E05 - Working for a Livin'

Just got done putting together another video, in the process of uploading it now. This video actually turned out longer than I hoped it would, and I had to cut it up more than I was originally planning. In the video I added 3 farms, one chicken, one sugar cane, and one wheat. Designing the actual farms turned out to be harder than I expected. I'd previously made them all in one way or another, but doing it underground actually added another level of complexity to it. I had to work around the other rooms and make them all fit within the area I was working with.

Coming Soon

Just want to share with you guys what I've got coming in the future. It appears they've put out a second pre-release of minecraft 1.9 so I'm going to start a survival series in hardcore mode (bugs and all) in that. Once the official release happens, I'll obviously update to that (and beyond probably). I've also got the idea of doing a couple other series. One would be survival island (maybe I should do the hardcore mode, as the survival island? It would make it even more hardcore!) I also want to do a series on a new world (SSP probably, or a private world in my SMP server) just walking, exploring the world and finding nifty new places. I think I'm going to wait to make that my official 1.9 world though. Ok, so that's what I'll do, we'll have the official 1.9 world on the server be the start of my new Meandering with Munchmo series. Keep the Mining with Munchmo series in the world in 1.8. And create a 1.9 (PR2) surival island hardcore world. What should I call that one? Any suggestions?

E05 - Slime Time

My first large project is complete! I'm in the process of putting the video together as I type this (final check of the recording to make sure it's not completely horrible). I spent many hours over the last few days digging out tens of thousands of blocks to make a slime farm. The process went through scores of pickaxes and shovels and was a lot of work. I ended up gathering multiple stacks of iron, gold, and coal, plus a ton of redstone, and about 20 diamonds. Overall, I ended up with a lot more materials than what I started with. I didn't use as much glass as I was expecting, but I decided to not create a complete floor for the viewing chamber. The most interesting thing to note is the shadowing. If you watch carefully you can see how things keep getting darker as I got closer to the bedrock. I'm not sure what caused it, but the area where I first hit the lowest level (where I dropped the ladder) I could get a full view (as you can see from the viewing room) of the area. However, if I were to step about 5-10 blocks in any direction the darkness would close in. Once I got down to about level 12, I started having to contend with the slime spawns and fought them off as they spawned. I ended up with about 25 slimeballs from that. Once I got into digging out the trench I had some lighting issues and had a few endermen, zombies, and creepers spawn, which is why I ended up putting torches around the edge. After I put the water in, there really wasn't any worry about them, but decided to leave the torches there.
In case you're interested in doing something similar and want to know how to figure out where to dig, I used the Minecraft Slime Finder to pick the best place to find slimes. All you have to do is put in your seed (found by pressing F3) and then your coordinates, and it'll draw you a map of the surrounding area with the slime chunks highlighted in green.
ETA: Even though I cleared 9 chunks for this slime farm, only 5 of them are actually slime generating chunks.
After editing the video together and watching it, I see that I am going to have to be careful in the future to watch the things I say. Seemed that every time I started recording I said "Alright minecrafters." I'm still pretty new to this whole video thing, so I'm hoping you guys will stick with me while I get better at this.

Mining with Munchmo SP02

I'm in the process of posting a new Mining with Munchmo special. This one is about the stuff contained in the 1.9 pre-release. Some interesting facts about this video, I actually had to record it twice, because the first time, I didn't get any audio. Not sure how it happened, but the second time was the charm. Other things, I spent a LONG time trying to find a village the first time around. I also flew through the nether for what seemed like an eternity to find one of the structures in there. And, on my very first go through, the world I created with a random seed literally dropped me in the middle of the ocean, as in, no island. I was just there, sinking in the water. It was really odd.
You can download the "leaked" 1.9 pre-release here.
Video is after the jump

Just another update

So, Bukkit finally released an updated version to work with 1.8.1. I've got my server updated and moved the new world into it. I've started feeling better, so less coughing and sniffling. I am planning on doing another video tonight, but I think it might have to be another special edition since there is already a pre-release of 1.9 out! I'll likely throw together a single player game and run around in it giving my impressions of the updated content. Once 1.9 (and for that matter, 1.10) is officially released, I'll probably start a new world again for it. Because of that, the current project I'm planning on undertaking in the new world that was created for 1.8 might be put off until we're not expecting a major update soon.

My world so far

Welcome one and all

I decided to setup a Mining With Munchmo blog where I can talk about the things I've done and the things I plan on doing. I'm ready to record another video, but I've been sick the past few days (as you can tell from my last couple videos) and don't want to subject you guys to all the coughing and sniffling I'd be doing. For now, I'll take this time to discuss what I'm doing in the world.
I currently have two different Minecraft servers setup. The first is my worlds in 1.7.3 housed with Bukkit which I'm waiting to update to 1.8.1 when Bukkit has a recommended build for it. The second is a 1.8.1 vanilla server that I am running because I got impatient while waiting to play 1.8 for the Bukkit update. Once Bukkit gets an update released I plan on moving the world from the vanilla server over into the Bukkit server and turning off vanilla until the next time I need it. Currently, all my worlds are using whitelists because I don't feel like having to deal with permissions and possible griefers. The server is housed on a computer I put together. It is running Ubuntu 11.04 on an AMD Phenom II X2 565 with 16GB of ram and approximately 3TB of storage. I not only use this server for Minecraft, but it also serves all my media for watching over the home network (Xbox, PS3, etc).
As you probably saw in the first video, my thirteen year old son also shares the world with me. Just yesterday he invited a friend from school to play on our server, so in future videos you may see them running around.
I think for now, this is a good enough introduction, so please feel free to drop me a line and ask me any questions you have.