Learning2gether Episode 401

On Feb 8, 2019 the EVO Minecraft MOOC temple busting team of Abu Fletcher, Dakotah Redstone, Jane Chien, Mattie Tsai, Michiyo, and Teacher Vance applied logic and geometry (or at least Dak did) to the puzzle of getting into a desert temple by excavating around the side of it and under it, exposing and rendering harmless the TNT that booby-traps the bottom of every unexplored temple, and helping ourselves to what was in the zombie chests.

Dak got the diamond horse armor since he was most deserving and most instrumental in the excavation and had the greatest appreciation for horses in Minecraft as you can hear in the video, here:

The event was announced on Google+ at this link, good only through March 2019
https://plus.google.com/u/0/+VanceStevens/posts/Hp1FEvSXqbf

Michiyo wanted to make ‘her house’ much nicer, with the help of +Olivetree Lighthouse, so she posted, “I explored the desert area. I have collected cactuses in order to make green things. Then collected some sands to make glasses. If I have some time to continue “my house” building, I may be in the world at around 14:00 UTC on the Feb. 7th or 8th. It would depend on how early I could get back from work. If I were there, I would. If not, next day or time.”

She wasn’t able to make it on Feb 7, but she kept her Feb 8 appointment.  Meanwhile, here’s what we did on Feb 7:

Thu Feb 7 EVO Minecraft MOOC moderators Teacher Vance and Dakotah Redstone follow Abufletcher to newly-discovered temple

Michiyo was not able to make it back from work in time, so Dakotah Redstone and Teacher Vance followed Abufletcher to a temple he found buried in a village just north of the one we had all visited last week on our adventure trek. We looked it over but didn’t crack it. We hoped to find others in our community who would want to explore it with us. We posted to our Google+ Community that they could find it on the map just north up the river from our recent trek destination and inside the big grey wall Dak erected around it while we chatting in Discord. I attached this picture:

So when Michiyo appeared next day, apparently Abufletcher, Michiyo’s teacher in Japan, encouraged her to visit the new temple, which is where I met the group when I arrived, having just emerged from a cab at my apartment which had brought me from the bus station in Penang where I had just left a bus that had left Kuala Lumpur 6 hours earlier. I  joined Michiyo, Abu Fletcher, Dak, Jane, and Mattie in Minecraft just as they were all about to head down the polished stone road that Dak had created leading over to the Temple Under Town that Abu Fletcher had found the previous day, where we would see if we could unlock its secrets in a systematic manner.

The event was on the 2019 EVO Minecraft MOOC Live Events schedule, which is linked from the sidebar at the #evomc19 landing page at http://missions4evomc.pbworks.com/. That link should be working far into the foreseeable future.

The event was organized on the EVOMC Google+ Community, which we’ll hate to loose after March 2019. The event evolved in these two posts, the first from Michiyo,
https://plus.google.com/u/0/+VanceStevens/posts/Hp1FEvSXqbf where I had replied the day before, “+Michiyo Toshima joined us today, but not for house building. We went on a temple tour and excavated around the Temple Under Town.”

Don Carroll then made a longer post here
https://plus.google.com/u/0/105443014753998852123/posts/VGCNd9N5Epn
which I reconstruct here since these links to Google+ will no longer work after March.

Don Carroll (Abufletcher)

A most unusual temple!!!  Come and help us explore (but not pillage) both the temple and the village on top of it!  Dak is busy building a protective wall around the village (immigrants welcome).

OliveTree Lighthouse

Great find 🙂  Sorry I couldn’t join. I was fighting with command blocks and was reading and watching things online trying to get them to work as I wanted.

Vance Stevens

The /warp is templeundervillage. I had to go there to test the /warp, and I found that someone, probably one of the villagers, agitated at the recent interest shown by bothersome explorers from another dimension, placed an iron door over the entrance to the most sacred part of the temple. I guess they make iron doors in the blacksmith shop adjacent to the temple precincts. To open the door, you have to know how to operate the ‘device’.  Once inside, the way is, hmmm not exactly clear, but the direction down is (whatever you do, don’t jump down there!)

In another post I invited participants to come help us “loot” this temple but I withdraw that poorly worded invitation and leave the disposal of this one to my esteemed colleague and co-moderator, Abu Fletcher.

If interested in looting a temple I can invite you to another one, if it hasn’t been looted already (I wouldn’t know for sure until I went there and tried to loot it). Sign up for the expedition in the reply area below.

Don Carroll

I’m more interested in how the temple and several village structures seem to have become intertwined.  I’d like to see if we can untangle the parts before damaging anything with a “smash and grab” approach.  Honestly, after looting a few temples, it all gets to be pretty routine.  Often I don’t even bother.

I’ll be in-game at about 14:00 UTC.

Vance Stevens

+Don Carroll Yes, exactly, by “looting” a temple I mean to approach what lays beneath the blue and red tiles in a calm and systematic manner, avoid setting off the TNT, which we know is down there. By working systematically and on arriving safely in the space below, I suggest that we open the lids on the chests that will also be there and peek inside.

I think this is one of those constructive activities that show Minecraft in its most collaborative mode, and reveal to participants how critical language is in the process (for example when Abu Fletcher told me once, in text, DON’T STEP THERE. Step is probably a useful word in English, as is its appearance in a negative imperative.) But more importantly, the instructions to one another as we work toward a common goal are the point of the exercise.

Hope to see you at 1400 UTC if the bus I’m on reaches Penang in time.

If anyone would like to join us in the exploration of this temple and / or others, please click REPLY below.

Don Carroll

Here’s an aerial view of the temple/village (from the dynamic map).

Actually, Vance I would suggest that we entirely leave the “loot” alone.  It’s really not interesting.  Instead, I’d like to see us work creatively and in unison to “map out” how the temple and village structures are intertwined.  For example, can we find minimally invasive ways to get into the main temple structure WITHOUT damaging ANY of the exteriors of any of the village structures?

In fact, anyone who just wants the loot is welcome to get it through a diagonal tunnel (as I have done before on many temples).

Or maybe I should just go in and grab the loot myself now so we can focus on the archeologically interesting aspects of the site. : )

Vance Stevens

+Don Carroll I liked +Dakotah Redstone’s spiral approach, as evident in the video.

The event took place on the EVO Minecraft MOOC 1.12.2 server with voice in Discord

 

Earlier events

Tue Feb 5 Learning2gether episode 400 – EVO Minecraft MOOC visits East Coast Miners for VSTE Minecraft Monday

https://learning2gether.net/2019/02/05/learning2gether-episode-400-evo-minecraft-mooc-visits-east-coast-miners-for-vste-minecraft-monday/

While EVO Minecraft MOOC is in session through Mid February, earlier events are being archived here:

http://missions4evomc.pbworks.com/w/page/130258521/2019_Live_Events