nikka plays minecraft

For my CCT395 Topics in Communication and Culture class, we were assigned to be in groups of 4-5 people to explore a virtual space, a virtual gaming space to be exact. Along with my group members Waj, Sanjana, Mack and Eva, we decided to play Minecraft.

Today was Day 1.

I have never played any online or computer games in my life before. Well "never" is a strong word in this case, I guess I have some sort of experience but just not at the League of Legends or Skyrim level. If you can count that one week I played Runescape and reached Level 4, or that one time I sort of played Maple Story cause I told this guy I had a crush on that I was totally that kind of girl who played Maple Story...then yes maybe I may have somewhat played online games before. I've also spent a good amount of time procrastinating on Facebook Tetris with Friends and once upon a time there existed Farmville...but Facebook doesn't count as a legitimate gaming world, nothing like Minecraft.

Minecraft is a whole different online game than anything I have played before. I've heard of it of course from a couple of friends who played it. So when my group decided to play Minecraft I had this vision that it was going to be something like World of Warcraft, League of Legends or Starcraft. Stuff I've seen my brother and ex-boyfriends play. Boy, was I ever wrong.

First of all, I worried that my MacBook Pro would not be capable of running Minecraft as it wasn't a PC and 4 years old (ancient in technology age). My fellow group member Mack assured me that it takes up almost no space in my computer. He's tried to play Minecraft before although he never got attached to it like many others who played it. I don't think he knew what I thought Minecraft was because this is how our conversation went upon him trying to show me the basics of Minecraft:

Me: WTF my computer sucks why is it so pixelated?!
Mack: That's how the graphics are. This game was made by one guy.
Me: Where's my character?
Mack: That's your character.
Me: Why can't I see myself?
Mack: *shaking his head*/ *presses E* there that's yourself.
Me: Ew. My head is a block?
Mack: Yuuuup.
Me:... why
Mack:...
Me: I thought this was going to be like DOTA.
Mack: *shaking his head*/ *breaking stuff with bare hands on Minecraft*
Me: What are you doing? ...K. Let me try.
Me:...what do I do?
Mack: Build stuff
Me: With what?
Mack: Stuff you dig.
Me: 'Kay, I don't get it.


After awhile of getting used to the controls and virtual space of Minecraft, I managed to make myself a few items. Mack showed me how to make an axe, a sword, a crafting table, a pick-axe and a shovel. I managed to chop down trees and dig cobblestone and even some mine during the morning. But when night time came, zombies kept eating and killing me so Mack fiddled with the options and set it to "Peaceful Mode" so I can "stop yelling about getting eaten by zombies"...Well no one wants to be eaten by zombies? 5 hours later with a little bit of help from Mack and my boyfriend I managed to have this inventory...and a helmet.


At the end of the day I realized the 6 components of a Virtual World discussed in class present in Minecraft. It has a shared space (we're going to play on a server as a group although I played it alone today). Graphical User Interface, 3d graphics... that are pixels or whatever in this case. Immediacy, it runs on "real time" although I swear night and day change in 15 minutes or so. Interactivity, I can alter stuff in the world, hence the 'craft' in Minecraft. (Ahhh, I get it now) Persistence, Minecraft apparently doesn't revolve around me so when I log out the world and activities continue and lastly, Socialization so I can play with other users...who are probably way better than me. Overall, even though I sucked on my first day I have to admit this game is pretty fun!