Benie's Games Blog

Another Minecraft blog post. Maybe I should make a Tumbler one just for Minecraft.

This has to do with the redesign of Stone Tower station — the first station and creator of the WAYWARD LINE. It’s been scheduled for a redesign for some time now.
A few weeks ago I tried to get angry to help me by giving me some ideas for the new station. All he found was from the Grand Central Station in Washington D.C., trying to get me to build the humongous son of a bitch. Not going to happen.

I found a few promising pictures of what are called “single platform” stations, which the inner platform is used to board trains instead of traditionally having platforms on the sides, which are called dual platform stations.
To make a single platform station is more difficult than a dual platform, since the platform in the middle has to be really wide to support alot of people, plus the station.

I went with a traditional design, similar to this. And it looks like this. And though it looks nice from the outside… it isn’t functional inside. There’s no seating. No place to eat. No bathrooms. No WAYWARD LINE Museum. Why? I suck at interior designing. I always have. Plus none of those ideas have a design in my head. Because my designs keep getting ruined by how… blocky Minecraft is.
One good thing is I made sure I made a map backup, since I wiped out what was the former station due to its location. I had to do the backup manually because I can’t find any reliable SMP map backup plugins for Bukkit.
With the new save file format, what took eight minutes, now only takes eight seconds. A substantial improvement in backup speed.

I’m planning to redo the station again to make it better. Hopefully I can get something going.

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In other news, I made Tree Islands and Residential automated. Was not easy for both, due to design issues with the area around them.
Also, “construction” (aka I copypasta’d angry’s station for the LOOP LINE) of Wayward Connection has started. There’s something holding that project back,which is the LOOP LINE. Getting the damn thing straight south down 5,000+ blocks will take alot of time.

Redoing all the stations of the WAYWARD LINE to be Minecart Mania-compatible is 50% complete so far. Soon I’ll be tackling the BENIE LINE.

One last thing. The thing that kick-started Minecart Mania into what it is today, will soon be removed of its support because of Station blocks; the Pressure Plate. This sucks for people that still use them to switch tracks, but they will have to learn that times change… and I never used one EVER when I had the mod, now the plugin.
It was AUTOCART dying due to the Halloween update that caused me to switch to Minecart Mania, and it was made as a standalone mod. Which is why I wasn’t too crazy with angry telling me to get it again.

So I finally manned up and got the 1.3_01 update after I felt Minecart Mania and MCEdit were stable enough to try updating the client and the server. To this day I haven’t seen any bugs, and the version seems pretty stable. I’m thankful for that.
The Spawner plugin made by BloodInside was another story. Due to Afforess releasing a “massive update” of Minecart Mania to bump it out of Alpha and into Beta (to me it’s still the same way he had it before), the Spawner plugin broke.
When trying to call for a cart, an error spams the server console. And diamond ore blocks were not deleting minecarts.

Someone posted the error and I walked in to report I too am seeing it. Yet BloodInside never logged in to fix it. We waited for two days and I began to worry if I should either postpone redesigning of my stations to make them Minecart Mania-compatible until he finally updates it, or to resort to using the Chest Control plugin.
After testing how to use the plugin and getting it working, I first tried it out with Wayward Desert Station. Routing the tracks that would take empty minecarts back to the chest was not easy. Neither was having to rewire them.

Finally I had both directions setup and I got it working, but I wasn’t happy. All because of the one thing Chest Control doesn’t have yet but the Spawner does; Grief Control. The delay before another cart can be spawned.
I wanted to beg Afforess to take over for this guy, since he seems to update his plugins better. He said if BloodInside didn’t update the plugin by Friday, he would do it.
Now, this would be OK if it wasn’t for two things…
1. My patience for things that delay my work is non-existent.
2. Possible IRL severe weather event on Saturday, wanting to get everything done before it hits.

Seeing how others also wanted Afforess to just update the damn thing, I joined saying I didn’t want to be forced to use Chest Control. But the irony in that was telling people to use it.
Again, Afforess refused saying he’ll fix it Friday. Someone didn’t like what I said and said why do I want something that does the same thing. I defended my words by saying I need grief protection and why.
A few hours later, someone quoted my post and said that he hates Chest Control, and Spawner makes things cleaner.

Before I realized, Afforess finally decided to apply a quick fix for it to make it work. I quickly grabbed it, installed, and tried it out. And it works just like it did before with no changes to it. All I wanted was it to work.
I wanted to kiss Afforess’ ass for getting it working. But the best way to do that is to give him a donation. But now with it working I can resume construction.

Half of this blog post will be about the new 1.3 release, and the other being the latest from the W2TS.

First, the 1.3 release. It was released Tuesday. I don’t have it, nor do I want it. Like most of Notch’s updates since the failed Halloween update, it has more bugs than bugfixes. Hell, the list is nearly as long as the new things added! Sickens me.
One of those bugs is one with redstone. When putting a redstone torch on the side of a block and it receives power, it will burn out and have to be replaced.

And this is what’s been added;
A new Redstone Repeater/Delay block. It works just like a repeater, and has a custom delay setting that you can set to make it work as a Delay.
Another feature is Beds, that work both in SSP and SMP. They only work when it’s completely nighttime, and when they do, you wake up and it’s day again. All they do is skip nighttime. Might be useful in the future.

