Getting lost in Minecraft

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TerranReaper

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Mar 28, 2009
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I personally make "beacons" with 2x2x5 towers of cobblestone and stick some torches to mark where I've been and places of interest. I also use the hellstone with flint and steel to replace torches for those beacons.
 

ZeroMachine

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Oct 11, 2008
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Little tip: the clouds always flow north.


Other than that, like everyone's been saying, lay down torches or make landmarks.
 

Vicarious Vangaurd

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Jun 7, 2010
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DasDestroyer said:
mirror said:
DasDestroyer said:
To get home I use a compass and usually build a 1 block tower all the way into the clouds near my home, just so that I can see it from further away.
Under the ground I follow the torches, and if I have a cave branch that leads to a dead end, I take some cobblestone and cover the entrance to it, leaving a few gaps so that I know not to dig there.
And if you've hopelessly lost your summer home, I suggest getting the cartographer program, and finding it there.
I would build a similar tower, but I have to turn the draw distance way down. And what is this cartography??
Basically, Cartographer is a program which you can use to make a .png image of your map from above or isometrically. You can also use it for finding certain types of blocks on the map (eg. Diamond Ore) or for mapping your caves, but that's beside the point.
http://www.minecraftforum.net/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=13134
Once it renders it, you have an eagle's eye view of your map, and unless you made your summer house blend in perfectly with the surroundings or underground, you should find it fairly quickly.
mirror said:
Thanks for the good tips so far, and I'm realizing that I'm getting lost because my inclination to see every biome is greater than wanting to stay in my nice little tower. I just HAVE to see the nether.
The easiest way to get to the nether is to get a bucket, fill it with lava, wall off a single empty block from all sides except the top, fill it with lava, fill the bucket with water, and pour the water over the lava to make obsidian. Repeat this 10 times, in the shape of a portal, and voila.
Brotip: bring lots of cobblestone to the nether, otherwise the ghasts will rape you and anything you try to make out of the blocks you can find there.
Yo Das Destroyer, thanks for Cartograph and the nether
 

jamradar

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Sep 13, 2010
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Try building roads.

Build a mine and mine up a bunch of cobblestone, then make a road to where you are planning on building something. Don't forget to put down signs at the start of the roads telling you where they lead to.
 

Snotnarok

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Nov 17, 2008
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qeinar said:
Snip

hmm i might do that. :D *searches for cartograph*
Basically shove the program on your PC somewhere (anywhere seems to work and it didn't work for me IN the minecraft folder so yeah) and there's a few render options, just for your (bastard) huge size you might have to wait a few for it to render.

It's not about how many bites it is! D:!!!
 

KingFall

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Sep 18, 2010
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Arrrgh. I want Minecraft, dammit. -grumbles-

A hundred megs... damn. The 35 meg one was huge.. holy crap.
Out of curiosity, how hard is it to get started on the game? I've got a friend who says it infuriated him to attempt anything, and he couldn't last more than three days in each try. That bad, or is he just having bad luck?
Not that it'll influence me eventually buying it. I'm getting a copy, no matter what. >=|
 

Broderick

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May 25, 2010
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I generally just make a 10 tall 1 wide tower to mark caves and important places like that(any material will do, although cobblestone might work best as it clashes with the scenery). Heres a tip, not sure if its mentioned yet, but the clouds always move north(may have changed, dont think so though), use that as a hint if you get lost.
 

Jfswift

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Nov 2, 2009
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Make signs, setup up distinct landmarks along the way and create a base camp at the spawn point. That's my advice (I get lost too sometimes , especially underground.. try to leave a trial of torches to follow or specific colored blocks.. maybe build an arrow into the wall)
 

Broderick

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KingFall said:
Arrrgh. I want Minecraft, dammit. -grumbles-

A hundred megs... damn. The 35 meg one was huge.. holy crap.
Out of curiosity, how hard is it to get started on the game? I've got a friend who says it infuriated him to attempt anything, and he couldn't last more than three days in each try. That bad, or is he just having bad luck?
Not that it'll influence me eventually buying it. I'm getting a copy, no matter what. >=|
He might be having bad luck, or he is doing it wrong(I kid, you never know though). Its kinda a snowball effect; You first have to worry about a shelter, food, and tools, once you have those however, your free to do as you please. Starting off with wood tools, then go mining for cobblestone and make stone tools, then mine more. After that you will be swimming in cobblestone and probably some iron. It just takes a bit to get the ball rolling, once its rolling however, it gets much easier to tdo things quickly and efficiantly.
 

InnerRebellion

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On the server me and my friend privately play on, we made sure we have set up a lit road to where we head off to that day. We never go too deep, unless we have torches to bring with us. Whats really cool is that all of our tunnels lead back into the massive crater we blew into the center of our world. Took so munch TNT to get it to take up the center.
 

e2density

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Dec 25, 2009
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What I always do is make sure you remember where your spawn is, and the first thing you do is get torches. Then make trails of torches all over the world and get used to 'em. You can also render night maps in Cartographer (as shown in post 34) then you can see all your trails.
 

DasDestroyer

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qeinar said:
Snotnarok said:
qeinar said:
Snotnarok said:
I make a 3 stone tall pillar for markers and a L shaped one for a dungeon, usually I top them with a torch for extra visibility.

Also there's cartograph a awesome program that shows you the world you're in.


