Thoughts of an (Almost) Casual

I read a few posts on this blog before writing this one.  It made me think about how much free time I had back then and how much less time I have now.  (Translation: Just because I'm writing this post does not mean that I will be active on this blog again.)

Also, the comments.  The majority of them are from spam bots.  Most of the genuine comments are from people playing Aurum Blade.  I'm sorry, but I can't help you with Siren.  I had (had) Aurum Blade on my Android phone around last year.  Then my mom took it away (yes, I am still a minor).  So I forgot almost everything.  I still remember Siren was a b*tch (excuse my language) to defeat.  Good luck, have fun, don't ragequit.

So where has the time gone, and what have I done with mine in the past year?  I'll try my best to cover this.

In my final post of last year, I cited YouTube as a reason why I was stopping my posts.  My last YouTube video was published in June, not too long after April/May.  So that didn't really go anywhere.  By then, I had grown sick and tired and tired and sick of the monstrosity that was EpicDuel Omega.  The purpose of Varium was near nerfed into the ground (that is, it provided no advantage other than getting gear more quickly).  I was a semi-free player, and prior to Omega, I enjoyed my spot between the people who bought a promo pack of Varium every month and the hardcore free-to-players.  Both were still a good challenge to defeat, though.  I'm pretty sure the true reason why I left, however, was because of the FUCKING STAT REVAMP.  I liked it better when all weapons had a set amount of stats and damage that could not be changed.  And when cores were an idea posted only in the ED Suggestion Forums.  Maybe I was just too used to the old ways.  So I left. I expressed no regret- after all, I had been playing the game for almost three years and had probably outgrown little Flash games.  Time to move on to bigger and better things.

No, this is not me.  I googled "fate".  Never knew Steam sold Fate, though.  Go buy the game or pirate it like I did.   Go play it.

At this point in time (beginning of summer 2013) I had only one computer game I played consistently and on a regular basis: Minecraft (oh, and I also bought legit premium shortly before my last post here.  I believe I played almost exclusively on Hypixel's Server.  (I also remember playing quite a bit of Fate- the original Fate.)

During the summer, however, most of the time I was away from the computer (summer school and whatnot).  So I turned to my phone.  I eventually found a mobile TCG called Spellstorm.  It's a husk of its former self from a year ago- don't play it.  But back then, it was in the prime of its life.  New content updates on a regular basis, a thriving playerbase, and probably the best forums you could ever ask for.  There were almost exclusively adults on there.  As a result, the forums were always civilized.  I spent a lot of time playing Spellstorm, and even more time on its forums.  Eventually, I became a moderator there, but that's not important.  What is important is that I played Spellstorm almost every day (phone app= more accessibility) until about October/November.  Then, my mom stepped in and took away my phone.  This was the base for my stopping of playing Spellstorm (yes, that is grammatically correct).  I fell behind new stuff, and eventually, I got bored with the app.  Just in time, too.

The Spellstorm team seemed to be falling apart.  The content updates were obvious rehashes of old stuff, the new pieces of content were money grabs, and it became apparent that the game was a huge clickfest.  Plus, the bugs, which had always been prevalent in the app, almost ran amok now.  That is, I'm pretty sure the programmers got up and left.  Many times, these bugs made the app unplayable.  And the app's customer service was sadder than shit (lack of people, not skill- those who did man Customer Service were extremely nice and well-known on the forums).  It was obvious that Spellstorm's developers under the helm of TinyCo had almost ceased work on the app.  Which really, really sucked, especially since Spellstorm was the only one with potential on the app market (and half-decent graphics).

But I must go back a bit.  During late summer of that year, I had found an SNES emulator for my phone (SNESDroid).  It opened up a whole new world of games (thanks, CoolRom) to me.  I downloaded three SNES games: Final Fantasy VI, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and Chrono Trigger.

But wait: I must go back even further (yeah sorry, I know, fuck chronological order).  Prior to summer, a classmate at school had introduced me to The Sandbox (you should check it out if you don't already know what it is).  It was fun- very fun.  But that's not my point.  There was (and probably still is) a user gallery.  In one of the top rated works, I found a Sandbox version of "Chrono Trigger 600 AD" (using "Note" pixels one can create tunes in The Sandbox).  I listened to the song and I liked it (this was back when I still though Chrono Trigger involved a gun).  I liked it enough to go looking for Chrono Trigger.  That brings me to the previous paragraph.

