Tag: Minecraft

Play PC Games with an Xbox One controller

On By Michel McDonaldIn EverQuest, Games, MinecraftLeave a comment

XpadderMinecraft

Ok so I’ve been struggling for years with PC games and not being able to play them with a game controller. I think that’s why I love my PlayStation 4 so much, because it has a game controller. I bought a game controller many years ago, I think back when I still had Windows 98, and never could figure out how to get it to work. It didn’t work with any of the games I had, and the program it came with didn’t seem to help.

I played EverQuest with a keyboard for 6 or 7 years and got used to it because I didn’t have much of a choice. I hated that I couldn’t use a game controller, but I learned to live with the arrows for moving my character and pressing the Q button to auto attack, I for inventory, and many more buttons and button combinations.

Last year I bought Minecraft after I bought my Xbox One game controller since I figured it would work since Microsoft now owns Minecraft, but apparently that doesn’t matter since it didn’t work. It actually started to piss me off that I wasn’t able to play a simple game with a simple game controller. It’s like why don’t these things go together like Peanut butter and Jelly, or Macaroni and Cheese for crying out loud? You would think they would automatically just work, right? Microsoft Windows… Microsoft owns Xbox and Minecraft… Hello?

Ok so finally today I searched and found Xpadder. It was $10 and I just happened to have $20 in PayPal, so I used that to buy it. I’m broke and that $10 could’ve been a couple items for groceries, but that lasts 5 minutes, this lasts a lifetime. Then again so does the food, am I right?

So you will notice in the image above that I had to make the up arrow down and the down arrow up, and the reason is simple. If I use the right stick to look up, my screen looks at the ground and if I use the right stick to look down, you get the sky. I also bought the Windows 10 version of Minecraft (before I bought it from Mojang) and it looks at the sky if you use the right stick to look up. I don’t know why it doesn’t work right in one but not the other.

XpadderEQ

Here is Xpadder for EverQuest. I’m not sure if these buttons will work for me yet. The Alt 2-4 are the spell gems and I is inventory, Q for auto attack. Ctrl X I believe is camping and Ctrl S is sit/stand. I forget what C is lol. The left stick moves my character and the right stick actually controls the cursor/mouse. I will change Ctrl X to the space bar for jumping since I probably jump more often than I camp out of the game lol. I tried running around in the Plane of Knowledge, and it was a bit tricky because I’m not used to it, but I can see me starting to play EverQuest again now that I can play it with a game controller. And any time I need to change a button to something else, I can just put EQ in windowed mode and change it, then go back to the game. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

I feel like Xpadder was well worth the $10 I paid. Sometimes I regret things I buy, but I do not regret this at all. It’s wonderful.

PS Vita Not Properly Charging

On By Michel McDonaldIn Games, PS VitaLeave a comment

psvita charger

Today I was faced with a problem that I was not mentally prepared for. My PS Vita refuses to charge.

Last night I turned my PS Vita on so I could see if the weekly sale was in the PS Store yet. Each week on Tuesday they have a sale on games. I knew I was early because it was Monday night, but it was after midnight so I thought I’d check. I noticed that the battery icon showed that it had about 50% battery. It doesn’t say 50%, but it was around there. I plugged it in and let it charge for about an hour and the light turned off. I assumed if the light turned off that it was fully charged, so I went to sleep.

This morning I turned it on to check for the weekly sales, and I noticed that the battery icon was still at that halfway point, so I plugged it in again and forgot about it for about an hour.

PS Vita Screen

After an hour, I thought this has to be at full charge by now, but as you can see, it was still at the 50% mark. I didn’t understand why it was doing that, and I was starting to panic, so I went to Google and searched for the problem. I searched “PS Vita not charging” and the first post that I came across said to just plug it in and start playing a game, so I did. I plugged it in and started playing Minecraft. I played for about 10-15 minutes. You would think that after being plugged in for 10-15 minutes it would have at least gone up to 75% or something, but it didn’t move at all.

