Too many cows
June 15, 2022 4:15 AM Subscribe
Boundary violation in Minecraft "Today my 7 year-old came into the room crying. I asked him what happened and he said that his 5 year-old brother put 80 cows in his house in Minecraft while he was offline and that it was "entirely too many cows" and honest to christ I have no idea how to parent any of this."
Thread has Minecraft wrangling-- use the cows for leather or tempt them out with wheat? Many funny stories and good parenting advice.
Cyriak cowsGrotesque, has spider images.
I watch this video time and again and I keep finding new detaiils.
Boyneton cows Funny and charming. Just enough cows.
I wonder whether it would be a good thing to let the kids read the twitter thread.
Thread has Minecraft wrangling-- use the cows for leather or tempt them out with wheat? Many funny stories and good parenting advice.
Cyriak cowsGrotesque, has spider images.
I watch this video time and again and I keep finding new detaiils.
Boyneton cows Funny and charming. Just enough cows.
I wonder whether it would be a good thing to let the kids read the twitter thread.
Man, Twitter has gotten bad about throwing-up the “login or register” block. I think I only got three responses into the thread before I got blocked.
Anyway, I am so glad to have adult children and not have to parent my way through problems like this.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:32 AM on June 15, 2022 [13 favorites]
Anyway, I am so glad to have adult children and not have to parent my way through problems like this.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:32 AM on June 15, 2022 [13 favorites]
When I was wrangling grandkids yesterday, the oldest started wailing that the 5-year-old was destroying his friend's house in Minecraft. Said friend was playing with the two of them in real life at their place. I have no good adulting tools for this. I basically told them to work it out together and then went back to minding the baby. Sigh. Thanks, OP!
posted by Bella Donna at 4:54 AM on June 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by Bella Donna at 4:54 AM on June 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
Oh my god I feel this. I have had to try and resolve so many disputes with my kids on Minecraft. Before they realized I could do it I would enable cheats on their realm when they weren't on and “/give @s” a bunch of items to myself so I could solve issues peacefully like some sort of renaissance benefactor. Here have some of my diamonds to make new armor (after one child pushes the other into lava)…..
But now they know about that, and we agreed no cheats, so I am making them resolve their own disputes. So there are notes all over our fridge like “A owes B 12 diamonds after she burnt my village down”
posted by inflatablekiwi at 4:56 AM on June 15, 2022 [51 favorites]
But now they know about that, and we agreed no cheats, so I am making them resolve their own disputes. So there are notes all over our fridge like “A owes B 12 diamonds after she burnt my village down”
posted by inflatablekiwi at 4:56 AM on June 15, 2022 [51 favorites]
Parenting kids this age is all about logical consequences. So the only move here is to log into their server as an admin, and fill the 5-year-old's back yard with 30-50 feral hogs.
posted by Mayor West at 5:19 AM on June 15, 2022 [81 favorites]
posted by Mayor West at 5:19 AM on June 15, 2022 [81 favorites]
Minecraft veteran here.
One of the essential farms in the early game is a cow farm. The easiest way to get infinite steak and leather is entity cramming.
You lead two cows into a two cube deep hole and put a fence post on top of them. Underneath this you keep a hopper and a chest. As you feed the cows and they breed they have nowhere to go, until they reach the threshold for having too many cows in one position, at which point a cow will die to free up space, dropping steak and leather.
I don't know if this has changed in 1.19.
posted by adept256 at 5:42 AM on June 15, 2022 [25 favorites]
One of the essential farms in the early game is a cow farm. The easiest way to get infinite steak and leather is entity cramming.
You lead two cows into a two cube deep hole and put a fence post on top of them. Underneath this you keep a hopper and a chest. As you feed the cows and they breed they have nowhere to go, until they reach the threshold for having too many cows in one position, at which point a cow will die to free up space, dropping steak and leather.
I don't know if this has changed in 1.19.
posted by adept256 at 5:42 AM on June 15, 2022 [25 favorites]
There’s enough of an age gap between my two kids, one has just turned seven and the other is about to turn three, that they’re not interested in playing the same games, yet. But my current Minecraft related parenting issue is that my son got Minecraft Dungeons as a gift for his 7th birthday, and he’s so excited about it that he wakes up in the middle of the night, thinking it’s morning and he can play, and is then distraught when he can’t. Convincing a child to go back to sleep in the middle of the night is something that I thought was something I didn’t have to do anymore, after my daughter turned two. Or at least would wait until my son’s teenage years.
posted by Kattullus at 5:43 AM on June 15, 2022 [17 favorites]
posted by Kattullus at 5:43 AM on June 15, 2022 [17 favorites]
I know it's a game but damn, that cow factory farm you described is cruel.
posted by cmfletcher at 5:49 AM on June 15, 2022 [46 favorites]
posted by cmfletcher at 5:49 AM on June 15, 2022 [46 favorites]
Recently was thinking about the fact that I got into Minecraft in September of 2010, around the time toomuchpete set up the old Aporkalypse server that a lot of MeFi people played on, and I wonder what percentage of the Minecraft player base is actually younger than my account.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:06 AM on June 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:06 AM on June 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
I agree on the moral peculiarity of cow cramming. Wattles, a prolific minecraft youtuber, no longer uses entity cramming for this reason.
There are other problems though.
A cooked chicken farm uses the fact that baby chickens are less than one block high. The moment they mature, they find their head in a lava cube, which cooks them. Welcome to adulthood.
An iron farm relies on trapping a villager with direct line of sight to a zombie, so they never leave panic mode which causes iron golems to spawn. The golems immediately fall to their death because the whole farm is built so high that any fall is fatal. Not a very happy home.
If a villager is infected by a zombie and you cure them, they will give you a discount on trades. This, of course, encourages you to deliberately infect villagers. This is how you end up of with automated zombie infection laboratories. But hey, emeralds!
posted by adept256 at 6:18 AM on June 15, 2022 [49 favorites]
There are other problems though.
