Minecraft Forums

Quote from Hexalobular»

Or drink milk.

Filthy casual.

Quote from Mr_N_Derman»

Any ideas what to do with it tho!!?

No, but that's a big elevator! Why did you mine it out again?

Just to finish, whilst in pursuit of NQ, came across two frozen Ghast fireballs. Have found the odd one occasionally, but never two ...

Huh! Never heard of them until today.

That is a monstrous cave, TMC, and I say that knowing pictures rarely do cave size any justice. Is that vanilla or semi-vanilla generation?

Clearly bigger than what I believe is probably my largest of that open, continuous tunnel style.

I'm going to fly over and snap a few pictures of mine, but like I say, yours is certainly larger, so I'm by no means trying to upstage you in your thread. Just giving a reference point.

Discovered April 23, 2018, probably generated in 1.8.x:

Same three pictures with night vision potion:

The reason I updated past 1.12.2 was because I read the (sometimes-permanent) lighting bugs in 1.14.0 were supposedly fixed in 1.14.1, along with all the other scary stuff like all items in chests, item frames, armor stands, etc., being deleted.

Here I am in 1.14.2 and all of a sudden half of Castle Midgard goes white light. Reading on Reddit, I'm not the only one to have this happen; people are still reporting the same in 1.14.4. Upgrading to 1.14.4 didn't fix (knew it wouldn't), nor did removing all light sources in the area and blocking it off. I already took 2 hours to optimize my chunks while deleting the cache. If they mean I have to remove all light sources in the chunk, there's no way. The castle goes down to bedrock.

The reason I went with under-piston lighting rather than being forced to use more aggressive measures is because it's almost perfectly the same as cobble. I'm pretty sure it literally is cobble, but slightly darker shade with a dark outline. No matter what I use otherwise, it's going to be out of place. I'm either going to have to cover it with carpet, or go with another method of lighting or preventing spawns. Elsewise, I'm always going to see it as a flaw.

Thanks a lot for taking the time to help me out, though.

Thanks!

Until 1.14, light passed through pistons. Since some rooms in Castle Midgard are so large, much of my light must come from the floor, not walls or ceilings. I designed much of the castle to be lit by an upside-down piston with glowstone beneath it. The back of a piston looks very much like cobblestone, the same block I use for most of my walking surfaces, so there was no garish light blocks like glowstone or sea lanterns to draw the eye downward. As a builder, I'm sure you'll understand my concern; drawing the eye to a focal point is an important aspect in all aesthetics.

An example:

I could carpet over the blocks or use slabs or 1,000 other techniques which I've used in many parts of the castle—but that's not as desirable to me, and it's not how the castle was designed years ago, and it's not how it's been for the last few years. I have a lot of work to do, and as I was agreeing with you in your journal, in a large castle, you can't just change one thing; one change causes a chain reaction where a lot of things need reworked. I'm not even sure how I'm going to fix some of it.

Minecraft is not a difficult game by any stretch of the imagination. I cut my teeth on Ghosts & Goblins. A Google search made right now put that game on every single list of hardest games on the entire first page of results. I've beaten Doom ][ in a single life and I was a murderer in my teens on DWANGO where I deathmatched the likes of its front-man John Romero and at least one now-famous pro who I see was born one day after me. Skipping ahead more than a decade to the last time I played Call of Duty—or even held a controller—was years ago, but I was pushing a very high-300's SPM/2.5 KD or so. I've beaten Diablo II and Torchlight II, its easier spiritual successor, both in hardcore on the highest difficulty. Aging hands and waning reflexes keeps me from being the digital warrior I was decades ago, but no one who knows me would ever question I'm a talented and skilled veteran gamer.

I've hinted for a while here on the forums that I've been playing hardcore, but that's nothing new for me. I've always played hardcore when Midgard wore on my patience, and I've advised many to do the same when asked how I've maintained playing the same world for more than five years. It breaths fresh life into the game when softcore becomes a bore.

I've always wanted to legitimately slay the dragon in hardcore, but I've never seriously tried to do so. Despite having multiple worlds (at least three) where I could have challenged her, I've never made the attempt, though those worlds are all still around somewhere on a hard drive.

It's not a difficult battle; easy in fact. Getting there is tougher, but if one plays it safe and is willing to invest the time and effort, the dragon fight should be a snap.

Unless it's not. Any number of things can suddenly go very, drastically wrong. The dragon's wing buffet can swat one high in the air to crash onto the ground—or over the edge and into the endless abyss. Just getting to the island without being knocked into the void can be the hardest accomplishment in the game, and it was by far my biggest worry when, about three hours ago, I made my first attempt ever to slay the dragon in hardcore.

At eight minutes past midnight, July 28, 2019, I slew the Ender Dragon in legit vanilla hardcore in my large-biome world created 20 days and eight minutes earlier.

