[CHALLENGE] (v4.3-ish 6/7/18) Refugee to Regent Kingdom Building Challenge

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What do you think of the Serf to Supreme Challenge?

  • City Construction Challenge was better!

    Votes: 9 7.0%
  • It's okay, but there's definitely room for improvement

    Votes: 35 27.1%
  • Give me my Electrics sooner!

    Votes: 14 10.9%
  • I enjoy the slow introduction of mods.

    Votes: 43 33.3%
  • I wish Element Animation would hurry up with the next episode.

    Votes: 24 18.6%
  • I love it!

    Votes: 51 39.5%

  • Total voters
    129

GPuzzle

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Jul 29, 2019
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A small issue with this challenge is the ban of using iron at all for so long. A farm is difficult to start without a bucket which can't be made for a long time, unless you find one which is hit-or-miss. On the one hand, it's awesome for the challenge. On the other hand, it really constrains your starting settlement to a lake or ocean.
I do believe you're supposed to go near water - is quite common to find clay and sugar canes in there, with easy terrain for planting and sand, also with a more steady terrain than your usual mountain.
 

Maul_Junior

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Jul 29, 2019
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Before I go onto VaalDeth, who, might I just say, gets what I was going for, let me address the bucket/tools break so fast thing.

This is intended.

It's not really intended for this challenge to be easy, and I designed it so you have to stop and think about food, water, and other things you take for granted even in Vanilla Minecraft. If you want to skip right to Iron tools, I can see why that is. But you're intended to take a while. Yes, the wooden/stone tools break fast. But that will only make you appreciate the Iron+ tools even more once you get to them.

Age | Tech
1 - Wood
2 - Stone
3 - Bronze
4 - Iron | Redstone Dust (vanilla like, can make pistons etc)
5 - Gold | Redwire (no blutricity redpower machines) & MJs (Buildcraft/Thermal Expansion)
6 - Diamond | Redpower (blutricity), Electricity! (Basic EU, IC2)
7 - 'Final' | Gregtech / Applied Energistics / 'High-Tech' etc


that's essentially what I'm working on here. I do have to ask though, why is Bronze before Iron? Because Bronze is a mix of metals, while Iron is Iron. For my challenge, Iron is essentially the *Metal* stage, not just the *Iron Only* stage.

I haven't updated lately because I've been struggling with Redstone stuff (and my minecraft world sucked me back in). I wanted to get basic tech stuff going on the Iron level, but I realized I had designated the next section as the main tech start.

But I think I've got a basically clear plan in my head now.

Iron Stage you do rudimentary experimentation in Tech (pistons, jukeboxes, etc), with Redstone Engines/Iron Furnaces/Wooden, Stone, Cobblestone pipes (water and item, electric is next stage). Magic is pretty limited, with largely the Thaumcraft Alchemy, and one or two other areas. Again, this is the stage where I intended it to be introduced, but not fully explored.

Next stage will be switched around to Redstone Discovery, in which Stirling Engines (and other basic engines like Peat), IC2 Generators, and the most basic of Tech gets introduced. Generators/Macerators/Electric Furnaces, and their TE cousins. As far as mining machines go, Mining Well, the IC2 miner. Which means, of course, you get the basic Electric Drill. Diamond Tools are introduced in this stage.

Next up is the Glowstone Expansion. Like the title suggests, it's a Nether-centric stage. Glowstone, Potion Brewing, Enchantment Table, Compressors, Recyclers, and the Batbox/Solar Panel/Geothermal Generator equivalencies, tossing in Blutricity and the IC2 Diamond Drill

Gold City--Mass Fabricator, LV Solar Panels, Quarries, Mining Laser, etc, ramping things up, Modular Powersuits tool

Lapis Metropolis--MVs, Liquiducts, Redstone Energy Conduits, Energy Cells, MFFS, Modular Powersuits

Emerald--HVs, Nuclear Power, Tessaracts, Applied Energistics, Gravisuits?

Diamond--Nuclears required, MFFS required, etc etc etc


and through all these stages you are building, building, building, and expanding, expanding, expanding. Diamond is essentially the final stage, with a Myst 1-type ending. "You've helped me out, and fully explored the entire island. I give you the reward of..........continuing to explore the island you have studied thoroughly over the last 20 or so hours."

