How about making snow golems, which are made with pumpkins? They are actual living entities and would be harder to keep alive since they will try to attack any hostile mobs nearby, which will then retaliate, and depending on the biome they can melt in the sun (I'd recommend having a snowy biome nearby - or you can farm snow at a sufficient elevation in cooler biomes).
i thought about that, yes, but snow golems are TOO hard to keep alive. i can't even keep one alive to be in a guard tower, let alone have an entire village of the things. the pumpkins aren't entities so they're a bit... immobile, but they're less unpredictable. i guess using snow golems is this challenge's hardcore mode.
I'm curious why you chose to go with pumpkins instead of watermelons, given your source of inspiration was based on watermelons. Because they have faces?
eeeeexactly, haha. watermelons are nice and all, but i relate to the pumpkins. maybe it's because my skin's head is just a green version of one. i guess someone could substitute pumpkins for melons anyways, but they wouldn't have faces. that'd be creepy.
*except for the fact that you use pumpkins instead of watermelons.
this challenge is based off of the "steven universe" episode "super watermelon island". in this episode our protagonist discovers that the anthropomorphic watermelons he brought to life two seasons earlier have created their own community in which they farm watermelons, thus expanding their community. it's adorable. can you see where i'm going with this?
THE CHALLENGE:
set cheats to on and create a new survival world. change your gamemode to creative and spawn in two pumpkins and a seed-- these are your progenitors. put the pumpkins on a block of your choice and put two levers on the side to make arms. it's alive! all you need to do now is keep them safe so they can stay alive.
for every two pumpkin people there are, you will allot one block of land(cannot be fertile) to plant a pumpkin seed. after your new pumpkin has grown, break and replant the stalk. every new pumpkin you grow and animate(by giving it a body and arms) becomes part of the population. if you have no seeds to plant, you're allowed to turn an un-animated pumpkin into seeds.
it is your task to build your helpless pumpkin friends homes, farms, and walls against the foul night terrors, among other things. one day, with enough TLC, perhaps your pumpkins will be a part of a sprawling utopian metropolis.
RULES:
you must be on at least easy difficulty
for every three pumpkins you have you need at the very least one home.
every home must contain a bed for every pumpkin and a furnace.
IMPORTANT: after the population has reached any quarter increment of 100(i.e. 25, 50, 175, etc.) you must destroy 1/4th of it. sadly, pumpkins go bad. the good news is that after the deed is done, you do not have to do so again until reaching the next increment.
also important, but less so: a pumpkin couple can grow and house no more than three pumpkin children, at maximum(you can override this by making it clear the pumpkin's name is Jim Gaffigan. i don't suggest an entire population of comedians, though).
after growing one new pumpkin you must wait 3 minecraft days before planting another stalk. the ground needs to regain nutrients,,, probably!
TASKS/STAGES:
your pumpkins are going to thrive as a civilization under your care, even if their lifespan is significantly shorter than yours. as such, they'll often make requests of you. feel free to do these in any order, and you can find the stages and requests below. (NOTE: this part is unfinished and subject to change. in fact, i highly suggest making a suggestion for new tasks so this challenge can "grow"! ,,,pun intended.)
1* Quests:
"not i, said the baker." | build a bakery; appoint one of your citizens to the task of running it.
"among the fields of straw and stover,,," | build a farm to supply the bakery with wheat; appoint a citizen to the task.
"defense mechanism." | build a humble wall made of at least wood.
"fight, flight, or love." | slay 10 total hostile mobs in one night.
"well, well, wellwellwellwellwell!" | build for your citizens a source of fresh water, whether it be a well or some sort of aqueduct.
"timber!" | build a primitive lumber mill for housing and cutting wood; appoint two citizens to work there.
"eating worms" | deliver 25 wheat seeds to the farm.
2* Quests:
"the forge." | create a forge for your citizens so they can craft better tools; appoint a blacksmith to the task.
"creative marketing." | build a basic marketplace or store; appoint a citizen to work every stand or two for every store.
"you smelt that?" | deliver 20 iron ingots to the forge.
"what the hay?" | deliver 64 wheat to the bakery.
"the watchtower" | build a lookout tower; appoint a citizen to be the lookout.
"the music of the night" | slay 5 creepers in one night.
"miner forty-niner" | build a mineshaft in a nearby hill or underground.
"deauuguaguh" | slay 10 zombies in one night.
"wood you please?" | upgrade the lumber mill; appoint another citizen to work there.
3* Quests:
"maniac with an axe" | deliver 128 wooden logs to the lumber mill.
"what, are you chicken?" | build two chicken coops for the local farm; fill these with 6 chickens each.
"digging for gold." | deliver 20 gold ingots to the forge from the mineshaft.
"local commodities" | deliver 10 wool, 12 iron ingots, a compass, and 6 item frames to the local market/store.
"rattling my ears!" | slay 15 skeletons while underground.
"the colossus" | deliver 64 iron to the forge.
"forethought" | upgrade the town's walls.
"machiavelli of machinists" | build a redstone machinist's shop; appoint a solitary, italian inventor to work there. or a citizen.
"trapper's dream" | build simple or complicated traps and mechanisms to defend your walls.
"specialized market" | divide your marketplaces/stores into selling specific products.
another entry! wow, a LOT has happened in my past few play sessions, i will say that!
first thing's first, i made sure to craft myself this thing. brewing stand, that's it! i totally remembered! i realized something: i can't make any fire resistance potions to travel safely through the nether without magma cream! worst part is that i hadn't seen one slime. i would have to find a swamp.
i remembered that i had to get my horse from over at the outpost where i had left it before i could start exploring. as you can see, i found two zombie pigmen who very curiously like that spot. maybe they just want to roam free with their other piggy bretheren?
found this very interesting piece of terrain generation in a small savanna mountains biome north of my base(where i was exploring).
i found a flower forest isle! how interesting is that? i'll have to build something cool there, like a garden.
an F1 driveby shot of that savanna mountains biome. really cool!
i saw a LOT of ocean monuments, but this was the only one i saw where these guardians were just straight up jumping out of the water. flighty guardians!
the full map after exploration. it was... a lot of ocean. really not much to report, aside from the things i took pictures of. a lot of ocean monuments to take care of though. well, no swamps, so i would have to uncover the land far south. out i go!
i encountered a village... and realized the entire population is made up of librarians. there are only two libraries. mojaaaaaang.... (okay, well, not the entire population, but there were like 8.)
my world had a bit of a shutdown error and i came back to some chunk errors... i was a little bit scared of that, so i made sure to backup my world.
if jungles didn't anger me so much and they weren't so laggy, i'd actually think this was a really cool spot to build something.
roofed forest! and a HUGE ravine! i keep encountering those, don't i?
scoooooore.
how did you like that montage? there was a lot to cover there, so i'll say this much: did a lot of exploring, found a lot of cool stuff, got some slimeballs, got some wolves who disappeared on me and are probably in some field waiting expectantly for me, and had a really cool play session. after this, i decided to start exploring the nether a little bit and getting prepared for endgame.
didn't get many pictures of that first fortresses' loot, but i got a wither skeleton skull. after i exploring the initial fortress my portal spawned right by, i realized there was another really extensive parked right beside it. conveniently for it though, not close enough to access easily. i had to make my way around to where it docked to the netherrack.
