I love world building. Ever since I was a child, I loved building things. I would create toys for myself out of construction paper. I would build structures (with secret passageways) with LEGO blocks. I would draw elaborate maps on grid paper for my own imaginary video games. It is for this reason that I am enamored with the creativity-enabling aspect of Minecraft. The recent Adventure Mode update only makes things better because now I can build an awesome map (in Creative Mode) and then release that map for players to explore in Adventure Mode.

I like world-building and adventure gaming and although Adventure Mode caters to both of my interests, I believe there are more ways which Mojang can improve upon their current designs.

I’ve been playing Minecraft since October 2010. I don’t play it very often any more. What I enjoyed most about the game is gone, due to both Mojang and third-party server operators. Before I get into what has changed for the worse, let me first explain what I liked about the game.

When I started playing, Minecraft was a very simple game. You collect resources, built tools, and then use those tools to collect better resources. You could build structures much as you can now, but creative mode wasn’t an option and so you had to gather all of your materials. If you wanted to build a grand citadel made entirely of obsidian, gold, and diamond, then you would need to spend several weeks down in the bowels of the earth. There were also several mechanisms available, like mine carts, mine cart tracks, and redstone dust. Powered rails, pistons, and redstone repeaters—core components for modern Minecraft mechanisms—did not exist. It was this simplicity that I enjoyed the most about Minecraft.

While Minecraft was still in beta, Markus “Notch” Persson teased Minecraft fans with hints of the addition of dragons. On November 18, 2011 Minecraft was officially released and players were finally able to battle the dragons for themselves after seeing screenshots and videos of them in action. The dragons in Minecraft, named Ender Dragons, are very difficult to defeat. They are almost equally as difficult to get to. Under normal circumstances Ender Dragons reside exclusively in an area called The End. Getting to The End is not easy.