The Sixth Conversation Thread

[sangi39]

Did anyone play:
1) Minecraft?

Not since a creeper came & blew up half my stuff (including my diamonds).

I got complacent about Creepers. My main base is basically a series of rings of raised (manual) farms with moats and cactuses and fences and whatever between them, and it's pretty well lit, and about 300 blocks from one side to the other (I think), so I went maybe about two months without seeing any sort of hostile mob at all. Then I started working on the exterior wall, which involved carving out the side of a mountain, fell into a cave and died in seconds, carrying enchanted pickaxes, shovels, and axes. Had to spend the next two days rebuilding my collection of them because I didn't think to have any backups stored

[TBPO]

Did anyone play:
1) Minecraft?

Not since a creeper came & blew up half my stuff (including my diamonds).

Don’t give up! Once in the Nether I mined gold above a lava and piglins shot me with crossbows and killed me. I didn’t fall to the lava, but some my items fell, including diamond sword and full diamond armor…

[Khemehekis]

What's a creeper?

[zyma]

A "creeper" is a monster in the video game Minecraft that explodes when it gets close to the player.

[Khemehekis]

A "creeper" is a monster in the video game Minecraft that explodes when it gets close to the player.

Wow, I didn't see this article when I wikipediaed the word "creeper". They sound like no fun for a Minecraft player! The Wikipedia article also says they're iconic of Minecraft (I'm the kind of guy who gets "Minecraft" and "Minesweeper" mixed up). To me they look like a green bone -- the kind of bone with epiphyses, like a doggy bone.

[sangi39]

A "creeper" is a monster in the video game Minecraft that explodes when it gets close to the player.

Wow, I didn't see this article when I wikipediaed the word "creeper". They sound like no fun for a Minecraft player! The Wikipedia article also says they're iconic of Minecraft (I'm the kind of guy who gets "Minecraft" and "Minesweeper" mixed up). To me they look like a green bone -- the kind of bone with epiphyses, like a doggy bone.

They're not awful, to be fair. They're definitely a "put down the mouse and keyboard and walk away for a minute" part of the game, but if you're base is mob-proofed well enough (which can be as little as "fence and torches"), they can actually be useful to the player, because they drop Experience (which can be used to repair tools with the Mending enchantment), and Gunpowder, which can be used as a crafting ingredient in things like TNT and Splash potions, which can be used for various things. For example, TNT can be used in various semi-automated farms (if you're ignoring duping glitches)

So, yeah, they can be a pain in the early games phases, and in exploration, but they're also useful too

[Khemehekis]

They're not awful, to be fair. They're definitely a "put down the mouse and keyboard and walk away for a minute" part of the game, but if you're base is mob-proofed well enough (which can be as little as "fence and torches"), they can actually be useful to the player, because they drop Experience (which can be used to repair tools with the Mending enchantment), and Gunpowder, which can be used as a crafting ingredient in things like TNT and Splash potions, which can be used for various things. For example, TNT can be used in various semi-automated farms (if you're ignoring duping glitches)

So, yeah, they can be a pain in the early games phases, and in exploration, but they're also useful too

Oh, OK. I see how they can help players of Minecraft!

And I just noticed that creepers have that "Mull of Kintyre" shape too!

[sangi39]

They're not awful, to be fair. They're definitely a "put down the mouse and keyboard and walk away for a minute" part of the game, but if you're base is mob-proofed well enough (which can be as little as "fence and torches"), they can actually be useful to the player, because they drop Experience (which can be used to repair tools with the Mending enchantment), and Gunpowder, which can be used as a crafting ingredient in things like TNT and Splash potions, which can be used for various things. For example, TNT can be used in various semi-automated farms (if you're ignoring duping glitches)

So, yeah, they can be a pain in the early games phases, and in exploration, but they're also useful too

Oh, OK. I see how they can help players of Minecraft!

And I just noticed that creepers have that "Mull of Kintyre" shape too!