There’s a brand new Wurm-like Minecraft Launcher… that doesn’t work. The buttons for Login and Options are so obscured you can barely see them. And when you try to login, you get a nice “Can’t connect to minecraft.net” message. Yet, the launcher I downloaded a few months ago that does the same thing the new launcher does (just older), works perfectly.

And another feature I wanted to mention, Minecraft now has a better lighting option. Looks identical to BetterLight; the mod angry suggested I get. But it too has issues, but really small ones.

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Now we move on to the common scene with Notch’s updates… broken mods. I’m not concerned about any of these (except the ones from Minecart Mania). Keep reading and you’ll find out why.
Since I’m “banned” from SSP due to Minecart Mania, all SSP mods I don’t care much about (except for Zombe’s Modpack for the “fly” and “sun control” mods).

And then there’s the mentioned Minecart Mania, to make it work with the new update. It’s been a week and if I was to make a guess, it’s 90% stable. The only issues he’s reporting are with plugins I don’t use.

However, MCEdit isn’t the same way. Due to the new save file format, people are reporting serious issues such as chunks being deleted without warning, and schematics when placed in a world, a new chunk would form around it. And large areas of the map being separated by voids.
IMO, codewarrior isn’t updating as much as he should be, like Afforess is. I can understand he’s got a life, but his program is pretty much the main reason why I haven’t updated yet.
Minecart Mania is good, but I need MCEdit to do what would take days to do ingame. And it’s also good for pinpointing/aligning critical things to make everything snap together.

And since the 1.3_01 update, it shows “Dependencies on Java 1.6 are gone”. That made me assume “You mean I have to get the latest version of Java before I can get this?” Actually, it means Java 6 is nolonger required in Minecraft. Since the update I thought the complete opposite. Even angry told me that I had to update before getting 1.3_01.
Seriously, there is no Java 7.. yet anyway. So that does pretty much give me the green light to get the latest version.

And now we move on to news from the W2TS.

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Today’s news is I have completed WAYWARD LINE’s Tree Island station, exactly where I wanted it. I however had to work with the land (and angry’s long-ass path). Yes. For the first time, I have a station supported by pillars that are connected to the sides of angry’s path. It looks really awesome.

I have also made the first station of the WAYWARD LINE, automated. Angry’s Explosive Sands station. I used the same concept I made before, except.. I ran into a severe design flaw. All because of the god damn Hold For signs being too close together.
After I set up the other side’s automated system, I hit the button, the cart stops at the catcher block, but the Hold For sign does not start counting down from 10 (yeah, one other thing I forgot to mention. I’ve decreased all cart launch timers to 10, from 15) and the cart just sits there. Yet I can push it by riding in it.

This finally got fixed by doing a frustrating but firm decision, of planning to slightly redesign all of the WAYWARD LINE’s stations (not including the system hub since it’s already done) by widening only one side of it by one block, which will make them two blocks wide (I wonder how in the fuck I’m going to do Stone Tower without messing up the scenery, or Nick’s ride up the towers…). This will allow both Hold For signs to work.

Hold For signs have a two block rule, that they need a minimum of two blocks between them to work.
Since Explosive Sands was already automated, I edited it first and made it two blocks in the middle. It’s an eyesore, but.. it works.

I’ve made no changes to the LOOP LINE as of now. I’m beginning to think it’s a bad idea to connect it ALL the way south to the WAYWARD LINE’s Southbound route. Plus, I have no idea how I’m going to connect it also to Wayward Line’s Northbound route.
I’m sure I’ll think of something in the future. It’s just a chore having to manually setup the pillars. You see, the LOOP LINE is doing something not done in the others — following the terrain’s ups and downs. By doing this, removes the risk of animals walking on the tracks.

It’s a shame angry had to update. I could use his help yet again. Even though he has an unmodded backup of 1.2_02, he’s bored with Minecraft.

Another idea I have for the now famous WAYWARD LINE, and also the new LOOP LINE, is to have mini stations that would act as “Rest Stops” you would see at long distances of interstate IRL.
These could have outdoor dining areas with dispensers filled with cooked meat, lots of seating of course, restrooms, and places to sleep (or go AFK).
It’s something I may think about in the future.

Another idea would be, that once Notch allows us to go into the Nether in SMP, and minecarts also work through portals without getting stuck in them, to use the Nether to speed up travel times as a “warp portal”.

Ladies and gentlemen, riders of the W2TS, and fans. I’m proud to introduce a great partnership that will finally make the World2 Transit System… automated. Please give a warm welcome to Minecart Mania!
Minecart Mania and the W2TS have “teamed up” to bring you automated stations. Call a cart, board it (or don’t), and go.
These automated stations will only show up at main stations, and station hubs of the new line, the LOOP LINE.

The main stations are: Stone Tower of the WAYWARD LINE. House Memorial of the BENIE LINE. And of course, the BENIE/WAYWARD LINE transit hub. All of these stations will be redesigned to be friendly with our partner; Minecart Mania.

