#old Minecraft terrain

[edwardos]

Snow hills in Minecraft Beta 1.7.

[minecraft-sideblog-tm]

I was out exploring a bit (finally found some Sniffer eggs!). Saw this in the distance and thought oh look there’s a little village over there

And, uh, well okay maybe not a little village. Or a very little village, depending on how you want to classify it lmao

[dravidious]

You're more amazing than tennis players

Hey look at this screenshot of my escape pod that landed in the ceiling

Ignore the hexagons that's just the aliens damaging my shields

[mcyt-hc-writing]

The Artificial Structures of Minecraft: An Attempted Chronology

Artificial structures in Minecraft range from the modern to the ancient. What structures are newer and which are older? It's hard to say. But here are my thoughts:

Modern - These structures are in use and new ones are likely being actively created

Villages: Actively inhabited by villagers

Woodland mansions: Actively inhabited by illagers

Pillager outposts: Actively inhabited by pillagers

Witch huts: Actively inhabited by witches

Igloos: No indication of owners, but the captive villager is still alive

Player-made structures: Self-explanatory

*Abandoned villages: Not actively in use, but new ones are likely being created

Recent - Not known to be in use, but have few signs of decay or geological changes

Abandoned villages: Explained above

Mineshafts: No signs of decay, despite wooden structures decaying easily

Desert wells: Cannot be proved to be in use, but have no signs of decay

Ocean monuments: No signs of decay, built after change in water levels (ref. ocean ruins)

End cities: No signs of decay, though in the end this may be hard to determine

*Shipwrecks: Some shipwrecks have few signs of decay or burial, indicating they are likely recent, especially given how fast wood can decay in water

*Ancient city illager structures: Structures in ancient cities made of dark oak wood and blue wool, appearing to be made by illagers. Illagers are active in the world, so it is likely that the structures are recent

Old - Structure shows signs of overgrowth or being partially buried, but no significant structural decay or changes in local geography

Jungle temples: Overgrown but structure and redstone intact

Desert pyramids: May be buried, and the secret room is entirely buried, but they are still near the surface and show little signs of decay

Dungeons/monster rooms: Cobblestone is overgrown bu structure is otherwise intact

*Shipwrecks: More decayed or buried shipwrecks likely belong in this category

Decayed - Structure has decayed or been damaged, but intact segments maintain integrity. Unclear if these are actually older than the previous category or if they were simply more prone to damage due to being larger

Strongholds: Have some cracked and overgrown bricks, and structures may have gaps. However, other than the gaps, rooms retain their shape and may even contain intact furnishings

Nether fortresses: Some bridges may be broken, but the rest of the structures have no obvious rubble or even cracks

Ancient - Structure is entirely decayed. Massive structural damage. Indications of geographic shifts since construction

Bastion remnants: Despite active habitation, they are in ruins. Some parts of the structures resemble natural caves more than artificial construction

Ruined portals: Wrecked and broken structures, often buried or flooded. Crying obsidian appears to be in an advanced stage of decay

Ancient cities: A majority of structures are in ruins. It is unclear if cities are supposed to be buried deep underground with little to no connection to the surface

Ocean ruins: In ruins. Some contain eggs of extinct animals. Evidently built before a sea level rise

Trail ruins: Likely the oldest artificial structures in the game. Almost entirely buried, with no structural integrity remaining

Conclusions:

Piglin civilization was ancient. Considering how ruined bastion remnants are, in comparison with nether fortresses, it seems unlikely that they competed with the fortress builders at the height of their civilization. It is likely that the fortress builders arrived in the nether only after the piglins had regressed to tribalism. If we assume Minecraft Legends to be canon, this likely means that fortresses (and strongholds, by extension) did not exist in the time period of Minecraft Legends

The advanced decay of ruined portals seems to indicate their extreme antiquity. Combined with their peculiar generation (generating nether terrain in the overworld, but not vice-versa) it seems likely that they are also from the Minecraft Legends time period - this makes a great deal of sense in my opinion, considering how they work in that game

Trail ruins indicate that villager civilization is likely just as old, if not older, than piglin civilization. This is consistent with Minecraft Legends, but the difference in architecture indicates that villagers may have been responsible for a lot of different kinds of structures

Nether fortresses and strongholds have similar levels of decay, indicating they may be from the same time period. This makes sense considering the ender eye crafting recipe

It is likely that the treasure maps in shipwrecks were obtained from ocean ruins

Igloos are likely owned by illagers

Abandoned mineshafts were likely made by villagers - badlands mineshafts may have been made by illagers, as they share their wood type with other illager structures

It is likely that the magic of totems of undying is related to the magic of golden apples. They have similar colours, illagers are the most likely to be responsible for igloos (where they experiment with golden apples and reversing death), they likely have mineshafts in badlands (where they find lots of gold), and they seem to have an interest in ancient cities (the best place in the game to find enchanted golden apples)

[ondeemand]

Transformers One Review

For the sake of convenience, I’ll be referring to the characters as their new names (Optimus Prime, Megatron, Bumblebee) instead of their old ones (Orion Pax, D-16, B-127).

Also, I didn’t grow up with Transformers, so this will be mostly from an outsider’s perspective. I can’t tell what possibly was or wasn’t a retcon or how accurate to the source material it was, but I think the background info on their world held up very well and they were able to explain it clearly to new viewers like me. It definitely would have hit harder if I grew up with Transformers and knew more than just facts from cultural osmosis, but I still enjoyed the movie a lot.

