored in a race against time as the Quintropolis gods make their presence known for the first time in thousands of years. As Starlight HQ blossoms to control the known overworld, the threat of Enderquin's siege upon Quintropolis looms near.
This film is a sequel to my previous film, the second season finale, called The Day Techtropolis Fell, released in 2016. You can watch this here:
It also follows up on the Legends of Quintropolis video series that premiered after Session 200, but it only lasted 14 episodes before I had to axe it. A few other videos were released afterwards, leading up to the initial confrontation with Enderquin in Session 250 - the mid-season finale:
ROLES:
Violet (female) - The sole villager found on Quintropolis Island after the day Techtropolis fell, who carries an ominous truth throughout the unearthing of the mystery behind the endermen. She is a principal character in the series, portraying both scared and ominously confident vibes at the same time. Her development in the series is steep, and you can find some of this in the aforementioned journal.
Mayor Sensha (male) - The mayor of Starlight City was responsible for calling the villager invasion which caused the fall of Techtropolis. He finally makes an appearance, and his relationship with my character is quite complicated as we grow further to understand the mysteries that lie beneath the world.
The other characters are voiced by me, including Enderquin, but these are the two I cannot emulate myself.
REQUIREMENTS / TO APPLY:
A decent microphone and Discord - you do not even need to play Minecraft, as this is purely a voice acting project (I have already done most of the filming with the characters). I can help you configure the appropriate settings for recording. You will be given the script and context of the scenes (we will of course discuss these things ahead of time, so you fully understand the story of Quintropolis as it relates to this film), then you can record the scenes at your own time. My goal is to make this as easy as possible.
To apply, you can either post below, or send me a message, including why you are interested and perhaps what voice acting experience you might have (this is not required, but helpful). If you do have some examples of your voice, please send those too so I can get an idea of how you will fit the character. I won't ask for your age, but I do need you to be mature (and not your version of mature, but my version, which means having some sensibilities about you and being able/willing to explore dark and socially relevant themes which are presented in this film).
That's all for now - feel free to explore the journal and learn more about the story (there's a lot of it, so don't be overwhelmed - I'll be able to synthesize it succinctly during our initial discussions). And if you are interested and able to perform one of these roles, please apply!
~ joey
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Hello Tarnings,
I'll admit that initially I was pleasantly surprised to see a comment to this journal - I don't usually expect those nowadays. However, your reply isn't exactly warranted in this case - I've been repeatedly replying to this thread for years, because it's my personal world journal, and an evolving story (so not sure about the lack of context you speak of).
I can't tell if you have read more than beyond the dates listed on the post. But since you did take the time to respond, I'd encourage you to instead engage with the material in a meaningful and positive way. It's written for your enjoyment, after all.
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This session was originally supposed to unveil during June, because there are some specific real-life parallels, the seeds of which have been planted for many, many years. There are some extremely important revelations in today's story-centric Quintropolis chapter.
Of course, this is one of just many developments of today's session, which is really a PART 2 from the previous one. The establishment of Quintropolis as a nation now requires some very important planning, and today I'll be going through this planning and outlining all of what has been incorporated so far. This session will therefore be a great refresher on Quintropolis's geography, as we will be revisiting every single location in some form or another. I would actually say that this session is extremely approachable for anyone who might be new to the journal!
I recommend revisiting the prologue Secret of Stonewall story of Session 200 before engaging with this session!
“What do you mean I built this place? I’ve only just found it!”
“Are you Joey San?” the villager asks.
“Well… yes, I am…” again, they can just call me JOEY.
“Then you’re credited as the founder of this city according to our history books.”
I don’t know what is going on. I have never seen this village until now! However, it’s interesting that despite never seeing this village before, this is EXACTLY where I intended to erect Starlight City. As such, the fact that the village claims to already have incorporated – it’s all a bit mysterious. I should put this mystery aside for now, though. I need to find Okonopolis.
I’ll try to change the subject rapidly.
“So, what do you know about Okonopolis?” I ask the curious villager.
“Oh, we’ve been getting letters from that place for a long time – however, these letters would come from different directions. So, this is why we think the city does not exist.”
“Who would be sending the letters then? And what are the contents of these letters?” I’m getting a little pushy – but I need answers.
“Oh, the letters haven’t been anything too special – not besides the recent call to action regarding the wind patterns. In terms of their origin – we think they may come from our neighbors simply disguising themselves under the name Okonopolis.”
“I see… So, these neighbors you speak of… Are you referring to Megapolis?”
“Megapolis? Haha, no, we could just hike there if we wanted to trade with them. Obviously, I’m talking about Delta – our southern neighbor – and Quarica, our neighbor far west. We do also have some relations with a city called Omar which we believe is far north – but, we rarely hear from them. How do you not know this?”
Have these villagers been developing their own nation without me? That’s the only thing I can think of. But then the whole mystery about Starlight City already existing has me confounded. At least I now have some sense about where these so-called “cities” are located.
“I see – alright then. I’m going to continue mapping the Starlight City boundaries to prepare for further development.” I’m getting right down to business now.
