I have a dilemma on my hands. I don't particularly like where I am currently, but I don't know for sure I'll find anything better. It's a pretty new world; I've got a small house, a small wheat farm (16 blocks), and that's pretty much it. I have no armor, no animal farms, and I've only found enough iron to make a sword (I did have more iron, but I died and lost it). I do have a few carrots & potatoes I looted from a nearby village I found between my spawn point and my current location (a swamp biome), but I haven't planted them for the same reason I haven't started capturing livestock: I'm very reluctant to put the resources into making a real farm in a place I don't really want to stay.
My thoughts keep chasing themselves in circles. I want to see if I can find a better place (or at least, a place I like better), but to explore I need resources that would be a lot more plentiful if I had a farm. but do I want to put that much effort into place I might leave for good at any given time? And I don't want to slaughter all the animals for the food and other items; what if I wander everywhere and find there really is nothing better in this world, but now I can't even do well here because all the animals are gone? Yes, the Xbox 360 worlds are small, but still.
I admit, if not for the village that had the carrots and potatoes, I would probably have deleted this world and started another (I still think the idea that those are only available as rare mob drops or village loot is garbage).
Has anyone else had this problem? What did you do, and how did you decide?
Make it simple. Make simple but bit bigger farms, plant potatoes, go mining, get armor. Harvest, replant and go exploring. Simple potato farm takes next to no effort and you need iron armor anyway.
Go mine to increase your resources and build a small potato farm. It will keep you fed and are totally renewable, so when you finally find a spot that you like you will still have it to start a new farm.
Just go for a walk about; you'll accumulate a fair few resources as you explore. Considering you're always moving and the returns you get on food; there won't be anything noticeable with missing wildlife. Likewise there's a fair bit of iron on the surface. Good luck
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A mighty machine built within the wake
Of a long dead dream, little demon awake
The citizens sleep, never quite knowing when
The device will reawaken, hungry again.
Yeah, I guess planting the potatoes is a good idea. Actually, I should probably plant the carrots too; I imagine they're as safe in the ground as they are in a chest. Plus unlike the potatoes, I only have carrots for pig farming.
So I guess I'll do that, and in the meantime I'll check out that cave I've been avoiding. I was nearly killed as I stood in the mouth; something started shooting me (a skeleton, naturally), and in my frantic attempts to escape I hit the wrong button and changed the camera angle so I still couldn't see what was happening, or where I was going, and ran in circles like an idiot until I realized I was clear :lol:.
However, last time I played I made my first hostile mob kill when I went after a skeleton. In the water. With a sword. And no armor. Believe me, I would rather not have done so (I read the wiki, so I knew it was a really bad idea), but it was literally right behind my house! I was afraid if I left it there I'd forget about it, then wander over for something else and catch a bunch of arrows to the face. That helped me realize if I want to get anything done, I need to stop being so afraid of getting hit and get on with it.
I usually build a shack right near spawn to have some shelter and dig straight down to get resources. As you explore, you are bound to come across desirable locations. By which time you will probably have enough stuff to settle down somewhere nicer. The addition of mules in the game has certainly helped with regards to moving house!
Depending on what difficulty level you're playing on... Replanting village gardens as you raid them takes no time at all and ensures an easy food supply. Also, collect a rather large supply of wood and take the time to add a number of doors to the village houses so that the villages can mate to maintain their population whenever the village might be overrun by zombies. Then, if you're not playing on hard, temporarily move into one of the village houses (if you're playing on hard, it's better to move yourself well away from the village so the villagers have a better chance of survival). Then, start digging a stair down right through the floor of the house you're in. When you hit level 12, start tunneling straight ahead, checking your map periodically. You'll notice the map start to fill in. When you see an area on the surface that interests you, start working you're way up to the surface to check it out. You'll get lots of resources and gain a tunnel system that you can turn into an underground railroad system later on.
When tunneling on level 12, be sure to craft a bucket and fill it with water at the first opportunity. Use it to pour water over any of the laval lakes you're likely to encounter at your feet to turn the top layer of them into obsidian... makes the tunneling go much quicker.
