Minecraft - cart ride and building philosophies

[BonsaiK]

Because Minecraft is brilliant, I thought I'd celebrate this objective fact by posting a cart ride that I made. Enjoy.


In this video you'll notice that I didn't build much at all on the surface, most of my stuff is underground. That's because I like the way the natural scenery looks, it seems like a shame to dig away at it. Not only do I like leaving it reasonably untouched (except lots of glass windows, which I love) but when creepers blow holes in it, I even grab the dirt and try and fill the holes up as best I can so it looks more or less like it did before. However, under the surface it's all very mad-made looking, it's only natural on the outside.

Please discuss below your Minecraft building philosophies and post any relevant videos. Do you like to leave things natural or dig away at everything? What do you think this says about you, psychologically?

Also feel free to post your own minecart frolics and discuss minecarts and how great they are.

 

[coldfrog]

I'm pretty much exactly like you: I hate building much in the outer world, and if I do, I try really hard to make it look natural. On one online server, however, I built a mass of floating dirt islands that I spent an exorbitant amount of time building dirt steps to so I could have grass floating in the air as if they just existed there. It turned out to have a rather amusingly unexpected side-effect: animals spawn there and walk off, falling to the ground and leaving me with plenty of meat, wool and leather. I also love planting lots of trees. However, I'm also a huge fan of natural underground caverns: Usually I'll only add a small amount of safety measures in my caverns, and perhaps a trail so I don't get lost, but I tend to keep them as natural as they are. I also love building little paths around underground rivers so that I don't have to plug them up or bucket them out. I don't have any videos (or even screenshots) but I'll work on getting something to display.

 

[BonsaiK]

I'm pretty much exactly like you: I hate building much in the outer world, and if I do, I try really hard to make it look natural. On one online server, however, I built a mass of floating dirt islands that I spent an exorbitant amount of time building dirt steps to so I could have grass floating in the air as if they just existed there. It turned out to have a rather amusingly unexpected side-effect: animals spawn there and walk off, falling to the ground and leaving me with plenty of meat, wool and leather. I also love planting lots of trees. However, I'm also a huge fan of natural underground caverns: Usually I'll only add a small amount of safety measures in my caverns, and perhaps a trail so I don't get lost, but I tend to keep them as natural as they are. I also love building little paths around underground rivers so that I don't have to plug them up or bucket them out. I don't have any videos (or even screenshots) but I'll work on getting something to display.

I do that with the natural underground caverns too. I add glass so I don't walk into the lava pits but I still get the benefit of the light, and torches of course, a few steps, that's it. I'll bucket out a stream so I can mine underneath it, then replace the ore with stone or dirt and dig a path around the river. My map has the most ridiculously huge natural underground cavern network, I'd make another minecart ride through it but I don't know where I'm going to get the iron from given that I just used it all to make the first damn railroad...

 

[Azure Sky]

I tend to leave it 'al-natural' as well, gets kind of funny when that one small door in a hill/mountain has a giant base under it. That and underwater glass tunnels look awesome. =3

 

[EHKOS]

I dont really like to disturb the earth either. But I do like living on the surface. I just got done with a video tour of my latest map so I'll post that soon.
EDIT:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hv6FM86fw1Q

 

[DaJoW]

I've kinda gotten stuck on building pyramids, often leveling mountains to make a nicer approach to my artificial island. The last one I built has a fairly large maze in front of it, with a glass floor. If you break the glass and jump down you end up in an identical maze, only without light. Currently working on a skyway made of glass with lava in the floor to lead to my next project, which will probably be inside of a mountain, with a stream of lava and glass steps descending into the ground being the outside marker.

I've never built a single piece of track though, and only made my first ladder the other day.

 

[opportunemoment]

I tend to carve into the side of hills and mountains - I like the idea of creating buildings out of what's already there. So similar to you, it usually ends up looking almost invisible but with bunches of glass windows in the mountainside. I've made stand-alone houses, but they usually come out looking a bit rubbish. (Although I'm quite proud of my Isenguard. It's not like the 1:1 Enterprise or anything, but I think it's cool.)

I've actually never built a mine cart track. I didn't really see the point, although your video is so awesome I'm quite tempted to try it...

 

[Wicky_42]

I'm still trying to nail down an architecture that really works with Minecraft's blocks. I've currently got a small wood-roofed villa done in cobble brick (thanks to painterly) with an airship mooring tower rising out of it (thanks to airship mod), and am planning on a series of docking bays scattered throughout the floating islands and towering vertical cliffs that surround the spawn.

I find a certain diameter of tower with an angled top looks nice, with chamfered corners, torches every few blocks up the exterior to give it rhythm, and perhaps an inset line running up its height. I plan on finding a relatively flat area, perhaps enclosed by towering mountains, and doing a series of those towers, getting the look down, then maybe a series of them at maximum visual distance from each other to form a route or ring around the spawn.

