Share your Minecraft experiences

The Game Room
1

Yes, there’s already a current thread, but that one’s turning out to be more about gameplay mechanics and general strategies instead of your own personal stories about playing the game, which is what I want to share. So here, I’ll start one. :cool:

Got the game earlier this week; to say that I’m blown away is an understatement. Yeah, the graphics may look crappy but in essence that’s part of its je ne sais quoi, and undisputable proof that gameplay trumps pretty graphics every time. As they say, simplicity is everything.

First Game: Started on a nearly featureless plain, with lots of sand and dirt but with no visible mountains and virtually NO trees. Having read reviews & watching YouTube videos, I knew how critical it is to find wood & shelter immediately, so this was a Very Bad Thing. :rolleyes: I ran several miles in aimless direction, chopping down only 2 or 3 trees (there weren’t any more!) and it was nearly dark when I finally located a tiny mountainside cubby hole where I could build a dirt wall and wait out the night.

I can’t describe how creepy & terrifying that night was, cowering in darkness as zombies & spiders clawed at the walls of my hastily built fort. Did I mention already how much I love this game??

Dawn approached, and the monsters were still there, so I got bold and chose to attack them with my newly crafted stone sword. Oops. Killed the spider, but the zombie mercilessly pwn3d me. Game Over – Respawn? HELL no…

Second Game: Snow world. Instant reload (mainly to preserve my FPS, those snowflakes don’t help the lag!)

Third Game: Started in a deep sand pit with tall, natural walls and a small cave no more than five steps away. Can you say lucky?? Chopped a few trees, but mainly spent the scant daylight hours piling dirt on the walls to strengthen my fortifications. Holed up in the cave at night, but I swear I did not hear a single monster that night, or the several following nights. (Based on the many Let’s Plays I’ve watched, I’m incredibly fortunate to have my spawn point right on my doorstep – very lucky!)

Now, I knew the next step was to dig for coal (and iron, but that’s less necessary.) Without coal, you can’t make torches, the game’s only real light source. Well, I dug and dug but couldn’t find coal ANYWHERE – found some iron, and lots of sand of course, but NO coal. I was getting a little freaked out because my starting cave was getting large but I couldn’t dig too deep, for fear of monsters spawning in the darkness. My few ventures into daylight yielded nothing promising, either. I did discover that forges give off ample light while cooking, so my first 4-5 days were spent exploring & chopping wood in daylight, while I cooked sand into glass and kept digging in my cave all night long. Found more iron (LOTS of iron!) and even the entrance to a deep, natural cavern beneath my own cave (with ominous growls from the darkness below…)

You can’t imagine my relief when, on the fifth day, I finally struck coal. Not much, but enough to craft a few torches, so the nights were no longer spent in utter blackness. What a difference coal makes – now I could venture out at night, placing torches to light my way, keeping monsters at bay and easily dispatching the ones that attacked anyway. In fact, it was time at last to investigate that monster cave I’d sealed up several night ago…

Well, that’s the saga of how my first Minecraft experience began. How 'bout you?

2

I have discovered a VAST network of mines. I don’t know if that’s normal or not, but it took about 5 ‘worlds’ into the game to discover it.

Plenty of coal. Some Iron. About 5 blocks of gold, some redstone but I don’t have tools strong enough to mine it yet (and I’m not sure if it’s good for anything useful)

I was getting quite frustrated with the mines last night. I kept dying, and of course I kept dying upon trying to retreive my stuff from dying. Until I found out you can simply turn the monsters off by setting the difficulty to ‘peaceful’ (I was on normal)

I want to build a glass sky scraper.

EDIT: On a different world, I am about 70 percent complete on constructing a glass ‘viewing cage’ of what was previously a dungeon, so the skeletons will be trapped inside a glass box, and when daylight comes I get to watch them all burn. The cage will be suspended so I can walk underneath. I’ve heard about spawn traps using these dungeons. I might put a door on the glass cage to see if once they’ve burned to death I can go in and grab the arrows they drop.

Or I may work out how to construct a spawn trap that works constantly. (The above would only work once a ‘day’)

3

I also found a saddle, which apparently will allow me to ride a pig.

Edit: When I have a sufficiently worked-on world I may youtube it.