Lots of good ideas so far. I like the idea of expanding your farms up top before spending a lot of time below, especially if you're raising cash crops like wheat and cane. While you're digging below, they're growing above (if you're in the area). If you are going to do some branch mining, you might want to locate some furnaces near a L12 lava lake. As you smelt iron, makes some buckets, gather some lava and smelt some cobblestone into stone. Lots of xp, and frees up your early coal for torches -- you should be using lots. As you branch, use some shovels to clear out all dirt/gravel to find lots of ores, including diamonds. There's lots of easy pickings down low, and by branching you limit your exposure to hostile mobs.
I love my world, but it's nice to remember how much fun it is when you start a new one. Enjoy!
So. I planted my other crops, harvested, and replanted. That was a good idea. I checked out the cave, and it turned out to be nothing. I did some digging down (tricky business in a swamp) and found 6 iron for my troubles. I did get really frustrated because as I was digging I would hear zombies off and on (which means a cave), but could never find them. On the way out I finally got my chance to fight a skeleton on land when one wearing a gold chest plate wandered in and attacked.
I did a little preliminary exploring, and found I'm close to one end of the world: I went behind my house, then just kept going, and promptly ran into an ocean. but I found a ravine like, right there, so it wasn't a total waste. It's close enough to the water that a tiny bit of digging should give me a nice water elevator to get up and down once I'm ready to explore it.
Right now I need to chop and replant trees until I have at least a stack of charcoal for surface exploring. I'm not interested in the jungle I can see from my house, but there might be something interesting past it. Otherwise it's over the giant hills and back the way I came, and I really don't want to go back to the snow biome I spawned in.
And all this mining and exploring is going to be tricky for a while, since I lost my map when I died the first time.
So. I planted my other crops, harvested, and replanted. That was a good idea. I checked out the cave, and it turned out to be nothing. I did some digging down (tricky business in a swamp) and found 6 iron for my troubles. I did get really frustrated because as I was digging I would hear zombies off and on (which means a cave), but could never find them. On the way out I finally got my chance to fight a skeleton on land when one wearing a gold chest plate wandered in and attacked.
I did a little preliminary exploring, and found I'm close to one end of the world: I went behind my house, then just kept going, and promptly ran into an ocean. but I found a ravine like, right there, so it wasn't a total waste. It's close enough to the water that a tiny bit of digging should give me a nice water elevator to get up and down once I'm ready to explore it.
Right now I need to chop and replant trees until I have at least a stack of charcoal for surface exploring. I'm not interested in the jungle I can see from my house, but there might be something interesting past it. Otherwise it's over the giant hills and back the way I came, and I really don't want to go back to the snow biome I spawned in.
And all this mining and exploring is going to be tricky for a while, since I lost my map when I died the first time.
You can craft yourself a new map once you acquire the correct resources for it. (iron, redstone and paper (which comes from sugar cane). Even though, without a map, you'll be travelling across the surface, I wouldn't worry about turning a stack of wood into charcoal to explore. Craft a bed instead, take it with you and place it and go to sleep at dusk every night and break it every morning. (Note: if you die, your respawn will be back at the initial world spawn). If you're quick enough at dusk, very few mobs will ever get a chance to spawn. Also, if you're moving around on the map quickly enough, you'll be "outrunning" most of them anyways. You'll probably actually only encounter a few of them.
Even so, if what you want it to gather more mineral resources, this is best done by branch mining on the lower levels (between Y1 and Y17). Level Y12 is best because, as I said, it's easy to turn the laval you'll likely encounter at your feet into obsidian with a simple bucket of water. Just poor it on a sold block right next to the lava, let it spread out and then collect it again with your bucket (rinse and repeat).
Sounds like you're off to a good start! Once you make that charcoal, use half of it to make torches. That will net you 2 full stacks of torches, which should be plenty for what I'm about to suggest. Make 3 Stone Pickaxes, 2 Stone Swords, 1 Iron Pickaxe, and 1 Iron Sword. Grab a bunch of food, and maybe some Wood Planks. That's all you'll need. Using the Stone Pick, start digging a stairway downward (enough to walk 1 block down, 1 block over, etc.) and place a Torch about every 7th block to be conservative. That will keep most of the baddies away. If you see one, kill it with the Stone Sword. If you see more than one, use the Iron Sword. Keep digging with the Stone Pick to find more resources. Only use the Iron Pick if you find Redstone, Emerald, Gold, or Diamonds. Keep digging and exploring until your last Stone Pick breaks. Now turn around and follow your torches back home. Smelt all the ores for more Experience. The reason for this trip? a. It's fun!, b. It's the easiest way to acquire resources in a short amount of time, and c. With 24 Iron ingots, you can make a full suit of armor to wear. If you have 4 extra iron ingots and 1 Redstone, you can make a Compass. With 1 Compass and 8 pieces of Paper, you can make a new map! No more wandering around aimlessly. Good luck.