My last post to this journal was one of the darkest moments in Midgard's history. My great castle was invaded after Mojang perniciously rendered its longstanding defenses useless. It was a painful reminder that while I am an immortal in Midgard, there are gods more powerful than I, and that those gods are fickle and apathetic.

As I've said in this journal and elsewhere on these forums many times, the castle that stands at what was once the center of my world is not its most important feature. However, it's far from inconsequential! It's my home and the seat of my power; it fuels my adventures and is the jewel of my crown. Lighting is the most vital priority of any build in Minecraft, and cobble is one of if not the most common building material; to take away a lighting method that's been around since before release 1.0 with matching aesthetics to cobble and other stone would be downright stupid of Mojang, so I wasn't expecting it to be removed. A chill ran down my spine when they did so without warning in a snapshot, but I thought the outcry settled that as a bad idea. I was wrong. Unfortunately, much of Castle Midgard was designed around under-piston lighting, so Mojang's absurd and reckless aberration was devastating.

I strongly considered abandoning my world, but then I had an idea. I remade Midgard as a hardcore world. Using Midgard's seed, I started a new large-biome world in 1.14.2 and began anew.

Furthermore, I decided to raise the ante. This time, I wouldn't just quit when I felt like returning to Midgard on a whim, abandoning my hardcore endeavor. This is Midgard, a parallel reality chained in fate to the other—if I die here, the original Midgard is likewise no more.

I swore I wouldn't return to Midgard Prime until after I slayed the Ender Dragon in New Midgard—and if I died trying, I could never return home.

Thankfully, the shadow has passed. I am ready to return home and attempt to salvage or repair the damage Mojang has wrought.

I recorded the fight in a 30 minute video which I will post when I get a chance. It won't be anytime soon, but I'm eager to share it. At the same time, I hope to upload a complete tour of the castle in version 1.12.2, before I upgraded to version 1.14.2.

Thanks again for reading my journal! I took several screenshots and will detail my hardcore adventure in New Midgard soon.

Until next time!

Quote from BigAlanM»

If you watch the video the part where he goes to The End starts at 55:37.
He uses arrows and beds to kill the dragon.

He has leather helmet, leather breast plate, iron leggings, and iron boots.

True, but he's also a professional achieving a speed run.

I don't think trying to synchronize a bed's explosion with the dragon's charge from its nest is the best way to go about one's very first attempt.

Blow up the crystals. Shoot her with arrows. Hit her with a sword when she lands.

Have fun and let us know how it goes! Take screenshots (F2 key)!

1. Sweet berries are found in taiga biomes and villages. If your server is 1.14+ and has taiga biomes, that's where they are found.

2. It's psychological. You're just getting started. Iron and diamonds will come given time and effort. To find diamonds, branch mine. To branch mine, dig down to Y=11 on the F3 debug screen. If you don't want to use F3, just dig down to lava level. Down there, mine in a straight line for however long your attention span will allow, perhaps 150-250 blocks or so. You should find several veins by then, and lots of iron as well. You can then "branch" off this main shaft. Most people branch off the main shaft every four blocks (that's a branch, then three blocks, then another branch and so forth).

3. I play pure legit vanilla so I have no idea.

Great post! Eerie pictures!

I recall my first time finding a zombie village, not long ago. I had no idea they existed either. Been around since 1.10, actually.

Keep us updated!

Quote from user-100217014»

Is it possible for it to be a nitwit after all?

Post a picture.

Also, the time of day is very important. The sun can't be at all near the horizon, neither close to dawn nor dusk, for them to change professions.

Quote from TheGoodCitizen»

In case I miss it, an early cheers for making it one year in the same world!

Mr_N! Glad to see you're still around (and correctly pronouncing my last name ), at least checking in every now and again. I hope you're not fading completely out. I come and go about every six months, but it sounds like you're drifting off for a long voyage away.

We've lost so many.

I know it's never going to be the heyday of three and four whole pages of new threads and posts every day in the survival forum, but going 12-18 hours without even a single post sucks. Still, quality over quantity.

Not playing much these days? Did you make the jump to 1.14? What do you think?

At first I gritted my teeth, but I have to chuckle it's so absurd . . .

I put my sword on the anvil to take a look at some enchanting options to get it to Sharpness V for the fewest levels as I over-prepare for the dragon in my hardcore world, then pressed 'e' to close the anvil GUI.

Except, that doesn't close it, it puts an 'e' at the end of its name, which I didn't notice in my haste. Foolishly thinking that since I wasn't enchanting it, it wouldn't matter, I took the sword from the right-most slot, thus enchanting my sword, er . . . "sworde."

I choose to imagine that it's foreign, like from a French botique or something.

I found out, while looking at F3 in this world, that many of the biomes have been renamed. Savanna M is now called shattered savanna. Extreme hills are called mountains. I've been playing 1.12.2 until recently and never knew.

EDIT: Found a list of name changes in a 1.13 snapshot: https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/18w19a

EDIT x2: And, I further learned that the old 'M' designation stood for "mutated" in the code. Always wondered!