4

Hey Lobsang, thanks for rez’ing my thread. I was dejected that it had suffered such a rapid, pathetic death. :cool:

VAST is indeed an understatement – you know that monster cave mentioned in my OP? Turns out it lead to a giant series of tunnels, which in turn lead to another, larger series of caverns, which itself lead to the MEGA CAVE OF DOOM just like you described. It’s all one room, with more than ten floors split by a giant crack in the earth. (When I got to the bottom of the earth and looked up, I could see sky…or the bottom of the ocean, most likely. The lag from that vantage point was horrible, too.) I’ve gone spelunking down there several times and still haven’t cleared the whole damn thing. I doubt if I ever will. (And if I do…what am I gonna do with this cave? Haven’t a clue, to be honest…)

You need iron tools to mine gold, redstone & diamond. Redstone is used for creating electric circuits, which is why it’s so plentiful. I mainly use it for creating red torches, to use as beacons that lead back to the exit. Like you, I’ve died several times & twice lost all my stuff (the environment has killed me far more often than the monsters themselves) but I refuse to switch to Peaceful, ever. It’s a matter of principle, mainly. :slight_smile:

Me too! With a lava waterfall at the top, of course.

Believe it or not, I’ve yet to locate a single working spawner – I found one “dungeon” that was completely flooded, but wasn’t able to get inside it. I think there’s a zombie spawner in the MegaGigaCave, one of the few dark areas remaining in fact, but dealing with this cave has left me a little traumatized…heh. I’ll finish the cave eventually, of course, but all the torches will probably have changed to lanterns by then. Meanwhile, I’ll be working on my giant roller coaster. :smiley:

5

Today I found a second dungeon only a short walk away from the first one. (In the same cavern).

Was that a mis-type where you said redstone was plentiful? I have found about 4 pieces in my current map. Compare that to about 12 gold, 100s of iron, thousands of coal.

I know you need iron tools for gold, but when I tried to mine some redstone with it it was taking too long, so I had a feeling it wasn’t going to yield any redstone (when a tool takes too long to get rid of a block it usually means it won’t mine anything from it in my experience)

I too am a little surprised how much fun this game is considering the ‘blocky’ graphics. I’m usually a sucker for nice graphics.

I can’t wait for beta and final release. There’s so much potential for this game to evolve. For example I’d like to be able to paint walls, carpet floors.

ETA: Today I learned how to plant trees. I was on an island with TWO small trees, with the nearest island of trees a LONG way away. I had to go on a long journey every time I wanted wood. But now I’ve planted several trees on my island. Wonder how long it takes for them to become actual trees.

6

I’ve also found about 40-60 blocks of obsidian, but it is all in two clumps at different parts of the cavern.

7

fuzzypickles Have you by any chance watched ‘Seananners’’ youtube videos of him playing minecraft? That’s what got me playing this game. I’d seen it before, but was never really interested much. Then I watched a few of his ten-fifteen minute videos and wanted to play.

If I had the confidence to narrate, I’d do the same. I often commentate to myself while I play (embarrasing to admit, but come on - everyone does it right??)

8

Redstone is, in my experience, more plentiful than gold. Usually around lava, sometimes hard to mine without it falling in. Iron is fine for redstone, but it does take a while.

Then you can have fun with making circuits.

As for dungeons, that mega-cavern I mentioned in the other thread had two dungeons that I know of. Then when wandering back from the eventual exit I found, I ran across a third one that just opened up onto the surface on a beach.

9

I wonder what the chance of finding diamond is, and what kind of conditions it is likely to be found in.

10

One more thing. I spotted in your OP that you made yourself a little shelter of dirt to wait out the night.
Well you might already know this by now, but one neat way to get safe in a hurry, is to build a tower underneath yourself. Point directly down, then hold the jump and build keys down. (you’ll need lots of building material - best to use something without much value and which is plentiful - i,e, dirt) You’ll quickly rise above the range of monsters and skeleton arrows. Just stand on your plinth and admire the scenery until the sun comes up (great place to watch the sun rise too)

At first I didn’t have a problem with dying because of infinite respawns, so I’d build huge towers and just fall off them.

One time I got lost while looking for trees. It was weird! - I went what seemed like a short distance away from my house, chopped some trees, then I was lost. Spent AGES going round in circles looking for my house!

So eventually I had an idea - die. If I die I’ll respawn and from the respawn point I’ll likely remember where I live. Problem is, All the newly chopped wood would be scattered where I’d die, so the plan got an extra sub-plan - build a maximum-height tower to serve as a landmark for where I am. die. Find home. Build another tower at home (also to serve as a landmark) die again. go off to the landmark where I first die. Get my stuff. go back home.

This is where it became apparent just how far I’d managed to stray! - when I had the two towers (get it? lol) I still couldn’t see one from the other! even at maximum draw distance.