I turned it off all the way off by pressing and holding the power button until I saw POWER OFF. I actually did that last night and before the Minecraft “fix” that didn’t exactly fix anything. You can usually solve any problem by turning it off then back on again. Usually.

I read another message board post that put me in a panic attack. It said if you have only had it for like say a couple of weeks or a month to go back to the store and return it for an exchange. Well, I’ve had mine for 5 months, so yeah I can’t exactly do that, now can I? I kept reading, and was getting more discouraged by the minute until I went to find the original box that the PS Vita came in, which yes, I had because I save things like that lol.

Inside the box I found a couple of things. I found that I have a 2 year warranty from Game Stop, thank goodness for my partner buying the warranty with my Christmas present. I also found something, it’s a little box that you plug the USB cable into and a plug. I never unpacked those because I figured if it can be charged via USB cable, why use that? So I took it out, took a picture (above) and plugged it in and guess what? It charged my PS Vita to 100%.

This is my fix for this issue, and it may or may not work for everyone else just like the plug it in and play a game fix didn’t work for me, but if you haven’t tried it, try it and see if it works. I sure am glad I figured that one out. Technology doesn’t love me as much as I love it.

Broken Leg Update

On By Michel McDonaldIn HealthLeave a comment

Leg scar

It has been more than a month since I broke my leg (December 8) and had my surgery (December 16). In my last post I posted a picture of my leg post surgery with the staples still in my skin. They took the staples out 2 weeks after surgery, and this is what it looks like now, almost a month later.

I’ve been doing pretty good, but I haven’t really felt like blogging, or doing much of anything actually. I spend my days in bed playing video games on my PlayStation Vita that my partner bought for me for Christmas. I just bought Lego Batman 3, which I bought because it was on sale for $8, little did I know I already have it on my PlayStation 4. I try to avoid buying games I already own, but I guess this one slipped. I also bought Batman Arkham Origins Blackgate because it was on sale. Other games I have are Minecraft, Terraria, Lego Jurassic World, Little Big Planet, Q*Bert and Ratchet and Clank Full Frontal. I haven’t gotten very far in any of these games because of my addiction to Minecraft and Terraria lol.

The first night when I broke my leg I fell, and then again the night of my surgery, which I spoke about in my last blog post. I haven’t fallen since because my partner has babied me and wouldn’t let me get out of bed for anything. He has brought me all my meals and fed the dog and taken her outside. He’s been a complete angel.

Today I almost fell as I was leaving my bed on the crutches to go to the front door for therapy, but I put my right leg on the ground to prevent myself from falling, and even though I am not supposed to do that, it didn’t cause any pain. I felt tingling in my heel and my toes, and that told me I am not ready to start putting pressure on my leg, but I was only trying to prevent falling. The doctor told me that I can’t put any pressure on my leg until April. The physical therapist said some patients can do it sooner, some later. I heal fast, so I’m sure I’ll be walking with a cane in March, but I won’t hold my breath.

My leg doesn’t hurt as much as it did, but it does still hurt. I have chosen to stop taking my pain medication because it’s Percocet, and the last thing I need in my life is to become dependent on a drug. I would much rather have pain, than become addicted to pain pills.

tens unit

At Physical Therapy, they use a TENS Unit with heat, then I do about 6 or 7 leg exercises, then TENS Unity with cold, and then I go home. They sent me home on the first day with a long piece of rubber with knots on both ends for one of the exercises, and told me to buy a ball and a dog leash for the other exercises. I went a step further and also bought a TENS Unit so I could use that before and after with heat and cold. They wanted to sell me the same one they use on me for $60, but it only has 1 function and doesn’t have all these fancy schmancy buttons, and it also only has 2 plugs for 4 pads. This has 4 plugs for 8 pads. It’s a $200 machine, and Amazon sells it for $35 with free shipping, although I paid $5 for shipping to get it faster, and it comes tomorrow.