“Have fun,” says the villager. But his tone seems somewhat ominous. I don’t like it.
So, as I map the land west of the chunk border, I make notes on my discoveries – including an abandoned fort of some sort, plus some other villages out here. I think that first village comprising my exchange with the knowledgeable villager is a good spot to establish the center of the city’s business and trade district.
^ Here, you can see most of the western segment mapped out, all the way to the coast.
^ Next, we have the map segments just east of the previous one.
And here is the mushroom island we discovered way back in 2015, called Loveland. It’s technically considered within the planned borders of Starlight City, although I do have plans for how I want to develop it in the future. Finally, it is getting mapped.
Back at Starlight Treehouse, here you can see the full map of Starlight City as it currently is mapped:
Notice the green waypoint on the far right located on Quintropolis Island – this is Starlight HQ. Then you see the chunk border created from 1.7, with everything west of that only now being explored and mapped. It’s several thousand blocks across – you’ll notice that the land resembles a diagonal slant. There is further land north and south, but I’ll be exploring this later on.
For right now, I intend to establish a connection to that knowledgeable village in the center of the mainland, which will be the center of the city’s business district. We’re not yet ready to develop the city now – but this is what we have been preparing Starlight HQ to handle for the last eight years. Indeed, once we’re ready to begin, the city’s development will be quite intense. It will not take long to achieve a NYC-level business district in this area, with the current resource farms we have.
This hub will be dubbed Starlight Central, being the first stop off the Q3 highway. It’s not far from Starlight HQ – only a few hundred blocks west. This is also not the final hub at all – I actually want to start developing the Nether expressway terminals like airports! So, eventually all major cities connected to the expressway (Starlight City, Megapolis, Utopia, etc.) will have hubs just like the Nether Hub which covers Starlight HQ. Different amenities and things will eventually be added later on to the terminals.
Let’s look at the current map of all incorporated lands within Quintropolis – this will provide a better idea at the current geography we are working with, as well as how our expressway system will need to be setup:
1 - Starlight City - The center of the world, and the city I have planning to construct for the last several years. Home to all of Quintropolis Island (including Starlight HQ), the Inner Circle, Emerald Hills, Fall Damage, and a vast amount of land which has yet to be developed into a NYC-style first world city.
2 - Megapolis - Our new Quintropolis capital, home to Techtown, Enderquin HQ, and incredible biodiversity. I have specific architectural ideas for how I want to develop this city. This is also the oldest established city in Quintropolis, having emerged from Techtown - the very first original village which was considered an ancient city back in 2014.
3 - Stonewall - The historic land of war, largely undeveloped, home to Aftermath and the Ice Realms, and a very diverse selection of landscapes, which unfortunately have gone mostly unexplored as the city has been troubled by supernatural war.
4 - Utopia - One of the newest and fastest growing cities to be introduced in Quintropolis, Utopia is home to our new clay-mining quarries, Witherquin Waters, and the first of the explored 1.13+ chunks. Most of the marked boundaries remain unexplored.
5 - Rogusta - Conversely, one of the oldest cities with a wide range of biomes in a relatively small space. Rogusta's primary feature is a historic village which served as a base for a while during exploration of the eastern lands, though most of the land is undeveloped.
6 - Stanland - An important agricultural city which is mostly governed by Starlight HQ, home to the SANA, our first explored ocean monument, and the birch wood forests we have almost entirely mined out.
7 - Rainbow Cliffs - Home to the monumental savannah plateau which is the tallest natural feature in Quintropolis. This is technically not a city - not yet, because it has no villages/residents.
8 - Icaria - An oceanic mountain base which was used for mining of stone blocks like andesite, diorite, and granite.
9 - Shavland - A largely undeveloped land which was the primary source of spruce wood and other taiga features during the early game. I intend to develop this area into a 'mountain backwoods resort' type of town, focused on camping and other outdoor features.
10 - Loveland - Newly-named but founded back in 2015, this is the first mushroom island discovered in Quintropolis, home to the first mooshrooms which made their way back to Starlight HQ. This is technically considered part of Starlight City.
11 - Candyland - Home to Gravity Gorge and prior to that our principal mesa quarry (but this has now moved to Utopia), this is currently the furthest city from Starlight HQ, and the edge of the planned Starlight District.
12 - Fort Ficont - This is the first mention of this island which sits between Starlight City and Utopia, and nothing will be disclosed on the island's purposes as of yet. Originally mapped as part of Starlight City, it will eventually become something else entirely...
“Excuse me, sir – what are you doing here?” This villager interrupts me while I’m trying to get things done. Does nobody respect my diligence?
“Hi there – I think I spoke with one of your council members earlier… I’m connecting your village to Starlight HQ so I can begin development of this city.” I figure an up-front approach will be easiest here.
“Do you have a build permit for that?” he asks.
“I beg your pardon?” Build permit? Who does this villager think I am??
“A build permit. You know, to show you have permission to build here…” Okay, guy – I’m not an idiot. I know what a build permit is.
I laugh just a bit.
“I don’t need a build permit; this is my city!”
“Uh huh… wait here please,” he says, before he hurries back to the village.
