General Minecraft newbie advice thread!

[WoW Killer]

I like to carry some sand or gravel with me for handling creepers. If you see one coming towards you, quickly make a little wall between the two of you. They're not too smart so they'll try to walk through the wall at you rather than going round it. Then get on top of the wall and chuck some sand/gravel on their head. Sand or gravel can also make for a cheap pseudo-ladder of sorts. Chuck them off the edge of a cliff till it reaches your level, then stand on top and dig downwards.

 

[mew4ever23]

Set up a wheat farm - Bread is a renewable and more reliable alternative to pork. Pigs can be bloody rare.

Never dig straight up or down - It's really dangerous. Either way, you could find yourself dying in lava, or in the middle of a mob clusterfuck. Also, there's falling damage, so yeah.

Try and build something you can see from a distance near your base on the surface - You console kids can't use mods (like Rei's minimap), so lord knows you will get lost.

On that note, try and mark the way you came from while exploring caves. It is SUPER easy to get lost in this game, even with a map.

Make and place torches - Mobs don't spawn in the light.

Beds can be made with wool and wood, and you can skip the night with them. Don't place them on walls, though, mobs will spawn. Also, don't try and use beds in the nether.

Any time you pick up diamonds, drop what you're doing and go to your base and put them in a safe place. I've lost a ton of diamonds by getting murdered by mobs.

This game takes the realistic approach to Gold, meaning it's more or less useless for tools and armor. In tools, it's only slightly better than wood, with the same durability and block limitations. For armor, It's only slightly better than leather protection wise, you'll have an easier time finding the iron to make iron armor.

 

[Death Carr]

I think what alot of pople here are forgetting is that MC360 is equivalent to Beta 1.6.6

It will be updateed for now, but alot of the advice I've read is for the newer version, and you're also forgetting that MC360's maps are limited to 1000x1000

ANYWAY!
My advice?

Don't forget about that map that you spawn with.
Also, if possible get a buddy to play with you, its infinitely more fun than single player.

 

[R3dF41c0n]

I'm sure someone might have mentioned this before but it's worth saying again:

Look up paulsoaresjr's minecraft survive and thrive II on youtube. I've been following his video series since alpha and I've learned so much from him.

 

[Bowler Hat]

When going mining bring:
Back-up tools (nothing worse than finding diamond at the exact point your pickaxe breaks and having to hoof it back your house for another)
A bucket of water (Because lava WILL mess you up)
A tonne of torches and/or sticks & coal (be liberal with these. Those pesky mobs will spawn where you least expect it)
A spare pair of underwear for the first time you see an enderman teleporting towards you. (Those eys O_O).

If the console version has wolves and ocelots, tame them. They're cute if nothing else.

 

[Kraj]

above and beyond all things remember this; endermen are your friendermen.

 

[ShindoL Shill]

-Never dig straight down
-Always have a few cooked porks
-Don't make weapons, armour or tools with gold
-You can make charcoal by cooking wood
-Always have backup tools, water, torches
-Always have your sword out when you go round a corner (if you see a green shape, move the fuck back. You do not want to get a surprise hug from a creeper)
-If the adventure update comes to 360, don't sprint unless necessary. It wrecks your hunger bar.
-And use gravel to mark paths back to your tunnel, unless a Mod Marketplace is added or Rei's Minimap is implemented into the vanilla game
-A stack of dirt is useful for making steps in your mine
-If you see a deep underground wall of dirt, dig it out. I've found a lot of ore behind dirt
-Never look at an enderman

 

[Squidbulb]

EDIT: Wait, no, my bad. I forgot the 360 version wasn't updated fully.

Think I should tell you both that apparently the hunger bar has been removed from the 360 version. I'm not too bothered, but I hope I still get pigs running around being...piggy.[/quote]
It hasn't been removed, it's an older version. It will be back later.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

Get yourself set up to survive before getting too creative. Your stuff will probably face creepers, so until you've got yourself all set with enough coal to shove torches everywhere (or burning chunks of netherrack, that's good) it's better to leave fancy buildings. But when you do, it's very satisfying to have a sexy house, and don't let practically get in the way!

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Always, always, ALWAYS have a set of tools at the ready. I don't care if all you need for farming is a hoe; keep a full set of everything on hand at all times. This streamlines the transition between upkeep and mining or exploration, but it also ensures that you won't be totally defenseless if your fields' boundaries are invaded by Creepers.

