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[Neoxx]

Ironman Challenge Series:

Four Oh FouR

The bitch is back!

That's right, everybody, here comes the 1.8 mutant spawn of the 404 challenge!  The idea is simple:  Get your ass into the cave, then don't die.  What makes it actually not simple at all?  It's a giant cave comprised of 4 intersecting ravines, massive lava pools, and countless cave branches in every direction!  Did I mention there's 2 dungeons on each side of where you enter the cave?  Good luck with those.  Well, enough of my pointless drivel and let's get down to the details!

UPDATE: As of the 1.9 prerelease, the terrain generation has changed, and this will not work.  You will see the same terrain at the entry point, but it appears that the multiple ravines are not there any more, leaving a single one which  is pretty common.  I'll be updating the download link to include a larger generated area so you can explore the area and surrounding caves to an extent.  So, you can download this map and play on 1.9 if you want to use the new features.

Mist3rv33's playlist: (a great introduction to the challenge) http://www.youtube.c...DF7BD3D63BC5D4D


The Challenge

Enter the 'Four Oh FouR' cave and don't die.  Claim victory over it's depths, or die trying!

You will be swept do the deepest depths of the cave (again!) and face countless enemies and the wrath of the cave!

For those familiar with the original 404 Challenge, this will be very similar, but this time without the points system, and slightly less harsh restrictions!   OK, not really less harsh.  There are also many different levels of difficulty with their own unique restrictions. If you have ideas for more, post them and I may add it to the list!


How to set up the challenge

Download World: (Play using any minecraft version!)
Download the world (click "skip ad" on top right corner to get to download page) and unzip it to your .minecraft/saves folder.  You will be placed in front of a half dug hole leading down to the cave.  Gather your resources during the day, then head back here at dusk to finish the hole and enter the cave.

[This also goes toward buying me a drink and encourages me to do more challenges in the future!  Thanks!]

Create Seed World: (only works in 1.8 or 1.8.1)
1. Create a new world.  Click "More World Options..."

2. In the Seed box, type: Four Oh FouR   [Case sensitive. Remember the capital R at the end!]



3. When it's getting dark on the first day, find your way to the entrance point at [-16, 65, 357] (F3 to see coordinates), which is North-West from spawn, and dig a staircase down and to the west toward the sunset.  You will break into the save after about 10 steps.



4. Dig back to the water and let it flow down into the cave. Ride the water all the way down to the bottom!  There's a nice alcove for you to die in, too.







The Rules

1. You have 1 day above ground to gather supplies.  You may not go into any caves beyond sun lit areas to do so.

2. Once night falls, you must dig into the cave and enter it.  You may not go back to the surface (or break through to let in sun light) again for any reason.  You live in the cave.  You die in the cave.

3.* NO TORCHES!  Other sources of light (except sun light) are allowed.

5. Only mine ores that are visible.  You can dig around a visible ore to get the entire deposit, but no branch/strip mining allowed.  Any ores you find while digging a shelter can be kept.

6. Difficulty must be on Normal or Hard.  Hard difficulty gets you a 1.5x point multiplier.

7.* 1 life. If you die, the game is over.

8. No inventory edits or 'cheating' of any kind.

*Optional variations for increased/decreased difficulty apply.  See below for more info.


Variations for the faint of heart.

1. Let there be light!  You still cannot bring torches into the cave, as your wood got wet on the way down and is useless, but once you have grown a tree (without bone meal) you can use that wood for torches.  Maximum of 64 torches.

2. 1Up!  You can get 1 extra life if you make a bed, sleep in it in the cave, and respawn there when you die.


Achievements

Achievement points are how you keep track of your progress, and size yourself up to everyone else!  Even during the first day, there are chances to start racking up the points, and many involve first getting something on the surface.  The mob kills are counted twice and only twice per mob, and every other achievement can be counted only once.