a cool lava fall and as you can see, my expedition was pretty exciting. i managed to get three wither skeleton skulls and i was determined to fight the wither-- i have never ever fought it in legit survival, so i tested it out on my creative world with gear similar to my own to make sure i wasn't make a huge mistake and set it up.
really disappointed in myself for not getting enough screenshots, but it isn't exactly an easy battle. at least i didn't have to use my golden apple! also, what am i saying? of course it was an easy battle! the wither turns out to be a pushover as long as you have insta health splash potions!
no idea what i'm gonna use this for. at one point i thought "wait, all health effects damage undead mobs, could i make a regen beacon to protect a village? i tested it out in creative although i was doubtful regen acted like poison on undead mobs. it does not, evidently, and would not work, so i don't really know what i'll use this for unless i have to mine something really big out.
i decided to go find a stronghold, so i was enderman hunting. in the process, i got some loot from a nabal(retextured witch, and biblical reference. it fits because he's a drunk and the witch just ends up being a really senseless and mad at the world drunk guy who throws bottles at you) and i managed to find this! another dungeon! this should be useful, eventually.
oh, and the dungeon comes with a nametag! yesss!
my organized loot chest.
welllll then, hellllooooo... as you can see i got my ender eyes and at this point was hunting for the stronghold. i didn't want to explore it at the moment, so it's still sitting out there in the jungle somewhere. anyway, that's all for now.
next time, i'll be finding and exploring the stronghold, hopefully linking it with my nether portal, and fighting the enderdragon. after that i'll be able to visit the end islands for the first time. cya next time!
Sick! I love reading your progress. Keep up this awesome journal. I love XP farms. They are the best for enchanting tons of stuff. I recently got to level 75 with my skeleton grinder.
SO SICK. thanks-- also, wow, that is a HIIIIGH level. my zombie exp grinder is really simple, so it's not going to get me anywhere like that, haha.
I see you are stocking up on diamonds! Also, I am also planning on doing a 1024x1024 map, but I don't know how to use them! I will have to figure out.
you don't know how to use maps? brief low-down is of course craft one, size it up by surrounding it with paper in a crafting bench, and then be on your merry way filling it out. as for the diamonds, heh, i have a good track record with them. in my other survival world i have stacks of diamonds i am very proud of.
Great update, +1! Good job picking yourself up & dusting yourself off after that setback in the Nether.
Also - you made me wish I had saved MY first pickaxe. Sometimes I miss good ol' Mr. Woody.... okay maybe I don't, but it's a nice touch
i always make it a point to save my wooden tools. i only made a wooden pickaxe, though, it turns out. thanks! also, as for the nether, yeah me and the nether have always been in a love hate relationship, but it's very forgiving, as i said.
i once was building a passage over about 10000 blocks overworld distance in the nether and a ghast shot me off into lava, but i took some fire res potions and all was fine. as of yet i haven't angered many pigmen, but i have dealt with their wrath before. as long as i have fire res and a backup golden apple i do fine.
another update, and this one is a whopper. seriously-- i have been laboring quite a bit for this update, and it has all payed off so very much. i don't think i've ever gotten anything as good as this in survival before!
so first off, i did some redesigning for my exp grinder in the creative world. i tweaked it so it'd work most efficiently and assuredly and has room for a water current leading off to the side of the killing chamber. later on, this is going to be used to filter the zombies into individual pods to purify and kill if they are shrooman villagers or normal shroomans, respectively.
by the way, i saw somewhere that zombie spawners in 1.9 can be villager zombie spawners, and i just so happened to get a shrooman villager spawner. well, that works! do they have a higher chance of spawning zombie villagers? i don't think so, but i've gotten a lot of zombie villagers.
so here's the revised design in construction. you can see the access area over there to tweak the mechanics and eventually to lead the shroomans to go to the curing filter. only problem i've found with this is that the baby shroomans either aren't hit by the lava or, because of their higher health, aren't reduced to one punch. plus, their hitbox is a bit strange, and i can't seem to very easily hit them.
added a trapdoor so that the baby shroomans wouldn't jump through the gap... also, not pictured, but i closed off that hole in the wall.
lets play "spot the extremely dangerous trap". i've got my eyes on you.
by the way, here's the map as of my last expedition. i expect to go on another one soon. i really want to fill out this entire wall!
decided to enchant a bow and saw a definite infinity enchantment. score, right? wrong. all it was was infinity. i ended up combining it with another bow, so it turned out to be really useful, actually. as you can see, there's some railways and stone brick materials. i was finishing off my nether railway because i just... i wanted it done. i have never made a railway in the nether, and this is an accomplishment for me, i'm tellin' ya.
well, that didn't take long. as you can see from the subtitles, i was hit by a ghast's fireball. now, usually i'm really good at dodging+hitting those back, like anyone else is, but it just so happened that as i was working on my bridge section of my railway, i saw a ghast was in the area, but i didn't see it, so i didn't worry about it.
big mistake. i turned around and there were three blazes that spawned. don't you love nether fortresses? anyway, i started to fire at them, but they decided to return the favor! i was busy dodging blaze charges and i heard the ghast shoot. there wasn't enough time to react, and i fell down.
well, with that story out of the way...
attempt #1 to get my stuff back... the process here being traveling across my bridge over to the other side and going down a treacherous and deceiving incline down to a convenient little mound of netherrack that my stuff had exploded onto. as i headed down that way, i went to get my stuff annnd.... unexpectedly, there was a blaze just sitting there. in my panic to get the stuff and to avoid the blaze, i ended up falling down the side of the mound.
i didn't even know the hole was there, because as i said this was treacherous-- it looked like i could just walk straight up the hill back to the bridge. needless to say, nope. why does the nether hate me? well, scratch that, the nether has always been forgiving to me in contrast with other people's experiences. thank you, nether. i love you.
got up the hill with my stuff. triumph!
after this building session i had gotten a bit done but i had run out of materials(again). man, stone bricks are my most used block in this world, i swear.
to remedy this i went mining and ended up on a spelunking adventure.
aaaaand straight off the bat, man. after quite a bit of torching up the place and being generally unimpressed and slightly scared of being poisoned(as it's much more deadly in hard mode) i got out of there, but not before finding a chest minecart!
i forgot how disappointing minecart chests were. free golden apple, though. after that i decided to play around with some naming and framing things, and i ended up doing some pretty strange stuff.
i don't know. one time i had to stare at a picture of the temple heart room in steven universe-- which there was only one not very informative shot of-- and i did some art based on it. that took a long time, but it certainly added some interesting scenery ideas to my mind.
the first pickaxe made in this world! a nice trophy, i'd say!
afterwards i headed back to get some exp at the zombie farm so i could enchant some more pickaxes for mining because as you can see my other pickaxe was getting a little worn down.
why hello, friend!
got the exp, which i don't think i'll have to explain the process of because it's very self-explanatory. one thing was pretty annoying, and that's if i have minecraft and too many things open with it my computer will just straight up shut off. because of all the zombies in one place, it did that a few times! not fun!
wow! okay!
