Minecraft Tips

Magic in a Bottle

Ameena — Mon, 13 May 2013 23:12:04 +0000

Another area in which you can dabble in order to dabble in order to apply some extra effects to yourself or nearby creatures is that of brewing. This allows you to make potions which have a variety of effects. Brewing apparatus In order to get started, you'll need to have access to the Nether, so if you haven't already achieved that, you'll need to have done so, and found a Nether fortress, in order to do anything related to brewing. Firstly, you'll need a single blaze rod (dropped from blazes, found in Nether fortresses). Also from the Nether you'll need Nether wart, a strange red plant, also found in Nether fortresses so to save yourself an extra trip you might want to grab some while you're hunting for blazes. Stick the blaze rod into the middle square of a crafting grid and place cobblestone along the bottom row in order to craft a brewing stand. This is what you'll use in order to brew all your potions. Place it down wherever you like. You can right-click it to bring up the interface if you want, but you won't be able to do anything with it until you have a few necessary items. Vital ingredients As you might expect, the brewing of potions requires something in which to actually put the potions. This is a glass bottle, crafted from glass laid in the same pattern as you'd lay wood when making a bowl or iron when creating a bucket (one in the lower-middle square, and one each in the left-middle and right-middle squares). You can't brew potions from nothing, and must first fill your bottles with water before they can be used for anything. You can do this by creating a cauldron from iron (place an ingot in every square except the centre and the one above it) and filling it with water, but this only lets you fill up three bottles before it runs out. It's much more practical to dig out a one-block hole in the ground and fill that with water, as water source blocks aren't drained at all if you use potion bottles on them. As when filling a bucket, just right-click the water with a potion bottle in order to fill it. The final necessary ingredient in order to brew any kind of potion is Nether wart, as mentioned above. One piece of Nether wart makes three potions so it's pretty efficient, which means that unless you plan on brewing hundreds of potions you won't need a particularly large Nether wart farm. How to brew stuff Once you have three water bottles and some Nether wart, place the former in the bottom three squares of the brewing interface and the latter in the top square. This is how you brew any kind of potion - the bottles will always go in those three squares (though you don't have to brew three potions at once) and the ingredient you're adding will always go into the topmost square. The brwing process will start as soon as there's an ingredient and at least one non-empty potion bottle in place. Once it's done, the Nether wart will disappear, having been used up, and the three water bottles will have changed into awkward potions. These don't do anything by themselves but are the base potion from which you can make every other type of potion. Normal potions are drunk in the same way you'd eat food - by holding down the right mouse button. A potion is only good for one use, after which you're left with just the empty bottle. Other ingredients and their effects The majority of ingredients used in brewing will create a new potion type, with its own effect. However, there are four particular ingredients which can be added to any potion in order to modify its base effect. They are as follows... Glowstone dust - Acquired from the Nether, adding some of this to a potion increases its intensity, making the effect stronger but shortening its duration. Redstone dust - Mined underground of course, this stuff increases a potion's duration. Gunpowder - Dropped off creepers and ghasts, this converts drinkable potions into spash potions, which can't be drunk but must instead be thrown with a right-click. They explode on landing, affecting all creatures within range. Fermented spider eye - Craft a spider eye, a brown mushroom, and some sugar to get one of these. Their effect is to "corrupt" potions, turning positive effects into negative ones (for example, converting a healing potion into a harming potion). They can also be used as a base ingredient (after adding Nether wart but before adding anything else) to create potions of weakness. Those four ingredients can only be added to an existing potion to modify whatever effect is currently present. The following ingredients are the ones which add effects in the first place. For ease of reference, a brief note on where to acquire each one has been added, in the event that you're reading this and have a temporary mental blank on where you get hold of something. Sugar - This boosts movement speed. Acquired by sticking sugar cane in a crafting grid. Spider eye - Poisonous. Fairly obvious where you get these... Golden carrot - Grants night vision. Crafted by surrounding a normal carrot with eight gold nuggets, themselves acquired by putting a gold ingot into a crafting grid, or killing zombie pigmen in the Nether. Glistering melon - Instantly restores health. Obtained by crafting a melon slice with a gold nugget. Magma cream - Boosts fire resistance. Dropped off magma cubes in the Nether. Ghast tear - Grants regeneration. Dropped off ghasts in the Nether. Blaze powder - Increases your strength so you can whack stuff harder. Acquired by putting a blaze rod (dropped from blazes, found in Nether fortresses) into a crafting grid. One final note worth adding is that the effects of harming and healing potions are reversed when used on undead creatures. And that's it! At least, for now. However many posts this has taken, finally the most important basic stuff has been covered. Well, probably. Minecraft, as you've probably noticed by now, is a pretty big game, and with so much to do and stuff being added with every patch, there's definitely gonna be some stuff that's been missed out. But hopefully you found at least a few useful pieces of information to assist your playing of the game in some way. Even if all you plan on doing is flying around in Creative mode, exploring the world or building stuff in a Superflat world. Thanks for reading! Ameena, the Wordweaver.