I can’t believe that now I’m dealing with this garbage. Seriously? Permission to build outside the village?
“Hi there – can I help you?” a second villager asks. Still not the guy I spoke to earlier, but I don’t see him at all. I’m getting annoyed.
“No, actually, you cannot. I’m good, thanks.”
“Do you have a build permit for this?” the second villager asks.
“WHAT IS WITH YOU AND YOUR BUILD PERMITS??!! NO, I don’t have a build permit! I have NEVER had a build permit!! That has NEVER existed! Did I need a build permit to erect the high-tech metropolis of Starlight HQ which is about to give you and your village new life? NO. Did I need a build permit to completely rule the Netherworld and turn it into my personal expressway? NO. Why are you bothering me like this…”
Am I losing control? I might be…
The villagers stare for a moment – all of them in the village.
“Actually,” the villager starts, “if Starlight HQ is on Quintropolis Island, then you do need a permit for that. I’m pretty sure you were unable to show one a few years ago when the council of Techtown came by – is that correct? Do you have one now?”
I just stop for a moment to process what this villager just said to me.
“No…” is all I respond with.
“Uh well that’s grounds for arrest… considering that place has also violated several building laws within the city.”
“What? Do you have a mayor I can speak to? Somebody with some authority that knows what in the world is going on?” I’m losing patience with this conversation.
I wait a while, and I even contemplate running off. But then I remember that’s exactly what I did back in Session 200 and the consequences of that proved to be great. I’ll wait and engage in this conversation.
“Hi, how are you today?” I’m guessing this is the mayor…
“Hello there – are you the mayor?”
“Yes, you can call me Mayor Sensha. So, it seems you have finally come here to address your crimes.”
Well, that’s a big leap forward I didn’t see coming…
“Crimes? I know nothing of these crimes! Are you trying to tell me that you had every village invade Starlight HQ because of some build permits? I built this world from the ground up!”
“That’s just it, Joey – you didn’t. You have so far demonstrated authoritarian control over the villages, lack of regard for the natural ecosystem that has now resulted in shifting wind patterns, and you started a war with gods in the land of Stonewall. These are very big problems that you’ll need to answer for.”
“Wake up, Mayor Sensha. This world you live in has so much more potential than any of you realize. That’s what I’ve been trying to show you from day one! We can make Quintropolis better – together. Megapolis is already on board with the development of the city. Techtown’s principal council members now live on the island which I am building FOR THEM.”
The mayor appears to contemplate my statements. I don’t think he’ll see things from my side, though. I never realized that the Techtown invasion actually originated… from Starlight City…
“You mean Boshtok and Drexel?” he asks me. “Oh yeah – they’ve been reporting everything to me.”
“Of course they have… I guess we’ll need to have a conversation about that-“
“Are you so entitled that you don’t realize the impact your actions have had on the world around you??” the mayor asks with concern. “Put aside the build permits for a moment (though, we’ll need to get back to that) – you started a supernatural war several years ago by fulfilling the Secret of Stonewall. You clearly have no idea what you’re doing. Do you even know where that mythological story came from??”
“I… I found it in a dungeon under the island. I was mining for-“
“IT’S A MYTH, Joey! That’s why it’s called a mythological story. That is NOT the story of Stonewall! For you to believe in that story and take that as the true Secret of Stonewall – you are blinded by your own arrogance.”
“Then educate me.”
At this point, all the other villagers retreat indoors as night falls. Things are tense, but it seems we might be getting somewhere. The Secret of Stonewall was fake? I’m willing to learn more.
“Please. Everyone I meet seems to know so much about this world more than I do – all these ancient cities and stories that I don’t get the chance to understand on my own! Has it not occurred to YOU that maybe I am just trying to understand this world because nobody gives a damn to help me do so?”
Again, a brief silence as Mayor Sensha thinks about my frustrations. Clearly, we’re both in some troubled waters.
“Come inside,” he invites me into the church.
“Stonewall is a land of intense rivalry between ancient villages. While it’s true that it was home to the ancient civilization of kuli aleilm, there is no evidence to suggest that the gods had any interference into the civilization’s eventual destruction. That was always the myth to cover up the truth.”
“Everything started when a specific group of outsiders entered the village. Kuli aleilm had not seen outsiders in a very long time – generations, in fact. These outsiders had interesting quirks, different professions, clothes, and behaviors. But for them, it was all the same. They did not realize that the villagers of kuli aleilm viewed anything outside their borders as potentially dangerous. It was misunderstood by kuli aleilm, and they were afraid, thinking that the outsiders were there to kill them.”
“But the outsiders intended to make kuli aleilm their new home. However, the residents had a particular way of life – and they viewed the outsiders as trespassing on their land. When the outsiders made their way into kuli aleilm, they tried speaking with the villagers, but nobody would acknowledge they were even there. This upset the outsiders, who did not understand why they were being treated so differently. One of the outsiders spoke loudly at a craftsman to get his attention, but only at that point did kuli aleilm acknowledge the outsiders, and with disdain. Fearing for their life, they violently killed the outsiders by stoning them against the village’s outer walls – all just because they were different. This is where the modern name ‘Stonewall’ comes from.”