That said, this challenge does not take Gregtech into consideration. I don't really have much experience with Gregtech. yet. Again, you're free to use whatever mods (or don't use mods at all) you want to.

And no, I don't have a lot of stuff up there yet for magic, mainly because the tech stuff is easier to find information on and compare things with. Though one thing I DO want to add into this is Ars Magica support. I've only seen a few things for it so far, but it looks incredible, and looks like it would go a long ways to balance the Tech/Magic ratio I have in the challenge currently.

I haven't quite decided where I'm going to drop in Nano/Quantum armor yet either. I don't generally use them, so I'll need to do a bit more research.
 

rymmie1981

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Jul 29, 2019
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Before I go onto VaalDeth, who, might I just say, gets what I was going for, let me address the bucket/tools break so fast thing.

This is intended.

It's not really intended for this challenge to be easy, and I designed it so you have to stop and think about food, water, and other things you take for granted even in Vanilla Minecraft. If you want to skip right to Iron tools, I can see why that is. But you're intended to take a while. Yes, the wooden/stone tools break fast. But that will only make you appreciate the Iron+ tools even more once you get to them.




that's essentially what I'm working on here. I do have to ask though, why is Bronze before Iron? Because Bronze is a mix of metals, while Iron is Iron. For my challenge, Iron is essentially the *Metal* stage, not just the *Iron Only* stage.

I haven't updated lately because I've been struggling with Redstone stuff (and my minecraft world sucked me back in). I wanted to get basic tech stuff going on the Iron level, but I realized I had designated the next section as the main tech start.

But I think I've got a basically clear plan in my head now.

Iron Stage you do rudimentary experimentation in Tech (pistons, jukeboxes, etc), with Redstone Engines/Iron Furnaces/Wooden, Stone, Cobblestone pipes (water and item, electric is next stage). Magic is pretty limited, with largely the Thaumcraft Alchemy, and one or two other areas. Again, this is the stage where I intended it to be introduced, but not fully explored.

Next stage will be switched around to Redstone Discovery, in which Stirling Engines (and other basic engines like Peat), IC2 Generators, and the most basic of Tech gets introduced. Generators/Macerators/Electric Furnaces, and their TE cousins. As far as mining machines go, Mining Well, the IC2 miner. Which means, of course, you get the basic Electric Drill. Diamond Tools are introduced in this stage.

Next up is the Glowstone Expansion. Like the title suggests, it's a Nether-centric stage. Glowstone, Potion Brewing, Enchantment Table, Compressors, Recyclers, and the Batbox/Solar Panel/Geothermal Generator equivalencies, tossing in Blutricity and the IC2 Diamond Drill

Gold City--Mass Fabricator, LV Solar Panels, Quarries, Mining Laser, etc, ramping things up, Modular Powersuits tool

Lapis Metropolis--MVs, Liquiducts, Redstone Energy Conduits, Energy Cells, MFFS, Modular Powersuits

Emerald--HVs, Nuclear Power, Tessaracts, Applied Energistics, Gravisuits?

Diamond--Nuclears required, MFFS required, etc etc etc


and through all these stages you are building, building, building, and expanding, expanding, expanding. Diamond is essentially the final stage, with a Myst 1-type ending. "You've helped me out, and fully explored the entire island. I give you the reward of..........continuing to explore the island you have studied thoroughly over the last 20 or so hours."

That said, this challenge does not take Gregtech into consideration. I don't really have much experience with Gregtech. yet. Again, you're free to use whatever mods (or don't use mods at all) you want to.

And no, I don't have a lot of stuff up there yet for magic, mainly because the tech stuff is easier to find information on and compare things with. Though one thing I DO want to add into this is Ars Magica support. I've only seen a few things for it so far, but it looks incredible, and looks like it would go a long ways to balance the Tech/Magic ratio I have in the challenge currently.

I haven't quite decided where I'm going to drop in Nano/Quantum armor yet either. I don't generally use them, so I'll need to do a bit more research.

Just to clarify, I wasn't complaining about it being too hard, per se. It was intended to be an observation of how the rules define where you start your first settlement. Of course, the Iron Stage opens it up to being able to relocate to anywhere you want because you can now take your water with you.