The LOOP LINE’s main stations will be all the stations that link to the end point of both the BENIE and WAYWARD lines. Currently, BENIE LINE’s Westbound is part of it. But in the future, WAYWARD LINE’s Northbound (Southbound will not end), and BENIE LINEs Eastbound routes will be connected to it, which will form a loop around the map.
Also currently, the LOOP LINE isn’t the official name for the line.

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Of course, all of this came with a price. My patience was tested past the limit, trying to get angry to focus exactly what I wanted.

This whole automated thing started after one day I was on Youtube, looking at some Minecraft videos. Then I came along that rapid transit system. Since then I strongly considered doing something like that for my own system, especially when I saw I could download the map and schematics.
I threw in ideas from the guy’s map into mine. A few days later my desire to make my system automated increased to a point where failure was not an option, asking a friend of mine to help me make it automated.

I wanted the W2TS automated before, but didn’t know how to get it working with my existing stations. I knew I would have to have boosters and all other sorts of tracks ruining the scenery of the area the station is in, but I didn’t care. I was willing to redesign the stations if need be.

When he failed, I treated it very badly instead of just moving on. This is when angry tried to help, and too failed.
He told me to go back to Minecart Mania and install Bukkit, which is dead to me and I didn’t feel like going back there and trying to set the blocks just right for the cart to go.
Then he told me to get AUTOCART. Again… I did not want to go back. Using that would defeat the need for Minecart Mania. That is until he told me that it now works in SMP, and with Minecart Mania.

At first, I didn’t like this idea one bit (especially the fact I would have to start working in SMP again).
The problem with Minecart Mania is there’s no tutorials of how to use the catcher and other blocks you use at stations. You’re supposed to just automatically know this shit, apparently. Or love trial and error.

And even with this, angry still couldn’t really get the stations automated.. until he told me to use Diamond blocks. When powered by Redstone, they can spawn a minecart ontop of them. It originally was supposed to be a replacement due to bugged chest dispensers. And when placed with other tracks, acts as a launcher, launching a cart on tracks infront of it. When I saw there was another block that could delete carts, I knew I could finally get it automated.
Simply wire a button or a pressure plate to the diamond block to call a minecart.

Back in the past. Another trouble with the diamond/diamond ore blocks was making my current stations work with it. At the time I had no ideas how to make a cart spawn and go on the same track other carts travel on. I never got an idea until yesterday. The idea is Station blocks.
Station blocks are simple. You place one right under a two or four-way intersection and when a player moves over it, it tells you to left click the minecart which way you want to go, based on the configuration of the tracks.

Near the WAYWARD LINE’s Plains station, I built and made the “W2TS Design/Testing Area” building so I can test any ideas I had in my head, which still stands to this day.
One test was to do the same thing I saw on another video of a station using Minecart Mania. My friend tried to recreate the thing but failed trying to get the redstone current to launch it just right.
I pretty much thought it was over, and I had to admit defeat… until what I felt was an angel trying to get me to visit Minecart Mania’s section in the bukkit forums.
Under Sign Commands, I saw this “Hold For sign”. When placed near a catcher block, it will act like complicated redstone wiring and put a countdown on it. Once the countdown hits 0, the catcher block turns into a launcher block, releases the minecart, and makes it go where I want.

Knowing my idea to make my system automated has been brought back to life, I thought hard of one idea I had floating around in my head. And about a day later I tried it, and made it into a Youtube video (my first one at that). To have a track running alongside the main track, with two small hubs. One for calling the cart and the other for destroying it.
The way I designed this prototype was having two designated areas on the station platform. One for Departure, and one for Arrival. Just watch the video. I’ve pretty much explained how it works.

It still exists in that building to this very day, with the same signs I used as a presentation for the video.

But there was a problem. How to keep a griefer from calling multiple minecarts and clogging up the track with carts. There was no real solution to this problem except doing advanced, complicated redstone wiring.
A week after I made my prototype, angry set up several Repeaters and used it as a very large Delay circuit and told me this is the only way to stop a griefer, by it resetting the circuit so the button could be pressed again.
He suggested of having a single Central Station for this thing, and what better place than the BENIE/WAYWARD LINE switch station. And then having all the other stations where you delete your minecart and do whatever. Unfortunately this involved having to redesign the entire thing.
As much as I tried to accept this as my only option, I also wanted to turn it down. Because he had no solid idea of a station I can use to replace this.
Since Version 0.7 of the Spawner blocks, this entire issue and solution to fix it has been kicked out the door, via a new option. It pretty much does the same thing angry did, without doing anything but setting the option. It now adds a timer so a griefer can’t abuse it.
This means I will not have to redesign that station.

A few days later (before I found out about the new feature with Spawner blocks), I extended the BENIE LINE further Westbound, and made a bypass route to bypass Sunset Bay by going across it, and uncovered the new Birch/Pine trees, with a winter setting. There was a large, flat area begging for a station to be placed on it. I thought this would be perfect for the start of the LOOP LINE. I named the station Frosty Pines.
Angry helped by making a station for it, but didn’t make it Minecart Mania-friendly. I fixed this by making the station bigger and taller by two blocks in all directions.

After thinking of a new idea for the cart call/destroy system (I call it Version 2 of my prototype), I went right to work making it. And I’m proud of the results. With this design, I can use it on all of my existing stations if I wanted to, and it won’t change the design that much.