“The violence at the village borders caused an uproar around kuli aleilm’s borders. Some villagers stood with them – others were wholeheartedly against their violent behavior. A civil war broke out, bloodshed collapsing the village entirely from within. One village spoke of a particular spiritual entity that they would use in the war to destroy kuli aleilm – a power that only comes from the Netherworld. Contained in the nether star, this is the power of Witherquin – the god of death and the underworld.”
“When you awakened the Witherquin demons for the first time, you unleashed the very power that Witherquin wanted you to free. For millennia, all the villages of Quintropolis vowed to protect the world from the myth of the Netherworld. You see, villagers do not enter the Netherworld. It is no place for a villager, but we have understood this fact. Even from the moment you first entered the Netherworld, you brokered a connection between the two dimensions which has never existed.”
“So, you see, Stonewall erupted from civil chaos, and the emergence of Starlight HQ – along with the freeing of Witherquin – has had a rippling effect on all the villages who have sworn to protect Quintropolis from another civil war. We do not understand the impacts of this event, because it has never occurred before. All we have done is try to warn you about what it will cause. You said yourself – that you do not understand this world. That is the one part you have been correct about.”
“…Wow…” is all I can say, as I sit in dismay reflecting on the fact that the Secret of Stonewall was a lie. But was it?? Again, I must remain vigilant. In the back of my mind, I always consider that the villagers may come up with whatever story they desire to get me to change my ways.
…But then, that’s exactly what they’re fighting for. And for me to dismiss what the mayor is saying – that would be both foolish and inconsiderate. This is a very sad story, indeed – a truth I wouldn’t have thought possible among the villages.
“What’s done is done,” I begin to respond to the story. “Maybe I cannot change my actions from the past. But I’m not like the villagers at kuli aleilm. Although I may approach things differently… recklessly, even… I have the same goal as you. Starlight HQ was designed to protect Quintropolis from war – not just civil war, but supernatural war. The gods have kept you captive for so long. Don’t you think it’s time to show them that you are not their puppets?”
I can sense that Mayor Sensha and I have finally hit some middle ground.
“We’re on the same side, Mayor. Enderquin has already been defeated,” I choose to share this fact.
He does not seem surprised.
He responds ominously: “One does not simply ‘defeat’ a god, Joey.”
Then he leaves the church, lights out, as I just sit there alone. Waiting. For nothing at all to come next.
Finally receiving some closure on the great day that Techtropolis fell all those years ago, we've got some work to do. And a lot of it comes up next.
Next up... Session 277 - "Road Trips"
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Maybe I'm late as usual, but you already know that's how things go nowadays. The world never dies - it just... cries? IDK, I tried to do a little rhyme, but perhaps it wasn't the best paradigm.
Anyway, I'm actually at Session 280 in real-time, so uh... maybe it's time to catch up on the updates! Time permitting, I'll hopefully be churning these next few out, because there is A LOT to cover.
This was a particularly fun and exciting exploration-based session - one of significant importance as we hone back in the "context" and story-based narrative of Quintropolis.
Our new tropical farms have been a very great success and have given the Aqua Lounge a necessary improvement. As this build continues to grow, we also have more work to do on these farms. Let’s look at the MISC, for instance – we can now use the kelp farm as an automated input, and the sea pickle farm as an output. These can then be connected to any of the other targets we have already set up!
Additionally, we need to begin thinking about the “overdrive farms” I mentioned in Session 272. The sea pickle farm may not be necessary to overdrive, but the kelp farm for sure needs to be included on the “overdrive” list (so, we will make eight more kelp farms underneath the Aqua Lounge and use Starlight Overdrive to control how many of them are active). I think, between new MISC links and all the new farms for Starlight Overdrive, we have our work cut out for what needs to come next in the base.
To start, I’m going to blow up half of the –
KNOCK KNOCK
Huh? Must just be a nosy skeleton. Anyway, as I was saying, the first step is to destroy all the –
KNOCK KNOCK
Okay, maybe a REALLY nosy skeleton. Let’s go take care of that real quick…
“Drexel? What are you doing here? How did you even find this place?” I ask the nosy neighbor.
“To be fair, it’s a small island. We’re adventurous, like you.”
“Fair enough. What brings you by? I’m working right now.”
“We’ve received a letter from Okonopolis. And you need to read it,” he speaks urgently.
“From where? I’ve never heard of that, and I have founded every city in this world.”
“Apparently not, because Okonopolis is the oldest living city in the world. How do you not know that?”
“Disregard my comments. Where’s this letter?” I’ll just act like I know what he’s talking about.
“Come to the Inner Circle.”
I guess Starlight HQ’s updates will need to wait for another day. It looks like we have pressing matters to take care of. Maybe even our first efforts at diplomacy.
“Joey San, welcome sir,” says Boshtok as I make way into the household that I built for them. Apparently, there are two other villagers here as well.
“Just Joey is fine. This isn’t a tyranny,” I attempt to reassure him, knowing full well what the villagers think of me. “Who are the guests?”