Also keep a reasonable supply of torches on hand. Remember: wood can be used to create Charcoal. Even if you spawn in an area that seems to be devoid of surface-level coal, you can easily create your first set of torches.

Also, do not venture outside at night unless you absolutely need to. If all you need is some string, spiders can be taken down far more easily during the day. Chickens will provide you with feathers. You can go through the trouble of setting up skeleton farms or actively hunting them if you so desire, but I doubt the 360 version makes bonemeal and bones as useful as they can be in the PC version. Arrow-farming can seem like a good idea, but so many of the arrows shot by the skeletons end up being impossible to retrieve that it's really not all that useful.

Considering this, seeing as arrows stuck in the ground can inexplicably hurt you if the block they're wedged in is removed, make sure to regularly do cleanup runs for your own sake. Dig out the block the arrows are wedged in, then reset them in place. You'll bury the arrows, tidy up your Doom Fortress, and make sure you can't take any pesky damage in spaces otherwise designed to be safe.

Finally, don't set out to build your Doom Fortress on your very first night, unless you're planning on hollowing out an entire mountain. The first two nights are going to be all about survival and securing the needed essentials for future expansion. Locate water sources, thresh random plots of land for wheat seeds, mark surface-level lava flows; among other things.

Oh - and don't seriously fort up in the Nether. It's just not worth it. Try and close off your portal with more obsidian if you can, but consider visits to the Nether as snatch-and-grab missions. Don't waste time, know where you're going, stay light on your toes. Don't bother with the Ghasts; just take what you need (which is more than likely to be Glowstone) and leave.

 

[blackrave]

there are some differences between X360 and PC versions
But few tips to survive (at least for PC version)
Day1
1.find good spot for temporary home (or permanent- depends)
2.chop trees (with hand, at least 4-5 trees)
3.make workbench and place it
4.make wooden pickaxe (only wooden tool to bother with) then pick up workbench
5.mine stone (preferably in the wall- make one minimal entrance to block it at night)
6.make furnace
7.place workbench and furnace in your temporary home
8.put in furnace as fuel (lower slot) one wood (or some tree saplings if you have them) and place remaining wood in upper slot, to make charcoal
9.make more charcoal (math time- one coal/charcoal=8items, don't waste coal or wood)
10.use charcoal and remaining wood to make torches
11.put some torches outside your shack and also inside
12.make stone sword
13.if it isn't night yet you can chop some more trees
14.NIGHT- go inside your shack and block entrance (I usually am blocking lower block, so that I can see what is happening outside, but beware of skeletons they might shoot arrows at you)

Night1
1.mine some more stone, by expanding your shack

Day2
1.make sure it is safe outside (or finish them off) and gather dropped loot
2.get some food (I prefer making garden from seeds and dirt, but hunting and fishing is also good idea), if you have raw meet, cook it (you can use sapling- besides replanting trees they are useless, or coal/charcoal- but remember 1coal=8items), you can eat raw, but cooked meat is much better.
*zombies sometimes drops rotten flesh- you can eat it, but it poisons you and idea of eating dead human flesh is itself disgusting

Mining
1.Never dig straight down or up.. unless you have disposable equipment (I personally prefer vertical mineshafts under my permanent house- but you need ladders for one vertical shaft)
2.Learn shaft mining technique (it is much faster to find valuable resources this way)
Basically vertical beginning shaft looks like this (X-dirt/stone, __-empty space, =-ladder)
_=_ ground level
X=X
X=X
_=_ lvl1
X=X
X=X
_=_ lvl2
X=X etc.(till bedrock)


Each horizontal level looks like this
XX_XX_XX_XX_XX_XX_XX_XX_XX
XX_XX_XX_XX_XX_XX_XX_XX_XX
_____________=____________
XX_XX_XX_XX_XX_XX_XX_XX_XX
XX_XX_XX_XX_XX_XX_XX_XX_XX

Each horizontal shaft can be extended as far as you like
Also don't forget to light up the shafts (surprise creeper butsex always sux)

While it may sound complicated, but as soon as you'll start this it will be piece of cake

 

[bird of hermes]

to add to the whole wheat farming thing, you can actually grow a vertical thing so animals don't step on it. You make a 1 block wide channel for water, then you cultivate the land around it. you can then build the same thing about 3 or more blocks over it. Then, you take buckets of water and fill up the bottom, filling out (say if you have 6 blocks), the first and third, then the second is turned into a block of water. this gets you infinite water unless you screw up. Then you move that water to the farmland above it and you can get both levels of farmland wet.