WOW OKAY.
combined my old pickaxe with the new one and got fortune III-- a very important enchantment for me in this world!
i love naming tools, hehehehe. i didn't want to use my fortune pick to go mining and i didn't want to use the silk touch picks because of their rarity... but i ended up using lapis to go mining, but took the fortune pick aswell. let me tell you, when you need stone bricks, mining with a silk touch pickaxe is REALLY useful!
by the way, here's my loot chest.
the yield. i decided to get a lot of plain ores just to look richer and because i've never really done that, heheheh.
so satisfying.
FINALLY, IT'S DONE. EVEN THE IRON BAR PARTS. that took a lot of iron okay friend? i was done for the day after this and ended up taking a nap. because i couldn't sleep per se, i started playing again later that night(against my new doctrine of no minecraft after 6 pm.)
of course, it was pretty much just shrooman exp grinding. the game was tabbed out most of the time, but at one point i returned to the tab and was welcomed to quite the sight!
well, hello there! come to get some exp yourself, friend? this guy was a pretty interesting pigman. he decided that he was tired of the nether and broke his AI apparently because while normally pigmen are supposed to go back in the portal asap this guy walked straight down the hallway and up the stairs so he could breathe in the fresh morning air.
they grow up so fast... now go, go out into the world, it's time to make your own family.
sadly, he never got to experience the outside world because up top the passage is gated and fenced off so he couldn't get out. poor guy!
i got enough exp to... well, enchant a lot. i ended up going to level 54 and enchanted a lot. i got a lot of-- well, take a look for yourself!
i was pretty excited. so, i went to my anvil and did a little bit more work. here's the final results.
plus, i combined that bow with the infinity one, and combined those diamond boots to get prot IV and ALSO combined that pickaxe with one of my loot books enchanted with efficiency III, making it eff IV. also, see that chainmail set? all from farming the zombie exp grinder. i don't know why, but they were just giving a ton of armor.
pretty good play session, but it was very monotonous. next time, i'll be exploring and maybe build a bit. i actually want to start writing in books and creating some world lore. wouldn't that be cool??
well, nether portals can be tricky sometimes-- i find that the only way to be sure that you'll show up at a certain place is by building a portal in the nether at the same location as in the overworld. of course, do that by dividing X and Z coords by 8, and boom, you've got where you need to go. as long as the portal is a ways away, it should work.
by the way, what sized maps? default, the big size, or one of the intermediaries?
so here's a better view of the sheep pen, which i'm procrastinating on. i've been looking to get wool all this time and now i'm practically ignoring the fact that i can breed sheep and get a lot of wool to finish the top of my house.
more views. anyway, last time i mentioned that the nether portals had been cast into utter chaos, so this time i had to go and fix it. this, of course, would require going back to the village(which, without my horse who had been left there when i entered the portal, would take a bit longer than otherwise) and figuring out what the appropriate nether coords are.
after that, i would have to build a nethergate room in the nether at those coords and at the village to link the portals up. it's a bit involved, but i'll probably end up doing this more often for saftey's sake.
finally arriving there, i look upon the infamous portal. before this, i had disabled the nether portal created in the savanna when i went through the portal. then i went through my stronghold's portals to see what would happen. it managed to fix itself, thankfully!
so, i disassembled the portal, screenshotted the coords, and headed back to base on my horse to delve into the depths of the nether and create the necessary passage.
you can see where i fell from, by the way. fell right down there under the cobblestone house for my nether gate... not pleasant! and certainly not pleasant to build a bridge over a height like this!
i encountered quite a few ghasts, which i happily offed with my bow(which i had to make arrows for-- gladly i had been farming chickens generously when i first put them in the barn) and i even managed to get return to sender. the ghast shot a fireball at the same time the arrow reached it, which instantly flung the fireball straight into it's mouth. love it when that happens.
here's the tunnel which i will soon put my railway in. i did a lot of testing in my creative world to figure out how the railway would work. originally, i just figured that i'd make two separate tracks, one for return and one for entry, but there was a bit of problem with turns in the track, so i just settled on one simple track.
instead of having a bunch of different destination tunnels or hubs or something i'll just have an un-activated powered rail to stop on, and then i'll have a lever i can switch to change which way i'll go.
looking from the other direction into a new nethergate room.
there we go-- this only goes til' a turn, actually. i have yet to put walls around the floating cobblestone pad... which i am not really dreading.
nethergate room now activated!
i have too much netherrack now... do you know how long it would take to smelt all of this? it'd make 768 netherbrick blocks, or a whopping.... 12 stacks. all that for 12 stacks... sigh.
now that the nethergate room was done in the nether location, i would need to build another one in the overworld location.
i decided i'd make an outpost out here to house myself and materials while i built the nethergate room and the exp grinder. plus, right by a village is a nice place to be with a zombie spawner and an outpost. i could expand this thing and use the zombie spawner to populate it with more villagers.
bad part is that i'm on hard mode, and on hard mode zombies can break down wooden doors. not good for a village, even a protected one.
ironically, this was after i offed a creeper. i didn't have a bed here, so after i died i had to run all the way back... i hate that trip on foot.
here's the entrance to the stronghold passage that leads to the nethergate/exp grinder rooms. coincidentally, right in the spot where i was building, there was an underground lava lake. this was perfect for the setting of a nethergate room and an exp grinder.
here's the finished outpost! a labor of love.
....i think you can tell what happened here. gladly i learned my lesson and had made a bed. i'm going to be a lot more careful next time i'm coming out of this passage.
finished interior.
before heading home to retrieve more materials(specifically the redstone to put together the lava dispenser for the trap and for the obsidian to build the nethergate) i built some fences to protect what villagers were left from an untimely fate.
oh, okay then.
version one: the flaw here was that the stone brick block needed to be lower, because the zombies wouldn't all fit into one spot; the killing block was too high. i really need to lower that dispenser another block, frankly.
...had a little bit of a containment breach...
version 2: working, at least, but same problem.
version 3: working better, block lowered. added a piston to keep zombies from going into the killing area. the problem here was that there was a halfslab there which was a whole block gap and i couldn't collect the drops, so i modified it with an iron bar.
boom! it's functioning well now, and i can get my exp. i ignited the portals and headed through them and they connected, so all i have left to do is install the railway tunnel and the rail. i also need to drop the dispenser mechanism down a block, because in the tunnel that pushes the zombies there's a block of empty air instead of water stream, and i can't drop down the block so the water flows all the way because it would interfere with the redstone.
anyway, all for now. next time i'll have my railway done and do some exploring. i'll probably drop down the ground of the stronghold area, too, actually, because i really hate this little depression that had to be made to get the drops. i also need to make something that can filter some zombies into a sort of prison so i can pick out the villager zombies and cure them.
1.9 dungeo chests seem to be better. What's the name of your small texture pack?
it's a custom pack i put together. i'm one of jehovah's witnesses and i really did not like the whole "magic" aspect behind the enchantment table or the undead mobs or anything like that, so i made them something different-- ocul-archers and shroomans(essentially a mooshroom steve).
other than that i changed some textures to their older counterparts, brightened up the colormap to resemble alpha and make things less gloomy(which my friends really love), and you may notice some stone is different. i sort of bridged the gap between modern cobblestone and the older cobblestone by increasing its contrast, and i changed diorite to be less generally horrible. the word diorite reminds me of throwup.
lets see... zombie drops "mycelial rot" instead of rotten flesh, and wither skeletons are-- well, you'll see them. i'm trying to think of a good name for them.
sorry to ramble about it but i really like my little texture pack i've made for myself. of course, i can't make it into any official pack because it uses some of mojang's assets, but at least i can use it.
