#cloudworld

Did I claim the land the base was on? No.

Do I know anything about the player or players who started and then abandoned the area? No.

I just flew over it one day while I was tooling around trying to figure out coordinates. It was so clearly an abandoned build, probably a bunch of kids screwing around on a free server only to abandon it the moment it wasn't Unstable or a PVP server.

Still I couldn't just LEAVE it.

Mostly because of the graveyard.

Whoever logged out there last had built graves- one for the server's owner, one for their best friend, one for their first ever teammate and one for another player they (according to the oak sign epitaph) 'always annoyed'.

There were poppies all over.

This base remnant was in a sparse jungle biome.

To get poppies, they had to bonemeal the grass- a lot.

So whoever was basing there, they'd cared enough to leave a mark. Even if it was a joke graveyard, they'd put effort into it.

It only seemed fair that the effort be rewarded, in some way.

I think a lot of the younger players who populate public servers could do with lessons in humility, in asking questions, in patience. I also know that there's nothing so hard to teach as a kid who already thinks they know everything, or worse figures they don't HAVE to know anything, because someone will be doing the thinking for them.

I also think if you build nice things, it encourages people to continue making them nice.

So I used the footprint of the barely-built house they left- a big boxy thing I turned into two levels with a blackstone roof. I gave their nether portal a makeover with gold blocks, chains, stone bricks. I put a rustic wall around the graveyard, added some lanterns, mirrored that same rustic wall on the far side of the house where I made a little farm complete with beehives.

Made the floors inside a checkerboard, iron doors with buttons in, pressure plates out. Three beds upstairs (you never know) and a full enchantment set up. There's a staircase in the basement that leads to the start of a simplistic mine. I built a pond about twenty blocks from the house deep enough to fish treasure out of.

It's not FINISHED, not by any means; where would the fun in that be? But it's a start. It could be a home for someone, coming across it out in the wild.

It's entirely possible the kids who made that wreck of a creeper-griefed base will never log back in. It will likely stand empty for a long time, possibly until the server inevitably closes.

It doesn't much matter to me.

In a huge survival server where I parallel play, quietly making my trailer park while CloudWorld's dramas great and small play out just around the corner, there was a mess.

I cleaned it up, and maybe it will become a mess again. Maybe it will become something better.

Because as what I am sure is the OLDEST person on the server with access to job income, well. What's funnier than a noob player with access to powerful items and gear who just- doesn't use them the way they're intended and keeps passively dirt brushing in the archeology zone?

ANYWAY I did the thing and bought the stuff and then logged in to make sure it was all kosher and I'd get my items the way I needed to, right?

And it's 5amish in the morning here on the east coast of the US of A I am literally finishing this post putting on pants and going to work

and as I am putting away all my spoils from my fancy new rank kit (which I can use every two days badabing) a fuckin' MODERATOR shows up on my piddling level 69 (nice) island with no farms and no grinders and nothing but my level 30 enchanting table, my job block corner, and my second set of enchanted netherite

and is like "WTF what rank?!"

which leads me to believe two things

I am possibly the first non-mod to have paid actual money for Cloudworld's highest rank

the very existence of my 'please understand I know nothing' signs makes this somehow an EVEN FUNNIER BIT

I do in fact have a series of 'I know nothing' signs right where people spawn onto my island. I would have used a lectern and a book and quill but for some reason books are disabled on cloudworld??? IDK.

This is, overall, a good thing! His island has signs of life, two other players who have teamed with him. Likely as not they all live in the same time zone and are roughly the same age, which means they'll have similar schedules and be able to play minecraft together daily.

It IS a little sad, though. Like I'm going to be honest I was never big on how very eager this dude was, but it was fun to help him build and he helped me build. I'm happy he has people who will be online as often as he is- and I warned him, I did. I'm older than you, I live in a different time zone, and also I have cancer and those treatments wipe me out I won't be online much.

ican't, being, like, fifteen (if you ever find this blog, kiddo, which you won't but if you do, please know that you are a terrible liar and I wasn't born last night, 'mid-twenties' my ass) has Beef with another player on the server, something about 'being betrayed last season' and like.

Idk man I'm an adult with a Pretty Serious Illness and a Job and Responsibilities, I cannot take minecraft server beef seriously, not even when it's the vintage kind (see what I did there. see. see. I'm funny.)

But still, he really wanted to get his island to number one on our leaderboards, to show up this person who had Wronged Him Deeply. So I'll keep an eye on his progress, I suppose. It was a weird little interaction we had but shine on, you crazy icantfindiamonds, and get your Vengeance.