Addicted after 2 days... some noob questions

[dday_0612]

Hello all my Minecraft friends.

First of all, I am only 2 days into this game, and both myself and my two daughters are utterly addicted beyond imagination. I started up on the survivor server. All your work is amazing, and I am enjoying seeing the sites.

I have a few concerns or questions that I want to run by you all. Please take note that I am very inexperienced, and know very little. I have only crafted the very basic things and only mined coal, rock, dirt and wood.

First of all, I am scared of stepping on anyone’s toes. I found a quiet little hill near the large square building with a M on top of it. This is not a permanent residence for me at all, but I needed somewhere to hole into for the nights. I stacked some rock up high at the entrance, so I wouldn’t get lost, then I dug down. I created 3 rooms and a back door exit and at the back door I am starting to build a small residence.

Anyway, I don’t seem to be very close to anyone’s work, but I hope I am ok just setting up a temporary safe house on this hill. It is pretty close to the world spawn point as I did not dare go very far. I died 3 times last night


I have read about how to stake a claim, but was hoping some of you could give me some input on how far to go away from the world spawn point. As compared to your work, mine will probably be visually unappealing until I get some experience and I don’t want to create an eye sore. Is there a recommended direction to go in? N, S, E, W from the spawn point? Approx how far should I be walking before searching for an area to build on?

I learned through experience that a bed becomes the spawn point after sleeping in it. Can I keep this bed in my little hut as a point of interest for me, even after I find a build site further out? Is there a way to quickly travel to and from my work site from my little hut? There seems to be a good amount of rock below my abode that I could probably use at my build site.

Coal. It seems to be uncommon. Any tips on finding it?

Other ore’s. I have not seen any yet, but I did break a rock that had a red color inside of it. It produced nothing for me, probably due to my rock mining pick?

Thanks in advance for any input you can give me. I am excited for the possibilities in this game.

[Sp!at]

Hi DDay,

Glad you and your family are enjoying it.

To try and answer your questions:

As far as stepping on peoples toes as long as there is nothing close by that you can see really on the surface I would guess you're fairly safe. Sometimes when we dig down we come across other peoples networks but you can usually gauge if this is an important part of their area or just a mining offshoot. People here are fairly forgiving.

As far as finding a good area is concerned, just have a look on the map (link in the stickies). There is heaps of land in all directions you can use.

Most people use the /home commands to set home points which allow you to teleport back to your base when you need to. I have mine set to where my chests are located so I can return there when I need to. Rail networks can get you to other locations reasonably quickly.

As you dig you'll find lots of coal. It gets to a point when you won't bother collecting it soon. Other ores occur at different depths of the map. The more valuable ores and diamond occur near the bottom of the map but coal and iron can be found close to the surface.

[Sp!at]

Oh, and just so you know the rules, if you mine any iron or gold you need to make sure half is deposited in the chest at spawn titled "Splat's Stuff". It's sort of like paying tax. Only a third of any diamonds you mine need to be left there.

[dday_0612]

Originally Posted by Sp!at

Oh, and just so you know the rules, if you mine any iron or gold you need to make sure half is deposited in the chest at spawn titled "Splat's Stuff". It's sort of like paying tax. Only a third of any diamonds you mine need to be left there.

This sounds reasonable.

I don't expect to find any iron, gold or diamonds, so don't count on anything.

[Bazz]

Originally Posted by Sp!at

Oh, and just so you know the rules, if you mine any iron or gold you need to make sure half is deposited in the chest at spawn titled "Splat's Stuff". It's sort of like paying tax. Only a third of any diamonds you mine need to be left there.

This is of course rubbish.
It is in fact Half of all diamonds as well, and they need to go to Skoville, NOT Splat..
(he's such a kidder!)

Welcome aboard - good to have you here.

As an aside, if your children are enjoying minecraft as well, many of us have our children playing as well - you might want to get them access so they can use the creative server?

[Thermal Ions]

I tend to find myself using charcoal more than coal these days as while they don't stack together they are interchangeable when it comes to using them. I tend to repeatedly grow a dozen or so trees and harvest the timber, so I just chuck one coal/charcoal in the furnace as fuel and 8 tree trunks in the top and get 8 charcoal. Take those 8 charcoal and use them as fuel with a stack of 64 tree trunks and you've got yourself 64 charcoal, ready to make 256 torches (assuming you've the 64 sticks).