So I played Chrono Trigger- my first SNES game.  I loved it.  Until I got to a certain point in 2300 AD (for those retro gamers, it's when you enter 2300 AD for the first time).  I had to enter a certain combination of buttons to go further by pressing the buttons all at once.  I couldn't.  The emulator didn't accept multi-input.  I did my homework and found that other emulators did, as did the original SNES (duh).  Well, crap.  I was stuck there.

I eventually gave up on Chrono Trigger and moved on to Final Fantasy VI.  I think I got stuck somewhere very early on (before Narshe, for those who played the game).  I gave up on it as well, and was considering deleting it (luckily, I didn't).  So I moved on, this time to A Link to the Past.

I went somewhere with that game.  It was fun, and the dungeons challenging.  In order to beat the first boss, I spent almost an hour circling him around a table in order to avoid his extremely damaging ranged attack.  Often was the day where I would have SNESDroid and Firefox open on my phone.  Thank you, StrategyWiki.  I loved the game, and all of the extra things in it that one didn't necessarily have to find.  I ended up with only one more dungeon to go.  Unfortunately, I had had enough of Link by then, so I got bored.  Then I gave Final Fantasy VI a second chance.

It worked out this time.  I loved the traditional RPG style game it was and the huge (14!) character cast.  I loved the storyline and the monsters and bosses.  I ended up just one dungeon away from the final boss (what a coincidence).  I was steamrolling over the game and ready to beat it.  Then my mom took my phone away (keep in mind that at this point in time, I was playing these SNES games as well as Spellstorm).  So, too bad.  I didn't get to hand Kefka's ass to him.  Oh well.

So the school year started up again.  I started playing Minecraft again.  However, this time I found a nice new server (PlayMindcrack) with its own textures, sound packs, and minigames.  It was a smaller server, but still, I loved it (and its level up system!).  That's pretty much all I did for the first half of the 2013-2014 Minecraft/school year: Hypixel and PMC (not to be confused with Planet Minecraft).  Then I found Hearthstone.

Hearthstone had been in closed beta for quite a while, but one of my friends told me about the game one day at school.  Intrigued, I tried it out.  I was a scrub and lost a crapton at the beginning, but I loved the game and stuck with it.  Hearthstone is a CCG (not quite TCG, but I'll take it) that really introduced me to real cardplaying games and strategy (I would rather not rant about how most if not all- including Spellstorm- TCGs on the mobile market have crappy automated random-ass battle systems).  I owned some MTG cards, but I never really tried to play the game (mostly because no one in my physical area wanted to play MTG.  Also, I tried Magic 2014, but much of the app is locked to all but those who shell out ten dollars.  Hell no.)  Hearthstone was the perfect F2P card game I was (not really) looking for.  I took a liking to it and stuck with it.

Now, time for a bit of bragging (depends on your point of view, actually).  I created my Battle.net account and installed Hearthstone somewhere in mid-December 2013.  December was Hearthstone's first Closed Beta ranked season, but I didn't rank at all (Angry Chicken please).  R25 scrub, woohoo.  The second season, January, I did slightly better.  Rank 16.  And on it goes.
Season 3: R14
Season 4: R14
Season 5: R14 (pattern much)
However, this season, May, I am rather happy to have finally broken that invisible wall and continue onto rank 13!  I probably could have gone further, but I will explain why I didn't.

Actually, wait a sec.  I must go backward a few months first.  Just a note.  I pretty much stopped playing Minecraft in February.  I know, too bad, no more Island of Doom videos.  (Well, the hard drive on which the world is on is screwed up, anyway.)

Okay.  Back to May of this year.  In early May, one of my friends told me about Smite (a MOBA, like League- another game I voluntarily don't play, but all of my friends do).  I downloaded Smite.  Was hooked fairly quickly.  (I swear, the smartest decision the game devs have made was making Smite a third-person viewpoint game.  Gets all the MMO(RPG) players.)  So now I play Smite pretty much every day.  (Case in point- I played about ten hours today).  I still play Hearthstone some, but not a whole lot.