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
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Since you seem like a new player to Minecraft, I recommend that you currently focus on establishing your base. By what you have written, it does seem like you have some type of base started, but lets go over the basics just to save you a good deal of hardship.
step 1: Find a suitable place where you can survive and have easily available food resources and wood (villages are the best for new players). You are not experienced enough yet to go running around the wild and you will simply get killed. So just pick the best spot you can find and you will learn better ways of doing things as time passes.
Step 2: Once your food and basic shelter is in place, dig a few blocks down and mine some of the stone to create stone tools and a furnace (You will need wood to produce tools).
step 3: Collect as much wood as you can from the trees, and collect the saplings. Be sure to watch the sun while cutting as you may want to avoid getting caught in the night and having mobs spawn everywhere.
Step 4: Once you have plenty of wooden planks, build a simple structure. Since you are a new player, I would recommend a straight forward design such as a 10x10 interior which translates to a 12x12 structure overall. The height can be about five blocks up, with block five serving as your temporary roof. You can later add a second floor to this basic structure that can fit an enchantment setup and other necessities.
Step 5: Once your basic structure is made, make sure you have plenty of torches to light the place up. after that, use some wood to make fence posts and fence gates. Build a fence around your structure in order to keep the mobs away, I would recommend building the fence about five blocks away to give you a reasonable amount of space. This will give you four blocks of room from the walls of the structure, and also keep in mind that creepers will explode once you get too close, even while on the other side of a fence.
Step 6: Place your bed inside the structure, and set your spawn.
Step 7: Increase your food production by building a farm that can meet your needs. Farms are very easy to make, so this should not be too hard. You can farm wheat seeds from tall grass if you need wheat.
Step 8: Now that you have food, some basic tools, and a secure base to operate from, build a dozen ladders in order to mine to level 12 of the world. Then select a corner in your house and begin mining straight down, placing the ladders as you go. Be sure to either save or take other safety precautions before you mine down as you don't want to hit lava and die.
With this way, you will be able to avoid fighting mobs every night guaranteed and will have the time to learn more about the game and collect resources. You will find mobs here and there when you need to go outside or when you stumble upon caves in your artificial mine, but as time passes, you will soon find that you can fight creepers, zombies, and skeletons with just your bare hands. Remember to keep your structure simple and don't try to build something that will require vast amounts of time and effort.
I want at least a stack of torches so I can leave a trail of them behind me as I explore (I get lost easily even with a map; I don't want to think about how much worse it would be without).
I'm debating with myself about the iron; I can't decide whether to make tools, or hold onto it until I have enough to make a chest plate. I really need some armor.
This is my first foray into Survival, but I've been playing Minecraft on Peaceful for awhile, so I think I've got a decent grasp on the basics. Except combat. But that should improve with experience, right?
Also, I've been thinking about farming some animals anyway, just for ease of access to materials. So, what's better: digging pits, or fences?
Since you seem like a new player to Minecraft, I recommend that you currently focus on establishing your base. By what you have written, it does seem like you have some type of base started, but lets go over the basics just to save you a good deal of hardship.
step 1: Find a suitable place where you can survive and have easily available food resources and wood (villages are the best for new players). You are not experienced enough yet to go running around the wild and you will simply get killed. So just pick the best spot you can find and you will learn better ways of doing things as time passes.
Step 2: Once your food and basic shelter is in place, dig a few blocks down and mine some of the stone to create stone tools and a furnace (You will need wood to produce tools).
step 3: Collect as much wood as you can from the trees, and collect the saplings. Be sure to watch the sun while cutting as you may want to avoid getting caught in the night and having mobs spawn everywhere.
Step 4: Once you have plenty of wooden planks, build a simple structure. Since you are a new player, I would recommend a straight forward design such as a 10x10 interior which translates to a 12x12 structure overall. The height can be about five blocks up, with block five serving as your temporary roof. You can later add a second floor to this basic structure that can fit an enchantment setup and other necessities.
