One thing I was never into until recently is mods, custom water and lava were about as radical as I got.

Lately though I've been really making up for lost time, in fact I'd be confident in claiming that over the past week I've spent more time modding and tweaking Minecraft than actually playing Minecraft.

Although, tbh, in a way... I still consider that to be playing Minecraft.
When I'm making skins or browsing submissions on PMC and my significant other asks what I'm doing, I say "playing Minecraft".

The word "Minecraft" has come to mean, to me, not just the game itself but also an entire (for want to a better word)scene.

Modding and making texture packs, skins and let's plays.
Servers and clans and... unfortunatly... Griefing teams.
Parodies and parodies of parodies (meta-parody?).
Songs, some pretty awful raps and at least 23 versions of the Old Spice commercial spoof.

All of the above is still "playing Minecraft."

If I say the word "Minecraft" to myself, the first thing that comes to mind is not the videogame created by Mojang but rather the community of people, the great network of sites and user created, user maintained content and utilities... all available for free, all labours of love for a game... all of these things, mods, texture packs ect take a lot of work.
They are created by and for us all for no other reason than to increase the enjoyment of us all.
That is some selfless shizz right there, go give a modder or texture pack artist a diamond right now.

Minecraft, it can truly be said, brings people together.

It is a symbol (see how I did a little backglance to the title? That's a touch of class for ya) of something greater than itself, it is a symbol of human creativity... The same creativity that is an inherent, core aspect of the gameplay, a creativity that has spilled over into a veritable Venn diagram of diverse pursuits of individual expression all revolving around the core... Minecraft.

Without this robust and thriving pro bono industry of coders and artists providing a constant stream of new ways to play... I suspect Minecraft's longevity would be severely shortened.

Now, I realize (obviously, I'm a smart lad) that the same can be said for many games and scenes and sub-cultural whatnots etc... But hey, we don't congregate here because the site is named Planet Call of Duty hmm?

The point, (although there barely is one tbh, I'm just rambling because I can) is we sail together.
A single crew on the good ship Minecraft, sailing across the great and terrible ocean of the internetz.

So let's all try to remember that we're all here for the same reasons... even the griefers, oh they're such rascals.

Oh... and because I'm a man of my word...



:) This is a Shiba Inu, a Japanese breed.

yay puppies! /