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Gabe ZieperProfessor Sarah MarshallEnglish 213514 July 2015Genres of Minecraft ClubWhat is Minecraft? For many, it is just a stupid video game that little kids play when they have nothing better to do. For some, however, it is an escape from reality, an entire world that you can control. I owe my success in high school, both academically and mentally, to Minecraft. As Mojang, the creators put it, “Minecraft is a game about breaking and placing blocks. At first, people built structures to protect against nocturnal monsters, but as the game grew players worked together to create wonderful, imaginative things.”?This quote illustrates how the game became so much more than they even originally expected it to be. Thanks to Minecraft, I have two amazing friends I probably would not have had without it. Throughout the course of our high school career, Adam L, Shai H, and I created many different worlds. Some were magnificent cities with flying homes, others were simple cabins built into caves in the woods or entire farming villages with lush bountiful crop fields. We may not have been the coolest bunch of kids in high school but we were very happy spending our lunches playing Minecraft. We developed a much stronger friendship in those worlds than we could have with anyone else. Our interactions were not much different from what one might expect; we would work together to better our societies, occasionally though we needed to let off a little steam. Shai, or as we liked to call him “God,” would often become angered with the ways Adam and I chose to do this. Shai, Adam and I all played Minecraft in different ways; Shai was very methodical and planned everything out while trying to push the boundaries of what could be done, Adam loved trial and error and his passion for physics and engineering really showed in his creations, and I loved to try everything and do everything I possibly could (partially due to my short attention span). The three of us developed some unique genres of communication and interaction both out loud and in game.Our vocabulary consisted mostly of proper and colloquial English, but as gamers we had a few extra sayings the general population may not be familiar with. When someone would accidentally do something stupid or idiotic resulting in harm to people or property, Shai was always quick to respond with what became his catch phrase, “GG” which stands for “good game” and is used in a derogatory and sarcastic manner. This terminology originates from the online gaming community where the winners of competitive games would respectfully say “GG” to the losing team to acknowledge the skills they brought to the game, like the shaking of hands at the end of a little league game. Over time, however, it evolved into a condescending term asserting dominance over the vanquished and was adapted by us as way of lightheartedly making fun of each other. Another two pieces of terminology most might not understand without explanation were our use of the words “Modded” and “Vanilla.” Modded refers to the in game use of modifications to either add new items or powers to the game or improve upon existing features. The modifications we used were handpicked by Shai and added new tools, weapons, materials, and creatures. These “mods” can be downloaded online for free and actually add code to the existing code and change the way the game is played. Outsiders may be confused when they hear us use a normal word like vanilla to describe playing without any mods. The source of the word refers to the general held belief that when buying ice-cream, vanilla is a plain and boring flavor to choose.These unique words and others were communicated both aloud and through in game typing. Both methods of communications have their own pros and cons. We were much more likely to communicate verbally when giving commands or requests if we were working together because we were already paying attention to each other so it was easiest and quickest. For example, if Adam and I were building a house, I would potentially say something along the lines of “Hey Adam, can you fill in this wall in with oak wood?” However, as Shai said in an interview, “data or info that was important, we would type” because messages appears on your screen and you can go back to it at any point in time. We would send each other the number of pieces of a material we asked the other to gather or the coordinates on the map of some place special.Together, the three of us used this communication to build farms, castles, cities, and whole civilizations. The oldest world we played on was one Shai owned, which started off as a “test world” where we would test out new contraptions or try laying out blue prints without wasting materials in other worlds. Eventually this world became so much more. It was a “super flat” world which meant that there were no mountains, trees, oceans, or anything other than an infinite amount of grass that was all on the same level. To a creative Minecraft player, a normal world is like coloring in the lines because you have to work with what is already there, but giving us a super flat world was like giving three artists an art gallery and an infinite number of blank canvases. We built a full hotel with a lobby, front desk, rooms, and even an indoor pool. There was a whole huge area in this world specially designated for building and testing our own TNT related machines. We each had our own house which we could personalize to reflect our own style. Mine was a palace built of quartz that resembles the Parthenon decorated with a throne adorned with skulls