Step 5: Once your basic structure is made, make sure you have plenty of torches to light the place up. after that, use some wood to make fence posts and fence gates. Build a fence around your structure in order to keep the mobs away, I would recommend building the fence about five blocks away to give you a reasonable amount of space. This will give you four blocks of room from the walls of the structure, and also keep in mind that creepers will explode once you get too close, even while on the other side of a fence.
Step 6: Place your bed inside the structure, and set your spawn.
Step 7: Increase your food production by building a farm that can meet your needs. Farms are very easy to make, so this should not be too hard. You can farm wheat seeds from tall grass if you need wheat.
Step 8: Now that you have food, some basic tools, and a secure base to operate from, build a dozen ladders in order to mine to level 12 of the world. Then select a corner in your house and begin mining straight down, placing the ladders as you go. Be sure to either save or take other safety precautions before you mine down as you don't want to hit lava and die.
With this way, you will be able to avoid fighting mobs every night guaranteed and will have the time to learn more about the game and collect resources. You will find mobs here and there when you need to go outside or when you stumble upon caves in your artificial mine, but as time passes, you will soon find that you can fight creepers, zombies, and skeletons with just your bare hands. Remember to keep your structure simple and don't try to build something that will require vast amounts of time and effort.
Hope this helps
There was a time where I too would have recommended setting up an extensive and safe home base. However, the new "regional difficulty" aspect of the game (where mob difficulty increases the longer you stay in an area) may require many people to rethink this basic strategy and adopt a more nomadic style of play or at least move towards establishing a number of smaller outlying "camps" that enable the player to move around the map, collect basic resources, and hone their skills a bit while postponing the point where the mobs will start to scale up in difficulty.
So, my basics list now goes more like this:
1) Upon first spawning in a new world, mark your spawn location (a small dirt tower does the trick). If wood is available near spawn, start punching. Gather enough to make a crafting bench and then make an wooden pick. Be sure to collect any apples or saplings that fall). Dig a few blocks down wherever you are standing to quickly gather some at least 15 cobblestone. Make a stone axe, a stone pick axe a stone sword and a furnace. Gather more wood and slaughter whatever animals you can spot close by for food until dusk. Then... quickly dig into the side of the nearest hill or dig a short stair way down, blocking it such that there is a single hole above the second step down (so you will be able to tell when it turns light again but mobs (which are two blocks tall) will not be able to get down the stairs. Enlarge your cubby-hole and set down your stove. Cook some of your wood to make charcoal for a few torches and cook whatever meat you've managed to collect... and you will probably have to eat some.
2) If you have managed to collect 3 wool, make a bed and sleep in it to short-circuit the night. Even if you have made it daylight, dig around and down a bit from your cubby-hole area to find some coal (it's very seldom that I don't find any). If you dig down such that you're stair extends below Y60 (sea level), you may also encounter some iron. If you find iron, smelt it and make either an iron sword or an iron pickaxe. Sometimes, I even have enough time to dig farther down and if I've been really lucky, I've even found diamonds that first night (which require an iron pickaxe to mine). Depending on what you've found, upgrade your tools or make some armor.
3) After dawn and you hear the mobs burning, collect your stove and crafting table and bed (if you made one) and, sword in hand, venture out of your cubby-hole. Keep a watchful eye out for creepers since they seem to like to sneak up behind you just as you emerge from hiding. If you've collected a quite a bit of wood, make a chest and a stone sword and leave it by your initial spawn point (just in case you die and spawn at that location), you'll have some basic supplies handy. (If you use the bonus chest feature, the game does this for you).
4) Make it a priority to collect at least 3 wool this second day (if you weren't able to collect any the first night). Head out towards promising biomes (plains are my favorites because they can spawn villages). If you do find a village, raid their farms but be sure to replant them as you do. This gives you an ongoing easy source of food without the time and effort needed to construct your own farm. If you do have ample wood and are planning to hang around the village for even a 2 or 3 nights, it's a good idea to add doors to the village since villagers are a valuable trading resource and you don't want zombies wiping out your village entirely.
