Talk:Tutorials/Beginner's guide

Mining Safety
I plan to replace "A Word About Digging" with something a lot more complete. My New Players' Guide has come to include a lot about basic mining techniques and safety, and since the preferred mining level is at Y=11 to Y=16 due to the best compromise of mineral abundance and safety, there is still quite a bit of danger, and I've gotten better at mining since starting the series.

The first rule of mining safety in Minecraft is:


 * Never break the block you are standing on unless you are certain what is beneath it is safe.

The general rule, especially for new players, is never to break the block your standing on unless you are coming down from a pillar jump. Breaking the block you are standing on causes you to fall, often into lava, a deep cave, water, mob-infested dungeon and occasionally (situations like The End, Creative mode and custom maps like Skyblock), The Void. Digging straight down is the only way to commit suicide in Creative mode.


 * Never break a block directly over your head. Stand at least one block aside.

These two rules will save you from most "bust out" situations where you emerge from solid material into fluid or air. Breaking over your head invites flooding yourself with lava, water, sand or gravel.


 * Have an "emergency blocking material" close at hand, and practice quickly selecting and placing it between yourself and unexpected danger (lava, water, and hostile mobs.)

The most likely such material is Cobblestone which has a great combination of abundance (mining stone drops it), but dirt, sandstone, and glass can work as well. Never use wood, as it can catch fire when used to protect against lava, and also has very poor blast resistance against the Creeper


 * The other aspect of mining safely is not to lose your mined item drops.

The easiest way to lose item drops early in the game is to mine with an inappropriate tool. Wooden pickaxes can only break stone and coal ore. Stone pickaxes are required to mine iron. The general rule of thumb is that if it is taking longer than a few seconds to break the block, you are probably using a poor tool and the block won't drop the item. Iron pickaxes can mine everything except obsidian, which requires a diamond pickaxe.

If you encounter a high value block, such as emerald ore, diamond ore, or gold ore, mine around it to see what all six facings are before breaking it to ensure that you won't lose it in unseen lava. If this is done, you can confidently stand on it while you break it. Obsidian is a particularly hairy block to mine because it often has lava right next to or underneath it. The safest way for a beginner to mine obsidian is to capture lava in a bucket and convert it in a processing pool known to be only one block deep.

Proper Posting
Shouldn't this be filed under Tutorials, not as a page? MrMatthew 22:20, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Frankly, isn't all of the info here expressed at Tutorials/Pallascat%27s_Guide anyway? This just seems redundant to me. MrMatthew 22:33, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Needs more photos
This article looks dull and boring. If nobody add any photos, i'll do it myself TheYeIIowDucK 16:45, 4 November 2010 (CDT)

I'll add some. Meeples10 20:00, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Shelter Rules Too Complex
Why are we spending so much time talking about how to make spider-proof skeleton-warding holes we can see sunlight with, and only mentioning doors at the very end? You might go all day without finding coal, but all day without finding a *tree*? You carve a hole, you stand outside the hole, you place the door. Discussions about spiders and bow-wielding skeletons could be left for later... Jesdynf 19:44, 26 December 2010 (CST)
 * I'm surprised it hadn't been changed by now. Over a year(give or take a few months)and I had to do it myself. Either way, it's done.--Joejr50 20:10, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Amount of wood
It says ten to twenty logs before crafting your first item? That's a terrible tip for beginners, You should be collecting about 4 or 5 logs and then immediately making a workbench and a wood pickaxe, get some stone, and upgrade to stone tools. At the very least, that way you can have a stone axe, so if you for some reason feel the need to get 20 logs on the first day it won't take you half the day. --Elamdri 06:51, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
 * How about we just change the wording around abit? How about "once you've collected enough wood that your comfortable with..." or add a 'Pro Tip' since this a guide? The 'Pro Tip' could read something like "most people will fell one tree and immediately make one work bench, then one wooden axe and wooden pickaxe..."?? Suggestions anyone? Nooblivion 10:15, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I think it'd be better to get beginners into the habit of being efficient from the get go using Elamdri's suggestion. Tips are handy when a large handful of people deviate from a mechanic or convention that can be just as useful, but in this case this is the beginning and the better way to go would just be getting 5 logs and immediately making a pickaxe and THEN deviate from there. --Gnu32 10:28, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Safety
"This can be done by building (...) a high wall" - It ain't true. I remember when I bulit wall and towers to be safe and then I was astonished when I saw a spider at "my" side of wall. Spiders can climb walls, so it ain't so easy :< Kurakdude 15:24, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