“Guests? How silly! These are our children,” says Drexel. It’s funny, because I didn’t even think these two could make children if they tried.
“Joey, meet Staz and Ibram,” Boshtok brokers an introduction to the apparent new residents of the Inner Circle. And Staz is already trading Frost Walker II books.
“I didn’t build a home for them,” I speak to Drexel.
“It’s okay, we can cozy up in here for a while. Besides, we know you’ll return to build more homes later.”
He’s not wrong about that.
“Show me the letter,” I request.
“Right, down to business.”
Boshtok reveals a letter from inside his mailbox, which I never built originally. In fact, I notice a lot of new things around the circle that I did not build. I guess this is what happens when you leave “adventurous” neighbors alone on your island.
TO THOSE IT MAY CONCERN
For the first time in centuries, the wind patterns have shifted in Okonopolis. This behavior is unusual, as we have been able to track these patterns consistently for all time. We request that our neighbors at Delta and Quarica help us to identify the cause of the shifting patterns, as they may indicate a change in Quintropolis’s climate. If this is the case, then further investigation may be necessary to determine the cause. Protecting the natural ecosystem of Quintropolis is our primary goal, and we take these concerns seriously. Any threats to this ecosystem will promptly be eradicated. Please help us to investigate the changes, and we will be grateful for your services.
Sincerely,
The government of Okonopolis
“Hmm,” I ponder for a moment. Why have I never heard of this city, which Drexel described as the oldest in Quintropolis? How does he know about it? And why have I never heard of Delta or Quarica? Clearly, I’m missing some big puzzle pieces about this world.
“So, have you paid a visit to Delta? Or… Quar, Quarica?” No, I didn’t stumble trying to pronounce it.
“Sure, let’s just pack up and go!” replies Drexel, but I sense an uncanny sarcasm in his tone.
“Yeah, all you’ll need is a compass and a map!” adds Boshtok. They’re ganging up on me. I should know why. I don’t.
“Okay… but I can fly. Perhaps I might be able to visit these ancient cities,” I offer.
“Ah, so you know where they are? Perfect, you can take us to them!”
Now, I understand the conundrum. Barely.
“How would Okonopolis, an ancient city, even be able to track wind patterns? I can’t even do that, and I have the most sophisticated tech in the world here at Starlight.”
“Clearly that isn’t true,” replies Drexel.
“I’ve heard, but don’t quote me, that the Okono District has tech from other worlds, far exceeding anything here,” Boshtok adds.
“Okono District?” I am dumbfounded. Completely dumbfounded.
“Don’t tell me you honestly believed that the world revolves around you and Starlight, Joey.”
I certainly will not tell him that. But I clearly have a lot to learn about my world… I mean, our world.
“I have a plan,” says me, but it’s only half true.
“Unless this plan involves tearing down Starlight HQ to correct the wind patterns, I don’t think there’s a way out of this investigation. It’s worldwide.”
“No, no. There is no way that one, highly sophisticated (might I add) metropolis of a base can affect the world’s entire climate. No way,” I am in denial of the most basic facts about climate change.
“Your pride is your weakness, Joey,” adds Boshtok. “It’s your choices that will make for your ultimate demise.”
Wait just a damn minute. Where have I heard that exact wording before? Verbatim? Don’t remind me.
Something is going on here.
I need to take off.
Any more time spent there, and I would have likely lost my mind. So many questions. So few answers. I won’t lie and suggest that Boshtok is wrong about my pride. It’s true – I have literally spent the last seven years building a world in full belief it was my own.
But this could all be a ruse built by Drexel and Boshtok as a way to make me think differently – a façade. I mean, I already know what they think about Starlight HQ – it’s no surprise they directly asked me to tear it down. It’ll take more to convince me otherwise.
I’m taking a flight far north, beyond anything I have personally explored, in search of this ancient city. I won’t believe it’s real until I see it with my own eyes.
A BAMBOO JUNGLE!!
I never thought I’d find one so soon! Wow, this is amazing. This jungle is not much further north from the areas I have explored of Megapolis.
My first encounter with pandas! This is amazing – after all these years, the wonderful world of Minecraft never ceases to put a smile on my face. This is mostly because I practice delayed gratification, of course.
Here we go – a northern village! Let’s see what we have here…
“HELP us!! A zombie siege is approaching!!” I hear tormenting cries of help all over the village! Perhaps I can help.
…or maybe the iron golems can take of these bastards.
“Hello!” I try to make some conversation with the villagers the next morning, but nobody seems apt to talk with me.
I did find an interesting array of underwater ruins right by the shore not far from the village – and inside that, I found a map to another buried treasure. Let’s see where it is!
ICE SPIKES!! This is now only the second time I have found this rare biome. What’s most notable is the rather close proximity between this and the equally-rare bamboo jungle. To have both biomes in such a close range – this needs to be connected to our expressway!
Wow, this is some seriously amazing and strange terrain generation. It’s moments like these that I am reminded why I love exploring. I’m geeking out over all these little discoveries.
A coastal ice village! The first of its kind in this world – I should say, another first discovery for Quintropolis.