A cooked chicken farm uses the fact that baby chickens are less than one block high. The moment they mature, they find their head in a lava cube, which cooks them. Welcome to adulthood.
An iron farm relies on trapping a villager with direct line of sight to a zombie, so they never leave panic mode which causes iron golems to spawn. The golems immediately fall to their death because the whole farm is built so high that any fall is fatal. Not a very happy home.
If a villager is infected by a zombie and you cure them, they will give you a discount on trades. This, of course, encourages you to deliberately infect villagers. This is how you end up of with automated zombie infection laboratories. But hey, emeralds!
posted by adept256 at 6:18 AM on June 15, 2022 [49 favorites]
I have no idea how to parent any of this.
As a former older child: stop letting the younger child play with (and wreck) the older child's toys.
It's just as simple as that. Lay down boundaries, teach the kid that they have to ask first. It's no different than younger kid stuffing a bunch of legos into older child's bedsheets.
I will never stop being frustrated by adults with learned helplessness when it comes to computers or online interactions. There's always an off-line analogy, but they've just internalized "computers = mysterious" for some reason.
posted by explosion at 6:23 AM on June 15, 2022 [45 favorites]
As a former older child: stop letting the younger child play with (and wreck) the older child's toys.
It's just as simple as that. Lay down boundaries, teach the kid that they have to ask first. It's no different than younger kid stuffing a bunch of legos into older child's bedsheets.
I will never stop being frustrated by adults with learned helplessness when it comes to computers or online interactions. There's always an off-line analogy, but they've just internalized "computers = mysterious" for some reason.
posted by explosion at 6:23 AM on June 15, 2022 [45 favorites]
I know it's a game but damn, that cow factory farm you described is cruel.
Agreed!
It's one of my least favourite things about Minecraft, the resources you can only get by killing things.
I was part of a workshop teaching teachers how to play Minecraft. I was pretty horrified that most people's *first reaction* to seeing a cow or a pig was to kill it.
Last time I played I got a bit obsessed with bees and beehives. Leading bees across a landscape, and persuading them to occupy a hive. Spawning new, tiny bees. Just the best.
posted by Zumbador at 6:30 AM on June 15, 2022 [12 favorites]
Agreed!
It's one of my least favourite things about Minecraft, the resources you can only get by killing things.
I was part of a workshop teaching teachers how to play Minecraft. I was pretty horrified that most people's *first reaction* to seeing a cow or a pig was to kill it.
Last time I played I got a bit obsessed with bees and beehives. Leading bees across a landscape, and persuading them to occupy a hive. Spawning new, tiny bees. Just the best.
posted by Zumbador at 6:30 AM on June 15, 2022 [12 favorites]
I don't know from Minecraft but the idea of having "entirely too many cows" in your house cracks me up. I can't stop trying to figure out how many cows in one's house would be a reasonable number. Thanks for the early morning laugh OP.
posted by fuse theorem at 6:31 AM on June 15, 2022 [11 favorites]
posted by fuse theorem at 6:31 AM on June 15, 2022 [11 favorites]
There’s a lot of crouton petting in Minecraft, on account of how practically everything is crouton-shaped.
posted by notoriety public at 6:33 AM on June 15, 2022 [29 favorites]
posted by notoriety public at 6:33 AM on June 15, 2022 [29 favorites]
It's one of my least favourite things about Minecraft, the resources you can only get by killing things.
I was part of a workshop teaching teachers how to play Minecraft. I was pretty horrified that most people's *first reaction* to seeing a cow or a pig was to kill it.
It's almost as if Minecraft was invented by a fascist.
posted by acb at 6:48 AM on June 15, 2022 [9 favorites]
I was part of a workshop teaching teachers how to play Minecraft. I was pretty horrified that most people's *first reaction* to seeing a cow or a pig was to kill it.
It's almost as if Minecraft was invented by a fascist.
posted by acb at 6:48 AM on June 15, 2022 [9 favorites]
Great post. I never saw that Cyriak video when it was new. Trippy, creepy, somehow also adorable.
I only have one kid and she was definitely the kind of kid who would put too many cows in the house more than the kind who would cry about it. For a while she had a house full of creepers. She called them her pets.
posted by eirias at 6:49 AM on June 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
I only have one kid and she was definitely the kind of kid who would put too many cows in the house more than the kind who would cry about it. For a while she had a house full of creepers. She called them her pets.
posted by eirias at 6:49 AM on June 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
"If you don't knock it off right now, everyone only gets to build with polished diorite!"
posted by 1adam12 at 6:57 AM on June 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by 1adam12 at 6:57 AM on June 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
Anyway, I am so glad to have adult children and not have to parent my way through problems like this.
Still, the birthing process must have been a challenge.
posted by Saxon Kane at 7:15 AM on June 15, 2022 [18 favorites]
Still, the birthing process must have been a challenge.
posted by Saxon Kane at 7:15 AM on June 15, 2022 [18 favorites]
A few comments have reminded me of Dan Olsen's video, That Time I Accidentally Did a Colonialism in Minecraft.
posted by AlSweigart at 7:18 AM on June 15, 2022 [13 favorites]
posted by AlSweigart at 7:18 AM on June 15, 2022 [13 favorites]
Even Stardew Valley, which does try to avoid the PC murdering their farm animals (pigs drop truffles, rather than being meat sources; if the PC is done with a particular animal it can be sold but not killed), inexplicably allows the PC to farm slimes, which have no use whatever except being killed for their stuff, in late game.
I still miss Glitch, which finessed all of this fairly decently, though the idea of pigs enjoying being nibbled at is... kind of creepy really.
posted by humbug at 7:22 AM on June 15, 2022 [3 favorites]
I still miss Glitch, which finessed all of this fairly decently, though the idea of pigs enjoying being nibbled at is... kind of creepy really.
posted by humbug at 7:22 AM on June 15, 2022 [3 favorites]
Well Pokemon is about children wandering the wilderness, catching wild animals, giving them drugs and making them fight. Too much scrutiny always ruins the fun.
