Benie's Games Blog

It’s been 24 hours since the release. Happened early yesterday morning around 12:17am. Cojo and the team released Tropicraft. I didn’t grab it that second due to one reason; SPC. It’s been reported and proven to me, that SPC doesn’t work right with Tropicraft (and even with it just installed).
It’s some kind of rendering issue that only the author of SPC can fix.

That’s not the only reason. The main reason is, Tropicraft doesn’t excite me. Now, I still find the volcanoes are pretty cool and so is the wind system, and the new furniture options are very cool and I plan to use them in the future (when or if the SPC issue is fixed).
But the realm itself seems it’s another one of those “best played in Survival” mods. That depresses me that some of the best mods are Survival-only, but doesn’t surprise me because most players play in Survival. That they treat Creative Mode as “testing”.
They’re not saying you can’t play in Creative, but you’ll only do a 3rd that Survival players can do.

Do want to say, I did think about wanting to make another transit system in Tropicraft. But the endless beaches, rainforests, and plains areas nearly bore me to death. And decided against it. Too much, randomness. The same thing is said for the Twilight Forest (and even the Overworld). How could I possibly make anything that goes to “random volcano 29212”, and “random beach 31220” that’s been seen over, and over, and OVER again in different locations? This is not the fault of the devs, by the way.

In the afternoon, I decided to give it a chance after someone in the IRC chat had a temporary solution of dealing with the SPC issue; quit the map, back to the menu, go back in.
Unfortunately, again I needed a higher Forge version. And Build 94 is reported to have alot of issues in Railcraft. So I grabbed the latest version (102), and the latest version of OptiFine. I managed to slap them in my existing install, and they WORK! 😀 Railcraft and all my other mods worked too.

Tried out Tropicraft. The way to get in is unlike Twilight Forest and the Nether. You got to make a Pina Colada, a Beach Chair, then sit in it while waiting for sunset, then drink your drink and you’ll be teleported to it. Quite ingenious.
When you pop up, you’ll be in a pit of water. Just swim up and boom, you’re in the Tropical realm. When I first ported in, I found myself near land with ocean surrounding me. And there’s small pockets of coral scattered around the sea floor.
Started flying around. Found a volcano. A month ago I was watching MrRube’s stream of his Slinger boss mob (that had to be dropped from 3.0 due to time constraints). We waited a good half an hour for the damn thing to erupt, and it never did.

Now, they are. Though, it isn’t the eruption I was hoping to see. As the lava rises, parts of the sides of it open up, allowing lava to seep in. And when the eruption is over, the lava doesn’t go away. I assume both are Vanilla bugs.
Also, IMHO, the smoke looks cartoon’ish. Perfect for Minecraft though, but not really realistic.

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Soon I ran into that warned about SPC bug. But this time I couldn’t avoid it. I was told about his ‘MultiMC’ program but didn’t know about it. Went there and watched a video, and was sold. Grabbed the download and found out it can load an existing install into it for loading. So I had my install, and created one for Tropicraft and did as the video said, and it works.

Now I have two copies of Minecraft that I can easily switch to, without having to create annoying manual backups. And best of all, it has a “manual” way of installing mods that take the stress out of updating into the .jar.

I, like alot of people, have been getting long login times, yet minecraft.net works fine so it doesn’t make sense.
But behind the scenes, Mojang already knows of the issue and have been doing steps to correct the problem without disturbing gameplay. Only wish Blizzard did.

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In other news, Mojang has released a new snapshot for beta testing; 12w17a. This one has limited features, but they’re all interesting to say the least;

-Writable books. This will be useful in Adventure and Survival maps. And also my own for tutorial use.

-Wooden slab blocks are finally wood-colored of Oak/Willow, Birch, Pine, and Jungle, offering more decor options. This should of been done in 1.2.4.

-Bug fixes. Mainly for entity collision (no idea what this could mean. Maybe for Minecarts and Boats?), Creative’s new Block Picker option (I assume for modded blocks now), and chat.

-Several other, unknown features. Typical Mojang not wanting to give out too many secrets.