and a secret trap door that led to my personal chambers where I kept copies of all my important items. Adam built a massive apple (because his nickname was random apple) and decorated the inside like a quaint cabin. Shai had his own floating village to himself with beautiful gardens and spheres he called home. We would also work together in survival mode, which is a game mode in which we could only make tools and weapons as well as building with what we collected ourselves. This is the normal mode most people play in as it adds a sense of realism to the game. In this mode, unlike creative mode, you are able to be harmed or killed by other creatures like zombies and skeletons, and you have to be careful to watch your hunger meter as death can be caused by starvation. Using weapons, you have to kill cows, pigs, chickens, and fish and cook them in an oven made from stone you mined, or grow wheat and bake bread. Shai, Adam, and I always kept extra animals on the farm and wheat growing for food as well as stockpiling enough food inside our houses to survive an apocalypse.Our successful friendship through the years was built upon a mutual respect and a healthy sense of competition, though when Shai is behind the keyboard, it is hardly fair. Shai has made it his mission to learn how to code Minecraft to do exactly what he wants, he can spawn in weapons strong enough to kill Adam or me with one blow, even with super strong armor on. This became a whole new genre for Shai and allowed him to do things that Adam and I never thought possible. A few examples I can recall include the time he created a horse with the ability to jump 1,000 meters in the air without taking any falling damage, the time he made a zombie which was larger than most buildings in the world, and my personal favorite was a signs that he made especially for me that sent anything I hit with it hundreds of meters away which was fun to use on Adam when he was trying to attack me. Shai also found ways to utilize things which were put in the game by the creators to do things they were not intended to do, such as using water as an elevator. Adam would make decent strength weapons and enchant them to be extra strong. In order to enchant thought, you needed large amounts of XP so he would spend hours exterminating entire armies of “mobs” or monsters collect it. I, on the other hand, would tirelessly search for the and/or make the necessary materials to build the biggest and strongest weapons and armor, then give them fancy enchantments like flame which would set any living thing I hit on fire instantly or knock back which would send the enemy flying away allowing me to ready myself for the next hit, giving us both a fair shot at defeating the other in combat. We would test our weapons and armor out on each other and would often times infuriate Shai, who was attempting to get work done. We once played an hour just hiding from each other and firing a bow and arrow at each other to find out who was the better marksman. I regret to say Adam won that challenge but not by much. As all good high school friends do, we loved to mess with each other and pull pranks. One of my favorite pranks to pull was filling Adam’s house with randomly dispersed TNT and trip lines. Once the TNT has been activated, there is no way to stop it from exploding, so Adam would have to be extra careful while deactivating the bombs or risk having his house destroyed. This one particularly infuriated Shai because even one block of TNT would cause Shai’s computer to lag and if one block went off, all blocks nearby would go off and so on and this would sometimes cause his game to crash. Another, more playful prank was to create our own logo and make flags out of it and place them on every possible surface in and on each other’s houses because it is easy to set up and takes a long time to clean up.Our love of Minecraft was not only useful for passing the time during lunch but also came in handy during my final project for my Anatomy and Physiology class. The assignment was to pick a system of the human body and make a unique and informative tour through it. Most students made brochures or PowerPoints but I saw it as an opportunity to do something my teacher would never forget. My friends and I created a massive model of the Male reproductive system which started in the scrotum and followed the path of the semen all the way through until the exiting of the urethra. I did the research and planning and my two friends helped with the construction and decoration of the magnificent 50m phallus. Though it sounds immature (which it kind of was) the teacher was very impressed with how well I depicted the system but from the inside and out. In essence, the genres we used to communicate and interact came together and made Minecraft a genre in and of itself. Though the three of us started out playing to pass the time between “often dull classes” as Shai said, because he “preferred the company” of Shai and I to the rest of the school like Adam stated, or as an escape from the turmoil of high school life like I did, we began to see playing Minecraft as almost a way of life. The three of us made many memories that will last forever in our minds and in our hard drives and had a lot of fun doing it. We all agree that we will continue to play Minecraft and expand our civilizations to new heights in the future.Works CitedH, Shai. "Minecraft Club.” ?7 July 2015.Telephone interview.L, Adam. "Minecraft Club." 7 July 2015. Telephone interview.Mojang, "Minecraft." Minecraft. 2009. 14 July 2015.. Web. ................
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