I just want to say in closing, that I’m glad I went back to Minecart Mania. AUTOCART really saved my ass this time. With it, I don’t have to worry about booster/braker blocks.

First off, I want to give kudos to a guy on Youtube who designed one HELL of a transit system. How I found it is unknown.. I think I followed a link on the minecraft forums.
Whichever is the case, his transit system is semi-automated. It requires actions from the user but it brings shame to mine. The heart of it all is his stations. They blow me away of how complex they are. Fully automated with redstone wiring.
He has a system that you can step on a pressure plate to summon a cart, and you’ll actually see the cart being released from a hopper and a redstone light lights up when the cart is ready for you.
Then you simply walk over, get in it, wait a few seconds, and it will automatically take you out of the station and to the awaiting rail system.
Also, he explains it as calm as possible. I guess I would too if I was a master of redstone wiring, and lied that I only know the basics.

I was able to grab a copy of this map (he has a link in the description of the video), to get inside of it to see what makes it tick. He even wants you to implement his stations into your map to see what you can come up with (of course.. give the guy credit, he deserves it), by releasing an MCedit schematic he made. I might just do that in the distant future. I have no plans or ideas how it would work out or where to place it.
I could make it into a loop track. Like LOOP LINE or something to connect to the BENIE and WAYWARD lines as a means of a secondary way to get on the two major ones.
He has two versions of the system, and you can see his videos here, here, and Version 2 here. The second one obviously being better designed. He used a new system that’s supposed to work in SMP, and made two underground stations for you to impliment into your map. They’re exactly like the others, except designed for subway use.
Again, might be useful in the future.

It still blows me away how well-designed everything is. But there’s a few ideas from it I threw into my own transit system, and I didn’t use a schematic.

BENIE LINE’s Valley station is in need of redesign or something. So I chose it to impliment those ideas from the guy’s map. The main thing is redoing the ramps up to the station. Seeing how he had the path connecting the two station platforms inside the ramp stairs, I used this idea.
Of course, given the limit with size of the area, I had to make some adjustments. Such as “blowing up” a hill (editing it out in MCedit) the northern ramp had to deal with, so it can directly go all the way down to ground level.
Another thing I did was make a sort of a concourse area with the path, using the guy’s ingenious idea of indoor gardens.
I’m not too happy with the way I got the station platform doors. I need to backup the ramps by one block each to allow free flowing space on the platforms.
You can’t put pressure plates on half blocks, sadly.
One thing I did do differently that I don’t like from his map is the main entrance. He has it where you got to smack a button and quickly walk in through the doorway before it closes in your face.
I fixed this by simply placing a pressure plate infront of the door, allowing a user to not have to hurry through the door before it shuts, because it will shut when the user gets all the way in.

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Seriously, though. I need my own type of automated cart system. Zombe’s Modpack’s “cart” mod only goes so far. And having a system that will take my cart when I decide to stop at a station would be nice, as well as another system that gives me a cart when I’m ready to leave. Angry says he may be able to make one using Bukkit, but to not hold my breath.

There is a coming soon “mod” (if it’s even a mod, I’m not sure anymore) called Minecarts MK II. It combines rails with redstone wiring, infusing them into the track. Much like a electric model trainset.
It’s like Minecart Mania in ways. You have booster/breaker tracks, and full stop tracks. But as I said, none of it needs redstone wiring. Thanks to a Cart Detection Block that acts like complicated redstone wiring. Just place the infused track pieces where you want incoming carts to speed up or slow down, and a cart detection block next to it, and that’s all you have to do. No complicated wiring.

The idea is ingenious, and I seriously want to hug the one that came up with the idea, since I won’t have to redesign my transit system due to redstone wiring. However, it looks like to me this isn’t going to come out anytime soon. It’s a proposal to Notch to allow these blocks in Minecraft by default.
IMO, it should be in the Suggestions forum then if it’s just a proposal instead of a coming soon mod.

Been quite busy with my map for awhile, doing several changes to the W2TS, and other things to note.
First of all, I want to mention that if MCEdit were a woman, I would marry it. None of these changes would had been possible without it. It has saved me alot of time with construction and planning.

Here’s the list of changes;
1. BENIE LINE redesigned and moved over between Valley and Mountain Lake. House station is now House Memorial station, and the line goes under it and Canal with “new” underground stations, removing the old over water line.
2. Underwater Tunnel of the BENIE LINE between Canal and Mountain Lake. When going through it, you’ll hear sounds of sand being dug up. Those are the squids trying to get around the tunnel.
3. WAYWARD LINE Northbound’s construction restarted after a long hiatus, with the creation of the first northern line; “Mystic Woods”. The name came from the internet as I was searching for a better name than “Wayward Forest”. There is no planned/coming soon stations further north.

