This is a mostly vanilla Minecraft Survival multi-player server, running grief protection plugins for a friendlier experience (for instance, you can claim certain areas of land - see further on for details).
TLDR quick-start:
- It's survival, so there are no starter kits or teleportation other than /spawn, /home (to your bed) and a couple of others (but there are free food dispensers and charity chests where you may find items to help you get started)
- Pick a direction out of spawn and head out somewhere to find a place you'd like to build, the dynmap can help you work out where to head
- If the server is quiet when you join, don't worry; it tends to get busier UK evening times
- Follow the rules below, read the rest of this guide for much more help, and don't be afraid to ask the community for assistance (even if nobody is in-game, the mod team and regulars are often reachable on IRC which is relayed to the in-game chat)
The rules are fairly loose, but designed to keep this a pleasant place to be:
- Do not kill noobs (new players are automatically protected from PvP for one week from the time they first log in - if you're ready to PvP before that, you can "opt out" of the protection early - see PvP section below)
- Strictly no advertising other servers
- No free items / no begging for items, creative mode, unbans, asking to be a mod/opped, etc
- Don't use hacks or glitches to gain an unfair advantage
- Try not to build too ugly!
- Do not build trapped portals
- Use common sense
- Don't be an arsehole!
The spawn point and the wider world
Since December 2014, there is a new, fancy world spawn in all new 1.8 chunks. When you connect, you'll start at the world spawn point. You can always return to it, at any time, with the /spawn command. Drop down the hole to the water below. There are four tunnels heading north (purple), south (white), east (blue) and west (red) away from spawn. In the corner between the E and S tunnels is a ladderway down to a public nether portal.
Down the blue (East) tunnel, there is a tunnel through the mountain, which contains a free food dispenser room to get you basic food to get started, a charity chest (which may contain useful items to help you) and a public ender chest (which you're welcome to use to store your items securely - enderchests have a different inventory for every player, so your items are secure). There is also an enchanting room, a nether portal, and a bedroom you're welcome to use to set your /home point (see more details on beds and /home below). There is also a small boat dock, and beyond the end of the tunnel, a "log flume" for a fast and fun way to get further out to flatter land.
When you die, you'll end up back at the spawn point. If you've set a home location using a bed (see below), you can teleport back to your home with the /home command; you can also teleport to the spawn point at any time with the /spawn command (this can be useful to meet up with other players and trade goods).
Who to ask for help
The community on this server is friendly, and most are more than happy to help, especially to help new users feel welcome. The server staff are:
- Admins:
- SMC
- Smaj (ChaosAdmin)
- bigpresh
Moderators: - Xavier
- Lei
- Golazooo
Player Moderators: - Crumpet_Trumpet
- DiamondHunter98
- Paxen
- Yrkill
- Villk1
- WholemealCat
PvP (player-vs-player) fights
New users have 4 hours of playtime during which they cannot be engaged in PvP battle by other players. Once you are past the first four hours, you will be able to pvp. When you respawn after being killed, you’re also protected from PvP whilst empty-handed, but as soon as you pick up an item or open a container, the protection is removed. As PvP is enabled, if you want to avoid being killed you'll probably want to go a reasonable distance from spawn and other people, and ensure you build a secure base (no gaps people can throw an ender pearl through/over to teleport in, and make sure it's claimed properly, keep the doors shut, etc).
There's a wide range of playing styles in use - some who never PvP, some who will PvP with those who are happy to do so, and some who will ruthlessly hunt down and murder anyone they find without provocation and steal the items they were carrying, regardless of whether they're armed or interested in PvP or not. The latter types are best avoided. GrandArchitect is one, vodapo can fall in to that category too but is more reasonable. Historically, Paxen and CapnAmerica also fit here. Because of the presence of these types, walking around near spawn carrying valuable items can be dangerous and ill-advised.
Getting started and settling down - arranging the basics
You'll want food, to stave off hunger and allow your health to regenerate - some free food can be found from the dispensers off the blue and purple tunnels as described above, and other players will often be willing to provide some food if you're desperate. Melons and carrots are good, easy starter foods, which you can turn into seeds and plant, once you've prepared some farmland with a hoe.
There may also be some helpful items to get you started in the charity chest in the tunnel through the mountain at the end of the blue (east) tunnel.