A very, very, simplified history of my gaming life since April 2013.  Goodbye all, and I hope I get around to posting here again.  But for now, I need to complete a history project and get my ass off this toilet already.

~ReconnaisX

PS: I am also an avid Twitch watcher (of Hearthstone and Smite.  I also watched the original Twitch Plays Pokemon).  Also, some nice FFVI fanart.  As you probably expected, I can name everyone here.

Skygrid

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Asterisk Section; actual post is below


*I believe I just contradicted myself, people kill themselves a lot.  After all, there's /home.

**You may recall that non-hostile mob spawners need grass blocks to spawn their mob on.  Sheep eat grass.  Therefore, over time, sheep may kill all of the grass in their spawning area.  You would need a sizeable chunk of dirt blocks for the grass population to spread and be able to sustain itself.  My suggestion: Put a fence on the grass block you want to stay uneaten.  Grass can spread from under fences.  Therefore, your sheep will still have their woolen coats without killing off all the grass.

***Exception being more blocks.

****Cobblestone is actually quite valuable in Skygrid.  In MelonCraft, it can be sold for currency, and it provides a way to quickly expand and develop your land without having to actually jump around uncharted areas and dig your blocks.  That's why I have a cobblestone generator.
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I forget sometimes that there are other ways to play Minecraft other than your regular old world.  Superflat's a good example (running away from Slimes in hope of finding a village).  But there's more than just that.
There's the widely popular Survival/Hunger Games (what's the difference between the two?).  There's CTF, or Capture the Flag.  There's Skyblock, which is pretty well-known, too.  There's even that Super Craft Bros map by Sethbling (how did he make it?).  And then there's Skygrid.

Not too many people know about Skygrid.  Basically, it's blocks suspended in midair, placed at specific intervals to create a grid pattern.  You just have to survive (refer to beginning of post).*
Now, when I first tried Skyblock (literally first, I didn't know what I was doing), I didn't know why the hell I had a Sponge.  Of course, I didn't know what to do, so I ended up falling into the Void and not caring about that.  As it turned out, Sponges (at least in this server) were used for land protection (you know, against griefers).  So when I realized what it was for when I actually started playing, there was only one way to express my feelings (/facepalm).
But I bought another Sponge block, and all was well.

So about finding a good place for a home.  First, I would like to point out that I did not know this when I set my home (/sethome).  I did not know this when I placed my sponge block.  But if you are reading this and want to try out Skygrid, read on.
Make sure your home/land is within close proximity of a mob spawner.  This is the most common way that nonhostile (no hostile spawners) mobs enter the world.  But I do have a special note about sheep.**  Besides, spawners are a good and reliable source of food (not counting sheep; but lambchops should be added).  And a spawner can easily be turned into an XP farm.
But spawners do need a few things to spawn.  They need a sufficient light level.  On the server I play on, it is never night in Skyblock, possibly to discourage hostile mob spawning (more on that later).  But the second requirement is more important.  Mob Spawners need grass to spawn things on.   I do not recommend breaking any Grass Blocks close to the mob spawner unless you happen to have a Silk Touch tool (good luck with that).  Instead, you want to surround the grass block with dirt so that
1) The mobs will have more spawning space when the grass spreads.
2) So that the grass spreads.
3) You can make the spawning area bigger than 1 block, and besides, you need space to walk.  There isn't between the block you're standing on and the Void.***

(Oh, and this is why stacks of dirt blocks and grass blocks are precious.)
Basically, the more mob spawners you are closer to, the better.