Great big update! I always like the exploration part too. It's a shame you didn't notice that wolf until later, I'm sure he's long gone by now.
sometimes i just wonder why they decided it'd be a good idea to make wolves despawn if they've been loaded for more than 2 minutes.... i mean, all you need is a jungle and you have all the ocelots you could ever want, but wolves are a different story. you have to either leave immediately or carry bones with you always. ;n;
okay, another update! i need to get better at screenshotting things, i'm sort of neglectful of that, heheh, but here's the next entry...
so first i did some enchanting in this update to prepare for a lot of exploration i was about to do.
after that, i decided to make a map and head out to explore what needed to be explored, which was a lot! for my own defense, of course, i got around to making a full iron set and a shield.
hold on a moment! i'm forgetting a few things! before i show you the fruits of my explorative labor...
hatched a little friend... sadly, no name tags, so he's sort of just wandering around outside as of now.
finished the barn! it's all finished finally, so it's out of the way. but now that i have the barn finished, i would need sheep, and this barn wasn't big enough, and i definitely couldn't just expand it, so i decided to make some sheep pens. but first, i'd need to find sheep. so, i needed to do a bit of exploring!
here's all the map i had to fill out. oh boy...
what's this? yep, i found a village. relatively close, too. this was when i was filling out the corners of the map, going south from my base. so, naturally, i went and took a look around and lo and behold...
well, i just think that might be a deal that works for me! y'know, you think with a skilled and able-bodied librarian who clearly has access to a lot of knowledgeable ancient tomes would help direct the construction of this town, but...
someone else must've handled that.... huh. anyway, after that quick detour i started down to the southern map corner and started heading east. night approached soon after.
isn't that just a pretty sight?
sheep! and a village! found this nice little town in the lower right corner of the map.
okay, maybe it wasn't so nice. did the same guy design all of these villages, or are-- no, couldn't be that villagers are just... really dumb? looking to my right, i discovered something else...
a dungeon! oh, wow, this is perfect, as i really needed to find one of those if i was going to get the exp needed for endgame enchants. score! this village just comes with all kinds of perks, doesn't it?
SERIOUSLY, WHO BUILT THIS???
i don't have a screenshot of the blacksmith's chest, but it was pretty much just boring stuff. some iron leggings and a little bit of iron. after this, i started out to finished up the edges of the map, but ran into an ocean. knew it was a good idea to bring those boats!
so i sailed along, eventually meeting up with the desert coast again. although this time there wasn't simply desert in front of me, but a desert temple! it was pretty exciting getting to explore my first desert temple in the world. especially considering the loot!
enchanted golden apple. wow, those aren't craftable anymore and they're really rare to get in loot chests, so you can imagine my amazement.
oh hey, what's that.... another desert temple? don't mind if i do.
wow, my inventory is just filled to the brim with good stuff at this point. and after that(while i was filling in the map innards)...
horses! tested them out and took one home with the saddle i just had obtained.
i(again) don't have a name tag, so this guy doesn't have a name yet. i don't know what i should name him. maybe i should make a poll. not a lot of people would vote, but might aswell, haha.
this is the only screenshot i got of my sheep pen this close up because i was dumb and didn't pay attention to the fact that i needed to be taking screenshots.
i built this sheep pen after i got finished exploring, and then built a little horse-access road to it.
added a new room to my stronghold. i don't know about the glass floor, honestly, but you can clearly see which direction is north. this is going to be the mapping room, which i don't really know what to do with aside from be decoration for my maps. maybe i'll use it to plan some builds and roads?
i decided to hop on my horse, head out and fill in a little bit of my map that wasn't filled in-- before making a new map and exploring that! yes, i got the exploration bug, and i still do. anyway, i finally had enough to get that silk touch book. score! after that i made a new map, and guess what?
this is just the mapping quadrant left of the previous one, and i realized i had traded all my paper so i didn't have enough and i was just filling in a little bit of the small version while i waited to get some sugarcane. so, this is relatively close to my base(that little river is the one between my stronghold hill and my desert house hill).
really? they were here all along??? so many sheep! ...so many... after that i finally got enough paper to size up my map enough.
another village! and with crops, this time! oh, and pumpkins.
oh wow, this is exciting. i really don't like jungles, but i have a respect for them after seeing what some people here on the forums have done with them. this was a really annoying jungle though because it's almost more like a marshland-hill jungle than anything.
i am on a roll, aren't i? i need to make some roads connecting all these villages and fix the villages up a little bit. also, sheep are just everywhere at this point. they're taunting me-- oh, donkeys too and WOW! i looking at this screenshot i only JUST noticed that there was a wolf right there. i wonder if i had any bones on me? lost my chance...
bit of a leap here but as you can see i filled out all of my map and here is a really annoying little hill that looks like you'll be able to go down the other side fine from the other side of it and then BOOM! fall straight off. happened to me and my horse more than once.
got my sheep.
decided to light the portal to secure the inside of the nether so i could start to make a passage-- specifically, a passage to that map corner with the dungeon. i need a dungeon if i ever expect to maximize my diamond yield with fortune III and get one of the most valuable enderdragon boss fight enchantments-- feather falling IV.
so after lighting my portal, here's the funny story. i was lagging a bit and i decided to back up out of the nether portal so i wouldn't instantly go back to the overworld or something, and i backed STRAIGHT off the edge of...
well, you can see what i backed off of. the edge of the other side of that portal, yeah. i landed on the netherrack below with HALF a heart, one block more and i would've been dead. i then mined through one of the pillars of the nether fortress to get back up to my portal, killing a blaze in the process.
by the way, portal spawned RIGHT next to a nether fortress! how convenient, am i right? sadly, this sort of makes my job of building around my portal a bit harder, as everything i'd be building would pretty much have to be floating or on really inconvenient stilts.
as you can see i headed down to the corner of the map so i could prepare that dungeon and then build another nether portal to find out where i would need to go in the nether to get here.
here's the double-chest loot! aren't dungeon double-chests rare? also, now i have to build a jukebox, don't i?
anyway, i don't have any more screenshots, but i built a nether portal and headed though it... and showed up at my base's portal in the nether. this disturbed me, to say the least, because i knew this was going to be a lot more complicated than i thought it would.
i went back through the portal to see where it would take me and it took me to a savanna field that conveniently was close to the back-entrance of my stronghold. in the end, i decided to light the other stronghold portal anyway, because might as well if chaos is breaking loose.
well, that's all, folks. now i have to go sort out this madness and build... a lot of things. i usually like building in the nether, but not if it's raised 23 blocks in the air...
here is the library(accessed from the hallway from the right gate):
the hallway where you can access the library or the staircase to the lower level(includes a prison cell for mobs):
the staircase to the lower level:
into the lower level hallway, from here the gate opposite the hill can be seen, staircase room to immediate left:
accessible from the aforementioned hallway is the nethergate room(unfinished, like most of the stronghold):
the fountain room, or hub. from here, two unfinished hallways, the previous hallway, and another staircase can be found:
the stairway:
the left gate, leads to the previous staircase:
that's it! i'll be working on this more later on, extending it deeper into the earth, as i've been a bit short on space in this hill and my rooms keep coming out of it.