You'll want to pick a spot to build on - it's advisable to be a bit away from others if you want to be left alone, and to be somewhere with access to trees. Pick a path and head away from spawn until you find somewhere you want to settle. (You might want to build a small place first to get started, then use that as a base to roam out until you find a location you want to build a proper base; that's entirely up to you. If you use the blue tunnel, you can use the newbie bedroom there to set your /home point in the tunnel and explore from there.) You may well find the map useful to look for decent-looking locations - http://the-wild.tk/map
Chop some wood, build your crafting table, and build basic wooden tools, then you can mine some cobble and upgrade to stone tools.
Until you're equipped and ready, night time can be a dangerous time with mob spawns - you might want to dig into the side of a hill or underground in the dirt and block yourself in and wait for night to pass. At a pinch, you could even build a pillar of dirt blocks to stand on, out of the reach of most mobs, until the sun rises. Of course, the spawn area is safe, and there's also a newbies bedroom in the tunnel off the east tunnel from spawn you can use. Once you've done a little mining, you should find coal and be able to produce torches to light your shelter; if you haven't yet found much coal, you can use the stone you've mined to build a furnace, and use what little coal you did find to burn wood to produce charcoal, which can also be used for torches (one lump of coal can "smelt" 8 logs into 8 lumps of charcoal)..
Once you've picked your spot, it's advisable to push F3 for the debug overlay, and write down the X,Y,Z co-ordinates of the spot - so you can find it again easily until you have gathered wood and wool to build a bed (at which point you can simply type /home to return there at any point. Note that in single-player, you can "skip" night by sleeping in a bed, but that won't work in multiplayer (unless every player does it at once, and that's unlikely).)
While you're gathering stuff, if you haven't yet started to build a place, be careful not to die in the meantime. You can always use the public enderchest in the east tunnel to securely store stuff until you're set up - but of course that means going back to spawn then trekking back to where you were exploring.
Grief prevention via land claims and trusting others
To avoid hassle from griefers (those who intentionally try to ruin things for others), we use a grief prevention server mod. This allows you to "claim" land as yours; within a claim, no other players can place/break blocks, open doors, open chests, operate buttons/levers etc (unless you grant them permission to do so - see below).
Once you build your first chest, you can safely store items you're not using in it; a small (10x10 land claim around this chest will be automatically created for you, meaning other players cannot access or break the chest or anything in the claimed area. (Before then, you can use a public enderchest; enderchests have an individual inventory for every player, so although access to the chest may be public, nobody else can access the items you put in it, nor can you see or access anyone else's stuff.)
When you later want to extend your claim to protect more land, or create additional claims elsewhere, you will need to craft yourself a golden shovel. When you switch to the shovel, a link to a helpful video describing the claiming system will appear, which illustrates how it works simply.
If you want to allow other people to access your house and/or use your bed/enchanting table etc, you can trust them, using various trust levels:
- /accesstrust playername - allows them to open doors, operate buttons and levers
- /containertrust playername - in addition to the above, lets them access your chests, use your enchanting table/furnace/anvil etc. Be careful who you give this level or above to; they could steal all your stuff, and you'll have no comeback as you permitted them to do so.
- /trust playername - gives full trust - all of the above, plus the ability to place/break blocks and generally trash the place.
If you want to let people in to your house but to have containertrust on only some areas, it is possible to do that with subdivided claims - but that's a little complex to cover here.
Teleportation - beds, /home and /spawn
At any time, you can type /spawn to return to the world spawn point. You can also use /oldspawn to return to the old (pre-December 2014) world spawn point.. Once you've constructed a bed and right-clicked on it to set your home spawn point, you can also use /home to teleport to your bed - so even if you've been out on a long exploration mission, you can teleport back home easily. You cannot, however, teleport to another player or have them teleport to you, nor can the mods do this for you - this is survival after all, so things shouldn't be too easy! (One exception is that player mods can "visit" you by teleporting to you if you need help with something - but they cannot pick up items or interact with things while in visit mode.)
Minecraft guides and resources
If you're new to Minecraft, there are various beginner's guides which might help you - a couple are:
http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Tutorial ... %27s_guide
http://uk.ign.com/wikis/minecraft/10_Wa ... _the_Night
The Minecraft wiki contains a lot of useful information, including crafting recipes etc: http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Minecraft_Wiki
For crafting recipes at a glance, there's also http://www.minecraft-crafting.com/
Can you op me / I want to be a mod
We're not actively looking for any more mods at this time; when we do, we tend to invite recognised long-standing members of the community who we've noted are helpful and friendly. In general, people who ask to be a mod (especially just after joining!) will never become one. If you want to help out, just hang out and be friendly to new users; that will be noticed.
Teamspeak
Click here for instructions on how to join the Server's Official Teamspeak
Happy Minecrafting! - bigpresh.
