Misadventures in Rust Angels: The Base Defense Contest

 

 By Bixyl Shuftan

Anyone remotely famillar with Rust knows there are two kinds of servers. There are the PvE servers in which all is peaceful between players. And then there are the PvP servers, in which there's the potential of combat and raiding between players. Of the later, a few are somewhat relaxed, somewhat, with a majority of the players not fighting or raiding unless provoked. But some can be so vicious, players can expect to be attacked within minutes of entering, let alone after they've gathered enough materials for and having set up a base. While some of my friends have given PvP servers a try, hoping for the more relaxed variety, others have had more then enough of the "PVP kiddies" and are sticking to PvE ones. So when the Angels Rust server was back up, it was soon populated with Nydia and her friends, including myself.

But the trouble with PvE is, what to do to liven things up? Yes, there are the "ninja bears" who appear out of nowhere to eat you, the scientists who shoot at you, and the ever threatening chopper that fires death from above. But without human opponents, things can seem a bit predictable. To spark some excitement, there's been a couple "Wacky Races" in the server. But setting up the track was a lot of work to server moderator Umbra. So for September's challenge, he had a different idea: have the contestants get ready for a raid.


Most folks have built their base so for those who are interested in doing so I have a little competition for those interested.

The contest:

Build a base to house 4 to 8 players.
No items from mods
Base should be built to be defendable.
Base size around 12-20 foundations across, no height restrictions.
Contestants must build their own base, no team builds. (But definitely talk among your team mates and bounce ideas off them).
Required items that must be in base:
Workbench 1,2,3
Research bench
Repair bench
Storage
Smelter
Refinery
Furnace
Campfire/BBQ
Anything else is optional. Be creative with your designs.
How long?
Now till the end of the 24th.  Judging on the 25th by myself and Nydia.

How do I enter?
Pick a spot on the map, screen capture the map location and dm it to me.

Are you in this channel?  Good, you can enter.
Im not whitelisted on your server…
Dm myself or Nydia with your steam ID and we will get you whitelisted

Do I have to gather resources?
Wood stone and metal are provided in three kits that are now live on the server.  Items that require scrap or tech trash you will have to source out.

Judging criteria?
Functionality - Does your base have all the necessary items to be sustainable?
Defendable - Can you fend off a determined raid of well equipped players?
Architectural design - Is there an idea of theme in how you built your base?

 

Foxy, who had experience in PvP servers and defending against raiders, one would think this contest would be a welcome challenge. But be bowed out as there'd been a few complaints about large bases causing lag, "I'd build the Citadel again but I'd get yapped at. So I'll be on the sidelines." But there were two entries. There was Snowy and there was me. Both our initial bases were too small to fit what the contest rules required. So she started a new one nearby. I ended up packing and moving to not too far from where she was, to a spot close to the stone quarry and within fair distance (by vehicle) of the sulfur and high quality metal quarries, as well as some abandoned marts & gas stations and a mining station.

Snowy had no real experience with defending against an attack, so she studied several Youtubes of bases made to be hard to crack. The result was what she called a "Frustrator." It was a two story base with a top wall that sloped outward - which rendered scaling to the top with ladders impossible without wrecking them. The top of the base was a "battledeck" with special slit windows that defenders could fire out of, but were reasonable protected. And the walls were made of high quality metal, making it a tough nut to crack. And if they did, they place was "honeycombed" with garage doors that were more difficult to take down than normal metal doors. And the tool cabinet was cleverly hidden. This would not be an easy base to take down.