I love the builds! I am very sensitive to "physics" in minecraft, like I build strong foundations, and I set certain weights to certain blocks. That bridge looks very unstable and top-heavy to me, like it could fall down in an earthquake or strong wind. But everything looks very nice! I need to start building in my world once I can figure out how to get minecraft to work again after I updated to windows 10.
so THAT'S why it looks so strange to me! thanks for pointing that out! i'm going to fix that, because that is what is bothering me about that design, wow, okay. i also really like the idea of structural physics and making things realistically stable, but i sort of sacrifice that for convenience's sake a lot of the times.
Great update! You won't need any more diamonds for awhile. My favorite build is your stronghold - the acacia wood was an excellent choice.
won't need any diamonds for a while? i'm just getting started, hehehhehehehheeh... thanks for the compliment, i have plans for this stronghold to be pretty cool-- i was a bit confused as to what actually gets PUT in a stronghold... so, i fleshed it out a bit, and now i'm a bit more focused on the designs and stuff.
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i am definitely going to try this challenge. it's like a hands-on strategy game!
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i thought about that, yes, but snow golems are TOO hard to keep alive. i can't even keep one alive to be in a guard tower, let alone have an entire village of the things. the pumpkins aren't entities so they're a bit... immobile, but they're less unpredictable. i guess using snow golems is this challenge's hardcore mode.
eeeeexactly, haha. watermelons are nice and all, but i relate to the pumpkins. maybe it's because my skin's head is just a green version of one. i guess someone could substitute pumpkins for melons anyways, but they wouldn't have faces. that'd be creepy.
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THE WATERMELON STEVEN CHALLENGE!*
*except for the fact that you use pumpkins instead of watermelons.
this challenge is based off of the "steven universe" episode "super watermelon island". in this episode our protagonist discovers that the anthropomorphic watermelons he brought to life two seasons earlier have created their own community in which they farm watermelons, thus expanding their community. it's adorable. can you see where i'm going with this?
THE CHALLENGE:
set cheats to on and create a new survival world. change your gamemode to creative and spawn in two pumpkins and a seed-- these are your progenitors. put the pumpkins on a block of your choice and put two levers on the side to make arms. it's alive! all you need to do now is keep them safe so they can stay alive.
for every two pumpkin people there are, you will allot one block of land(cannot be fertile) to plant a pumpkin seed. after your new pumpkin has grown, break and replant the stalk. every new pumpkin you grow and animate(by giving it a body and arms) becomes part of the population. if you have no seeds to plant, you're allowed to turn an un-animated pumpkin into seeds.
it is your task to build your helpless pumpkin friends homes, farms, and walls against the foul night terrors, among other things. one day, with enough TLC, perhaps your pumpkins will be a part of a sprawling utopian metropolis.
RULES:
TASKS/STAGES:
your pumpkins are going to thrive as a civilization under your care, even if their lifespan is significantly shorter than yours. as such, they'll often make requests of you. feel free to do these in any order, and you can find the stages and requests below. (NOTE: this part is unfinished and subject to change. in fact, i highly suggest making a suggestion for new tasks so this challenge can "grow"! ,,,pun intended.)
"not i, said the baker." | build a bakery; appoint one of your citizens to the task of running it.
"defense mechanism." | build a humble wall made of at least wood.
"well, well, wellwellwellwellwell!" | build for your citizens a source of fresh water, whether it be a well or some sort of aqueduct.
"eating worms" | deliver 25 wheat seeds to the farm.
"the forge." | create a forge for your citizens so they can craft better tools; appoint a blacksmith to the task.
"you smelt that?" | deliver 20 iron ingots to the forge.
"the watchtower" | build a lookout tower; appoint a citizen to be the lookout.
"miner forty-niner" | build a mineshaft in a nearby hill or underground.
"wood you please?" | upgrade the lumber mill; appoint another citizen to work there.
"maniac with an axe" | deliver 128 wooden logs to the lumber mill.
"digging for gold." | deliver 20 gold ingots to the forge from the mineshaft.
"rattling my ears!" | slay 15 skeletons while underground.
"forethought" | upgrade the town's walls.
"trapper's dream" | build simple or complicated traps and mechanisms to defend your walls.
"human canary" | destroy one cave spider spawner.
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another entry! wow, a LOT has happened in my past few play sessions, i will say that!
first thing's first, i made sure to craft myself this thing. brewing stand, that's it! i totally remembered! i realized something: i can't make any fire resistance potions to travel safely through the nether without magma cream! worst part is that i hadn't seen one slime. i would have to find a swamp.
i remembered that i had to get my horse from over at the outpost where i had left it before i could start exploring. as you can see, i found two zombie pigmen who very curiously like that spot. maybe they just want to roam free with their other piggy bretheren?
found this very interesting piece of terrain generation in a small savanna mountains biome north of my base(where i was exploring).
i found a flower forest isle! how interesting is that? i'll have to build something cool there, like a garden.
an F1 driveby shot of that savanna mountains biome. really cool!
i saw a LOT of ocean monuments, but this was the only one i saw where these guardians were just straight up jumping out of the water. flighty guardians!
the full map after exploration. it was... a lot of ocean. really not much to report, aside from the things i took pictures of. a lot of ocean monuments to take care of though. well, no swamps, so i would have to uncover the land far south. out i go!
i encountered a village... and realized the entire population is made up of librarians. there are only two libraries. mojaaaaaang.... (okay, well, not the entire population, but there were like 8.)
my world had a bit of a shutdown error and i came back to some chunk errors... i was a little bit scared of that, so i made sure to backup my world.
if jungles didn't anger me so much and they weren't so laggy, i'd actually think this was a really cool spot to build something.
roofed forest! and a HUGE ravine! i keep encountering those, don't i?
scoooooore.
how did you like that montage? there was a lot to cover there, so i'll say this much: did a lot of exploring, found a lot of cool stuff, got some slimeballs, got some wolves who disappeared on me and are probably in some field waiting expectantly for me, and had a really cool play session. after this, i decided to start exploring the nether a little bit and getting prepared for endgame.
didn't get many pictures of that first fortresses' loot, but i got a wither skeleton skull. after i exploring the initial fortress my portal spawned right by, i realized there was another really extensive parked right beside it. conveniently for it though, not close enough to access easily. i had to make my way around to where it docked to the netherrack.
a cool lava fall and as you can see, my expedition was pretty exciting. i managed to get three wither skeleton skulls and i was determined to fight the wither-- i have never ever fought it in legit survival, so i tested it out on my creative world with gear similar to my own to make sure i wasn't make a huge mistake and set it up.
really disappointed in myself for not getting enough screenshots, but it isn't exactly an easy battle. at least i didn't have to use my golden apple! also, what am i saying? of course it was an easy battle! the wither turns out to be a pushover as long as you have insta health splash potions!
