Minecraft Player Spends two Years Building a Virtual City
Minecraft player invests two years creating a virtual city by Zoe Kleinman Technology reporter, BBC News
17 October 2014
A Delaware student spent two years creating a virtual world that he named Titan City in Minecraft.
Titan City is made up of 4.5 million Minecraft building blocks. It also contains 96 buildings.
Duncan Parcells claims it took the project two years to complete and that he works up to five hours a week on the project.
His first structure was a replica of the World Trade Center. It took 18 months to complete.
However , the 19-year-old believes Titan City is not a realistic representation of New York.
He told the BBC, "It's inspired New York."
"A majority of people believe that it's a pastime, but it's not."
He built the city using the Xbox 360 version of Minecraft but has since transferred it to the PC version which is, he claims, provides more construction options.
Mr. Parcells plans to add an airport and an athletic stadium.
"I guess it's an outlet for architecture and energy," he said.
"I've always loved architecture. I am most happy with Victorian-style buildings that are less modern and more art deco.
"A lot of people drop in and want to explore the area or help in the construction." A lot of them help with roads."
While Titan City has received a warm reception online, Mr Parcells stated that up to now he has kept his virtual world afloat from his real life.
He added, "I've kept this under the radar for a while. It's like a second existence I'm not talking about, but people are starting to find out."
"My parents think it's cool - I'm sure they're happy I don't play it too often."
Microsoft recently agreed to purchase Minecraft studio Mojang in a deal of $2.5bn (PS1.5bn).
Markus Persson, aka Notch announced that the game had surpassed 100 million users in February 2014.
After purchasing the game for the first time, the game Minecraft is free to play, however there are in-game purchases available.
The game takes place in a virtual environment comprised of cubes made from various materials. Almost all of these are able to be used as building blocks and a few can be refined into usable raw materials (wood, iron, diamond etc).
The game requires you to survive by building shelters using blocks and turn raw materials and their combinations into useful items (swords and bows, armour, etc.) to beat the various monsters in the game.
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