Share your Minecraft experiences

[fuzzypickles]

@Sam_Stone

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.

This game’s CMOA (Crowning Moment of Awesome) came when I stood on the beach staring into featureless fog, switched to “Far” distance view, and watched in wonder as the distant land rose from the mist – it was mesmerizing. In particular, I saw a magnificent range of craggy mountains with breathtaking formations far, far away – too far away to see on “Normal” view, and I’m too busy with stuff on my home island to visit them any time soon, but I will get there and explore them, someday!!

@VanillaGorilla

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

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

You forgot:
5. Digging straight up into lava.
6. Digging straight down into lava.
7. Digging sideways into lava.
8. Digging a hole to The Void, then accidentally breaching the overhead lava pool which floods the bedrock crawl space, blocking all escape routes except that hole to The Void…
9. Blasting away some rubble with TNT, then jumping down onto the containment wall holding back one of the lava pools – or rather, where the containment wall USED to be…
10. Digging a pilot tunnel near the surface, you can hear what sounds like bubbling lava beyond the next wall, but it can’t be lava since you’re so close to the surface, right? Completely forgetting about the experimental lava pool you created weeks ago…

I’ve actually been very lucky – of all the times I’ve been drowned, crushed, killed by monsters, suffocated by gravel, or fallen into a bottomless pit, I’ve lost all my gear only twice (not counting the incident upthread where items in my “Crafting Menu” were lost.) Once was during my Deep Wilderness Trek where hiked in a random direction for several days, and on the 5th day I got tired of hiding from mobs and decided to take them on Jackie Chan style…bad idea!! The second was getting punk’d by a creeper in a cave I thought had been cleared out – I probably could’ve recovered my stuff, but didn’t bother. (Wasn’t carrying anything of value, aside from a brand-new iron pickaxe.)

@Sam_Stone

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.

Took me awhile to think of the Emergency Resupply Chest idea. Speaking of chests, I need to consolidate the many chests I have scattered around my island – I keep running out of certain resources, esp. coal, only to discover later that I’d stashed 50 coal in an out-of-the-way chest that I forgot even existed…d’oh!!!

@Sam_Stone

Next, the caves of doom.

Have fun! But be wary, friend…those Endlessly Massive Caverns are truly beasts unto themselves. Don’t forget to bring torches (including redstone torches), lots of arrows (you do NOT want to run out of arrows, ever!) and for heaven’s sake, always watch your back!

[VanillaGorilla]

@Sam_Stone

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.

I prefer to keep my chests a bit more centralized in my house (and by house, I mean castle, obviously :)), personally.
My house is pretty close to my spawn point though.

I think I might have a cave of doom of my own a bit in the distance, which I’m looking forward to exploring. First I’ll build some minecart tracks leading there though.

[fuzzypickles]

@VanillaGorilla

I prefer to keep my chests a bit more centralized in my house (and by house, I mean castle, obviously :)), personally.
My house is pretty close to my spawn point though.

I do have a centralized storage area, but I’m in the habit of placing chests & workbenches in areas where I’m doing construction or excavation work. Most of them just contain slag (mainly dirt & cobblestone – gravel is becoming quite rare, for some reason) but every so often I’ll make a tour of the chests and discover stuff that just shouldn’t be stored there (saplings in my lava cave?? WTF?)

My fortress was literally built around my spawn point, so each time I die, I reappear right next to [roleplay] the spaceship cockpit where I crash-landed on this desolate planet [/roleplay] the front door of my primary fortress. The surrounding land has been de-spawned in a five-mile radius in all directions, protected by ocean to the south and west, sheer cliffs and a gravel pit to the east, and about 10,000 torches (soon to be lanterns) blanketing the ridgeline to the north. I’ve built pit traps, moats, fences, and other fortifications which are so secure, not even livestock can reach my central courtyard – I’ll get the occasional chicken stuck inside the walls, and every so often an enterprising sheep makes it to my glass roof, but aside from that NO monster can reach me, even if they are chasing me from one of the dark zones.