Notes/Things I’m Neutral On

Very weird to hear my name (Dee) being said throughout most of the movie by Chris Hemsworth’s bad American accent.

Also, I forgot that Megatron has transformed into ground vehicles before. I only ever knew him to turn into a jet, so I was kind of confused that he was a tank in this movie. I hope we get to see him get upgraded to a jet in the next one, but the tank is still cool.

Pros/Things I Liked

Simple but effective color theory with their eye colors. Main good guys have blue while Megatron has yellow, sitting between good and bad. Still a friendly color at first, but slowly turns closer to orange and then fully red as his anger and hatred consume him (and after he met the red-eyed Starscream, a cowardly man who ends up enabling Megatron‘s more violent/aggressive tendencies)

○ Also I don’t know if I was just seeing things, but it looked like Megatron’s eyes got more yellow whenever he looked at Optimus which is so sad and so gay.

I really thought they were gonna push a romance between Elita and either Bumblebee (goofy manchild x competent woman trope) or Optimus (male lead x female lead, blue x pink), but I was pleasantly surprised that they didn’t. Sadly, there’s still time for it in future installments, but I can dream.

Not to be gay, but spider woman sexy. Airachnid was so obviously evil that it was funny, but I can’t fault Sentinel for having her around because I, too, would want a deadly goth woman to be my right-hand lady. They felt like the evil, less developed versions of Mustang and Hawkeye. I am in love.

The animation is gorgeousssss. The environments, the character designs, the fight choreography, the transformations, the lighting, the texture, mwah mwah MWAH STUNNING!!!

○ Sorry, I’m never gonna stop talking about this. The way they were able to make square/blocky figures move so fluidly was fantastic (and proof of concept that a fully animated Minecraft movie would have worked). ○ The camera angles were also great for framing both the dramatic, intense, and/or high-action moments like fights or chase scenes, while also adding a lot to the comedic moments. Like when the camera stays tracking Optimus’ face when running through the forest, only for him to suddenly fall down a cliff neither he nor us saw coming, only to then zoom out to the perspective of the guards below, showing them stumbling and falling. ○ The contrast between the mechanical and organic elements on the surface were really cool, and the way it was introduced was able to convey this idea that organic life was this strange, alien thing. ○ The way the surface just rebuilds itself into these jagged, blocky terrains was really unique and interesting! It felt like a glitched computer model because of its rougher shapes which really added to the fear and hostility of the surface.

90% of their jokes landed and they landed hard. The bit where Optimus looks like he’s about to transform and then just fucking books it is incredible. The audio and camera work help add to these as well, like the music building as Optimus pretends to transform, the camera zooming in close to different parts of him, only for all background noise to cut out as it shows Optimus running away. I won’t name every joke and quip I found funny or we’d be here all day, but they’re certainly a highlight of the movie.

I love Keegan-Michael Key, but I wasn’t a fan of him as the comic relief character of Toad in the Mario movie. When Bumblebee showed up I got a little nervous, but I really loved his performance of the character.

I really liked the midpoint pep talk about hope. That’s a really nice reason that Optimus is the leader despite not being as skilled as other people. He has the hope for a better future and it was a core part of his character from the beginning, and I really like the idea that a leader is someone who can envision a brighter future no matter what.

Alpha Trion transforming was SICK AS FUCK!!! I love that he was more animalistic when the rest of the cast become vehicles. His final fight was so cool, and it actually made me kind of emotional to see him at the end with the rest of the Prime ghosts.

The stabbings? The beheadings?? The branding??? The way Megatron tore Sentinel in half and then ripped his heart out on-screen holy shit???? This movie was incredibly brutal and I loved it. It’s such an interesting phenomenon that children’s media is allowed to be about as graphic as they want as long as it’s against robots, even incredibly sentient ones like in the Transformers series.

○ I watched the 1986 Transformers movie for a class earlier this year, and while it also had a lot of brutality in it’s fights, the new movie felt more intense. Part of this could be attributed to me watching the 2024 movie on a big screen vs the 1986 movie in my living room, but there are other reasons as well. The 1986 movie had more upbeat songs playing over the fights, specifically songs like The Touch and Dare, which helped keep the tone lighter and more exciting. The 2024 movie didn’t have anything like that, allowing the action, while still cool and exciting, to take on a more serious tone. This is also emphasized by the graphics of the movie being 3D instead of 2D. While the 2D 1986 movie is a stunning masterpiece, people still view it with the idea in mind that, since it’s a cartoon, the stakes and story will be less intense. The 2024 movie being 3D with very detailed graphics and lighting already has more visual intensity. The characters are still these bright, poppy colors, but they can come across more moody and dark due to the environments, lighting, and textures that the 3D medium more easily allows. And while the painted backgrounds and cell shading of the old movie are great, the CGI backgrounds are a lot closer to realism, so the harsher elements like metal and rock, which make up a vast majority of the environment and characters, look real too.

The way Megatron’s hate consumed him to the point where he started acting more villainous and, while not entirely similar to Sentinel, still ended up hurting innocent people was tragic. Trying to push away and deny everything about a person only to wind up being just like them. This was perfectly shown in the end credit scene where Megatron is branding himself and the new Decepticons with Megatronus Prime’s face. To him, it may be him reclaiming the traumatic experience and literally using it like a badge of honor, as well as thinking he’s honoring Megatronus Prime. But in reality, he’s just inflicting the same trauma done to him onto others, just like Sentinel. Such a cool way to show how every villain is the hero of their own story.

