Minecraft Multiplayer Server Builds

Having been too busy to dedicate much time to serious gaming, so I thought I would talk a bit about some of the interesting construction projects going on our Minecraft server. Iv had a serious addiction to Minecraft since I began playing and I usually jump on for a while everyday. Of the original group, only 4 of us , myself, Baz, Wavioli and Al have been building anything so here is a little overview of what we have at the moment. We decided on being honest in this server so no inventory hacks have been used.

Overview
The main things on the map are our personal fortresses and a large castle that was built as a little project. There is also a sizable rail network that links the fortresses and spreads out across the landscape. Below is a map with the locations of the buildings with the extent of the rail network marked out. Being a total geek I didn't hesitate to work out its rough length which totals just over 1.3 km. It seems longer when your on it but bear in mind we mined out all the metal required for this by hand. There are also huge underground quarries and mines below each of our bases, some of which have even linked up with each other. These were hacked out over the last few months to supply our insatiable demand for building materials

Railway network
This took a long time and lots of metal to make. It was built between a few of us and connects all of the houses/fortresses. It also goes off to a very rich mine that was found by a prospecting Wavioli. Each station can launch you at the push of a button and thanks to the inclusion of booster rails, it provides a quick and scenic way to get around.

 

The elevated skyrail

Interchange at Baz's fortress

Bob's House
With this map I didn't really build a big intricate house. I concentrated on digging a huge mineshaft and right to the bedrock so I could get as much metal as possible to build the railway. I have a portal to the nether in my bedroom and thats about it. Using some of the stone I mined, I built a large sky garden with my train station above it. Other than that I haven't been too busy here.

The skygarden

A view of my gaf from the skyrail. No idea who built the target and for what purpose..

My train station

Looking down

Looking up

Wavioli's House
Master Miner Wavioli put some effort into making a nice house. He also laid much of the track for the railway and built the foundations for the castle. His house is the location where the sky rail descends to ground level. Another nice but unsightly addition is his door bell that chimes when you enter. Now that I think about it isn't a door bell at all, just a chime that goes off when the door opens... Well what ever it is its a nice touch.

Als House
Als house was slow to get off the ground and for a long time was a featureless cobblestone box full of monsters. Now its got a train station, sun deck and some half finished rooms inside.

Arriving at Als via rail

Al's sun lounge

Baz's House
This time Baz refrained on building a huge fortress protected by an array of fiendish traps. Instead he built a pretty sky garden and a monolithic Mob farm. This is a big dark space that spawns monsters, then uses some clever trickery using Minecraft's water physics to force them down against some suspended lava, killing the Mob, then moving the items dropped to a collection point. Deep below his towers there was also a dark place where Baz bent the rules of honor and natural law. After binding some malignant minecraft glitch demons to some pistons, they proceeded to churn out an infinite array of precious metals and diamonds. However Notch soon made such sorcery impossible and they have since gone silent. Praise be to Notch.

A view down inside one of the towers, normally its pitch black, spawning lots of monsters.

The killing room, here mobs are incinerated and their remains flushed away for the taking

Item collection point, seems like a rather large amount of effort to go to get some arrows and bones..

EDIT: Since making writing this blog, Baz has increased the awesomeness of his fortress considerably. There are also several suspicious looking redstone circuits lurking around up there that I'm afraid to go near for fear of setting off something nasty..

 

Castle
The castle has been lots of fun to make. It began when Wavioli flattened out a whole island and built a high wall around it. We then began to fill out the internal courtyard with lots of different buildings. And by 'we' I meant I filled out the courtyard. First thing up was a big cobblestone factory using the new pistons to create a machine that spews out as much cobblestone as we need, saving on the need to mine it all out manually.

  

Some of the buildings so far:

Cobblestone Factory

 

Library

Keep

Church

 

Prison

 

Bar

There is also a backroom for some special entertainment

Hot tub

Several shops and houses

 

 

So thats it so far. We've all been pretty busy over the last while so progress on the castle and our various fortresses has been slow overall. But I think it all looks pretty cool so far and I cant wait for the 1.8 update to be released so the next map can be begun!