I think my Big Scary Cave of Doom (BSCOD) has given me a dose of PTSD – for certain, my character has been terrified of caverns ever since a series of near death experiences deep down in that massive cavern. He’s avoided caves entirely for two whole weeks, and even refused to seek shelter in a nearby half-cleared monster cave while wandering the wilderness and night unexpectedly fell…luckily, his [roleplay] “imaginary” companion (a tennis ball named Wilson) [/roleplay] convinced him to face up to the deep-dwelling monsters, as well as facing up to his fears in general…

He’s been dealing with it, though, and over the last two days has made brief forays into the BSCOD. Last night I went searching for that new monster passage I’d uncovered (as mentioned upthread) but couldn’t find it – apparently, an exploding creeper had triggered a cave-in which blocked the passage AGAIN, and I don’t dare dig through the gravel because it’s holding up the ocean floor…!! I spent a few hours merely establishing the landscape immediately adjacent to my “safe zone”; it turns out, all three entrances to this cave are very close to each other, despite being in relatively far-flung locations within my base. It is SO easy to get lost down there, though – seriously, I would walk ten steps forward, turn around, and could NOT see any way back, not even the passage itself where I’d come from!

So the next several caving sessions will be dedicated to reclaiming the BSCOD piece by piece, esp. placing torches in proper locations, with redstone torches to guide myself back to the exit(s). I’ll be making sure that no matter where I go in this cave, I’ll be able to see a red torch somewhere, marking where the exit path lies. It’s going to take a long, long time (and that’s assuming I can get up the nerve to go down there again – it is CREEPY!) but I know the reward will be worth it. There are major treasures down there – gold, diamond, tons upon tons of coal and iron. Maybe even a dungeon spawner, though I’ve yet to locate one that wasn’t completely flooded by the ocean.

[Lobsang]

If you do manage to get out of the lava, bear in mind that you stay on fire for quite a while. The one time I did escape I happened to have the difficulty on ‘peaceful’ so I was regenerating as fast as I was dying from being on fire.

I also like to keep my storage centralized. I am inclined to forget where I’ve put things so I don’t have far to search my three large chests in turn.

I also have 4 furnaces in one room. Their main job so far has been making glass.

Time for a confession (nobody at my work can see this so meh!) I maintain two worlds - one at home and one at work. (At work we are allowed to play ‘flash games’ or browser based games, so at work I play MC in the browser. At home I play the exe file (which allows me to play it in full 1920x1200 rez) I have the draw distance and fog distance set such that I can see as far as possible.

Having towers to find your way home only works if you are near enough to see the tower (see my first post in this thread). I got so far away from home once that I ended up with four intermediately spaced towers to find my way between home and where my stuff was left.

I also have a small lava pit in my house as a place to dispose of stuff (fairly useless stuff that just takes up space in inventories and chests - like snowballs and dirt)
My home world has the massive cave system, and the rapidly growing glass skyscraper.

My work world has the small cave with two dungeons, one of which is being converted into a glass box to hold the skeletons. (I keep wanting to say skelingtons, like a child )

[Lobsang]

Anyone know of a way of avoiding this…

when making stairs using multiple stair blocks?

[fuzzypickles]

@Lobsang

If you do manage to get out of the lava, bear in mind that you stay on fire for quite a while. The one time I did escape I happened to have the difficulty on ‘peaceful’ so I was regenerating as fast as I was dying from being on fire.

I think you only burn if you step in a lava spring, not if it falls on your head. The only time I got injured by lava was while working deep in the bedrock and dug up directly into a lava spring – thankfully, I was saved by [roleplay] an angel, whose soul I had previously rescued from the Great Energy Demon [/roleplay] VERY lucky chance, since I’d previously constructed a glass containment chamber which directed most of the lava flow away from me. I did get burned when I touched it, but didn’t catch on fire.

Another time, while deep in the BSCOD, I slipped and fell into lava but got immediately flushed into a pool of water – didn’t even realize what had happened for several minutes. (I swear, my character must have the lives of sixteen cats…)

BTW, does anyone else roleplay in Minecraft? I find it adds to the experience tremendously.

@Lobsang

Time for a confession (nobody at my work can see this so meh!) I maintain two worlds - one at home and one at work. (At work we are allowed to play ‘flash games’ or browser based games, so at work I play MC in the browser. At home I play the exe file (which allows me to play it in full 1920x1200 rez) I have the draw distance and fog distance set such that I can see as far as possible.

Having towers to find your way home only works if you are near enough to see the tower (see my first post in this thread). I got so far away from home once that I ended up with four intermediately spaced towers to find my way between home and where my stuff was left.

First of all, I envy your computer! I’m stuck with 1152x864 and Short Distance View (the game can run w/Far Distance on, but it gets reeeeal laggy…) However, since Far Distance does work, if I ever get lost w/o a compass again, I can climb to a high place and switch on Far View long enough to locate where I need to go.