Speaking of carrying supplies, where do you see Forestry Backpacks coming in? You can make Forester, Hunter, Adventurer, and Builder Backpacks using nothing but the crafting table, and the Miner and Digger Backpacks as soon as you get the furnace. The Miner Backpack requires iron ingots, so it would be out until the Iron Stage at least, I guess.

As far as Gregtech goes, the normal settings for Gregtech severely gate the higher techs behind some pretty extensive power and material requirements that pretty much falls in line with the progress you've laid out so far. Put it this way, Direwolf20 likes to use his first 3 diamonds on a Diamond Drill from IC2. Standard Gregtech puts a Diamond Drill around a week out for an average player.

When it comes to Ars Magica, don't bother with trying to work it in until you play around with the 1.5+ version. The new stuff is so much more advanced and amazing.

My suggestion for Thaumcraft is to limit Iron to everything beneath Unified Thaumic Field Theory. Maybe allow the advanced wands for Redstone, golems and warded items for Glowstone, and everything else after that.
 

Maul_Junior

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Jul 29, 2019
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Just to clarify, I wasn't complaining about it being too hard, per se.

It was intended to be an observation of how the rules define where you start your first settlement. Of course, the Iron Stage opens it up to being able to relocate to anywhere you want because you can now take your water with you.

Yeah, since your post I've been meaning to put a provision in the rules about relocating your *main* settlement away from your initial settlement, with the exceptions that it has to have the same requirements (population, tech, etc) as is necessary to advance, including building the same population up from previous stages.

I know there's a word that could be used to describe it, but it's eluding me atm. it's not pro rating, it's something else.

to put it another way:

you reach Iron Stage, and to advance you had a population of, say, 20 going into the Iron Stage, plus the population to advance OUT OF Iron Stage. You can relocate your *capital* anywhere, but it has to have the 20 population+Advancement Population to advance to the Redstone Stage.

Speaking of carrying supplies, where do you see Forestry Backpacks coming in? You can make Forester, Hunter, Adventurer, and Builder Backpacks using nothing but the crafting table, and the Miner and Digger Backpacks as soon as you get the furnace. The Miner Backpack requires iron ingots, so it would be out until the Iron Stage at least, I guess.

This is another one of the small things that's slipped through the cracks while I try to paint the broader picture.

But for now let's say this.

Dirt Stage:

Forester Backpack
Hunter Backpack
Adventurer Backpack

Wood Stage:

Builder Backpack
Iceman's Back
Apiarist's Backpack

Stone Stage:

Digger Backpack


Iron Stage:

Miner Backpack
Thaumaturge's Backpack
Trackman's Backpack

Redstone Discovery:

Computer Engineer's Backpack
Woven Backpacks


This is all off the top of my head without really examining things too much. Any opinions you might have on this would be appreciated.

As far as Gregtech goes, the normal settings for Gregtech severely gate the higher techs behind some pretty extensive power and material requirements that pretty much falls in line with the progress you've laid out so far. Put it this way, Direwolf20 likes to use his first 3 diamonds on a Diamond Drill from IC2. Standard Gregtech puts a Diamond Drill around a week out for an average player.

When it comes to Ars Magica, don't bother with trying to work it in until you play around with the 1.5+ version. The new stuff is so much more advanced and amazing.

My suggestion for Thaumcraft is to limit Iron to everything beneath Unified Thaumic Field Theory. Maybe allow the advanced wands for Redstone, golems and warded items for Glowstone, and everything else after that.

That was basically what I was thinking, though with some of the really higher end Thaumstuff going up a stage or two.
 

whizzball1

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Jul 29, 2019
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This is really getting to be an even cooler concept now with the different difficulties. I once endeavored to make a book detailing the progress of a Minecraft player as if it was a real thing and as if he had to discover how everything worked. This is a bit like that. In fact, I have almost decided to return to that project.
 

VaalDeth

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Jul 29, 2019
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Before I go onto VaalDeth, who, might I just say, gets what I was going for

Thanks!

that's essentially what I'm working on here. I do have to ask though, why is Bronze before Iron? Because Bronze is a mix of metals, while Iron is Iron. For my challenge, Iron is essentially the *Metal* stage, not just the *Iron Only* stage.

The reason I said that is mainly to try to stay true to history. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-age_system

I wasn't actually sure if Bronze tools were better/worse than iron, but was just thinking armor/tools anyway.