The guy who invented sea monkeys? Huge nazi.
posted by adept256 at 7:24 AM on June 15, 2022 [9 favorites]
The guy who invented sea monkeys? Huge nazi.
posted by adept256 at 7:24 AM on June 15, 2022 [9 favorites]
I solved this problem by running a minecraft server on AWS and doing my own hourly backups, disagreements of significant duration or serious accidental deaths with stuff loss just got rolled back.
I also made an Alexa skill to act as a remote console for admin commands that they should have access to. If they asked me something more than once I'd just add it as a skill. "Alexa, ask robot dad to make it rain on the minecraft server", and lo it rains. I did not add support for smiting others, however tempting that was.
posted by true at 7:28 AM on June 15, 2022 [24 favorites]
I also made an Alexa skill to act as a remote console for admin commands that they should have access to. If they asked me something more than once I'd just add it as a skill. "Alexa, ask robot dad to make it rain on the minecraft server", and lo it rains. I did not add support for smiting others, however tempting that was.
posted by true at 7:28 AM on June 15, 2022 [24 favorites]
My only Minecraft story is blowing my nephew's mind by knowing what a potion of healing was/was called before he told me. I resisted the urge to explain the history.
posted by praemunire at 7:41 AM on June 15, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by praemunire at 7:41 AM on June 15, 2022 [3 favorites]
While I get the comedic value of dealing with sibling conflicts in entirely unfamiliar contexts and that it's pretty funny to feign a certain degree of haplessness about the weird things the kids are up to:
stop letting the younger child play with (and wreck) the older child's toys
This is it. I tried to head off this kind of problem in my own family by having constraints around multiplayer engagement and shared virtual contexts (maps, accounts, worlds, saves) between siblings who were a full 4 years apart. It mooooostly worked? Mostly. I think a really good Pokémon save got blown away once. My own TF2 inventory lost its earbuds after a dire warning not to touch them, which I still hold over the younger's head into adulthood.
posted by majick at 7:47 AM on June 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
stop letting the younger child play with (and wreck) the older child's toys
This is it. I tried to head off this kind of problem in my own family by having constraints around multiplayer engagement and shared virtual contexts (maps, accounts, worlds, saves) between siblings who were a full 4 years apart. It mooooostly worked? Mostly. I think a really good Pokémon save got blown away once. My own TF2 inventory lost its earbuds after a dire warning not to touch them, which I still hold over the younger's head into adulthood.
posted by majick at 7:47 AM on June 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
I was part of a workshop teaching teachers how to play Minecraft. I was pretty horrified that most people's *first reaction* to seeing a cow or a pig was to kill it.
Of course! It’s an easy way to level up before taking on the first dungeon.
posted by betweenthebars at 7:48 AM on June 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
Of course! It’s an easy way to level up before taking on the first dungeon.
posted by betweenthebars at 7:48 AM on June 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
As a current parent of a 5yo, I have little sympathy when frustrating things happen to people who let their kids that age meddle in things the grownup doesn't have basic working knowledge of, especially how to fix if things get borked.
On the other hand, I can say itnever been a better time to get little kiddos into NES gaming, highly recommend.
posted by SaltySalticid at 7:50 AM on June 15, 2022
On the other hand, I can say itnever been a better time to get little kiddos into NES gaming, highly recommend.
posted by SaltySalticid at 7:50 AM on June 15, 2022
It's one of my least favourite things about Minecraft, the resources you can only get by killing things.
From my day literally every RPG was like that. Kill stuff to get money. Lots of the stuff you killed was wolves or gels with happy faces. It's a holdover. I only play creative, but I'm pretty sure my youngest just switches from 'action' to 'creative' mode when there is something she needs but doesn't know how to make. I'm pretty sure you can switch in-game.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:56 AM on June 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
From my day literally every RPG was like that. Kill stuff to get money. Lots of the stuff you killed was wolves or gels with happy faces. It's a holdover. I only play creative, but I'm pretty sure my youngest just switches from 'action' to 'creative' mode when there is something she needs but doesn't know how to make. I'm pretty sure you can switch in-game.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:56 AM on June 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
At what point do you introduce the kids to Dwarf Fortress and develop problems nobody understands?
posted by clew at 8:40 AM on June 15, 2022 [24 favorites]
posted by clew at 8:40 AM on June 15, 2022 [24 favorites]
Metafilter: Just enough cows.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:43 AM on June 15, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:43 AM on June 15, 2022 [5 favorites]
After their 30th failed Nethack run, when they've sufficiently learned to read TUI maps and suffered strange consequences for their actions.
posted by majick at 8:43 AM on June 15, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by majick at 8:43 AM on June 15, 2022 [7 favorites]
> At what point do you introduce the kids to Dwarf Fortress
Isn't that just a family home with a couple of kids under seven?
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 8:45 AM on June 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
Isn't that just a family home with a couple of kids under seven?
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 8:45 AM on June 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
> It mooooostly worked?
Here for the cow puns.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 8:47 AM on June 15, 2022 [5 favorites]
Here for the cow puns.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 8:47 AM on June 15, 2022 [5 favorites]
It's one of my least favourite things about Minecraft, the resources you can only get by killing things.
Actually, one of my favorite things about Minecraft is that you don't have to kill anything if you don't want to. Almost every necessary resources has a workaround.
Don't want to kill cows? Eat wheat or potatoes or carrots instead. Bread is by far the easiest early-game food. It is easy enough to get iron that you don't really need to go through the leather armor stage. Shear sheep for wool for a bed, or find a villager bed. Need leads? Wait for a trader to show up and the put the llamas in boats, which will disconnect their leads without killing them.
Yes, things like iron farms are useful, but they're not in any way mandatory. I keep cows for milk, but I'd much rather eat gold carrots than steak. Probably the only thing I can think of that you really NEED are feathers for arrows, but you can buy arrows from villagers or, in the slowest way, pet cats will bring you feathers if you let them sleep on the bed (or you can sometimes find them in chests). Just don't think too hard about where the cats or the villagers got them.