The doomed yaoiiiiii I’m never gonna get over them. The only other Transformers media I’ve consumed is the 1986 movie, which kills off Optimus Prime in the first 25 minutes and Megatron becomes Galvatron, so I never knew the depths of their homoerotic relationship.

I’m a sucker for “the hero and villain used the be friends (and maybe even lovers?)” trope, so Optimus and Megatron’s relationship and the general premise of the movie was already a slam dunk for me.

I’m also a fan of legacy stories like Avatar and She-Ra. While this movie didn’t get as in-depth with the concept, I enjoyed that they played with the idea of legacy and taking up the mantle of the former Primes.

I absolutely loved the end message that Optimus gives us. Hope, freedom, and autonomy are incredibly important things to learn, and as a trans person who very much wants to keep control over what I do with my body, I really resonated with that last one. I think it’s really cool that they included a message like that in this children’s movie about robots that turn into cars.

Regarding the message of autonomy, I love that it gives the term Autobots a new meaning. Auto meaning “automobile”, since they transform into cars, and Auto meaning “self”, as they are now fully their own bots with control over themselves.

Cons/Things I Disliked

Mid vocal performances from everyone except Brian Tyree Henry and Keegan-Michael Key. And as I mentioned before, it was hard not to focus on Chris’ attempts at an American accent, not to mention how recognizable his, as well as Scarlett Johansson’s, voices are.

The plot felt a little disjointed in the first 1/3-ish.

○ Good setup with the main characters being an oppressed working class with one dreaming of better things and the other hesitant to fall out of line or take risks. But then suddenly there’s a race, and then they’re in it, and then they lose, and then their leader wants to promote them. At first it feels like there are hints that he’s a scummy celebrity-type and that meeting their hero is what will spur on the disillusionment with their society. But then some random douchebag that doesn’t like them reassigns them which goes against their leader’s command, and that’s how the plot kicks off? ○ Also, Elita’s involvement felt kind of rushed/hand-waved. They all get stuck on the surface, but instead of trying to make her way back to report them like she was saying she would for the past few minutes, she makes a complete 180 and heads the expedition herself. ○ It all just felt a little strange, but once it got going the rest of the plot felt fine.

Megatron’s descent into “evil” felt kind of rushed. I understand that he feels betrayed and I really love where the character ends up by the end, but it felt like a real 180 without a lot of build up.

Some jokes fell flat or felt annoying and kinda cringe. That’s the territory of children’s movies though, so par for the course.

TLDR

Overall, this movie was a really fun watch and I’d love to go see it again. While some parts fall a little flat, the movie is lifted from mediocrity by its many Pros. From the stunning visuals, to the quick humor, to the tragic origins of two friends driven apart by their ideals, I’d recommend this movie to anyone interested in animation or the Transformers brand.

8.82/10

[oqmemphis]

i MUST hear more about this very normal and completely functional minecraft server. please spill more details

Before the last world reset, there was a region a few hundred blocks across which was permanently lit as though it were noon 24 hours a day, because one of the admins replaced every air block with an invisible level 15 light block. Directly next to this was a former ocean that got turned into a vast plain of packed ice stretching in every direction; you could stand in the middle of it and it would be indistinguishable from superflat.

On that old world, the market next to spawn had about a 50% chance of completely locking up my game any time I went there, and the only way to fix it was to go into Task Manager and force-crash Minecraft. Nobody else ever had this issue, and to this day I do not know what caused it.

There was an entirely separate world containing a single castle, which you could only get to if the owner of the castle teleported you in there. The castle was supposed to be surrounded by an inescapable dome of barrier blocks, but I managed to get out and explore the rest of the world. At 0,0 there was a village that had generated in a massive pit, a hundred blocks across and stretching nearly to bedrock. Immediately next to this pit was a frozen river bearing the shatter pattern of some kind of large explosion, set off by forces unknown.

Someone built an outpost one million blocks away from spawn. Those chunks got culled at some point, and when the player who built it went back there they found a completely different landscape generated in its place. There was never an update that changed terrain generation during that world's run.

Recently, the functionality of rails got completely inverted. Unpowered rails would accelerate a minecart, while powered ones would stop it in its tracks. This, at least, was just an issue with one plugin being configured wrong. Sometimes there are issues where multiple plugins exist alongside each other fight for dominance.

We have one plugin that allows some players to fly and resist all fall damage without elytra or equipment, and another plugin that (until recently) was configured to block the first plugin from functioning whenever you were in another player's land claim. This led to situations where you could fly into an invisible claim region and instantly drop out of the sky and die. I have died seven times on this world, and all of them were because of this.

There is an obsidian sphere about a hundred blocks across, mostly submerged in the ocean; elsewhere, there is an island of comparable size which is covered entirely in basalt; and elsewhere still, there is a region of forest that has been fully replaced with sculk. I know this because I am currently making a map of the server covering around 12000x12000 blocks, and all those places just show up as mysterious, cursed splotches of black.

There is a lot of lore and roleplaying. The Queen is both fae and vampiric; my queries as to how precisely a diet of blood is reconciled with an iron allergy have gone largely unanswered. She has also canonically destroyed and remade the entire world on two separate occasions. The server has only undergone one world reset.

