Is a free single player version no longer an option? I could only find the "dead world" browser version, that only lets you break/build blocks (no creating/mining). I watched
many videos (thanks Alky

...

) and searched a bit last night, but was consistantly routed to the "Pay-to-play" registration page. Yeah, I know there are torrents, but they are outdated/unsupported DEV versions, and I no longer trust p2p downloads.
Granted, $15 Euro/$20USD (pre-final release price) isn't
that bad for a leisure game. What I can't put much support behind, is a year-old Java browser game with only two people working on it (as of 10 Jan), that has already raked in over $10 million USD, and has had very limited game improvements over the last year. (But dozens of player-based
mods/hacks)
Also, the game has already experienced server support issues. The "fix", was to "Move to the Cloud"...
And dedicate an entire server to just processing payments...

I'm not trying to discourage anyone here, since I will probably give it a shot anyway, but even the developer notes state that there is no guarantee on when / if the game will ever be finalized.
I just hate the thought of learning the mechanics, then venturing into multiplayer only to be overwhelmed by players using unofficial
mods due to lack of developer control. Been there, done that already.
btw- I seem to remember seeing a Minecraft
thread on another (non fanbased) forum that has generated a few thousand posts in the last year. I'll read through that and see if anything there could be useful here.
@McVapor- While I tend to lean towards SP games, if I get rolling in this (finger gettin' itchy...), I would be happy to join fellow vapers on your server. Those zombies will have to find us in clouds of vapor!
