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Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Duke Nukem gold. Seriously June 14th, 2011

"Duke Nukem Forever is the game that was once thought to be unshippable, and yet here we are, on the precipice of history,” said Christoph Hartmann, president of 2K. “Today marks an amazing day in the annals of gaming lore, the day where the legend of Duke Nukem Forever is finally complete and it takes that final step towards becoming a reality.”

Precipice if history is taking it a bit far, but whatever.

Friday, April 22, 2011

Duke Nukem....over the top

I dont know if I can say more.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

T5 Suing Onlive

Via Bigdownloads:

A few months ago OnLive claimed it had the patent secured for its streaming PC game technology. Now VentureBeat reports that a previously unknown UK company called T5 Labs has claims it had secured a patent for the same kind of streaming tech several months before OnLive filed for its patent in 2002.

T5 Labs stated in an email that the company "is considering its legal rights, including deciding whether to commence a procedure in the U.S. Patent Office known as an "interference" to establish that t5 labs, rather than OnLive, is the first inventor and entitled to the patent rights on video gaming inventions ..." OnLive has yet to comment on this development. It's not known why T5 Labs has not tried to commercialize its technology like OnLive has. OnLive officially launched its service in June 2010 and can now stream a number of games to PCs, Macs and TVs (the latter with a Microconsole).

Here is a perfect example of abusing intellectual property rights. Some company that probably doesn't have a functional product is going to throw a hail mary lawsuit in the hopes of getting a settlement. Nice mentality, lets not create a competitive product, instead lets claim that because a product had similar goals well just say that the idea was stolen and sue.

"It's not known why T5 Labs has not tried to commercialize its technology like OnLive has"

So true.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Minecraft continued

So I have continued playing Minecraft, having discovered that the supposed "sequel" to Dungeon Keeper sucks. So Let me show off some of my latest projects.

The first involves the waterfall project. In this I created a suspended home surrounded on all sides (including underneath) by a constant flowing waterfall.

Here is the site when I started:



Next I started Filling it in to get the water out so I could dig.



Digging this out below sea level took awhile.



After setting up the beginnings of a house, I took out the top level and let the water flow in.



Accessible only by glass hallway going through the waterfall, also with glass floor so you can watch the water flow underneath.



Tomorrow I will show off a lava tower.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

More Minecraft? Oh yeah

I now embark on my most ambitious Minecraft project to date. More to follow.....

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

More Minecraft shots

I made a 2nd building, and created a Lava flow that goes from the roof all the way down right through the center of the building. Woot!!!




 

 

 

 
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The Minecraft Experience

Sorry about the lack of updates. I was playing a lot of Starcraft 2, then Company of Heroes, and finally I have been hooked on Minecraft.

This game, despite its Doom-like graphics, is hella fun and extremely addictive. It comes with a little bit of a learning curve as you figure out how to survive your first night and how to fashion basic tools. But it doesn't take to long to learn, especially for Wow players who are used to creating items using gathered materials.

So after dying a few times at the hands on zombies and spiders at night, I fashion my first domicile. I started out digging into the side of a mountain, went up about 20 feet, then built a platform jutting out of the side which I judged to be high enough to keep me away from the wandering monsters below. That's when I discovered that monsters can descend from the cliffs above and blow up the floor of my new home...twice.

So I built a stone room on my platform, complete with roof, which kept the monsters at bay while I crafted whatever items I needed and dug further into the mountain to get stone for whatever I wanted to build. That's when I arrived at lesson 2.

Lesson 2 is that if you dig a huge room and don't light it up with torches well enough (monsters apparently avoid light, unless they are chasing you), zombies can spawn inside, and I don't mean one or two. And since there is no sun in this man made cave, they don't burn up when the sun comes up.

So rather than try and fight the five I saw in there with my self made stone sword, I decided to abandon my first home and start anew with a grand new plan that will keep me monster free. First I looked for a place to start building my new home. I wanted it away from cliffs and the monsters that jump off them, so I began looking around for a large flat area when and idea popped into my head. There are fewer monsters and large open spaces in the water.

So off I go to start my new home. I started with a 2nd story platform that was only accessible via a long elevated bridge with torches at the doorway. I stayed here at night, running back to my old home only in the daytime to make new items needed for construction. Once I had the first room built, well lit with torches, I decided hey, why not two stories? So I set up blocks so I can jump up the the roof, and cut a hole in the ceiling. Soon I had a 2nd room when I realized that running back to my old home to craft was stupid, so I packed up my workbench, smelter and storage chest and moved them into the 2nd story, which now became my crafting room.

Finishing that, Is till was not happy. I liked making building that I identified as home in my world, which required wood floors instead of stone in my mind. The room on the ground floor wasn't tall enough to handle a layer of wood, and I was not looking forward to ripping the floor out and raising the 2nd story, so onto the third floor I went.

By now I had figured out how to craft a staircase, so jumping up terraced blocks was no longer necessary, I built a 3rd floor with vaulted ceilings to accommodate my wood floor. I also realized my dream of making a patio that would let me mock the monsters wandering below at night from safety, and could happily work through the night without fear of being invaded.

When you move beyond basic survival is when Minecraft gets really fun. I found an example of how to make a hot tub, which is now on the roof of my home. I figured out how to make fences, which prevent me from accidentally running off a staircase or the roof, as this game has falling damage. I figured out where to find Iron and how to build a deep mine. I discovered doors, which now stand in all my entrances along with boats, which led me to create a staircase from the ground floor of my home to the boat launch I built below, well lit to repel monsters.

And this was just the simple stuff, you can find a lot of clever things on Youtube.

If you do decide to try this game, here are a few links to help you on your way.

Minecraft web site here.

Minecraft Wiki, which will give you almost all of the recipes of items in the game.

And an excellent Youtube video that will help you get started here.

Here are some pictures of my "home"


 

 

 

 
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