So that was a longer than intended break, especially since I thought doing my January write-ups had gotten me recharged. I just took a break from writing though not gaming.

In February I rediscovered Minecraft, or more specifically I discovered mod packs. I was introduced to YouTuber Direwolf20 from watching a Haat Films video (whom i started watching because of their excellent Minecraft release trailers) and from there found the Feed the Beast mod pack.

I already knew about modding but hadn’t messed with it at all because I didn’t want to bother manually patching JAR files. Well, the modding scene has advanced substantially since I last looked. For FtB, I just had to download a launcher then pick a pack, let it download and play. It’s about as easy as installing and launching an MMO. I’ve been playing heavily ever since.

Mods have made a world of difference in my enjoyment of the game. Setting up power systems and automating mining scratch nearly the same itch as playing the Anno series. When the game starts to get stale, I add another mod. I’ve been able to customize my copy of the Direwolf20 pack easily by downloading some other Forge compatible mods (the modding framework FtB uses) and adding them via the launcher.

If you loved Minecraft in the past, but got bored then I highly recommend checking out one of the FtB packs. There’s the big ones like Direwolf20 and Ultimate that contain a large cross section of mods and then there’s more focused ones like Magic World and Tech World. Personally I think the Direwolf20 pack is a great starting point as you can watch his current Season 5 Let’s Play and get a introduction to all of the mods as he starts a new world and builds from there. Don’t bother starting from Season 1 though, Dire starts a new season with every major version change so Season 5 Episode 1 covers starting out with the current release of the mod pack (at least at the time I write this).

Been gone Minecrafting
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