My personal experience with defending against being raided has had, mixed results. A lot of redundant doors made a few turn around and leave before getting to anywhere important. One I caught in the act trying to chop down a door with hatchets, and blasted him. However I've found well-planned and equipped raids impossible to stop. Only once was I online and at the base when this happened, and I was poorly prepared, the two invaders armed with explosives blasting their way through and me with just a shotgun and grenades. I tried waiting in ambush, then tried tossing a grenade just as the wall in front of me came down. But somehow instead of being thrown, the grenade fell to my feet. Respawning in my bed, I tried getting them from behind with a pistol. But they saw me coming, and stopped me with a machine gun. There was nothing I could do after that, and they pretty much wrecked the place. Later on after traps were developed, I once logged on to find a hole in the wall and a number of doors knocked down, the last one having a shotgun trap behind it.

Concluding a determined raid couldn't be stopped at the outer wall, instead of going all out to try to, I concentrated on making the place hard to get through once inside. The place was also larger than Snowy's base, with individual bedrooms, the refinery and large furnace inside the building, and numerous stairwells. Only the bottom of the outer wall was metal and high quality metal. the rest was wood, with interior walls made of metal and stone. There were numerous HQM doors, most of which could be where the tool cabinet was hidden. But it was well hidden that would made finding it hard, at least that's what I thought. The main "vault room" where most of the guns and more valuable items were stored was out of the way, and I thought about making my stand there if they did get in for an ambush. And then there were the traps. I placed shotgun traps all over, notably in the stairwells and behind doors in closets. Thankfully Snowy had encouraged me to learn about making an electrical system, so I set up windmills and batteries, and rigged a number of turrets. Maybe Umbra would make a mess going in, but I was determined to make it a slow hard slog.

Snowy and I also ended up cooperating some, trading some resources. I guess we saw it as more than just a competition, but also cooperating against someone who thought he could beat us, "All your base are belong to us." I also started helping her in fights against the Bradley Armored Personnel Carrier, patrolling the launch site. The thing is tough to beat, with a machine gun and a cannon. While it's possible to blow it up with explosive charges, you'll need a rocket launcher and rockets if you want much of a chance. Snowy found the best place to fire at it was from the top of one of the buildings. Beating the thing, you have a chance of finding an M249 light machine gun in the loot crates, one of the best guns in the game and one that can be found only by beating that or the attack helicopter, or things like heavy metal doors, which helped me in honeycombing my base. Snowy found taking it on and blowing it up therapeutic, as well as a team-building exercise. While she occasionally went after it alone, she usually had the help of her friend Nikki. For me, it helped that the launch site was not far from the sulfur quarry. Since the thing ran without my help anyway as long as it had fuel, several times I would go and help her while it churned out the mineral. I also gave her some shotgun traps.

With all of the traps on my base, I was confident at times Umbra would be in for it. Recalling the scene in "Home Alone" when the burglars called the kid's home a "funhouse," I started calling it just that. Snowy thought it more resembled a hotel with it's bedrooms and stairs. One small complication, I found out Nydia would be helping Umbra on the raid. Since Nydia and I are close, I was a little worried a hard fight might upset her. But she assured this wouldn't happen. So we got ready, during which time Snowy had a little accident with her camper that she had to take a picture with her camera to be believed.

Finally the day of the contest approached.


After judging Nydia and I will attempt to raid the base for 30 minutes, while we do that you can see how comically bad we are at this kind of thing and/or get shot.  A lot. (Said base if destroyed will be rebuilt)

The day of the raid was going to be on Sunday night, but it got postponed a few days due to technical issues. I used the time to set up another few turrets after getting a few more TV cameras from military crates and Bradley kills. I also set up some "dragons teeth" around the Funhouse walls to discourage ladders. Finally on Wednesday night after the Cutlass party, Snowy and her friend Nikki got ready at her base while I got ready at mine. Umbra and Nydia decided to go after the "Frustrator" first. Umbra was streaming their actions, which made it a little easier for us. A little as we still couldn't always see what Nydia was up to. 