no idea what i'm gonna use this for. at one point i thought "wait, all health effects damage undead mobs, could i make a regen beacon to protect a village? i tested it out in creative although i was doubtful regen acted like poison on undead mobs. it does not, evidently, and would not work, so i don't really know what i'll use this for unless i have to mine something really big out.
i decided to go find a stronghold, so i was enderman hunting. in the process, i got some loot from a nabal(retextured witch, and biblical reference. it fits because he's a drunk and the witch just ends up being a really senseless and mad at the world drunk guy who throws bottles at you) and i managed to find this! another dungeon! this should be useful, eventually.
oh, and the dungeon comes with a nametag! yesss!
my organized loot chest.
welllll then, hellllooooo... as you can see i got my ender eyes and at this point was hunting for the stronghold. i didn't want to explore it at the moment, so it's still sitting out there in the jungle somewhere. anyway, that's all for now.
next time, i'll be finding and exploring the stronghold, hopefully linking it with my nether portal, and fighting the enderdragon. after that i'll be able to visit the end islands for the first time. cya next time!
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hah, i was so confused "this guy knows redstone out the wazoo but not maps? oh well"
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SO SICK. thanks-- also, wow, that is a HIIIIGH level. my zombie exp grinder is really simple, so it's not going to get me anywhere like that, haha.
you don't know how to use maps? brief low-down is of course craft one, size it up by surrounding it with paper in a crafting bench, and then be on your merry way filling it out. as for the diamonds, heh, i have a good track record with them. in my other survival world i have stacks of diamonds i am very proud of.
i always make it a point to save my wooden tools. i only made a wooden pickaxe, though, it turns out. thanks! also, as for the nether, yeah me and the nether have always been in a love hate relationship, but it's very forgiving, as i said.
i once was building a passage over about 10000 blocks overworld distance in the nether and a ghast shot me off into lava, but i took some fire res potions and all was fine. as of yet i haven't angered many pigmen, but i have dealt with their wrath before. as long as i have fire res and a backup golden apple i do fine.
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another update, and this one is a whopper. seriously-- i have been laboring quite a bit for this update, and it has all payed off so very much. i don't think i've ever gotten anything as good as this in survival before!
so first off, i did some redesigning for my exp grinder in the creative world. i tweaked it so it'd work most efficiently and assuredly and has room for a water current leading off to the side of the killing chamber. later on, this is going to be used to filter the zombies into individual pods to purify and kill if they are shrooman villagers or normal shroomans, respectively.
by the way, i saw somewhere that zombie spawners in 1.9 can be villager zombie spawners, and i just so happened to get a shrooman villager spawner. well, that works! do they have a higher chance of spawning zombie villagers? i don't think so, but i've gotten a lot of zombie villagers.
so here's the revised design in construction. you can see the access area over there to tweak the mechanics and eventually to lead the shroomans to go to the curing filter. only problem i've found with this is that the baby shroomans either aren't hit by the lava or, because of their higher health, aren't reduced to one punch. plus, their hitbox is a bit strange, and i can't seem to very easily hit them.
added a trapdoor so that the baby shroomans wouldn't jump through the gap... also, not pictured, but i closed off that hole in the wall.
lets play "spot the extremely dangerous trap". i've got my eyes on you.
by the way, here's the map as of my last expedition. i expect to go on another one soon. i really want to fill out this entire wall!
decided to enchant a bow and saw a definite infinity enchantment. score, right? wrong. all it was was infinity. i ended up combining it with another bow, so it turned out to be really useful, actually. as you can see, there's some railways and stone brick materials. i was finishing off my nether railway because i just... i wanted it done. i have never made a railway in the nether, and this is an accomplishment for me, i'm tellin' ya.
well, that didn't take long. as you can see from the subtitles, i was hit by a ghast's fireball. now, usually i'm really good at dodging+hitting those back, like anyone else is, but it just so happened that as i was working on my bridge section of my railway, i saw a ghast was in the area, but i didn't see it, so i didn't worry about it.
big mistake. i turned around and there were three blazes that spawned. don't you love nether fortresses? anyway, i started to fire at them, but they decided to return the favor! i was busy dodging blaze charges and i heard the ghast shoot. there wasn't enough time to react, and i fell down.
well, with that story out of the way...
attempt #1 to get my stuff back... the process here being traveling across my bridge over to the other side and going down a treacherous and deceiving incline down to a convenient little mound of netherrack that my stuff had exploded onto. as i headed down that way, i went to get my stuff annnd.... unexpectedly, there was a blaze just sitting there. in my panic to get the stuff and to avoid the blaze, i ended up falling down the side of the mound.
i didn't even know the hole was there, because as i said this was treacherous-- it looked like i could just walk straight up the hill back to the bridge. needless to say, nope. why does the nether hate me? well, scratch that, the nether has always been forgiving to me in contrast with other people's experiences. thank you, nether. i love you.
got up the hill with my stuff. triumph!
after this building session i had gotten a bit done but i had run out of materials(again). man, stone bricks are my most used block in this world, i swear.
to remedy this i went mining and ended up on a spelunking adventure.
aaaaand straight off the bat, man. after quite a bit of torching up the place and being generally unimpressed and slightly scared of being poisoned(as it's much more deadly in hard mode) i got out of there, but not before finding a chest minecart!
i forgot how disappointing minecart chests were. free golden apple, though. after that i decided to play around with some naming and framing things, and i ended up doing some pretty strange stuff.
i don't know. one time i had to stare at a picture of the temple heart room in steven universe-- which there was only one not very informative shot of-- and i did some art based on it. that took a long time, but it certainly added some interesting scenery ideas to my mind.
the first pickaxe made in this world! a nice trophy, i'd say!
afterwards i headed back to get some exp at the zombie farm so i could enchant some more pickaxes for mining because as you can see my other pickaxe was getting a little worn down.
why hello, friend!
got the exp, which i don't think i'll have to explain the process of because it's very self-explanatory. one thing was pretty annoying, and that's if i have minecraft and too many things open with it my computer will just straight up shut off. because of all the zombies in one place, it did that a few times! not fun!
wow! okay!
WOW OKAY.
combined my old pickaxe with the new one and got fortune III-- a very important enchantment for me in this world!
i love naming tools, hehehehe. i didn't want to use my fortune pick to go mining and i didn't want to use the silk touch picks because of their rarity... but i ended up using lapis to go mining, but took the fortune pick aswell. let me tell you, when you need stone bricks, mining with a silk touch pickaxe is REALLY useful!
by the way, here's my loot chest.
the yield. i decided to get a lot of plain ores just to look richer and because i've never really done that, heheheh.
so satisfying.