 

Okay.  Now that you have a home/base of operations, you might want to start searching for resources now.
Go look for Oak Wood (no other type of wood is included in world generation).  After all, 1 wood= 4 planks, and you might have that feeling that 1 block is a bit too small for your home.  You might want to expand.
If you find a chest, by any means necessary get to it (I hope you don't make a dumb mistake and fall into the Void- it's a very clear drop).  Why?  In Skygrid, chests are so much more than containers you can take back home and use for yourself.  Chests have randomly selected items within.  This could range anywhere from a spawn egg (hostile mobs are included here) to other types of saplings (only Oak saplings can be naturally found).  In general, you can bet that there will be at least one good thing inside Chests.  And you can always break the Chest to take home after you've looted it.
Eventually, you'll get to the point where your home is prosperous and thriving.

One of the more appealing things about Skygrid is that resource collection is easier and more fun.  Got efficient jumping skills and the right tool?  Good.  You see diamond ore in the distance.  Go for it.
In Skygrid, we don't have to spend hours digging and accumulating chests full of cobblestone.****  We can just look for whatever we want.  I abuse the random teleport portal in my server's Skyblock lobby often.  (It took me several teleports to find sugarcane.)

Also, the initial challenge is harder (I mean, you start out from one freaking block), but over time, it turns out to be just like any other survival.  Of course, you can still search for your shiny diamonds.

Mob spawning, especially hostile mob spawning, is limited in this mode of play.  Passive or non-hostile mobs can only spawn via spawn eggs, regular eggs (in the case of the chicken), or a mob spawner.  You can take advantage of this (for instance, I have a Mooshroom locked up behind a fence.  I like getting free food.  Also, my friend locked up a pink sheep (that had just spawned) in a one-block cell.  The same happened to a blue sheep).

Just remember to sneak.
~ReconnaisX

PS:
When I was just starting out, I did not know what Lockette was.  I didn't lock my chest.  Soon after, someone came along and stole all my stuff.  I had to start over.
Remember to put those signs on your chests (and any other interface blocks you don't want anyone else to access).

Oh, and a shoutout to hat_0987_ROCKS, my good Skygrid friend!
-----------------------------
IP: play.melonmc.com
On MelonCraft,
1)/server sky
2) Enter the random teleport portal
3) Find a place and set your sponge down
4) Good luck!
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Minecraft Pocket Edition 0.6.0!

This update is pretty full of stuff, so I'll just start now.  Forget any introductions.  If you're reading this, you probably know what Minecraft is.

I'll quote the change log right now so I can give my two cents on everything:

New features:

• Signs
• Armor
• Baby animals
• Fancy clouds
• Improved D-pad
• Stonecutter for crafting stone blocks
• Sheep can be colored with dyes
• New block types: Netherrack, Nether Brick, Block of Quartz with 2 variants (pillar and chiseled), mossy/cracked Smooth Stone Brick variants (creative only), chiseled/smooth Sandstone variants
• New stairs: Nether Brick, Sandstone, Smooth Stone Brick, Quartz
• New slabs: Sandstone
• New item: Nether Brick (smelted from netherrack and crafted into nether brick tile)
• Upside-down stairs, corner stairs
• Slabs can be placed in up position (needs testing on small screens)
• Sand and Gravel are affected by gravity

Tweaks:

• Recipes for crafting slabs give 6 slabs instead of 3 (as in PC version)
• Nether Reactor spawns Netherrack blocks instead of Obsidian
• The fog and sky color have changed
• The Nether Reactor now spawns more items
• Cows drop Leather

Bug fixes:
Melons had several bugs where they would spawn too fast and where they shouldn’t
Okay.  The first thing I'll talk about is Signs.  I actually have a complaint about Signs right now.  They seem to be screwed up.  When you try to type what the sign will say, Minecraft will crash.  That's weird.  (I'm running the latest version of Android.)  So basically, don't use signs just yet.

Armor is much needed by me.  If you have ever seen me fight a Skeleton before, you know that I am not a good fighter.  Armor is crucial, and now it is here.  I can now fight Skeletons in full iron in MCPE.  Yesss.

I've been trying to make two sheep mate, and so far, there is nothing.  Hmm.  I'm doubtful about the whole 'baby animal' thing right now.

Fancy clouds?  I really don't care.  I don't play with clouds, anyway, even on the PC.

The D-pad does seem to be better.  Now, when you move forward, two additional smaller buttons pop up.  With those, it is possible to walk diagonally.  It's great.