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A Plethora of Powers

Ameena — Sat, 11 May 2013 23:55:15 +0000

Having built yourself an enchanting table, you might be interested to know a bit about what kind of stuff you can do with it. Adding enchantments To use the enchanting table, right-click it like you would any other usable block (like the crafting table) to bring up the interface. You can enchant any tools, weapons, or armour - place one such item in the box on the left of the interface and you'll see the three rectangular boxes on the right light up with some weird runic words (it's actually possible to translate this stuff, but it has no bearing whatsoever on the nature of the enchantment - the words are random) and a number. Clicking on one fo these boxes will permanently add an enchantment of the numbered level to the item you placed into the enchanting table. The three enchantments shown are arranged in numerical order, with the bottom one being the highest possible enchantment you can add with your table's current level of power - this is what gets boosted when you add bookshelves, and can go to a maximum of thirty. The numbered levels are also the cost in skill points you need in order to add that enchantment. If you have, say, twelve points to spend but the highest one shown that you can afford is only eight points, you can just remove the item and put it back again and you'll get a new set of possible enchantments. There's no way to tell exactly what powers will be bestowed upon your item until you actually do so. The higher the level of enchantment, the more properties (and the higher the level of those properties) you're likely to get. Note that you can spend a full thirty points and get a rather rubbish enchantment, but it's more likely that you'll get at least two or three decent ones. You can always go out and kill some more stuff (or go mining) to amass a load more points, so it's not a major tragedy if you do get an enchantment that you're not really that keen on. Note that once you've enchanted an item, it glows purple. Enchanted items can't be enchanted a second time. The enchantment types There's quite a selection of possible enchantments which can be bestowed upon your stuff, but certain enchantments will only apply to certain items (for example, the Infinity enchantment can only ever appear on a bow, while the Efficiency enchantment only applies to tools). Here's a list of all the possible enchantments that you might come across when spending your hard-earned skill points, arranged by the type of item they can be applied to... All items Unbreaking - The item has a chance to lose no durability on use. Swords and axes Sharpness - Deals more damage. Smite - Deals more damage versus undead. Bane of Arthropods - Deals more damage versus spiders and silverfish. Knockback - As the name implies, knocks creatures back when you hit them. Fire Aspect - Creatures get set on fire when you hit them. Looting - Creatures drop more stuff on death (if killed with this weapon). Bows Power - The bow equivalent of Sharpness - increases damage. Punch - The bow equivalent of Knockback. Flame - The bow equivalent of Fire Aspect. Infinity - Unlimited arrows! You still need to carry at least one arrow, but it'll never be used up no matter how many times you shoot. Tools (except hoes) Efficiency - Harvests blocks faster. Silk Touch - Always harvests the block rather than a resource - eg if mining lapis lazuli, you'll get the ore block instead of pieces of lapis. This is the only way to harvest blocks such as grass and ice. Fortune - The tool equivalent of Looting - stuff drops more resources when harvested, such as lapis or melons. That's all for enchanting - next up, the final section, which covers Brewing.

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The Magic of Minecraft

Ameena — Sat, 11 May 2013 21:03:53 +0000

Throughout previous posts, you might have noticed references to enchanting your equipment or otherwise adding properties to it in order to make it better. Well, this is the part where you get the explanation of how to do that. You might have noticed, as you gain experience from stuff, that you gain "levels", but that these levels don't seem to do anything - you don't become any stronger or gain extra abilities or anything. That's because this isn't really an RPG - those "levels" aren't really levels but skill points you accumulate through doing all the stuff that gains you exp (such as mining, smelting/cooking, killing stuff, etc). But why gain skill points? To spend them in enchanting. The Enchantment Table In order to enchant stuff, you need to build an enchantment table. To do this, you need four pieces of obsidian, two diamonds, and a book. The diamonds and obsidian are straightforward enough - digging around at the deepest levels should net you the required amounts eventually. In case you're unsure of how to create a book, you first need some paper. This is crafted by placing three pieces of sugar cane in a horizontal line in a crafting grid. Craft three pieces of paper together with one piece of leather (which drops from cows) to create a book. To create the enchanting table, place obsidian in the centre square of the crafting grid, and along the bottom row. Place a diamond on each side of the central square and the book above it. The resultant enchanting table is a block you can place, as you would a furnace or crafting table. The book no top of it will open and turn to face you if you approah - this is just a graphical thing, and has no actual effect on you or anything. At this point, you can dive straight in with trying to enchant stuff. However, at the moment, you won't be able to add very high levels of enchantment because an enchantment table on its own doesn't provide much power. You need to boost it by adding bookshelves. As a reminder, bookshelves are crafted by placing a row of books along the centre of the crafting grid, with a row of wooden planks (type doesn't matter) along both the top and bottom of the grid. For bookshelves to have an effect on your enchanting table, they need to be placed two blocks away. You'll know you've done it right if little white rune thingys start flying from the bookshelves into the enchanting table. To gain the highest possible boost in power, you need to have at least fifteen bookshelves around your enchanting table. Having more than fifteen won't add to the effect any further, but nor will it do any harm so if you want to have a whole load of bookshelves in the area, go ahead and do so. Next up, details on how enchanting actually works, as well as some info on the actual enchantments currently available. Next: A Plethora of Powers

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Through the One-Way Portal!