^ A beautiful view of the ice spikes from beyond them. I’m already planning how to incorporate this, the coastal ice village, and the bamboo jungle into the current incorporated land of Quintropolis (specifically Megapolis).
“Sir, sir!!” I hear as I return to the village that previously wanted nothing to do with me after I saved them from the zombie siege.
“Hello there, you missed me, I take it?” Yes, I’m getting a bit cocky.
“We want to incorporate! We want to incorporate!” This villager, and several others, join out to meet me. I’m a little confused as to what is going on, but my ears remain open.
“I beg your pardon?”
“It’s an honor to meet you, Joey San.” Again, these villagers treat me like a god. My encounter with Enderquin made me realize this is NOT what I want!
“Just Joey is fine, thanks… Now what do you mean, you want to incorporate? You want to become a city?”
“Yes, yes – we have laid out maps and documents for the incorporation of Megapolis. In fact, we have already taken the liberty to clear space for a government building. Let me show you!”
The villagers take me to a cleared area where they think a government building should go – a perfect spot actually, right at the base of the mountain, on the outskirts of the village.
“Now, maybe you can help us construct the building?” They ask.
You know what? This is the first time I have encountered a village that has actually WANTED to be part of the incorporation of Quintropolis as a country. Every previous encounter has been very opposed, including the current council I have invited at the Inner Circle. It’s like pulling teeth trying to get them on my side. But this village here? Everyone is ecstatic… Was it really this easy? I guess I never really considered that, well, everyone is different! I always assumed it was me versus every village in order to accomplish my goal of establishing a country. This was wrong on my part.
“Here is a map for you to map the lands of Megapolis. We have been focused on developing the village, but maybe you can work on exploring the rest of what’s around us,” they say.
I am filled with positive energy. These villagers are 100% on board with my city development project. They clearly know about it from the Techtown invasion back in Session 200 – this must mean there are other villages which stand with me, too. I must find them!!
And so, I lay out the foundations for what will be the CAPITOL of Quintropolis. The one village which is so adamant of incorporation must be where the capital resides.
“And so, on this day, Day 5775, I now declare Megapolis – comprising this district, the explored lands north of Quintropolis Island, the bamboo jungle, the newly found ice spikes biome, and the incorporation of Techtown – the CAPITAL CITY of Quintropolis, which now erects this day as a republic.”
Here we are, at a new village thousands of blocks north, which I am designating to be the center of diplomatic relations for all of Quintropolis. With the help of these enthusiastic villagers, there is a lot we can get done.
^ I’ve begun establishing a trade network with them, as I will do for every village in the new country. I have mapped out all the explored parts of Megapolis, getting a sense of direction about the new land, which I will host back at Starlight HQ for further research and planning.
BEES, BEES, BUZZY BEES!
East of the capital village are FOXES and SWEET BERRIES – two new introductions to Quintropolis! Foxes I have been unsuccessful in catching, but I certainly stocked up on some of the delicious berries which currently only exist here.
With Megapolis established, we will begin work on expanding the trade network beyond the borders to where I want to construct Starlight City – the one world city which has been in the planning stage for years. Hopefully, we will be able to locate the currently fabled city of Okonopolis in this process.
^ Here, we are flying across Quintropolis Island, now heading west to cross the 1.7 chunk borders for the first time in history.
Creepers Point is the west-most bit of land on Quintropolis Island. In the distance, you can see the chunk wall that has separated Quintropolis Island from the rest of the world. This is not even a thousand blocks from spawn – yet, I have never ventured west across the chunk border in the last eight years.
That changes today.
HERE WE GOOOO!!
I am immediately greeted by a new 1.14+ coastal village on the border – proof that I’ve never explored this land in the past.
I’m a few thousands blocks inland now, and I see this strange structure. What could it be?
Very interesting… but there’s nobody here. I guess I’ll leave it be for now.
Here is a neat taiga village – one of the first I have discovered in this world.
The trade world expands!!
Aha, finally a village in the far west wilderness, which I have never explored. The winds move in this direction, so I must be getting close!
“Excuse me,” I flag down one of the villagers.
“Yes, may I help you?” he asks.
“I’m looking for a place called Okonopolis. Can you help me?”
“Join the club! Everyone is looking for it. We personally don’t believe it exists.”
Hmm, that’s a curious conclusion. But I need more.
“So, where exactly am I now?” I ask the villager, who seems to understand the conundrum.
“You’re in Starlight City,” he surprises me.
“Huh?”
“You should know that. You built it.”
The world of Quintropolis is expanding. That's how diplomacy works. But, there are some very important things that need to be discussed before the consideration of when it's time to establish Starlight City. Indeed, there's much more going on outside the little comfort zone I've made within Starlight HQ.
Next up... Session 276 - "Starlight City and the Story of Stonewall"
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Nice - I'm a big fan of domes and really anything spherical, so naturally I'm attracted to the bee dome design. Quartz is also a go-to building block for me, although deepslate I haven't yet had the pleasure of experiencing (I'm still in 1.15.2 and will stay that way for a little while). I anticipate that once I get my hands on it, I too will start slowly replacing the ol' diorite and andesite constructions... because it does exude a much sexier appeal indeed.
