Minecraft - Second Opinion

Minecraft, the epic game of epic proportion.  Ok, to a small handful of people, it's of epic proportion.  Myself, being one of them.  I've been playing this game for about a month now, give or take.  My first impression, of seeing the game was, "hmm, might have to give that a try."  My first impression of actually playing the game, "Wow, this is awesome."

Now, it's time to give a second opinion.  I think I started playing while the game was in 1.5 beta.  It's still in beta, but now, it's moved into 1.7.3 beta.  A few patches have been made sense then.  Among those, perhaps the most interesting and fun patch to date.  The Piston Mod.  Mods are well, mods that other players have made to add cool features to the game.  The player that created the Piston Mod, submitted his creation to Notch, the created of the game and next thing you know, we have Pistons in Minecraft.  A few people complained though, that Notch nerved them.  You're always going to have you're complainers.

Adventure/Survival mode.  When you start off in the game, you start off in what many people call Adventure or Survival mode.  The whole object of the game when you start out, is a race against time to survive the first night.  You have about 10 minutes of day time and 10 minutes of night time.  So, that means, we have about 10 minutes to gather and craft what's needed to survive the first night.  Why are we in a race against time?  Well, at night bad things come out and try to kill you.  If you had weapons, you could go out and hunt them.  Granted you can find your way back to safety.  What's out there?  Nothing but Skeleton Archers, Zombies, and Creepers, "Oh My!"

Many people fear Creepers.  Why?  When they get close enough to you or you hit them with something, they tend to get angry and make a hissing type sound.  Why is this bad?  Simple, if you ignore the problem, They blow up.  That's right, they do a lot of damage too and depending on how close you are, how much health you have, and how much armor you have, they just might kill you.  So, why don't I fear them?  Well, I've figured out that if I can get an Iron Sword or better, they die pretty quickly.  Three quick swings, is plenty to take down a creeper before it blows up in your face.

What do I fear?  Skeleton Archers.  It's bad enough that they have Skeletons in the game, rather, they make them into Skeleton Archers....ugh.....sigh.  That means that they can hit you from a distance.  Better move in quick if you're going to take them down.  Not that they take a lot of health, just that they can take a lot of health if you aren't quick about it.  Skeleton Archers have a reputation that far proceeds Creepers.  At least in my opinion.

Zombies are easy peasy mode.  They aren't that tough and go down with a couple of swings of just about any sword.  Oh, and then their are Spiders.  Dark Black Spiders that jump around and try to kill you.  These aren't really as tough as most people think.  It's all in the aim.  I've been able to keep Creepers, Zombies, and Spiders at bay pretty well.  Now, get two or more Creepers, and I pull my hit and run strategy.  What?  Think I'm crazy?

Ah, building, the true attraction of the game.  There is good news for those who don't want to fight and kill stuff.  You can always build.  "But, won't monsters attack me at night?"  Multiple No's.  Peaceful Mode, it's a builders best friend.  Once you hit that button to change it to Peaceful Mode, no mobs will ever spawn.  Except for the friendly ones.  Pigs, Cows, Chickens, etc.  If you are in adventure mode and you sleep in a bed at night, it will change to day.  thus giving you time to build.  Unless you're in a dungeon.  Better light that bad boy up.

On a side note, it's worth noting that Spiders, aren't aggressive during the day time.  They are however aggressive down in a cave where it's dark.

One can actually create a Private Minecraft server if they choose to do so.  You can make it public, or private for you and your friends/family.  Notch gives you the server software necessary to do so.  Perfectly legal.  Also, if you have a public server, Notch himself might actually come for a visit.

Note: Notch's name appears in Gold.  If it's someone that has a White name, it's probably not Notch.

That said, I'd say my favorite strategy for surviving my first night, is to find a hill side and dig into it.  Once I have enough wood that is.  About 15-20 pieces of wood will do.  After you have that done, it shouldn't take you but about 5 minutes, then you can hunt down either some coal, or some stone.  Nowadays you can use a Wood Plank as a fire source in a Furnace and a chunk of wood to burn, and that creates Charcoal.  Which can be used to make torches instead of coal.  The stone you gathered is to make the Furnace with.  There you have it.  Minecraft in a nutshell.