Either way, this snapshot sounds pretty cool, and in my opinion, update-worthy. Fortunately it’s not an official update.

First off, it seems I was wrong thinking Patch 1.2.5 would have the Mod API. The way they were talking made me assume (including alot of others) the Mod API would be released when 1.2.5 is.

But anyway, today they were doing an interview with Dinnerbone, one of the once-Bukkit devs and Webmaster of the Bukkit website. He was asked alot of Mod API-related questions. That’s proof that Mod API wasn’t going to be in 1.2.5. It’s still being worked on…
Here’s the full article if you care to read it.

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Today, I was trying to set up one of the biggest moments in W2TS history; making a tutorial on how to make what I currently have. After several screw ups of not being ready or doing the wrong things, I finally got it. Unfortunately, Fraps “hated” every bit of it and gave me low FPS.
When I thought it was over, I remembered Minema. A program written by the same guy that made the Dragon Mounts mod. He coded his own video encoder. Unfortunately, the MP4 format it spits out doesn’t work well with Windows Live Movie Maker. Still, I managed to record this as a test.
It doesn’t have sound, because since 1.2.3 he didn’t code it in.

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Last piece of news, I saw something that interested me while browsing videos on YouTube, heard the guy’s voice and saw the name. fumple1 is back!
He’s the guy who made those amazing stations back in Alpha that I SOOO wanted to throw into the W2TS. Now he’s back with booster-less rails that are even more amazing, and still providing MCEdit schematics. His newest ones are line sections, like his famous “turn around” section.
I can see myself throwing this into my map, and giving him credit.

While we wait for the Mod API to be released this coming Wednesday, I’ve been doing some updating of my own.

I got rid of the old, ugly Main Hub, and replaced it with something far cooler and more inviting. You swear I didn’t build it (hell, sometimes I think I didn’t). Here’s some pictures of the Old, and the friendlier New.
It started as an idea. Just popped up in my head and I had to do it. At first I didn’t know if I wanted the whole “warehouse” ceiling like the old Main Hub is, but I think it actually looks good.
The BLUE LINE is finally the “center stage” of the station, but I gave the RED LINE some love too with the flower pots.

Overall, this idea actually turned out nearly as I pictured it. I just love the way how everything came together. I got other ideas too. Two of them.
–Idea 1: Turn all Desert biomes into either Forest or Plains. No offense but Desert biomes to me are boring.
I mainly want to do this for the Main Hub. I want more trees to make the station even cooler. Yet, I don’t now if I really want to do that. As this could screw up Sundune Village’s theme. Unless I rename it to “Lakeside Village”
–Idea 2: Extend the roads I got in my Residential area to connect to all stations in the map. Have parking lots for them. Make it look like people actually use the W2TS to get from place to place.
–Idea 3: Start putting the lines onto the ground, eversince I saw this picture of a standard double rail with a gravel bed. I want to be able to do this in Minecraft. Yet, I know the following is in play compared to Real Life;
-Minecarts don’t have train horns to scare off animals/people near the track. Even if they did, they’ll ignore it.
-You can’t run over animals in Minecraft. They’re like hitting a ball of rubber against a minecart. 😛
-Smooth inclines/declines are prohibited in Minecraft.
-Circular curves are prohibited in Minecraft. 😛

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Moving on, there’s a video showing Minecraft hitting 25,000 users, Notch’s new game, and 1.2.5 actually being a worthy update (besides the Mod API).

I found a list of all the fixes and additions, but there’s only two I find that pertain to me. The rest are server fixes, and fixes I don’t care about.

First one, is this new feature for middle clicking with your mouse. A “block picker” for Creative mode.
Currently, you can middle click on a block, and if that block is in your inventory, it’ll go to it. In 1.2.5, when you do this, you get that block in your inventory! That will be very useful. And it might get me to stop wanting the inventory in Creative.
However, I don’t think it works for items like wires from RedPower 2, or even signs. Blocks only?

The second one, is middle clicking placed TNT with a Flint and Steel will cause it to be picked up. But if you mis-click, you can still set it off. TNT doesn’t work in Creative unless you put fire near it (or powered by Redstone), so it’s best for Survival (better for server use. Can be used as an anti-grief thing).