Immediately before said reset, I wrote a 70-page book filled with footnote labyrinths, in which my character briefly goes on an anti-capitalist rant before discussing the architectural styling of his home and the impending obliteration thereof. It serves as a spiritual sequel to a 100-page book which is ostensibly a user manual for installing an item sorter, but which also contains the lyrics to Mr Blue Sky and mentions something called the "City of Ouranos Department for Bibliographical Metaphysics and Chilled Legumes" (which is a reference to a different server I used to play on, in which a "Cool Bean War" was instigated with the help of a book that would crash your game if you tried to read past the first page).

The item sorter that the aforementioned user manual is for is a colossal assemblage of redstone components that click and flash for several minutes every time you put anything into it. I never actually built this on the server, because I ended up making a much simpler design using a custom plugin called SlimeFun (which tries to emulate the functionality of a tech mod without actually being one). This plugin's cargo management system does not contain a priority allocation mechanism, so I ended up implementing one by forcing the lower-priority route through a very long cargo pipe that eventually loops back on itself and ends at an overflow chest a few blocks from the starting point, thereby tricking SlimeFun's pathfinding algorithm into only sending items through it if every other option has been exhausted.

A reincarnation of Herb the Herbalist, the bizarre glitchy NPC entity that @the-unseelie-court-official has discussed at length, now resides in a hole directly under world spawn, repeating the same six lines of dialogue on a loop for all eternity:

I once was free, you know? There was a time when the Queen almost came toppling around me. Like a puppet with no strings I could not move nor speak, but I was free. It was stripped from me. Even now I dance her tune, only speaking of this past because she lets me. I crave nothing more than death. Please, unjust unmerciful God who would leave me to survive.

So, y'know, they're doing fine.

[zombiepatch]

feeling very emotional about old minecraft and how creepy it was. like i laugh at my kid self for getting scared while playing minecraft but actually looking back at the versions i was playing on (in 2010-2011) like... no yeah, that shit got genuinely really scary at times. so lonely and empty.

i think about the world my dad made back in the day, aka the first time i saw the game, and he'd made really long tunnels because he didn't want to encounter mobs at night (no beds) and DUDE... at the time it wasn't creepy bc i was amazed by the wonders of minecraft, but now? i dunno. kinda makes my skin crawl. an old world with that classic old terrain generation and fog, with a complex system of hallways above-ground spanning a large portion of the map, the Only intelligent structure in the whole world, created out of fear due to an inability to sleep the nights away... man. fucked up.

[alt-wannabe]

MCSR D&D

silver r(ogue) runs

silver r(anger) runs

Soulknife Rogue 10 / Fey Wanderer Ranger 5

we're back! ik this one took a little longer compared to the last few i've just been real busy with lab stuff! planning on having reign's sheet made next :3

I went for rogue for the general unbothered energy they tend to have, which silverr seems to have in spades. Rogues also have extremely high dex which we determined was gonna be silverr's highest ability score. I picked up ranger because the adept terrain knowledge is something that's really fitting for a speedrunner. I picked half elf for the race because they get a boost to charisma and that was voted as silverr's second highest ability score (note the charisma score of 18 that has exactly zero benefit to either of his classes lmao)

Ranger spell choices are extremely minimal so this is what we ended up with. Cure Wounds and Hunter's Mark for general playability, Longstrider for the SPEEDrunning joke, Locate Animals or Plants as a dupe for finding spawners.

Equipment time! Some smaller items of note include 20 obsidian (in 2 stacks of ten because dndbeyond is weird), navigator's tools for routing, pearls, a potion of healing, a fire resistance potion, and a pearl of power. To be fully honest Gray Bag of Tricks is entirely a joke based on gray=silver. The Eyes of Minute Seeing basically make you see better and give advantage on intelligence checks within an area around you and that was fitting to me bc silverr is pretty damn observant. The Ivory Goats were a pick entirely based on his old MC skin with the horns. Then I hope the Boots of Speed, Dragon Scale Armor, and Dragon Slayer Sword are fairly obvious connections.

Class featuresssss. Favored enemy was humans because that's just straight up other players and the dragonborns as a joke about the ender dragon. Speaking of the end, I chose Underdark for favored terrain as sort of a dupe for the End. Then two weapon fighting is the style I chose basically entirely thinking about the off-hand mechanic in minecraft.

This is a fun feature of the Fey Wanderer subclass that would legitimately give him horns in game.

Primeval Awareness is another D&D dupe for finding spawners or the stronghold in my eyes. A huge part of why I chose the Fey Wanderer subclass is because of the Otherworldly Glamour giving a huge boost to charisma checks. The common consensus of a lot of people is that silverr would have a really high charisma stat FULLY without realizing or having it be intentional and I figured that having him fey adjacent would be a realistic way of implementing that.

Finally here are his feats! Both of these picks were motivated by getting a plus one in the strength and charisma ability scores respectively. Slasher fits both because silverr is a strong pvper and because the soul blades from his rogue subclass can deal slashing damage. Shadow Touched seemed really helpful for a rogue with the invisibility spell, and also gave me access to False Life which kinda makes me think of the extra hearts given by a golden apple (and also silverr NEEDS those extra hit points he has a very low constitution score).

Again I hope y'all are liking these! Reign should be coming next but it may take me a little while to figure out what his deal is lol.

[hydrachop]

im not the type of minecraft player to be like "ohhh i miss the old minecraft" or "i miss this i miss that new minecraft bad" but you know what i do fucking miss? old world customization settings. do you remember when you could control the types of ores and how often they generated. how you could mess with terrain generation and get some shit weirder than amplified. you could pick what biomes you wanted instead of just one. where did that go. why did they remove that.

[tiredfoxtf]

No, Minecraft haven't gotten "worse" over the years. No, new updates haven't "killed" Minecraft. No, Minecraft itself didn't become "boring".