FINALLY, IT'S DONE. EVEN THE IRON BAR PARTS. that took a lot of iron okay friend? i was done for the day after this and ended up taking a nap. because i couldn't sleep per se, i started playing again later that night(against my new doctrine of no minecraft after 6 pm.)
of course, it was pretty much just shrooman exp grinding. the game was tabbed out most of the time, but at one point i returned to the tab and was welcomed to quite the sight!
well, hello there! come to get some exp yourself, friend? this guy was a pretty interesting pigman. he decided that he was tired of the nether and broke his AI apparently because while normally pigmen are supposed to go back in the portal asap this guy walked straight down the hallway and up the stairs so he could breathe in the fresh morning air.
they grow up so fast... now go, go out into the world, it's time to make your own family.
sadly, he never got to experience the outside world because up top the passage is gated and fenced off so he couldn't get out. poor guy!
i got enough exp to... well, enchant a lot. i ended up going to level 54 and enchanted a lot. i got a lot of-- well, take a look for yourself!
i was pretty excited. so, i went to my anvil and did a little bit more work. here's the final results.
plus, i combined that bow with the infinity one, and combined those diamond boots to get prot IV and ALSO combined that pickaxe with one of my loot books enchanted with efficiency III, making it eff IV. also, see that chainmail set? all from farming the zombie exp grinder. i don't know why, but they were just giving a ton of armor.
pretty good play session, but it was very monotonous. next time, i'll be exploring and maybe build a bit. i actually want to start writing in books and creating some world lore. wouldn't that be cool??
cya next time.
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well, nether portals can be tricky sometimes-- i find that the only way to be sure that you'll show up at a certain place is by building a portal in the nether at the same location as in the overworld. of course, do that by dividing X and Z coords by 8, and boom, you've got where you need to go. as long as the portal is a ways away, it should work.
by the way, what sized maps? default, the big size, or one of the intermediaries?
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finally, after much heartache... entry four.
so here's a better view of the sheep pen, which i'm procrastinating on. i've been looking to get wool all this time and now i'm practically ignoring the fact that i can breed sheep and get a lot of wool to finish the top of my house.
more views. anyway, last time i mentioned that the nether portals had been cast into utter chaos, so this time i had to go and fix it. this, of course, would require going back to the village(which, without my horse who had been left there when i entered the portal, would take a bit longer than otherwise) and figuring out what the appropriate nether coords are.
after that, i would have to build a nethergate room in the nether at those coords and at the village to link the portals up. it's a bit involved, but i'll probably end up doing this more often for saftey's sake.
finally arriving there, i look upon the infamous portal. before this, i had disabled the nether portal created in the savanna when i went through the portal. then i went through my stronghold's portals to see what would happen. it managed to fix itself, thankfully!
so, i disassembled the portal, screenshotted the coords, and headed back to base on my horse to delve into the depths of the nether and create the necessary passage.
you can see where i fell from, by the way. fell right down there under the cobblestone house for my nether gate... not pleasant! and certainly not pleasant to build a bridge over a height like this!
i encountered quite a few ghasts, which i happily offed with my bow(which i had to make arrows for-- gladly i had been farming chickens generously when i first put them in the barn) and i even managed to get return to sender. the ghast shot a fireball at the same time the arrow reached it, which instantly flung the fireball straight into it's mouth. love it when that happens.
here's the tunnel which i will soon put my railway in. i did a lot of testing in my creative world to figure out how the railway would work. originally, i just figured that i'd make two separate tracks, one for return and one for entry, but there was a bit of problem with turns in the track, so i just settled on one simple track.
instead of having a bunch of different destination tunnels or hubs or something i'll just have an un-activated powered rail to stop on, and then i'll have a lever i can switch to change which way i'll go.
looking from the other direction into a new nethergate room.
there we go-- this only goes til' a turn, actually. i have yet to put walls around the floating cobblestone pad... which i am not really dreading.
nethergate room now activated!
i have too much netherrack now... do you know how long it would take to smelt all of this? it'd make 768 netherbrick blocks, or a whopping.... 12 stacks. all that for 12 stacks... sigh.
now that the nethergate room was done in the nether location, i would need to build another one in the overworld location.
i decided i'd make an outpost out here to house myself and materials while i built the nethergate room and the exp grinder. plus, right by a village is a nice place to be with a zombie spawner and an outpost. i could expand this thing and use the zombie spawner to populate it with more villagers.
bad part is that i'm on hard mode, and on hard mode zombies can break down wooden doors. not good for a village, even a protected one.
ironically, this was after i offed a creeper. i didn't have a bed here, so after i died i had to run all the way back... i hate that trip on foot.
here's the entrance to the stronghold passage that leads to the nethergate/exp grinder rooms. coincidentally, right in the spot where i was building, there was an underground lava lake. this was perfect for the setting of a nethergate room and an exp grinder.
here's the finished outpost! a labor of love.
....i think you can tell what happened here. gladly i learned my lesson and had made a bed. i'm going to be a lot more careful next time i'm coming out of this passage.
finished interior.
before heading home to retrieve more materials(specifically the redstone to put together the lava dispenser for the trap and for the obsidian to build the nethergate) i built some fences to protect what villagers were left from an untimely fate.
oh, okay then.
version one: the flaw here was that the stone brick block needed to be lower, because the zombies wouldn't all fit into one spot; the killing block was too high. i really need to lower that dispenser another block, frankly.
...had a little bit of a containment breach...
version 2: working, at least, but same problem.
version 3: working better, block lowered. added a piston to keep zombies from going into the killing area. the problem here was that there was a halfslab there which was a whole block gap and i couldn't collect the drops, so i modified it with an iron bar.
boom! it's functioning well now, and i can get my exp. i ignited the portals and headed through them and they connected, so all i have left to do is install the railway tunnel and the rail. i also need to drop the dispenser mechanism down a block, because in the tunnel that pushes the zombies there's a block of empty air instead of water stream, and i can't drop down the block so the water flows all the way because it would interfere with the redstone.
anyway, all for now. next time i'll have my railway done and do some exploring. i'll probably drop down the ground of the stronghold area, too, actually, because i really hate this little depression that had to be made to get the drops. i also need to make something that can filter some zombies into a sort of prison so i can pick out the villager zombies and cure them.
til next time!
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yeah, sure. i was thinking of making my own texture pack soon, actually, but if anyone wants to try this one out, just PM me.
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it's a custom pack i put together. i'm one of jehovah's witnesses and i really did not like the whole "magic" aspect behind the enchantment table or the undead mobs or anything like that, so i made them something different-- ocul-archers and shroomans(essentially a mooshroom steve).
other than that i changed some textures to their older counterparts, brightened up the colormap to resemble alpha and make things less gloomy(which my friends really love), and you may notice some stone is different. i sort of bridged the gap between modern cobblestone and the older cobblestone by increasing its contrast, and i changed diorite to be less generally horrible. the word diorite reminds me of throwup.
lets see... zombie drops "mycelial rot" instead of rotten flesh, and wither skeletons are-- well, you'll see them. i'm trying to think of a good name for them.
sorry to ramble about it but i really like my little texture pack i've made for myself. of course, i can't make it into any official pack because it uses some of mojang's assets, but at least i can use it.
