Campus Is Closed, So College Students Are Rebuilding Their Schools In Minecraft (theverge.com) 31
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: The day before University of Pennsylvania students were told that their college commencement would be held online, junior Andrew Guo thought of an alternative to holding the address over Zoom. Students could have a "Hey Day" and graduation inside Minecraft, just as a Japanese elementary school had organized days earlier. Quickly, "Penncraft" students began to recreate dormitories, food trucks, and local sculptures in-game. Makarios Chung, an early builder, measured buildings' dimensions and streets positions constantly to ensure their scale was as accurate as possible. The first day of building, students took an hour to decide the placement of one street. Their main goal was to have a completed campus, specifically Locust Street, for graduating seniors to walk down in-game now that COVID-19 ensured they wouldn't return to campus and complete this UPenn tradition.
Students from Boston University to UCLA, from South Louisiana Community College to Northwestern University, have recently created or resurrected Minecraft servers and shared their creations on Discord chats, in Facebook meme groups, and on Reddit threads. The boom of college Minecraft servers has begun. These servers have the express purpose of bringing students together and building, oftentimes focused on recreating their college campuses. Searches for Minecraft server hosting have peaked to unprecedented levels in the last few weeks, and thousands of students are discussing college servers, most notably on the Facebook group "Zoom Memes for Self Quaranteens." Smaller groups and clubs, like Bowdoin College's men's ultimate frisbee team or University of La Verne's debate team, have found ways to bond in survival mode servers after their practices and championships were canceled. Zoom isn't nearly enough, and it doesn't carry the ten years of memories that Gen Z has for Minecraft. "Come May there will be in-game graduations," writes Pearse Anderson. "Inspired by the aforementioned Japanese elementary school, Boston University seniors Rudy Raveendran and Warren Partridge created 'Quaranteen University.' This is a new server specifically made to host a Class of 2020 graduation for students from hundreds of different universities. 706 students from 278 institutions have signed up in the last week, and one mom has already emailed Raveendran asking how she can get an in-game seat to this massive ceremony on May 22nd."
Students from Boston University to UCLA, from South Louisiana Community College to Northwestern University, have recently created or resurrected Minecraft servers and shared their creations on Discord chats, in Facebook meme groups, and on Reddit threads. The boom of college Minecraft servers has begun. These servers have the express purpose of bringing students together and building, oftentimes focused on recreating their college campuses. Searches for Minecraft server hosting have peaked to unprecedented levels in the last few weeks, and thousands of students are discussing college servers, most notably on the Facebook group "Zoom Memes for Self Quaranteens." Smaller groups and clubs, like Bowdoin College's men's ultimate frisbee team or University of La Verne's debate team, have found ways to bond in survival mode servers after their practices and championships were canceled. Zoom isn't nearly enough, and it doesn't carry the ten years of memories that Gen Z has for Minecraft. "Come May there will be in-game graduations," writes Pearse Anderson. "Inspired by the aforementioned Japanese elementary school, Boston University seniors Rudy Raveendran and Warren Partridge created 'Quaranteen University.' This is a new server specifically made to host a Class of 2020 graduation for students from hundreds of different universities. 706 students from 278 institutions have signed up in the last week, and one mom has already emailed Raveendran asking how she can get an in-game seat to this massive ceremony on May 22nd."
wow (Score:2)
This is the unbridled creativity that is the core of the humanity. Life giving you lemons? Make a lemon orchard!
Re:APRIL FOOLS - BeauHD Sucked an Old Man for $20 (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
If life gives you lemons, call life's manager, make him take the lemons back! Do you know who I am? I'm the guy who's going to burn your house down with incendiary lemons.
I remember the days when campuses and the surrounding areas were modeled in detail in MUDs, so that you could see what movies were playing by going in-game and reading the movie posters. Glad to know that spirit is still alive.
Re: (Score:2)
What we need now is a real Cave Johnson
Re: (Score:2)
Well, we have as close as we're likely to get, now that I think about it.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
This is the unbridled creativity that is the core of the humanity. Life giving you lemons? Make a lemon orchard!
Wait until they find out they won't get any course credit for this ... :-)
Shouldn't they be studying instead? (Score:2)
I dunno, just an idea...
Re: (Score:2)
When I was in college, we built a model of our university in an Internet talker. It's good to know that even though the technology may change, people really are pretty much the same now as they were back then. Life seems to repeat itself.
Re: (Score:1)
You've clearly never been to college, so I suppose someone should tell you.
No, on the day before the graduation commencement, there are no classes and there have not been classes ever since they passed them and graduated.
People have been making rebuilds of their school (Score:2)
in Doom back in 1992. Somehow that got a bad rap. /s
Re:People have been making rebuilds of their schoo (Score:5, Insightful)
Next week... (Score:2)
I'm gonna rebuild MINECRAFT in Minecraft! (Score:1)
So long, suckers! I'm the bestestethedest rebuilder of all now, ever since having original ideas became apparently illegal! Booyah!
I did notice one good thing! (Score:2)
(If this wasn't stopped we would have seen "Recess commencement diplomas" being handed out.)
I'm waiting for Trenton Quarantine U (Score:2)
It's the nonviolent graduation movie.
My Generation Did This in Warcraft II (Score:2)
It's quite a stress relief to smash down cubicle walls as an orc.
It's also interesting to see how the game's algorithm decides what are the best ways to "invade" your classroom or workplace. Makes you look at the real world version differently.
Remember Second Life? (Score:2)
At least they will be accurate (Score:1)
Full of creepers and bats
Why? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Wow ! What Tandy CoCo futuristic prototype you had that could handle 3D chunky blocks with volumetric lighting and pretty nice physics engine ?
Please don't use Zoom (Score:2)
There have been 3 recent reports of security issues and false claim of encryption.
Zoom is EVIL