The Minecraft community is one of the most unique and innovative online communities anyone could be a part of. From the educational sector where teachers are adapting the game to meet educational purposes, to the 51-year-old adult building a city after work to blow off steam. This game defies age ranges, teaches critical thinking, and relaxes the overworked. So what is Minecraft? Well according to Minecraft. net, which is the official Minecraft website, “Minecraft is a game about breaking and placing blocks.
At first, people built structures to protect against nocturnal monsters, but as the game grew players worked together to create wonderful, imaginative things. It can also be about adventuring with friends or watching the sun rise over a blocky ocean. It’s pretty. Brave players battle terrible things in The Nether, which is more scary than pretty. You can also visit a land of mushrooms if it sounds more like your cup of tea. ” (Minecraft. net) Minecraft started out as a simple idea, and has turned into a game that has spawned quite a large cult following, building into conventions and online worlds that boggle the mind to explore.
Some of the largest builds take hundreds of hours with teams of players all working together to create. The simplicity of the game gives its power to the players, leaving nearly unlimited room for the player to imagine and create almost anything that comes to mind. Why I chose Minecraft I chose this culture because I am really into this game. I love the community and I love being a part of all of the interactions. I felt really good about this subculture going into it. I have always been a pretty big gamer, but I have always played console games like Halo, Sniper, and the occasional Super Mario Sunshine.
I was never really into computer games, and I had always thought that Minecraft was stupid. I had no reason for this. I had just never understood that it wasn’t just kids building things and then blowing things up, it is an actual survival game with the perk of being able to build awesome things. I actually only started playing the game because my fiance forced me to play it on the Xbox, and I have to admit that it only took five minutes for me to get hooked. According to the game description on the Microsoft Store, “There’s no limit to what you can create in Minecraft.
From that dream house you always wanted to your own private island, this is your block-building paradise. The only thing holding you back is your imagination. ” (Microsoftstore. com) This version of the game has an easier entry level for kids and anyone trying to get into the game. This makes it pretty easy to build in, because you can sit back with your controller and relax while playing. Since then, I have ventured from the Xbox world of Minecraft to the PC world of Minecraft, and more recently to the server (online multiplayer) world of Minecraft.
If I were to have been doing this research about a year ago, I would have gone into it hating life and thinking how much I didn’t want to do it. I would have been saying how stupid the game was and that only kids below ten played it. Now that I have actually been playing the game for almost a year, I went into this project excited. I didn’t really have to make assumptions because I know that most of mine are true. I think the community of Minecraft is a wonderful community for the most part.
I also know that Minecraft is beneficial to team building skills, organizing, and planning that they have started requiring kids at some schools to play the game in a classroom setting. This game is good for so many things, and I am happy to be a part of this community. About the Minecraft Community This game community has spread so much since its conception in 2009. It started out with hardcore gamers being the only supporters, and it has now spread to parents, kids, YouTubers, conventions, and even school settings.
Throughout my research, I have found several schools that are actually using Minecraft as a teaching tool. They have a regular classroom setting where the kids will come in, log on to Minecraft, and then do a lesson in game. They are mainly using this to teach kids to work together and to help them to learn how to plan things out in order to get them done efficiently. There is actually a site out there called Minecraftedu. According to their wiki page on their website “Since late 2011, MinecraftEdu has made its way to thousands of classrooms around the world.
It has been used to teach all kinds of skills and subjects from math to foreign languages to social justice to fair trade. Here you will find some resources and examples about using MinecraftEdu in your classroom. ” (Minecraftedu. com)I think it is so cool that they are finding ways to actually put science, math, etc. lessons into the game. I think this is a very beneficial way to keep the kids interacting with one another, and keep them interested. We all know kids love games, and this is a good way to get them to be excited to go to school and learn.
There are also schools that use Minecraft to teach kids who are being homeschooled. According to Michele D Dickey from Miami University, “3D virtual worlds may be an effective medium for distance learning, depending upon context and resources available; however, more research needs to be conducted to explore the potential fully. ” (Dickey, 119) Opposite from this, there is the creative and stress relieving ways to play Minecraft. For this, I stuck with my field research for the descriptions and research I was looking for. I mostly did my field research in a server called Valhalla.
In this server, I met a man (who I am not going to name) who is a 51-year-old Divorcee. He usually gets on and plays after work. His son is also a part of our little community. For this research, 1 mostly asked him questions about the other people on the server, and the way most of the people behave. The reaction from this was mostly positive. He informed me about how all of the people in our area were nice people who were very helpful, but he also told me about how there are the people on the server who are “griefers” this means that they like to break and steal other people’s things and builds.
This is the part of this community that is not very prominent. You will always see a few of these kinds of players anywhere you go, but it is pretty rare to have more than a couple. The rules of Valhalla differ depending on which section of the server you are in. According to the Valhalla website about us page, “We are VALHALLA. SX a. minecraft server for mature adults who need to let off some steam at the end of a long day. We provide an enhanced survival expierience that combines vanilla minecraft with elements of the real world like an enhanced weapons, an economy, and stadium style games. (Valhallasx. com) This is the reason that I like this server. When starting new in the server, you find yourself in a big black room with the words VALHALLA on the wall. You walk through a door into prison. In prison you must get 1500 dollars in resources and build a basic house. This is to make sure that you at least contribute to the community. In this section you are allowed to kill each other. After prison you go to a section called New. In this section, there is no PVP (Player Vs.
Player) and you will get in trouble if you try to kill someone. The goal of this section is to build a cool house to get promoted to Builder. Builder is where I am. It is the section of the server where you are basically placed in to normal Minecraft to survive and build with other players. This is where I met my interviewee. He immediately showed me to his village and tried to help me as best he could. I have been on this server for 3 weeks now, and I have experienced so much comradery just from the short time I have been here.
This is quite a bit different from the Xbox One Minecraft. You can only play with people who expressly invite you to join their world. This is how | started with the team playing. My fiance and I started playing with one of his friends from work, and it was the exact same way, except for the fact that we could actually hear each other talking through our headsets. Both are fun, but it is really cool to meet people from all over the world and get to interact with them. According to staff at Michigan State University, “The social lements fostered in SNG play naturally created different relationship dynamics among game players. Although the activities participants engaged in were similar, the game play affected their relationships differently depending on with whom they were playing. ” (Wohn, 6) This is why the Xbox version is so different. When you know the people you are playing with, you tend to talk about what happened in your day, and then you mostly talk about things going on in the world and in game when you play online with other people.
Reflections Throughout this process, I have re-learned how much I like to socialize with people. I had lost touch with the world for a little bit, because I was always sick, and I kind of lost my groove of being outgoing and actually talking to people. I know these aren’t people I am ever going to meet, but I still enjoy actually talking to someone. Up until a few weeks ago, I could go without talking to anyone all day until I had time in the evening with my fiance. I have learned how to work alongside people instead of trying to do everything for them.
It is hard to really describe the actual benefits I have gotten from this research, because most people are going to think I am bat-shit crazy for loving a game so much, and thinking that all of the interactions that I have are so meaningful. I know that to most people, they don’t like games, and they don’t understand how much people can impact you, even in game. So I don’t think I would change my initial statement much. The Minecraft community really is one of the most unique and innovative online communities anyone could be a part of, but it is also one of the most welcoming communities that I have ever experienced.