IIRC, pretty much every hostile mob in Minecraft that you'd encounter has a positive use as well, mostly through dropping Experience and items. Like Skeletons drop arrows and bones (which can be used to make bonemeal, which can be used in things like dyes and as a fertiliser to make crops grow faster), Zombies drop rotten flesh which you can eat, but there are definitely better foods in the game, or you can trade it with a specific kind of Villager for emeralds, which you can then use in other trades, and Witches, although you'll see them more rarely on a day-to-day basis, drop things like Redstone Dust, Glowstone Dust, Spider Eyes, which all have various uses as either a crafting ingredient or in making potions

That's why you'll see videos of people making "hostile mob farms", sometimes huge ones, where people take advantage of the games underlying mechanics to cause large numbers of hostile mobs to spawn in one specific area, where they then either die or are killed by the player, in order to get more Experience or drops, without having to go out and just hunt for hostile mobs at night or in caves. And from there you get a steady reliable stream of those things, and you can use all of that to do more things because a chunk of your time was just freed up

I forget how much I like Minecraft sometimes Early game can be a bit of a nightmare, but once you get into the flow of things, and you work out a plan, it really is a lot of fun

[TBPO]

They're not awful, to be fair. They're definitely a "put down the mouse and keyboard and walk away for a minute" part of the game, but if you're base is mob-proofed well enough (which can be as little as "fence and torches"), they can actually be useful to the player, because they drop Experience (which can be used to repair tools with the Mending enchantment), and Gunpowder, which can be used as a crafting ingredient in things like TNT and Splash potions, which can be used for various things. For example, TNT can be used in various semi-automated farms (if you're ignoring duping glitches)

So, yeah, they can be a pain in the early games phases, and in exploration, but they're also useful too

Oh, OK. I see how they can help players of Minecraft!

And I just noticed that creepers have that "Mull of Kintyre" shape too!

IIRC, pretty much every hostile mob in Minecraft that you'd encounter has a positive use as well, mostly through dropping Experience and items. Like Skeletons drop arrows and bones (which can be used to make bonemeal, which can be used in things like dyes and as a fertiliser to make crops grow faster), Zombies drop rotten flesh which you can eat, but there are definitely better foods in the game, or you can trade it with a specific kind of Villager for emeralds, which you can then use in other trades, and Witches, although you'll see them more rarely on a day-to-day basis, drop things like Redstone Dust, Glowstone Dust, Spider Eyes, which all have various uses as either a crafting ingredient or in making potions

That's why you'll see videos of people making "hostile mob farms", sometimes huge ones, where people take advantage of the games underlying mechanics to cause large numbers of hostile mobs to spawn in one specific area, where they then either die or are killed by the player, in order to get more Experience or drops, without having to go out and just hunt for hostile mobs at night or in caves. And from there you get a steady reliable stream of those things, and you can use all of that to do more things because a chunk of your time was just freed up

I forget how much I like Minecraft sometimes Early game can be a bit of a nightmare, but once you get into the flow of things, and you work out a plan, it really is a lot of fun

Skeleton has another use: it can shoot another mobs as we as player (especially other skeleton; when one shoot another, they get into fight).
Early game can be hard, but big importance has place when you're spawn, amd also player experience (not in-game).

[Arayaz]

Also, remember not everything has to be useful: things can just be there as obstacles to overcome (which is the general intent of hostile agents in games).

[sangi39]

Also, remember not everything has to be useful: things can just be there as obstacles to overcome (which is the general intent of hostile agents in games).

True! I think MumboJumbo once tried to play Minecraft for I think it was 100 hours without killing any (hostile?) mobs to see how far he could get (I thin he could still kill them in a panic to stay alive, but couldn't use any drops), and he did really well out of it, treating them only as obstacles/threats, not as resources

[Khemehekis]

They're not awful, to be fair. They're definitely a "put down the mouse and keyboard and walk away for a minute" part of the game, but if you're base is mob-proofed well enough (which can be as little as "fence and torches"), they can actually be useful to the player, because they drop Experience (which can be used to repair tools with the Mending enchantment), and Gunpowder, which can be used as a crafting ingredient in things like TNT and Splash potions, which can be used for various things. For example, TNT can be used in various semi-automated farms (if you're ignoring duping glitches)

So, yeah, they can be a pain in the early games phases, and in exploration, but they're also useful too

Oh, OK. I see how they can help players of Minecraft!

And I just noticed that creepers have that "Mull of Kintyre" shape too!

