They use "cheat" programs to manually edit the world.

yeah it says so in the description of the vid.

all the same thats pretty sick

So is this game like virtual Legos or something?

Yes, basically, except that some of the lego is trying to kill you in your sleep.

and you have to dig deep into the earth to find the rare legos.

I've been playing around with redstone circuits. Built a 4-bit binary clock/counter that's pretty sweet except there's a lot of delay in the two most significant bits. I haven't figured out how to add delay to the small bits so it runs smoother.

I really wish there was more to do with redstone though. All you can activate with it is doors and doors don't allow water to pass through even when they're open so you can't make water traps like I was hoping to do. I want to design elaborate traps with it but most of the traps I've found online require user intervention which defeats the point imo. Or they'll involve TnT which makes them inherently one-use only.

One thing I hate about the game is how leaves behave. I'll plant seedlings all over to have enough source of wood but when you chop down a tree the canopy just hangs there. It's a huge pain to chop all the canopy down so that you can plant a new tree in it's place. I wish the canopy would gradually degrade and disappear. Doesn't make any sense that leaves just float there and even though some will disappear, if it's a big block it'll just hang there which means i'll have to build a dirt scaffolding and go through the tedium of breaking the canopy down block by block.

I am so glad that I will never play this game. My old self would already be desperately addicted losing 1+ years of life.

Meh, you gotta do something with your free time. Might as well be something you find fun and is at least somewhat creative.

I find minecraft addicting in a similar way that civ is addicting. I'll get the urge to play and just lock myself away for a couple of days playing marathon sessions. Then once I've done most of the stuff I thought of doing I'll lose interest and not play for a month or more.

It doesn't have the constant addiction element of grinding games like WoW or competitive games like starcraft that keeps you coming back endlessly. Well, unless you get the crazy idea that grinding diamonds is gonna be fun. Thankfully you can't really do that much with diamond once you get enough to craft armor and a cool sword.

Getting tempted to buy this game after reading a g4 article on it. Didn't know about the monsters at night thing. Plus I'm getting a little bored of SC2 but it just seems like I'll get bored with this in a couple hours. Does it really have lasting appeal?

The game is really what you make it.

At first you have a lot of fun just mining and staying alive and getting a basic shelter. Then you make your first fort. After that it's up to you.

I played the game non-stop for a whole day then the next day I got bored. A couple of days later I watched "X's Adventures in Minecraft" on youtube and it gave me a ton of ideas on what kind of stuff I can get up to which meant many more hours of fun.

On top of that the game is gonna get more features in the future and be even more awesome. Here's an example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiqneDn-VqM

Iron
-----Flint--------- Problem solved. It might be the reverse.

potentially very dumb question, but its bothering me. i have started many different games and i have never had a sunny, bright daytime like in all the youtube videos i see. all my daytimes are kinda hazy and blurry, no clouds and i very rarely see the sun (which is kinda important on telling how far night is away). am i an idiot or something? why is every youtube video bright, sunny, clouds, etc and all my daytimes are kinda hazy (which creates a very short line of sight in my worlds)?

Sounds like Fog, push F a couple times.

dang, never thought of that... thanks!

The top square will burn forever