The one thing that has been on my mind is the gym. Even though I have a broken leg, I’ve been paying for my membership every month. I tried going there on Monday, the day they charged me, but they said I needed a note, so I brought them the note from the physical therapy office on Wednesday, but it was already too late. But that’s okay, I paid for 2 months I didn’t get to go, but whatever. It’s only money lol. That was said in sarcasm. They did freeze my account and asked me when I would be coming back, and both my partner and I said in unison April 15th, to which I replied JINX, but I guess he didn’t get it because I said it alone. Oh well.

My partner will be giving my bicycle away because we are going to try to get me a adult tricycle because he thinks 3 wheels are more stable than 2. Little did he know, I’ve wanted a tricycle for years, so this works out. I stripped my bicycle of the things I didn’t want to give away so I can use it with the new bicycle in April. I will also be changing my route to the gym so I am riding in neighborhoods instead of riding on Hughes Lane, which is a busy street. I normally try to stick to neighborhoods, so I don’t know why I rode on Hughes. I guess it was just easier, but I will be changing my route, that is if I’m allowed to go back to the gym at all lol.

Anyway, I’m getting better and I will most definitely be filming the TENS Unit on my leg to show how it moves my muscle, because I’m messed up in the head lol. So look forward to that. Tootles!

PS Vita Borderlands 2 Bundle

On By Michel McDonaldIn Games, PS Vita, PS4, PSPLeave a comment

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My partner didn’t know what to get me for Christmas, and I was dropping hints so big, I’m really shocked he didn’t get it lol. He finally did when I just blurted it out. A bit tacky, but whatever.

So he called Best Buy to find out if they had the PS Vita, and they said yes, so we got in the car to go and I told him that if truth be told, I honestly don’t want just the console, I’d rather have a bundle because it’s the same price, and you get a game AND a memory card. Best Buy only had the console, not the bundle. I looked on the Game Stop app and I thought they had the bundle, so we went to the mall and they said they didn’t have the bundle.

They said they just had the blue PS Vita, so we were just going to buy it on Amazon later, but I decided that I didn’t care about the bundle, I just want it, so we went back. They explained that I needed a memory card since the 1GB on board is used for the Vita OS, and it was too much for my partner, so we ordered the bundle to be shipped, and after shipping and the warranty, it came out to the same price lol. Oh well.

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The guy at Game Stop said Borderlands 2 will consume the 8GB memory card that comes in the bundle, so when we came home I bought a 32GB memory card for $62 and change, plus tax, plus shipping, and it will be here on Wednesday. The PS Vita will be here on Friday.

Today I went on the PlayStation app on my phone to see what games I already own that are compatible with the PS Vita, and it turns out I have quite a bit of games that will work. I listed them. I bought 2 extra games that I have many add-ons for that will work with the
PS Vita, so I figured I might as well have those games too. A lot of these games are on my PSP, but some of these games are only available for the PS Vita. I already own them, so now I can actually play them, and some of them I’ve played on my PSP, so I can play them again, but with an extra stick since my PSP only has the one stick on the left, and the PS Vita has the stick on the left and right.

PS Vita game list

I used to make PSP gameplay videos and post them on YouTube, and I was quite proud of them, but I stopped doing it because so many people made fun of the fact that my hands shake (I was born with a tremor in both hands, actually my entire body shakes). One or two people commented on how I was playing a game wrong since I wasn’t properly killing the monsters the way they would have killed the monsters. Talk about picking your battles. Dude, we all play games our own way, you play your way, I play mine. No one plays wrong. One person actually called me a pedophile. As if only children are allowed to play video games, give me a break. That was my deciding factor in quitting.

I discovered a device that you can plug your PSP into that will record your gameplay, which cuts out the need for a camcorder pointing at the screen, so no hands in the way, but I don’t know if it works with the PS Vita. If I can find out what other people use to record gameplay with the Vita, then I may consider doing that because I’d really love to record some videos again. I had so much fun doing that, and I love watching other people playing video games, so I want to do that again. If I need a device then I will buy one, but if you can do it directly from the Vita without the need for extra hardware, then I will do that instead.

