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Thursday, September 5, 2013

Have written articles become a dying breed?

We’re going to take a step back in time for a few minutes:

When Minecraft was back into in it’s infancy with Alpha or even Indev, everything about it was fascinating, new, and well, a little blocky. When news broke out with Notch’s Friday updates, or when a new mod that helped with fixing apple drops or leaf decay it became huge news among the small community of users. That being so, Crafthub has been that pinnacle of breaking news and updates with anything Minecraft related.

The modding community was also in its’ own heydays at the time. What little we did have was either small tweaks to the game, or some large conceptual ideas like Risugami’s great Mod-loader, 303’s assortment of new arrow mod, or DrZhark’s Mo’ Creatures Mod. I even attempted to do what most had not done at the time and that was to have an index of the newest and most popular mods back then.

But there is something you can take from this: That was about three years ago.

I haven’t been writing articles since 2011, and I’d say since then things have gotten rather simple in terms of how we get our news. Three years ago, the best hope of getting the latest news for Minecraft was to try and follow Notch’s blog, or catch up on the news or information from another source such as Crafthub. Reddit’s popularity for example has aided in expanding the reach of users, helping them share information quickly and reliably with the masses. Mojang has also frequently participated with their ever growing community on /r/Minecraft, getting information such as suggestions or even a bug (and really, people have some odd ways of finding bugs you’d never have even thought of!)

What I’m getting at is that the times are changing fast and so are the ways we communicate with everyone else on the Internet. To me and my semi-large connection of friends, articles almost seem like a sort of dying breed.

Some might argue against this saying that popular sites like Kotaku, The HuffingtonPost, or PCgamer are doing well in their own regards, and I’d agree with you on that. Yet, the majority of information that I gather on a daily basis comes from videos online rather than written articles that I read. This might be due to the fact that I’m a visual learner, but about 65% of the USA population are in the same situation as me as well. Popularity of “Let’s Play” videos for example, have also increased over the past three years. It’s become well accepted that information gathered by watching a video is easier to absorb and understand, but also less time consuming on our busy lives. Perhaps this decline is only relative to some users as watching a video about a cool redstone machine or concept is more visually pleasing than reading about it with images. I think both work, but from the point of view of the content producer it depends on the subject, how much time you have on hand, and available staff or resources to get it done. While writing articles seems time consuming, capturing a video and rendering might take longer to produce. I could go on and on about these comparisons, but I hope you get the jist.

Articles may have fallen behind more popular mediums these days, but don’t count them out yet! A well written article can still get it’s point across just as well as a video, if you have the right person behind the keyboard.


This opinion based article does not reflect on Crafthub as a whole and rather that of the author’s own judgements and beliefs.


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Portal divulga primeiros videos de Global Offensive

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Depois de muita expectativa da comunidade, o portal IGN divulgou hoje vídeos que mostram o novoCounter-Strike Global Offensive, anunciado pela Valve no último dia 12, com previsão de lançamento para o primeiro trimestre de 2012.
IMPORTANTE: para assistir ao vídeo é necessário declarar ser maior de 18 anos. Coloque sua data de nascimento no seguinte formato: MÊS / DIA / ANO. Confira abaixo:
Antes mesmo do lançamento, o novo Counter-Strike tem causado polêmica. Duncan “Thorin”Shields, que trabalha no site do SK Gamingcriticou a Valve em um longo artigo, afirmando que a empresa errou ao levar apenas profissionais do Source para testar o game no escritório em Seattle, nos Estados Unidos. Dias depois, a Valve se manifestou através do Twitter e disse que não vai ignorar os jogadores de 1.6.
Vale lembrar que o CS:GO ainda está em fase de desenvolvimento e poderão ocorrer muitas mudanças até mesmo antes da versão beta, que deve ser liberada em Outubro.
Fonte: IGN, mibr

Postado por Felipe "brk" Bronken

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Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Mojam has started

As the stream starts, viewer count is already over 6 million. And the chat is crazy as you might imagine. Notch ripped a hole in his pants from walking with the camera. They have raised $17,732.50 in the first half hour, and they haven't even started programming. This event is going to be a huge success if that rate continues at even half this speed.

During the next 72 hours the Mojangsters and other development teams are going be making a game just for charity. Mojang has divided themselves in to 3 teams that got the following themes picked at random:

  • French, Spaceship , Nuclear
  • War, Pizza, Nuclear
  • Nuclear, Endless, Kittens

And the teams are:

Stripey Zebra
Poi Poi
Nathan
Kris

Cyborg Hippos
Henrik
Johan
Jens

Giraffe
Mattis
Erik
Mans

As of the point of writing they have not yet fully started but the individual teams are planning what to do with these categories.