Now, the other news to pass on. I have manned up and finally installed ModLoader. Seeing how it worked flawlessly, I also tried Zan’s Minimap again. The very mod that fucked up my map. However with it now being a ModLoader mod, that’s no longer the case and it has been forgiven by me.
I’m now using Mo’Creatures. It does what it says — adds new (mostly the forest kind) creatures to your map (Bears, Birds, and Horses to name a few). My favorite is the songbirds. When they start singing and I’m in a forest area, it really breaths life into the map.
When the sun goes down, you have two new hostile creatures to deal with. The Wolf, and the rare Werewolf. Rare for good reason too. They are as fast as you are (had to spawn one just to see how they fight).
Sadly, there’s no Squirrels, Chipmunks, or Beavers in the mod.
There’s actually Lions in this mod, and they will attack you if you get too close to them (or vica-versa). Since they have nothing to do with a forest setting, I’ve disabled them. There’s also Ogres, but they’re too destructive (one nuked Big Mine A’s primary entrance) and also have been disabled.

And this is how it’s done. Simply by editing the MoCreatures.properties file and adding a “-” before the name of the creature, and it will stop spawning them. In my case, the lions.

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I had HumansPlus also installed. It does the same thing as MoCreatures, except humans are more interactive. As in, they fight eachother and some will even protect you.
However, there’s one human in particular that I hate. He is called the Pirate. They spawn on the open water, in a boat, picking on poor innocent squids with their fishing poles. Pirates can put things in their inventory and drop what they have collected in a chest for you to loot, upon their death.
But what I hate (and made me uninstall the mod) is what happened today during the northern extension of the WAYWARD LINE. There’s this bay near the line, that I can see a few pirates in their boats.
So I go back to what I was doing, and about ten minutes later I begin to notice an FPS drop. I go back to where the pirates are and the bay is filled with them on their boats.

So I try to disable the Pirate the same way in Mo’Creatures, and notice pirates are still spawning in the bay, making the game nearly unplayable with studdering. I go to complain in the thread for the mod, and get no response. So I wave goodbye to HumansPlus and uninstall it.
Then I’m tasked with removing all of the boats spawned by the pirates by hand. MCEdit doesn’t show moving blocks. And these boats go on for MILES.
At first I think that if I disable squids, it will stop pirates from showing up, since pirates are attracted to squids. Wrong-o.

Been thinking of getting the Builders mod. Seeing what they do (build a town), I wanted them to “work” for me to make a town, so I can put one of my two lines near it and make a station in their honor. But I hear it’s not as good as it claims and doesn’t work right with MoCreatures.

My redesign was completed about a week ago from now. Took me about four days to complete. It’s still not completed yet due to the pine trees not yet growing to full size (will possibly be 2-3 Wurm Months before that).
In real life, pine trees take longer than you, your family, your kids, your grandkids, and even your great grandkids’ lives ’till they start growing. Wurm fortunately is 8x faster than real life.

Anyway, that’s not the only things I’ve done or tried to do in and around the settlement. I got so many things that I want and don’t want to do that I can’t concentrate on just one.

I’m still working on that damn road I want to link my settlement to the road network (not to Iron Hold and then the network). I’ve tried a new design that too stalled, because of the old stalled road! It’s a mini-switchback design. The problem is that sometimes I manage to nearly perfectly (dumping more dirt than I feel I need to) flatraise the road as it goes up. But this one stubborn tile refuses to slope to 40, so I can dig the corners down to get both to 20.
I keep dumping dirt where I feel and how much I think I need, and then when I flatten I dig it right back up.

Another project is making a road connecting my settlement to my neighbor’s beachfront pier. But with the 40+ql fences laughing at my attempts of trying to knock them down with my large maul or my catapult I cannot do that yet.
If I manage to, this will open the door for yet another project. To dig the hill infront of the pier down to allow my bigger boats to park there. So I can stop using that freak of nature clay pier, as a pier. Then remove the road I made that leads up to the pier.

Another project, is to widen my (I own the land around it) primary road up to the settlement, and add trees in the middle. This of most of the plans I mentioned above seems to be the most possible, since there’s no clay tiles along the widening section. Trees will have to be chopped down and terraforming will have to be done to do it. But the road will look ALOT more awesome. 🙂 Have Oak trees in the middle for that extra awesomeness. It would really look like a retreat with it.

And lastly, but not leastly (no, that’s not a word), is to turn 1/4 of my field into stables and start getting into the livestock selling business.
But I just don’t know if I should go on with that plan. I mean, it’s a great plan but, I’m not in the trade route system because I’m isolated. No one is going to want to travel all the way here — especially now that the majority of people live around FM — to buy one of my bred horses.
However…, by doing that plan, it would help get my AH up (More animals = More grooming = More Animal Husbandry skill) so I can finally have a truly fast horse, since I’ll be able to tell the traits of them. Including my original horses. By doing this, maybe it will increase my chances of someone sailing up here to get one.
And as a bonus, if I accidentally breed too many (or have one that’s diseased and/or has mostly bad traits), I can kill them to control the population. With them in pens, they will not be able to chase me. I can get out, bandage up, and go again. This will help with Fight Skill, plus Butchering when the deed is done.

