Hey there Horsebagger! First of all, congratulations on being the top voter last month! Please tell us the secret to consistent voting, how do you do it?
Well, I usually log onto the server at least once a day so it only makes sense to stop by the voting page on the web site and give it a few clicks.
You don't set a timer for every 24 hours or anything like that? You make it sound so simple!?No, I've never found it necessary. I'm not sure but I think the voting sites are split between Europe and N.A. because I've tried to vote at different times during the day but sometimes a page would accept my vote whereas another would say I've already voted. I basically figured out that if I vote everyday at about 1:00 p.m. EST, I get the vote on all five sites.
Um... I should add here that I'm retired, so finding the right time of day to vote and keeping that regiment is pretty easy for me now.
Aha, wonderful! I should get back into that voting rhythm sometime! For the people that don't know you that well, could you introduce yourself to the readers?
Perhaps you could talk a little bit about where you grew up, what you studied, what you use(d) to do for a living and how long you've been playing minecraft for!
To start, I'm a 66 yr. old retired auto worker that lives in Windsor, Ontario, Canada where I've lived all my life. I've raised two wonderful children and have 2 grandkids too! I basically started working in an automotive plant right out of high school because the money was excellent. After about 7 years working the floor on punch presses, I took a position as a production forklift driver which I did for the remaining 29 years of working at the factory. It was extremely busy and quite demanding most of the time but it was an excellent job that I found to be very good at.
Some of my (many) hobbies are gardening, building computers and gaming, studying Ancient Egypt (which I've done since I was 17 yrs. old), my cats, cooking and canning, astronomy and I have a particular liking for women in metal and hard rock music, of which I've had an online radio station called Femmetal Online for the past 13 years. I used to go to a lot of concerts but, because of retiring and of course COVID, I've basically stopped going, though there are a few that I've got my eye on.
Ahhhh Minecraft!! I remember back in 2009 hearing about Minecraft and after seeing screenshots and videos on it, I thought it was 'such a cute game for kids', mainly because it was a sandbox game and very cartoon-like.
Of course, it's full release was 2011 and I was very interested in Skyrim which was released at the same time so I paid no attention to Minecraft at all.... until 2017. I was at my daughters having tea and playing a mean game of cribbage with her back then and my grandson was in the living room playing a game. He yelled at me "Pipi, come watch me" so I took a break from cards and went and watched. He was playing Minecraft on a PS4. This was the first time I actually watched game play and I was rather intrigued by it. He was mining at the time and after a bit, he went up to his base and stored all of his materials including his diamonds which he was very excited about.
Sometime after I arrived home I decided to give the game a try, so I downloaded a cracked copy, loaded it in as straight vanilla, made a world and started to play. This was after supper, around seven in the evening. It was a case of suddenly taking a break from the game, looking up at the clock and it was three in the morning!!! From then on, I knew I was hooked and bought a legit copy from the Mojang website the next day. In time, I realized that, like Skyrim and Fallout 4, I could add mods to it to make it look better and give it some extra tools, so that basically cemented my love for the game.
Wholesome! This is such a wonderful story, so wholesome I love it! Have you been playing minecraft with your grandchildren ever since, or don't they know that you also enjoy the game?
lol... no, he moved on to Roblox. xD
Hahahha, such a shame! How did you come across SentinelCraft and why did you decide to stay with us?
While I was playing Minecraft, I was also getting tips and ideas from videos and websites. Through that process, I found out about Minecraft servers and what they were all about. The idea looked interesting and the thought of playing along with others sounded rather cool. I proceeded to go to a couple of site listing pages (two of which we vote on) and saw the listings of SO many different sites! They all advertised things I had no idea what they were about such as PVP, McMMO, Towny, but I just wanted to see what they were like and if I could play and build.
I picked one server, who's name I can't remember, logged in, read the rules, and went to where the signs stated I could start to play and build. When I warped there, all I could see was buildings!!! SO many buildings! I walked for 15 minutes looking for open land to build and could find absolutely none. I logged off...
SentinelCraft was the second server I logged onto. After creating an account and reading the rules, I saw where it said to go to get into survival mode and build. I was hoping that it wasn't like the other server and of course, it wasn't. I was whisked away into Horizon and that was the start. I ended up finding a nice spot for my first build, the Portal Tower, which ended up being my home base for a couple of years until I moved it to the outskirts of my town.
I stayed on SentinelCraft mainly because there was no need to look elsewhere. There was, and is, a lot to do and, though I've never been one to associate much with anyone, everyone is basically friendly with a dedicated staff that actually cares about the server and take very good care of it.