Having played for 10+ years I've had the pleasure of seeing kids grow up on servers, and transform from troll edgelord kids who fill your house with things worse than cows to people running servers and tournaments and coding for the game.
There’s a lot of crouton petting in Minecraft, on account of how practically everything is crouton-shaped.
This is the truth, right here, and Mojang leans into that now. Its for the best.
posted by anastasiav at 8:51 AM on June 15, 2022 [12 favorites]
Actually, one of my favorite things about Minecraft is that you don't have to kill anything if you don't want to. Almost every necessary resources has a workaround.
Don't want to kill cows? Eat wheat or potatoes or carrots instead. Bread is by far the easiest early-game food. It is easy enough to get iron that you don't really need to go through the leather armor stage. Shear sheep for wool for a bed, or find a villager bed. Need leads? Wait for a trader to show up and the put the llamas in boats, which will disconnect their leads without killing them.
Yes, things like iron farms are useful, but they're not in any way mandatory. I keep cows for milk, but I'd much rather eat gold carrots than steak. Probably the only thing I can think of that you really NEED are feathers for arrows, but you can buy arrows from villagers or, in the slowest way, pet cats will bring you feathers if you let them sleep on the bed (or you can sometimes find them in chests). Just don't think too hard about where the cats or the villagers got them.
Having played for 10+ years I've had the pleasure of seeing kids grow up on servers, and transform from troll edgelord kids who fill your house with things worse than cows to people running servers and tournaments and coding for the game.
There’s a lot of crouton petting in Minecraft, on account of how practically everything is crouton-shaped.
This is the truth, right here, and Mojang leans into that now. Its for the best.
posted by anastasiav at 8:51 AM on June 15, 2022 [12 favorites]
Unless things changed in recent updates, leather is necessary to make books so you can enchant your equipment to make it better. Which involves either killing a lot of cows, or running around the world smashing up the library of every village you can find and stealing their books.
Which is why I tended to play modded minecraft where you could makes books and such in sensible and non-animal killing ways.
posted by Zalzidrax at 9:04 AM on June 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
Which is why I tended to play modded minecraft where you could makes books and such in sensible and non-animal killing ways.
posted by Zalzidrax at 9:04 AM on June 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
Actually, one of my favorite things about Minecraft is that you don't have to kill anything if you don't want to. Almost every necessary resources has a workaround.
That's true, but when I was a new player, just trying to figure things out and survive, it took me ages to discover how to side step the killing. And I'm still not sure I'm confident that I would survive long with no armour and only wooden tools to mine enough iron to level up to having iron tools and weapons.
I mean, I'm sure it's possible, but my fear of zombies and skeletons is pretty intense.
I usually end up playing in safe mode (or whatever it's called when you're not in creative mode but can't get attacked. And then I feel like I'm cheating.
posted by Zumbador at 9:04 AM on June 15, 2022
That's true, but when I was a new player, just trying to figure things out and survive, it took me ages to discover how to side step the killing. And I'm still not sure I'm confident that I would survive long with no armour and only wooden tools to mine enough iron to level up to having iron tools and weapons.
I mean, I'm sure it's possible, but my fear of zombies and skeletons is pretty intense.
I usually end up playing in safe mode (or whatever it's called when you're not in creative mode but can't get attacked. And then I feel like I'm cheating.
posted by Zumbador at 9:04 AM on June 15, 2022
A 7 year old talking about "entirely too many cows" is just my favorite image of the day. I don't know anything about Minecraft.
posted by obfuscation at 9:11 AM on June 15, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by obfuscation at 9:11 AM on June 15, 2022 [3 favorites]
seeing a cow or a pig was to kill it.
When my kid was gifted Minecraft as a 6 year old, the thank you card featured a burning pig (due to an unfortunate TNT explosion). The aunt & uncle cherished this and framed it.
It is a funny situation but although the game might be new (Minecraft is about 11 years old so it is sort of new) but the general parenting issues are similar to things in the past. It is about respect, boundaries and logical consequences. If I was in that position as the parent in the tweet, I would have forced them to do something with the cows together - obvious for the game is the "resource extraction" angle (killing the cows for leather and meat) but I would likely have made them come up with a non-lethal solution (maybe a cow sanctuary? a cow village?) and have them work together on it. As a side note, pranks are a big part of many of the Minecraft Youtubers shared worlds especially the ones aimed at kids. So without a doubt if they are playing Minecraft, these kids are likely watching one or many of these Youtube channels and I can totally see the older kid pranking his brother. I know I would have as a kid.
the resources you can only get by killing things
It is MUCH harder to play but it is possible to not kill. You can even be a vegan if you want.
"entirely too many cows"
Kids say funny stuff all the time. Mine was partial to the word "negotiate" as in "Mama I'd like to negotiate what vegetables I must eat for lunch." And "apparently" as in "Dada apparently this cat likes me."
posted by Ashwagandha at 9:19 AM on June 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
When my kid was gifted Minecraft as a 6 year old, the thank you card featured a burning pig (due to an unfortunate TNT explosion). The aunt & uncle cherished this and framed it.
It is a funny situation but although the game might be new (Minecraft is about 11 years old so it is sort of new) but the general parenting issues are similar to things in the past. It is about respect, boundaries and logical consequences. If I was in that position as the parent in the tweet, I would have forced them to do something with the cows together - obvious for the game is the "resource extraction" angle (killing the cows for leather and meat) but I would likely have made them come up with a non-lethal solution (maybe a cow sanctuary? a cow village?) and have them work together on it. As a side note, pranks are a big part of many of the Minecraft Youtubers shared worlds especially the ones aimed at kids. So without a doubt if they are playing Minecraft, these kids are likely watching one or many of these Youtube channels and I can totally see the older kid pranking his brother. I know I would have as a kid.
the resources you can only get by killing things
It is MUCH harder to play but it is possible to not kill. You can even be a vegan if you want.