Flying over in their helicopter, they encountered trouble right away as the base had a Surface to Air Missile launcher, as well as their own personal rocket launchers. Nydia dropped Umbra off, and tried to safely land the copter nearby. But it caught fire, and became unusable after she landed. Umbra tried sneaking over, and throwing grenades into the upper windows. It worked sometimes, but while one was respawning and running back, the other was still firing away. Umbra also got hurt by a shotgun trap and blown up by a mine. At one point, Umbra hopped into Snowy's camper and took off, "The keys were right in there." That might have been a successful troll, but unless there were any weapons or ammo in there, no contribution to the fight.

Finally Umbra and Nydia gave the place a rocket barrage from a distance. The walls took a beating, but being made of High Quality Metal, they held. Snowy's team did have some trouble. Stormy came on late, and a glitch knocked her off the team, causing the shotgun traps to go off on her. Then for some reason the shotgun traps started going off on all of them. It seems after two or three respawns, they no longer saw you as friendly. They ended up having to hole up in the sleeping area. But Umbra and Nydia still couldn't get in.

Finally after a little over an hour, Umbra called a ceasefire. Snowy's base had successfully held off the assault. It was then my turn. Seeing their chopper, I tried firing at it with my rocket launcher a couple times. But the only result was to get their attention. They landed and managed to get to the building, and I tried dropping grenades on them. They missed, but I'm sure it shook them up some. I then tried making quick peeks, and fired with my M249 when I had a target, darting back after a few seconds. Once I wasn't quick enough and got nailed with one of Nydia's rockets. I quickly got back up and resumed, and managed to get her back with the gun. They tried grenades, but only ended up knocking themselves out a couple times.

Eventually night fell, then Umbra and Nydia went back and gave the base a rocket barrage from a distance. I tried looking out with night vision goggles, but I couldn't see them. While trying to see them, another rocket ended those efforts, and trying to get back up, I got hit by my own shotgun trap. And with so many of them around, I could only hole up next to the vault and wait for them if they ever made it there. Their rockets ended up blowing a big hole in the side of the building, taking down not just the outer wooden walls, but sections of stone floor and metal and stone walls. Then then started moving inside. But while they took out a few traps, there were still enough turrets to slow them down, Umbra getting knocked out by them a few times and Nydia once.

Finally after a little more than an hour, Umbra called a ceasefire. While they had gotten in, they had neither found the tool cabinet or main stash of supplies. And progress was slow due to the traps. So he felt this counted as a win for me. It was then he noticed, "Um, is your tool cabinet still up?" In all of the excitement, neither one of us noticed it was gone, presumably from the rocket barrage, the stone walls it was behind not quite enough. But since Umbra had already declared for me, it was too late for him to place one of his own. While I'd gotten some unlucky breaks in the fight, in the end luck was on my side.

So both Snowy and I had won against the raids. Nydia ended up leaving her weapons behind at my base after the raid, and Umbra didn't bother picking up those from when he'd gotten clobbered earlier. But they'd left a big hole behind while Snowy's base was intact. It turned out one wall was close to breaking, but it didn't. So she was the bigger winner in the competition. Nydia and Umbra offered for us to return the favor on their base, but Snowy answered she'd rather take out Bradley another time.

Umbra would later do a post-mortem on the raids. The fight at the Frustrator had more people getting clobbered more often, Umbra getting 5 kills while clobbered three times. Nydia got two kills in while being knocked out three times. Snowy was even, four to four, while Nikki got a kill in while getting knocked out three times. Stormy having gotten in late ended up getting clobbered once by opposing action without getting a kill of her own. Umbra didn't count the deaths by the shotguns. With the Funhouse, there were fewer kills overall, but more friendly fire accidents and several kills by the turrets. Umbra missed one of the two rocket kills by Nydia on me and considered us even. He never got a kill on me, joking that time he was a "deployable dummy," just on the traps which he considered hollow victories. "Those turrets Bix ..." he would later groan, saying they really hurt, musing if the machines ever take over, I'd have a place among the robotic overlords.

