The Song Fight Bulletin Board

My kids are 10 and 12 years old. They have become pretty much obsessed with Minecraft. Does anyone here have experience with this phenom? It's actually pretty cool...about building environments (sort of simcity, but building custom things that do things, not just plopping things from a menu) and exploring / interacting in massive multi-player mode.

So, related to this, we need a cheap laptop they can use since it's taking over my wife's MacBook (aka dad's music DAW). For other reasons (the 12 year old loves Rome and Shogun Total War) I figure it should be a Windblows machine. Any recommendation for a cheap but capable gaming machine under $500?

I've got a friend who keeps trying to get me to play minecraft. I've seen some screenshots of some crazy structures because of it. If it was online and free, I would probably play it.

I like reconditioned Dell laptops. I think they have a lot of good deals and you can usually find a 10-15% off coupon in addition to. I probably have one in my email, so if I can find it, I'll send it to you.

Ken

Nowadays you can get a pretty decent laptop for $300-$500. Woot.com has some good deals, and NewEgg has regular good deals. Keep in mind that at this price range, they are mostly disposable and will last 2 years (in my experience, anyway). Last I checked into it, Toshiba, Asus, Dell, and Lenovo were all fairly durable brands.

ken wrote:I've got a friend who keeps trying to get me to play minecraft. I've seen some screenshots of some crazy structures because of it. If it was online and free, I would probably play it.

I like reconditioned Dell laptops. I think they have a lot of good deals and you can usually find a 10-15% off coupon in addition to. I probably have one in my email, so if I can find it, I'll send it to you.

Ken

Thanks!

Minecraft cost ~$26, and apparently they have 4,211,200 users who have bought the app (do the math). The rest play for free online. The guy who created it is 32 years old. http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Minecraft_Wiki

Somebody has created a Minecraft version of Angkor Wat...my son is totally into this, and as a result knows a great deal about Angkor Wat.

Spin of Spintown plays it. Apparently they have little square piggies and sheeplings. Which is SO adorable. So I didn't get into that, because that's the sort of thing that will just DO ME IN. I'm a sucker for cute.

Have you tried the iOS or Android versions? I haven't played the game yet. I'm happy to see something written in Java become so popular though.

roymond wrote:My kids are 10 and 12 years old. They have become pretty much obsessed with Minecraft. Does anyone here have experience with this phenom? It's actually pretty cool...about building environments (sort of simcity, but building custom things that do things, not just plopping things from a menu) and exploring / interacting in massive multi-player mode.

Oh good.

I came here to ask about this - but see it has already been mentioned.

My daughter and I just saw a review of Minecraft on a kids TV show - and she said girls at school play it and she wants it. I thought it looked pretty cool too. So - I assume it is little kid friendly and age appropriate.

How do I actually buy something like this? All this talk about "apps" and stuff confuses me. I looked at the website, but it confused me too. Is this a game you load on from CDs and play - or is it played over the internet (like her other favourite - "Moshi Monsters")

She would play it on either our iMac or old Macbook. I don't quite understand if I need to buy software or if it is just a pay to register and play online thing.

Caravan Ray wrote:How do I actually buy something like this?

Minecraft is sold on minecraft.net, and nowhere else. You register on the site and pay. Then you can download the game and play it (when you run the game, it asks for your login data and it verifies that you've paid before it lets you play).

Technically you can play the game offline without paying, but that's illegal and needs secret software. Playing online with others pretty much requires a legit account in any case.

So far it seems pretty safe. There are some extremely impressive builds going on, and server owners need to respect the license or they lose it. I've not heard of any bullying or other abuse, but I may not be plugged in enough. The guy's a millionaire, and recently announced a new more intensively programmer-oriented game/environment.

roymond wrote:server owners need to respect the license or they lose it.

In practice, not really. It's just a lot of tedious work setting up a server that lets the pirates in but still allows you to ban people and stuff like that.

I've not heard of any bullying or other abuse

There's always crazies on some servers. An easy way to avoid that is to only play offline or with people you know (my preferred choices); alternatively, thick skin.