Ameena — Sat, 11 May 2013 18:04:12 +0000

Whenever you're ready, hop into the starry-looking portal and enter the End, home to only Endermen and one other inhabitant, who'll be described shortly. On appearing in the End, you're likely to spawn in one of three different places. You might spawn simply standing at a random spot in the middle of the land somewhere, on the surface. This is probably the best of the three. Alternatively, you might find yourself in a small room, having spawned underground. You'll need to dig yourself out with a pickaxe, and the time this will take is why spawning here is not quite such a good thing. The third, and worst, position to spawn in is off the edge. If this happens, a small obsidian ledge will also be generated so that you don't just fall straight down. Instead, you'll find yourself standing on the ledge, usually a fairly short distance from the main land mass. Why is this the worst possible starting location? You'll be finding out soon enough, if you haven't already. First, though, a quick note on the End. As you'll quickly notice (unless you spawned underground), the place is basically a large island floating in open space. There are usually a few, much smaller islands to be found just off the main one, but they're all made of the same stuff - End stone. This stuff can be mined with a pickaxe and has a very good level of blast resistance, stronger than stone. It might look like some kind of weird cheese, but it's a good material to build stuff from if you're anticipating some kind of creeper invasion or something. While you're in the End, you might want to grab yourself a few stacks, though there's one fairly major issue that needs sorting out first... Incidentally, you've probably noticed that it's really quite obvious that this place is the home of the Endermen - there's just the odd one or two of them standing about, isn't there? It's up to you as to whether you want to walk around wearing a pumpkin - it'll stop Endermen from becoming angry with you if you accidentally look at any of them, but has the additional effect of restricting your vision pretty heavily. The Big Bad By the time you've been in the End for a few moments., you're bound to have heard a few sounds which definitely aren't made by Endermen. Sort of leathery, flappy-wingy sort of noises and roary-growly sort of noises. Like there's some kind of big, flappy monster thingy flying around and wanting to kill you. Hopefully you won't be too surprised to learn that, yes, that's exactly what it is, in fact. Meet the Ender Dragon. This chap flies around the End, periodically attacking you by swooping at you and attempting to push you off the edge. And that black, space-looking stuff that surrounds the land mass you're standing on? That's the void. So, try not to fall off. The Ender Dragon is capable of flying through any kind of block. And anything that isn't End stone, obsidian, or bedrock gets deleted in the process. To clarify, any block (except those three) which the Ender dragon flies through gets instantly destroyed, without dropping a collectible item. It's at this point hat you can probably see (if you didn't already) why starting on a floating obsidian ledge is a very bad idea - the Ender Dragon will most likely start swooping at you the minute you appear, and you have only the stuff you brought with you to attempt to build a bridge, which the Ender Dragon will be insta-destroying just by flying through it as he tries to collide with you and push you off into the void below. Starting underground is better in that you can't fall straight off to inventory-losing instant death, but it does mean you're stuck in a small area which you quickly have to dig yourself out of before the Dragon swoops right through the End stone and crashes into you. Fighting the Dragon It's hard to miss that when you look in the Dragon's direction, a very obvious pink health bar (together with the Ender Dragon's name) appears at the top of your screen. Which means, of course, that you can kill him - why else would he have a health bar? The thing is, while you can plink arrows at him and even thwack him in the nose with a sword (when he gets close enough), he quickly regenerates his health every time he flies within range of one of those obsidian pillars you've probably noticed. This is due to the Ender crystals, one of which is located at the top of each pillar. They look like a pink block floating inside a couple of glass blocks on top of a flaming block of bedrock. If you can hit one of these crystals, you'll destroy it. The fact that they explode on destruction and that the Ender Dragon will be constantly attacking you (and destroying whatever means you're using to climb the pillars) means that you're probably better off just shooting at the things from the ground. A destroyed crystal can't ever be regenerated or anything like that, so you don't have to worry about destroying the same crystal muptiple times - once it's gone, it's gone, and the Dragon has access to one less source of health regeneration. Suffice to say, destroying the pillars before you start on the Dragon is probably the best tactic. You just have to be careful to avoid the Dragon in the process, and also try not to accidentally look at any of the zillions of Endermen who're wandering around the area (unless you're wearing a pumpkin, of course, which at least means the Endermen won't bother you unless you hit them even if it means you can't really see much). Death of the Dragon Eventually, you'll hopefully manage to destroy all the crystals and whittle down the Dragon's health bar to the extent that it's totally empty of hitpoints. At this point, you'll get to watch the Dragon's death animation. It's best if you don't stand directly beneath him at this point, because once he's finished being obliterated, a structure will spawn at the spot directly beneath him. If you're standing in that same spot, the structure will spawn on top of you and you'll start suffocating. And this thing is made of bedrock. Looking around, you should notice that a whole massive load of experience has dropped as well - many, many levels' worth. Having grabbed all that, at this point you might be happy to know that you've now opened the way back to the surface world - the bedrock structure which spawned when the Dragon died contains another sort of End portal. Before you dive into it, though, you may want to consider harvesting a whole load of End stone before you head back. If you feel like killing some more stuff, there's all those Endermen wandering about, and if you brought any buckets of water with you, you could have a laugh just pouring them around the landscape and watching all the Endermen teleporting out of it before it kills them. Once you're done, however, you can hop right into the portal which opened when the Dragon died. This will show you the game's ending, which is quite long but if you decide you don't want to sit through it you can just press Escape to skip it. Once the ending has finished (or you skip it), you'll find yourself back at your spawn point (your bed spawn point, if you have one - not your original spawn point). The portal to the End (in the stronghold) will remain open and the "fountain" thingy that spawned beneath the defeated Ender Dragon will remain so as well, meaning you can return to the End any time you like, if you want to. The Ender Dragon will never respawn, though, even if you enter the End via another portal (there are three strongholds per world remember), as there is only ever one Ender Dragon. If you want to fight him again, you'll have to create a new world and do it there. So that's it for the End. There are a couple more areas of Minecraft worth describing, though. So next up, information on how to make your equipment better through the simple process of Enchanting... Next: The Magic of Minecraft