Follow the different developers att http://www.humblebundle.com where you also can buy the games later, as well as Dinnerbone's at http://www.twitch.tv/dinnerbone/ and Jeb's view at http://www.twitch.tv/Jebox.

For more updates follow the Mojangsters streams or their twitter.


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Fortifying your Fortress with HiddenWorm

Mechanicaljack: Mechanicaljack here, with an interview with HiddenWorm. I found Hiddenworm's work in Minecraft on the /r/Minecraft sub forum of reddit. I really enjoyed his tutorials and got in contact with him to arrange a meeting. Why don't you introduce yourself?

HiddenWorm: Hi, I'm HiddenWorm, a 17 year old Minecraft player from Holland.

Mechanicaljack: And how long have you been playing Minecraft?

HiddenWorm: I've been playing the game since March 2011.

Mechanicaljack: Do you have a favorite play style, for instance creative or survival, or adventure maps, or competitive?

HiddenWorm: I've always really been into building, so when creative came into Vanilla (1.8 beta?), I switched from survival to that. I've been playing on multiplayer almost exclusively since January 2012.

Mechanicaljack: I haven't enjoyed single player as much as multiplayer in a long time myself.  Have you used mods at all?

HiddenWorm: I actually had my first experience with mods (besides flymod) 2 weeks ago at a friend's house. I'm not quite sure which mods were enabled exactly, but it involved a lot of industrial buildings and automated things. Other than mods, I recommend playing flatcore if you want a more interesting time playing SP.

Mechanicaljack: Sounds like a FeedTheBeast or Tekkit modpack.  Those can be fun, but also overwhelming in all the new content. Flatcore, so a flatworlds map?  On hardcore mode?

HiddenWorm: Yes, hardcore mode on a superflat world. You can get a lot of supplies from trading and blacksmiths.

Mechanicaljack: Wow, I'd never considered trying that.  Sounds like a real challenge! Do you have any texture packs you like to use, or are you a default kind of player?

HiddenWorm: I have a slightly modified version of default that I made myself.

Mechanicaljack: Oh cool!

HiddenWorm: It makes some blocks look a little bit better, but not so much better that buildings look ugly without the texture pack.

Mechanicaljack: Ah, so it's an aesthetics change to suit the building style?

HiddenWorm: Yes, it makes smooth sandstone and double slab blocks into coloured versions of the stone brick texture.

Mechanicaljack: Sounds interesting!  So what brought me to contact you was your reddit post titled "A Guide to Stronger and Better Looking Fortifications."  What brought you to create that post?

Fortification

HiddenWorm: I had a very basic design for the merlons and the murder holes, and when I saw a post of a castle wall on /r/Minecraft, I noticed most castles in Minecraft have room for improvement when it comes to fortifications, both in historical accuracy and in actual use as fortifications.

Mechanicaljack: I've noticed similar, which is what made your post stand out to me.  From there I found the follow up you did with the title "I Taught You How to Fortify Your Walls, Now let's lay a siege!"  In both, you get into descriptions about what you're showing, and reference historical examples, like why a catapult isn't just a catapult. I take it fortifications and sieges really interest you?

trebuchet

HiddenWorm: Well, when I was young I thought knights were super cool, most of the knowledge I have about the fortifications I learned when I was around 10. I actually think renaissance architecture is cooler than medieval architecture, but I've already built a lot of that. I constantly switch to different building styles and now I’m in a medieval phase, I guess.

Mechanicaljack: I took a quick look at some of your other tutorials that I'll have to go back to in the future, like the gothic rose window, so I know what you mean.  Where do you get your inspiration?  I guess I'm asking, what are your sources?

Gothic Rose Window

HiddenWorm: I have two main sources. The first one is a book that summarizes almost everything there is to learn about architecture between Mesopotamia and the 1970s. Sadly, it is only available in German and in Dutch, as far as I know. It's called Atlas zur Baukunst or Atlas van de Bouwkunst, so if it was translated into English, it is probably titled 'Atlas of Architecture'.

When I want to build something, I learn about the building style from this book, and then research similar builds that exist in real life. For this I use Planetware.com, it has a very wide variety of maps and pictures of tourist attractions.

Mechanicaljack: That's an amazing amount of effort and work to put into your building, but it looks like it pays off, given the screenshots you've posted.