So could the lessons here be applied to a base in a PvP base? Maybe. We both knew when the attack was coming and had time to prepare. In PvP servers, this would seldom happen, attacks coming anytime from anywhere and most likely when we were asleep and logged off. There's also that decay was extremely low in the Angel's server. In a normal one, both bases would require materials to maintain every day, mine more overall and Snowy's more of the hard to get high quality metal. Still, some version of the Frustrator would be useful, and would certainly deter a number of raiders who would look for easier targets.

With the competition over, Snow and I would take on Bradley a few more times. Once I would clobber it solo while waiting for her, real-life having interrupted her trip over. But most of our time was getting ready for the wipe by deciding what to store in our backpacks to make setting up again easier. Snowy had gotten more M249 light machine guns than we could take. Umbra told us we couldn't take metal, wood, or stone. Among the things I would take with me were several weapons and stacks of ammo, pipes and tech parts, a stack of cloth, a tier three workbench, and lots of scrap. Snowy and I would say goodbye to our vehicles and bases that served us well.

And if we hold another base-defense competition? Foxy would say he might take part if we have another, time permitting. I've also thought about what worked and what didn't and what I might do differently. But there won't be another for some time at least. As for what Umbra's challenge will be in October, he hasn't told us much. His only clue was that it would involve "precision." That could mean a number of things. In the meantime, there's time to prepare for whatever it is, and time to set ourselves up again after the wipe.

"Good gaming to you,"

Bixyl Shuftan

 

What's New With the Angels in Minecraft

By Bixyl Shuftan

Besides the official Minecraft, there's a modified version known as "Feed the Beast," or FTB for short. Made not by Mojang, the company founded by Minecraft's creator, but by other players, FTB is different from "Vanilla" Minecraft as there's more kinds of minerals to dig and players are able to build more things, and do more things. The catch is FTB can "lag" a bit for players, and crash quite a bit, due to that severs can be quite taxing to the computers they're hosted on.

The "Angels" group in Second Life, friends of Nydia Tungsten, the majority whom reside in the Angel Estates, have a number of creative players. They had a taste of what they could do earlier on a FTB server hosted by Kit Repine. They could build new suits of armor, special boots that would keep you from being hurt in falls, energy guns that could take down hostile mobs, robot miners that could clear out huge sections of rock, "Portal" guns that allowed players to take shortcuts in getting around, being able to access new realms, and more. So when Nydia got a new computer about the time a new updated FTB was available, she created a server for it. She invited players over to "do their worst" with the most elaborate builds, and a number obliged, making huge machines that yours truly can barely figure out how to work, let alone build.

Unfortunately, Nydia's new computer failed. Not wanting to frustrate the Angels, Nydia moved the server to her older computer, but the server was frequently down due to crashes. Finally Kit offered to host Nydia's server on her computer, and it was transferred over.

 Players made huge, fancy, builds, such as a huge palace made by Valkyrie McGil.

There was also a giant "Tardis" constructed by Hojo. Note the big tree next to it, which was hollow, and could be made into a treehouse, which Jasmine did with another.

Yours truly while exploring near Hojo's base around found a tall, thin, natural feature beside a hill. I christened it "The Finger" and made that my base of operations, hollowing it out, and digging down to mine for ores and diamonds. I never did find any of the latter (nor closer pics of my base that I could have sworn I took). Jasmine would help in making a tunnel from it to just outside her hollowed giant tree.

FTB has a number of new mobs, such as wisps which can dart around and zap players. One player, Skylark (wearing a squid hat), came across a wisp spawner. But instead of destroying it, she grabbed it, and decided to cage it. 

Skylark made a place offshore, and putting the spawner down, began to encase it in glass. The spawner soon created new wisps, which took a toll on her. But eventually, she got it caged, and the wisps inside could only dart around harmlessly, unable to zap anyone.

Near Nydia and Brandi Streusel's base, a huge mining pit left by machines. Note the oil geyser behind it.

