Minecraft Farming and F2P

As I sit in the library, not going to class, I wrestle with a spotty WiFi connection.  Maybe I shouldn't complain, considering it is free.  That doesn't help curb my frustration.  Anyway, enough of my whining.  After neglecting this blog over my 4 day weekend, I thought I would throw out some words while sitting in work study.

I have been meaning to address some of the work we have been doing on our Minecraft server.  The first post on this blog is about our original server.  Since that post, I have reset the server.  The server is vanilla, no mods with the Glacier seed.  It has some interesting terrain and the starting point is at a three way junction of desert, jungle and taiga biomes.  I am really digging it.  I am only running a 5 slot server for me and some buddies due to the fact that, not all my friends play Minecraft and I am a poor college student.

I recently completed work on an automated farming setup.  It is a redstone powered, piston harvesting farm with a water flow system that gathers at a collection point.  At the moment it is set up for farming pumpkins, melon and sugarcane.  This is the layout of the farm itself.

Here is a pic of the mechanism that sends a timed pulse to the farm pistons.

It is a fairly easy system to build that was not too resource heavy, in my opinion.  Keep in mind that none of this is my own creation so I must give credit where it is due.

I have been looking into some other systems for farming but have not built anything more.  I will post with updates when I find, and build, more.

Blossle recently posted about Path of Exile, while Stunts recently posted about microtransactions in games.  Personally, I can not wait to play Path of Exile.  I recently read about it via Penny Arcade and it caught my interest.  I like the idea of F2P games.  Who wouldn't?  I think there is a fine line though and many games get it wrong.  Games, such as, The Old Republic leave me feeling like they have "stunted my growth." MMO's are already a time sink.  Now you are going to slow down progress and castrate the game of features because EA wants to claim F2P but, unless a user ponies up the dough, they are not getting a game worth putting time into.  There is also the "pay to win" scenario.  Buy the super sweet weapons/armor and pwn face.  Pass.  Now, Grinding Gear Games claims that Path of Exile "will never be pay to win."  I have heard that before and been disappointed but I have also heard good things about this game and my hopes remain high.