HiddenWorm: Thank you! Mind you, I only post my best builds, but in general the best builds are the builds that I put most of my time researching for.

Mechanicaljack: Do you have any tutorials planned for the future?

HiddenWorm: Yes, I'm currently working on a tutorial about monasteries, where I will also touch on the differences between Romanesque and Gothic architecture. After that's done, I might expand the two posts I made about fortifications into a full guide on castles.

Mechanicaljack: Awesome!  Well, to wrap this up, is there anything you'd like to see added to or changed about Minecraft?

HiddenWorm: Having stairs not reset from their corner shape when you remove adjacent stairs would be really nice. Also, vertical half slabs would allow for a lot of extra variety in details such as windows.

Mechanicaljack: I think you and I are on the same page with those two changes. Thanks so much for dropping by for the interview!

HiddenWorm: Thank you for having me!

You can find HiddenWorm's tutorials on Reddit, and Imgur in the following places:
http://hiddenworm.imgur.com/

http://hiddenworm2.imgur.com/

http://www.reddit.com/user/HiddenWorm

Give him a look-see, maybe learn something, and spread some upvote-love.


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Novo Counter-Strike é anunciado

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A continuação de uma das séries de tiro em primeira pessoa mais famosas do mundo acaba de receber seu anúncio oficial. “Counter-Strike: Global Offensive” foi anunciado pela produtora Valve e já está em desenvolvimento, com previsão de lançamento para 2012, nas plataformas Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 e PC.
Segundo a produtora, o novo título oferecerá mapas já conhecidos dos jogadores, como “de_dust”, mas também trará novos ambientes, personagens e armas. A Valve também estima trazer novos modos de jogo, no qual os jogadores usufruirão de partidas online com mais facilidade.
Como habitual à série, o jogo será lançado nas lojas virtuais (Xbox Live, PlayStation Store) e pela plataforma Steam, da produtora Valve, para o PC.

fonte: MSN jogos

Postado por Felipe "brk" Bronken
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BTT: “Eles [bit e fnx] pediram, sim, para entrar no time”

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Um dia após o paiN Gaming anunciar a saída de sua equipe de Counter-Strike sem dar motivos claros para tal decisão, Thiago “BTT” Monteiro foi entrevistado pelo portal Teamplay e falou sobre o relacionamento com a organização e sobre a decisão de dispensar Guilherme “spacca” Spacca e Gustavo “MKR” Mekaru.
BTT disse que os problemas de relacionamento com o paiN começaram ainda na GameGune, disputada em Julho na Espanha. “Pensamentos diferentes de como fazer as coisas, entre outros fatores, como fofocas e falta de organização”. Ele negou que as mudanças na line-up tiveram papel decisivo no rompimento. “Voltamos da GameGune e dias depois tivemos uma reunião com a organização. Nessa reunião estava Ferrer, chucky e eu. Conversamos sobre alterações na line-up, que foram aceitas por unanimidade pelos diretores do paiN” – explicou.
O veterano disse que as mudanças na line-up foram necessárias, pois “o time era competitivo em território nacional, mas limitado e inconstante. Era um time para brigar por títulos no Brasil e não no exterior”. Ele revelou ainda que Bruno “bit” Lima e Lincoln “fnx” Lau pediram para entrar na equipe. “Isso não é vergonha para jogadores do nível deles, pelo contrário, eles são profissionais assim como nós. Todos os profissionais extremamente capacitados como eles, em qualquer ramo, quando desempregados, procuram empregos nas melhores empresas, e no caso deles não foi diferente”.
BTT também não poupou críticas aos jogadores que são ‘kickados’ de um time e reclamam publicamente. “Já fui kickado duas vezes do MIBR e não tinha Twitter, nem Facebook, só o bom e velho Orkut, mas tenho mais o que fazer do que postar o que acontece na minha vida pessoal ou profissional. Sou homem e me porto como tal. Quando era kickado para dar lugar a bit, fnx, entre outros, eu não deletava ninguém de MSN, steam. Isso para mim é patético. Se você foi “escolhido” como mais fraco ou incapaz, bola para frente e acredite em você, dê a volta por cima e mostre a todos que estavam errados a seu respeito”.
Para finalizar, BTT afirmou que ainda não acertaram com nenhuma empresa, pois ainda têm tempo e vão analisar a melhor proposta.
Para ler a entrevista, na íntegra, clique aqui.
Fontes: MiBR, HLTV.org e a entrevista na teamplay

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Tuesday, September 3, 2013

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