Yeah, I had one, but I had like 3 stacks of arrows and there were so many mobs I ran out and HAD to use swords.
Oh, of course, I know, I was just saying I was pretty deep down and was surprised I wan’t at the bedrock layer yet naturally.
I’ve found the best way of avoiding death-by-lava is to carry a bucket of water in the toolbar. Then even if you land in a pool of lava you can right-click with the bucket and flood the area, turning flowing lava to cobblestone and source blocks to obsidian. Sometimes the water is consumed so it’s a good idea to carry an extra two buckets full, then you can make an infinite spring to refill.
The other important thing to remember when exploring underground is take lots of wood! It’s trivial to gather in large quantities on the surface but impossible to find naturally underground and absolutely vital for making tools, torches, and boxes to let you carry on your exploration.
Take saplings, and maybe some dirt. Trees grow perfectly fine underground- all they need is a torch nearby and a good amount of space above.
I found one of those massive caves, and after my second trip back up to the top to get wood, I wised up and just moved my wood source underground.
Unfortunately, grass is a lot harder to grow underground- it can only spread from other grass tiles. And since animals only spawn on grass tiles, it can be really hard to have a full farm.
I grew a tree with a 2x2 trunk but I have no idea how I did it.
God, this game is cool.
I just got it a few nights ago. I’d watched a few youtube vids so had a very basic handle on the game.
That said - my first world, I kept going further and further from the little pathetic hole I’d dug into the side of a mountain. Somehow had neglected to gather any coal. Then I see the sun going down. 
I race back, and wall myself into to this pathetic little crevice. By the time I place the last block (only 1 high) I hear the zombies grunting. I have no torches. And I’ve dug far enough in (and I don’t know the game mechanics well enough yet) so I’m worried a mob could spawn in the back of my pitch-black refuge.
I’ll admit I’m a total wuss for scary games. Spending that terrifying first night - hearing zombies all around me, warily probing the back of my pitch black cave every few seconds, hoping desperately for the sun to come up - that was one of the most memorable gaming experiences I’ve ever had. I was on edge the whole time. Had to alt-tab more than once just to catch a breath.
Can’t wait for the Halloween update!
This thing is pure gaming crack. Takes me back to the days when I’d play Ultima Underworld in turns with my little brother. Minding your own business in a cave and suddenly you hear the tinkle of skeleton bones… awesome.
Gamehat, I don’t think mobs can spawn in the four blocks directly adjacent to you, no matter the light level. Here’s some “research” from the minecraft forums to back me up.
Luckily for me, my spawn point was directly in front of a hill so I just dug in after harvesting wood for a workbench, axe, pick and shovel. Luckily found some coal exposed on a nearby cliff-face. There’s a massive pinnacle of earth and rock above the base that I’ve lit up on all sides to provide a beacon in case I get lost… again.
I also lit up the path from the respawn point to my front door, so I can find home easily if I get killed down below at night.
I’m currently exploring a massive cave system I broke into from my second base. I’ve got loads of coal, but iron ore is proving elusive and I haven’t got deep enough for diamond yet. So many branches and overhead galleries that I haven’t been able to light up yet; there could be anything down there…
Next I’m going to pave the route from home base to the second base somehow, or just make a really long connecting tunnel.
I’ve been telling people that a single massive cave system in Minecraft is approx. the same size as the entire Stygian Abyss. It’s probably not that large (although it certainly feels that way!) but after scanning my map with Minutor, I’ve discovered that not only is my Big Scary Cave only 1/3 explored, but there’s another even LARGER cave system on the other side of my island! Between them, there’s enough solid rock to carve out a full-scale replica of the Abyss, every Ultima dungeon, most of the Elder Scrolls dungeons, and every Doom/Heretic/Quake level…and that’s on a relatively small (4.0mb) save game. So yeah, this game totally rocks. 
Mobs can’t spawn within 24 blocks of you, nor can they spawn within 24 blocks of your spawn point, whether you are close to it or not (to prevent you from getting completely pwn3d by mobs if you die & restart in the dead of night, presumably.)
I’ve stocked an emergency resupply crate right next to my spawn point, just in case I die in the wilderness (again!) and need to quickly retrieve all my stuff from a hostile area (again!) My spawn point’s actually in the dead center of my main fortress, I got very lucky in that regard.
Yeah, can’t wait for zombies & creepers to spawn within my brightly lit, bedrock-level diamond mine… :rolleyes: The other changes look really cool, though – can’t wait to try fishing!
On a somewhat similar note. This is yet another game I can’t wait to play around with.
Seriously, watch the video. All sorts of coolness there, in the vein of Minecraft.
Thanks for the info! In my “huddled in a cave” game, a lot of the tension came simply from me not knowing the game. And that’s kind of a good thing. It’s fun to discover - and be scared.