5) Carry your bed with you and watch for dusk. The moment the sun touches the horizon, plant your bed and sleep (yes, out in the open is OK if you time it really well). Otherwise, make a small tower of dirt blocks right below your feet (pillaring up) and a small platform around that tower and plant your bed a sleep. This "quick sleep" technique keeps night from fully falling and the concentration of hostile mobs that spawn around your location way, way down.
6) Rinse and repeat as you move around the map. If your inventory gets too full, don't throw items away to make room. Instead, make little chest caches around the map to start. That way, when you do decide to develop a more elaborate build, you can just make a quick tour of the map and collect items from your caches.
It's happy dance time! Why? Because I have armor! A chest plate and leggings made of iron. And now I finally have another iron pickaxe (I lost my last one when I died). I already had an iron sword.
The story behind this iron is one of frustration. I went to check out the jungle to the west of me and found that beyond it is just ocean. Bummer. But, I found a small cave, and I could hear zombies and lava. But every time I went digging trying to follow the sounds, I just hit water. My only consolation was finding enough iron that when I got home, I had enough for the armor, with three pieces left. I really, really wanted a bucket. I really hate that instead of putting a farm where I want it, I have to put it where the water is. But then I remembered that to the south, there's a) another stinkin' ocean, and a ravine! One I mean to explore. If I find anything good down there like redstone (for a compass so I can finally make another map :angry:) or diamonds, I'll need something better than stone to mine it. So I made an iron pickaxe. I mean, it's a ravine; I'll have enough iron for several buckets soon enough.
Oh, and I finally got a spider, so now I have a fishing pole!
You know, I get so excited over the simplest things, I should make a thread called "Aww, look at the newbling" so I can just gush about everything.
There was a time where I too would have recommended setting up an extensive and safe home base. However, the new "regional difficulty" aspect of the game (where mob difficulty increases the longer you stay in an area) may require many people to rethink this basic strategy and adopt a more nomadic style of play or at least move towards establishing a number of smaller outlying "camps" that enable the player to move around the map, collect basic resources, and hone their skills a bit while postponing the point where the mobs will start to scale up in difficulty.
I've found that establishing a single base camp is still easier than trying to do the nomadic thing in general for new players.
However, it is still advisable to 'move between a couple of areas.
I'd suggest establishing your home base, then dig a stairwell down and away from your home base for mining.
Spending a little bit of time moving back and forth between each of these areas seems to help reset the MOBs getting tougher the longer you stay in one area change without having to adopt multiple camps.
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My thoughts keep chasing themselves in circles. I want to see if I can find a better place (or at least, a place I like better), but to explore I need resources that would be a lot more plentiful if I had a farm. but do I want to put that much effort into place I might leave for good at any given time? And I don't want to slaughter all the animals for the food and other items; what if I wander everywhere and find there really is nothing better in this world, but now I can't even do well here because all the animals are gone? Yes, the Xbox 360 worlds are small, but still.
I admit, if not for the village that had the carrots and potatoes, I would probably have deleted this world and started another (I still think the idea that those are only available as rare mob drops or village loot is garbage).
Has anyone else had this problem? What did you do, and how did you decide?
Error 404: HUEHUEHUE not found.
A mighty machine built within the wake
Of a long dead dream, little demon awake
The citizens sleep, never quite knowing when
The device will reawaken, hungry again.
So I guess I'll do that, and in the meantime I'll check out that cave I've been avoiding. I was nearly killed as I stood in the mouth; something started shooting me (a skeleton, naturally), and in my frantic attempts to escape I hit the wrong button and changed the camera angle so I still couldn't see what was happening, or where I was going, and ran in circles like an idiot until I realized I was clear :lol:.
However, last time I played I made my first hostile mob kill when I went after a skeleton. In the water. With a sword. And no armor. Believe me, I would rather not have done so (I read the wiki, so I knew it was a really bad idea), but it was literally right behind my house! I was afraid if I left it there I'd forget about it, then wander over for something else and catch a bunch of arrows to the face. That helped me realize if I want to get anything done, I need to stop being so afraid of getting hit and get on with it.
When tunneling on level 12, be sure to craft a bucket and fill it with water at the first opportunity. Use it to pour water over any of the laval lakes you're likely to encounter at your feet to turn the top layer of them into obsidian... makes the tunneling go much quicker.
I love my world, but it's nice to remember how much fun it is when you start a new one. Enjoy!