"entirely too many cows"
Kids say funny stuff all the time. Mine was partial to the word "negotiate" as in "Mama I'd like to negotiate what vegetables I must eat for lunch." And "apparently" as in "Dada apparently this cat likes me."
posted by Ashwagandha at 9:19 AM on June 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
It's almost as if Minecraft was invented by a fascist.
If "player jumps into game and tries to kill random things" is the bar for "creator is a fascist" then 100% of games w/ weapons are created by fasicsts. Sad!
posted by wemayfreeze at 9:20 AM on June 15, 2022 [6 favorites]
If "player jumps into game and tries to kill random things" is the bar for "creator is a fascist" then 100% of games w/ weapons are created by fasicsts. Sad!
posted by wemayfreeze at 9:20 AM on June 15, 2022 [6 favorites]
I will never stop being frustrated by adults with learned helplessness when it comes to computers or online interactions.
It feels like a similar brain constraint as folks who don't understand consent because their values were built on specific behaviors that were good/bad and not a general framework of autonomy. "I know about toys I don't know computers" when really it should be "I know about boundaries and communication and those apply regardless of the context"
posted by wemayfreeze at 9:24 AM on June 15, 2022 [6 favorites]
It feels like a similar brain constraint as folks who don't understand consent because their values were built on specific behaviors that were good/bad and not a general framework of autonomy. "I know about toys I don't know computers" when really it should be "I know about boundaries and communication and those apply regardless of the context"
posted by wemayfreeze at 9:24 AM on June 15, 2022 [6 favorites]
My kids have played Minecraft for years now, and I have spent countless hours parenting Minecraft crisis. There was an epic one we refer to as the Digital Pants Incident, when someone stole my youngest son’s diamond pants. That resulted in weeks Of drama, recriminations, and tears. My kids are teenagers now, and still have Minecraft Meltdowns with each other or their friends. All Minecraft problems are now Digital Pants to me and I have reached the point where I usually tell them “I don’t care about your Digital Pants, work it out”.
posted by fimbulvetr at 9:24 AM on June 15, 2022 [13 favorites]
posted by fimbulvetr at 9:24 AM on June 15, 2022 [13 favorites]
NOT as a parent, I personally would recommend NOT letting the two children play on the same server UNLESS they demonstrate proper ability to work with each other, much like you wouldn't let the younger child throw older child's toys around.
posted by kschang at 9:37 AM on June 15, 2022
posted by kschang at 9:37 AM on June 15, 2022
If "player jumps into game and tries to kill random things" is the bar for "creator is a fascist" then 100% of games w/ weapons are created by fasicsts. Sad!
No need for such sweeping rules when it comes to the creator of Minecraft.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 9:46 AM on June 15, 2022 [9 favorites]
No need for such sweeping rules when it comes to the creator of Minecraft.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 9:46 AM on June 15, 2022 [9 favorites]
If "player jumps into game and tries to kill random things" is the bar for "creator is a fascist" then 100% of games w/ weapons are created by fasicsts
I was referring to Markus “Notch” Persson's noted far-right political views, which undoubtedly precipitated his departure from Mojang after Microsoft acquired them.
posted by acb at 9:47 AM on June 15, 2022 [6 favorites]
I was referring to Markus “Notch” Persson's noted far-right political views, which undoubtedly precipitated his departure from Mojang after Microsoft acquired them.
posted by acb at 9:47 AM on June 15, 2022 [6 favorites]
Even though I grew up with video games it kind of blows me away how serious and "real" or "serious business" video games are to kids these days, and how I don't really have any frame of reference for some of these problems.
I think the closest analog I might have is a sibling playing over or erasing a saved game state in what few console games we had that could be saved with a battery backed cartridge, IE, Zelda or something.
I have friends with a 7 year old who is really into their Switch, and when they come visit me we've been making it a regular thing to play some Mario Kart because I love Mario Kart and I'm really competitive about it. Like he was blown away that I was able to be competitive and I already knew how to power slide and could hold my own on courses I've never seen before, because his mom and dad definitely can't compete with him.
But it's been a learning lesson and teachable moment. This kid is also really good at Mario Kart and really, really hates losing and he isn't used to it. And I'm definitely not holding back and I'm in it to win it even though he's 7, and he was doing stuff like stopping in the middle of a race to restart them when I was ahead and just on the edge of throwing a major wobbly about it.
But the first few times we played he totally whooped my butt and I thanked him for the games and even said something like "thanks for beating me at Mario Kart!" and meaning it, because heck yeah it was cool that he could beat me at Mario Kart because I'm really good at it.
And thankfully we're really evenly matched - and thanks to the power-up nerfing by design that is inherent in Mario Kart - to the point that he's learning that it's not only ok to not win but can be really fun and he doesn't even come close to throwing a wobbly over it now.
Our races are so close and so competitive and the kid friendly trash talking banter has turned into a bit of a spectator sport with his parents just watching us have fun and really nerf it out. We're so closely matched and competitive that the last time they visited and we played we were basically tied by race wins or points or both for every round of races we had.
posted by loquacious at 10:02 AM on June 15, 2022 [9 favorites]
I think the closest analog I might have is a sibling playing over or erasing a saved game state in what few console games we had that could be saved with a battery backed cartridge, IE, Zelda or something.
I have friends with a 7 year old who is really into their Switch, and when they come visit me we've been making it a regular thing to play some Mario Kart because I love Mario Kart and I'm really competitive about it. Like he was blown away that I was able to be competitive and I already knew how to power slide and could hold my own on courses I've never seen before, because his mom and dad definitely can't compete with him.
But it's been a learning lesson and teachable moment. This kid is also really good at Mario Kart and really, really hates losing and he isn't used to it. And I'm definitely not holding back and I'm in it to win it even though he's 7, and he was doing stuff like stopping in the middle of a race to restart them when I was ahead and just on the edge of throwing a major wobbly about it.