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Seeking the End

Ameena — Thu, 09 May 2013 23:40:38 +0000

Despite being an endless game, Minecraft actually has an ending. That is, you can "complete the game" yet continue playing afterwards. But even if you're not interested in the ending part, you might be interested in the huge pile of exp you can get just prior to that. To see the ending, you have to access the End. This is a realm which is sort of the opposite of the Nether - it's a lot more open, and there's no lava. Don't worry, it isn't an underwater realm either. So, how do you get there? First, you'll need a few things. You can't build your own portal to the End like you can with the Nether - you have to find one and activate it. For this you'll need a few bits and pieces. In case you intend to head straight off to the End as soon as you can find it, note that at the end of this post there'll be a short list of suggested/recommended items that you take with you, should you want to take a look. To find an End portal In every Minecraft map, there are three strongholds (covered in a previous post, the one describing randomly generated, subterranean structures). Each of these is roughly the same distance from the original spawn point of the world, and are roughly equidistance from each other as well (so you won't find two strongholds next to each other). In every stronghold, there's an End portal room. If you've already managed to find a stronghold, you might have already seen it. But finding a stronghold is fortunately made a little easier for you in that you don't have to just randomly wander around, digging tunnels until you find one. The End, you see, is where Endermen come from, and they maintain a sort of link to it at all times. When you kill an Enderman, he might drop an Ender pearl. You'll be needing a bunch of these. You'll also need to have visited the Nether and obtained some blaze rods. Stick a blaze rod in a crafting grid and you'll see you can craft it into two pieces of blaze powder. Do this, then combine one pieces of blaze powder with an Ender pearl. This will give you an Eye of Ender. You'll need several of these - fifteen is probably a safe enough number. You'll probably have a few spares in this case, but it's better to take too many than to find you've run out before the portal is open. Eyes of Ender can be used to find strongholds. Equip one and right-click, and you'll throw the Eye into the air. It'll move a short distance away from you, hover for a few moments, then either drop back to the floor or disappear in a puff of purple sparkles. If an Eye disappears in this way, it's lost permanently and is therefore the reason why you want to bring a few more Eyes than you need, because you don't know how many you'll lose this way. When thrown in this manner, Eyes of Ender will move toward the nearest End portal. So you need to throw one, see which way it goes, pick it up if it drops to the floor, and head in the direction it indicated. You can throw another Eye every now and then to make sure you're on the right track. When an Eye heads down toward the ground instead of up into the air, you're basically there. At this point, you just need to dig yourself (carefully) downward and eventually you should pop through the ceiling of an End portal room. But try not to actually fall through your hole, because not only is there always a silverfish spawner in this room, there's also always a pool of lava, too. Opening the portal You'll see that the main feature of the portal room is the arrangement of nine unique blocks above the central lava pool. These are End portal blocks. Most of them will be empty, but a small number (usually one or two) may already be filled. You might recognise the contents as Eyes of Ender. You'll need to right-click the remaining empty slots with Eyes you've brought with you until all the slots are filled. When this is done, the portal will immediately activate. To enter the End, simply step into the void that's opened before you. Some stuff to take with you Before you go charging into the apparent blackness that is the End, here is a list of suggestions for stuff to take with you... Bow and arrows - You'll need them. Sword - Perhaps not as vital as the bow but you still might find one useful. Pumpkin - Did I mention this place was the home of the Endermen? You might find wearing this more annoying than useful, but you might find you want to do so anyway. Pickaxe (stone or iron) - You might have a few blocks to dig out of your way. Food - To keep your food bar topped up so that your health regenerates. There will be combat. One other thing is that, due to your chances of dying while in the End, it may be an idea to dig yourself out a little bedroom (watch out for silverfish blocks) somewhere near the portal to save yourself having to run all the way back from your base every time you die (unless your base happens to be very close to the portal room anyway, of course). That's probably all the most important stuff. You won't be wanting to take anything particularly valuable with you because there's a chance you'll be killed within seconds of arriving, depending on where you spawn. But more on that in the next post... Next: Through the One-Way Portal!