That sounds rather nice, I'm happy you decided to stick around! What is your favourite thing to do when you're online on the server and have you been working on any big projects lately - you mentioned a town in Horizon?My town is one in Kattalox and called Oakridge, or Ancient Rhim. It's my constant project and I'm usually doing something to change or improve it. It's different from a lot of the other towns and I really don't have any residents that stay but it's my project and I love it. One of the things I love to do is mining/caving while I'm trying to think of new ideas for it. Two months ago I built a giant dark oak tree on a hill with a contingent of librarians living inside the hill taking care of the tree's roots, and selling enchanting books of course. I also built a small double tower last month and currently I'm working on another project for the town which will be a ship building yard.
I'm also working on the lore for the town, which I will include when I eventually start a board in the forums area of the web page once I've finished writing the introduction and description.
I've also attended RoW but really haven't participated yet... um... except for once where I did my first roll and wouldn't you know, someone came knocking at my door! Ugh... so I had to log off, but I'll get there and play sometime soon.
A lore for the town sounds really interesting! How can readers visit your town if they'd like to take a look? All they have to do is warp to the town via /t spawn oakridge! They'll arrive at the lodge where they can read the rules in the lower level, then head out. I have signs posted to most of the builds/shops etc.!
Brenda, can I share with you a story on how I got banned from the server?
You got banned? What! What happened! Please share it with me!I was in the process of building my first build, the Portal Tower, which stretches over Y180. I had built the outside of the tower to have 'tubes' along 4 of the sides and my idea was to have lava flowing all the way down the tubes during the night and change over to water during the day.
One day I was working on the redstone apparatus to create the flow and, while standing inside the first tower's upper level, a player appeared. It was HVPanda.
Now at this time, I was a complete noob! I had never chatted with anyone, spent time with anyone, and honestly never paid attention to the chat because I didn't know anyone, I just built things. I was rather shocked that someone would suddenly appear and had no idea who he really was but I thought 'cool, someone to visit' and I kept trying out the redstone dispenser.
Suddenly I realized looking at the chat that he was talking to me, mentioning that I couldn't do this because it would cause lag to the server. Now I had built something similar one my single player game and yes, it did create lag, but I thought that it wouldn't be even noticeable on the server.
Well, while Panda is trying to talk to me, I'm trying to talk back but unfortunately, I didn't know the commands for chat, or anything else for that matter!! I was trying to respond to him that I knew about the lag and was going to stop and he was trying to get me to talk, even to the point of asking me if I understood English. I'm replying but he's not seeing a thing. I'm sure he was getting frustrated because I knew I certainly was!
Then poof..... I was in jail, and Panda was there with me. The same thing was happening. He was trying to get me to chat and I was chatting but because I didn't use the command, he saw nothing. Eventually, I got banned!
Because I had already visited the web site and forum, I knew that I could appeal, so that's what I did. It wasn't even an hour later that Migas replied and reinstated me to the server stating that he was basically watching the whole thing! lol... I can just imagine how that must have looked. He told me the command I needed and directed me to a page in the forums that had more listing of them in case I needed them.
Honestly, I giggle about it now but at the time, I was just about in panic mode !
That sounds hilarious, I never knew this fun fact, shame on Hv for breaking into your own little bubble like that! What are your future plans on SentinelCraft? Just to keep working on my town, continue to explore Horizon and look for good mining/cave sites, hopefully finally make it to RoW to make friends and maybe try Skyblock, though I've seen some videos on it and it looks rather complicated, but we'll see.
That sounds wonderful, I'm sure some people would be happy to reach out and connect with you now that we know a little bit more about your hobbies and your daily life! Thank you for answering all of my questions with such great detail, do you have anything else you'd like to share with our readers? Perhaps how they might be able to listen to your radio station?First, just a word of thanks to everyone that is associated with the server, especially the individuals who have been taking their own free time to upgrade to Bungee and to continue to work on the bugs. Though I've never been on another server, I'm sure there are not that many around that have such a great, kind and fun staff as SentinelCraft has.
As for my station, it's basically a bot station that features female fronted metal and hard rock of all different genres, and mainly oldies going back to 2011 and beyond. I have a web page at
www.femmetal.net which has links to listen and info on some of this year's new releases, as well as highlighting some great albums both current and past. Thanks for asking and thanks for the interview Brenda! It's been great!
Thank you for reading Outside the Blocks, I hope you enjoyed it!
Don't forget to leave a cheeky comment and the real gossip down below. Hope to see you soon for another edition of Outside the Blocks - who would you like to see next?
