How to Be a Nethernaut in Minecraft's Hardcore Mode

[Thunderous Cacophony]

Those are some neat ideas. I prefer to play my own mode, which was just-now titled Conservationist.

Basically, you play a Navigator session, but you can't kill. Not animals (unless you breed them, but you have to leave some in the wild), not mobs, not nothing. Instead, you have to create wildlife preserves for the creatures to live in peace. It's a fun challenge to get a conga-line of Creepers chasing you, luring them into a habitat you've constructed and hoping you can seal the door and escape up a ladder before they blow it to pieces.

Eventually, once everything's mapped out, I take it upon myself to create full enclosures with toys, running water and viewing platforms for my imaginary guests.

 

[Olas]

I still haven't played minecraft, mostly because in the realm of time wasters it seemed to most time wastiest. The idea of making a giant mario gives me nothing. But this idea of a hardcore mode intrigues me.

I mean what's fun without a fail state?

Minecraft has the biggest fail state of any game I've ever played. Most games you fall into lava you just die and get resurrected back outside the lava. In minecraft you fall into lava and you lose you diamond axe, armor, and everything else in your pockets. Then you cry in a corner for 30 minutes murmuring to yourself about how unfair life is.

Or your gigantic wooden tree palace you've spent an eternity constructing catches on fire and burns to the ground.
Which causes you to stop playing for 8 months and/or kill yourself.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

Huh. This is really nifty.

When I have time to get back to minecraft, I might try some of these, or make up my own challenges. I think I'll try a "Post apocalypse" hardcore run sometime. Basically, I'm not allowed to be out in the sun (radiation) and can only move at night. I must also move every night if possible.

Although I STILL have to finish my Super Hostile: Lethamyr game. My victory monument is about a third done, and now that I have potions and my enchanting table set up, I should be able to handle most of the traps that the map-maker set up...(super hostile is a map series where you need to fill up a monument with wool block gathered from dungeons that the map maker, Vechs has created. As the name says, it's a hard series.)

 

[Breywood]

I like hardcore, but that's because I wanted to try out new seeds more often rather than charge back into the same area trying to find my stuff when I die over and over and over again. It can be a bit tough when I've had a lot of fun with particular seeds, but it's just pixels, and you never know what a new seed will be like. Especially if you horse around with whatever phrase interests you at the time as a worldgen seed.

I've also had one of those seeds where I step through and all that's stopping me from a lava bath is four additional blocks of obsidian. I managed on the second time, however, to build a little fort around it before being discovered by ghasts. I've never done anything with it since, but I did intend to build a stone bridge to the mainland.

The thing I found about hardcore is that I learned to avoid making the same mistakes over and over because I'd take that moment to pause and recall how my downfall happened, rather than continually repeat my folly or get too attached to the wealth I accumulated and quit that seed out of frustration.

 

[duchaked]

I'm not a great builder, but I manage to amuse myself enough in Minecraft to keep me busy for hours. I did notice that I actually kept myself busier in the 360 version over the PC version. Not sure why, but perhaps I like the limited space as it serves almost as an end goal where I can physically colonize all available lands lol
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edit: prob the same reason my interest in Minecraft doubled when my friend (who hosts our PC server) started a hardcore world. gave us a limited scope (bunker down, don't die) and goal i.e. slowly expand a village into an impenetrable fort. of course once it became indomitable (even grew cacti on top of the walls to keep out spiders) it got boring again

speaking of end goals, having a fort in DayZ would indeed be interesting. maybe if it eventually degrades over time (or a set point where it becomes overwhelmed by zombies bursting out of the sewer system below) therefore wouldn't be a perfect bastion forever? :}

 

[piinyouri]

"..make your house look totally fucking metal."

Never ever eeeever thought I'd hear that from Yahtzee's mouth.

 

[Darkness665]

Can't you just picture Yahtzee standing by the entrance of a mine where his is trying to lure a Eloi inside for ... dinner.

"No, I don't like to go out of doors. Come inside. I have a nice little bottle of chianti."

 

[Darkness665]

I find that typically once one manages to reliably gain access to food, water, a ghillie suit, and top tier weaponry in DayZ (a pair of night vision goggles also helps), the end game usually devolves into banditry. Some players form or join a group and choose a server to set up a base camp complete with tents, fortifications, and vehicles, others go at it solo. I've also seen a few bandit groups dedicated to hunting down other bandits frontier justice style, as well as one that specialized in delivering and administering medical supplies to players in need. I actually wouldn't mind joining a group that participates in hunts straight out of The Most Dangerous Game, where we strip a "participant" down to basic survival gear (i.e. an axe, a hunting knife, starter clothes, a basic handgun with 1-2 clips, and some rations) and set them loose with a half hour head start before hunting them down in jeeps and helicopters.

As for the Minecraft discussion... well, I don't own or play Minecraft so I can't really comment on that.

Regarding DayZ. The devolving is a concern. The game not being $60 with another $40+ of DLC lets me be okay with that for a while. I don't do COD or whatever the other thing is. The only only FPS I have tested is Dust 514 and that is the only reason I powered up the PS3 in four months.

Can you run your own server yet? A private server would make the game functional. My problem is that I will probably be the only one of my group to play it. Then to wander around just to get sniped makes me wonder if even $30 is too much. If I had a four or more friends to play with then that might be okay but the youtubers are all about griefing.

 

[Oskuro]

Hmmm, I often do the "fill out the map" thing.... In every game that has a fillable map. Is a compulsion, I-must-unveil-all.

The next release will have zoomable maps, so the Mr.Navigator mode will get more to explore.


