It's addictive to me because I love exploring! No two worlds are ever the same, so you can literally explore forever. Forests with weird rock formations, caves with rivers of lava, frozen oceans, it just keeps going on.

I'm not as creative at building stuff as some folks, but creating cool houses IS a lot of fun. (You have to build a house because there are monsters that come out at night, and you need a secure, well-lit place to hide out.)

Have you seen mygothlaundry's Minecraft blog? She builds some crazily cool stuff in her games.

So you get your own unique world with interesting stuff already in it? I thought maybe it was just building your own stuff. I'm totally not a gamer...

What I really like about it is that you can do a lot of things, but you don't HAVE to do any of them. I started playing in 'peaceful' mode (i.e., no monsters), just to learn how stuff works. Learned how to mine, learned how to make stuff from the things I mined. (Learned how to craft, in other words.)

Now I'm playing with the monsters. (Called 'mobs' in this game.) It's nighttime right now, and there's a skeleton outside who'd like to shoot me full of arrows. But he can't, because I'm inside my cozy little house, which has two large greenhouses attached. (I'm growing sugar cane and cacti and wheat in there.) That skeleton -- I might go up on my rooftop and shoot him, if he doesn't fall in the moat first. Oh, and in that moat right now, there are a few sheep bouncing around. One of them is naked because I sheared it. Haven't decided what to do with the wool yet. I might dye it green with my cactus. Or maybe I'll dye it red with one of the roses out front.

I haven't explored very much of the world I'm in now. I think this afternoon I'll build a boat and go sailing down the shore a bit, just to see what's there. Of course, I'll have to build another little house before it gets dark so that the zombies and creepers and spiders don't come get me.

Or maybe I'll go down into the mine beneath my basement and look for more diamonds. I found 8 down there yesterday.

I'm still learning how to use redstone -- it's this stuff that you can use to build simple circuits. I've managed to make an indicator light on top of a tower so that anytime something dies in one of my big monster traps and drops its loot, the light will come on and I'll see it from my house. That's the simplest thing you can do with redstone. I want to learn the more complicated things.

People describe the game as like playing with legos. I think that's wildly inaccurate. (If it was, it would bore the hell out of me.) You can make it pretty much anything you want. Want to build a huge beautiful house? Okay, do it. Want to slay zombies? Okay, do that. Get tired of one thing? Go do another.

I kind of hate that I looked into it. It's taken over my life. On the other hand, it doesn't feel like a bad thing to be hooked on. There's a lot of problem-solving involved, and I feel like I learn something new every day.

I asked this question last month. It got me started. The wiki is very helpful.

DarkForest: there are natural formations in the world, but no "built" stuff- houses, minecarts, etc.

Oh yeah- I keep the wiki open in the background just about every time I play.

The next update features beds! For sleeps! And resetting your spawn point!

And resetting your spawn point!

*skies open, beam of light shines down*

Thank you, Notch! Thank you!

One sales pitch goes... it's like playing with legos, except you're a lego dude in an infinite lego world, and there are special water and fire legos, and pigs and chickens and sheep, and you can spend all day messing around with stuff. Then at night, the monsters come.

More specifically, exploring and building are fun. You have to build your base to survive, and you will always be thinking about little improvements you could make to your base. Maybe you need a moat to drown the monsters? Hm, it needs to be deeper. It needs a better bridge. Hm, maybe it needs to be filled with LAVA.

Wandering around outside is fun. Exploring caves is fun. Doing experiments to figure out how things work can be fun. You can farm! How..

The whole first in-game week is very fun, where you have to scout the area and get your base up quickly and optimize how you spend your time a little to survive the first few nights.

After that I think single-player gets boring, and lonely, and all the ways you've pimped out your base start to look like pointless, and the monsters are just more irritating than dangerous. You start to notice that there's no endgame, that the game is pretty shallow and needs more challenges besides the ones you set for yourself. You stop asking how, and start asking why, and there's no answer.

Usually then I start a new game because the first days are that much more interesting...

Or you can play it online, such as on the Aporkalypse where many so-called Mefites are. You get to build with other people and show them what you've built, and that's where I think it is most addictive.

Multiplayer Minecraft hits a sweet spot. There's enough structure so that you can build and not just devolve into random doofery. On the other hand, there's lots of freedom to do what you please and set your own goals, so you don't feel like you're just "clocking in" when you start playing (unless you're in the middle of a big project you set for yourself).

Sometimes I think of it as similar to scrapbooking or quilting bees (or at least how I imagine them). You sit around and chat, help people and get helped, and you can kinda go at your own pace and do what you like. You're not in the race to level up your scrapbook, or sew fast enough to win that one special quilting square. BUT... you're still doing stuff.

I have a question about the multi-player aspect. Can you actually meet up with other players? Talk to each other? Build stuff together? Aporkalypse looks fascinating.

On preview: fleacircus answered most all of my question.