I decided to just go off walking. Eventually I found my tower, but now I couldn’t see the tower I walked from. so I built a new tower at a half way point.

I ended up with four towers built. Each one only just visible from its nearest neighbour.

My home tower now has torches on every side of every block. Looks quite neat.

It’ll probably feature in my youtube video when I get around to doing it.

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…

12

Not familiar with that particular name, but yes, like you I’ve watched quite a few Let’s Play Minecraft videos and that’s what got me hooked on the game. I’d also recommend the playthrus by veriax, davidr64yt, and ZetaPlays – veriax is especially fun to watch, he’s always getting himself into trouble! :slight_smile:

Here’s a very good tutorial on the best way to mine for diamonds. Basically they are most common in the zone 10-16 blocks above bedrock. (Redstone is very common down there too – you must have been unlucky not to find any yet.)

Hahaha…been there, done that. :wink:

I have a terrible habit of walking the perimeter of my encampment, placing extra torches to extend my “safe zone”, and then walk in the direction of what I think is home…only to suddenly realize that I’m completely lost, with no real supplies (I wasn’t planning on combat) and night is fast falling. Sometimes I’ll find high ground and try to fight off the mobs until morning, but that can get really dicey – with bow & arrow I can do okay, but once I run out of arrows, things tend to go very bad VERY quickly…

So yeah, if you’re caught outside at night, the only guaranteed way to survive is to dig a hole (or a tower, like you did) and wait out the night. I do hope they fix the nighttime spawn in the final release – it was exciting at first, but now it’s just become bloody annoying. :smack:

Did you at least get your stuff back?

13

Oh Lobsang, a question: How long was it before you got punk’d by your first creeper?

14

Seananners refers to them as ‘exploding penises’ (He’s probably not the only one)

I don’t know what my first time was, but I’ve had them sneak up on me plenty of times. They can be bastards in caves because just when you think you’re running quite fast away from them they’ll dive at you and explode.

"Did you at least get your stuff back? "

Yes :slight_smile:

I eventually found some diamond in the big cave. I found enough to make one diamond pickaxe, but I’m too scared to use it… it’s made of diamond!!!

Based on your tips I’ll go and look for more. I have since found LOTS of redstone. I didn’t know you could get so much from one block.

Are your cave(s) big enough that you get lost in them? I’ve got lost in mine a few times. One time was quite frustrating, I spent ages and ages walking around only to find I’d come out at a place I’d been ages ago, still no nearer to getting out.

I think if you die in lava your stuff is gone. I died in lava once and went back, to find my stuff wasn’t there.

I’ve made a start on my glass skyscraper. If you count the ground floor it has 5 floors so far. (The first two floors built into the side of the hill, so from the top of the hill it only has 3 floors)
One problem with recording games is that for this type of game you’ll want your video to be quite long (in youtube terms about ten minutes), for a video that long you can end up with a file that is many gigabytes in size (even with fraps settings at their most conservative)

15

Creepers may be the most eeeevil video game monster ever created. Not only are they completely silent, except for just before they explode (and their sole noise sounds completely harmless, like wind in the grass, until you learn to recognize it) they almost always sneak up on you while your attention is focused elsewhere. I love 'em, though – I use them for demolition work, or do things like “Bungee Creeping”, which is jumping on their heads to see how high they’ll blast me into the sky. :smiley:

Good…I’m certain you’ve learned by now, in this game, death is meaningless. But losing all your stuff hurts. :frowning:

I’ve heard others swear by diamond pickaxes, but I’ve never crafted one – like you, I’d be afraid to use it. Diamond swords kick serious butt, though. :cool:

Hell, yeah!! Even the small to medium-sized caverns (which are ginormous by other game’s standards) are very easy to get lost in. Just wait until you uncover one of the truly MASSIVE cave systems – you’ll shit bricks. :smiley:

In fact, last night I went back to my BSCOD (Big Scary Cave of Doom) and saw that I had in fact lighted up nearly the whole thing, but I could hear monster noises through the wall. So I blew it up with some TNT, killed the nearest mobs, and kept exploring until I reached a nexus of no less than SIX dark, crumbling shafts leading to God knows where. (I nearly sat down and cried.) I turned around to go back – and realized, I was lost. AGAIN. And I hadn’t gone more than a few hundred meters! (I think an exploding creeper may have destroyed the way back…haven’t checked yet.)