Modders and Players, prepare. 1.2.5 is coming (the FUCK, we’re still waiting for 1.2.4 mods!!). And so is the long-awaited Modder’s API.
Jeb was actually thinking of releasing 1.2.5 today…, but thankfully (seriously, he would be a total dick on my list if he released it) he wants to give modders and the MCP time to update and prepare their mods with the new API, by releasing it as a snapshot.

How will the new mod install effect players? No more having to edit minecraft.jar, and more compatibility with other mods! All I can say, it’s about damn time. Hopefully the new API will get updates faster to players, allowing us to update faster. But, that still depends on the individual modders.

Exactly how the API will benefit for modders and players alike, or what it will look like, Jeb wants to keep us in suspense. Only to “keep an eye out for updates”.

As for me, I’m sitting pretty laughing at all the idiots who decided it was a “good idea” to update to 1.2.4 instead of waiting for their mods to update. And I’m having to see the “Author, y u mod no work with 1.2.4?!?!” replies.
But the best update beggar has to be what I saw in Mo’ Creatures, when he said “update like now”. Sure, they’ll definitely listen to your demands! (not)

EDIT: Disturbing news. 1.2.5 is coming next week, according to Gamechap’s video. And it includes more than the Mod API; multi-colored sheep, something about Chickens will have more uses, and some new “Writing” thing for maps. Maybe a new API to create the kind of custom map you want.

But who gives a fuck about that, when Jeb is being a total dick and not making the team wait ’till everyone’s got their mods? Stop fucking rushing updates! We don’t NEED 1.2.5! We’re still waiting for 1.2.4 mods!

This thing seems buggy as hell for me. From the new Jungle biomes causing studdering, to running out of memory alot in The Twilight Forest.

And if that’s not bad enough, after converting my map to the new 1.2.0 “Anvil” format (it’s a format, not a map option as I thought it was), all the map’s biomes have been changed, which is keeping BiomeEdit from working right. It’s forcing me to do what I had to do to move away from W2TS v1; make a new map. And here I finally have the INNER LOOP LINE connected.

Oh, and did I mention the convert breaks MCEdit, the #1 used program of me to make minor to major changes to the map? I’m having to rely on an unstable, rushed version (the author agrees with me) that has removed some features I liked in the name of… who knows god what because it sure isn’t stability.
Codewarrior has “quit” developing for now, given the reins to another guy who he trusts. He may never work on MCEdit again. Good thing for him, VERY BAD thing for me.

Seriously, I’m about to downgrade to 1.1.0 and STAY THERE until hell freezes over! Fuck the Taiga biomes. Fuck Jungle biomes. They aren’t worth the stress to mess with!

I do have the option of just moving on (again) and make another map. I did create a pretty good tropical-like map putting a “-” before my current map seed, and I could easily re-create my Marina. But… what if this shit happens again down the line? What will be the next patch that has another map format conversion that fucks up my biomes? Huh?!

And why am I the only one having this issue!?

Just updated to 1.2.3 yesterday, and here’s 1.2.4 hot on its heels to make modders work even harder.

It’s obvious they didn’t give a shit about the modding community, only people who play on servers.
This update, however, fixes alot more than known bugs who have been there for years in SMP. To be honest, it’s actually good to see actual bug-fixing for a change instead of more features.

The ones I find interesting are as follows;
-Chat history and much better chat editing. This is perfect for SPC. I won’t have to re-type commands anymore.

-Fixed the “flickering” of chat as it vanishes off the screen. This bug never really bugged me, but it’s good it’s fixed. Again, good for SPC.

-Made placing half blocks on existing half blocks (to make a full block) easier. This one puzzles me. How is it any “easier” now? I end up doing it by mistake.

-“Back” and “Quit” buttons to OutOfMemoryScreen. What about if you crash? Still, this is nice. I was getting alot of these in Twilight Forest.

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The good news for the modding team, the MCP should be updated by either this weekend or sometime next week, allowing modders to do their thing. Which allows players like me to do ours.