IIRC, pretty much every hostile mob in Minecraft that you'd encounter has a positive use as well, mostly through dropping Experience and items. Like Skeletons drop arrows and bxnes (which can be used to make bxnemeal, which can be used in things like dyes and as a fertiliser to make crops grow faster), Zombies drop rotten flesh which you can eat, but there are definitely better foods in the game, or you can trade it with a specific kind of Villager for emeralds, which you can then use in other trades, and Witches, although you'll see them more rarely on a day-to-day basis, drop things like Redstone Dust, Glowstone Dust, Dipser Exes, which all have various uses as either a crafting ingredient or in making potions

That's why you'll see videos of people making "hostile mob farms", sometimes huge ones, where people take advantage of the games underlying mechanics to cause large numbers of hostile mobs to spawn in one specific area, where they then either die or are killed by the player, in order to get more Experience or drops, without having to go out and just hunt for hostile mobs at night or in caves. And from there you get a steady reliable stream of those things, and you can use all of that to do more things because a chunk of your time was just freed up

I forget how much I like Minecraft sometimes Early game can be a bit of a nightmare, but once you get into the flow of things, and you work out a plan, it really is a lot of fun

Skeleton has another use: it can shoot another mobs as we as player (especially other skeleton; when one shoot another, they get into fight).
Early game can be hard, but big importance has place when you're spawn, amd also player experience (not in-game).

"Big importance has place when you're spawn"? What does that mean?

[Arayaz]

Also, remember not everything has to be useful: things can just be there as obstacles to overcome (which is the general intent of hostile agents in games).

True! I think MumboJumbo once tried to play Minecraft for I think it was 100 hours without killing any (hostile?) mobs to see how far he could get (I thin he could still kill them in a panic to stay alive, but couldn't use any drops), and he did really well out of it, treating them only as obstacles/threats, not as resources

It was more than that. For all of Hermitcraft season 8 (that's definitely more than 100 hours), he couldn't kill anything (even passive mobs or other players), for any reason.

[HolyHandGrenade!]

Skeleton has another use: it can shoot another mobs as we as player (especially other skeleton; when one shoot another, they get into fight).
Early game can be hard, but big importance has place when you're spawn, amd also player experience (not in-game).

"Big importance has place when you're spawn"? What does that mean?

His signature suggests that English isn’t his first language.

[TBPO]

They're not awful, to be fair. They're definitely a "put down the mouse and keyboard and walk away for a minute" part of the game, but if you're base is mob-proofed well enough (which can be as little as "fence and torches"), they can actually be useful to the player, because they drop Experience (which can be used to repair tools with the Mending enchantment), and Gunpowder, which can be used as a crafting ingredient in things like TNT and Splash potions, which can be used for various things. For example, TNT can be used in various semi-automated farms (if you're ignoring duping glitches)

So, yeah, they can be a pain in the early games phases, and in exploration, but they're also useful too

Oh, OK. I see how they can help players of Minecraft!

And I just noticed that creepers have that "Mull of Kintyre" shape too!

IIRC, pretty much every hostile mob in Minecraft that you'd encounter has a positive use as well, mostly through dropping Experience and items. Like Skeletons drop arrows and bxnes (which can be used to make bxnemeal, which can be used in things like dyes and as a fertiliser to make crops grow faster), Zombies drop rotten flesh which you can eat, but there are definitely better foods in the game, or you can trade it with a specific kind of Villager for emeralds, which you can then use in other trades, and Witches, although you'll see them more rarely on a day-to-day basis, drop things like Redstone Dust, Glowstone Dust, Dipser Exes, which all have various uses as either a crafting ingredient or in making potions

That's why you'll see videos of people making "hostile mob farms", sometimes huge ones, where people take advantage of the games underlying mechanics to cause large numbers of hostile mobs to spawn in one specific area, where they then either die or are killed by the player, in order to get more Experience or drops, without having to go out and just hunt for hostile mobs at night or in caves. And from there you get a steady reliable stream of those things, and you can use all of that to do more things because a chunk of your time was just freed up

I forget how much I like Minecraft sometimes Early game can be a bit of a nightmare, but once you get into the flow of things, and you work out a plan, it really is a lot of fun

Skeleton has another use: it can shoot another mobs as we as player (especially other skeleton; when one shoot another, they get into fight).
Early game can be hard, but big importance has place when you're spawn, amd also player experience (not in-game).

"Big importance has place when you're spawn"? What does that mean?

"Place when you're spawn is important". Sorry...

[HolyHandGrenade!]

"Place when you're spawn is important". Sorry...

The correct sentence would be “the place where you spawn is important.”

[Khemehekis]

"Place when you're spawn is important". Sorry...

The correct sentence would be “the place where you spawn is important.”

Thanks. I couldn't figure that out! I thought TBPO was saying someone was spawn, as in "You're nothing but demon spawn!"