I did a little preliminary exploring, and found I'm close to one end of the world: I went behind my house, then just kept going, and promptly ran into an ocean. but I found a ravine like, right there, so it wasn't a total waste. It's close enough to the water that a tiny bit of digging should give me a nice water elevator to get up and down once I'm ready to explore it.
Right now I need to chop and replant trees until I have at least a stack of charcoal for surface exploring. I'm not interested in the jungle I can see from my house, but there might be something interesting past it. Otherwise it's over the giant hills and back the way I came, and I really don't want to go back to the snow biome I spawned in.
And all this mining and exploring is going to be tricky for a while, since I lost my map when I died the first time.
You can craft yourself a new map once you acquire the correct resources for it. (iron, redstone and paper (which comes from sugar cane). Even though, without a map, you'll be travelling across the surface, I wouldn't worry about turning a stack of wood into charcoal to explore. Craft a bed instead, take it with you and place it and go to sleep at dusk every night and break it every morning. (Note: if you die, your respawn will be back at the initial world spawn). If you're quick enough at dusk, very few mobs will ever get a chance to spawn. Also, if you're moving around on the map quickly enough, you'll be "outrunning" most of them anyways. You'll probably actually only encounter a few of them.
Even so, if what you want it to gather more mineral resources, this is best done by branch mining on the lower levels (between Y1 and Y17). Level Y12 is best because, as I said, it's easy to turn the laval you'll likely encounter at your feet into obsidian with a simple bucket of water. Just poor it on a sold block right next to the lava, let it spread out and then collect it again with your bucket (rinse and repeat).
step 1: Find a suitable place where you can survive and have easily available food resources and wood (villages are the best for new players). You are not experienced enough yet to go running around the wild and you will simply get killed. So just pick the best spot you can find and you will learn better ways of doing things as time passes.
Step 2: Once your food and basic shelter is in place, dig a few blocks down and mine some of the stone to create stone tools and a furnace (You will need wood to produce tools).
step 3: Collect as much wood as you can from the trees, and collect the saplings. Be sure to watch the sun while cutting as you may want to avoid getting caught in the night and having mobs spawn everywhere.
Step 4: Once you have plenty of wooden planks, build a simple structure. Since you are a new player, I would recommend a straight forward design such as a 10x10 interior which translates to a 12x12 structure overall. The height can be about five blocks up, with block five serving as your temporary roof. You can later add a second floor to this basic structure that can fit an enchantment setup and other necessities.
Step 5: Once your basic structure is made, make sure you have plenty of torches to light the place up. after that, use some wood to make fence posts and fence gates. Build a fence around your structure in order to keep the mobs away, I would recommend building the fence about five blocks away to give you a reasonable amount of space. This will give you four blocks of room from the walls of the structure, and also keep in mind that creepers will explode once you get too close, even while on the other side of a fence.
Step 6: Place your bed inside the structure, and set your spawn.
Step 7: Increase your food production by building a farm that can meet your needs. Farms are very easy to make, so this should not be too hard. You can farm wheat seeds from tall grass if you need wheat.
Step 8: Now that you have food, some basic tools, and a secure base to operate from, build a dozen ladders in order to mine to level 12 of the world. Then select a corner in your house and begin mining straight down, placing the ladders as you go. Be sure to either save or take other safety precautions before you mine down as you don't want to hit lava and die.
With this way, you will be able to avoid fighting mobs every night guaranteed and will have the time to learn more about the game and collect resources. You will find mobs here and there when you need to go outside or when you stumble upon caves in your artificial mine, but as time passes, you will soon find that you can fight creepers, zombies, and skeletons with just your bare hands. Remember to keep your structure simple and don't try to build something that will require vast amounts of time and effort.
Hope this helps
I'm debating with myself about the iron; I can't decide whether to make tools, or hold onto it until I have enough to make a chest plate. I really need some armor.
This is my first foray into Survival, but I've been playing Minecraft on Peaceful for awhile, so I think I've got a decent grasp on the basics. Except combat. But that should improve with experience, right?
Also, I've been thinking about farming some animals anyway, just for ease of access to materials. So, what's better: digging pits, or fences?