@Lobsang

My work world has the small cave with two dungeons, one of which is being converted into a glass box to hold the skeletons. (I keep wanting to say skelingtons, like a child )

Since they look a lot like Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas, it’s fair to call them that, IMO.

@Lobsang

I also have a small lava pit in my house as a place to dispose of stuff (fairly useless stuff that just takes up space in inventories and chests - like snowballs and dirt)

Working on that – I’m going to dig a hole straight down (like they tell you never to do) just to see where I wind up, hopefully I’ll reach lava or even The Void. Probably will be the next thing I do when I play the game…just hope I remember to strip all my gear, except for a cheap pick & shovel.

Speaking of lava…after watching veriax’s Minecraft LP, I’m definitely building a gigantic lava-fall. I know exactly where to place it, too!

(After I did the trash pit, of course…)

(And work on the underground chicken farm…)

(And build a causeway to the sand quarry island far across the bay…)

(And explore the ocean more with a boat, maybe find some clay…)

Jeez…there’s always something to do in this game, isn’t there??

[Lobsang]

Since you mentioned that Diamond is found near bedrock (or in the bottom 10 rows of blocks of the world) I decided to dig down. Not straight down mind, but diagonal (45 degrees). I got to some grey block that I’d never seen before. It won’t go away with an iron axe, so I assume it’s bedrock. However, I was under the impression that bedrock was black or nearly black.

Anyway, while there I broke through to some lava. Lost a bunch of iron axes that I’d only just made!!!. Got my 73 torches back though. They landed on the rock next to the lava.

You probably know this, but to create a disposal unit you only need one bucket of lava. Create a 1x1 hole in the middle of some cobblestones (3x3) go get some lava using a bucket. Pour the lava into the 1x1 hole.

[fuzzypickles]

@Lobsang

Since you mentioned that Diamond is found near bedrock (or in the bottom 10 rows of blocks of the world) I decided to dig down. Not straight down mind, but diagonal (45 degrees). I got to some grey block that I’d never seen before. It won’t go away with an iron axe, so I assume it’s bedrock. However, I was under the impression that bedrock was black or nearly black.

If it’s mostly black with flecks of light grey (kind of a salt-and-pepper texture) then it’s indeed bedrock. (Did you at least find the Void?) Sometimes you’ll find obsidian, which is formed when water flows over a lava spring, but that’s even blacker than bedrock.

@Lobsang

You probably know this, but to create a disposal unit you only need one bucket of lava. Create a 1x1 hole in the middle of some cobblestones (3x3) go get some lava using a bucket. Pour the lava into the 1x1 hole.

I’m actually hoping to drill a borehole all the way to The Void – that way, anything I throw away will be REALLY gone – but I doubt I’ll be that lucky.

[Lobsang]

I haven’t been paying attention. Are you saying there’s a void of emptiness under the bedrock?
This isn’t on my big cave world, it’s on my other one. I basically dug down in a diagonal zig-zag until I reached this bedrock, then dug around a bit (being careful of lava) and could only hit bedrock)

[fuzzypickles]

@Lobsang

I haven’t been paying attention. Are you saying there’s a void of emptiness under the bedrock?

Yes.

[Sam_Stone]

My experience tonight is that I had uncovered a very cool cavern with a lava waterfall pouring into the ground a block away from a lake with its own waterfall. I was admiring it when I got an arrow in the back, which startled me into dropping off the ledge into the lava.

I lost my leather armor, about 10 blocks of iron ore I had just harvested, some bread, four iron picks, an iron shovel and an iron axe. Gah.

Also, the two big scary caves turned out to be not so scary. One turned out to be just a depression in the rock deep enough to look black from a distance. The other was a gigantic tunnel that went all the way through the island, but was otherwise featureless. I decided to dig around the cliff face at the top of tunnel and build something. I’m not quite sure what yet. A glass cliff dwelling, maybe. Or perhaps I’ll try carving some lettering into the rocks on the cliff face…

On my home island, I got the idea of building an underwater glass house. That ought to be strange. So I waded out to a point where the water transitioned from one block deep to two, then started laying down a sand foundation. I finally got it all the way out of the water, and filled it as I went. One it was level with the water, I dug everything inside it down to a decent depth. Then I’ll put in the glass ceiling , one block below the foundation. Before setting the final glass block, I make a stair and climb out, then put the glass in from on top. Then pick away the dirt ceiling above the glass, breach the foundation and let the water pour in on top.

