Recently I've been re-bitten by the Minecraft bug. Probably had something to do with updating my
texture pack to have all the new stuff added with the latest build of the game.
The original server I used to play on known as "/v/ huge multiworld flatgrass" is basically dead. Nobody was playing, nobody had any real interest in playing anymore. So, in order to play I went to one of the most brutal servers that exists when it comes to playing this game in multiplayer.
2B2T.
2B2T is the original vanilla server. It has existed ever since minecraft survival first had multiplayer. It has existed since before minecraft had any way of stopping hackers, griefers, spam, or a myriad of other problems that plagued multiplayer. Even now, it still allows some forms of cheating. X-Ray packs and such.
It is a wasteland.
It is truly the most brutal hard-mode experience you could glean from an online survival server. The spawn area of the server, where you first appear is a desolate crater of random bits of stone sticking out in every direction possible, creating a terrain that is very difficult to not only travel, but very easy to get stuck in. Add to this that there is no grass, no animals, and no plants within a good hour of walking, and you have a true challenge ahead of you if you plan to keep your little cube-man alive.
If by some lucky break you manage to escape the rocky core of spawn, you will find yourself in a dark nightmarish land of lava, water, and random other people trying to escape into the natural world. Some are mere visitors like you. Others are intent on killing everyone who joins the server. Some flying around with diamond encrusted armor and swords, slaying anything that moves.
Should you manage to escape undetected and make your way to the true outer area of spawn, you will find yourself in what might once have been fields of trees. The trees are gone. Months have passed since that wood existed. You'll have to go farther. Walk and don't stop. Hours will pass as you travel. You will see little other than a few environments, stripped bare of anything that could allow you to eat or build a house, and what can best be described as relics. Random bits of what might have been a castle floating hundreds of feet in the air. Craters with bits of someones wooden temporary house sitting at the bottom. On fire, most likely. Fallen empires. Great massive monasteries, kingdoms, edens, havens, and structures that at once point were no doubt beautiful. Now torn to pieces by those who hate progress or by those desperate for materials for their own shelters. Ruins. Relics. Little remains of anything that could serve as a house.
But there is a beauty to it. Perhaps simply due to human nature, or by mere accidental design, 2B2T simulates true anarchy in a post-apocalyptic world of no rules where personal survival rules over anything else.
This is not to say every person on the server is a nomad like me. Travelling from place to hide, hiding where I can, stealing when I can.
No, over the server's life, alliances and factions have been formed. Many are broken, destroyed, but small pockets remain. Players who are friends and are trying to create new empires on the stripped environments or skeletal remains of old worlds. Together.
I don't trust any of them since I don't personally know any of them from /v/, steam, somethingawful, facepunch, etc. So I generally don't seek them out and likewise, I have yet to have anyone seek me out.
As I travel across the massive infinite landscapes on this server, I do occasionally find interesting things. A piece of dirt that seems to be in the wrong place can be set aside, revealing an entire underground labyrinth of player-created mines, lost homes, secret bases and other interesting wonders. It's almost like a sort of urban exploration within the confines of minecraft.
And today I'm going to post a few I found interesting. The texture pack in these images is my own which I made called Zekocraft. I linked it above.
In my travels at one point I saw a small orange tint on the rocks near a very sharp incline. I fashioned stairs out of dirt and hopped up the deadly vertices to see if it was an abandoned house, etched into the cliffside.
It was. But the creator of the house had long since left. But had left a sign behind asking anyone who came across the house to use it for themselves as a resting point. Visitors who had found it afterwards left their own signs as well.
The entrance:
One of the inner rooms where past occupants had left notes that they had been there.
At once point there had been a farm inside this house for visitors to use to make bread. It has long since been cleaned out. I can't wag my finger at whoever did it either. If I was desperate for wheat and seeds I'd have done the same thing.
A rather amusing sign left above the remains of the farm.
Shockingly the bed in this house had not been touched. Not griefed. Not destroyed. Not stolen. Perhaps it's a sort of unwritten rule amongst players not to hurt beds. Beds serve as new spawn points after all. Messing with those could be a considered a "dick move" by some.
A small cobblestone hut.
Not unique by any stretch. Any player could make a hut like this within a minute or so. However, it was also the entrance to a mine.
Truly the only unique thing about this hut was that it had not been torn to shreds.
The mines inside were quiet and uneventful. The flickering of torches being the only movement. No players. No monsters. And oddly no stolen torches.
Torches tend to be the first things stolen. Coal requires work to acquire and even making charcoal by cooking trees is time-consuming. Many would prefer to just steal and re-use torches set up by others.
An hour or so of walking later I found a very simple cobblestone castle. Poorly designed. Any spider passing by could easily walk (or in their case: slide) up the walls and feast on any people inside.
Doesn't matter anyway. This castle has long since been abandoned and griefed.
A cute inner design with lots of bridgework and a sign.
Theres no way of knowing how long this castle or sign have been here.
Or whose sign it is. Was Howlboy the original King of this castle? The griefer who stole a whole wall of the castle? A spider? We will never know.
A house on a hill with the remnants of another house nearby that used to be up in the air. Possibly in a tree that is no longer there. All the surrounding trees have been ravaged. For what I don't know. Other than ladders, theres no wooden structures nearby.
The inside of the main house. Anything of value that once was here is long gone.
I stole the ladders from the tower nearby and took them with me on my journey. Ladders are a pain to produce and clearly nobody had used them in some time.
As I traveled I hit the ocean. And found a bunch of oddly shaped structures left behind by players. Not sure if these used to be foundations of a house or not.
I did manage to find a nearly untouched castle however. It had been abandoned but apparently never found and never griefed. I made a small underground house near it so I can use its facilities when I please without having to live in such an obvious attention-seeking area.
This is the door to my house. Dirt and trees have been added to this area since then. The house was not mine originally it was a hole with a door that I refurbished. It is completely invisible to anyone not cheating. Even at night when torchlight gives most settlements away, mine remains invisible to everyone but me and whoever first dug the hole I placed it in. It's been a couple of weeks and the original digger has not returned. I will remain in this house as long as I can in an effort to get diamonds.
The nearby castle is quite impressive. I took no picture of it as I don't want to give my hidey hobbit hole away. But the castle is massive, has several tall towers. Well designed in interiors with STAIRS and not ladders. A gardenhouse with a garden. The garden has every plant possible to get in minecraft. Including netherwort. Gravel pathways. And a massively complex underground mining tunnel complete with redstone minecart tracks and a whole system to carry underground goods autonomously to the garden house via the minecart track system.
It is the kind of house survival players dream of having.
And I want no part of it. I went into the mines. Took some bread. Left a sign on the roof letting the original creator know (if he ever returns) that I had been there and taken some bread.
There was a creepy sign in the mines.
THE KING COME DOWN.
The king come down is a line from a scary story that originated on /x/ long before that board became privy to popping skeletons, ded borts, suicidal mice, grifters, and other retarded shit. The true spirit of the board now only exists via the SCP website.
Regardless, its an interesting reference to find the mines of this castle. I assume the numbers are IP addresses or some sort of numerical anagram.
The creator of the castle was clever however. In the event that someone should come across his castle and destroy it, or worse, steal all his food, he had a 2nd secret underground garden at the very very bottom of the map. It's so dark down there you cant even see torches that are more than 40-50 blocks away. Making it hard to navigate and easier to die in. But check out all that wheat. Who knows how long that wheat has been growing down there.
Anyway.
That's all I really have to gab about. Hope you enjoyed this brief little venture.
All that's really left to do now is post the first official footage of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2
There are no words to express my glee at this footage.