Of course, I'm not sure if the current version has killed the mod packs, so I might have to wait a bit before loading that world again. I've still got a titanic cathedral on the go in my original world that's looking pretty sweet. Down to the last wing, needing an altar, choir stalls and an organ, but it's looking preety epic if I say so my self

I like to build where it'd be epic, cool or functional, and find larger things work better in minecraft than smaller, partly due to the size of the blocks. Nature works as a complement to the architecture, as architecture complements the nature; it's a reciprocal relationship where building enhances the landscape rather than destroying it.

Yes, I'm studying architecture, what of it?

 

[ChaoticKraus]

I don't tend to mess up the natural look with mega-projects either but i do like living on the overworld. I always make a safe little haven, like a floating house or a tower on a mountaintop.

Though i do occasionally add small rivers or a lava spring coming out of a mountain to spice things up. Oh and underwater glass building are nice. I have my Nether portal in one deep underwater, only lit by a lava channel inside. It's very atmospheric.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

I've only played on one world so far.

I began by barely touching the world. I made my home in mountains, and gave them my personal touch. Then I started manipulating the land.

Now I live on a small natural island with an really nice wood house (complete with hidden underground heated pool, and a guest house that has a shower), and a tree house (made on my girlfriend's request. She loved it), and now...a big clunky minecart launcher station since I got sick of having to replace my boats all the time since my boat-launching mechanism kept screwing up.

My world still looks nice, just a bit "lived in"

I have my Nether portal in one deep underwater, only lit by a lava channel inside. It's very atmospheric.

I wish mine looked cool. It's just stuffed in a small chamber of my basement surrounded by water behind glass, with lave behind it (that I can't see through the portal anyway... )

 

[BonsaiK]

I never mine, though. Don't need to, I have TooManyItems installed. I can build whatever I want whenever I want.

I'd get bored of that. I enjoy the effort and challenge of finding materials.

I dont really like to disturb the earth either. But I do like living on the surface. I just got done with a video tour of my latest map so I'll post that soon.
EDIT:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hv6FM86fw1Q

I don't know how you'd get bones on peaceful mode because I'm pretty sure skeletons is the only way to get them. So no wolf taming for you.

Something really wrong with the audio on your vid, I think you've got some heavy interference from either a cheap mic or too much electronics close together, or both. But thanks for posting it.

Here's another example of how I don't like to disturb the surface - the indoor farm. This lives in the hill right next to the train termination point in the vid in the OP, you'll see it when I walk outside:

 

[windlenot]

Everybody's been saying how they haven't destroyed the natural terrain too much! I'VE BEEN PLAYING THE GAME WRONG, AUUGH!!! Nah, but that was a neat ride.

 

[Toaster Hunter]

I've flattened entire mountains and closed off a major section of the ocean to build my creations. I have no problem destroying the terrain for a building project

 

[BonsaiK]

I never mine, though. Don't need to, I have TooManyItems installed. I can build whatever I want whenever I want.

I'd get bored of that. I enjoy the effort and challenge of finding materials.

I guess the 330 hours I've put into Gmod has shaped what I expect out of a sandbox game, but I grow incredibly bored if I have to spend three hours turning up material, an hour smelting it into other materials, only to net a tiny little glass shack in the side of a mountain. I'd much rather just clap my hands and have enough glass to build an entire mountain of my own.

Wait times for building aren't quite that extreme, if they were I wouldn't get time to play it at all.

If you never mine you're missing out though. There's some cool shit deep in those caverns.

 

[Cavan]

I never mine, though. Don't need to, I have TooManyItems installed. I can build whatever I want whenever I want.

I'd get bored of that. I enjoy the effort and challenge of finding materials.

I guess the 330 hours I've put into Gmod has shaped what I expect out of a sandbox game, but I grow incredibly bored if I have to spend three hours turning up material, an hour smelting it into other materials, only to net a tiny little glass shack in the side of a mountain. I'd much rather just clap my hands and have enough glass to build an entire mountain of my own.

I'd more than likely say you hadn't played minecraft then :/, 3 hours worth of sand would build a very large anything xd, and since smelting is automatic just build multiple furnaces and go do something else in world or just watch a movie I guess.

And it's dark for a reason, build torches.

Double edit: it's not that grindtastic, natural caves especially dungeons usually have rare things and lots of coal just sticking out the walls, all you have to do is put a few torches down to explore, also because there's an element of risk it's actually quite fun to grab a friend and delve down into some of the huge underground caves full of monsters you find.

 

[BonsaiK]

If you never mine you're missing out though. There's some cool shit deep in those caverns.

If it wasn't so dark I couldn't see the tool in my hand despite having the brightness maxed I might be inclined to explore caves and turn it off peaceful. But since it is, I seriously can't see a damn thing when it's dark, I don't bother.

Still wouldn't mine though. That's just grind-tastic.

Make (or create with your mod hack thingy) a bunch of torches and stick them to the walls as you explore. That's the generally accepted way. Playing minecraft without going beneath the surface is like playing Oblivion and never leaving that tutorial dungeon.