I haven't played it in a while so all the trees are same-y but I was trying to explore as much as I could on the surface...which is my why world is 35MB...
mines over 100 mb now. : <
A hundred me-....you ...you! ...:| ....Bastard! >:U How dare you get more bites than me!

That's quite impressive, you should use cartograph to take a few pics to show off. It can show you the level from the top, oblique, night, day and even the cave systems.
hmm i might do that. :D *searches for cartograph*
My main is only 31 mb Q_Q
And it takes the cartograph around 2 minutes to render my map, around 4 minutes to render the caves, around 7 minutes to render it isometrically, so it may take quite some time to render a 100 mb map :D
KingFall said:
Arrrgh. I want Minecraft, dammit. -grumbles-

A hundred megs... damn. The 35 meg one was huge.. holy crap.
Out of curiosity, how hard is it to get started on the game? I've got a friend who says it infuriated him to attempt anything, and he couldn't last more than three days in each try. That bad, or is he just having bad luck?
Not that it'll influence me eventually buying it. I'm getting a copy, no matter what. >=|
You just need to learn quite a bit about the game before you play. Unless you like being insanely frustrated from not knowing a single tactic/crafting recipe.

I should upload my map...
 

orbvalor

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Feb 5, 2011
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... it took me 4 hours, but alas i have finally punched my way out of my own cave. 4 hours... i was so pissed when i accidentally pressed "g" and threw my diamond pic into lava when i wanted to throw gravel into it. I was so pissed at myself. after freaking out and diving into the lava to kill myself i remembered that i had 12 diamonds and 14 obsidian in my bag. So i climbed out of the lava and ran towards the water. I was saved... so i thought when i got blown up by a creeper. i was at 1/2 a heart and i felt as if the beeping sound in SNES zelda was warning me of my death. I was going to cheat and turn the game to peaceful and heal but i forgot that the "Esc" on my keyboard is broken and have to Alt+F4 to quit minecraft... but i managed to escape and the light of day was over more amazing then anything. i was able to get to my safe house and put away all my things.
 

whaleswiththumbs

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Feb 13, 2009
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Before i build i just get a good feel for the surronding land. I'm not much for exploring until i have that initial base set. Then i'll probably abandon it and start over somewhere else
 

KingFall

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Sep 18, 2010
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Broderick said:
KingFall said:
Arrrgh. I want Minecraft, dammit. -grumbles-

A hundred megs... damn. The 35 meg one was huge.. holy crap.
Out of curiosity, how hard is it to get started on the game? I've got a friend who says it infuriated him to attempt anything, and he couldn't last more than three days in each try. That bad, or is he just having bad luck?
Not that it'll influence me eventually buying it. I'm getting a copy, no matter what. >=|
He might be having bad luck, or he is doing it wrong(I kid, you never know though). Its kinda a snowball effect; You first have to worry about a shelter, food, and tools, once you have those however, your free to do as you please. Starting off with wood tools, then go mining for cobblestone and make stone tools, then mine more. After that you will be swimming in cobblestone and probably some iron. It just takes a bit to get the ball rolling, once its rolling however, it gets much easier to tdo things quickly and efficiantly.
Hey, thanks. I'll remember to keep that in mind, eh?
 

KingFall

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Sep 18, 2010
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I found this thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VWnQHS-ffs
.... kinda long winded, but it has some nice details. Figured I'd throw it in here, and also (Heheh) IM it to my poor buddy. Maybe he'll last longer, now.
Taking a look at the crafting thing, it'd probably have messed with me for a bit.
 

Cazza

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Jul 13, 2010
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I make totem poles in sight of each other when travellering. I also make the odd larger marker like a tower or obelisk. Near major places so you can see them from very far way.

I always make the main village or whatever by spawn. So a compass or dieing always brings me back to a good place.
 

DasDestroyer

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Apr 3, 2010
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[http://img815.imageshack.us/img815/5547/map2fz.jpg]
There we go :D
Note that the floating chunks away from the mainland are due to me using nether portals too much :D
Let's see how much of my own crap I can find on this map...
Floating tower, obsidian tower, main base, waterfall house, lighthouse and bridge, spawn point and farm, I can just barely see(or rather guess) where my underwater base is, but I can't seem to find the HELP sign that I made in the ground when I got lost and needed to find myself on the cartographer.
 

qeinar

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Jul 14, 2009
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Snotnarok said:
qeinar said:
Snotnarok said:
I make a 3 stone tall pillar for markers and a L shaped one for a dungeon, usually I top them with a torch for extra visibility.

Also there's cartograph a awesome program that shows you the world you're in.


I haven't played it in a while so all the trees are same-y but I was trying to explore as much as I could on the surface...which is my why world is 35MB...
mines over 100 mb now. : <
A hundred me-....you ...you! ...:| ....Bastard! >:U How dare you get more bites than me!

That's quite impressive, you should use cartograph to take a few pics to show off. It can show you the level from the top, oblique, night, day and even the cave systems.
rofl i just cartographed my world and it looks buggy as shit since i've had it a long time and it once bugged, since i originally started in a snow world, but then it bugged and poof suddenly my world was normal so i have huge flat walls around my original starting area. xD

btw my overworld map is not that ridiculously huge, although conciderable bigger than yours. i have done some insane exploring in the nether.. xD (i got my own railroad system there..(