Because...Grifball and Minecraft

Would you look at this, a post that isn't two months after my last one!  I do believe I am getting into the habit of posting on a regular basis.  As of lately I have been busy planning a bunch of cool stuff for Inside View and working a little bit behind the scenes on getting ideas up and running.  We have our second game night coming up on Minecraft; our first one was on Forza 4.  We also have our own clan that we started up recently, you can find out some info about that here.  There's the contact information for one of our clan leaders and my own in case you want that also.  Lastly, we have our own Grifball team we have started.  We plan on gathering people now and working on some basic team fundamentals; then once Halo 4 is released entering in all kinds of leagues and tournaments.

I've been working on on planning some details for a Halo 4 campaign challenge once the game is released for IVG as well.  I know that skulls are returning in the game thanks to the achievement list that was released a few weeks ago; but I do not know whether or not campaign scoring returning.  I hope it does otherwise I'm going to have to figure out a makeshift scoring system to tally results...and needless to say math never was one of my best subjects.  There's still plenty of time for me to find out if its returning...and work on one if it isn't.

I've also been playing a bunch of Minecraft when I have had the time to game.  It's interesting looking back at the first "shelter" I made.  I had no clue what I was doing so it was actually made out of a bunch of sand and the living space was very...cramped.

Small living space eh?

As you can see from the above pictures my first shelter was very simple...and made of sand.  Also it was very small as is evident in the second picture.  I think you could call it more of a sand shed than a house.  At times I've thought about taking everything out of the "sand shed" and knocking it down and taking the sand for resources.  But then I look at it and it makes me smile as the first thing I ever built in the game.

This is sort of an overview of what my village (a little ways away from my first shelter) is shaping up to look like right now.  I've done a little more work on it since this screenshot was taken (my capture card for the win!), the building right in front of me is complete...well it might be missing a roof.  And the tree to the far right of the screen (right above the pickaxe) is gone and a cobblestone arch has been constructed.

Better view of my cobblestone "house"

That is a better view of my new house/shelter/whatever you want to call it.  It originally started as a like a 4x10 square enclosure (I didn't know how to make a door, how do you door?) with no lighting.  It was dark and scary in there at nights at times...  Also since I had no door or windows I had no idea what was going on outside and each time I wanted to head out into the world, I had to knock down a small portion of the wall so I could leave.  As you can see from the above picture I have expanded it a little bit.  Also since that screenshot was taken, the two buildings you can see are now connected via a hallway.

I was able to figure out how to make Obsidian thanks to one of my Twitter followers (thanks XeroZebra!) so I found some lava underground and made some.  Only at that time I didn't have a diamond pickaxe and each time I went to mine the Obsidian block...it just broke.  Once I found some diamond, I made the pickaxe and then returned to my Obisidian and mined a bunch of it.  I gathered enough to create a Nether Portal and then I decided to take an extra block and start work on my own Tower of Pimps.  What's a "Tower of Pimps" you ask?  It's something I saw Geoff and Gavin from Achievement Hunter using as an incentive for their "Let's Play" videos featuring Minecraft.  You take four gold cubes (or blocks, whatever you want to call it) and then mount them on one block of Obsidian.  I'm still looking for more gold though to make the last three cubes I need.  I can't wait to finish it!

Here's a look into the mess of a cave system I made while mining all the cobblestone I could possibly dream of.  I've gotten lost in it multiple times and I am hoping to not have that happen in the near future either.  We'll see, I'm sure I'll get lost the next time I play and am searching for gold.

As you can see it is not that hard to get lost just from looking at the screenshots.  Either that or it is real easy for me to lose my sense of direction, even in a video game.  There's still a bunch more I want to do with my world before I give up on Minecraft.  I'd like to turn the area my new cobblestone "house" is in, into a sort of mini-village.  How this will work, I have no idea; I've been on various other worlds where people have done this so I know it is possible.  It all depends on how much time and effort I really want to put into it I guess.  I have plenty of time...at least until October 30th comes around then it'll be Assassin's Creed III all the way.

A few weeks ago I had some time to capture some older clips from Reach I had taken after the transition of Halo to 343 Indutries from Bungie.  I still have a few to edit and upload, but I did manage to do that with a couple of my most favorite clips I took...of course they feature Grifball.



This one was taken in Reach (obviously...) from a matchmaking game with the rest of the Grifball team I had originally tried to start (The Light Redcoats) where I was spying on the enemy teams' runner in a close game.  I somehow manage to slip past their tanks and get to their runner, kill him and take the ball in for the score.  Not to really brag, but I thought that was pretty sweet.

I'll just let this next one explain itself.


Pretty cool right?  I thought it was kinda neat when it happened.  I believe that is all I have for now.  I am honestly trying to keep publishing posts on a regular basis now.