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Denizens of the Nether

Ameena — Thu, 09 May 2013 18:22:09 +0000

Unless you're playing in Peaceful mode, have turned monster spawning off, or your portal has come out in a tiny cave which you haven't yet explored beyond, you've probably encountered at least one of the Nether's inhabitants by now. If you haven't actually met any, you've probably at least heard a few weird noises over the burny-fire sounds. Here follow some more details on all these wonderful, fire-loving critters...oh yes, and by fire-loving, that means that they're immune to burny stuff. So you can't just kill everything by pushing it into lava or setting it on fire. Zombie Pigman Commonly found all over the Nether, these guys tend to wander around in groups. Like all the other inhabitants of the Nether, they make distinctive noises so you can easily tell when there's one nearby. The sounds they make are sort of low...well, zombie-pig noises. Sort of oinking and grunting but in a sort of...zombie sort of way. Anyway, they look like their name implies, and wield gold swords. These guys are unique amongst the Nether's inhabitants in that they're neutral and will only attack you if you attack them. Like wolves, zombie pigmen will attack you en masse if you harm one of them, and they can easily kill you if you let a bunch of them get you. On the other hand, if you just ignore them and don't accidentally (or deliberately) whack one, they'll return the favour by ignoring you right back. Angered pigmen make different noises to those who are still neutral, so if you've attacked one and aren't sure whether you've killed all the remaining nearby pigmen, you should be able to tell by listening whether any remain who are still unhappy with you. Should you (or any nearby explosions, or a fall) kill a zombie pigman, they often drop rotten flesh. They can also drop gold nuggets (used in brewing) and, on occasion, their gold sword. Ghast Wherever you are in the Nether, you'll quite often hear strange noises, sort of like a quiet whimpering (the sounds were actually taken from the cat belonging to C418, the guy who made Minecraft's music). These sounds are made by ghasts, and can be heard from great distances - you could be deep down inside a cave system near the bottom of the Nether, far from any open spaces, and still hear them. If you're actually in an open space, however, and suddenly hear a sort of screech rather than the quiet whimpering sounds, get out of the way. As in, right now. Ghasts are the biggest mob in the game. They look like a big white sort of jellyfish thing - a huge white block (with a teraful-looking face on it) with a number of tentacle-sort-of thingys hanging below it. Ordinarily, they'll float around the Nether making those strange whimpering sounds. If they see you, however, they'll let out a screeching sound. And shoot a fireball at you. These fireballs explode when they hit something, though with less force than a creeper or TNT explosion. Remember a few posts back, when it was suggested that you protect your Nether portal with a cobblestone shelter? Well, ghast fireballs aren't strong enough to break cobblestone, but if they hit a portal block, they'll make your Nether portal go out. You can relight it with a flint and steel, however, or try to manoeuvre yourself so that a second ghast fireball hits the inside of the portal (which will also cause it to relight). A ghast fireball hitting Netherrack is strong enough to destroy blocks of it (like a creeper explosion in dirt) and also tends to set several blocks on fire (and yourself, if you're in the way). The setting-on-fire part is why a ghast fireball can relight an extinguished portal. Because ghasts are so big, they can't fit into the tighter tunnels of the Nether, so you're usually safe enough if you can get behind some kind of cover. Ghasts won't fire if they can't see you, so as long as there's something in the way, you can avoid their attention. Because they can see such a long way, they'll quite often attack you before you can even see them. It's possible to whack a ghast's fireball (by left-clicking, regardless of what you've got equipped at the time - your bare hand is enough) and send it back the way it came. Ghasts don't have a lot of health so a single arrow or returned fireball usually does the trick. Trying to attack them with swords is fairly obviously not a particularly effective tactic. When killed, ghasts have a chance to drop ghast tears and gunpowder (both of which can be used in brewing, though of course the latter is one of the two ingredients needed to make TNT), though collecting ghast loot can be rather difficult, if not impossible, since they tend to be some distance away from you when you kill them, and...well, you've noticed all the lava pools, right? At least there's an alternative (and more accessible) source of gunpowder, even if it does walk up to you and explode in your face at the first chance it gets. Magma Cube The Nether's answer to slimes, magma cubes can be found bouncing about the place a bit less commonly than zombie pigmen. They look like slimes, only they're dark red and have bright orange eyes. They make the same kind of slimy, slapping kind of sounds as they move. Like slimes, magma cubes divide into smaller and smaller cubes when killed. Instead of dropping slime balls, however, they sometimes drop magma cream, yet another brewing ingredient. Magma cubes aren't really a particularly great threat unless you're trying to fight them on a narrow ledge above a lava lake or something, or have a ghast lobbing fireballs at you at the same time. Blaze These guys can only be found in Nether fortresses, where they can spawn both naturally and from blaze spawners, of which there's usually at least one in a fortress somewhere. A blaze resembles a little yellow face with a collection of rods spinning around it. They make sounds which can be described as a sort of "metallic breathing". Blazes sort of float along and will attack you when they see you. Their method of attack is to throw fire at you (unlike ghast attacks, however, these fireball thingys aren't explosive, though they will set you on fire). When a blaze is ready to shoot, it'll be surrounded by fire. It then "uses up" its fire charge and loses the burning appearance for a few seconds - the fire returns when it's recharged itself and is ready to shoot again. As with any ranged creature, blazes are probably best fought with a bow. When killed, they give more exp than any creature except certain uber boss-type creatures. They can also drop blaze rods, an essential ingredient in accessing the End (to be covered next). As such, it's a good idea to leave a blaze spawner rather then destroy it, so you have a guaranteed source of blaze rods when you decide you want to go there. Wither Skeleton Finally, the most recent addition to the Nether, wither skeletons spawn only in Nether fortresses, They're slightly taller than normal skeletons (so can't get through gaps two blocks high) and their bones are black. They're also equipped with a stone sword instead of a bow. Wither skeletons have an extra means of dealing damage, as well as just hitting you with their swords - when one hits you, it can inflict the "Wither" effect on you, turning your health bar black and dealing damage-over-time for several seconds. When killed, wither skeletons can drop bones and coal. They also have a chance to drop their swords, and a rare chance to drop their skulls. And that covers all of the inhabitants of the hostile, fire-filled realm known as the Nether. Next up, steps on how to acces the End and why you might want to go there... Next: Seeking the End