First-ish Blood: Only the first 2 kills count, and after those 2 you don't get any more points.
Zombie: 2 each
Skeleton: 5 each
Spider: 5 each
Venomous Spider: 10 each
Creeper: 10 each
Enderman: 15 each
Zombie Pigman: 10 each
Ghast: 20 each
__________________________
Maximum mob points:   154

Collection:  Place on the ground (and never pick up) 1 block of the following:
Wood plank: A pat on the back.
Iron: 5
Gold: 10
Lapis Lazuli: 15
Diamond: 30
All 5 (Yes, 5) blocks next to each other: 15 points
Get a creeper to blow up next to all 5 blocks: 50 points!

Crafting:
Complete leather/iron/gold/diamond armor sets:  10/10/20/50 points
Bow and 64 arrows:  20 points
32 glass:  10 points
Place glowstone in the Overworld: 15 points


Gathering:
5 Pumpkins: 5 points
20 sugar cane: 10 points
30 wheat in 1 stack: 15 points

Asking For It: Wear a pumpkin on your head on your way into the cave. 10 points.

Guard Duty:  Go back to where you entered the cave and eliminate or nullify the 2 dungeon spawners.  Can be done when you first enter the cave if you're feeling brave.  30 points

Leap of Faith:  Sprint jump across a ravine gap (15+ blocks high) of 4 or more tiles wide.  15 points

Mighty Booting:  Hit a mob across any ravine gap (10+ blocks high) without killing it. 30 points

Greener Grass:  Take a trip to the Nether.  15 points

Center of Attention:  Make your home at the intersection of the 3 main ravines HERE. [-5, 25-35, 410]  10 points

Thatssss a nice... wait, where'd you go?  Build a completely hidden door using sticky pistons.  30 points

Unnecessary Contraption: Build a cobblestone generator that spans a lava pool.  20 points

....Now what?  Get an Ender Pearl by killing an Enderman by hand.  20 points

Bonus Achievements (must have 50 points to unlock these)

Ravine Runner:  Never build a shelter that mobs can't get into.  20 points.

Reusing Old Achievements for 20, Alex:  Never wear armor.  20 points.

Living Dangerously:  Play on hard difficulty.  1.5x point total.

RPG Style: Using xIGBClutchIx's XP Level Mod (download it here), score 5 points multiplied by your level when you die.  Max level: 20 (100 points)


If you have ideas for new achievements, feel free to post them.  More will likely be added over time, so check back later to have another go for more points!



Videos

My second run:
Part 1:


Part 2: (commentary)



Mist3rv33's playlist: http://www.youtube.c...DF7BD3D63BC5D4D

Ep 1:


Ep 2:


Good luck!

Edited by Neoxx, 25 September 2011 - 05:43 PM.

[Neoxx]

Well, I did my first official run.... and it didn't go as well as planned.  I got to the bottom OK, except for the creeper that blew the hell out of some coal and buried the rest in lava, and there wasn't as many monsters to greet me as my previous test runs had, so I was a bit lucky there.  I got everything setup at the bottom just fine.  Mobs were raining from the sky, which made me afraid to even leave the little alcove at the bottom, but I ventured out.  I turned the corner and found some diamond exposed right on the floor, and that was probably my downfall.  I wanted to get at the diamond, but its right where a bunch of caves dump out, from the sides and from above.  I was continuously under attack from skeletons, and in my distraction I side stepped right into the lava pond that I thought I was far enough away from and died in seconds.

I recorded it, no commentary, but it seemed a bit choppy so I may not upload it.  I'll have to tweak the settings for it for the future videos.

Kills:
3 Zombies: 4 pts
3 Skeletons: 10
3 Spiders: 10
3 Creepers: 20

Final score:  44 points.  Pretty pathetic.


The one thing I'd want for this is to be able to get rid of the fog.  When you're down so low you cant hardly see any of the enormous cave above you, so how massive this place is is lost at first glance.  I'll keep my eye out for a mod that changes that, and hopefully the opocolypse mod is updated to 1.8 so you'll die if you stay on the surface too long.

[FireOwl7]

Well, im going to give a tes run later.

[Battamer]

easy peasy lol

[Teh Wils0]

Well my maiden voyage lasted all of literally one minute..

Obviously I didn't get far but I put the next bit in a spoiler as not to wreck any of this AWESOME map for anyone else

Spoiler:

Jumped into the Four-Oh-FouR cave and saw one way and the other.