I was mainly trying not to get too overburdened by each and every mod and mainly lump them into those broad categories of energy types and use the 'ingredients you can gather with current tools' restriction to help guide the development, because honestly as the stages progress the requirements get less 'strict', as you have to have so much more to consider.


But I think I've got a basically clear plan in my head now.

Iron Stage you do rudimentary experimentation in Tech (pistons, jukeboxes, etc), with Redstone Engines/Iron Furnaces/Wooden, Stone, Cobblestone pipes (water and item, electric is next stage). Magic is pretty limited, with largely the Thaumcraft Alchemy, and one or two other areas. Again, this is the stage where I intended it to be introduced, but not fully explored.

Next stage will be switched around to Redstone Discovery, in which Stirling Engines (and other basic engines like Peat), IC2 Generators, and the most basic of Tech gets introduced. Generators/Macerators/Electric Furnaces, and their TE cousins. As far as mining machines go, Mining Well, the IC2 miner. Which means, of course, you get the basic Electric Drill. Diamond Tools are introduced in this stage.

I like this, I just tried to separate MJ / EU (TE/IC2) because of power generation, I wanted to first focus on Steam power!!, then move on to Electrical - to really reinforce that 'age difference'.



Next up is the Glowstone Expansion. Like the title suggests, it's a Nether-centric stage. Glowstone, Potion Brewing, Enchantment Table, Compressors, Recyclers, and the Batbox/Solar Panel/Geothermal Generator equivalencies, tossing in Blutricity and the IC2 Diamond Drill

Gold City--Mass Fabricator, LV Solar Panels, Quarries, Mining Laser, etc, ramping things up, Modular Powersuits tool

Lapis Metropolis--MVs, Liquiducts, Redstone Energy Conduits, Energy Cells, MFFS, Modular Powersuits

Emerald--HVs, Nuclear Power, Tessaracts, Applied Energistics, Gravisuits?

Diamond--Nuclears required, MFFS required, etc etc etc

All this is where it gets super specific, and thus I was attempting to stay more broad by just saying 'electrical', and 'high-tech' (gregtech/nuculear/forcefields). With the amount of buildings you will be having to make at these stages, and the tiered requirements of the mods themselves (gregtech blast furnaces), it should be somewhat natural.

And really lets be honest, Mass fabricator makes the game so easy, I'm going to stick with Gregtech and the Matter Fab, making it much later on than Redstone energy conduits and the like you have in the MV tier. But I think I have that covered with just a regular 'basic EU' age, and a 'high-tech' age.

Love the feedback, I will start showing my episodes here shortly.[DOUBLEPOST=1366428272][/DOUBLEPOST]
This is really getting to be an even cooler concept now with the different difficulties. I once endeavored to make a book detailing the progress of a Minecraft player as if it was a real thing and as if he had to discover how everything worked. This is a bit like that. In fact, I have almost decided to return to that project.

You should!
 

Maul_Junior

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Jul 29, 2019
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I......forgot Bronze Age came before Iron.

DERP.

Mainly because I tend to think that pure metals should come before pure metals.

Goes to show you how much science I know, lol....

I.....forgot Steam?

............

lol

If you're looking for a fun building challenge, try doing a Steampunk building theme. Lots of exposed pipery, levers, buttons, etc that don't necessarily do anything. lol.

If you're a Roleplayer looking for a challenge, use Book/Quills to write a history of your Kingdom/Empire/etc stage by stage.

If you're feeling bored, pull a SimCity/Sims, and torment your (granted, imaginary, unless you pull in Testificates) citizens, and blow up/burn down/zombifiy/etc your town/populace (playing the harp while your city burns is optional), and rebuild from the ashes.

Yeah, Iron Stage hasn't quite completed itself yet. I blame Bioshock: Infinite, which I got today. But I made some good progress, and am going to (do my best to) wrap it up tomorrow.

From this stage on I'm going to try to keep from *MAKING* you guys build X and X and X, and instead post lots of suggestions of buildings to make, hoping that inspiration will strike (with a small handful, hopefully 3 or less) buildings required.
 

Lambert2191

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Jul 29, 2019
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I do have to ask though, why is Bronze before Iron? Because Bronze is a mix of metals, while Iron is Iron. For my challenge, Iron is essentially the *Metal* stage, not just the *Iron Only* stage.

