Beginnings (writing competition)/A Unique Place
| A Unique Place | |
| About | |
|---|---|
| Author | Thonykidd |
| Scores | |
| Word Count | 953 |
| Score: Overall | 6.5 |
| Score: Style | 5.9 |
| Score: Relevance | 6.9 |
| Score: Humour | 5.5 |
| Awards | 2nd runner up in Beginnings |
On the 1st of May 2011, I decided to purchase the well-known game Minecraft. My love towards the game became instant as soon as I got into the single player mode. I created buildings, roads, and long extensive mines with my own personalized vault to keep all my valuables. Soon enough, I started to feel bored of seeing my own creations and soon realized that the real reason behind me buying Minecraft was to explore what other people out in the world have done and created. The first try of multiplayer was outstanding. I saw loads of stellar buildings that surpassed my own ten times over. I felt content just for a few days when yet I still wanted more. The need to be challenged to create such structures gave me a push to start to look for a server that has the same feel as single player, also known as a survival server. I did an extensive search for such a survival server, but unfortunately everything led me to a dead end. All servers that I joined were either whitelisted or had this weird ranking system that was preposterous, in my opinion.
After a week of solid searching, I decided to call it quits.
On the 15th of May 2011, one of my long time friends, Dinomirez, decided to call me on Skype to ask if I wanted to play a little bit of Minecraft. With some doubt in my mind and not motivated to go on, I decided what the heck, why not. Once on Minecraft we decided to enter mau5ville.com, but to my knowledge it was a server that gave out any item freely to the public. Instantly, I lost interest even though the server has gained popularity due to its world famous Disk Jockey. Afterwards he types in the chat the following: “join. Minecraftonline.com.” I gave it a go, went into the server, and to my surprise I got welcomed right away to the MinecraftOnline (MCO) staff. I got directed to the rules section in the Visitor Centre and the only rule that was simple, easy to follow and understand was No griefing was allowed at anytime no matter the circumstances. With such a simple rule I didn't have to waste my time reading a bunch of rules that were non-sense nor take a quiz at the end to make sure I understood what the rule are. With so much time to spare, I began to explore the spawn area. The first thing that caught my eye instantaneously was the huge statue next to these elongated cacti and sugar cane. I didn't understand why such statue was placed there or who it was, and I didn't ask anyone due to my status in the server. After a few hours of hanging out and walking about in the world of Fredonia I had a good feeling about this server. I came in the next day, the following day, and the day after that until I grew fond of the server and everyone in it. The Admins and Moderators were very well organize, knew what they were doing, but overall they were friendlier than most, if not all, servers I've been in. The architecture was beautiful and felt just right; nothing was too over done or underdone.
A few months have gone by and here I stand as a regular. I have witness changes at spawn such as the Flippeh statue modifications (which I think are very, very creative), the Freedonia Railway Station right above spawn, the addition of Spawn-Mall and Mine-Mart, and much more. I have learned some techniques such as Redstone circuitry and Integrated Circuits all thanks to the staff and those good people of Freedonia. My appreciation for the server grew and I was curious upon how I could contribute to the server. On the user friendly website of MCO I saw a donations tab. I didn't think twice and I donated. I'm currently a Diamond Donor and glad that with my contribution I'm able to help somewhat in keeping this wonderful server alive and running. With some time I hope to get Obsidian Donor so I can help the server further by teleporting to them and so on.
The one memory, out of many, that I will remember for a long time is the invasion of griefers, the “4chan raid”, so to speak. That night, to my surprise, was the very first time I saw Slowriot and Lacrosse1991 enter TeamSpeak along side with HealthyUncle and ReFrozen. Within a couple of minutes a load of clients started to show up constantly, the chat was getting spammed by HealthyUncle with a message, “SUP /B/ROS! ! !,” of course, he asked politely for permission to spam and SlowRiot granted him the liberty to do so. The staff started to capitalize the word grief, until finally, I was led to believe that HealthyUncle, along side everyone else, had gone completely mental. Right there and then the all famous Ban Hammer started going off every other second or so. I was very puzzled and curious to what was going on. I visited spawn and right in front of me warfare was taking place between the staff and all these griefers that showed up. It seems to me like the Minecraft version of Cops and Robbers. I went in for a closer look in the Visitor center until I got struck by lighting, which end my life and obliterated my whole inventory. On TeamSpeak everyone was having a blast and I finally figured out that they were all drinking. Overall, I'm happy that I have joined MCO. It is truly a SMP server, and I feel like a part of the server community.