Since my first impressions of MCPatcher, I’ve avoided it like a bad tooth ache. The bad memories still haunt me.

It was back in /infdev/ (or was it Alpha?) I tried out MCPatcher. Even then, I was leary about anything “patching” my game that wasn’t an official patch from Notch. I remember trying to install a 32x texture pack. Can’t remember the name.
I patch, get in, and the game is running really slow (I think I still had a shit computer compared to now). So I tried to remove this “patch”, and it didn’t, forcing me to do a clean install.

Since then, I said FUCK YOU to it. But the Painterly pack is starting to be more for MCPatcher, turning a few things I like into MCPatcher-only options.
Today, I decided to give it another chance. Seeing how it’s been a few years, maybe they got the bugs from the past squished.
MCPatcher is supposed to take the stress out of adding mods (after just adding them due to one mod that refuses to work right ever again). That’s one reason why I decided to give it another go.

I started by doing a full backup of my entire .minecraft folder, then running MCPatcher.
Unfortunately, this thing seems “incompatible” with TortoiseSVN. First it tells me that minecraft.jar has been modded (no shit). So I tell Tortoise to fall back to Revision 1 which was when I got 1.1.0 back, and now it can’t find the .jar at all. From its POV, it’s not there. But Windows Explorer says it IS there.

I asked what the fuck is going on, and hopefully I’ll have a response by tomorrow. I fear they’ll tell me that I’m going to have to use that thing again to downgrade to 1.1.0 from 1.2.3, just to get MCPatcher to recognize the file structure.

Been getting a bit stressed and angered of the constant questing in WoW leveling my Warlock. So I decided to take a well-deserved break to calm my nerves, and go back to Minecraft (in hopes by now, most of my long-awaited mods are now updated to 1.2.3, so I can.

I was just viewing the Mo’ Creatures thread, when a member quotes someone who quoted Jeb saying the following on his Twitter page (which I’m quoting here);
“Back at work! The bukkit guys have done a lot of fixes while I was away, so there is a good chance for a 1.2.4 on Thursday”
1.2.4? Thursday? Are you fucking kidding me?? I’m still waiting for mods for 1.2.3, and he wants to make it even harder on modders by releasing 1.2.4!?

Some say, due to the fact Bukkit is in charge of this update, this is going to be for SMP, not SSP. But angry says the fact Bukkit is part of Mojang, they can make SSP updates as well. Others say not to worry, as it will probably be 2-3 more weeks ’till then.
That’s perfect. That gives me only 2-3 weeks to enjoy 1.2.3 ’till I got to do this ALL over again… having to re-install all of my mods is becoming a real chore, even with TortoiseSVN (after what I just went through due to Zombe’s Modpack.. that didn’t even fucking help).

Small Update: Mo’ Creatures finally updated. Now I’m all set to update to 1.2.3. But with the “threat” of another patch, I feel I should wait ’till Thursday and see what happens.

To pass the time while I wait for MoP, instead of gearing up my chars, I created a new one. A Worgen Warlock. His name, Furrydots.

Something’s happened since my Rogue leveled up, to now. And here’s what I discovered;
1. No more dungeon quests getting in the way of regular quests. Dungeon quest NPC’s are now inside of dungeons, similar to what they did for classic WoW dungeons. Now you can choose if you want to dungeon or not.
2. Most group quests are now soloable! That includes Durn the Hungerer in Nagrand (the big guy that walks around). However, “end-zone” (Netherstorm/Shadowmoon Valley) zones still have group quests.
3. RNG’s and grind collection quests still rain supreme in pissing me off. 😛 So much I thought of a song based off of the song “RNG” that can be found on Youtube.
“When RNG’s, are at their worst! Outland quests, will make you curse! Zangarmarsh, the worst of all! Grinding quests, I go up the wallllllll!” that’s all I can think of.

The best thing has to be that group quests are soloable. This is a blessing. Even the Mastery quests in Nagrand, the bosses are killable now.
Drill the Drillmaster and Overlord in Hellfire are also soloable now. No longer will I or anyone else have to ask for a group for them.