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I’ve been to a few places as well, while thinking of these plans. One was during the redesign of the settlement. A guy in kchat needed someone to make him keel sections. It was late, and hardly anyone was responding. I took pitty and told him I would head down there (he lives near Vulcan Retreat) on horseback.
The trip, was amazing. Going along the coast on my horse in the day was fucking awesome. And no hostiles along my trip made it better.
The guy lives in a secluded area between two steep hills. Quite nice. But also quite annoying, since I had to climb up a slope, chop a tree, try to make the keel, then slide down the hill to get my stam back up. But I got it done. Kinda wish I got paid for it, but I didn’t.
On my way back home, heading downhill an Adol starving mountain lion popped out of the forest and tried to engage, but my horse was too fast for it to hurt him or me.
Since then I’ve stopped going on trips with my horse. That mountain lion was a warning to always be vigilant, even with a fast horse to watch out for danger.

I also went to near FM (sorta) to get some rags I paid for. Due to the strong south wind, the seller took pitty on me and met me halfway, which was the landbridge of the Darkenstone Canal.
And today, I went down to Port Eminence. Why? Remember when I mentioned my latest road idea failed? I asked kchat if it was wrong for me to not know how to do this on my own, even for as long as I have played.
About 15 seconds, Acesfury PMs me. He’s the same guy angry had to wait for to get his sailboat so we could leave Vorgon.

I told him my problems, and he said to start up and work down. To find the highest point to where to start my road that would link to the road network (and that peat deposit). And he told me how to start making the ramp.
So I went there on my large sailing boat (aka Corbita). I wanted to see what it looked like by myself, and to see what he meant about using multiple deeds protecting the ramp. The way up to New Eminence is now blocked by a now locked palisade gate. With my studded leather armor, plus a 12kg rags, I was quite heavy. But I tried anyway to climb up the right side of the mountain. Multiple times I fell down.
Because of this, my rags got lighter and lighter to the point I was able to make it up where I saw a break in the wall so I was able to safely get up the mountain.

At the very..very top… paradise. I actually wanted to live there! I could fit my settlement up there.. four times. Sadly the way into the heart of the settlement is blocked. The birds chirping and the clearing.. so beautiful. Better than back home that sounds like I live in a wind tunnel that’s permanently turned and left on.
I was actually going to make a video since screenshots didn’t really do the area justice, but I was called back home by my annoying neighbor who wanted my help planning his (IMO) fail road. My alt can’t do it because his skills suck, except for cooking and fishing.

The place is nice, but seriously… I should think of it as a prison. The mountain is perfect for hunters, and there doesn’t seem to ever be a need to leave it. These guys love this game so much that they probably have their own priest and never need help from the outside world.
What a way to live. Sounds like it sucks.

Now, I would go gun ho on some of my plans, but thoughts keep racing through my head. Mostly of the “what if” kind, and some “pointless” feelings.
Such as the one of widening the primary road. Who is going to see it? Since I’m not in the trade route, no one really comes this way except explorers (like me). Why am I trying to attract attention by doing those kind of things?
My solitude has already been broken by neighbors north and south of me. It’s only going to get worse due to the “floodgates left open” from GV by Rolf.

What I REALLY… really would want to do but I know it’s impossible without help, is somehow tear down the plateau my settlement rests on, and live by the shore instead. On my way back home on my Corbita I found some nice surface settlements on the southwest coast.
You see, ONCE AGAIN… I feel trapped up there. I want to expand yet again and can’t. I’ve been thinking of buying my alt another settlement deed and found an area closer to FM, then move there and give my neighbor the old land.
Speaking of that neighbor (his name is Hogwash). He doesn’t even have a settlement, yet he has managed to take care of that area for some time now. Without a settlement, he is able to expand his “town”, which is pretty much nothing more than a shitload of field tiles, fences, and uneven pavement/ground.
Yet he’s proving a point that you don’t need a settlement to survive in Wurm. He says they are a “luxury”, and not a necessity.
I say he’s just lucky the West-Northwest coast is secluded. If more people moved in, he wouldn’t be so lucky.

Most people I’ve seen who live on the side of a hill are able to expand by going up it, and making multiple tiers. My problem is I don’t have the digging skill (or the skill in my own brain) required to do this. I thought about adding an upper tier dedicated to just stables, above my settlement to the East. But where to put it and how to terraform the land (and not into rock tiles) is something I cannot think of. I need a designer like Koi to help me.
I have a somewhat sketchy plan of having the tier a tile above my settlement, and using the ramp I was going to plan for the road to dig another road going up to that tier.
I kinda wish I was there at New Galway when Starhero was showing the guys how to “move a mountain”. Could had learned something that would help me now.

The taming training was grueling, but it was worth it. My alt fished while I tamed the pig I got (had to walk along the coast back home because I found out pigs can’t swim…).
Soon I got taming up to 13.55. Now equipped with the rest of the things I needed (horse shoes, saddle, and dual longswords), I attempted to tame my riding horse, and on the 2nd try I got it. I attached the saddle and horse shoes to it, hopped on, and… was saddened about the speed. Only going up to 20km/h.
Taking off my gear however, boosted his speed to 24km/h. Roughly the speed of a Corbita in a gale.

This is what I call bad. The gear was supposed to protect me from blows from hostiles. Yet all its doing is weighing me down which is weighing my horse down.
I did notice one thing. Putting the gear in a barrel and carrying that doesn’t slow the horse down that much.

Later on, me and my alt went on his rowboat, and I took my horse along the north coast to Cliff Side Port, where I was going to ride my horse all the way back home while my alt drove the rowboat back home.