There were other features, such as "Mystcraft," which allowed players to travel to other worlds. Some could be hazardous, as their own laws of virtual nature could be quite different. One had burning sunlight that damaged players out in the open. We mused we finally knew what it was like to be a zombie.

Unfortunetly, the world would run into trouble that was beyond even Kit's computer and Nydia's skill. An early sign was when one of Skylark's pet squirrel's got loose, and when poked, it exploded and left a huge crater. The joke was it ate uranium from a reactor and turned into a "mini-nuke." But before the joke got old, a nuclear reactor build malfunctioned and blew. The result wasn't a big hole, but the whole minecraft world on the server had its code corrupted beyond repair. We would have to start over.

As it turned out, there was a new version of FTB out, or rather of the "Direwolf" which we used (FTB Launcher 1.3.2 / Minecraft 1.6.4 / Direwolf20 1.0.07). So we'd be getting new things to see, and play with. We were given about 48 hours of "creative mode" to aid in getting about and building what we wanted, then it was back to survival mode.

 

Near where I first appeared was a volcano, which made for a great reference point at night. The island in the sky seen to the upper left turned out to be made out of slime.

And not far from the volcano was a village. I went ahead and made it my base of operations, using creative mode to make a wall around it. Besides looking cool, it had the bennefit of helping keep out most of the mobs ... most. A few still spawn on the inside.

There were new mobs, such as blue mana creepers, and icy "Blizz" creatures that tossed snowballs. In creative mode, one could take on the appearance of mobs that the player clobbered at least one of. In the new FTB, focusing on an object or player up close would give you the name.

Jasmine and Kryxia built their own base some distance south of the volcano village. They would also build a fenced area of horses, donkeys, and other critters, and then a stable.

And to the north, this fenced in forest area with deer, squirrels, sheep, including the new rams, and other critters. I believe it's Skylark's base.

*Addition* It turned out it was Valkyrie's forest.

This new kind of tree's a bit big for cutting down for wood.

Not all wood has to be chopped down. Some trees have fallen and lie on the ground to be chopped up.

And so, the sun rises on a new world for the Angels of Second Life to build on. It's not their first, and most likely not the last. But they'll be making a few memories here when not in Second Life.

Bixyl Shuftan

Minecraft: Building Around Angels Villiage

Since the new Angels Village in Nydia's Minecraft servers was built, the place has taken shape, with walls going up and buildings inside the walls. Then the building began going outward, such as the SL Newser office building there. But the building didn't stop there.

Jasmine's a fan of the "My Little Pony" show, or a "pegasister" in pony fan slang. So she built this tribute, "Luna Sleeping."

How many of you have heard of "Hogzilla?" Well, he just showed up in Minecraft, or rather, this statue of him did.

Another build was this double tribute to the mob Minecrafters love to hate: The Creeper. There was this creeper statue, and a creeper temple built.

And if mobs weren't enough to scare someone at night, we started spinning yarns about what else might be out there, such as the Minecraft legend of Herobrine, the ghost miner who supposedly digs all those tunnels we find underground. Note the arched bridge and the beach picnic areas.

 The building wasn't just out from the village, but also down. Inspired by the Dwarven City in the "Lord of the Rings" Minecraft map, Valkyrie was inspired to build her own. And it was quite an impressive sight. Just ask first before digging in the mines next to the place. Dwarves aren't keen on strangers digging on their turf.

There was one other building outside the village build, a horse track, presumably in case we ever decide on a horse race. But I was waiting until daylight to take a picture, and had to go before sunrise.

 And a statuesque tribute to four of the players of Angels Village. From left to right: Jasmine (vixen with diamond minepick), Kryxia (wolfess with diamond sword), Skye (horse with diamond sword), and Phy (pony with golden carrot).

 Jasmine however wanted to build one of me. So she took a few screenshots, with my armor off, and got to work.

 Not a bad likeness ... of my 8 bit self.