There was a time where I too would have recommended setting up an extensive and safe home base. However, the new "regional difficulty" aspect of the game (where mob difficulty increases the longer you stay in an area) may require many people to rethink this basic strategy and adopt a more nomadic style of play or at least move towards establishing a number of smaller outlying "camps" that enable the player to move around the map, collect basic resources, and hone their skills a bit while postponing the point where the mobs will start to scale up in difficulty.
So, my basics list now goes more like this:
1) Upon first spawning in a new world, mark your spawn location (a small dirt tower does the trick). If wood is available near spawn, start punching. Gather enough to make a crafting bench and then make an wooden pick. Be sure to collect any apples or saplings that fall). Dig a few blocks down wherever you are standing to quickly gather some at least 15 cobblestone. Make a stone axe, a stone pick axe a stone sword and a furnace. Gather more wood and slaughter whatever animals you can spot close by for food until dusk. Then... quickly dig into the side of the nearest hill or dig a short stair way down, blocking it such that there is a single hole above the second step down (so you will be able to tell when it turns light again but mobs (which are two blocks tall) will not be able to get down the stairs. Enlarge your cubby-hole and set down your stove. Cook some of your wood to make charcoal for a few torches and cook whatever meat you've managed to collect... and you will probably have to eat some.
2) If you have managed to collect 3 wool, make a bed and sleep in it to short-circuit the night. Even if you have made it daylight, dig around and down a bit from your cubby-hole area to find some coal (it's very seldom that I don't find any). If you dig down such that you're stair extends below Y60 (sea level), you may also encounter some iron. If you find iron, smelt it and make either an iron sword or an iron pickaxe. Sometimes, I even have enough time to dig farther down and if I've been really lucky, I've even found diamonds that first night (which require an iron pickaxe to mine). Depending on what you've found, upgrade your tools or make some armor.
3) After dawn and you hear the mobs burning, collect your stove and crafting table and bed (if you made one) and, sword in hand, venture out of your cubby-hole. Keep a watchful eye out for creepers since they seem to like to sneak up behind you just as you emerge from hiding. If you've collected a quite a bit of wood, make a chest and a stone sword and leave it by your initial spawn point (just in case you die and spawn at that location), you'll have some basic supplies handy. (If you use the bonus chest feature, the game does this for you).
4) Make it a priority to collect at least 3 wool this second day (if you weren't able to collect any the first night). Head out towards promising biomes (plains are my favorites because they can spawn villages). If you do find a village, raid their farms but be sure to replant them as you do. This gives you an ongoing easy source of food without the time and effort needed to construct your own farm. If you do have ample wood and are planning to hang around the village for even a 2 or 3 nights, it's a good idea to add doors to the village since villagers are a valuable trading resource and you don't want zombies wiping out your village entirely.
5) Carry your bed with you and watch for dusk. The moment the sun touches the horizon, plant your bed and sleep (yes, out in the open is OK if you time it really well). Otherwise, make a small tower of dirt blocks right below your feet (pillaring up) and a small platform around that tower and plant your bed a sleep. This "quick sleep" technique keeps night from fully falling and the concentration of hostile mobs that spawn around your location way, way down.
6) Rinse and repeat as you move around the map. If your inventory gets too full, don't throw items away to make room. Instead, make little chest caches around the map to start. That way, when you do decide to develop a more elaborate build, you can just make a quick tour of the map and collect items from your caches.
The story behind this iron is one of frustration. I went to check out the jungle to the west of me and found that beyond it is just ocean. Bummer. But, I found a small cave, and I could hear zombies and lava. But every time I went digging trying to follow the sounds, I just hit water. My only consolation was finding enough iron that when I got home, I had enough for the armor, with three pieces left. I really, really wanted a bucket. I really hate that instead of putting a farm where I want it, I have to put it where the water is. But then I remembered that to the south, there's a) another stinkin' ocean, and
Oh, and I finally got a spider, so now I have a fishing pole!
You know, I get so excited over the simplest things, I should make a thread called "Aww, look at the newbling" so I can just gush about everything.
I've found that establishing a single base camp is still easier than trying to do the nomadic thing in general for new players.
However, it is still advisable to 'move between a couple of areas.
I'd suggest establishing your home base, then dig a stairwell down and away from your home base for mining.
Spending a little bit of time moving back and forth between each of these areas seems to help reset the MOBs getting tougher the longer you stay in one area change without having to adopt multiple camps.