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Surviving Minecraft: Episode I


The sun is rising, I can’t seem to make out what’s happening. The world is literally creating itself in front of me. I was left with one objective, survive. I begin to gather wood from trees at an attempt to make a shelter for the night, you never know what hides in the shadows. I use the excess wood to make tools. A pickaxe, a shovel, and a sword, they aren’t much…but they’ll work. I start off making wooden planks, maybe to make a temporary cabin of some sort. The sun is high now, there isn’t much time until nightfall, I’ve got to hurry. I can see the animals retreating into the darkness, they’re definitely running from something.

The darkness is upon me, and all I have is a half-assed “house” and a wooden sword. I could explore and fight off the creatures waiting for me outside of my door, but I choose to wait instead. I hear them yelling out to each other..they know I’m in here. They seem to be afraid of the sunlight, I suppose that’s good enough for me. I’m getting drowsy, but I can’t fall asleep, they’ll get me if I do…what will they do with me? Who knows. But I’m not willing to find out.

The sun is beginning to rise. I need to find more resources. I head out and look around, next to my house is a lake, a couple of feet to the left there’s some stone in the ground. That’s where I’ll start. I head to the spot with my wooden pickaxe, it won’t last long, but it’ll get the job done. I begin mining, picking up whatever extra stone I can carry. Maybe I can make some better tools with this excess stone, maybe even a safer house.

I break through stone after stone, I see an unusual one in front of me out of random. It’s like the others, but it has black specs on it..what is this? I mine it anyway, my pickaxe is heavily damaged, I’ll need to replace it. As it turns out the strange stone actually contained coal, which is great. I’ve never been so happy to see coal in my life. You can burn coal. Burning something usually means light. I head out of my hole in the ground only to be greeted with darkness, I’ve lost track of time. Darkness is here. I see my house being shined on by the moon, the only light in this  god forsaken place. There’s only one problem. In between me and my house is some type of creature. It has what looks like it’s back towards me. Maybe I can sneak around this thing, I don’t want any extra attention.

I crouch and try to sneak around, but without any hesitation the creature turns around. There we are, face to face. What do I do? I run. Straight to my makeshift house. The creature is right behind me, I can hear him. I get to my house in time and lock the door. It’s staring at me through the door. I can feel its eyes on me, but after a while it falls back into the darkness. I MacGyver some torches out of some sticks and the coal I found. I put them up around the house, and attempt to get some sleep. I need food, weapons, so much more resources..who knows what I’ll find, but I’m not exactly excited to go looking again.

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Say goodbye to your social life: Preview of The Elder Scrolls Online

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A look inside of the many shops across Tamriel.

Welcome back to Tamriel, where you spent a good chunk of the winter months exploring the cold and unforgiving province of Skyrim in the heat of a civil war that will be remembered for ages. You’ve explored dungeons, joined the Thief’s Guild, and stopped the return of one of histories most dangerous creatures. Now, Zenimax Online takes the reigns of one of video games most respected franchises with the new mmorpg, The Elder Scrolls Online.

Zenimax Online is the sister company of the only other studio to develop an Elder Scrolls title, Bethesda. Zenimax is known as the owner of id Software, which is known for landmark titles such as DOOM and Quake.

If you have indeed played any of the Elder Scrolls series, you know just how amazing the game is. Walking for miles and just exploring, finding hidden dungeons, trying to obliterate enemies that stand before you, and learning of Tamriel’s deep lore are memorable moments to players. Now, imagine that experience with friends, exploring the vast land of Tamriel, fighting Storm Atronachs, defeating Daedra, and even battling against enemy players in an epic mmorpg

So, how well will a primarily first person rpg full of lone exploration translate to the mmo world? Well, Zenimax has stated that it is trying to perfectly balance the game so that both long time Elder Scrolls players and gamers accustomed to World of Warcraft and the sort will be pleased.

Zenimax Online is bringing a lot to the table, going back 1,000 years before the events of Skyrim, and including features such as fully voiced NPC conversations instead of the bland scrolling text seen in the average mmorpg. The combat, which of course is one of the Elder Scrolls staples, is a bit different from the main series. This is to be expected since real-time combat is nearly impossible in an mmorpg, which means Zenimax will be using a more standard formula. Though latency changes the combat (and graphics as well), many points of the series will remain intact.

Combat will be styled like a traditional mmo due to networking limitations, but many ideas from the original series will be used.

Long time fans of the series will be happy to know that Zenimax is borrowing many ideas from the installments. Don’t be surprised to see random events while on your way across the land much like those found in Skyrim before. Also, while exploring Tamriel, you’ll sometimes stumble across a new cave or dungeon that doesn’t appear on the map (unlike many other mmo games that automatically add nearly all locations to a players map at the start of the game).

Now, if you’re still on the fence about whether or not you’d actually enjoy this game,  the only way you’ll actually be able to find out is by trying it yourself. According to Digital Trends, “The game itself will start as subscription based game, which isn’t surprising, but will become a free to play mmo over the course of time”. So as this juggernaut of an mmo’s release date (TBA 2013)  draws nearer, don’t be too surprised to hear talk of dethroning World of Warcraft, and possibly succeeding where others have failed to do so.