Oh... before you buy, be aware that there is no official manual and you pretty much have to get all the gameplay info from a wiki maintained by fanatics.

My sons learn everything via fanatics' YouTube videos.

Late to this party, but this game is the motherfucking shit. I know all you dads are dadding it up in here, but I sporadically will fall into this game for a week at a time. I was out on a week-long mission in southwest Afghanistan, and a company of artillery Soldiers had a wireless LAN with a Minecraft server set up. I played all week, building alongside these crusty-ass artillerymen. Weird memories created out here.

I would love for there to be a songfight minecraft server.

Sober wrote:Late to this party, but this game is the motherfucking shit. I know all you dads are dadding it up in here, but I sporadically will fall into this game for a week at a time. I was out on a week-long mission in southwest Afghanistan, and a company of artillery Soldiers had a wireless LAN with a Minecraft server set up. I played all week, building alongside these crusty-ass artillerymen. Weird memories created out here.

I would love for there to be a songfight minecraft server.

I have only looked at it briefly - but so far I fail to see any point to it.

My daughter seems to be continually building stuff and then smashing it again. Nothing seems to happen on it. It doesn't seem to be like simcity - where your city starts to function.

what is the point to it?

Did you ever play with Legos as a kid? It's the creative, build-anything sandbox that legos are, combined with exploration and combat. It's what games are supposed to be.

Sober wrote:Did you ever play with Legos as a kid? It's the creative, build-anything sandbox that legos are, combined with exploration and combat. It's what games are supposed to be.

I actually played with it a while today.

Yes - I get the Lego comparison.
I didn't see any combat.
Though I don't recall combat when I used Lego as a child. Except fighting with my brother over the few wheels we had to make racecars.


But a game should have a winner. How do I win?

(Sorry if that question is to hard - I understand you joined the military in the era that "winning" anything became obsolete. I guess I'm old fashioned. Games should have a point. ie - to win. "Exploration and combat " is just a way to keep the military industrial complex alive.)




....sorry Sober....yes, I am still a cranky old bastard.

I will keep trying with Minecraft. I am sure I am missing something. I just haven't seen it yet.

Anyway - My daughter LOVES it.

For combat, you have to change the difficulty from peacful to easy/normal/hard. I played only peaceful for a long time, so you're not necessarily doing anything wrong.

The game doesn't really have a 'you win' scenario. You create little goals for yourself, and win them as you go. First goal might be to build a stone castle, second might be to outfit it with some ballin' windows and wood trim. I wish I lived somewhere with fast enough internet to be active in a multiplayer server (even at home in Japan, it isn't fast enough).

Sober wrote:The game doesn't really have a 'you win' scenario. You create little goals for yourself, and win them as you go.

In my day - winning meant scoffing down those Power Pellets, turning the little bastards blue and giving them a big old taste of whoop-arse. "Creating goals for yourself" was something knob-ends in turtle-neck jumpers talked about.

Tell me, how do you win at Pacman?

Pacman is the original zombie survival game. You don't win, you just survive for a while.

Sober wrote:Tell me, how do you win at Pacman?

Pacman is the original zombie survival game. You don't win, you just survive for a while.

Yes. I suppose you are right.

Pacman is like life. Nobody wins. You just survive for a while.

I played Ms.Pac-Man and winning was about board count + high score. It was a good day if I made over 5 babies while eating lots of buffalo wings.

Caravan Ray wrote:I didn't see any combat.

There are two "boss battles" in Minecraft but they take some work to get to. There is one called The Wither. Essentially, you make a T shaped figure out of a certain type of sand and places skulls atop of it and need thing you know, you've summoned a three headed floating skeleton creature out to kill you. Another is the Ender Dragon, which takes a bit of an adventure to get to.

This is all true, though I neglected to mention it because it's basically impossible that a person could even know of their existence by just playing the game alone. Unfortunately, many of the advanced recipes and builds virtually require looking at a faq/wiki. Still, playing the game at a very basic level is extremely fun, and hasn't changed much since it was in alpha.