Minecraft Forums

"Griefing" is altering and/or ruining stuff that you build. Some servers give you an area where you know your creations won't be subject to other players doing stuff to them. Strictly Vanilla allows it.

You should try Strictly Vanilla. It is very family friendly, so they do police swearing in chat, etc. But they don't prohibit griefing or pvp, if that's important to you.

Website - https://strictlyvanilla.org/

Survival server - mc.strictlyvanilla.org

I had your exact same experience (same grinder, too). After some time, I finally saw some spawn - but it was a rare event. I would find plenty of slime balls in my chest, but hardly ever saw the event.

Current realistic goals:

1) Build several "spooky" themed buildings before Halloween.

2) Build a gunpowder/music disc farm.

I've been watching YouTube videos of structures I like, and duplicating them in order to learn. I am seeing some results: I designed my own pub the other day and I think it looks quite good, if I do say so. A couple of good YouTube builders are Pixlriffs and Grian.

They're great if you want to build a roller coaster.

I try the explore-and-block-off method when exploring. Worse comes to worse, I can always dig straight up.

Playing in PE on a tablet, fighting skeletons in melee is almost impossible. I have learned how to handle it, some, but when I first started playing the knockback was just insane. I couldn't get close enough to ever hit them.

Playing on a server, catching fire in the Nether seems to cause so much lag, I sometimes stumble around. Screen informs me I'm dead before I even know I've stepped in lava. (This is not 100% of the time, but it can happen when the server plus my computer are both laggy.)

This looks pretty great. I'll try to download the map and try it some time.

I've conquered one. I was fortunate to have some good armor enchantments suited for the job, so in retrospect it didn't seem that bad.

Ideally you will want boots with Depth Strider, and a helmet with Aqua Affinity and Respiration. With a high Respiration enchantment, honestly, water breathing potions were almost not worth it. Also, if you take milk to get rid of the mining fatigue (and you should - I would say 5 buckets minimum), you will cancel all the other potion effects as well. You can place a torch on a wall, it will create an air bubble for a fraction of a second. Placing a ladder on a wall makes a permanent air pocket for you. Combine that with Respiration, and I really didn't use water breathing much.

I would go in from the top and try to find the Elder up there first. I used a strength potion to make it easier to take him down, but they're really not all that bad once you find them. Then the other two are supposed to be in the wings of the lower structure. These can be harder to find.

After I got those 3 Elders out, I was lucky enough to find 2 sponge rooms. They were instrumental in drying out the interior of the structure. I walled off sections to work a small amount at a time.

I know this doesn't apply to the situation, but learned the hard way to not take your "preciouses" into the Nether if you're going there for construction. I was building a walled off tunnel across a lava lake, but got knocked off by a ghast at the wrong time.

The best thing I've found to revitalize the adventure of vanilla survival play is to start a hardcore world. Suddenly, everything in the game matters a whole lot more. For example, one becomes very, very happy to find one's first coal and iron veins. Danger lurks around every corner. Just digging down to the lava layer becomes a harrowing battle sometimes.

Neat, huh?

I used a woodland explorer map ages ago, and the mansion was 3-4k away both X and Z axis.

Was just wandering around a couple of days ago, and there's a mansion like 800 blocks away.

Sigh.