Naturally I shit bricks and hauled ass towards the lesser group of evil shit ( ). Saw a spawner and thought I would have better luck against the creeper trio, tried to do a quick turn and moved the mouse so quickly I did a complete 360 and just started running back towards the other group.

Miraculously I dodged them but then got shish-kabob'd by 10 skeletons and tea bagged by a spider.

High five for an epic fail! I might take it off hard for my next try...

I never tried the old 404 but from what i've seen on youtube this one roasts it!

[Archiphres]

I'm trying this out. Looks good so far. I'll post final score when I'm done.

[Archiphres]

My foray into the cave lasted two hours before a creeper exploded in my face. It's a very difficult seed. My final score(hard difficulty):

Kills:
2x Zombie 6 pts
2x Spider 15 pts
2x Creeper 30 pts
2x Skeleton 15 pts
1x Enderman 22 pts

Achievements:
Guard Duty 45 pts
(   dungeon right behind where the water dropped me, and    dungeon to the right and above with Music Disc in one of the chests)

...Now what? 30 pts
(The one Enderman I found dropped an Ender Pearl)

Bonuses:
Reusing Old Achievements for 200, Alex +30 pts
Not wearing armor is probably what led to my untimely demise...

Total score: 193

[Chezzik]

20+ Zombies: 4
3 Skeleton: 10
1 Venomous Spider: 10
3 Creeper: 20

44 points   I died because the knockback from an arrow put me into the lava.

Wow, this cave is absolutely awesome.  I had no idea natural caves could be this large!

[FireOwl7]

Glad you like my seed!

And this cave actually is four crossing ravines intermingled with an epic cave system.

[Neoxx]

FireOwl7, on 21 September 2011 - 05:52 AM, said:

Glad you like my seed!

And this cave actually is four crossing ravines intermingled with an epic cave system.

Yes, I have that in the first paragraph of the OP


Good to see people  trying it out!  I think its not quite as unforgiving of a start as 404, but it really depends on how you approach it.  If you head straight for the bottom, you might avoid some of the mob spawner mobs, but you could also run into a huge group that got swept down the water just like you.

I recorded a second run, but this time in half resolution, so it should be less choppy than the full 1080p that I did the first time.  Might have to back down my window to near-720p or as close as I can size it and try to record in full size with that to get the best quality possible.  Might attempt some commentary as well, but we'll see.


Protip:  Dont let diamonds distract you from your enemies!  I have learned that first hand....

[Chezzik]

Neoxx, on 21 September 2011 - 05:58 PM, said:

Yes, I have that in the first paragraph of the OP

Well, he probably thought that I hadn't read that, based on the wording of my comment.  I did know that they were chasms, but the phrasing of my "it's huge" comment made it sound as if I didn't realize they were chasms.

Hey, could your clarify the "no strip mining" restriction in your original post?  I assume that carving out a large room for a shelter is fine, but if resources are found that way, do they have to be thrown out?

[Neoxx]

Chezzik, on 21 September 2011 - 06:19 PM, said:

Well, he probably thought that I hadn't read that, based on the wording of my comment.  I did know that they were chasms, but the phrasing of my "it's huge" comment made it sound as if I didn't realize they were chasms.

Hey, could your clarify the "no strip mining" restriction in your original post?  I assume that carving out a large room for a shelter is fine, but if resources are found that way, do they have to be thrown out?

You can dig out rooms and stuff for yourself, but you can keep anything you find while doing it.  Just dont go digging into stone for the express purpose of finding ore you dont already know is there.

But, that doesn't mean you should just "add another room" onto your base just for the hell of it so you might find more ore.  Some good rooms would be a farm room or a tree room, both require a fairly large amount of space.


I actually missed your first comment, so his reply to you was a bit out of context.  My bad.


I'm going to try to throw together my second run tonight, so I'll hopefully update this post and the OP with it.  Thanks to everyone for playing so far!

[Neoxx]

I uploaded my second run and added a 'Videos' section to the OP for anyone who wants to upload theirs as well.  Not all will be added, but if its particularly informative, funny, fail, or anything else notable I'll put it on there!

[Chezzik]

Ha!  Awesome video!  Nice job annotating it the whole way.  