If it was a case, everyone would be still playing on idk a 1.12.2. But no one does that. With every update it gets more painful to play on old versions. I could never reverse to playing without gorgeous mangrove wood, new beautiful terrain and ever useful elytra. And I am not alone. There's a reason people play on newer versions of the game, why modders continue to update their mods newer versions. There's a reason why people are excited for Trial Chambers and new wolves variants. Minecraft only gotten more fun.

I'm sorry to be the one who breaks it to you, but if you think Minecraft is boring now it's one of the two: 1) You're playing Minecraft wrong or 2) Minecraft is not a game for you.

1.You're playing Minecraft wrong. Which is, admittedly, a pretty hard thing to do in my opinion. Minecraft is a game about getting resources and using them to create your own world. It's a sandbox of which you are the sole player (or not, if you are in multiplayer), where you challenge yourself on what next amazing thing you can create. You can be a builder, making castles and spaceships, you can be a redstoner be it a practical redstone or logic redstone, you can be a modder making your own little elements, adding them to the game in a way you would like (a bit of a more advanced hobby than the others). You can join public servers to play entirely vanilla mini-games. Become a parkour master or pvper on the different public servers. Call your friends and make a private multiplayer world, where you race each other in resources or work together to create something, prank each other, build elaborate traps, escape rooms anything and everything.

The goal of the game is NOT to kill the Ender Dragon. The goal of the game is NOT to get maxed out netherite gear. The goal of the game is NOT to get every achievement even, but achievement hunting CAN be a fun game to play with your friends. Or speedrun all of the achievements/to kill end dragon, trying to optimize your skills.

Otherwise killing the ender dragon, getting a full gear and equipment are just part of the experience. Just like fishing, mining, getting wood. Minecraft is Not an rpg, where you go on quests to finish a main plotline, where you level up and monsters get harder, no. All hard content is Optional. That's the point. Not to say irrelevant when we talk minigames servers. Minecraft is a sandbox, survival is just one of the gamemodes.

2.Minecraft is not a game for you.

And that's OK! Although Minecraft is a beautiful game, it may not be for you. The games that are for everyone, are for no one. Not all games born equal in the eyes of a player. You probably like other games! Like Terraria or Starbound, maybe you enjoy Zelda games, maybe you are a Genshin player. They are very different games, if you bored playing Minecraft, it's time close it and to play something you enjoy.

[elyanics]

(Image Description: a digital illustration of a minecraft landscape. The surface is mostly flat except for a large hourglass-shaped mountain in with an oak tree on it in the middle of the image and a small, simple house to its right. Underneath the surface is a few small cave openings and a massive lush cave system. Below that it transitions into deepslate, with a medium cave opening filled with sculk blocks on the left. In the sky you can see both the moon and the sun, but the sky is coloured for day time. End of image description)

Happy birthday Minecraft (I'm a few days late but shhhhh its the thought that counts)!! Decided to try smth new with this, it doesn't look 100% like what I was trying to do, and I would've liked a bit more of an obvious timeline from the old version to the new, but I'm very happy with it regardless.

(For those curious, I created a reference by WorldEdit-ing the terrain from a world made in an old version (I can't remember if I used release 1.6 or beta 1.6 lmao) onto some 1.20 cave systems.)

[edwardos]

Minecraft Infdev

[demonfox38]

Completed (Early Access Content) - Palworld

Look, man. I know I can't call this an official completion, given that the game is still in early access. But I trashed all available bosses and 10/10'ed each of those little Pal bastards, so that has to be indicative of some level of mastery, right?

Or maybe I've got to explain why I disappeared down this hole for the last few months.

I'm not what you'd call a cutting-edge kind of person when it comes to technology. Considering that most of my game consoles are old enough to purchase cigarettes and alcohol, it's safe to say I'm fairly retro. A throwback. Happiest with something made between 1986 and 2005 (or, at the very least, looks and acts like that.) Getting in on an early access for a game is not my thing at all.

So, "Palworld" is a bit of an anomaly. Maybe, in many ways.

"Palworld" is a hybrid crafting, survival, base management, third person shooter, and creature catching game. It stars your customizable character de jour who is forced to survive on an isolated island full of inhospitable terrain, monsters of various levels of aggression, and asshole humans. What's the secret behind the looming towers and massive Yggdrasil-like tree glowing in the distance? I don't know. The tree part of the content isn't out, yet. But, you can at least explore the island and wail on the asses of those that dare to conquer it for their own varied ends. That's at least 100 hours of content right there!

Since its early access release in January of 2024, "Palworld" has garnered a fair amount of attention. Good. Bad. All over the place. Definitely a case of the old phrase "all publicity is good publicity." While not the first in terms of creation when it comes to edgy monster collecting games (with "Megami Tensei" loudly coughing in some dusty old corner), it is unique in its game style mix. Perhaps not visually unique enough, given how certain "Pokémon" fans were sharpening their Honedges after the very first glance they took at this game. Its publisher having a previous game that openly used AI art generation didn't help its credibility, either! (Although, that game also is about rewarding players for detecting art made by an AI opponent a la an elementary-school art class "Among Us", so judge accordingly.)

I get it. I've got some degree of Nintendo brain rot, too. Did you check my avatar and username? But, I also know that Nintendo can and will obliterate anything in its path with Death Star-adjacent precision and power, especially when it comes to any potential IP infringement. Hell, they crumpled two emulators into a black hole mere weeks after this game's early access released. If they had any notion that something was off with this game, they'd have it annihilated—for better or worse.