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Nether Blocks and Nether Wart

Ameena — Thu, 09 May 2013 14:20:14 +0000

Obviously, like the surface, the Nether is comprised of a variety of different blocks. There aren't nearly as many down there as there are in the world up above, however. As mentioned, you'll find lava and (if you go deep enough) bedrock in the Nether. You can also find large veins of gravel. Everything else is unique to the Nether, so unless you want to spawn it in via Creative Mode, you'll have to go there in order to obtain them. Netherrack The majority of the Nether is comprised of this stuff. There's absolutely no way you can miss it - it's reddish and some of it will be on fire. Netherrack is very easy to obtain - it mines much faster than any other solid block, so it's very easy to quickly wear down your pickaxe in obtaining the stuff. It's also not very blast resistant, so any nearby explosions can easily destroy a whole heap of blocks. Netherrack has a notable property regarding its flammability. If set on fire, it won't ever burn out - even rainfall won't douse the flames. Fire won't spread from one Netherrack block to another, but it can still spread to "normal" flamable blocks such as wood. If your base is made of non-flammable materials such as stone, you could use Netherrack as a means of lighting. Netherrack fireplaces are also quite common in crafted houses, though if you intend to build one, you need to be careful to ensure that no flammable blocks are in range, otherwise the fire could end up spreading and detroying your home. Netherrack doesn't really have much else by way of direct usefulness. As of the most recent patch, however, it can be smelted in a furnace to create Nether bricks, which can in turn be crafted (when you have enough of them) into Nether brick blocks. These are directly obtainable from Nether fortresses, however, so mining them from there is much more efficient. Nether Quartz Added in a recent patch, this is now the Nether's only ore block, easily recognisable as it resembles Netherrack with large, white, crystal-looking bits in it. Mine it and you'll get a piece of Nether quartz. Nether quartz pieces can be used in crafting to make several redstone-related devices, such as the daylight sensor. Check out a redstone guide for more details. Soul Sand This stuff can be found in scattered patches which cover surfaces of Netherrack. Soul sand is a sort of greyish-brown colour and has swirly patterns on its surface which look like faces. Apart from the fact that you use a shovel to excavate it, soul sand isn't really that similar to normal sand - you can't smelt it into glass, and it also has a unique property which becomes apparent when you walk on it. That is, it slows you down. It can be useful to lay around your base as a trap to slow down hostile creatures, but has no real use except as a surface on which to grow Nether wart (covered later in this post). Glowstone The natural light source of the Nether (well, apart from all the burny stuff), Glowstone blocks can be found in clusters on the ceiling, as sort of stalactites. It's very easy to spot, especially amongst all the reddish colours of the other Nether blocks. While it can be a bit of a pain to actually get to, at least you know you'll be getting a fair amount of blocks per cluster. When you mine out a glowstone block, it shatters and drops several piles of glowstone dust (which looks like redstone dust, only it's yellow). You can craft four pices of glowstone dust in a square to remake a glowstone block, which can then be placed. Glowstone has the same brightness as a torch so you can use it to light your base with no fear of creatures spawning nearby. A benefit it has over torches is that it isn't doused by water, so if you wanted to light some kind of underwater cave or tunnel, you can use this stuff. Glowstone dust also has a use in brewing, but this will be covered later, in the appropriate section. Nether Brick Scattered around the Nether are Nether fortresses (there's usually one reasonably close to your entry portal, but you may have to search around a bit until you find it). These are formed primarily of Nether brick, but also Nether brick stairs and Nether brick fences. Nether brick looks pretty much the same as stone brick, only it's dark red rather than grey. Nether brick is basically the same as stone brick, and can be made into stairs and slabs in the same way. That's basically all you can do with it - it makes for a decent alternative buiding material if you're fed up with grey blocks but still want to use some kind of brick and don't want to or can't get hold of any plain old red brick (the kind you get from cooking clay in a furnace). Nether Wart This stuff isn't a block but an item. It's