Because IRL the bronze age was prior to the Iron age. Ofc there are overlaps as cultures adapt to the new material, but it's generally agreed that bronze was before iron.
Bronze Age: (3200-600 BCE)
Iron Age: (1200 BCE – 400 AD)
 

rymmie1981

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Jul 29, 2019
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My son got appendicitis and had his appendix removed yesterday so i haven't done anything on the challenge. I most likely won't be back home until some time tomorrow.

I will have some more input next week, though.

Rymmie1981 junior is doing better than expected, so there's no worry.
 

Alexor

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Jul 29, 2019
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From this stage on I'm going to try to keep from *MAKING* you guys build X and X and X, and instead post lots of suggestions of buildings to make, hoping that inspiration will strike (with a small handful, hopefully 3 or less) buildings required.

A small suggestion: Why not have a large pool of optional buildings, with the advancement requirement being something along the lines of "Your town must have at least three of the items from this list:". That'll simplify the hardcore requirements a bit too, since all you need to do is increase the number of required optional buildings rather than making a completely new set of requirements.
 

VaalDeth

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Jul 29, 2019
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Here is my first episode! #0, its an introduction episode where I show the map and map seed, and talk about the changes I am implementing for the challenge, as described above.


I hope you all enjoy, I would love some feedback!
 

Maul_Junior

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Jul 29, 2019
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that map looks great, man. I look forward to seeing what you come up with. And yes, I forgot my ancient history. My bad.


I've got yet another rewrite going through, but this one should streamline it going forward. Essentially I'm going to remove the (Must have X of this, etc) for each individual house, and instead have a long list of buildings (and rooms for the buildings) for each Stage.

Right now I've got a list that I'm working on filling out (literally starting with the Butcher, the Baker, and the Candlestick Maker). The various types are:

Residential
Commercial
Technological (Industrial)
Magical
Fortifications
Mining:
Agricultural:
Minecarts:

I keep the Minecart section by itself just because they aren't inherently technological, unless you're running Railcraft. So this will eat up a little more time now, but saves me time later on. Basically the rules will be cut down drastically from room-by-room rulesets to "This many houses, this many Community Buildings, these tools, etc"

just for fun here's what I've got so far for Magical Community Buildings:

Magical:

Thaumaturge's Tower (1 per active Thaumaturge, whether that's Player or Villager)
Aura Node Housing
Aspect Housing
(Snow) Golem Watchtowers
Arcane Ear Wireless Transmission Network (alternative to Wireless Redstone?) using Arcane Ears/Noteblocks
Arcane Museum (showing examples of all your Magical creations?)
 

VaalDeth

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Jul 29, 2019
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that map looks great, man. I look forward to seeing what you come up with. And yes, I forgot my ancient history. My bad.


I've got yet another rewrite going through, but this one should streamline it going forward. Essentially I'm going to remove the (Must have X of this, etc) for each individual house, and instead have a long list of buildings (and rooms for the buildings) for each Stage.

Right now I've got a list that I'm working on filling out (literally starting with the Butcher, the Baker, and the Candlestick Maker). The various types are:

Residential
Commercial
Technological (Industrial)
Magical
Fortifications
Mining:
Agricultural:
Minecarts:

I keep the Minecart section by itself just because they aren't inherently technological, unless you're running Railcraft. So this will eat up a little more time now, but saves me time later on. Basically the rules will be cut down drastically from room-by-room rulesets to "This many houses, this many Community Buildings, these tools, etc"

just for fun here's what I've got so far for Magical Community Buildings:

Cool! I was thinking of following along the original challenge with the 'Upper Disctrict', keeping 'high-wealth' things there and keeping the 'farming' district (where we start out) more like the low wealth residential (medium wealth could be in some areas of the market/commercial district perhaps - or spread between the other two?). With that thought the Upper district would have things like the Magical stuff, as well as things like park(s), library, museum, cathedral/church that kind of stuff.

Don't forget the Port/Harbor district! With the layout I'm planning that Port district will turn into the Industrial district later on, so thats a good progression idea I think.

I agree with Minecarts, you don't want to just say 'transportation', and a Port/Harbor is very specialized. And its freaking Minecraft! I will have a rail system setup for sure, on my map I'm thinking from the Port/Industrial district around to the Mining village at least.
 