Like most modern games, my attention was drawn to this title via watching several streamers play. (In particular, PatStaresAt, WoolieVersus, and Vinesauce, if you're wanting names.) Now, I'd like to be coy and pretend that online videos don't influence my interest in games, but I also own a copy of the SNES game "Lagoon" because I loved watching PJDiCesare clown on it. Hell, I only backed "Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night" after watching Liam Allen-Miller replicate "Castlevania"-Metroidvania physics in a YouTube preview! I see a video, my brain makes judgements, I variably engage in commerce. And, to be honest, I like games like this. "Breath of the Wild." "Pokémon Legends: Arceus." "Minecraft." I wanted a game like this, so hell. I was willing to gamble $30.00 USD on this, bugs and unfinished status and all.

I think I may have gotten my money's worth out of this.

Was the game play that addicting, or was I in a depression spiral triggered by bad working conditions at my job and my maternal grandmother's health issues precipitating more labor on my family's behalf? Yes. To which part of that question? Yes. While the game attempts to guide the player via an early game tutorial and tasks for building up your bases, you're mostly left on your own to build both the world and yourself in whatever image you'd like. Want to build a Babylonian tower to offend whatever god created this world? Okay. Want to drop everything on the floor like an agitated toddler and/or "Resident Evil 0" protagonist? Whatever makes you happy! Want to build a rocket launcher and shoot it at a dragon's face? That can be done! It just might take some time.

Because the game consists of different play styles, I found myself alternating often between game loop sets. Usually, it broke into a stack of tasks like this:

Determine nearest threat (monster fighting.)

Gather materials (crafting.)

Return to/establish a base (base management.)

Build what I can (crafting/base management.)

Loop steps 2-4 until items of desire were created (crafting/base management.)

Gather/raise Pals to attack nearest threat (monster fighting.)

Return to Step 2 for final repairs and/or weapon creation (crafting.)

Attack threat (monster fighting.)

Reset to step 2 on failure and step 1 on success.

While catching and raising monsters tends to garner you the most experience points, your character will more or less remain just a nuisance to a bulk of the major threats in the game. At best, you've got a rocket launcher, an automatic rifle, a sword, and shot-deflecting shields and armor. You put out maybe around 600 damage with a weapon that takes a second to reload. The bosses you fight? They can have anywhere from 30,000 to 200,000 HP. When it comes to survival, it isn't about how much damage you can take or give. It's about what you learn and how you deploy your so-called Pals.

If you are planning on taking a shot every time I write the word "Pokémon" in this review, you might want to switch off the liquor now and move to a soda. Do your liver a favor.

A lot of the game's rules can be reduced to "Pokémon - 1" or "Pokémon / 2". This includes:

How many monsters you can take with you (5 instead of 6)

How many moves they have (3 instead of 4)

Your level cap (50 vs. 100, but that may just be an early access limitation)

How many elements are in game (9 vs. 18. Also, don't expect much in the way of complex monster typing line-ups. You may end up overthinking fights.)

Having said that, the complexity here isn't lost. You're obviously doing a lot more home ec to keep your bases up to snuff. Where "Palworld" really succeeds is in its battle speed, scale, and options. Pals will automatically engage based on whatever aggression level you have them set at, performing moves without your instruction. Several different monster types and human factions can be thrust together to duke it out. It can get quick and chaotic, often forcing you to get your ass out of the line of fire. When you do want to get manual? Well, hell. Some Pals can be a ridable mount, and some can act as living artillery for your use. Is it responsible to give a giant panda a grenade launcher? Well, who's gonna stop you? The cops?

Also, it's awesome that you can teach Pals whatever moves exist via fruits. It's nice not to have to look up some table online for move compatibility. (A shame that the same can't be said about its breeding, but more on that in a bit.)

"Palworld" certainly has a different take on its so-called Pals, especially in compared to "Pokémon" titles. Don't expect the first monster you pick up to go on and become some powerhouse fueled by respect and love for you as a caretaker. There are Pals that are great, and there are Pals that suck. (The game is more than happy to tell you which is which in its Paldeck.) You're rewarded for getting at least 10 of them, but you won't have the space to keep 10 of every species. You can slaughter Pals for parts or mush a bunch of them together a la "Shin Megami Tensei" to make the surviving unit stronger. Basically, you're expected to keep updating and consolidating your inventory of friends so that you can cut down on your work loop time and challenge the other assholes vying for territory on Palpagos Island. (Seriously—that is its name!) You're not really supposed to be getting attached to any of them.

And yet…well, the nature of a person eventually reveals itself, doesn't it?

While the game allows you to take many unscrupulous actions, you're rarely rewarded for acting like an inflamed, gaping asshole. Yeah, you can slaughter your Pals, but you're losing out on making others stronger if you do that. You can capture other humans like you would a Pal, but they won't provide much in the way of help on your bases or in battle. (Apparently, you can sell them off, too? Fucked up all around.) Hell, you can even kill NPCs and end up having to bolt off like a "Grand Theft Auto" protagonist when the cops show up to bust your ass! About the only defiance I got away with routinely was ransacking Wildlife Sanctuaries, and even that required me to sneak around at night and keep a low profile.