So the 32GB memory card comes on Wednesday and the PS Vita comes on Friday. I wanted it so when I am in the living room, I will be able to play Destiny and Star Wars Battlefront using remote play, but I really want to play the other games like Borderlands 2 and some of these games I’ve listed. I will post again when it comes and after I’ve played around with it. Catch you on the flip side!

D&D Starter Set

On By Michel McDonaldIn App, GamesLeave a comment

20150724_113040_3rd StIt has taken a couple of weeks, but I have nearly everything I need to play a game of D&D with my Wilderness tiles that my partner bought for me at Barnes & Noble. When he first bought me the Wilderness tiles, I thought that it was a starter set because it said on the back

“For use with these Dungeons & Dragons products:

Dungeons & Dragons Fantasy Roleplaying Game Starter Set

Dungeon Master’s Kit

Dungeons & Dragons Miniatures

Other Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Tiles sets.”

I guess I just misunderstood because I thought it came with all those things, I guess I just wasn’t thinking. Oh well. At any rate, I have bought a few things on that list. I went to Amazon and bought the Starter set which came with the starter set rulebook you see in the picture along with the blue dice and another book called Lost Mine of Phandelver, which is a walkthrough quest with maps that I can scan and add to an app on my Nook called 3D Virtual Tabletop. It’s just easier to do that since the maps aren’t very big to play on in the booklet. The starter set also came with some character sheets which I actually printed last year and put in my notebook. Yes, I have a notebook with line and graph paper that I printed since my printer offers that option.

 

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The miniatures that I bought aren’t all miniature, even though they say they are on Amazon and even on the packaging. Some of the green and grey ones are heroes and some are monsters, and oddly enough some are cavemen lol. The skeletons are a bit smaller and I’ll probably get more use out of those. I also bought from Michaels a set called “Knights and Dragons.” It comes with 4 knights with a red and gold flag and shields and 4 knights with a blue and gold flag and shields. They are all wearing silver armor and 1 of each has a guy sitting on a horse. Oh and it comes with a catapult and a little dragon lol.

20150724_115301I also bought a D&D Lego guy. I thought I was getting a set of 12, because that’s what the picture showed, but I guess I was wrong because I only got 1. He’s called a fighter and has a sword. I think what I’ll do is say he’s my main tank and the guys in the silver armor are the other characters. I also have a Lego Minecraft Steve and zombie as well as a Lego Robin from Batman and Robin. That one is a keychain, so of course I’ll have to remove that.

The wizard that I bought on Amazon isn’t exactly what I was looking for, but he does fit and he does look cool, so I guess I did good. I was looking for a gnome wizard, actually I was looking for anything in gnome size, but all I saw were miniature garden gnomes. That’s not exactly what I had in mind. This guy is actually a hell wizard named Damien lol. He even has a demon tail. He’s all white because he is meant to be painted. Yeah, that’s never going to happen. I don’t exactly have steady hands. His eyes will be way off if I tried. He’ll look either cross-eyed, or one eye will be looking up and the other will be looking to the left. Either way, I’m fine with him being all white. It would be cool if his coat and staff were brown and his base was green. I wish I had more patience and a steady hand.

I’m not quite ready to play yet because I still have to finish the starter set rule book and then I want to start reading the Lost Mine of Phandelver book and play according to the directions. I also want to read the Players Handbook because the Starter Set rule book didn’t give me ALL the information I think I need to start playing. I like to be thorough. Also, I’m having a hard time getting started, not just as the DM since I’m playing by myself, but also as a person who is playing 5 characters lol.

Screenshot_2015-07-28-21-29-58 1It would be awesome if I had some people to play with. I have an app on my Nook called 3D Virtual Tabletop, and that allows me to use existing characters and existing places (like a tavern or house) or I can upload my own pictures, which I did. I scanned all the maps from the Lost Mine of Phandelver book and imported them into the app. 1 square = 5 feet, so I had to put a 5×5 grid into each square. I asked someone if that is right and they said yes.