All you have to do is add a lip to the top of the wall. It's pretty easy for me :/ Mybabypetghast 03:35, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

All you have to do is to find a mound of dirt, dig a 2 by 2 'room',put your crafting table at the entrance,any block on it, a furnace next to your crafting table, and a piece of glass on top of it. It works.

Lava vs. Magma
I wish Mojang/Markus would consider updating the Lava block and giving it the name magma instead. That's just me nitpicking of course, but I feel like editing these wiki pages every time I see a "lava" reference. It just bugs me! More so than Creepers! :x --IrinaWylder 20:16, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't know...they would probably have to add a volcano or something to consider that...interesting idea though Caboose

For blocks below ground, anyhow... Blocks above ground could be properly called lava :P Also, I apologise for any error in my formatting, etc.. I've never edited a wiki site before. Tree Punching 17:12, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Needs editing
The article is old and has old images. Some of the images are broken too. Sakishrist 09:55, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I'll see if I can't clean up a bit of the article, I'm not good with pictures, so I'll have to leave that to someone else.Extremeasaurus 20:22, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

added a entry about a bed trick and a 'todo' list to summarize the page
It may be a bit of a trick But it's very simple to sleep in a bed without first building a shelter. I put it at the bottom of the page since I do recommend a new player at least starts on a shelter..

The table / image isn't all that pretty but it should be doable. I first explained it the way I would do it, then I realized that a beginner might not know sneaking and building blocks while jumping so I expanded it with a stairs. In hindsight that made the section a lot longer as it could have been but oh well.. If someone reformats it that's no problem.

I might add another paragraph, there are a few things mentioned in between the lines that someone should do first. I think it deserves a bit more highlighting as that.


 * Check, added a list which summarizes pretty much the entire page and can be used as an actual list when starting to play Lalophobia 11:20, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't have minecraft on the coumputer I'm writing this on but with your safe bed design couldn't spiders climb up it or skeletons shoot you? It seems to me like they could do that. Timberdoodle 12:07, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I just noticed I overlooked this q. Uhm, well every single time I used it a good night sleep was the result. It seems only/either? zombies?/skeletons? are the ones that wake you up, I've never been woken by a spider but I do see what you mean, technically it's foolproof against biped mobs, but spiders don't seem to be bugged in waking you up anyway..


 * I removed the "list" because it was more like a mini tutorial, except not as good as the current one. If you had only added a list (and even then, it should be near the end of the tutorial as a future reference) that would have been more acceptable. --JonTheMon 12:51, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
 * fixed Lalophobia 14:27, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I was rewriting it and accidentally overwrote your rewriting of it, and then when I tried to undo it, I put it back to the first version accidentally. Timberdoodle 16:06, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
 * ooohhh that explains it then .. heheh, no worries, stuff happens ..

still thanks for attempting to rewrite it :) Lalophobia 20:48, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

I actually used my list
I actually used my list, made a bunch of screenshots depicting every step and draw some conclusions while doing so. I did take longer as what I would on my own (not even taking into account that I know the keys and plans by heart) because I wanted the screenshots to be (mostly) void of texts saying 'saved screenshot timedateblabla' (and I was making a lot of screens, so I waited a lot for it to 'fade out)'. Well, bed makes a part of the 'you need to build at your spawn' semi-obsolete, unless for some reason you destroy your bed or it bugs and you start at the original spawn again instead of your spawn,but build exactly at the spawn is a bit too harsh, it's great to make a location marker and sunrise. And for that it works excellent but the actual first shelter can easily be in a 20~30 block range from it.

