Americans blow shit up and plant flag in virtual Denmark (courtesy cnn.com)

TTAG reader JT emailed us a link to a CNN story by Jarrett Bellini headlined Apparently This Matters: America invades virtual Denmark. JT summed up the multi-national Minecraft misegos this way: “Virtual Denmark puts a virtual ban on virtual dynamite. Americans find a way to virtually smuggle in virtual dynamite in virtual mining carts and virtually blow up part of virtual Denmark. Americans plant virtual flag in virtual Denmark.” As you might expect, the Danes were not well pleased. What does Denmark’s failed virtual ban on virtual TNT tell you about criminals, terrorists, armed self-defense and gun control?

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75 COMMENTS

  3. Could just as easily been any other country. Online gaming is nothing but constant dick moves. There are Cracked articles showcasing the best of these.

    Oh, and ‘MURICA! Before anyone else.

  5. I have seen the face of glory and it is giant floating wool flags. God bless those wonderful people.

    On Robert’s point though, I find it interesting that TNT was banned in a world where the dead walk, skeletons assault humans on sight with arrows, giant voracious spiders roam free and (most “interesting” of all) giant green dildo monsters do everything in their power to blow up you, your property, and your friends.

    …

    Minecraft is weird.

    • This server was made to 1:1 replicate Denmark and was set to peaceful so it wouldn’t have mobs. They banned TNT (I think just from exploding) but forgot to ban TNT that’s placed into minecarts. Someone figured this out and a group of people went to destroying virtual Denmark. (It’s worth adding that the server was backed up so they just reloaded the fixed Denmark. The only people who really lost anything were the people who destroyed it, and even then they just lost time).

    • TNT is commonly banned on build servers so a-holes don’t ruin the landscape. Oddly enough, AMERIKA!

  6. This doesn’t really tell me anything.
    I already know criminals use illegal or stolen weapons, so there is no hope of tracing them without the criminal being caught or killed during a crime.

  10. So wait…did actual, real-life Denmark ban video game dynamite? Or did someone’s video game pretend Denmark ban video game dynamite? Or did video game Denmark ban real dynamite? If it’s the first one, that’s just sad. If it’s the second one, who cares? If it’s the third one, I have no idea what that even means.

    I’m so confused…

    • If you were driving down the road in your canoe, and a wheel falls off, how many pancakes would fit in a garbage truck?

      Purple. Because ice cream doesn’t have bones.

    • So additional details:

      The Danish government believed that they could use Minecraft’s unique style of sandbox exploration to do a 1:1 recreation of their country’s landscape to lure in unwitting children and teach them geography. It would be kind of like taking a stroll down the street with google maps, except you aren’t limited in where you can go and what you can interact with. Of course all of this is in Minecraft’s trademark low detail, blocky style. A project of this nature takes an incredible amount of resources to create. The map size alone is somewhere around 1Tb of information, that had to be split up into three separate maps hosted on Danish government servers that can fit up to 70 people each, which can apparently have a waiting list at times. Considering how much went into the project and considering it was meant to be a learning tool, for the children, the Danes didn’t want it to be demolished, so they banned TNT from their servers. Somehow, an American saboteur discovered a way to smuggle it in minecarts. He proceeded to start blowing stuff up, and planting our colors all over the place. I think I also might have read something about oil tanks/derricks being built? From what I understand, the fix wasn’t as simple as a server reset, and volunteers repaired the damage brick by brick.

      Keep in mind, I know little about the actual mechanics of Minecraft, the above all came from googling different articles and looking at the original forum posts to learn what happened. As with all media, I could easily be misreporting something I’ve heard, so take it with a grain of salt.

      The point being that the government thought it could protect everything it built with a rule, and despite that rule being in place, the very thing they hoped to avoid happened inspite of it. I thought it a humorous metaphor.for gun control.

      • Correction: Apparently he didn’t put down oil tanks, and they were able to reset the server. No need to rebuild brick by brick.

  13. PST… Nobody tell them about the open warfare going on in EVE between different European and North American factions… They might have to cry in their beer.

  14. The internet in microcosm. It will either save us or destroy us, but it will be hilarious regardless.

    • As much a pawn (or veg) as Gabby Gifords.

      His wife is the one that should have her face a bus.

  18. As a rather interesting or ironic note, as soon as I jumped to the link, I was greeted with a Breaking News: “Former White House press secretary James Brady has died at age 73, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence says.”

  20. Gun control…Denmark….hmmm. What comes to mind when I think of
    Eurostyle Statism, and protecting your family from bad guys.

    UN and Danish control of Srebrenica.
    Rolling on their backs over cartoons of an old guy in a turban.

    Merika! Fvck yeah!

    • My kids love this stupid thing. They were showing me the free weapons “mods”. A real arsenal that would make the Danes wet themselves. Everything from Desert Eagle to AKs. (And upscale explosives/who uses dynamite?).