VaalDeth

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Jul 29, 2019
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Episode 01! Day 1 (No I'm not showing every day... it will be like Day 1, Day 3, Day 9, etc etc - big leaps)

 

Maul_Junior

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Jul 29, 2019
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That looks great, Vaal.

Okay, so quicky update, I did quite a bit of work on the Rooms/Buildings pages, and will be from this point forward writing new things according to whether they are from mods, with a "[Mod]" tag, for a Vanilla brethren. I'm also trying to separate Magic/Technology as much as I can, and come up with a few more magic mods to level the massive differential between Magic and Tech mods. Clay Soldiers and Dimension Doors come to mind......I'm trying to build into this a functionality for an optional challenge of only playing Magic OR Technology. Though playing both is 100% great in my eyes.

Vaal, FYI, in my sorting system I merged roads, minecarts, and ports/harbors into one mega-section I'm calling Transportation.

Tinker's Construct will be considered non-Technological, but still restricted to your current stage.

http://refugeetoregentchallenge.wikispaces.com/Community Buildings
http://refugeetoregentchallenge.wikispaces.com/Dwellings

These lists are not finished, and I'd be happy to take any and all suggestions you may have. I'm going to go through the previous stages and update them to fit into the new Rooms standard, rather than dictating every item you need in every room.
 

rymmie1981

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Jul 29, 2019
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Ok, I'm starting over on a 1.5.1 world with Ars Magica and Metallurgy and several UE mods. I saw how those mods work and had to build a world with a Magical District that runs on Ars Magica's Mana Batteries and Thaumcraft Golems with wizard towers and magical academies. The other side of the city will hold the Tech District with Nuclear Reactors and Nuclear Missile launch pads and various factories. The Tech District will have more box-like buildings to fit with the idea of function over form that most factories have.

My portal buildings(Atum, Twilight, Mystcraft, Dimensional Doors, Nether) are going to be in a smaller District nestled between the two. The reason being that dimensions like the Nether and Ages can be used for very technological farms for lava and mob grinders and quarries and such, especially with Nether Ores mod.

Atum and Twilight Forest are definitely magic-based Dimensions. I haven't done much with Dimensional Doors, but it can link far away parts of the world so that might work both ways, too.

I plan on doing the same thing with my Farming Outliers, separating them into Magic-based automation and Tech-based automation. My minecart network will link all of the Towns and Districts even though you might consider redstone-based rails to be technological.

And holy crap will the main castle be amazing with all of Metallurgy's different colored metals.
 

Djharts

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Jul 29, 2019
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Sorry for my ignorance but, could you point me to a link with the most updated version of the challenge? There's so many links in this thread it's tough to find the right one. Also, can this be done in single player because I see a lot of people talking about servers.
 

rymmie1981

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Jul 29, 2019
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Sorry for my ignorance but, could you point me to a link with the most updated version of the challenge? There's so many links in this thread it's tough to find the right one. Also, can this be done in single player because I see a lot of people talking about servers.

I'm not sure Maul_Junior has done the rewrite he has been talking about in the past few posts, but you can start by following http://refugeetoregentchallenge.wikispaces.com/Dirt+Hovel to get started. I don't think the first or second stage will change much.
 

Djharts

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Jul 29, 2019
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Thanks. Any idea how close to done the re-write is? I'm not sure if I should start just yet since it could change.
 

rymmie1981

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Jul 29, 2019
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Like I said, the first two parts probably won't change too much, and the Wood Section is much more difficult than it looks when you read it. Also, if you really want to extend your first few steps into the world, add one of the optional challenges like Cubaeism or the Tree Spirit Challenge.

I like to play like Retro MC sometimes, where you aren't allowed to change your spawn point. There used to be a time before beds and you HAD to reinforce your spawn otherwise you could die at night and respawn into a group of enemies and die over and over until the sun came up. This also means no skipping night since no beds. This was also a time before minimaps and in-game maps, so you had to build towers to max height and cover them with torches so could find your way back home until you got a nice rail system set up.

Man, the booster(not redstone, the ones with a minecart in a circular track next to the main track) tracks were awesome, too. It's too bad they got rid of it. It was a bug, but still...they've let bugs stay in as 'features'.