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sometimes i just wonder why they decided it'd be a good idea to make wolves despawn if they've been loaded for more than 2 minutes.... i mean, all you need is a jungle and you have all the ocelots you could ever want, but wolves are a different story. you have to either leave immediately or carry bones with you always. ;n;
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okay, another update! i need to get better at screenshotting things, i'm sort of neglectful of that, heheh, but here's the next entry...
so first i did some enchanting in this update to prepare for a lot of exploration i was about to do.
after that, i decided to make a map and head out to explore what needed to be explored, which was a lot! for my own defense, of course, i got around to making a full iron set and a shield.
hold on a moment! i'm forgetting a few things! before i show you the fruits of my explorative labor...
hatched a little friend... sadly, no name tags, so he's sort of just wandering around outside as of now.
finished the barn! it's all finished finally, so it's out of the way. but now that i have the barn finished, i would need sheep, and this barn wasn't big enough, and i definitely couldn't just expand it, so i decided to make some sheep pens. but first, i'd need to find sheep. so, i needed to do a bit of exploring!
here's all the map i had to fill out. oh boy...
what's this? yep, i found a village. relatively close, too. this was when i was filling out the corners of the map, going south from my base. so, naturally, i went and took a look around and lo and behold...
well, i just think that might be a deal that works for me! y'know, you think with a skilled and able-bodied librarian who clearly has access to a lot of knowledgeable ancient tomes would help direct the construction of this town, but...
someone else must've handled that.... huh. anyway, after that quick detour i started down to the southern map corner and started heading east. night approached soon after.
isn't that just a pretty sight?
sheep! and a village! found this nice little town in the lower right corner of the map.
okay, maybe it wasn't so nice. did the same guy design all of these villages, or are-- no, couldn't be that villagers are just... really dumb? looking to my right, i discovered something else...
a dungeon! oh, wow, this is perfect, as i really needed to find one of those if i was going to get the exp needed for endgame enchants. score! this village just comes with all kinds of perks, doesn't it?
SERIOUSLY, WHO BUILT THIS???
i don't have a screenshot of the blacksmith's chest, but it was pretty much just boring stuff. some iron leggings and a little bit of iron. after this, i started out to finished up the edges of the map, but ran into an ocean. knew it was a good idea to bring those boats!
so i sailed along, eventually meeting up with the desert coast again. although this time there wasn't simply desert in front of me, but a desert temple! it was pretty exciting getting to explore my first desert temple in the world. especially considering the loot!
enchanted golden apple. wow, those aren't craftable anymore and they're really rare to get in loot chests, so you can imagine my amazement.
oh hey, what's that.... another desert temple? don't mind if i do.
wow, my inventory is just filled to the brim with good stuff at this point. and after that(while i was filling in the map innards)...
horses! tested them out and took one home with the saddle i just had obtained.
i(again) don't have a name tag, so this guy doesn't have a name yet. i don't know what i should name him. maybe i should make a poll. not a lot of people would vote, but might aswell, haha.
this is the only screenshot i got of my sheep pen this close up because i was dumb and didn't pay attention to the fact that i needed to be taking screenshots.
i built this sheep pen after i got finished exploring, and then built a little horse-access road to it.
added a new room to my stronghold. i don't know about the glass floor, honestly, but you can clearly see which direction is north. this is going to be the mapping room, which i don't really know what to do with aside from be decoration for my maps. maybe i'll use it to plan some builds and roads?
i decided to hop on my horse, head out and fill in a little bit of my map that wasn't filled in-- before making a new map and exploring that! yes, i got the exploration bug, and i still do. anyway, i finally had enough to get that silk touch book. score! after that i made a new map, and guess what?
this is just the mapping quadrant left of the previous one, and i realized i had traded all my paper so i didn't have enough and i was just filling in a little bit of the small version while i waited to get some sugarcane. so, this is relatively close to my base(that little river is the one between my stronghold hill and my desert house hill).
really? they were here all along??? so many sheep! ...so many... after that i finally got enough paper to size up my map enough.
another village! and with crops, this time! oh, and pumpkins.
oh wow, this is exciting. i really don't like jungles, but i have a respect for them after seeing what some people here on the forums have done with them. this was a really annoying jungle though because it's almost more like a marshland-hill jungle than anything.
i am on a roll, aren't i? i need to make some roads connecting all these villages and fix the villages up a little bit. also, sheep are just everywhere at this point. they're taunting me-- oh, donkeys too and WOW! i looking at this screenshot i only JUST noticed that there was a wolf right there. i wonder if i had any bones on me? lost my chance...
bit of a leap here but as you can see i filled out all of my map and here is a really annoying little hill that looks like you'll be able to go down the other side fine from the other side of it and then BOOM! fall straight off. happened to me and my horse more than once.
got my sheep.
decided to light the portal to secure the inside of the nether so i could start to make a passage-- specifically, a passage to that map corner with the dungeon. i need a dungeon if i ever expect to maximize my diamond yield with fortune III and get one of the most valuable enderdragon boss fight enchantments-- feather falling IV.
so after lighting my portal, here's the funny story. i was lagging a bit and i decided to back up out of the nether portal so i wouldn't instantly go back to the overworld or something, and i backed STRAIGHT off the edge of...
well, you can see what i backed off of. the edge of the other side of that portal, yeah. i landed on the netherrack below with HALF a heart, one block more and i would've been dead. i then mined through one of the pillars of the nether fortress to get back up to my portal, killing a blaze in the process.
by the way, portal spawned RIGHT next to a nether fortress! how convenient, am i right? sadly, this sort of makes my job of building around my portal a bit harder, as everything i'd be building would pretty much have to be floating or on really inconvenient stilts.
as you can see i headed down to the corner of the map so i could prepare that dungeon and then build another nether portal to find out where i would need to go in the nether to get here.
here's the double-chest loot! aren't dungeon double-chests rare? also, now i have to build a jukebox, don't i?
anyway, i don't have any more screenshots, but i built a nether portal and headed though it... and showed up at my base's portal in the nether. this disturbed me, to say the least, because i knew this was going to be a lot more complicated than i thought it would.
i went back through the portal to see where it would take me and it took me to a savanna field that conveniently was close to the back-entrance of my stronghold. in the end, i decided to light the other stronghold portal anyway, because might as well if chaos is breaking loose.
well, that's all, folks. now i have to go sort out this madness and build... a lot of things. i usually like building in the nether, but not if it's raised 23 blocks in the air...
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small update on the stronghold
here is the library(accessed from the hallway from the right gate):
the hallway where you can access the library or the staircase to the lower level(includes a prison cell for mobs):
the staircase to the lower level:
into the lower level hallway, from here the gate opposite the hill can be seen, staircase room to immediate left:
accessible from the aforementioned hallway is the nethergate room(unfinished, like most of the stronghold):
the fountain room, or hub. from here, two unfinished hallways, the previous hallway, and another staircase can be found:
the stairway:
the left gate, leads to the previous staircase:
that's it! i'll be working on this more later on, extending it deeper into the earth, as i've been a bit short on space in this hill and my rooms keep coming out of it.
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so THAT'S why it looks so strange to me! thanks for pointing that out! i'm going to fix that, because that is what is bothering me about that design, wow, okay. i also really like the idea of structural physics and making things realistically stable, but i sort of sacrifice that for convenience's sake a lot of the times.
won't need any diamonds for a while? i'm just getting started, hehehhehehehheeh... thanks for the compliment, i have plans for this stronghold to be pretty cool-- i was a bit confused as to what actually gets PUT in a stronghold... so, i fleshed it out a bit, and now i'm a bit more focused on the designs and stuff.