I saw on the character sheets that each character has 5 or 10 gold, so I figured it would be easier to keep track of who has how much gold by actually having gold in a little pouch, so I looked online for days for pictures of gold and silver coins to print so I could glue them onto cardboard, but then I thought about play coins, so I Googled plastic gold coins and found them at Party City, so I went and bought a pack of 144 gold coins and a pack of 72 silver coins. I was looking for Gold Doubloons, but they only had gold casino coins with dollar signs on them. The silver coins have pirate ships on them, so those are at least a little more authentic. I was also looking for copper, but they didn’t have any of those. I figure I’ll just sand some of the gold coins to create copper since they are gold painted on black plastic. Maybe I can buy some copper paint.

I hate that it has taken me this long to want to learn to play the game. When I was 15 years old and my step father kicked me out of the house (aka trailer), I moved in with a schoolmate who lived with his older brother who worked. One day they were playing D&D and asked if I wanted to play, but I didn’t know how because I’d never played before, and I didn’t want to play because I already had a target on my back for being gay, I didn’t want the target to get bigger because I was playing D&D, which everyone thought at the time (1985) that it was a satanic game and that players were all in satanic cults and were killing animals for sacrifice for their game. I really wish I had more of a back bone and was able to stand up to the bullies, but that’s all in the past and better late than never.

This is going to be fun learning and playing and I hope I can get a lot out of this game so I can use it to write my fantasy fiction novel. Writing fiction was a dream I’ve had since I was a kid, so I hope this works to get me started with my writing.

Minecraft Pocket Edition Issues with Samsung Galaxy S3

On By Michel McDonaldIn GamesLeave a comment

Screenshot_2015-04-30-11-51-40

I blogged the other day that I was having issues with Minecraft PE on my new phone, but I didn’t really get into what the problem was. I bought Minecraft PE on the Google Play Store about a month or 2 ago for $6.99. I have a app called Google Rewards that reward me in actual cash for surveys, and I don’t even have to wait a month for it, I can use the money to buy Android apps.

So I bought Minecraft PE specifically for when I’m not home and I am having Minecraft withdrawals. The struggle is real people LMAO!!! Of course when I bought it, I intended to only play it on my Nook HD+ because of the bigger screen, but as it turns out, I don’t bring my Nook to doctor’s appointments. My old HTC One V smart phone was a bit small, but it installed just fine and I have played it there with no issues. When I bought my Samsung Galaxy S3, no bueno! It installs, as you can see from the image above, but it just won’t play. Let me show you the screens that I get screen by screen.

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So the first screen you see is the main screen when you first load the game. You click the Play button, obviously. The next screen is supposed to show your worlds, if you have created any, so you click the world, but since it’s new to my phone, I haven’t created any yet. So I click NEW at the top right corner and you get the 3rd image above. You can choose survival or creative, you can hit advanced and go through that menu. Once you hit Create World, you should see a world come up on the screen and you rush to get your shelter in order to stay alive, but instead, I’m seeing the 4th image. No bueno!

Screenshot_2015-04-30-12-06-45Screenshot_2015-04-30-12-09-31I’ve researched the issue, and one admin of a website mentions files, or the lack of rather. I went into the file manager and sure enough, in every folder where I see the word Minecraft, there are zero files. And there are several folders too, but what’s odd is that it shows that there are 44.38mb total, 14.69mb is application and 29.50mb is SD card app. Then of course the data, which should show a number since I tried creating a world, or 20.

I know people are going to suggest that I clear the cache and clear this and clear that, but trust me, I have done that. I have even copied the files from my Nook and even copied the worlds from my Nook to the Samsung phone and they still don’t work.

Just so you know, this is NOT a huge issue or deal. I can still play this game on my Nook HD+ and my PlayStation 4, but it’s just the idea that something won’t install that bothers me. I can’t upload images to Twitter and I’m not sweating over that one, it’s just that I don’t have an addiction to tweeting pictures as much as I have an addiction to games.