But the first few times we played he totally whooped my butt and I thanked him for the games and even said something like "thanks for beating me at Mario Kart!" and meaning it, because heck yeah it was cool that he could beat me at Mario Kart because I'm really good at it.
And thankfully we're really evenly matched - and thanks to the power-up nerfing by design that is inherent in Mario Kart - to the point that he's learning that it's not only ok to not win but can be really fun and he doesn't even come close to throwing a wobbly over it now.
Our races are so close and so competitive and the kid friendly trash talking banter has turned into a bit of a spectator sport with his parents just watching us have fun and really nerf it out. We're so closely matched and competitive that the last time they visited and we played we were basically tied by race wins or points or both for every round of races we had.
posted by loquacious at 10:02 AM on June 15, 2022 [9 favorites]
No one else has mentioned Gary Larson or The Far Side? Odd.
posted by Pronoiac at 10:19 AM on June 15, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Pronoiac at 10:19 AM on June 15, 2022 [3 favorites]
Even though I grew up with video games it kind of blows me away how serious and "real" or "serious business" video games are to kids these days, and how I don't really have any frame of reference for some of these problems.
The difference, I think, is that Minecraft and similar games are actually a craft.
Imagine if one of your kids was into woodworking, and had just completed a nice birdhouse. And then another of your kids came along and carved a rude word into it.
People spend hours or days on projects in Minecraft, they create art and bizarre sculptures and murder bases and elaborate computers and cat fountains and it means just as much to them as if they were drawing, or whittling, or knitting.
So when someone comes along and messes it up, the hurt is the same.
posted by MrVisible at 10:44 AM on June 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
The difference, I think, is that Minecraft and similar games are actually a craft.
Imagine if one of your kids was into woodworking, and had just completed a nice birdhouse. And then another of your kids came along and carved a rude word into it.
People spend hours or days on projects in Minecraft, they create art and bizarre sculptures and murder bases and elaborate computers and cat fountains and it means just as much to them as if they were drawing, or whittling, or knitting.
So when someone comes along and messes it up, the hurt is the same.
posted by MrVisible at 10:44 AM on June 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
No need for such sweeping rules when it comes to the creator of Minecraft.
Notch sold Minecraft 8 years ago (in 2014), for a high, but flat, sales price. He's no longer involved in any capacity. Minecraft is 13 years old. Its been coded and created for much longer, at this point, without him than with him.
The wording of your comment made me laugh a bit, because such a wide swath of the Minecraft community acknowledges that Notch is a terrible terrible person that its caused an online meme to declare a player (Ph1lza, well known streamer and hardcore player, famous for having steamed from a single hardcore world 3x a week for over five years) as the "father of Minecraft" or "creator of Minecraft" .. a meme that has taken hold so firmly that there are now people who show up in his Twitch chat thinking that he's actually the person who invented Minecraft.
Mojang is not Notch. The entire community, including the current devs and creators, basically disown him. Is modern Minecraft based on his work? Sure. But the game belongs to Mojang, and the community of modders and coders and creators that build it today.
posted by anastasiav at 10:57 AM on June 15, 2022 [10 favorites]
Notch sold Minecraft 8 years ago (in 2014), for a high, but flat, sales price. He's no longer involved in any capacity. Minecraft is 13 years old. Its been coded and created for much longer, at this point, without him than with him.
The wording of your comment made me laugh a bit, because such a wide swath of the Minecraft community acknowledges that Notch is a terrible terrible person that its caused an online meme to declare a player (Ph1lza, well known streamer and hardcore player, famous for having steamed from a single hardcore world 3x a week for over five years) as the "father of Minecraft" or "creator of Minecraft" .. a meme that has taken hold so firmly that there are now people who show up in his Twitch chat thinking that he's actually the person who invented Minecraft.
Mojang is not Notch. The entire community, including the current devs and creators, basically disown him. Is modern Minecraft based on his work? Sure. But the game belongs to Mojang, and the community of modders and coders and creators that build it today.
posted by anastasiav at 10:57 AM on June 15, 2022 [10 favorites]
Unless things changed in recent updates, leather is necessary to make books so you can enchant your equipment to make it better. Which involves either killing a lot of cows, or running around the world smashing up the library of every village you can find and stealing their books.
- you can set up enchantments in a village without stealing their books
- you can buy books from villagers, either regular books to make bookcases or (with some grindy work) books for specific enchantments
- you can find leather or books in chests OR you can find rabbit hide in areas where there are both rabbits and foxes OR you can get pet cats to give you rabbit hide (4 rabbit hide = 1 cow hide)
- you can find a stronghold library and either take bookcases from there or just make it your base and set up your enchanting set up there
- you can also find enchanted gear in chests and whatnot
Are those the easy solutions? No. But they're solutions available to every player.
Playing a vegan/pacifist route in Minecraft is a lot like choosing the vegan/pacifist route irl, honestly -- its not always the easiest way, and sometimes you have to make some ethical decisions (do I use books even though they're made from cow hide?), but it is completely possible
posted by anastasiav at 11:09 AM on June 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
- you can set up enchantments in a village without stealing their books
- you can buy books from villagers, either regular books to make bookcases or (with some grindy work) books for specific enchantments
- you can find leather or books in chests OR you can find rabbit hide in areas where there are both rabbits and foxes OR you can get pet cats to give you rabbit hide (4 rabbit hide = 1 cow hide)
- you can find a stronghold library and either take bookcases from there or just make it your base and set up your enchanting set up there
- you can also find enchanted gear in chests and whatnot
Are those the easy solutions? No. But they're solutions available to every player.
Playing a vegan/pacifist route in Minecraft is a lot like choosing the vegan/pacifist route irl, honestly -- its not always the easiest way, and sometimes you have to make some ethical decisions (do I use books even though they're made from cow hide?), but it is completely possible
posted by anastasiav at 11:09 AM on June 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
Witches don't drop anything you can't get somewhere else. But they do have a pet. The only reason to go anywhere near the witch's hut is to steal her black cat, which is unique in the game. You will likely have to kill the witch as well.