I gave out a belly laugh when your 'tamed' chicken jumped in the lava

By the way, there are at least 5 canyons.  The main that you land in is actually two that joined together, which explains why it is so wide.  I flew around all 5 in creative mode and marked them with different colors of cloth, and I can tell that it is definitely 5 distinct canyons.

[Neoxx]

Chezzik, on 22 September 2011 - 05:50 AM, said:

Ha!  Awesome video!  Nice job annotating it the whole way.  

I gave out a belly laugh when your 'tamed' chicken jumped in the lava

By the way, there are at least 5 canyons.  The main that you land in is actually two that joined together, which explains why it is so wide.  I flew around all 5 in creative mode and marked them with different colors of cloth, and I can tell that it is definitely 5 distinct canyons.

Yeah, I was pretty pissed when I couldnt trap the chicken.  I failed pretty hard at it twice, I'll admit.  Hopefully another one will wander down the water slide into my grasp! I'll have to setup a cage at the bottom of the water to catch anything that comes down.

I'm currently trying to figure out why my mic isnt working, so I can continue with these with commentary as well.  Maybe late tonight, probably tomorrow night.


I know that theres 3 distinct ravines that are going in different directions in the main area.  There is a 4th thats at a different elevation but follows nearly the same path as another in there too.  Where did you see the 5th?  I've seen more not connected to the main area while exploring through some caves as well, but they probably wont be seen while doing the challenge.

[Chezzik]

Neoxx, on 22 September 2011 - 05:57 AM, said:

I know that theres 3 distinct ravines that are going in different directions in the main area.  There is a 4th thats at a different elevation but follows nearly the same path as another in there too.  Where did you see the 5th?  

One of the main canyons starts at about -27,yyy,427.  As you follow it along, it goes through the triangular nexus, and then right by where the player enters.

At 5,19,359, it splits into 2 tails.  You have to be about 7 blocks higher than the bottom of the chasm to see the split.  One of the tails ends at 11,yyy,352.  The other tail (the main one) continues all the way to about 3,yyy,327.

I can't tell the two chasms apart in the places where they are joined, but it explains why it feels so big when you first enter.

[Mudkippers]

Gonna do a run with a friend of mine

[Neoxx]

Part 2!  This time with commentary, for better or worse....

[Duracelplus]

Well this is how my 1st experience went.
Wasted half the day farming wood to burn for planks and wood then released I didn't need that only a sapling. Got a bunch of Sand, a bunch of gravel and dirt, got a bunch of flowers, looked for sugar canes and pumpkins, found loads of chicken and cows. Em.... So when I ran into the Dungeon I had enough food to keep me alive the 1st few days and so much wood if i placed it i would burn alive due to the lava. Ran into the cave killed a creeper. Was wondering if I should kill the Enderman, decided to dig my house out next to the lavafall. Went down to collect iron to make buckets to make my light source. Death by creeper and Rage quit. I will try it later on again, but for now that Creeper made me angry

[Neoxx]

Duracelplus, on 22 September 2011 - 06:45 PM, said:

Well this is how my 1st experience went.
Wasted half the day farming wood to burn for planks and wood then released I didn't need that only a sapling. Got a bunch of Sand, a bunch of gravel and dirt, got a bunch of flowers, looked for sugar canes and pumpkins, found loads of chicken and cows. Em.... So when I ran into the Dungeon I had enough food to keep me alive the 1st few days and so much wood if i placed it i would burn alive due to the lava. Ran into the cave killed a creeper. Was wondering if I should kill the Enderman, decided to dig my house out next to the lavafall. Went down to collect iron to make buckets to make my light source. Death by creeper and Rage quit. I will try it later on again, but for now that Creeper made me angry

Yeah, some refining of your gathering would have helped, although that won't fix you not being cautious enough when mining ores.   Mobs pretty much rain from above the whole time you're in there.  Better luck next time!

You can find gravel and dirt underground, so thats not necessary. Flowers?  I guess if you are alive long enough to make a proper garden...  I think chickens are the most important resource, as they give food and feathers for making arrows, and if you get enough eggs you may hope to make an egg farm so you never run out of feathers in the future.