The trip was successful (and fun). The only setback was I was traveling at night. My alt made it back about five minutes before I did. But I ran into NO hostiles!

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Today, with nothing to do I wanted to do, I was viewing some of my really old screenshots of JK-H. I wanted to move my house or something.
The way I got Oceanside Retreat just looks.. messy to me. I got all of that open space, covered by random Maple, Pine, and Lemon trees that I’m not even using.
So I fired up Mapper, and attempted to map the main area of the settlement.

(I originally tried to put the pictures into this post, but WordPress is stupid and wouldn’t align the picture with the text right, and was forced to link the pictures instead)

And this is what I have. What it looks like right now. It’s a mess and the flow just isn’t the way it needs to be. So much wasted space. But back then I was just starting out and needed to get my settlement set up ASAP.

I studied the picture, and the pictures I took of one of my old homesteads (namely my first one, Benie’s Homestead). And soon I came up with something I liked. Something that would use up all of those available areas of the settlement.
Something like this.

Objects are thus (in the second picture);
Chest – FSB (Food Storage Bin)
Large table – Coffin
Armchair – BSB (Bulk Storage Bin)
Altar – Trash heap
Fountain – Well

It incorporates the idea for the double path to my house, and has trees in the middle. The field/animal pen has been moved to the area I don’t use, and it will be four tiles bigger. But the biggest thing is moving the house to the corner and re-adding the 2×3 porch idea I had since I moved in. I want to move the house over, and then chop the trees down below it to see my new boat dock. The Maple trees down there have overgrown and need to be “pruned”. Plus it will give me beneficial wood.
My “Storage Shed” house (where I store my carts and catapult), will be moved closer to the house and the field. This to me is a smart move as I will be able to easily walk in from my house, get my large cart, then walk across the road and hitch my work horses when needed. Instead of having to walk across my settlement to do it currently.

A lounge area (two chairs and a dinner table) will be built and placed on the porch area, with my large barrel being there, filled with delicious Stew when I just want to sit back and watch the pixelated ocean waves.
The settlement is called “Oceanside Retreat”, and it’s currently not much of a “retreat” (as in a place to relax). I’m trying to change that.

All I’m really waiting for is my Barley to grow and be harvestable. This is what’s going to take the longest time, as 2-3 of them are just starting (due to my horses eating the seeds). I’m going to need 35 Barley to fully “move” the field to its new location.
I also am going to have to get down in my mine and start mining like crazy for more stone walls (and pavement), and then start chopping trees down. Planking will be critically needed for this plan.

All I can see is this project is going to keep me busy for about a day or two. Maybe three. Depending on how fast I can plan the construction and how much material I’m going to need. The point of all of this is to remain active in Wurm, instead of thinking about quitting.

What an ordeal I had. But why did I go through it?
Well, I see it as a way to be active again since my previous way to be active resulted in failure with “You hit rock” stopping the terraforming of my new road.

This way, is to get several items to be more active. The main things of why I’m getting these items is this;
1. To get some studded leather armor, and dual weld longswords. So it will hopefully lessen the chance I’ll scream like a girl when I see a fucking spider in my mine. Plus it might also be useful for the second thing.
2. To use my riding horse, as a riding horse! I cannot do it because to get him to log off when I do (to keep him from running off) when I’m away from my settlement requires him to be trained, which I cannot do until I hit 7 in training, which I cannot do that until I get a pig to grind taming on.
3. There was a third, but it’s starting to fade away due to the popularity with the armor. It was to pay Spellcast to come down and plug all ways through my mine instead of a direct route to my iron. This would give some .. safety back to my mine. Might still do it.

It first started trying to get the armor. Originally I was just going to sail down to FM and see what I could find. Then I saw a thread on the forum from Willow saying she makes gear, at great prices too. Saw I could get a 70ql set for only 3s and went with it. Thing is, it seemed directly posting this.. order to the thread isn’t the way you do it. Even though it doesn’t say “please PM your orders” in the OP.
So I PMed her anyway, and told her that I would go down to FM and pick it up and to “PM me ingame” when the set is ready, thinking it’ll be done when I get there. The reason for going down there was to avoid the hefty S&H costs. She responded about a half an hour later saying she’s making the set and will let me know when it’s ready.
So I set sail for FM.

About an hour from reaching it, I check my PMs and see she’s responded. I notice the time between her PM and the current time… two hours ago. Never got an ingame PM from her. Either she forgot to read that or that’s not the way she does it.
So I’m thinking (and hoping) she’ll show up again tonight while I’m down at FM, and do this by parking at Avalon (the settlement next to Freedom Docks). First thing I notice is they have their own merchants now. Bought five 75ql iron lumps (for imping) and ten rags, and then headed up to FM. At The Howl I notice a shitload of carts lining the road.
So I get to FM. Another reason for coming down is to see if I can find a saddle and horse shoes for my future tamed riding horse. I found a saddle, but there was this 58ql. I asked kchat if it was good enough and they didn’t know.
The wiki isn’t clear about “50ql gives a 10% speed boost” or whatever. I didn’t want to buy it unless I knew, and decided not to.
Saw longswords, and got the answer I need at least 40 ql for both to deal with spiders and scorps in my mine. So now I have a slight solid base and placed my “shopping list” on the forum.

