We’ll return to our École des Mines this Thursday with another session of Minecraft. I would insert raptures here about caves and clouds and lava and snow, or poke fun at certain people for their use of TNT, but I’m feeling a bit under the weather, and, well, it’s Minecraft, y’all don’t need my lobbying to be convinced to join this one.
I’ll tentatively propose connecting to the server at minecraft.bactrian.org, and with voice chat via Skype with davidbcarlton hosting the chat, but there are other options for both of those choices – we can talk about other options in the comment thread.
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The other obvious server option would be to ask Travis if we can use his server again. The server I mentioned above is one I just created; the world is a little peaceful snow-covered region, but I haven’t explored at all. (I turned off monsters and pvp, please let me know if there are other options I should fiddle with.) It’s not running now – for various reasons, I’m only planning to run it on demand – but I guess the advantage there is that we could dedicate it for VGHVI use, so it wouldn’t change between VGHVI sessions.
In terms of chat, Roger was lobbying for Ventrilo. I’m a little dubious about that – poking around, Ventrilo seems a little more complicated (and Windows-centric?) than Skype, and all the VGHVI Skype sessions that I’ve participated in have been fine. Having said that, I didn’t participate in the session that led to the request for using Ventrilo, so I don’t really understand the issue here. Certainly if others prefer using Ventrilo and if somebody else is willing to host the server for it, I’m happy to give it a try. (Especially if somebody can reassure me that it works fine on a Mac – I assume it does, but I just have to wonder what’s going on with a supported platforms list that only mentions PowerPC… Though the actual binary does seem like it’s universal.)
I imagine I’m probably in the minority, but I think I’d like to try a game with monsters. One of my most vivid memories of early Minecrafting was huddled in the cave on the first night, and I’m wondering how that would play with a group. The day/night cycle is a major part of the single player experience, and turning monsters off removes that tension.
Good point, if people prefer that I’d be happy to go that way. And as far as I can tell it’s just an option when starting the server, so we could probably start that way to get the first night experience and then have the option of turning monsters off later.
(I could be wrong – if that were the case, I would think it would be possible from the admin console, but I don’t see that in the command list.)
I’m assuredly in. Can I propose chat on Ventrilo? I really think having a push-to-talk gate on the background noise could be very helpful. We could post info on the Vent server Karen Z has encouraged us to use on Wave.
I’d rather not have monsters, but I can live–or rather, die–with them.
I would love to join in again, but I’m still having trouble with Minecraft. It runs smooth for about 10-15 minutes and then it ends up taking over my RAM and processors. There is a memory leak somewhere in the code from the last update.
As for chat, I’m perfectly okay with Skype. It was only during the Thief session, did it ever become a problem. But then I’m a person where once I understand something I’m loath to change and complicate it. If given enough time I’m sure i can acclimate myself to Ventrilo.
I’ve installed the Ventrilo client (and am amused by the idea of Roger feeling a need to Vent); without a server, though, it won’t even let me configure it so I can feel out how the push-to-talk stuff works…
Having said that, I would like to make a special request that we use Skype this time – I just talked to my daughter and she would like to join us for this session, and given that she’s already got a Skype account, I’d rather eliminate the extra variable this time. Though, unfortunately, that may actually lead to a bit of background noise, because we don’t have two headsets; if that becomes a problem, we’ll mute whichever of us isn’t using the headset.
I will be in for this week. I finally set up my desktop in my room the day after Thief, so no background noise problem again. Sorry about that last time. I am fine using Skype or Vent.
I’m very familiar with Vent and think that in general, it’s a more consistently clear and easy to use service than Skype provides. That being said, I certainly don’t mind using Skype. I’ve just had a lot of problems with it lately in group chats. It might be something worth keeping in mind for future VGHVIs.
I also like the idea of playing with monsters on. With enough people, it really shouldn’t be a problem and we can play near our spawn point. I think it would add an interesting dynamic to multiplayer.
Hmm, we have had issues with Skype dropping people; and, given that I might have microphone problems, push-to-talk isn’t a bad idea for me this week. So I withdraw my objection, assuming that a Venter will suggest a server for us to use…
I’ll put the information for Karen’s server in the planning wave; if you need to be added to that wave, let me know!
To get the first day/night experience working right, I think I won’t start the server until we’ve got a critical mass gathered in Vent. So go there first.
Oops, I missed the wave. Can you invite me to the wave when you get a chance?
Sorry about that! For future reference, what’s your wave address?
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