This has always bothered me. I'd like it if the witch didn't attack you if you are holding a cake. She accepts the cake and then you can trade potions. And leave her cat alone, what's wrong with you?
posted by adept256 at 11:14 AM on June 15, 2022 [10 favorites]
This has always bothered me. I'd like it if the witch didn't attack you if you are holding a cake. She accepts the cake and then you can trade potions. And leave her cat alone, what's wrong with you?
posted by adept256 at 11:14 AM on June 15, 2022 [10 favorites]
I get the whole "parents shouldn't feign ignorance of digital interactions" but I think the bigger thing here is a level of understanding of how serious an infraction is this? Without a reasonable understanding of minecraft you don't have the framework to determine if this is a situation like one kid kicking over a lego castle the other had worked on for a long time or more like throwing a few extra blocks on it to give them grief. Especially when likely each child is giving hyperbolic answers to how serious/unserious a trespass it is. What's the appropriate level of response from the caregiver is kind of dependent on that information.
posted by Ferreous at 11:21 AM on June 15, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Ferreous at 11:21 AM on June 15, 2022 [3 favorites]
The guy who invented sea monkeys? Huge nazi.
IIRC, sea monkeys are just brine shrimp.
But actually, yeah, I guess the "guy" who "invented" brine shrimp, if you believe that sort of thing, is kind of a huge Nazi.
posted by The Bellman at 11:45 AM on June 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
IIRC, sea monkeys are just brine shrimp.
But actually, yeah, I guess the "guy" who "invented" brine shrimp, if you believe that sort of thing, is kind of a huge Nazi.
posted by The Bellman at 11:45 AM on June 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
I mean, kids don't always have a reaction or feelings proportionate to what adults might perceive as the severity of being wronged. There are developmental stages where any kind of infraction or rule bending can be received as a grave insult. It's also likely worse when something like Minecraft is less of a game and more of an open-ended creative endeavor. Certainly it's also painful when it's a sibling.
In my own parenting experience having guardrails against unnecessary conflict can be really useful. Many parents don't have the time, attention span, awareness, or inclination to do that and this kind of situation results.
posted by majick at 11:51 AM on June 15, 2022
In my own parenting experience having guardrails against unnecessary conflict can be really useful. Many parents don't have the time, attention span, awareness, or inclination to do that and this kind of situation results.
posted by majick at 11:51 AM on June 15, 2022
But actually, yeah, I guess the "guy" who "invented" brine shrimp, if you believe that sort of thing, is kind of a huge Nazi.
I mean he invented selling brine shrimp to kids by marketing them as "sea monkeys", so.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:18 PM on June 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
I mean he invented selling brine shrimp to kids by marketing them as "sea monkeys", so.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:18 PM on June 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
Who are you talking about -- who cares about Sea Monkeys? Weren't they just a dumb ad on the back of comic books?
posted by Rash at 12:23 PM on June 15, 2022
posted by Rash at 12:23 PM on June 15, 2022
I know it's a game but damn, that cow factory farm you described is cruel.
It depends on how you interpret what you're seeing. A certain number of adult cows are in a confined space. After throwing in wheat you see the same number of cows except that some of them are calves. It's not a slaughterhouse, it's a rejuvenator! Adult cows are being transformed into baby cows, losing some meat and leather as they take on a smaller form. The process is somewhat stressful (MOO!) but the end result is extended lifespan and improved health.
If minecraft contraptions seem monstrous you are thinking too much or not enough.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 12:24 PM on June 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
It depends on how you interpret what you're seeing. A certain number of adult cows are in a confined space. After throwing in wheat you see the same number of cows except that some of them are calves. It's not a slaughterhouse, it's a rejuvenator! Adult cows are being transformed into baby cows, losing some meat and leather as they take on a smaller form. The process is somewhat stressful (MOO!) but the end result is extended lifespan and improved health.
If minecraft contraptions seem monstrous you are thinking too much or not enough.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 12:24 PM on June 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
No, Sea Monkeys were real and I had some, as did my children. The first rule of Sea Monkeys is that your little brother will spill them. That's what happened to mine and that's what happened to my daughter. My son never had a little brother so he had to spill his own Sea Monkeys and fortunately I can't remember much about that since he is 30 now.
I play Minecraft as a pescetarian pacifist and it's entirely possible even in Survival, even without cheating a little, although the occasional judicious cheat is helpful. You can indeed get yourself into Creative mode in the middle of a game and it doesn't even take your stuff or glitch out anymore. I do it when I go around fixing up villages*, because building affordable housing in Minecraft villages takes forever unless you're doing it in creative mode. Leather is hard to get so after I fix up a village I get myself some from creative mode, rationalizing it away as my fee from the villagers. The villagers want to pay me, after all.
* When I fix up a village I fix the roads, put stairs in to different levels, improve the lighting, block up any caves and fence off tall cliffs and, of course, build more housing. Nice housing. Sometimes apartments. Sometimes I build museums and fountains and aquariums. Once in a while a roller coaster. Am I completely nuts? Pretty much. But my villages are great places to live.
posted by mygothlaundry at 12:36 PM on June 15, 2022 [13 favorites]
I play Minecraft as a pescetarian pacifist and it's entirely possible even in Survival, even without cheating a little, although the occasional judicious cheat is helpful. You can indeed get yourself into Creative mode in the middle of a game and it doesn't even take your stuff or glitch out anymore. I do it when I go around fixing up villages*, because building affordable housing in Minecraft villages takes forever unless you're doing it in creative mode. Leather is hard to get so after I fix up a village I get myself some from creative mode, rationalizing it away as my fee from the villagers. The villagers want to pay me, after all.