So I head back to my boat, wondering if I should wait for Willow to get on. Then I think “They say she’s near FM, so why not just go there and get the set in person?”. So I ask kchat and a guy named Digger tells me she’s directly east of Dragon Fang Mountain. It took awhile to get the directions down pact but I finally sailed there. My destination was a settlement named “Brutalands”, to the left of a mountain. Digger said there would be a canal there.

When I got there, I found no canal. I saw a road slightly going up where Brutalands should be. So I docked and walked on the path. Came up on a small settlement named “Drachenfells”, not on the map. And also didn’t see this “Brutalands” settlement anywhere.
So I asked Digger again. After a bit of discussion he finds out he had a major DERP, thinking I was looking for Willow trees instead of the person. I even told him I was looking for the person to get my set.
Still, I laughed about it for some reason. Would be pointless and stupid to chew his ass off for an honest mistake.

So, I ask kchat again, and this time I’m told to go to Prima Casa. So now I have to go back to FM, and head back through the cave canal to get there.
Finally I do. Two people are in my local when I arrive at this.. I think noob town (no settlement), yet the design of it looks like it was done as one. I ask if I’m near Prima Casa, they say yes, then I ask if this is where Willow is. It is, but obviously she’s not on.
One of them who’s named “Noobseverywhere” (I’ve seen him in kchat and Local a few times), asks me if I’m planning to wait for her. I say yes. He asks me if I have anything to do, I say no, and he has me work for him.

Work as in terraforming and moving dirt around. He gives me a spare shovel to help him. So I help him for awhile, hoping that Willow will come on as I’m helping this guy. Seeing how I’ll be staying for awhile, I forgot that my boat is still not moored, so I tell him and run down there to do it.
As I’m going down I get another PM, from Paola. He asks if I got the pig I need for taming training, I say no, and he says he has one at the settlement five minutes away from mine (Monkeytown) and giving it free. This is great, but I’m nowhere near home ATM. He said he’ll keep it ’till tomorrow and to let him know before it gets slaughtered. This gives me a chance to go get a rope for it when I get back home.
So I get the boat tied up, and then a thought comes over me. “Just how much is the shipping for the set?” I wonder. I ask kchat and they said it would cost 60c. So, 3s for the set + 60c for shipping is 3s 60c. That’s not that bad! And I begin to wonder why I’m still here waiting for her.
The hours tick by and no Willow, and the guy’s wants of me are increasing, which decreases my desire to help him. I’m forced to lie to get out of this mess. So I tell him that my alt says the Barely back home needs to be harvested, and he can’t do it.
He actually doesn’t call my bluff and I’m able to leave (after giving back the spare shovel).
Soon I’m back on the south coast, heading back home while typing this. But I start to get very tired and moor the boat and go to bed while out at sea.

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The next day (today), I find myself off of my boat. So I get back on and resume heading back home. This time the wind has shifted to the south as a gale, giving me a nice tailwind. The sun is going down so I figure I would be back home by nightfall.
1/5 up the west coast, and Willow PMs me, apologizing for not responding yesterday. She says to come back over here to get my set. Seeing with the south wind, that’s not going to be easy.
So now I have two options. Go there, or just fuck it and go home and tell her to just mail the set.

I try option 1. As I approach the south shore, the wind dies down. Its like it’s telling me to just go home. So I tell her to just mail the set, and turn back around for home. It’s just not worth battling that wind to save 60c in S&H. I have 20s on me. I can afford it.

When I finally got home with a dying south wind, I checked my mail and there the set was. Put my money back in the bank and bought it. Only costed me 10c for S&H (I believe because of shipping in bulk).

So now I have my studded leather armor set. One piece of it is 75ql. Now my plans can continue.

The game that was doomed to never be released…. Duke Nukem will be soon be kicking ass and chewing bubblegum once again. Get ready, aliens. Here comes Duke and his badass one-liners.

“OH PISS!!” was my reaction when I read the news in my email. Being a member of the Duke Nukem Fan Club, I not only will be one of the many to play the beta before anyone else, but know the release date.

Since pretty much anyone can join this “exclusive club”, the release date is May 3rd, 2011 for us (May 6th for everyone). May Duke’s awesome one-liners ring out against the non-believers!

But let’s get one thing straight; I got hyped up to the max when Rig’N’Roll got released, and look where it got me. Shitty AI drivers, no cheats, sub-standard graphics compared to today’s graphics (I still found them awesome), and no updates from the devs since the release.
Duke Nukem Forever I believe will be in the same area, as in graphics quality. Cheats, however… I hope they’ll put Duke3D’s in it.

I have found however, actual gameplay of the game in Alpha. Was posted April 2nd of last year, though… but it’s the only “new” gameplay action.
Just click here and fast forward to 1:11 in the video. And as you can see in it, it uses almost the same weapons from Duke3D, and almost the same models. Still has the RPG, the Pistol, the shotgun, the Three-barreled machine gun, the pipebomb, and the dual rocket launchers. All having the iconic Atomic icon on them.

I just hope it comes equipped with an enhanced BUILD editor. I can’t wait to build my house again.