So there's a new Stonecutter block.  It joins the list of blocks not in the computer version of Minecraft (Nether Reactor, Cyan Flower/Rose).  It has replaced the Crafting Table as the go-to for making Stone-related blocks.  Mimicking the Crafting Table too, it requires four cobblestone (I bet in a 2x2 as well) to make.  It seems a bit useless, though.  Why couldn't we just stick with the Crafting Table?

New blocks?  That's nice, I guess.  In MCPE, I've never really cared about how my house looked.  But I do notice that Quartz is among the new blocks.  Beating the official 1.5 Minecraft release to it?  Wow.

I don't really care for upside-down stairs, but with corner stairs, I can make some things look better (forget what I said five seconds ago).

Sheep can be colored with dyes?  Yes!  Finally!  I shall have a red sheep before the day is over!  A reason to smelt red mushrooms has come!

Apparently, gravity is now a force in MCPE.  I actually beg to differ (at least for some part).  Let's say you dug a big underground room in 0.5.0.  The top was lined with gravel that you dug into.  If you accessed that world on 0.6.0, the gravel would stay there.  However, I did find a way to "trigger" gravity in "0.5.0" areas.  Simply break a gravel block, and all the blocks on that layer will suddenly remember to fall down.  The same thing happens if you put a gravel block next to the gravity-defying ones.

Apart from all that, I don't really care about the Tweaks.  Honestly, I think the most important thing in this release was the armor.

~ReconnnaisX
PS: Dear Mojang, please fix the signs.   

Ace of Spades: First Impressions (and 0.75 Beta)

The first thing I noticed about Ace of Spades is that it's pretty close to Roblox.

Really close.  I mean, when I played Roblox, people made worlds where you would do exactly the same.  Exactly.  Except there was more freedom in creating the world.  As long as you had sufficient knowledge of Perl, you could literally make anything.  I'll be honest here- why didn't Roblox become this famous?

But this is not about AoS versus Roblox, so that discussion will be another blog post.  Anyway, Ace of Spades isn't bad.  So I'll start there.

First- it's a FPS (first person shooter).  As a general rule, I am not good at first person shooters.  Actually, horrible.  It's because you're in first person.  You can't see omnidirectional.  That by itself is okay.  (If it wasn't, I wouldn't be playing Minecraft.)  But coupled with long-distance weapons (bows don't count, Minecraft is about more than that), I can't take it.  I'm okay with third-person shooters (namely, Pawn Tactics), but FPS is another thing.

Second- you can build.  It sounds like Minecraft right around here (this is why people say that AoS is a mix of Minecraft and Team Fortress), where you can build to your heart's content.  For the game itself, this is what differs it from other FPSs, in my opinion.  Of course, used correctly, this is a tactical advantage.

I'm waiting for PrizeRebel to process my custom order of the released game.  But while I was waiting earlier today, I played the 0.75 Beta, which is free.  I believe that this post will be more about the 0.75 Beta, because I actually have played it.

Right off the bat, I realized that I would have to get the hang of this quickly.  There was no tutorial, which, in my opinion, is essential to (almost) every game.  So, thumbs down in that category.  In the Beta, they just throw a list of controls at you.

I didn't want to mess up early in my AoS playing, so I chose a random server and decided to spectate instead of fight.  (To be honest, I didn't see the 'Spectate' option coming.  It's like Clan Wars in RuneScape that way.  I like it.)  It served well to let me learn about the controls.

In Spectate mode, you are in a perpetual Fly mode (think Minecraft) of sorts.  The default controls are the same (good old WASD).  The only noticeable difference was the lack of a main use for the Shift key.  Still, I liked that.  Also, I'm still wondering whether or not one spectating can be sighted by those actually on the teams.  (I ran into the line of fire more than once.)

The servers seemed normal enough.  Just like Minecraft.  I noticed, though, that there is no Single Player Mode.  So there was no way for me to learn the ropes by myself.

I joined a server and luckily embarrassed no one on my team.

But that was the beta.  I'm looking forward to the actual released game.

