Decided to push my luck.

today the madness took me,

fig a: a nice picture by a talented artist.

fig b: what I just made on exe creative server...

oh travesty.. the art world will kill me! .. but seriously, given the limitations of 'blocks' I think I did OK! ... oh and that blue guy.. That's Tacobuilder.. he's become quite the Manic-Buddy....  hi taco!

Them and Us...

Well this is both a sad post, and a happy one... sad because its a shame we had to get to 'this level' of things just to have a good time, happy, because now 'real' builders can enjoy the game so much more!

exe creative server has long been a suffer of Griefers, those that choose to simply mess about and break stuff for shits 'n giggles... real school-yard mentality style antics. So now the server has an 'invite only' area in which only players which are known and trusted are allowed to build/destroy any blocks. This is a fantastic way to have an area completely uncorrupted by Griefers, but it does breed a certain air of 'suspicion' I'm privileged enough to be recognised by a good few and was invited initially by exe himself, now I can log in and via a special log-in process... I can go about my work unhindered.

By comparison to other servers, only earlier I was literally fending off a griefer on a German server as he went about destroying a castle someone was building, so in that respect I'm thankful for a haven in which I can properly enjoy the game.

Sadly I do now pity the new-commers and those whom do not spend a great deal of time on-line as they now enter the exe creative server, under suspect of being a griefer and as such aren't immediately given the chance to really have some fun, instead they're forced to build their things on the 'freebuild' side of the server (which may I add is divided by a large castle style rampart wall)

So, I give thanks for the fact I have the chance to enjoy the game, and at the same time pity those that arent given the same 'freedom' that I and many other 'trusted' payers now have.

In happier news however, my largest house yet!!! 4 floors counting celler and attic, connecting rail link, wide screen TV, fitted kitchen, an én suite bathroom in the master suite... what a build! pop on over and have a look, you cant miss my name right in front of it!

Its very late now, and I really need some shut-eye ... damn you exe this game is addictive!

Linux...

In keeping with 'Open Source' It's been yelled accross the Forums that Linux should better be supported, as such, I've seen a lot of things posted about the matter and even spotted some 'test servers' pop up very briefly

I think getting true cross platform support can only help push this game to even better places!

In homage to the work that the coders put in to these things.. here's a little build I've done just for them...

Ode to Sonidarc

one of the less griefed servers is Sonidarc's server, often frequented by German speaking folk, but English speakers are welcome.. below are a few snapshots of some of the things there:

the first (of many) boats, by Tacobuilder-

I built my house nearby on the shore.. (it's survived quite well...)

spotted just today, an awesome build by Sonidarc himself! It'sa Heem Maaario!

I'm still figuring out from my last post about 'version names' ... but that's not too important.

Version naming.

In the coming day or so I will be RENAMING the version names, this is to bring them in-line with exe's own version naming technique so as to help reduce confusion.

It's not the end of the world and nothing will change in any of the files related, All I'll be doing is altering what I refer to them as.

Minecarts!!!

Well it seems that after some tweaking exe has bowed to the pressure social pressure and demands, Minecarts are back in, I'm not sure how stable the code is, but I tested it and all seemed well! version 0.3c (aptly named 'c' for cart...) is already available at a file share site > > HERE <<

This new version [release date 2011-01-24] also contains further optimisations to help reduce lagging issues which came about with Ver 0.3

So.. go forth and let there be minecart tracks !!!

poor Tacobuilder :'-(

While perusing Sonidarc's server... and making a rather neat video of a co-operative build... in which I capture someone saying "I prefer this to minecraft, there are nicer people in this game" a player by the nick of Tacobuilder says "hey come check out my boat"

I did.. it was a nice boat...

No sooner had I literally turned around when he shouts "griefer!!"

And lo and behold his boat... on which he was still working, was busily being randomly destroyed and crap blocks thrown all over it to boot... so even before the guy had finished his work, it was laid to waste, I simply fail to see why, in what is essentially an infinite world space to build in people insist on this childish level of 'sandcastle kicking'

This was what I turned around to see...

It's sad that people choose to abuse the freedom given to them, it's sad that they choose to be destructive in a game which is essentially about freedom of creation so... to all the builders out there that DO finish a project that you're proud of, upload it to the IndieDB 'images page' to show off, I for one am among many that will appreciate the time and effort that goes into making something good.

on a positive note... I did spot these bits and thought them worthy of a screencap:

completely unrelated...

When not enjoying manic digger, I often spend time in tears .. and I mean literally in tears, view this site:

http://damnyouautocorrect.com

Quite frankly some of the funniest things ever, most are NSFW... but nearly all will make you laugh uncontrollably

Something a bit special...

I noticed recently the 'preview' image of Manic Digger on Indie DB was a little lacking.. so I spent some time coming up with a new one!

my inspiration?

The original Manic Digger logo!!

here's the new one.. made entirely in game!

Things to do... but people undo it.

I recently spent some time in one of the german servers. I have to say their servers seem less 'messed up' than others I've been on.. but that aside, I too some promotional video to add to indieDB and generally wasted some time building stuff (including the mandetory hosue and name sign...)

 

Sorry to all the german players that now have to put up with that! but I did contribute one 'nice' build to the sever..

 

Enjoy while it stands... On a related note; there is a notable amount of griefers (especially on exe creative...) which seem intent on knocking shit down, or generally spamming crap all over the place. I have to say its a pet peeve that the work people do is destroyed by nubbins... sadly, not a lot can be done about this until a form of 'secured' server becomes a feature.