So what would my statue carry? Well, others had picks and swords. So what else did I use a lot? My compass and map (ask a girl how often men will speak up and ask for directions). So Jasmine made one on the statue's hand.

The building continues around Angels' Village. There was a subway entrance made, with plans to connect it to somewhere. Then people started digging down and then out. Looks like if there's nothing in the distance to connect to, we'll dig and make something to connect it to when we surface.

That's all for now from Minecraft. Until next time, happy digging.

Bixyl Shuftan

"Feed The Beast" and The Minecraft Building Contest

By Bixyl Shuftan

Since the Minecraft "Angels Village" server was updated, and it's contents wiped away, the attention of the game's players in the Sunweaver and Angels groups switched to the FTB, aka "Feed The Beast," servers set up by both Kit Repine and Nydia Tungsten. Kit's initial server went from a shack set up near the spawn point for anyone unfortunate to drop in at night to a small stone fort with an ever-expanding underground chamber and tunnel network. Valkyrie McGil built an impressive build on the cliff next to the fort.

Jasmine quickly noticed the wide variety of tools the FTB version of Minecraft offered, from robot miners that could clear out sections of underground for stone and ores, to better suits of armor, including one with limited flight ability, and some nifty gadgets. One I found useful was a mechanical arm that acted like a combination diamond pick and gun. One could use it against zombies and creepers, but it had a strong recoil. Another was a pair of boots that kept one from getting hurt when falling from a great distance. It's a safe bet most Minecrafters ended up back in their bed after making a misstep at least once. One gadget some players had fun with was the "Portal" gun, which acted like the one in the game. One fun thing that came later were the funny hats that one could collect from mobs they appeared on at random.

But building these tools and toys required machines, machines that required energy. Exploring around, I came across a few oil fields some distance away. Those were one source of energy. But Jasmine's bigger machines required more. One interesting feature of "Feed The Beast" was accessing other worlds, or overworlds in Minecraft jargon, besides the Nether and "The End." Some of these places were quite strange, such as one in which players could end up damaged from sunburn if not wearing certain types of armor, which put us in the same position as a zombie or skeleton. These worlds could be accessed through portals, but they could also be traveled to and back via special books, leading to this part of the game being called "Mystcraft," after the popular computer game Myst in the 1990s. Besides places to explore, Jasmine used them as a source for mass quantities of energy-supplying lava and lots of ores.

All these features were certainly a contrast from the Minecraft we'd first set foot it, and it came with a price. Lag began to become a problem. And then, the servers would start to occasionally crash. This became quite frustrating to players and server owners alike. As it turned out, "Feed The Beast" was the combined result of over a few hundred Minecraft modifications cobbled together. Little wonder it could get unstable at times. And then came the server updates, which would sometimes wipe out what was made.

Despite the bugs, interest in Minecraft persisted. Nydia took some time to clean up her new FTB server before inviting her friends over. Once she thought it was ready, she wondered how it could be tested.

"I wanted to test the latest FTB server, see if the problems were solved," Nydia told me in a conversation, "so … I thought what a better way to test it than to have my friends go NUTS with their builds." Nydia decided to hold a competion to see who could come up with the best build, "So I turned them loose with OP powers and kept an eye on the server." The rules were fairly simple, build a town a small group of players could reside in, " purposely left the build requirements vague, I wanted to see how they would be interpreted, and I must say I was NOT disappointed in the creativity that was generated. (I wasn't the) only one impressed either, the builders were as well when they got to see each other's builds."

The competition attracted a number of players, "We started with over eight builders, but due to their real-lives, some had to drop out, which was a shame really. The beginnings of their builds looked so promising. We had futuristic to medevil and even fairy tale fantasy. We even had some Anime thrown in, but unfortunately that one wasn't finished. … This will sound obscure to those not familiar with the series 'Girls und Panzers' it was going to be a city ship," a ship with a city built inside, "It qualified for the contest (laughter)."