Luckily, the new cave system did lead to a part of the BSCOD which I’d lit up before, but the torches had been placed long before I’d created my “system” of how to use them intelligently, so I couldn’t tell where I was or how to get out. Took me about an hour to find a series of torches which were placed intelligently, which led to a staircase, which lead to the exit (albeit a different one than from where I’d entered.) The good news is I didn’t encounter a single monster in the lit-up area, but I’m not going back down there until I can reserve time to fix the existing torches – not knowing where you are in that empty, lit-up labyrinth is more scary than exploring dark holes filled with mobs! :eek:

I’m not familiar with FRAPS or other recording software, but I do know that many YouTubers do record gaming sessions for hours at a time (and the YouTube limit is 15 minutes now) so it must be possible. Unfortunately I can’t offer much technical advice, because my computer-tinkering knowledge is about 15 years out of date.

16

“Good…I’m certain you’ve learned by now, in this game, death is meaningless. But losing all your stuff hurts. :(”

Except that on one of my two well maintained worlds, my spawn point is quite a trek away from my home/place of action. So a death means a long tedious trek back to to where I was.

I learned a lesson from that from my other world - make sure you make your ‘base’ close to your spawn point.

On the subject of getting lost in mines - while I was trying to get out I resolved to set up some sort of ‘this way out’ system of placing unique items only along a main route, a sort of breadcrumb trail. I place cobblestone doorways ( 3x2 cobblestone structure with a gap of two squares in the middle).

I could make signs, but I don’t like using wood to make static things. I prefer to conserve the wood for tools and doors.

Edit: I have wondered this before, but as time goes on I am more and more inclined to suspect it to be true - does lighting stop the spawning? In other words if you had a 100% lit cave system would nothing spawn in it?

17

+1 to that, good buddy. :slight_smile: In fact, if I start a new world but don’t find a good base camp location in the immediate area, I’ll restart.

Speaking of death and respawning…just a few hours ago, I was doing some decorative work high in the trees above my spawn point (which is dead center in the courtyard of my primary base, how’s that for convenience!) when I slipped and fell to my death – no problem, just gather up my stuff and…wait a minute, some stuff is missing. My compass and flint & steel were gone. Turns out, I was carrying them in my “Crafting Menu” (the 4 blocks where you can build stuff w/o a crafting bench) and I’ve now learned that items in those slots do NOT drop when you die – they are lost forever! :frowning:

So, heads up on that. (Good thing I wasn’t carrying my diamond sword today – that’s usually where I stow it!!!)

I use redstone torches to mark a trail back to the exit. Doors are good, too – any type of construction work is a good way to signal to yourself that you’ve at least been there before, and the area was reasonably safe enough for you to putz around for a bit. :slight_smile: I like placing signs everywhere, even inside my fortress where I already know where everything is – gives the place added realism, IMO. They’re also good for conveying messages that simple torch patterns can’t express (gravel pit under the floor, etc.)

Yes – that’s precisely what torches (and soon lanterns) are for. Monsters only spawn in darkness, or at night, and the deeper the darkness, the more likely they are to spawn. They can even spawn inside your base, if you don’t keep the light level high enough!! :eek:

18

I started a new map yesteray, and wound up on an ‘island world’. I’ve got my own little island, which had plenty of trees. I made a sod house really quickly, eventually found some coal by digging down, and I’ve lit up the entire island. Then I built a gigantic monolith that I lit up like a skyscraper with torches. That way I can always spot my home island.

Next, I dug a tunnel from my island to the next one. I’m going to connect all the islands with tunnels.

But off in the distance is a huge island with a very large mountain on it, and two giant gaping caves that look like black moons from where I’m standing. It gives me a little quiver just looking at it.

But that’s where I’m going.

19

Dammit, all these stories make me want to go home and play right now. Stupid work. :frowning:

As for stories of my own, all I want to add now, is that I have learned that while dieing always sucks, it can be made much worse if

  1. You fall into lava, and almost make it back to safe ground. I was one square away.
  2. All items are lost in the lava.
  3. Items include a wealth of iron and some diamond, as well as some redstone and a few other things.
  4. You fall into lava by incredibly stupidly mining the block you are standing on, even if you know there is lava like right there
20

I build chests right beside my spawn point. If I’m killed, as soon as I materialize I can stock up again. I have storage chests all over the place, actually.

I tunneled over to the third island tonight, and built a glass house where my tunnel emerged, which just happened to be overlooking my first two islands. Then I dug around it so I basically have a pedestal containing my emerge tunnel, with a large glass cantilevered house on top of it. It’s quite cool.

Next, the caves of doom.