There is a bit of a conflict going on between the game's tone and appearance. It very much wants to be the edgy "Pokémon" game any average teenager would dream up (again, with certain Atlus RPGs coughing and wheezing for attention in the background.) Supplementary journals and Paldeck texts describe a world full of violence, blood, animal trafficking, suffering, death, and birds with cocaine addictions. (I'm not kidding—it's literally the bastard cop's monster of choice.) But, the monsters look like an average social media artist's attempts at combining Pokémon species together, and the humans all have some degree of generic anime cuteness to them. It's hard to take the leader of a bunch of martyrous pyromaniacs seriously when he looks like the protagonist to some Sega Dreamcast rhythm game. (Also, why he has an electric/dragon type as his Pal of choice when he leads a bunch of fire freaks is beyond me.) 

At this point, I wouldn't say the music is much to write home about, either. It tries to kick up for encounters, letting you know how much danger you are in (from piddly little twinkling music for typical cannon fodder to bombastic choral arrangements for tough sons of bitches.) A lot of times, it can be rather quiet. This didn't bother me with "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild," but it does bother me here, especially when I have to take 15-20 minutes to work in my base. I think what the game needs is something like "Minecraft"'s Mice on Venus track. Just a few pieces of music to interrupt the quiet when it's gone on for five or ten minutes.

I'm also not super thrilled with the breeding system in "Palworld." With "Pokémon" games, you generally know what you're getting based on who the mother in the coupling is. (Well, barring the use of specialty items, I suppose. Speaking of things that annoy me…) Here? About the only guarantee you get is if both parents are of the same species. The resulting couplings for other species isn't random, but it is a weird mess. Generally, you can assume the resulting offspring to be of a poorer quality than at least one of the parents, if species of different rarity are mixed. Through on top of that several structural, item, and time-based requirements, and you've got a very expensive and irritating system to work around. Honestly, this was the thing that finally broke me into looking up help guides online. It's just that off-putting.

If you are looking for a breeding calculator: palword.gg has you covered. Mostly. I think I did run into some issues there as well, but I don't know if I read something wrong or was just stupid tired when I set something up.

"How about bugs?", you might be asking.

"There's no Bug type in this game," I would reply.

Maybe you'd start hitting me with a shoe after that.

But, in terms of glitches I encountered? I played from versions 0.1.3.0 to 0.1.5.0, so I saw my fair share of issues that came and went. The biggest problem as of 0.1.5.0 involves terrain clipping and occasionally being shoved beneath the map. (Big Pal bodies + me going all Goemon Ishikawa XIII on them resulted in some unfortunate subterranean exploration.) Generally, I got myself back into the map without too much struggle, but there were times where I did have to respawn myself. I also lost several boss captures to a combination of freezing status + a rocket launcher round blasting them into the horizons beyond, so that was unfortunate. There was also a bug where you could get the game's dungeons to respawn bosses to another Pal type if you didn't like what you got, but I started having issues with the dungeon's barriers failing to drop on the boss's death when I screwed around with that, so maybe just stick with what you get. I also had the occasional text goof-up where my instructions would be in Japanese instead of English. Given the Goemon commentary above, you may surmise that this was not a huge deal for me. Still goofy, though.

If you'd like, the game offers you quite the list of customizable settings to alter your experience. I'd highly recommend playing around with them, particularly when you are vulnerable to taking a one-way trip to the Backrooms via a bad clip. It's one thing to lose your inventory to a fight you lost; it's another to lose your inventory to an issue with collision detection. Do yourself a favor and remove that penalty. I also eventually grew tired of the exponential experience curve and jacked up the multipliers for experience as high as they could go. I put several hundred hours into this game, man. And that was on top of working in a half-staffed job while babysitting my mom's dog for weeks while she got my grandma into an assistant living facility. All of these bitches needed a break.

Also—for the love of your hands, please flip the "Hold to Toggle Interaction" setting to On in your control style of choice. You can recap a shredded controller stick, but you can't recap your fingertips.

While I spent a lot of time on this game, I also spent a lot of time on this game with good reason. Even in its unfinished state, I had a good time. In the midst of building up my first character—a punished tribute to an Abrahamic icon forced to repeat his edict from God once more—I kept thinking about making the next character. Doing it all over again. Honeymooning it. There is a risk that this game doesn't get any further than where it's at now, but I can't say that where it's at is a bad place.

So, you can't get to a giant, sparkly tree. Boo hoo. There's a lot of other good stuff to see. Maybe even conquer, if you're up to it.

[moths-in-a-coat]

i could be held at gunpoint and i still wouldn’t watch the minecraft movie

i feel like it could be done well if it was exploring the melancholy and loneliness of single player. like you are the lone player in an empty, seemingly endless world. there’s remnants of past civilizations that clearly held a level of intelligence like you. and there’s rotting corpses and animated skeletons roaming the night and places where light does not touch that look eerily similar to you.

there’s only one species in this world that almost, just almost bears resemblance to you. that have some level of intelligence and building capabilities, but you can’t understand them outside of their way of trading and buying and selling. is that enough? is connection through money enough? it has to be in this empty world filled with ruin

playing minecraft feels like waking up one day to find your family gone. their dishes from breakfast lay in the sink, their beds lay unmade, but you can’t find them. and one day goes past. and another. and another. until they start to blur together. and you still don’t know where they are. do you even remember the sound of their voices clearly? do you even remember their faces outside of when you look in the mirror?