I am still researching every time I remember to and I’m hoping I can find out how to fix it because it does bother me that I bought something that I can’t even use on ALL of my Android devices.

Once again I am using a Samsung Galaxy S3 with Snapdragon. It’s a refurbished phone that I bought for $99 from Choxi (formerly Nomorerack). I’ve tried all the tricks I’ve seen in the message boards like uninstalling it and reinstalling it, unmounting the SD card, installing, then remounting the SD card. I’ve tried rebooting, then installing. Nothing works because it is not installing specific files, remember the empty folder? Every folder that has the word Minecraft in the title is empty on the device and on the SD card.

If anyone has answers, please comment. In the meantime, I’ll continue with Minecraft for PS4.

Minecraft Pyramid

On By Michel McDonaldIn Games, Minecraft, PS42 Comments

pyramid

I recently blogged about finding my old home in Minecraft. Well, near that old home is a NPC village which is right next to a desert. I wanted to build something that you would normally see in a desert, but wasn’t quite sure what to build. I heard someone say something about Egypt on TV, so that brought my mind to Pyramids, so that’s what I started to build.

This pyramid has taken at least more than a week to build. There was a sand mountain in the spot where I built my pyramid that I basically had to demolish while I was building the pyramid around it. The reason I chose this location was because it was right next to the NPC village, and I could use the material from the mountain to build the pyramid. First you have to turn 4 blocks of sand into 1 block of sandstone. To make the stairs you need 6 blocks of sandstone just to make 4 stairs. There is a specific block that I like to use called Chiseled sandstone that has a Minecraft logo on it. I use that for the floors and for the middle of the walls throughout the pyramid. I use the chiseled sandstone for the floors because the regular sandstone looks dirty on the bottom, and you don’t want a dirty ceiling. The chiseled sandstone is clean on the top and bottom.

Pyramid walls

I found a video on YouTube of a person who was showing off a game generated pyramid (from a mod) where it has mazes and a treasure room at the top, so that gives me an idea of what to put inside the pyramid. At first I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it, because I’m not that creative, but I found a website that generates random labyrinth’s, so I will use that as a guide for each floor. The labyrinth’s have long hallways and rooms and dead ends. It’s similar to a maze, but with rooms.

mazeHere is just an example of how the labyrinth will look. I think it will be very neat to build. It would be neat if people could actually come visit my pyramid and walk through my labyrinth. I’m sure it will take me another month just to gather the material (mining sand and sandstone) to build the labyrinth on all 6 floors. There will be 7 floors, but the very top floor will most likely be a treasure room since it’s going to be very small. Of course, that requires treasure, of which I am very limited lol. I guess I could add some emeralds, gold and iron ingots and some food. I don’t really have anyone who will visit my world who would benefit from it.

Well, hopefully it won’t take me too much longer to finish this. This is the biggest building project I’ve worked on so far. I’ve actually gotten kind of bored with it because it’s such a huge job. I find myself falling asleep while my fingers are pressing the button to mine the sand and end up going deeper than I wanted.

I will post a video when I am finished with the labyrinth, but in the meantime, here is a video I made a couple of days ago before I finished the outside of the pyramid.

Minecraft PlayStation 4 Maps

On By Michel McDonaldIn Games, Minecraft, PS4Leave a comment

maps small

I got my PlayStation 4 in December, the week before Christmas. Why a week before? We like to exchange gifts earlier than most “normal” people because, well, that’s just how we roll lol. Actually, my partner decided on a whim that he would take me to go buy it and he didn’t know what I wanted, so he told me he was getting it. After a few “Oh no we can’t afford it” he said shut up, you’re getting it lol.

Ok, so back to the subject at hand. I got Minecraft and played for maybe a few weeks on this little beach. I didn’t know I could even play the game in peaceful mode, and I died so many times trying to escape the skeletons with their damn bows and arrows. I even got blown up by creepers every now and then. I worked so hard to build the house that I built with what little experience I had with the game, and I think I did pretty good. I felt like exploring, so I would leave my home with my bed and I would sleep when the sun went down. I would explore, return home, explore, return home etc. You get the idea. I saw something so neat that I had to explore it, and I went a bit too far and got turned around and couldn’t find home. I wandered around in a complete panic for literally a couple of hours trying to find it, but never found it, so I decided to find a new spot that I liked and built a new home.

