As dusk begins to settle, I start the journey back to the safety of our Minecraft base. It’s been a successful day of harvesting supplies, but, having procured all the seeds and wheat I could carry, it is now time to head back. Tony will be missing me.
Tony is everything you could want in a dog, a brilliant grey wolf with a classic red collar. He is loyal and undeniably adorable, and while he has only been my companion for a few hours, I know we are going to be best friends forever.
As the sun dips, the once bright flower-ladened world morphs into something more sinister. The cracking of skeleton bones and scuttle of spider legs echo through the fields. But all I can think about is my imminent reunion with my faithful canine, who is safely stowed away in the base I share with my friends.
As I reach the beach to the south of our base, I look up and notice something weird. Is that a skyscraper-sized wooden pole? Maybe it’s a waypoint, so I don’t get lost on my way home or just some weird decoration my friends have built out of boredom. I think little of it as I carry on my journey back.
When I arrive, with supplies in hand, one of my friends immediately appears and asks about my trip – nothing out of the ordinary there. The topic then turns to Tony. Apparently, while I was away, everyone else had gotten together and built a kennel for my beloved dog. He offers to show me, so I eagerly follow him, anxious to see my digital pet.
I catch a brief glimpse of Tony – and then he’s gone. I had blinked once, and now in his place, lay a metallic, gray anvil and a single bone. Stunned, I look up to see the tall wooden pole I’d spotted earlier. While I was gone, my friends harvested enough wood and iron to build a Tower of Babel-like structure – and then used it to drop an anvil on Tony.
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The aftermath
The aftermath isn’t pretty. I don’t deal with Tony’s death in the best way; there is a lot of TNT involved. This explosive outburst triggers what we would later call the Civil War. Though, there are no sides in this battle: it is a dirty free-for-all between all the base’s residents.
Tony's death had been the catalyst for this mayhem, but without it, we may never have realized that this isn’t the way we wanted to play
While some employ guerilla tactics, making home-brew mines or building hidden traps around the base, others take to simply shoving unsuspecting players off of ledges. Every carefully crafted creation is rapidly demolished, making any potential projects risky. It is sheer chaos – and is ruining the game for me.
During careful wartime negotiations, it is agreed that to prevent creations being needlessly destroyed, we will each have our own ‘pod’ – a safe space where we are allowed to build without the threat of demolition. But these isolated spaces only highlight why we had built a base together in the first place – it’s better to play together than alone. Tony wouldn’t have wanted this. It was time to reach out an olive branch so we could all start again.
Tony's death had been the catalyst for this mayhem, but without it, we may never have realized that this isn’t the way we wanted to play. Even if the prospect of setting a herd of creepers on an unsuspecting friend is hilarious on paper, the fallout isn’t worth it. It was time to take a deep breath and start all over again, for Tony.
Learning from mistakes
The truce was signed and sealed with the trading of goods. I gave someone a lead and was offered a horse in return. I declined and asked for stone blocks instead – I couldn’t risk another anvil incident.
With that done and dusted, we could finally enjoy our joint server and work together to make a fun space for everyone to enjoy. No more isolation pods filled with Endermen in boats, no more trapdoors into creeper pits, and no more anvils dropped on pets. Finally, after we vented all our anger, we got to band together and make the Minecraft starter base that we had all wanted in the first place.