  21. Why would we have to smuggle in dynamite when it’s very easily made?
    The only hard part about it is getting the moisture out of the ingredients which really isn’t that hard.
    Heck encyclopedia’s used to actually say what ingredients and how much, % wise.

    I this country ever does ban guns completely, that would be the first thing I would expect to happen, someone blowing something up with homemade dynamite or some other explosive.
    Pretty scary stuff really, I’d rather deal with the guns.

  22. I think the answer to the question at the end of the post, is that gun control is virtually useless.

    Happy now?

  24. So full of win. Americans will never be European because we instinctively challenge authority. When someone tells us we can’t do something, we run out and prove we can do it.

  25. I find it very revealing that the persons who say we should legalize drugs because ‘prohibition doesn’t work, we need to legalize it to regulate it and make it safer. Criminalizing drugs only turns otherwise law abiding citizens into criminals’ are the first ones who want to ban guns. Wait a minute…I thought prohibition doesn’t work?

  27. This is VIRTUALLY insane. The fact that both cnn and denmark are making an issue about a video game is just plan crazy. It also shows how desperate cnn is to make America look evil. A very sad state of affairs.

  28. I think we need a virtual moment of silence for the horrific loss of virtual Danish property and all the suffering incurred by Danes, both virtual and otherwise, and maybe even shed a few virtual tears.

  29. Q. “What does Denmark’s failed virtual ban on virtual TNT tell you about criminals, terrorists, armed self-defense and gun control?”

    A. I’ll start first with what it doesn’t tell me, and what it doesn’t tell me is anything I don’t already know. People are assholes, and assholes will be assholes regardless of whatever rules are on the books and there is absolutely no way to stop them or even slow them down (except jail time or death).

  30. After reading some of the posts here today, I needed a good laugh. Thanks. Virtual TNT in virtual mine carts… Because ice cream doesn’t have bones… Very funny stuff.

  31. Actually, it doesn’t say much at all about gun control or armed self-defense. It does same something about slow news cycles. This story is from May.

    It pretty much your standard Minecraft prank. If you have a private Minecraft server, you’d better back it up. If it’s a public server, then you take what you get. Finding the glitches and mistakes in a server has become a big part of the fun for players. It’s considered part of the game, basically. If TNT worked, I wonder what would have happened if they tried to bus in cart-fulls of creepers….

    And the “terabyte” bit isn’t that big a deal, either. I’ve got 7-1/2 TB online at home, myself. Not counting laptops, tablets removable media (I’m not counting my external drives as removable, as I treat them as either fixed drives or NAS)

    Seems Denmark agrees:

    “A spokesperson from the Danish GeoData Agency told The Register:

    We consider that as a nature of playing Minecraft — elements are broken down and new are being created. Therefore we will not reboot the demonstration of Denmark in Minecraft. But occasionally we will rebuild minor areas if buildings are removed and nothing new is being created.”

  39. The failed Minecraft TNT ban in Denmark raises questions about the effectiveness of gun control measures. It highlights the complexities of regulating virtual items and the challenges of translating such policies to real-world scenarios.

  42. he TF2 team decided to really plug it for some reason, and I’m glad they did, because it really is AMAZING. Seriously, though, I close my eyes and I can still see the game playing.

    There’s a free “classic” mode that you can play to try out the bare-bone basics of the game, and the full game is currently about $12 (but is apparently going to double in price soonish, as the game enters true “beta” from it’s current “late-alpha” stage.)

    The full game is basically this: you are a cube-man, dropped onto the shores of a massive island, entirely composed of cubes about your size. On the island are a variety of cube-beasts, and every night a horde of cube-monsters come out to hunt. Your task is to survive, and to tame the wilderness. Any cube on the map (i.e. any PART of the map) can be picked up and put into your inventory. Once there, you can replace those cubes somewhere else on the map, or use them to craft a huge variety of tools – including axes, picks, swords, armor, and even furnaces, mine tracks, and carts. Since everything is movable cubes, you can dig deep into the earth, and build huge fortresses and complexes out of the materials you gather. Crafting seemed a bit sticky and awkward to me at first, but it’s already become intuitive.

    I’m quickly taming the wilderness on my own island. I’ve carved about three fortresses into the nearby mountains, and built a few more a little offshore. Countless mines dot the surrounding area, but I only actually do upkeep on the ones that lead into really cool caves I’ve found. Underground waterfalls, magma bubbling up, gold ore in the walls – the whole shebang.

    Anyway, this game REALLY scratches my Garry’s Mod “itch,” if you know what I mean. Having an endless supply of forests to clear-cut or burn down, animals to hunt, sandbars to terraform, plains to mine, and mountains to blast away with TNT is just FUN.

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