Over the last couple of months I went exploring knowing I could find my way back home with maps, but I never did find my home. I’ve even gone as far as going into creative mode to fly around looking for my original home, but that didn’t work. Finally tonight I thought, let’s try it again, so I did, and I finally found it. Check out the picture below which is a close up of the giant map at the top. The star on the top is where I live now, and the bottom star is where my original home. It’s funny because they are so close to each other too. That white part at the bottom is where I got turned around. It was the first snow I saw and it really messed me up lol.

maps

So now that I have finally found my original home, I can relax. I mean, I was relaxed before. I honestly don’t care about the house or any of the crap in the chests and in the house, it’s just the idea that I lost something that I worked so hard to build that I couldn’t find, and it bothered me to no end. I have it back now and I can use it to my advantage. I don’t know how, but I will think of something lol. For one there is a NPC village near that house in the sandy area at the bottom left of the map. That’s actually where I saw the giant carved out mountain on the bottom of the map which lead me to the snow that got me lost.

Speaking of NPC village… during my mapping, I found many NPC villages and pyramids. I have not yet marked them on the maps, but perhaps I shall go back into creative mode so I can fly to those locations and then add some icons to the map lol. I still have the bottom 2 rows to map out, so perhaps I will do that in time.

Anyway, so I am overly excited and thanks for reading.

450px-KelethinUpdate: I actually think I have an idea for how I will “take advantage” of the situation of the old house. I used to play a PC game called EverQuest, and that game had a forest called Kelethin in the Greater Faydark. Kelethin is a city in the trees, and that old house has a jungle, so perhaps I will start building platforms in the trees that already stand, and add houses to them. Not that it will make any difference to anyone since I’m the only one playing, but it would be nice to remake something to remind me of the good old days in EverQuest.

Minecraft Farm

On By Michel McDonaldIn Games, PS4Leave a comment

farm

I just love building in Minecraft because it sort of reminds me of putting together Lego pieces, like when I was a little boy. Although, I don’t have all of the pieces at my disposal, so I have to go mine for them. Like I have to chop down literally hundreds of trees, and dig for sand and gravel and I even had to bring down a mountain to give me the space to build a farm.

reworked_farm_1_by_coltcoyote-d68plaoOf course, this farm is not my design, I found it on Google images. I have found many houses, but this was an actual farm which allows me to grow many things, like wheat, potato, carrot, watermelon and pumpkin in their own plots. It also has a chicken coop, a livestock barn and 2 storage silos. The silos and the livestock barn took me longer to make because they are both made out of sheep wool, which I had to go to extra trouble to get since the dogs kept murdering the sheep that came near them. They drop 1 wool when killed, but when I use my shears, I may get 1 to 3 wool, that is if I can find any lol.

Besides leveling a mountain, this was a pretty fun project. I love the house, it is much bigger than the one I built for myself, which I surrounded with castle walls and 4 round towers on all 4 corners. I’m considering dismantling that now that I have this farm so I can replace it with a fun rollercoaster, that is if I can find an easy design.

One good thing about this farm is it is right next to where my current mine is, and I found another one when I leveled the mountain. It has an opening behind the house where the livestock barn is, so I’ll have to check that out soon.

Tomorrow is another day, and I look forward to what it will bring me.