a sort of weird red plant thing which can be found naturally growing in patches of soul sand within Nether fortresses. It's always found in two patches, one to either side of a staircase. Nether wart is a primary ingredient in brewing (covered in later post, as mentioned above). It can be grown on the surface world but you'll need to harvest some in the Nether and bring it with you in order to do so. You'll also need some soul sand, since Nether wart won't grow on any other surface. When you harvest Nether wart, you'll get Nether wart seeds (if the plant isn't fully grown when you do this, you'll only get a single seed). These can be planted straight into soul sand (you don't need a hoe or anything like that) and the resultant plants can't be accidentally trampled - if you walk over Nether wart, nothing will happen because unlike other plants, it isn't growing out of farmland which can convert back to plain dirt if stepped on. So, that's it for the stuff that makes up the Nether. Now, how about the guys who actually live there? Coming up next! Next: Denizens of the Nether

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Welcome to the Nether!

Ameena — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 17:04:00 +0000

So you've stepped through your portal. The screen's gone all wibbly and then changed to a loading screen while the Nether is generated. And then there you are, standing in the wibbly purple stuff of your portal...but on the other side. Now you're in the Nether. First of all, step out of the portal so that you don't get accidentally sent straight back to the surface. But don't step too far! Just enough to get you out of the purple stuff. The reason for this is that the Nether side of your portal may possibly have been generated in the air far above any kind of surface. If this is the case, chances are that the surface below you isn't something you'd want to stand on anyway. If you've appeared inside an enclosed cave or tunnel system, this is preferable. If not, you'll probably be able to get a bit of a view on your surroundings and see why the Nether is definitely a more hostile place than the surface. The main reason? The lava. If you're not in an enclosed area, chances are you can see at least a small amount of this stuff from where you're standing. Oceans of it cover the lower areas of the Nether, and source blocks of it occupy numerous spots in the ceiling, allowing freely-flowing lavafalls to make their way down and across the landscape. The Nether is entirely enclosed - there is no sky, though there is bedrock if you happen to dig down far enough (and a void below this, the same as there is on the surface). A few general notes on the Nether - firstly, clocks and compasses are useless here. All they do is spin wildly in random directions, so there's no need to bring either object to this realm. Clocks don't work because there is no day or night, and compasses don't work because they point toward your original spawn point on the surface, which from here is a whole world away and so can't be detected. Secondly, don't worry about bringing a bed with you, because trying to use one in the Nether is a rather bad idea. Explosively bad. And thirdly, water instantly evaporates here so unfortunately you can't just get rid of all that lava by dumping a load of buckets of the stuff onto it (and generating a few zillion tons of obsidian in the process). But to get back to what you should be doing when you first arrive...if you're in an enclosed area, this is less vital. If not, however, this is something you'll most likely want to get done ASAP. This is the reason for the suggestion in the previous post that you bring a load of cobblestone with you. What you'll be wanting to do is build a sort of shelter around your portal, enclosing it so that none of the purple portal blocks can be directly seen from outside (it doesn't matter about the obsidian - only the actual glowing portal blocks are important in terms of protection as there's nothing in the Nether that can destroy obsidian unless you start on it with a diamond pickaxe). The reason for this will be covered in more specific detail in the section on Nether creatures, but suffice to say for now that there is a chance your portal could get accidentally shut off while you're in the Nether. If you kept a flint and steel on you, this is less problematic (as you can just light it again), but even without the threat of getting potentially stuck in the Nether it's useful to have some kind of cover you can run to when a certain species of inhabitant comes over to investigate your presence. There are numerous things to discover inside the Nether. Starting with its blocks, these will be covered over the next few posts... Next: Nether Blocks and Nether Wart