That's interesting, fleacircus, because my experience has been almost exactly opposite. Multiplayer was cool once or twice, but the lack of danger, and inability to find any real unexplored territory, kind of made me lose interest in that aspect of the game after I'd tried it a couple of times.

I guess this goes back to "you can make Minecraft whatever you want it to be," which is why so many people love it.

Hi, my name is MGL and I'm a Minecraft addict. ;-)

Yes, to the point of having a minecraft blog. It is embarrassing. And just after I saw this thread and then went to Minecraft to think about what to say (besides thanks for the plug, BP!) I naturally fell into the lava pool I was trying to fence off and died. Now I will never see that new gray house again and meanwhile, I'm walled up in the darkness hoping no spiders come along. Aaaaand - I wrote that an hour ago. Now I'm holed up in a cliff but I have coal. And pumpkins. And glass. And stone tools - my life is starting over. Sometimes lately I think my Minecraft addiction may be beginning to wane but then I get interested again. And that's what's great about it. It's openended and thus neverending. There is always a new landscape to wander into and a new house to build.

However! To answer your question! Minecraft is the purest form of weird ass art like (you are making art, sort of, except you're not and also it is the most effort free art ever) escapism that I have ever found. It's completely immersive - and there are no rules. I like that. I like that there are no quests and no boundaries and I'm just running loose in this world where I can, pretty much, do anything without restraints like money or time or ability - ability! I can build castles in Minecraft! At home tonight I fucked up fixing the goddamn doorknob but in Minecraft? I've built three working roller coasters and so many mansions I lose track.

This is the video I started out with, that got me going. There are a gazillion zillion videos out there - here's a ridiculously lengthy list - and the wiki crafting page is indispensable.

I haven't ever tried multiplayer. I ventured onto the Aporkalypse exactly once and it intimidated the hell out of me. There was just too much already done and I was afraid I'd do something wrong, step out of line, make a dumb mistake and then - well, I don't know, but it might have been bad. ;-) So I just went back to my solitary existence. I've been thinking I'd like to try it again but maybe on a brand new world or something with some friends, not so much one that's been all built up already.

Update, hmm? I'm of two minds about this resetting your spawn point - I've spent so. much. goddamn. time. building roads to spawn and stocking spawning huts and losing things due to my distance from spawn that I'm not sure I approve. Why, we walked ten miles through the snow to spawn in my day! Honestly, though, the game is getting easier - and I am not sure this is an unmixed blessing. Heh. Off my lawn, creeper!

Wait wait wait. If you die you start all over again? Like, from scratch?

No, deborah, you just get transported back to your spawn point, where you started. If you've stayed close to home, that's not a big deal. If you've gone far afield, damn, you're back in your hometown and have to walk back to wherever you were.

Anything you built in the world is still there, and if you can get back to where you died, you can pick up all the stuff you dropped.

This is why the update BiterOldPunk mentioned is SO COOL. That'll change soon.

I remember them adding the ability to change/add spawn points in EverQuest, so I get that. Thanks, BP!

I've been avoiding finding out anything about it, because I understand it's quite addicting and, well, I'm the type.

That was me back in the fall of 2010. Also, the laptop I had at the time was pretty old and couldn't run it, and I didn't really want to sit in front of the "fast" computer upstairs to play it, instead of logging on from the couch. Then I got a new laptop, and more posts on MetaFilter about it got me to try it.

You are 100% right about it being addicting.

I don't play single-player at all. All of my Minecrafting time is spent on the Aporkalypse server, where everybody is very friendly. Although a lot has been built there, it's not like the world ever gets full. It's 110 square miles now and will get bigger whenever people venture out to the edges of it. There is plenty of undeveloped space there.

We have some nice extra commands and things there. Like a warp hub system to teleport you between specific pre-defined locations on the map, so you don't have to walk around for days and days to get places. You can also save a specific location as your "home" and teleport back there any time, even after you die. There's a beautiful map, a wiki, and an active community posting comments on MeFight Club.

I have so far not built a lot of pretty things. I've been more interested in building roads and tunnels, some of which go for miles. And then another player came along and replaced a boring section of my road with a truly fabulous suspension bridge, because he likes building bridges.

One nice thing about playing on that server is the community projects, like the various cities under perpetual construction. But even if you just have a big task ahead of you, like flatting some terrain to build something on, it's not unusual to suddenly have half a dozen players helping to do that.

if you can get back to where you died

IF. And it's a big if - I like to wander and explore, so I often end up many days away from my spawn point. If I die out in the middle of nowhere I'm screwed and all the stuff I was carrying is gone forever. Once I've established myself - built a house, settled down - I make a road back to spawn (you can make a compass once you have dug up enough iron and redstone dust and the compass always points homeward) so that if I die I can get back there and maybe even pick up my lost stuff. Without that road, there's no way I can find my way back to wherever I was, which is how I lose whole houses, like today. Yes, that can be really frustrating but in a way I kind of like it. Forsake attachments! All is temporary! Ars brevis! And all that.