Here's an awful diagram/example:
W=water
F=farm
D=dirt

Top-down:
D F F F F F F F F D
F W W W W W W W W F
D F F F F F F F F D

You can do as many as you want side by side or vertically. Hell, build a farm that reaches the skybox. That would be sweet.

EDIT: also a bonus of this method is that you can just swim up the falling water to your higher farmland, no need for ladders (which are kind of expensive to make) or anything of the sort.

 

[McMullen]

There may be some duplication here, but these are the things I would say independent of what's been said above:

Never dig at your feet unless you know what's below the block you're on. If you dig above you, be prepared to dodge or fight whatever might come down.

Keep your house and mines well-lit. Spam torches or you will find creepers in your bedroom.

The best mining is done at about 52 meters below sea-level (floor should be 6 blocks up from the first bedrock layer). You'll know you're at the right place if the floor of your mine is flush with the surface of the large magma lakes. Everything you need, you can find there.

Make a map and compass as soon as you can and always have them with you.

Magma is less dangerous than it used to be now that you can hear it, but you should still have a water bucket with you at all times. If you do catch on fire, you can douse yourself with it, and you can also use it to quench magma ponds into obsidian to either mine or use as an instant bridge.

Don't look at or fight Endermen unless you have a pumpkin helmet.

If you look at an Enderman, don't try to run from it, because most of the time you can't, even in a minecart. Fight it until one of you dies or it gives up, or swim into the middle of a pond, lake, or river. Wait for a bit before assuming that it has really given up.

If you're inexperienced at fighting, avoid monsters, the overworld at night, and caves until you've found at least 26 iron to make a full suit of armor and a sword with.

At some point, consider making about a dozen or two-dozen double-wide bins in one central location and labeling them for specific categories of items.

Enchantments are randomly chosen, take massive amounts of XP, and are weighted, for the most part, towards less useful bonuses. Grinding XP just to try to get specific enchantments is generally a waste of time. The only enchantment I consider worth grinding for is Feather Falling, and only when you're considering getting to the end of the game. All others serve purposes that can be achieved much faster if you just pretend the enchanting system doesn't exist.

 

[Headsprouter]

Don't play on peaceful, no matter how annoying the monsters are. Sucks a lot of fun out of the game.

Oh. This is interesting.

Got any more anti-peaceful arguments? I am gonna get a minecraft-capable computer, soon, and I plan to play on normal all the time. I have a friend who always plays on creative or peaceful, and I'd like to present some reasons to encourage him otherwise.

I can only see the game as fun with some fear and suspense seasoning, personally...

 

[McMullen]

Don't play on peaceful, no matter how annoying the monsters are. Sucks a lot of fun out of the game.

Oh. This is interesting.

Got any more anti-peaceful arguments? I am gonna get a minecraft-capable computer, soon, and I plan to play on normal all the time. I have a friend who always plays on creative or peaceful, and I'd like to present some reasons to encourage him otherwise.

I can only see the game as fun with some fear and suspense seasoning, personally...

Yahtzee goes into this a bit, but creative mode will quickly ruin MC for most people. The extra sense of accomplishment that you get knowing that you started with nothing is what will keep your interest in the game and your projects.

Peaceful means that you'll never be able to get certain items. It also teaches bad habits. It has the fun-killing easiness of Creative, but not the time-saving item abundance.

Creative is good for testing redstone circuits and expensive projects, but I can't think of any reason to play on Peaceful.

Hardcore is great, but shouldn't be used until you're aware of all the ways you can die because of bugs. Like waking up from bed in a two-meter high room and suffocating in the ceiling. That's an infuriating reason to lose a world.

 

[the_pleasure_is_mine]

Creative is good for testing redstone circuits and expensive projects, but I can't think of any reason to play on Peaceful.

Really?

Why are so many people anti-peaceful?

I generally play on normal on most worlds, but I have a peaceful world I've created on PC and on Xbox.

The point of this is to create all the castles and houses in my head that I just want to look good, without the hassle of having to fight and scavenge, and without Creepers blowing apart my every creation, I have the time to fully explore the depths of my imagination.

Sure it feels amazing when you managed to hastily scrape a fort together when a ton of Creepers are headed your way, but it also feels accomplished to gather all your resources and build huge decorative houses without the constant threat of everything exploding within hellish fire.