"The way it was judged was very unique as well," Nydia explained,  "I have never heard of (Minecraft) being done like this at all. I left some of the judging be done by the builders themselves. The only reason I did it that way was I knew all the builders and knew they would be fair. They would judge the others, but not themselves. And I had 2 people here with me in real life that don't play MC (yet) to help me with the judging. And yes I did the live broadcast the event to help." Nydia put a live feed of what she saw into her video channel on the day of the judging.

One problem the contest had was the unstable nature of FTB Minecraft, and the contest was suspended and extended a couple times due to the server crashing, " I run it off my same system I use I thought it could maybe it could handle it this time, unfortunately...it cant. … I wish I could invite everyone on to view the builds, but itwas just too hard on my system, I have 8GB of RAM with the server and (with) Second Life running, it would climb up to the 80% used area. If I was linked a video....it would go into the 90s. More than once it got to 98%, if it went higher I would crash." Still, she persisted, "But we were able to finish the contest and have a lot of fun in the process."

Of the winners, Skylark's village came in third place. Valkyrie was second "by only a few points." Her village was near the server spawn point, and had crop and berry bush areas, with miniature golems gathering the fruit. For first place, it was "a tie between 2 good friends and Angels Jasmine and Shion (Winkler), it was so close it was almost a 3 way tie!"

Jasmine's place was a treehouse village with buildings set up on super tall trees, "t was a fully function town any elf would DROOL over with all the tech any mage would envy and then it had the walk ways between the massive trees to count as a city in itself." Jasmine tapped into another overworld via "Mystcraft" for the lava to power it, "Val went into the Nether to power all of her computers and tech as well." Jasmine's village had a diner in which automated machines could dispense a variety of foods with the press of a button. Kryxia Silverfall helped her out during the building.

Shion's town was build around a cathedral, as were some Medieval cities. It was the most detailed building, both inside and out. It had a harbor with ships, and a balista and a number of cranes around, to give it the look of a place still in construction.

For the winners, Nydia had a prize, "I kept the prize secret until the day of Judging I was able to offer the winner $50 USD or split it as it turns out, but they both turned it down. Sooo, I donated it to 'The Furry Gamer' group to help some of our members get into the rest of (the games we play). They wanted me to use it for my Angels, which I will do if it is needed. But I think it could do better for a group dedicated to having some fun. Thats what this was all about, having fun."

As good as the builds were, Nydia had to take the server back down. The FTB was just too much on her systems to keep up without crashes. But her new "vanilla" server, updated to Minecraft 1.62, was available. This newer Minecraft is commonly called the "horse update" due to its now including horses. They can be fitted with a saddle and "broken" for riding.

So how to build a place for the Angels there? Nydia soon had her answer, "that night when I finally had all the votes, I brought them all to my office at home (in Second Life) and told them who won, well, they started talking about each others builds, and before I knew it I had a build crew on my hands for the new Angels Village. … once in and started they met up with 'Hojo' another builder from the last world we had and he joined in"

Dropping in for myself at Jasmine's invitation, the place wasn't too far from the spawn point. Just walk down the road for a few minutes, and one would soon see the place, encompassed by walls. Inside, they had built a barn for horses (by Jasmine) and other critters, a town hall, an inn, an outdoor market, a mages tower (by Valkyrie), a cathedral (by Shion), a harbor with ships (also by Shion), and more. When Nydia saw it for herself, "I can sum it up with one word: 'Whoah …' "

So what was next for Nydia and her Angels & friends in Minecraft? She does have some plans, "in the future I am planning on having adventure maps for group play. I have a bit to learn still before I can start hosting events but it IS planned for in the future. We have had 'End raids' in the past and those were a LOT of fun."

So despite "Feed The Beast" acting a bit beasty, the action in Minecraft from residents of the Sunweaver and Angel's estates continues.

Nydia has a video of the villages during the contest judging donwloadable in the following link (here - 498MB).

Bixyl Shuftan