It's only been mentioned in passing, so I don't know if any of you play. However, if you do, I run a server. What you can't see from this map of the surface is there are very extensive cave and tunnel systems that connect many of the towers and land masses.

I'd love to see people from this community in there.

I've been playing minecraft as well, I need to figure out how to put my current single player Alpha map over on my server to play with.

I'm still trying to avoid it, just seeing how people are being sucked into it. I still don't even quite get what it is, beyond a very pixelated version of Second Life or something.

I'm sure it's just a matter of time before I'm consumed by it though.

That's the thing, I need someone to give me a two-liner about what this "game" is. So far, my limited understanding of it gives me the impression that it's Farmville for the FPS crowd...

It's hard to explain to people that haven't played it for at least a few hours.

There was an interview with Markus (Notch) last week that's a good listen if you haven't played. He gives some insight into what it is, where the idea came from, and what it's going to be.

Okay, here's a problem: if your game can only be explained by its players by linking to a 41 minute interview, then it's not going to gain mass adoption

Sorry, it's just that I'm not going to listen to a 41 minute podcast about a game I know I won't play. I just want to know what it is so I can understand when people talk about it...

Keep in mind that it's in fairly early alpha. The game at the moment is still quite far from what it'll be when it goes to beta, especially as far as game mechanics.

Dignan: He even says himself in that interview that he always has a hard time explaining what it is.

I'd recommend watching a few videos on Youtube and/or playing the single player a bit to understand what it's all about.

I understand the hesitation. I was the same way when I first heard about it, and it took me a while to even try it.

The actual explanation is only a few minutes long. The rest is just other questions about the game, and about him.

The Wikipedia page has a good introduction paragraph that explains the game quite accurately.

As far as its popularity, I'd say it's done incredibly well being that it is just an indie game by a single developer with no advertising beyond word of mouth from the players.

As of October 2nd 2010, Minecraft surpassed 1,000,000 registered users and 300,000 purchases.

I've been playing survival mode since the "free weekend" got me playing. I'll check out the server next time I play. I did get my brother in law hooked over this last weekend.

If you want to get addicted to something, try Dwarf Fortress. It's like Minecraft on steroids. (Actually, given the heritage, Minecraft is like DF-lite)

Yeah, in fact Minecraft was inspired partly by Dwarf Fortress, though mostly by Infiniminer.

I think I broke the server...

I'm pretty sure it was Dwarf Fortress that made my eyes bleed after looking at it for 20 secs. Am I thinking of the same game?

That was hysterical. Until I went and looked at some screenshots, and found blood trickling down my cheeks, too.

At least Dwarf Fortress has color. Back in my day, we had to make do with monochrome monitors, and we had to fight @-signs and #-signs all in the same amber color as the dungeon walls. And we liked it.

Thanks for the screenshots, now my eyes have to heal all over again. I'm pretty sure they could use Dwarf Fortress as some kind of torture device like in A Clockwork Orange.

Tony, at least with black and white the color combinations won't cause any seizures. That is a definite advantage over Dwarf Fortress.

@-signs? You were lucky...

Trevor, I see you've been placing tracks. Might want to be careful with that, they are still buggy in SMP. They can cause client disconnects.

See here for more info on what to avoid in SMP. Hopefully he'll have a lot of that fixed in the Halloween update.

Yeah. Thats why I stopped. The placed track seems to be okay anyway.

What is an issue however is that the mine carts are really buggy. I tried to blow up the mine carts but it seems to be impossible to get rid of them completely.

I had that same issue. There is a group of carts on one of the hills that I can't get rid of.

For now, I just don't go over there. I even buried some of them.

That's Ravenholme - we don't go there any more :-)

Sorry - wrong game

I was playing on my SMP map, which is a winter map. I wanted to farm, but since it's winter, water freezes. I decided the only way to go was to build a greenhouse.