* When I fix up a village I fix the roads, put stairs in to different levels, improve the lighting, block up any caves and fence off tall cliffs and, of course, build more housing. Nice housing. Sometimes apartments. Sometimes I build museums and fountains and aquariums. Once in a while a roller coaster. Am I completely nuts? Pretty much. But my villages are great places to live.
posted by mygothlaundry at 12:36 PM on June 15, 2022 [13 favorites]
Unless things changed in recent updates, leather is necessary to make books so you can enchant your equipment to make it better. Which involves either killing a lot of cows, or running around the world smashing up the library of every village you can find and stealing their books.
I play sustainable vegetarian as much as possible & for books I always locate a village with a library & level up the librarian until they'll sell me a bookcase, which I can use to make a podium & install a librarian in my home village
with a fletcher or two who buys sticks you can pretty readily & sustainably convert wood to emeralds, & bam, there's your book needs handled
this is 100% the biggest challenge I face playing vegetarian & I find it kinda fun as a constraint honestly
An iron farm relies on trapping a villager with direct line of sight to a zombie, so they never leave panic mode which causes iron golems to spawn.
other villagers all going "so do we walk away from Omelas, orrrrr"
posted by taquito sunrise at 1:28 PM on June 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
I play sustainable vegetarian as much as possible & for books I always locate a village with a library & level up the librarian until they'll sell me a bookcase, which I can use to make a podium & install a librarian in my home village
with a fletcher or two who buys sticks you can pretty readily & sustainably convert wood to emeralds, & bam, there's your book needs handled
this is 100% the biggest challenge I face playing vegetarian & I find it kinda fun as a constraint honestly
An iron farm relies on trapping a villager with direct line of sight to a zombie, so they never leave panic mode which causes iron golems to spawn.
other villagers all going "so do we walk away from Omelas, orrrrr"
posted by taquito sunrise at 1:28 PM on June 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
Might be a good spot to mention, I had a AskMefi about preservation of Minecraft worlds and structures awhile back. I haven't found a satisfactory one for PS3 but the programme Amulet is good for conversions from Bedrock Minecraft and Java Minecraft (and vice versa) and taking structures (not entities as far as I can tell) from differing Minecraft worlds and placing them in other worlds. This is helpful if you have a kid like mine who needs one structure in one world and another in another world (like all the time).
posted by Ashwagandha at 2:02 PM on June 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by Ashwagandha at 2:02 PM on June 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
When we play Minecraft, my wife loves handling the farming of cows and other animals, but she always feels guilty that they often look right at you before you slaughter them. Me, if I need to slaughter them, I prefer to use an ax and hit them while on the downward fall from a jump. The ax does more damage than an unenchanted sword, and the jump-attack adds enough damage as a critical hit that it kills them with a single blow. It feels more humane. When we played more frequently, it was more tempting to build "optimized" factory-like systems for harvesting lots of beef, but nowadays when we play I kind of prefer building impractically large pens, or even just leaving the cows free-range. I don't eat meat in real life, but Minecraft is just a game, of course, so it doesn't really bother me. But it's interesting to explore the emotional responses one gets from the various ways of playing the game.
posted by biogeo at 2:41 PM on June 15, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by biogeo at 2:41 PM on June 15, 2022 [7 favorites]
It's almost as if Minecraft was invented by a fascist.
There are lots of games where killing animals gets you resources. Does that make those game developers fascists ?
mentioned upthread but that wasn't a generalization
posted by taquito sunrise at 2:46 PM on June 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
There are lots of games where killing animals gets you resources. Does that make those game developers fascists ?
mentioned upthread but that wasn't a generalization
posted by taquito sunrise at 2:46 PM on June 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
There seems to be an inordinate amount of concern for Sea Monkeys and their Nazi adjacency in a thread about a parent trying to deal with too many cows in his son's Minecraft house.
posted by Ashwagandha at 9:30 PM on June 15, 2022 [9 favorites]
posted by Ashwagandha at 9:30 PM on June 15, 2022 [9 favorites]
When my kid was figuring out command blocks, he took down our server by accidentally setting a command block to spawn infinite cows. I celebrated his infinite loop programming achievement and then logged in to run a kill command so I could destroy the block and fix the server.
It didn’t work. In the end, I had to enlist the help of another adult so that one of us could kill spawning cows to clear enough space that I could find and destroy the command block within the game. It was honestly hilarious to me that I couldn’t fix the problem with text commands.
posted by annathea at 6:04 AM on June 16, 2022 [4 favorites]
It didn’t work. In the end, I had to enlist the help of another adult so that one of us could kill spawning cows to clear enough space that I could find and destroy the command block within the game. It was honestly hilarious to me that I couldn’t fix the problem with text commands.
posted by annathea at 6:04 AM on June 16, 2022 [4 favorites]
You lead two cows into a two cube deep hole and put a fence post on top of them. Underneath this you keep a hopper and a chest. As you feed the cows and they breed they have nowhere to go, until they reach the threshold for having too many cows in one position, at which point a cow will die to free up space, dropping steak and leather.
Well, that was unexpectedly bleak.
As a non Minecraft player I always imagine it as a digital lego sort of thing so anytime I read about it I am surprised about what's involved. I am though, regardless of the parenting issues, delighted about the idea of filling a sibling's house with cows so full marks kid.
posted by mr_stru at 6:08 AM on June 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
Well, that was unexpectedly bleak.
As a non Minecraft player I always imagine it as a digital lego sort of thing so anytime I read about it I am surprised about what's involved. I am though, regardless of the parenting issues, delighted about the idea of filling a sibling's house with cows so full marks kid.
posted by mr_stru at 6:08 AM on June 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
adept256: This is how you end up of with automated zombie infection laboratories. But hey, emeralds!
OK, thank you for sharing, Mister Musk, but I think that's enough for today.
posted by wenestvedt at 6:40 AM on June 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
OK, thank you for sharing, Mister Musk, but I think that's enough for today.
posted by wenestvedt at 6:40 AM on June 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
I've downloaded Minecraft but have never run it despite frequently intending to. My computer currently has version 1.0.0, installed in 2011.
posted by neuron at 9:17 AM on June 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by neuron at 9:17 AM on June 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
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