"Ambition leads me not only farther than any other man has been before me, but as far as I think it possible for man to go."
- James Cook
I recently purchased the Humble Indie Bundle 3 (VVVVVV is awesome!), and it came with free access to Minecraft, a game that I had heard of, but never had a chance to play. Up until that point, I thought Minecraft was nothing more than a silly distraction. However, seeing as it was only free for a week, I decided "I may as well give it a try." I loaded the game, only to find that there was no server list! After doing a quick google search, I realized that the creation of a "server list" had been tasked to the community. Numerous sites had been created for the sole purpose of serving as directories to servers. But the sites were not just sites. Each individual one was a community - a forum of individuals uniting around a common interest to deliver something of value to the world. Every single site had an active forum and a massive user base - something that completely surprised. I hadn't expected this out of a server list.
- James Cook
I recently purchased the Humble Indie Bundle 3 (VVVVVV is awesome!), and it came with free access to Minecraft, a game that I had heard of, but never had a chance to play. Up until that point, I thought Minecraft was nothing more than a silly distraction. However, seeing as it was only free for a week, I decided "I may as well give it a try." I loaded the game, only to find that there was no server list! After doing a quick google search, I realized that the creation of a "server list" had been tasked to the community. Numerous sites had been created for the sole purpose of serving as directories to servers. But the sites were not just sites. Each individual one was a community - a forum of individuals uniting around a common interest to deliver something of value to the world. Every single site had an active forum and a massive user base - something that completely surprised. I hadn't expected this out of a server list.
I picked a random server and entered in the ip address. The server "CityCraft" dropped me into a short test where I had to confirm that I understood the rules of the server. After that I was dropped into a massive entrance hall. My first though - "Woah..."
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| Part of the building hasn't even loaded into view yet. |
Intricately and extensively crafted, the entry hall imposed itself upon my memory. However, one more surprise awaited me. I left the entrance hall, only to be confronted by a massive open world city, complete with streets, skyscrapers, pubs, and houses. I spent hours exploring, looking at what people had built - taking numerous screen-shots as I went.
After exploring CityCraft, I decided to see what else the community had built. The spawn point for another popular server, named "The Lord of the Craft" was a decorated temple. I slowly walked outside - I could see several other newcomers following me. What I found was a massive town with people, both computer controlled, and player controlled. Awe-struck, I wandered aimlessly around, eventually leaving the town. As I explored the land for hours, I cam across numerous landmarks, hamlets, dungeons, and all variety of interesting sights and places to explore (Check out a dynamic map of the world here). I discovered that the server had a wiki, which contained a full lore/backstory article for many locations within the game; I eventually used it as a travel guide in my numerous ventures.
The truth took a long time to dawn on me, but when it did, my mind melted. People had created this world. A team of dedicated individuals had created something great for others to enjoy. They shaped the mountains, they built the cities, they even manually crafted each tree in the forests. But these people were not professional artists, or Renaissance men. They were ordinary people. Ordinarily people with an extraordinary sense of organization, and an unmatched respect for each other. A single, egotistical individual could not have accomplished what this team of people did in such little time, with such attention to detail.
I don't know - maybe I'm just gushing, but my day as a block guy was anything but square - even if it looked like it from the surface.
