Evening Reading

With games like StarCraft II, Halo: Reach, and Civilization V already out, it's easy to forget that there are a bunch of big games still on the horizon... Dead Rising 2, Medal of Honor, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Fallout: New Vegas, Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, DJ Hero 2, Rock Band 3, Fable III, Gran Turismo 5, and Kinect.

What are you looking forward to picking up?

Gaming News o'the Day

Links from Morning Discussion

From The Chatty
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    September 23, 2010 5:00 PM

    Thursday Evening Minecraft Thread!
    Distraction Edition!!!

    I’d put more text here but I’m in the middle of a game of Invasion in Halo: Reach.

    Multiplayer Servers!
    MercFox1 : shackeast.sytes.net
    - Latest MercFox1 render: http://box.nevernet.com/~djr/mc/render.png
    AgentPothead : shackcraft.sytes.net
    Shadowdane (snow world) : shadowdane.shacknet.nu
    Chicken Fur : 69.169.149.253
    m0rfus (PvP/Mobs on) : 173.201.191.198

    Teamspeak : ts.shackbattles.com : 9987

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      September 23, 2010 5:01 PM

      First Time Playing?
      - Check out (and help with) the Shackwiki Minecraft page!
      http://shackwiki.com/wiki/Minecraft

      - Map your levels with Oizomapper, by mroizo40!
      http://www.shacknews.com/laryn.x?id=24041803#itemanchor_24041803

      Video Guides!
      - (Series) X's Adventures in Minecraft! Linked by zuff!
      http://tinyurl.com/2ah7sex
      Lots of useful info in here!

      - (Series) Minecraft Minecart Tutorials! Boosters! Track switches! Et cetera!
      http://tinyurl.com/2udl2lt

      Written Guides!
      - Beginner’s Guides to Minecraft, originally linked by at0micgarden!
      (Work in Progress) Guide to Alpha: http://www.minecraftforum.net/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=17021
      How to Survive Your First Night: http://www.minecraftforum.net/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=19065

      Shacker Help!
      - Things I Wish I’d Known, a retrospective by Ebu!
      http://www.shacknews.com/laryn.x?id=23608826#itemanchor_23608826

      - Linkmania! By zuff!
      http://www.shacknews.com/laryn.x?id=23514788#itemanchor_23514788
      http://www.shacknews.com/laryn.x?id=23533536#itemanchor_23533536


      - Ores, and How to Find Them, by Fooldozer and CodeRedBeard!
      http://www.shacknews.com/laryn.x?id=23582115#itemanchor_23582115

      - Multiplayer Tips from BlackCat9
      http://www.shacknews.com/laryn.x?id=23641449#itemanchor_23641449

      - Circle guides! More useful than they sound!
      http://www.agentpothead.com/minecraft/sphere.html linked/hosted by AgentPothead!
      http://www.41370.com/linkedimg/radii_even_to_100.png linked by Hemtroll!

      - And some generally useful keys to press!
      F11 - full screen!
      F3 (hold) - CPU/ memory usage bar! Spikes for CPU/ red box for memory, I think!
      F5 - third person mode!

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      September 23, 2010 5:04 PM

      [deleted]

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        September 23, 2010 5:05 PM

        I refute that theory and posit that it was due to the recent Penny Arcade strips.

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          September 23, 2010 5:08 PM

          [deleted]

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            September 23, 2010 5:10 PM

            [deleted]

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              September 23, 2010 5:13 PM

              The server going down was the reason for the free weekend.

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                September 23, 2010 6:37 PM

                Yeah I think it was really about choosing between "no one gets to play" and "everyone gets to play". He made a smart choice. I played it over the weekend and decided to buy it. I'm sure lots of others did too.

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          September 23, 2010 5:08 PM

          While the daily shack threads were pushing me to the edge, the PA comics made my jump.

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        September 23, 2010 5:07 PM

        it was free because the servers were overloaded

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          September 23, 2010 5:11 PM

          [deleted]

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            September 23, 2010 5:19 PM

            Yeah, he spun it exactly that way. PA had nothing to do with the Free Weekend idea itself, but they brought about it's inception.

            BRAAAAUUUUMMMMM

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        September 23, 2010 6:12 PM

        His free weekend was the result of his authentication server blowing up. Nothing complicated about that.

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      September 23, 2010 5:07 PM

      Decided to put water in my sky castle. Didn't put it exactly were I wanted it and flooded the whole thing out. The water destroyed all cloth structures and I I'm having a hell of a time getting back up to the point where the water fall started to stop it. :\ I'm thinking about abandoning it anyways since it looked better in my head than it did in game. :\

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      September 23, 2010 5:08 PM

      i found a pretty huge cavern below my 'house' and two waterfalls, but still no ores so i can't do anything? wtf do i do to become productive. i found what looked like a gold brick and took forever to break with my pickaxe but nothing came out - it was just destroyed

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        September 23, 2010 5:33 PM

        Use iron pickaxe or better for gold and other rare stuff.

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          September 23, 2010 6:35 PM

          Can't find iron!

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            September 23, 2010 7:02 PM

            dude, make a WOOD pickaxe and mine stone, then make a STONE pickaxe and mine for those multi-colored blocks. then you have to make a furnace and stuff...

