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Hi!
Since my last post I have mostly been attempting to build the Place of the Tombs of Atuan in Minecraft! (This involved: starting a new world with my existing Survival Island seed but with the Caves upgrade that has the new blocks that will be really useful, and in Large Biomes mode so I could actually get a big enough desert island to pass as Atuan. I play in Peaceful mode, which means I don't have to worry about monsters or starving, but I still have to travel, explore, build and gather resources the hard way; so far I have just gotten as far as getting enough of a functioning base together and all of the basic materials I need to keep going (in peaceful mode in a desert archipelago, the most difficult yet important thing to get is string) and exploring enough to find a pretty good site to build the Place in, so I'm about ready to start building but have been delaying by exploring more ocean instead.
My very first seed in my very first game was a survival island in the middle of a massive inland sea, so probably 75% of my total Minecraft time since I started last winter has been spent boating around coastlines, I was talking to a friend who has been playing for years and never?? built a boat??? Anyway A+ to boating around coastlines in Minecraft.)
Also I have been to con-txt! I just added everyone who had their DW in the friending channel, on the basis that I enjoy spending con-txt with you, so, if you noticed, hi! I try to post here at least once a week but lately I have just been *tired* so it's been more like once a month, I do keep up with reading but don't comment as much as I'd like.
I am working on a con-txt followup post but I keep heading down side trips while working on it so who knows if it will get finished. I have the next week off work with no real plans, so maybe I will? Meanwhile, I am re-reading all of the Eroica fic as a result of the Eroica panel. (my favorite thing about con-txt is that if you go to con-txt, old fandoms never die.)
Since my last post I have mostly been attempting to build the Place of the Tombs of Atuan in Minecraft! (This involved: starting a new world with my existing Survival Island seed but with the Caves upgrade that has the new blocks that will be really useful, and in Large Biomes mode so I could actually get a big enough desert island to pass as Atuan. I play in Peaceful mode, which means I don't have to worry about monsters or starving, but I still have to travel, explore, build and gather resources the hard way; so far I have just gotten as far as getting enough of a functioning base together and all of the basic materials I need to keep going (in peaceful mode in a desert archipelago, the most difficult yet important thing to get is string) and exploring enough to find a pretty good site to build the Place in, so I'm about ready to start building but have been delaying by exploring more ocean instead.
My very first seed in my very first game was a survival island in the middle of a massive inland sea, so probably 75% of my total Minecraft time since I started last winter has been spent boating around coastlines, I was talking to a friend who has been playing for years and never?? built a boat??? Anyway A+ to boating around coastlines in Minecraft.)
Also I have been to con-txt! I just added everyone who had their DW in the friending channel, on the basis that I enjoy spending con-txt with you, so, if you noticed, hi! I try to post here at least once a week but lately I have just been *tired* so it's been more like once a month, I do keep up with reading but don't comment as much as I'd like.
I am working on a con-txt followup post but I keep heading down side trips while working on it so who knows if it will get finished. I have the next week off work with no real plans, so maybe I will? Meanwhile, I am re-reading all of the Eroica fic as a result of the Eroica panel. (my favorite thing about con-txt is that if you go to con-txt, old fandoms never die.)

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I know the last publisher (which was a DC sub-brand, iirc) left off at the end of a plotline, at least, but I only ever got my hands on a few volumes and the aftermarket prices are atrocious.
With all the older stuff getting picked up, it feels like a shoe-in, but then again the length might be the problem. (Digital-first, maybe? I'd be fine with that and I don't really like reading comics/manga digitally.)
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I have to wonder if there's some legal thing going on with DC technically still owning translation rights or something.
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Why are deserts string-deficient?
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That's A Stringy Glimmer
...of why folks can get such joy from Minecraft. Happy to know more about its mechanics.
When in peaceful mode, is your pace entirely self-determined, or does the game require interaction on its own schedule?
Re: That's A Stringy Glimmer
Basically the only ways to die in peaceful mode are to fall a long distance, drown in deep water, piss off a llama *extremely* hard, or walk into lava, and none of those are game-required or things you are likely to do accidentally once you've figured out the very controls for stuff like swimming. (Also if you die you just wake up back home the next morning, having lost everything you are carrying, so it's no biggie unless you happen to be carrying your only string...) It is just enough risk to keep it interesting to me while not being the least bit stressful.
There are also villages full of AI people you can interact with but they worry me so I avoid them. And you can adopt AI cats but they don't do well with boats so I haven't yet this game. Also you can apparently build a portal to Hell, which I will need to do at some point to get Evil Rocks to build the Tombs from, but I haven't felt the need to try yet.
Since a Minecraft world is randomly generated and huge, you can basically just spend weeks exploring terrain! Or if you would rather build things, it's essentially a giant Lego landscape you can also farm in and learn how to make new bricks out of other bricks. Or you can just treat it as a 3D version of the old VGA Miner game! - the mining mechanic is basically the same. There is no storyline or goals, you have to make your own. (There is apparently theoretically an "Endgame" and big boss battle you can aim for in the other modes if you need a built-in goal but it's inaccessible in Peaceful anyway due to needing to fight monsters to get there.)
I had never played before and had only the vaguest idea how it actually played until some friends started posting about it on Tumblr and then I discovered that it was installed on some of the work computers.
If you are interested in the idea of exploring randomly-generated terrain, https://classic.minecraft.net/ is a free webgame version of one of the earliest versions of the game. It's got really crappy controls, a very tiny world, and extremely limited stuff to do compared to the current version, but it demos you the basic peaceful-mode mechanic of "explore random landscapes, dig tunnels, and move building blocks around, possibly with friends if you have any."
Re: That's A Stringy Glimmer
Thank you so much for this excellent introduction. It sounds like a game-reality which works well with my capacities.
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