Here is the chicken coop and a some of the crops.

farm back

Update: I removed the original picture at the top and replaced it with the picture of the finished farm. The silos are supposed to have black roofs, but I got tired of waiting for the black sheep to produce, so I decided to use blue since I had a cache of it. I’ve filled one silo with chests on every floor and have already filled the cobblestone and dirt ones to the max. Since I have so many of each material, I decided to dedicate a floor to a particular item. In the first silo, the top floor is all cobblestone, next one down is dirt, then wood, then sand/glass and then wool on the very bottom floor. I was considering using the 2nd silo for food from the crops, but I honestly don’t eat the food since I’m always in peaceful mode, so I don’t really have a need for that, but perhaps I may decide to use that silo for food and fill each floor with a specific item, like pumpkins/jack-o-lanterns, watermelon, carrots, potatoes and wheat. That just leaves meat from cows and chickens, but I have that in the kitchen, and there isn’t that much of it since I don’t kill the animals unless I absolutely have to, like for books (cow hide) or arrows (chicken feathers).

I’ve already moved on to building a fishing boat which will have its own chests for storing fish. Again, I don’t eat the food, but I may decide to do it for the future when I decide to start fighting scary mobs for the purposes of getting to the end, which I am not counting my chickens before they hatch, because I’m having way too much fun building.

Minecraft Blueprints

On By Michel McDonaldIn Games, PS4Leave a comment

Minecraft land map with castle

When most people (I assume) plan out their castle, or house, or whatever it is they want to build, they just go into Minecraft under creative mode so they have a complete inventory of materials that they don’t have to mine for days or months to get. I would go there, but I’d rather have the option of getting all of the trophies.

I have been researching a way of downloading a program that will allow me to create a Minecraft building with a full list of materials on the computer, so it gives me a blueprint. It doesn’t have to be a 3D blueprint, I just don’t want to have to keep building, then have to go run back to the mine for materials, then build more, then mine and also go through so many pickaxes if I decide to go a different way. It takes more time to dismantle your structure than it does to build it.

I did find a website that allowed me to do just what I was looking for. I found it on a message board, and the actual website is www.minedraft.net. Unfortunately, it became a huge time suck for me because the website would freeze up on me. I don’t know if it was the website itself, my computer or my processor, but it didn’t allow me to get very far. I also tried it on my Nook, which was awesome because I could tap on the material, then tap on the screen and it went a little faster. Unfortunately, that became slow over time, so I didn’t get very far there either.

One of the comments on that message board was that you could do the very same thing with Microsoft Paint. All you have to do is make a grid and snap to grid. I assume they were using Windows XP and that it was an old comment because I went to MS Paint and it didn’t offer a grid, so the next best thing for me was Gimp.

I opened Gimp and clicked view and show grid and snap to grid. I zoomed in to 800% and the grid squares weren’t too big. I downloaded some icons of the materials, like the dirt, grass, water, sand, wood planks and cobblestone, and made them into brushes, which helped a lot. The icons don’t look exactly like they should because instead of using 100% of the icon, I had to drop it down to 10%, but I honestly don’t have to see them as perfect as they are in Minecraft, it’s just a general idea of how to build my castle.

Minecraft land mapMinecraft land map castle

With Gimp you can create layers, so first I laid out the land that I am building on, then I created a 2nd layer for the castle, this way if I make a mistake, I don’t have to worry about losing the land, just the castle parts. As you can see they are separate.

castle

I have built the walls that I made in Gimp, but it is far from finished because guess what? I have to mine and mine and mine to get all that cobblestone to build the walls up. I’m actually building the walls around my existing home, which is like a tiny 2 story cobblestone castle like structure. There is my beacon behind the house. When the walls have been built up, then I can work on getting the inside of the castle built, which will take a lot of time and patience and creativity. I built the catwalk along the top of the wall. That is where I will finish that wall, but the 4 towers are going to go up twice as much to provide me with 4 beacons rather than 1. You can see a beacon way behind my house, and there are several beacons to let me know where to find home, but when I see 4 beacons, then I will know for sure that this is home.

minecraft icons

Here are the icons that I found online that I turned into gimp brushes with the .gbr file extension. So far I’ve only had to use the sand, grass, water and cobblestone, and only because that’s really all I needed for this project. I have the rest just in case I might need to use them in the future. I may not, but never say never.

So I figured if anyone in the future was looking for a way to make a blueprint, this should give them an easy idea of how they can make it.