I did bump into a couple of people just today (both of whome are MineCraft players) one seemed genuinely interested in Manic Digger purely because it is a creative game and doesnt have any 'other' gameplay mechanics (he was particularly against the 'survival' mode of MineCraft) the other seemed very much interested in what Manic Digger was about, but the 1st thing he said over chat was "why dont you play minecraft" ...

regardless, here is a message to all the griefers and nubbins that break stuff... courtesy of a guy I met called 'tether'... Damn Griefers... (he is also resposible for the soppy love sign behind!)

Well, I've said my piece,a dn have to get off to do things other than playing with my virtual lego's

More from the community...

Here is a work in progress texture pack from Summ3rS3R, thanks for this, great stuff ( I myself am going to be using some of this pack for my games!)

[image go bye bye...]

should have hosted it myself :-(

Other than that I thought I'd post up a video from youtube for which I've had some very welcome positive feedback, special shout goes to opaficker.

Fresh off the press...

This just hit the forums moments ago...

Following my new version naming method, this is version 0.3b [date file:  2011-01-15] as it is the same as the previous but with a few extra bug squashes...

This is an installer version, be sure to backup old game directory's if you're so inclined. Currently most servers still run ver 0.2b [date file: 2010-08-19] so updating and possibly overwriting the only way to play online is inadvisable!!




Ver 0.3b

Texture, Texture everywhere...

Well for some time I've been tweaking a texture set, its still work in progress but this is a close final product...

I mainly decided to upload this because somoene else had also uploaded a rather nice texture pack on the sourceforge forums

thanks go to AndyTasMA for this!!

so, I hope you all feel inspired!!! feel free to download and use these, or modify them to suit your style, be sure to check the sourceforge forums for more possible texture packs.. why not make your own!!!

Anyone out there!?

Hey to everyone that might take 5 seconds to read this, I bumped into exe last night on the 'exe creative' server and we had a small chat, the long and short of which was that he is eager that MORE people join in on development of the game.

Generally that means if you can;

• code [game is currently coded in C# ]
• create or edit graphics
• spend some time making the wiki better / more comprehensive
• help provide multilingual wiki variation
• anything else you might think of that could help!

Then you are what Manic Digger needs, exe is just one man, he's done some great work, but the project needs more input than he alone can provide, so... if you code in C# and fancy having a bash at this 'base game' to see what can be done, get in touch!

ZzzzZZzzz and then suddenly!!

Well as the title suggests and perhaps as my previous post indicated, there has been a development, albeit I confess I was about to hit the sack I happened to check the forums and BAM! there it is a post from exe asking:

"Is this version any good?..."

Complete with a link to a newer build for Manic Digger!

so as not to get too ahead of myself I immediately ran some benchmarking tests, the general effect of which, I found the new version to ahve a greatly improved logon screen and the game engine itself is running at speeds which in laymans terms are about three times as fast overall!!

The forum post can be found here (with my benchmark details)
-}-}-}Forum Linky{-{-{-

and I've thrown the new version (ver:2011-01-13) up to localhostr for some 'instant deployment' style action... (It takes a little while for Indie DB to catch up with new files and the like)

One small comment here: this version might be nothing more than an interim test version, but feel free to enjoy the benefit of the faster game.

Updates? Test-Servers? posting in the Development forum?

Not wanting to sound to upbeat but there has been an unusual throbbing of activity in the 'developers' forums, and I also noticed a recently off-lined server which had been named 'Test-Server Ignore' or something along those lines.

With all that I can help but feel perhaps this little project has had some developers light shed over things and all that can only mean we, the few faithful, might be in for some treats in the coming months!?

New game server alterations

exe decided to reduce server limits to help combat game crashes while playing on-line, check out the new files:

http://manicdigger.sourceforge.net/forum/download/file.php?id=60

Support and/or questions should be lodged in the forums:

http://manicdigger.sourceforge.net/forum/

Quick Community Update.

Our German counterparts have now set up their own community forums, these can be found here:

}}} http://md.mcnicoteen.de {{{

There has also been a German game server pop up, happy times for all!

post edit:::
the guys at the German Forum are currently working on localised language files, Open Source at its best, great stuff!

hello to exe!

I happened to want to go online briefly; in honesty.. I was looking for gronkh's house and in the mean time, built my own!

As it happened exe showed up! so he was nice enough to pose for some screen caps

my new house on exe creative 3 with the man himself posing!

German? great, you're welcome too!

Thanks to some of my European counterparts a German specific forum is being set up so that those that aren't naturally inclined toward English as a native language can begin growing their own community.

Image courtesy of Gronkh from his you tube video.



The German speaking among us also might find the gronkh test review page of some interest:
Gronkh - let's test: Manic Digger

Welcome!

Time to grab the nearest cube-like object and start collecting dirt and stone... It's the Manic Digger unofficial blog. I'm just a fan of the game, which I found when I was looking into MineCraft; I dont mind admitting, I'm currently unemployed (boo hoo) and as such every last penny counts, so actually buying a copy of MineCraft wasn't a possibility, thanks to 'alternativeto.net' I was linked to Manic Digger, and being that it fell into my favourite category of computer games... the free type, I went ahead and downloaded a copy. Sooner rather than later, I was hooked.

Since then I've found the forums to be helpful and friendly (excluding the trolls) and more importantly I've set up the IndieDB page to help advertise the game.

So; hello again, If you've never heard of Manic Digger I highly recommend you download a copy and have a go! This blog will serve as an update portal hopefully getting all the latest greatest Manic Digger To the public even faster!

Also to come: I'l be releasing my own texture pack soon, watch this space!