How did I become a minecrafter today, after almost 4 years?

About 23 million copies of PC Minecraft has been sold. That's potentially 23 million PC Minecrafters. Yet, I am one of those people. But the question is, how exactly am I a minecrafter? How did I get here? All of us play this game, yet all of us hold a different purpose in it that gives the charm and life we enjoy inside this voxel game. My purpose and experience lives in the evidence of my submissions and what I already am.

In September 2012, I was a kid that loved art. At the time I really loved sandbox games and anything that allowed your creativity to be expressed. My friend, username ShadedFrenzy, showed me a classic Minecraft server. When classic Minecraft was around, though quite limited, you could play it for free. Jumping through the list of servers, I was in pristine wonder of the things you could have created with the blocks they had. Huge buildings, pixel art, large bodies of water, and even blocky statues of ducks were anywhere to be found! I fell in love with the game. After my favorite server caught hold of popularity, I noticed premium users started to come there. Using a classicube client, you were able to see their skins if they had actually bought Minecraft. Instead of a bunch of Steve's bopping around, there was color. There were characters, creation, both original and commercial. There was something I had not found out yet about the actual Minecraft.

Asking some of the users and my friend about skins, I was absolutely ecstatic about the fact that they were completely customizable. Being an artist and loving the idea of creating characters, I could be anything I wanted to portray as in the game. Skipping to November, I had begged my mother to get Minecraft for my birthday. Taking hold of the piece of plastic, I probably looked silly as I rushed home to create my own account. Turning on my toaster worthy computer, I downloaded the real gateway to Minecraft and registered myself. Being a huge weeb at the time, my username was SakujoNoKami. Before I even started to actually play the game though, I had to create a persona for myself. Something cool, unique... Something that they have never seen before! My kiddy self literally searched "unique Minecraft skins". Scrolling through PlanetMinecraft and the Skindex for a while I just decided to do some sort of samurai. Since I was going to take a serious adventure with creepers and skeletons, I had to at least look prepared. My "Aki Samurai" was born, being the first heir to the name Sakujo. My new virtual life had just began and I hoped it would go as great as I dreamed.



Lost in the lists of servers on PlanetMinecraft and Minecraft-Servers, I had to think of ways to ease myself into this new game. That meant I had to choose something without PvP, and a balanced amount of people to not overwhelm me or bore me. Wanting to delve in Minecraft fully as Sakujo, I found the beauty of Towny servers. Roleplayer or not, it was a very interesting concept to belong to a user ran city, or to begin one from the bottom up. Sadly I have forgotten the name of my first Towny server, since it had shut down, but I was able to build a nice city of a whopping 6 people. Let's just not mention that 3 were actually my real life friends. Honestly back then comes a bit at a blur to me, but I do remember creating quite a ton of different skins and characters to succeed after Sakujo. MCEdit became my treasure since it streamlined my work process. I had received compliments on my skins and characters, which support me to skinning today.

I found that creative servers were a tad nostalgic for me, as it was the second most popular game mode in classic Minecraft. Going back to my roots, I spent my time on 100x100 plots creating little towns, whether it was urban or more country like. A huge thing on creative servers back then were called "Skin Comps", which was short for skin competitions. Wanting to show off my skins and see other's creativity I warped myself over to their plot and snuggled into a slot! At the time my first competed skin was likely my Ocean Princess. The colorful stance my character took compared to the shadeless competitors were sure to give me a shoe in!

I was struck with the sadness of defeat in the very first round. I felt horrible, almost worthless. My hard work on the skin had lead up to nothing except a big red wool in front of me. I had taken in so many compliments that my ego bested me to rely on one person's competition to judge my overall ability.



Taking hiatus for a year or two because of school, I came back to another creative server to get back into building.

Finding even more skin comps, I found my old touch again. Being older I did not care as much for winning, but I still wanted to share my skin with others and to appreciate what they too wore. Today I decided to write this blog to capture the memories of my time acquiring Minecraft and its impact on my skinning and character creation experience. These will always stay with me, reminding me that I can create lives even in small 64x64 textures.

The impact of Minecraft on me was that even in a game that is not as "beautiful" or detailed as that of current AAA games, I still could do so much creatively and with what Minecraft was programmed for. It really shows that you do not need an extremely complex game to take the masses awe, but to think outside the box and K.I.S.S. I keep practicing this example of blissful simplicity so that I do not worry as much about my creations and keep to the purpose of having fun in this community.

I do wish my impact on this community is to supply people with various skins whether it be of original characters or ones they may recognize and love. I'm not skilled enough to complete a resource pack or program a practical mod, but I am happy as long as I know I have contributed to someone's Minecraft "persona". Finding and expressing yourself freely is a true blessing to have in real life or in virtual worlds.

This is how I am a Minecrafter today, and always.

- Tom0e