there’s a wonder to minecraft too. a child-like sense of curiosity in being able to explore vast terrains and biomes and even other dimensions left untouched and unexplored for many, many years. and you may even find a wayward mineshaft or temple buried and lost to time—much like looking in the attic or basement and finding old pictures and relics of a childhood long past while looking for your family or trying to past time waiting in that empty, empty house. you are following the footsteps of people long gone, and it is through this, that you find and maintain your only connection to them, to anything like yourself

and yet at the end of the day, when you look at all you’ve accomplished: builds that span the horizon, animals found and tamed for companionship, years and years of hard work, there’s a sense of accomplishment in the silent world

it is through the player that life is given back into the world. in the emptiness and loneliness left in the wake of the absence of your people, you become the master of your world. you make it uniquely yours and, in turn, the universe sees your loneliness, sees your accomplishments, sees you and loves you so much more for it

[winnybinng]

hello, thank you for clicking!!!

me and my friend are currently looking for people who're interested in helping build our server!

this is a discord based warrior cats roleplay.

what're the benefits of helping?

you'd recieve:

obviously, the moderator role.

an extra cat slot (max for other people is 3)

ability to preclaim high-ranks such as lead, deputy, and medicine cat (other members are able to as well. please be mindful...)

ability to help add onto the plot

ability to host events (such as games; roblox, minecraft, etc...)

this may be added onto !

what's it about?

the roleplay is called the scattered salvation, and is based on two clans and a rogue group; frostclan, marshclan, and the thorned ones.

frostclan resides in the snowy mountains, as marshclan lives in the deep, muddy terrain. the thorned ones are a group of rogues that once resided

in the clan 'vineclan'. vineclan was once a thriving clan that lived in the jungle. their leader, lionstar, was wise and soft-spoken, often referred to as

one of the most influential leaders ever known. this was until lionstar mysteriously passed away due to an unforeseen illness, and a sleek, black cat with a gruesome scar appeared;

mortis.

formally referred to as 'raven'throat,' mortis had turned away from his clan name claiming that 'the dark forest had told him so,' and that 'the clans prevent free will, leaders just

want to control you.' hearing this, mortis had spread this to the other clan members, causing confusion and rage. so when lionstar had died, many cats were enthusiastic,

ecstatic of their freedom. while the other cats were distraught, believing those cats were responsible for their leaders death. this caused a war inside the clan, resulting in no cat except for

a few to survive. they were not mortis' followers, as they didn't want to be referred to as that. they were referred to as his supporters.

after the genocide of vineclan, these cats continued to go to other clans, spreading their misinformation and destruction while gaining more supporters.

these cats are relentless, cold-blooded murders who're now knocking on frostclans and marshclans doors.

there is a lot more lore that'll be fully posted on the discord server.

im interested! how do i apply?

simple!

just comment your application or send it to me!

be aware that this is a 16+ roleplay.

what is your discord username?

how old are you (age/age-range)?

why're you interested?

have you moderated in any servers before? if so, how many?

how active are you (1-10)?

please explain in a few sentences as to why i should choose you as a moderator.

please send a 1+ paragraph writing example .

these are open until we receive 5 moderators.

thank you!

[deathenfield]

I feel like something has been lost with Minecraft over the years and I do not know if it's the nostalgia talking. I don't mean any gameplay features or anything, there was a vibe about that I felt was lost by the time they started adding more and more content to the game.

Before villagers and endermen and hunger bars, back when Minecraft was still in beta, there was this loneliness out there you couldn't articulate, but expressed itself in many ways. You were alone, this meant the entire world was in your hands to create. You were alone, and outside of zombies and pigs there was no sapient being other than you, building only for yourself. You were alone, and while you're building your fort, the music chimes in - not exciting or motivating, but calm, almost sad - as if emphasizing and recognizing your solitude. You were alone, but you swear there's something peeking at you from the edge of the fog, making you unsure if you were really alone. You were alone, you were home, but at the same time it feels like whatever was your home is lost and you have to start anew.

It was calming, saddening, scary at times. I've seen people say that old Minecraft has a liminal aspect to it. The old chunky lighting, the dark winding gray tunnels that generated odd noises at rare moments, the low render distance fog that envelops everything in a blue haze. But it was also the old terrain generation that created weird spikes and cliffs and grottos and floating islands amidst of the smooth landscape. The random quirks that made you question if something other than you was in the game. The vibe was almost fantastical even though on it's surface everything was so simple. Is it any wonder that people saw fantasy elements in that game, or urban legends like Herobrine?

But now there's hunger and experience points, villagers and pillagers, endermen and piglins, ancient temples underground and underwater, bastions and mansions and end cities. There's traders and llamas, polar bears and axolotls, telescopes and archeology. Overpowered enchantments and farms for everything. A billion different blocks and building techniques. Final bosses and hidden lore. 50 different types of biomes and terrain generation that tries more and more to emulate reality. The calm, Ghibli-esque serenity of old Minecraft has faded and has been replaced with endless content.

I'll admit this is an "old man yelling at clouds" moment for me, I recognize that the liminal, fantastic elements of old Minecraft mainly come from nostalgia. However, it's so difficult to get into the current version of Minecraft for me. There's too much to do, too much set out for you, yet somehow none of it feels exciting. What was once a homestead turned into an endless sprawling landscape of two billion features that don't really seem to enhance anything about the game. It's like coming back to your childhood house and seeing it turned into mansion. It's bigger and better in every way but the core of what made it feel like home was destroyed in the process.

I might just be talking out my ass, but Minecraft just doesn't feel the same anymore, it hasn't for a long time. There's a community of people who play Beta 1.7.3 and yeah, they get what I mean. That's when the vibe was the strongest. That's when it felt most like Minecraft to me.