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Happy pride month!!
Last year, we did a colorful build session with Gravity Gorge.
This year, I've got something more symbolic planned, but that will be in a few sessions. For today? We're picking back up where we left off three months ago... in a very small pick-up session.
Only recently did I ever venture into new chunk territory to acquire the new 1.13 blocks and items (I say “new” like they came out yesterday, but recall that I’m among those who tend to wait years before updating – so for me, they are still new). That was in Session 263, when we explored the new aquatic terrain. We built a storage area and collected as much as we could from the new biomes.
But now, we need a way to farm all those items so that we can expand the supply. Today, we’ll be turning our attention to these tropical updates!
By nature, these farms are niche projects, and not very necessary in the bigger scheme of our developments. But, they are still resources, and I pride Starlight on being a hub of resources. As such, I’ll be working to include two principal farm projects in today’s work: the kelp farm and the sea pickle farm.
First, however, I’m setting up an area deep in Starlight Outback near Vax Valley, which will be our turtle farm. With all the turtle eggs I’ve acquired, it’s time to introduce turtles to the base, so that we can begin collecting the turtle shells.
Maybe “farm” is the wrong word here – it’s a turtle sanctuary, as I don’t intend to kill them.
That done, we are moving onto the kelp farm, which is quite easily an observer-based farm. I have torn out the old “squid shooter,” which gives me plenty of hoppers that I can now reuse for something more useful.
The kelp farm now replaces this inside the Aqua Lounge.
Of course, I have two sides of the kelp farm: one side smelts it into dried kelp, and the other leaves it alone. Both funnel into the minecart hopper, which can then be called up to the pantry like the other items to be sorted appropriately.
The kelp farm is purposefully designed small. First, it’s completely automatic, so it will always be harvesting just like the sugar cane farm, as long as we’re in the chunks. As such, having a slower farm is best as it will prevent the storage from getting overloaded too quickly. The second reason is because I plan to include the kelp farm as part of the “overdrive” farms that will be enhanced by Starlight Overdrive. That is to say, I will be building a carbon copy of this farm eight more times, underneath this area, which means we will have the option to multiply its output. Not today, of course. I’ve already picked out a session that will be dedicated to the overdrive farms.
The sea pickle farm will probably not be included in the overdrive farms, because I’m already going to build one of the fastest designs out there by Ray. Nice job on this design, because it will fit succinctly underneath the beach behind Starlight Castle.
The collection spot will be housed in the snow lounge, right next to the rabbit farm and water breathing potion storage.
To activate the farm, you just press the lever and leave it on. It produces a whole chest’s worth of sea pickles in a relatively short time, so you really don’t need to leave it on very long (this is also why I don’t need to add this farm into the overdrive farm unit later).
It literally just hides underneath the beach out behind Starlight. I may consider having an access chamber up here if not just to protect it, should a creeper or something else blow up right here. But for now, it’s in the back of my mind.
Really, the last thing I want to do today is spice up the look of the Starlight Bay, at least from where the Aqua Lounge is sitting. This means using some of the beautiful new coral blocks we obtained a long time ago!
Corals everywhere! I’ll slowly expand these colorful additions throughout the rest of the bay, perhaps even integrating a new water-based segment of Starlight HQ at some later date.
And… that’s all for today! In terms of aquatic updates, this is definitely a good progress report, and I don’t want to get too ahead into the next project, which is not so small scale.
Tropical updates DONE! A very "intimate" session if you will as I settle back into Quintropolis after a few months, now it's time for something very much the opposite...
Next up... Session 275 - "Trade World"
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Getting sand from trades isn't efficient - much better to just use a desert as a sand quarry. You can just fill up your inventory in minutes with an Efficiency III shovel or higher. Bring a few shulker boxes with you, and you can get enough sand for all your concrete, TNT, and glass endeavors. The time spent collecting all that sand would still be faster than the time it would take most farms to net the same amount of resources. So I don't see any real "wasteful use" of such a common and easy-to-stockpile item.
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I would almost support the replacement of emerald ore with a different novelty ore such as the long-proposed ruby ore (or, rather, a variant of it that isn't red) for this reason alone. Emeralds are currency, which negates their usefulness as a mined ore when it's not likely anyone would be mining for emeralds. Having said that, you could say the same about gold farms. Why bother mining for gold in a mesa biome if you can farm it indefinitely? It's really more of a bonus feature than anything else, IMO.
Granted, 1.17 is giving us new reasons to visit mountain biomes, so it's not like there are any real drawbacks from the current system.
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Smaller sessions make for faster updates, and oh how we have a fun project today! Or a few of them, as always.
You already know that I’m a completionist, as was clearly evidenced when I built a full storage room just to organize all the types of tipped arrows, despite the fact that I rarely use them (because they are difficult to acquire). But, I always make sure to build everything at the appropriate time, in the appropriate place. Today, that trend continues as we finally address a significant chunk of blocks that have so far been completely missing from Starlight HQ, and Quintropolis as a whole: glazed terracotta.