For an entrance, I’ll either dig a tunnel back to land, or I’ll swim down, break a sand block in the wall, and let the flooding water suck me into my house. Then I’ll turn around and plug the hole. It’ll be my secret underwater lair. Learning to do that well could be a real boon for a multiplayer game if you want to hide.

[fuzzypickles]

@Sam_Stone

My experience tonight is that I had uncovered a very cool cavern with a lava waterfall pouring into the ground a block away from a lake with its own waterfall. I was admiring it when I got an arrow in the back, which startled me into dropping off the ledge into the lava.

I lost my leather armor, about 10 blocks of iron ore I had just harvested, some bread, four iron picks, an iron shovel and an iron axe. Gah.

Ouch…well, it could’ve been a lot worse.

In fact…I read on the Minecraft forums that your stuff doesn’t always disappear when you die. If you die far away from your spawn point, the game unloads the “chunk” you were in, and all your stuff remains in stasis until you re-enter the “chunk” at which point you have five minutes to collect everything before it all disappears. So now, my character’s on a mission to retrace the steps of his first trek deep, deep into the wilderness – if I’m lucky, my diamond sword and iron armor will still be there!

Problem is, I keep getting distracted. On the way out, I decided to plant more torches in Sheep Meadows to shore up a perimeter breech I’d kept forgetting to fix…then night fell, so I took another tour of the battlements, killing mobs and planting even more torches…then I ran out of torches…then I ran out of coal…so now I’m aimlessly prospecting, hoping to find more coal so I can make torches and finally get back to what I was doing. Coal is so hard to find in my world; I got a very bad roll on this map, apparently.

Love your idea for an underwater glass house, I’ll have to try it!

[fuzzypickles]

Tonight I had my first creeper-falling-on-my-head moment.

I was setting up my sand quarry outpost, when darkness fell. It was too dark to run back to a safe zone, so I sought refuge in a deep gravel pit which had been partially mined out. Built a dirt roof, mined a bit and discovered iron (but no coal, dagnabbit – I’ve been out of coal for days!) and made myself a nice comfortable hidey-hole. Melted some sand into glass, so I decided to make myself a window. Still dark outside, but there was some light from my torches, and a cow was jumping up and down on my roof. So, to fetch its leather, I dug straight up through the dirt ceiling–OH SHIT! CREEP–BLAAAMMMM!!!

Thankfully, I survived with a sliver of health. I’m kinda pissed, though – my new comfy hole AND my new window were all destroyed! Damn creeper…

Man, I love this game.

[Lightnin]

On one map, the Creepers decided they just flat-out hated me. Every morning, I’d find them lined up outside my door, ready to blow me up. Every morning, as a result, I had to rebuild a good portion of my house.

Then I found some cactus.

I planted some sand in front of my door, and then created a walkway to my door lined with cactus. Now the creeps can’t get to my door- they kill themselves on the cactus.

Cactus is now my favorite plant.

[Lobsang]

I’m so putting cactus everywhere now that I know that!

ETA: Brick/Cobblestone tends to survive creeper explosion quite well.

I am a little too fond of glass though.

[fuzzypickles]

Where did you guys find cactus?? That’s one of two things I haven’t found at all yet. (The other is clay.)

[Lobsang]

As you might expect: cactus isn’t very common. Neither is clay. I’ve found both by accident by roaming (cactus) or digging up sand near water (clay)

[fuzzypickles]

According to Cartograph (a nifty mapping program) my entire generated world contains 6498 diamond ores, 1718 obsidian blocks, 328 clay…and twelve (12) cactus. Man, that is stupid rare! Guess I’d better start searching for it.

[Lobsang]

I wonder if you can use cactus to grow more. Like trees.

If so, once you do find it you might be able to make it more plentiful.

I once mentioned I occupy an island with NO trees on it. it is now covered in trees.

[fuzzypickles]

@Lobsang

I wonder if you can use cactus to grow more. Like trees.

If so, once you do find it you might be able to make it more plentiful.

You can indeed farm cactus, but I’m not clear on how it’s done. (Probably requires sand.)

@Lobsang

I once mentioned I occupy an island with NO trees on it. it is now covered in trees.

Once I started tree farming, my supply of wood was no longer an issue. (I don’t even use coal in the furnace anymore, only wood.) I remember when I grew my first magnificent “old growth” tree – couldn’t bear to chop that one down, so I built a forest around it. Most of my main fortress is covered by a gigantic canopy of leaves now.