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A Holiday Somewhere Warm

Ameena — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 17:02:41 +0000

As has been mentioned here and there in previous posts, there are a couple of other realms/worlds/dimensions you can access. The two are sort of opposites of each other, one being rather hot and enclosed while the other is more sort of open and...spacious. The first of these two realms is the Nether. To get there, you have to pass through a Nether portal. To access one of these, you have to build it. Building a portal frame A Nether portal frame requires obsidian. The most obvious way of obtaining this is by mining it (which requires a diamond pickaxe). In case you'd forgotten, obsidian doesn't naturally spawn but is formed when flowing water meets still lava. You need a minimum of ten blocks of obsidian to build the frame, or a full fourteen blocks if you want it to look "complete". Note that it's possible to create your own obsidian by making a "mould" out of some other block type (such as dirt) and pouring lava into it, then pouring water on top of the lava to generate an obsidian block where you want it rather than having to mine it. This is a way of building a portal frame without first having to obtain diamonds for a pickaxe. A fourteen-block Nether portal frame is a rectangle four blocks wide and five blocks high, with a space of six blocks inside it. A ten-block frame is the same but without the outer corners of the frame. It doesn't matter whether you make the ten-block or fourteen-block variant. Both will work equally well. Opening the portal To open the portal, you first need to have crafted together a piece of flint (an occasional drop off gravel blocks) and an iron ingot to create a flint and steel. Then it's just a matter of using the flint and steel on any block on the inside of the portal frame. If you've done it right, you'll know about it because the open space will turn into a Nether portal. With the portal now open, you can use it any time you like by standing inside that weird wibbly purple stuff and waiting for a few seconds before being teleported to the Nether. But before you go... If you're completely new to this and don't really know anything at all about the Nether just yet, it's worth mentioning at this point that it's a bit more...well, dangerous than the surface world. As such, it's probably not a good idea to take anything too valuable with you on your first trip. Suggested items are a (stone or iron) pickaxe or two and a stack or two of cobblestone. The reasons for this will be explained in the next post. Having stepped through the portal to the Nether, the next post will cover some of the things you'll find once you get there. Next: Welcome to the Nether!

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Pushing Power

Ameena — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 22:24:47 +0000

One type of redstone machinery you can craft is the piston. These are very useful for moving blocks around. There are two varieties of piston... Piston These aren't too difficult to craft - you need four woden planks, three blocks of cobblestone, one iron ingot, and one little pile of redstone dust. Place the planks along the top of the crafting grid, the iron in the centre, the redstone dust beneath the iron, and the cobblstone blocks in the four remaining squares. This will create a single piston which is a block you can place like any other block. A piston is activated when it receives a redstone signal - like any other redstone-activated device, this can be in the form of an adjacent trigger (like a button or lever) or a more distant one which is linked up via redstone wire. The use of a piston is for pushing blocks. The "pushing" part of the piston is the wooden face. Any block adjacent to this will be pushed outward when the piston is activated, provided there isn't another block in the way. When the redstone signal is cut off, the piston will deactivate, retracting back into its starting state. A block pushed out by a piston will stay in the spot to which it was pushed out, one block away from where it started. You could set up a sort of chain of pistons to push one block along a complicated path at the push of a single button. Sticky Piston To craft one of these, you first need an ordinary piston. You also need a single slime ball (obtained from slimes, found deep underground). Place the slime ball directly above the piston in a crafting grid to convert the piston into a sticky piston. These work in exactly the same way as ordinary pistons, except a pushed block remains attached to the surface of the piston. You might use this to create a secret door into your base, for example, or some kind of operable valve to let flowing water or lava through an opening. There are numerous potential uses for pistons, as there are any other redstone devices. Unfortunately, however (at least, unfortunate if you're interested in doing loads of stuff with redstone), this guide isn't going into any more detail on the subject due to the writer's lack of knowledge and generally finding all this stuff too complicated. There are plenty of other guides out there, though (as well as YouTube vids) which can instruct you far better on the matter. The amount of complexity it's possible to reach by building redstone devices is quite staggering - just look for vids online of some of the kind of stuff people have managed to do, even before the recent (at the time of writing0 Redstone Update which added in loads of new stuff. Moving on with this guide, however, the next post will start on the subject of one of the other realms you can access for resources and multiple ways to get yourself killed - the Nether. Next: A Holiday Somewhere Warm

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