There are a few places in which I have used glazed terracotta, but they have not been widely acquired throughout this world, despite being in Minecraft for a long time. Why are we finally getting around to them today? Obviously, I have some specific uses for them.
For this, we need to build a separate storing/smelting room for the glazed terracotta. I’m looking to build it close to the original clay/glass storage room down in the SRF storage cellars.
To do that, I need to move the paper mill which I have been using for paper storage.
I can easily squeeze that storage room on the bottom floor, directly underneath the stairwell to the Diamond Mine. This keeps it completely out of the way, so that we can fully utilize the space for other builds. Such as the smelter we’ll build today.
This is not a very complicated build – it simply takes space and resources to construct. I’ll simply be sorting all the clay colors before they go into the smelter, so that there is one furnace per color (I don’t expect we’d be using this contraption that much wherein we’d require faster rates).
Two chests for each glazed terracotta color is more than enough – I don’t even have more than one chest for each regular stained terracotta.
Voila, a beautiful colored way to denote the chests!
Since the storage is on the bottom layer of the cellars, I can use the top layer for input. The stained terracotta storage is just next door – so, I can select which blocks I want to smelt and simply throw them into the hopper column here. They will sort through the system, smelt, and automatically store into the correct chest. Nice and easy.
Next, we’ll need a way to send items from Starlight Compressor to the glazed terracotta storage. Recall that all items that funnel through Starlight Compressor will head into a chest minecart, at which point they will be extracted in the regular furnace room. That furnace room sorts out all smeltable items, except stained terracotta, because that would make for too many sorters (additional sixteen of them).
So, I’ll install an option to have the minecart go directly to the glazed terracotta smelter, which would be ideal for when you return from a mesa, for instance, and you want to smelt all the terracotta into glazed variants. Return home, take STAS right here to the compressor, and drop off all terracotta for smelting. Everything else is done automatically!
Installing this feature is a simple track switch mechanism. You can see how it works above – pistons will simultaneously change the track layout, forcing the corner track to change directions. Easily, we’ll have the minecart rest atop the hopper column (the same one that extends from the terracotta smelter), so that it’s quick and simple. You can see that I’ve chosen the location for this smelter quite meticulously.
I ran some tests with Starlight Compressor and found it to work beautifully, even if getting additional wires installed back here was a healthy challenge. And, I’ve gotten a good head start on my glazed terracotta supply, which requires a stained terracotta supply, which requires a regular terracotta supply. So, I’ve gotten a mesa trip or two down, and there will be more to come!
Next, I’m itching to construct another modifier. I can’t help it, because we almost have all the plugins that are on my roster for Starlight HQ 3.0. So, let’s fill up the modular mixer and get to it.
We’re finally getting down to this unfinished segment of the tangent floor, which has been reserved for three modifier plugins: Starlight Limiter, Starlight Corkscrew and Starlight Echo. The first two can be built together within a day, and I know exactly what they will do. So, we’ll do those two together in a later session, and choose to knock out Starlight Echo today.
This is a ridiculously simple modifier, compared to the absurd scale that Starlight Overdrive is going to be. Very simply, all this plugin will do is offset the time between input and output (cause an “echo”, if you will).
It will enable this repeater chain I’ve built above (to the right under the red clay), at the beginning of the modifier chain (you can see other modifiers above), which will cause a delay between when input is received and when output is created. This can be useful for some scenarios. For instance, say I toggle the nether wart farm, but I don’t want the potion brewer to start brewing potions until I get there (as it takes roughly 10 seconds to get there from the nether wart farm, sprinting). Maybe I decide at the last minute that I want to change the potion it brews. Well, having a delay will allow me to make this change before brewing begins.
To create this behavior, obviously we need to make sure that the MISC is linking the nether wart farm to the potion brewer (I don’t remember the link number off the top of my head, but it’s in the link map). Then, we’ll just plug the Starlight Echo into the MISC via the modular mixer. Easy! Two AND gates, and the modifier is installed into the mixer.
The only limitations of this plugin are that we cannot adjust the length of the delay without getting deep into the underground wiring (which the UI is supposed to prevent us from having to do). That’s why I think five repeaters is a good option, and later on I can conceptualize ways to build a way that we can adjust it from up here (that’s the biggest limitation for most plugins right now).
With that project done, yet another plugin (three sessions in a row, now?), we’ll finish up the session by looking at why I wanted the glazed terracotta smelter.
Back in Session 267, we began building the Starlight Solace Center. I mentioned that I had a plan for the floor, but I never divulged much of this plan. Today, I share it with you, and I think a few pictures are all that will be necessary to showcase what I wanted to accomplish:
A full block party down here! I’m really looking forward to finishing this build, which mostly will involve the roof. I haven’t figured out exactly what type of roof I want to build, so we’ll wait to complete this another day.
For now, it’s time to enjoy a bit of solace as we embrace a new day in Starlight HQ.
Now that we're getting into the finer resource farms/projects for Starlight HQ, I'd say it's about time to turn our attention to the Aqua Lounge and what we can bring to it. After all, it hasn't been touched since 1.13 released...
Next up... Session 274 - "Update Aquatic"