That said, is there a good Minecraft strategy site? There’s like one million sites on a simple google search that give you simply crafting recipes; I’d like to find a site that shares game mechanics, design examples, and strategy. Minepedia ain’t there yet.
I just got the game, based on the threads here, and I’m enjoying it so far.
Unfortunately, my island is huge and I am so very, very lost. I’ve been wondering around for around two days trying to find my home base again. Oh well…
Not that I know of, but give it time…after all, this game was virtually unknown until a few months ago.
If worst comes to worst, you can always kill yourself…
Or you can mine for some iron & redstone and make a compass.
Within an hour of playing I had a diamond sword and pick, three stacks of coal, two stacks of red dust, gold,hmmm, that’s about it.
I’m a little disappointed. I did get lost in that humongo cave though. Then I drowned under some ice. Water is a bitch to get out of. I think I retrieved everything from under the ice shelf though.
Automap will map your world for you so you can find your way home. Cartograph is another program that does it.
Is automap better? I could barely make heads or tails of cartograph’s output. Sometimes “oh, that’s what it looks like” was kinda cool, but cave view was just unreadable entirely.
Yes. Automap is what I use when I get in trouble. It gives you real time updates of your location so you can use it as a GPS.
Dug a hole straight down to the bottom of the earth, did ya? Always handsomely profitable.
Press & hold the Jump key to swim against the current. (Took me forever – and several drownings – to figure that out!)
Cartograph is awesome for generating a map of your topside world. (Try “Oblique Angle” + “Rotate” + “Ignore Water” + Night = amazing!) It’s useless for caves, though. For that, and finding elusive resources, I’d recommend Minutor.
So today I explored a little more, got my first diamond pick, mined a stack of obsidian for Halloween hell gates (took for-bleeding-ever) and then I decided what better place to put a hell gate than on a sky island? Now, this is prolly dumb since I may just freefall as soon as I get into Hell, but hey, why not try!? So I spent about two hours carving out the mountain I built my base into and then build a working fortess on the top. Out one end what was a sheer drop near a tiny (maybe 8x8) sky island with a tree on it.
I’ve done some pretty nice stuff with it, expanded it really far for one. The most difficult thing you can do is make it look natural, I’ve wasted a lot of dirt which fell to the lower levels jumping down to lower blocks to give that “reverse mountain” look sky islands have in fiction rather than just have a flat plane I built on. I was originally planning to have it be thick enough to have a “core” I could put my gate in, some “ruins” that lead into it, and a garden with trees and water. However, I’m running out of dirt, And we’re talking at least 10 stacks of dirt. It’s also starting to look rather large and the more you increase the size the more dirt you use for each “improvement” since you have more area to smooth out.
I plan on finishing it out as best I can, and then placing my gate with some flavorful cobblestone (oh, and I used a lot of my cobblestone building my fort), mossy cobblestone, and maybe some extra obsidian wherever I feel is the best looking. This is very difficult, and I’m actually rather impressed on how it’s turning out, I wasn’t sure I could make it look not awkward, but so far the only weird thing about it is how close it is to the mountain, and that will change once I kill the land bridge and the first couple rows of dirt and replace it with my final glass bridge. I’m really excited for this project despite the fact that I’m losing almost all my “trivial” resources in the process (hey, I only really need one stack of dirt for exploring, everything else is just fluff).
I’ll try and post some pictures once I’m done, I’m collecting some working ones as I go.
How on earth did you run out of DIRT?!? Did you start in a giant gravel quarry, or something? 
I haven’t decided where to build my Hell-Gate yet. In fact, I’m not that thrilled about the upcoming patch, to be honest – fast travel is a nice option, but why must I battle fire-breathing ghasts to get there? (And don’t even get me started on torches being replaced by lanterns…)
I hope a future update adds a “Heaven” realm, which allows for fast-travel over even greater distances, but is entirely peaceful. (Imagine a realm filled with white fluffy clouds, with baa’ing & moo’ing livestock everywhere…) Naturally, it should be extremely difficult to get there, perhaps requiring a gate made from 14 diamond blocks or the like.
I had like, a quarter of a chest (conservative estimate) filled with dirt. And now you know how much it takes to make a floating landmass. 
I’m also a little disappointed about the lanterns. I just hope they won’t be unreasonable, like Torch + Glass + Steel Bar + Cloth or something
That must be one hell of an island, if you ran short of dirt making it. Can’t wait to see pics.
There’s a bunch of people on the MC Forums who are convinced lanterns will require flaming blocks only found in “Hell”, based entirely on a tweet by Notch (the game designer.) It was a joke, of course, but some people not only believe it, they are convinced it would be a good thing! :rolleyes:
However, I’m concerned they may require iron, which would render lanterns too expensive to make in any reasonable quantities. Especially if you play like I do – I’ve placed over 4,000 torches just for spawnbusting, including the areas I rarely visit. I don’t think I’ve found more than 200 iron since I started playing.