Right now I'm playing in what I call "restoration" mode. I go around looking for pre-generated structures, like villages, temples or dungeons, and since they are invariably broken (or half buried in sand) I go ahead and clear and fix them, which involves giving villagers defenses against monsters and their own clumsiness... Or making the dungeon easier for monsters to spawn and roam about (I'm generous like that).


The whole villagers thing fascinates me. I think Minecraft is missing a few more artificial life elements to make it feel more alive. Wouldn't mind villagers eventually building their own fortress and deciding that they want me dead just because I ransack their graveyards in search for materials to build my undead army with... Ah, but one can only dream (or mod it).

Edit: And riding pigs (with the carrot on a stick) is awesome! I no longer hunt them, they are now my noble steeds.

 

[Samantha Burt]

Self-imposed challenges are quite a large part of Minecraft. Things like iron-haters, where you go through as much of the game as you can without using iron in any form, are apparently quite popular. You also get things like Lorgon111's "End of Crafting" series, in which he tries to beat the Enderdragon without ever using a crafting bench.

 

[Fasckira]

You don't need a diamond pickaxe to build a nether portal. Some trickery involving lava, water, and buckets will make one too (basically, making obsidian where you want the portal to be).

P.S. Thanks

Aye, thats the way I've typically always done it, mainly because I seem to be incapable of finding diamond in any map.

 

[Oskuro]

I think that method is called "molding". Just build a mold out of dirt, layer by layer, pour the lava in and drop a bucket of water on top.

Can be used for many shapes, and with enough buckets to move the lava around, can be faster than mining the obsidian.

I also use that method to create solid stone, filling the mold with water sources and pouring lava on top (And then using dirt to get rid of the lava flows that won't go away).

 

[maninahat]

I've been playing it again myself. The rule I've been imposing on myself is "Age of Empires" logic, in that I must start with building shitty, tent like structures from wood and fences, and gradually upgrade each building as I create better tools and materials: I'm up to the second stage, with my initial home base being upgraded to a shabby, cobble bothy. I'll uprgrade to a small stone fort next. Then a brick built estate. Then I'll see where I go from there.

 

[maninahat]

I think that method is called "molding". Just build a mold out of dirt, layer by layer, pour the lava in and drop a bucket of water on top.

Can be used for many shapes, and with enough buckets to move the lava around, can be faster than mining the obsidian.

I also use that method to create solid stone, filling the mold with water sources and pouring lava on top (And then using dirt to get rid of the lava flows that won't go away).

That's brilliant! I'll give it a try. But doesn't lava+water normally create cobble stone?

 

[RobfromtheGulag]

I still haven't played minecraft, mostly because in the realm of time wasters it seemed to most time wastiest. The idea of making a giant mario gives me nothing. But this idea of a hardcore mode intrigues me.

I mean what's fun without a fail state?

I don't know, WoW is probably a bigger time waster in my book. But I am of the same opinion -- I haven't played Minecraft because I'm afraid I'd never play another game again. It's a sort of 'In case of emergency, break glass' scenario for me.

 

[Breywood]

I think that method is called "molding". Just build a mold out of dirt, layer by layer, pour the lava in and drop a bucket of water on top.

Can be used for many shapes, and with enough buckets to move the lava around, can be faster than mining the obsidian.

I also use that method to create solid stone, filling the mold with water sources and pouring lava on top (And then using dirt to get rid of the lava flows that won't go away).

That's brilliant! I'll give it a try. But doesn't lava+water normally create cobble stone?

You're quite right, Whenever lava is running, it makes cobblestone. When it's a still block like in lakes, it makes obsidian. It's not difficult to smelt cobblestone back into solid stone, however.

 

[cerebus23]

I assume dayz is still moddable in the arma 2 engine, which has tons of mods, i am sure as time goes people can or will add all kinds of twists on the standard survive at all costs thing, the really wonderful thing about sdks and game engine editors is the fact that those games have 10x the life of any single our way or the highway game.

Minecraft is also that way with more mods than you can shake a stick at from its own minez mod to quake you cna find any flavor of gameplay that appeals to you and that gameplay can evolve via the community itself or just taking some base and tweaking it to your liking.

Challenge runs are old as time immoral and games have been around. dark souls is another game that is popular for that because of its difficulty and because you can beat the game without leveling at all via pure skill.

 

[Baldr]

If you become good enough at DayZ, you get to the military areas and you get your DRM with 8 mags and wonder what to do next. You give up and decided it time to go back to Cherno and take out Noobs because that's the only thing to do left at that point, unless you find the helicopter.

 

[thiosk]

I wouldn't have thought that the Croshaw himself was a minecraft aficionado. I figured it had run its course already!

I recently got very into my own hardcore game-- dwarf fortress, one of the main inspirations for minecraft. The interface is only half as obtuse as everyone claims-- and there is no mode other than hardcore.

I'm currently putting down a weredonkey infestation. Every full moon shit gets crazy.

 

[mago te]

Dwarf Fortress is best fortress.

Exploration and goals and everything and

there is no mode other than hardcore.

Figuring out how to stop medics from sewing wounds with adamantine and using silver as material for warhammers and not swords just because it's heavy and soft and there's nothing else available and doing memorial slabs for monsters who invaded you ('Loving mother') all those little funny industries and billion different ways to do every kind of necessary and not so necessary everyday shit you can figure out and try and FAIL and start again.

Also if you play DF hardcore hardcore - set yourself silly limitations and goals etc - that is crazy.

Text mode and interface - it's all just talk to scare away the fools, not real problem. There's also wiki and all.