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        September 23, 2010 6:07 PM

        did you have wood pick? or stone? or steeeeeel!!
        i've just dug down about 20 steps, then spread out looking for stuff.

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        September 23, 2010 6:12 PM

        Yeah, you used the wrong pick, don't mine gold and better until you make iron pick.

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        September 23, 2010 6:52 PM

        I can't believe how bad you are at this game. Go exploring, and find caves open up to the surface. The entrances to caves tend to have a lot of coal (black flecks) and iron (reddish-orange flecks).

        Use iron pickaxes on gold (gold flecks), diamond (cyan flecks), and redstone (red flecks). Use stone for the rest.

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          September 23, 2010 8:28 PM

          i found a patch of diamond, my diamond pickaxe is the shizz!

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      September 23, 2010 5:10 PM

      [deleted]

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        September 23, 2010 5:11 PM

        [deleted]

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        September 23, 2010 5:18 PM

        I lol'd.

        IT'S EVERYWHERE!!!!

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        September 23, 2010 6:53 PM

        I know there are a lot of ArenaNET guys who play. I think they have their own server.

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        September 23, 2010 8:56 PM

        LOL we were just talking about setting one of these up at work today.

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        September 23, 2010 9:14 PM

        it's nice that their servers are practically ungriefable (since you'll get fired if you try)

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      September 23, 2010 6:17 PM

      i see people are trickling in preparing for the apocalypse. creepers are fucking annoying.

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      September 23, 2010 6:37 PM

      any of you have the how to get started guide? im gonna give it a shot

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      September 23, 2010 8:01 PM

      i bought this around 3pm today and just realized it's 11:01pm.

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        September 23, 2010 8:15 PM

        TIMECRAFT

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        September 23, 2010 10:33 PM

        It's kinda like that, yeah. The zen garden aspect of it chews time.

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      September 23, 2010 8:18 PM

      Grrraaaaaaaahhhhh. Anyone know why I can connect to NerfBlox's server, but Minecraft.exe always crashes after ~1 minute later? I want to stake my claim to some land damn it!

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        September 23, 2010 8:36 PM

        Is your render distance set to Far? That's been crashing people lately--turn it to normal.

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      September 23, 2010 8:32 PM

      Charlie whatever your name is. You did a pretty damn good job re-building the natural hill behind my tower which you previously destroyed. And you also made a very interesting lava pit and patched up the ground so it pretty much looks like it did before. I forgive you. :) Thanks for the diamonds too. But DAMN is sucked when I signed in to see my entire plot of land all mined out and empty and my tower practically floating in space. We can continue to be peaceful neighbors and I don't need to feed you to that dragon which recently washed up behind my tower (which.. I believe you built anyways...) -Slaughbart

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      September 23, 2010 8:37 PM

      [deleted]

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      September 23, 2010 9:02 PM

      I made it my first night, built a nice little shelter, then promptly got lost as the sun was setting and died looking for it :-(

      This game needs a map, or at least some kind of compass/waypoint system.

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      September 23, 2010 9:12 PM

      So I purchased and have been playing single player, just to understand what's going on. The first few games I died a few times, kept starting a new world, I never found caves or anything. Finally, I start a new world that looks interesting. Snow, I like it. I wander a bit and find some pretty tall mountain areas with some rock outcrops. Cool, maybe some caves finally.. oh... my... god.. I stumbled upon the entrance to a LABYRINTH. Quickly chopping wood and making a shitload of stone picks and torches, I set out to find some ore! I like to torch my direction of exploration, not only to see where the hell I'm going, but how to get back. I keep running across iron ore, and a bit of gold! Deeper, down... whats that sound? Water? OMG, underwater river! More ore! I'm following the river when ahead I see some light. It's a column of MAGMA dripping down into the edge of the river. Wow! Then I see some RED ore! Oh cool! I'm picking away, and then I see out of the corner of my eye, a fucking cactus monster thing! Jesus!! I chop the bastard, since I had the brilliance of bringing a sword with me. The fucker explodes and opens some walls, and then I hear a fucking bow and arrow, and zombie moans! Jesus christ! I quickly throw down a wall of stone and block the corridor, sealing that area off. My god, did I stumble upon the entrance to hell? I begin my long journey back to the surface, to my forge to smelt down my overburdened inventory. After what seemed forever I see daylight again. Now I need to create Iron tools and some weapons and armor before my next foray into the dark depths.. what horrors await me below I don't know, but I must have more ore and jewels!

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      September 23, 2010 9:19 PM

      [deleted]

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      September 23, 2010 9:38 PM

      My contribution to Merc's server, I call it...home. It's a start.

      http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/5092/ironh.jpg

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      September 23, 2010 9:40 PM

      I keep timing out.... Hmm.

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      September 24, 2010 12:21 AM

      Murry, Hemo, and I did some editing to spawn area on Merc's server. Now anybody new, or people that use /home, have to be let out of the spawn area via someone placing water ontop of a small tower. The person will then be able to swim out.

      Draw backs are that someone has to be on the server, and they also have to go back to spawn without using /home. But if an op is on, they could just tp them out of spawn.

      I only see this as being a short-term fix until merc gets the whitelist going.

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      September 24, 2010 12:31 AM

      [deleted]

Hello, Meet Lola