Daunting Project

So the newest episode of Mining with Munchmo is up now, and I've begun building a cave spider exp farm from some spawners a friend of mine found. Now, in the end, this is gonna be a good thing, the zombie spawner was great for exp, but getting it at three times the rate will be even better.
Now, the video is going to end up being 3 parts. Originally it was planned to only be 2, but I got so much footage for the first half that I ended up dividing that in two. I'll still be releasing the videos at the normal times, just means I'll be ahead a week or two.
I must say that I was procrastinating a bit on this project because I felt a bit overwhelmed with everything involved. I still feel that way a bit actually, even though all I have left is the drop-tower. Of course, I do plan on clearing the whole area around the spawners out and making it prettier too, but that's mostly just gonna be digging rocks. After the work I've done, I still may need to modify the design slightly, but so far it appears to be working ok.

National Margarita Day Fail

Boy, that was a mistake. I Just can't believe how it went from bad to worse! I guess I just got a bit cocky and it totally bottomed me out. I lost all the stuff I had, diamonds, iron, bookcases, obsidian, everything! Even if I was able to get back to where I died, there was no way I'd have made it in time. So, look forward to next episode where I go cave diving in the hopes of replacing even a fraction of what I lost.
This has taught me a valuable lesson though. I think from now on, I will place a chest at each place I sleep so that if I do die, I will at least have something to start over with. Put one of each tool, the best I can currently afford to lose.

Finishing touches

In today's thrilling conclusion we find out hero in the depths of his branch mine in search of diamonds, in the harrowing desert digging for sand and waiting patiently for zombies to spawn.
I eventually got sick of digging for diamonds so ended up going topside for the first time in ages, and realized that what looked like it should have been a snow biome actually was one. This world was first started in 1.8, which if I remember correctly didn't have any snow.
Stay tuned for my next episode where I have fun with my zombie farm and venture into the nether.
Video behind the cut.

Marooned, E04

So, the next episode of Marooned in Minecraft is ready to upload! I ended up having to split it up into two episodes again because I just couldn't fit it all into a length I felt good about. The episode starts off fairly slow until I find a nice little surprise waiting for me! I was completely taken aback when I saw the opening of an abandoned mineshaft right down there in that ravine. And it shocked me even more to realize that I have found such easy access to a cave spider spawner! And, because of that, a new project is underway. One that has already taken me nearly 10 minecraft days, and will take many more before I'm done with it. The worst part is, after all that work I put into it, I nearly died a couple times, which would have totally destroyed the world I was working in. Below the cut you'll find a current map of my world and the video.

Back on Track

So, now that the Star Wars: The Old Republic beta is over, I've got a couple of weeks until I can start playing the game. Of course, I've also still got WoW, and a friend of mine convinced me to check out DC Universe. Oh, and I'm still in the Tribes: Ascend beta. But, even with all that, I'm still making time for Minecraft. I know it's been a while since I've posted or put up a new video, but worry not! I've recorded some more footage, so you can look forward to a new episode of Marooned! This video has me doing some mundane work around the island and some exploring until I come across something really cool, and then I set to work! You'll have to wait until the video is up to find out what it is! I will tell you there was a moment when I was afraid this might be the last episode in that series!

Putting it all together

So, I'm in the process of editing the fourth episode of Meandering together. I start by taking a look around the world that's already been explored and finish filling in the map that I created previously. After that I take a nice long boat ride to a whole new area of the world. You'll get a quick look at some of the stuff that the children have built on the server. This is the first video of this series that I recorded outside of the initial livestream I did when 1.0 was released. The video turned out to be a bit longer than I would have liked, compared to the other three in the series. Turns out I got so much footage I ended up splitting it into two episodes. Unfortunately that means you'll not get a new world map from me in this post, but you'll get one next time.

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.