Some time ago a guy who spent a lot of time thinking about video games came up with a quiz that divides players into four groups: Explorers, Socializers, Achievers, and Killers. Explorers want to map the area, ferret out the secrets, and soak up the lore. Socializers want to know and be known, to run guilds or clans, and to chat away with other players. Achievers are all about collecting the best loot and leveling up. Killers want to compete: they love player versus player challenges and thrive on combat. The quiz was designed to classify players of multi-player games, but it's a useful measure of what one's gaming style is in single-player games, too.

Me, I'm an Explorer. I want to soak in the sights, map the territory, figure out where everything is in relation to everything else. Minecraft is fantastic at scratching this itch. There's ALWAYS something else to see, somewhere else to go, another nook or cranny to stick my nose into. I LOVE building roads that over time I turn into minecart tracks. I LOVE actually shaping the world; building landmarks to navigate by, clearing forests to build ziggurats from which I can survey my surroundings, delving deep through mountains to build tunnel systems.

Multi-player Minecraft servers scratch other itches. There's tons of socializing (the Aporkalypse is a very friendly place). If you like getting the best gear you can spelunk for diamond to make awesome armor and equipment. You can seek out rare blocks for making unusual stuff like jukeboxes or bookshelves. If you thrive on combat you can venture into the depths and pit yourself against a never-ceasing wave of zombies and skeletons.

Minecraft encompasses so many different possible play styles. It's whatever you want it to be. Turn the mobs off and build the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. In mid-air. That's totally doable. Turn the mobs on for a creepy fright-fest where fast thinking and strong walls are all that stand between you and death. Jump onto a public server and see the sights. Or build a glass pyramid surrounded by a lava moat.

The last world I started with a simple goal. I wanted to stand on a block of adminium (the only unbreakable block in the game, found only at the "center" of the earth), look upward, and see the sun. In other words, I wanted to dig a big deep hole. So I did. I built a hut for storage, mined my way down, making better equipment as I stumbled across the resources to do so, carted endless piles of dirt away, eventually via minecart, and finally I did it! I stood at the bottom of the world, looked up, and saw the sun. Yay! Now I have a new goal: I want to build a tower adjacent to that hole. A tower that soars above the clouds. A tower that reaches the maximum allowable height (there is one, but I've yet to figure out what it is). Then I shall stand atop that tower and leap. I shall fall from the highest point in the world to the lowest. I will do so while wearing a full suit of diamond armor. Why will I do this? I dunno. To see if it kills me. To see how long it takes to fall. BECAUSE I CAN. And that's the fun of Minecraft.

A tower that reaches the maximum allowable height (there is one, but I've yet to figure out what it is)...

I found it when I build my tower. I didn't count, but my tower was probably about 25 stories tall, and maybe 15 blocks above sea level.

I put a waterfall over the side of it, so when I jump, I just kind of float down.

It is an awesome game.

Gotta go. Drowning zombies.

That's interesting, fleacircus, because my experience has been almost exactly opposite. Multiplayer was cool once or twice, but the lack of danger, and inability to find any real unexplored territory, kind of made me lose interest in that aspect of the game after I'd tried it a couple of times.

It's pretty easy to find unexplored territory; you can pick a direction and walk for as long as you like (then some more for good measure), and use the /sethome command so you can get back there instantly if you die.

But the multiplayer aspect can also make exploring a lot more fun, like when I decided to go way out on an eastern spur, just to see what someone had done there. I had to use the map and orienteer like a blocky boy scout, only travelling when it was day in the game, building little cabins and monuments at night. It took about four hours of real time. I built a big HI, then decided I'd keep on walking east, far into new territory and build something of my own out there.

I can understand getting bored with multiplayer because of the monster aspect, but for exploring, well... there's tons more of it on multiplayer. There's still plenty of natural land, but on servers you get stuff like Porkton and the D-Sphere to explore as well. Joiiin uuussssss.

I refuse to even look sideways at Minecraft, you know, 'just to see what it's like'. If I were to do that, the next time I lift my head up, I'd be unemployed, my kids starving and my partner run off with the milkman. Everything I have heard tells me this is way worse than crack.

I can understand getting bored with multiplayer because of the monster aspect

It is probably worth mentioning that there are monsters on multi-player servers now, although they're currently switched off on the Aporkalypse server because of some technical issues that we hope will get fixed soon. They change the game considerably, which some people like and some people don't, so we eventually went with a 3 days on/3 days off schedule for monsters.

Oh and several people have built gigantic machines for collecting and killing monsters on an industrial scale to harvest their loot, so that's another dimension of fun. The one I built is just a small one, but the killing mechanism has glass walls, so you can stand on the catwalk beside it and watch the baddies getting shoved into some lava.

I thought it was fun for a couple of days then I lost interest. It got very repetitive and boring very quickly. *shrugs*

Wow, thanks for the input, guys!