~ReconnaisX

Multiplayer Minecraft

So it turns out Multiplayer can be both good and bad.  I invited my older sis to one of my servers today shortly after lunch to show her around one of my giant "base" networks.
As it was, my sister likes to build in Minecraft, and only that.  She has close to no experience mining, and even less fighting.  To top it all off, she always plays in Creative.  However, my server was Survival, but it was in Peaceful mode.
We explored a lot of caves, hung around one of my houses, and I learned that:
Pros of having people behind your back
1) Someone is out there looking out for you
2) Two people are better against mobs than one
3) I can use commands to troll my sister (/tp PlayerName x y z), where y=256
Cons
1) Someone is out there looking for you possibly ready to kill you (my sister and I teamed up, so no PvP- besides, she sucks at fighting)
2) Griefing
3) Someone else takes all those diamonds :(

But she adapted well.  I handed her a pickaxe, and soon she could mine, too.
We mined a lot, enough to give my sis a full iron set (which actually isn't that much).  I found my original jungle base where I had first spawned in the world.  My sister got stuck in my pigpen, but oh well.  That's what /tp is for.
As a side note, I could have done all of the things I listed in the Con list do my sister.  She wouldn't have a chance- I was the server owner.

~ReconnaisX
PS: Don't worry, I still do play ED.  Just find it a little boring for now.

Finishing Chronotide- A Bunch of Photos

*Contains Pictures*
Hey all.  It's been a long day Minecraft-wise.  I was finishing Chronotide and breaking a whole lot of rules.

So I came back to the ruins of Wintertide.

Sadly.

They won't mind if I loot their house, right?

Fire Cannon!

Button Decorating

The big moment...

Running back with my hard-earned Jack O Lantern.

Bats!

The sewers...

Spiders, maybe?

It should be a bit obvious what to do with this door...

Joe's got that feeling...

Joe's place.  Real fancy.

Is this the lever place?

What's this?

Yeah, that seems to be happening a lot around here.

How-?

Piston at work?

After some careful excavation...

Welcome to Developerland.

Fun.

Messing with the Dispensers in Devland.

Red light?

Breaking rules...literally.

What's that?

!

*Gasp*

I'm on a boat.

A fishing hook can break a boat?

Jack!

Back up the chute.

Don't ask how I got that one.

Target spotted.

Wha?  This looks familiar.

Holy sh*t!

 Why so many Crafting Tables near each other? #convenience

 What a bed.

 Jenny herself of Jenny's Perfumery!

Dang, real optimistic.

 Precious stuff!

 Dentists across USA agree.

 Technically, it should work.

Note the villager in the left.  These guys appear and disappear throughout all parts of the game.

 From the Suits Emporium.

 Changing rooms?

 That's real nice of you to say.

 The Euro Symbol!

 Not so secure anymore.

 Fate is in my bucket!

 Is that supposed to say "Die" too?

 No doubt there.

 Back security measures.

 The culprit is found!

 Note: The lever did not work.

 So I had to craft a pressure plate.

 *Music*

 The pumpkin!

 Emeralds!

 I wish I had made a Iron Pickaxe now.

 Another plate for the way back.

 Had to break and enter.  Sorry.

 I thought it wasn't nice to read diaries.

 Check out my gold boots.

 Woah there.

 Note the book for a head.

 A rose for her memory.

 Oh.

 Oh wow, thanks.

 Here it is!

 Another "body".

 Grave robbing.

 He died fighting zombies with a bow and arrow.  And his head is a book.

 How to read a head.

 The stupid solution.

 OHHHH!

 My old arrows.

 Broke the water barrier.

 RIP Porky.

 I'm in DevLand again.

 ???

 LOLOLOL I dug into the Nirgal!

 How I got through.

 Don't fall off, don't fall off.

 IDIOT!

 Changing to Creative.  Finally.

 Flyin'.

 From the top of the Chrono Crystal.

 Great picture.

 Does not look good.  Does not look good.

 This does not look like the End.

 The repaired Chrono Crystal.

There were a lot of well-crafted buildings out there.

At the end of the game, a dispenser was supposed to spawn a lot of villagers resembling citizens of the city.  However, I broke a couple of redstone circuits.

~ReconnaisX