Aside that I literally followed my list and tried to build a shelter exactly at the spawn, I had wool and wood and made wood pickaxe, and walked to the nearest visible stone which was about 20 blocks away. While I was walking back to the workbench after getting the 3 stone to upgrade the pick I realized that by getting the 11 stone you're almost done with the quickest shelter possible, the 3x3x2 cave. in fact; Making the screenshots and waiting forever for all the text to fade out made it so I was just in time to get wood, get wool, make table etc and dig the cave before it turned night. ( [| I managed to make 50 screenshots], so .. yeh I took forever) .. so I blocked myself in, made a torch and bed and slept. If you noticed in the screens I have more as double the 11 stone, it's because I got carried away and after "just dig 8 blocks" I came to my senses and started to make the cave. Also I tried to make a 3x3x2 space with walls/roof to compare .. Before I put the roof on I had some idea about this page and revisited it,also looked at page 2. If we want to make a day 1, day 2, day 3 sequence tutorial. Most of this page is fine but we need to tidy up some things and make it more whole. Day 1 is mostly fine but day 2, 3 could use some touching up. I like the idea about defenses but we need to make it KISS.



tl;dr :  May i present to you. A 3x3x2 chamber in stone, filled with 1 bed, 1 furnace, 1 crafting table and 1 torch. Sealed with door, and defended by (mostly 3 block deep) dry moat (that you can exit from but not@ door..so don't fall down,monsters should do that). On day 2 we can dive deeper into crafting/mining/farming/etc. We also want to avoid telling people this is how to play minecraft but 'the most basic shelter and brief intro to keys and tools' do seem greatly appreciated for day1. As said day 2 and 3 could go more in depth into things and suggest to make a proper building with using the cave as base of operations, but we need to revisit those articles because I noticed page 2 assumes things that changed over time.

ps. Maybe some | of the screenshots I took can be useful for the page, let me know which one and i'll upload it here.

And I have exactly 1 plank short, and 3 spare sticks. and couldn't make a storage chest ;p Lalophobia 23:31, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Home Safety
I think a lot of this chapter does not quite match the 'first day' feel of the rest of the page although I rarely toy in my 'legit singleplayer' world .. after 'days' there i still don't have tnt.. Not that it's a bad suggestion to defend the shelter and a tnt trap could be effective (although i wouldn't build one in fear of triggering it by accident) ,it's a bit unlikely that the new person for who the guide is intended will run into the materials to make tnt. Lalophobia 21:18, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
 * fixed it myself Lalophobia 21:28, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

A beginner doesn't know how to find or make coal.
This guide is great at explaining what you need coal for, but not where to find it or make it. To make it, it says what ingredients you need, but not how to start a fire.

Logs or Wood?
Is it Logs Or Wood?. Well in minecraft it is wood. So why is it logs? Can we change it?Trevor88 10:52, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
 * "Wood" includes planks and such. "Logs" are the blocks you get from trees. --Mental Mouse 14:13, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Worst Scenario section?
I'm wondering if someone could make a section that helps you if, say, you spawned on an island in an ocean or desert, or another really, really bad place to spawn in.108.208.101.17 20:28, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

I will. Meeples10 20:02, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Comments from an actual newbie
Even though this guide is intended for absolute beginners it still skips over some of the things that everyone who's played for more than an hour has taken for granted. For example:

Marking the spawn point with a pillar is useful. How do I make a pillar? (e.g. dig up dirt by holding the left mouse button, choose the item you dug up with the mouse wheel, then use the right mouse button to place a line on the ground. Make a staircase up, then reclaim all but the tallest part.

There is too much stuff for a newbie to accomplish in the first day. Perhaps making the crafting table, basic tools, and a place to hide are enough?

How do I eat?
 * There are "competing" tutorials titled "First Day", "Second Day", and so forth. Good point about specifying the basics -- this tutorial probably needs a section on "actions" in general. --Mental Mouse 14:16, 5 March 2013 (UTC)