awesome early game experience (spoilers)

[Jesar]

The early game in BTW has gotten much, much better since I last played around a couple of versions back. The last time I played through the early game was before hardcore hoofsies was added.

So earlier tonight, I started up a new world. I have to say, I'm loving the new feel of everything. Here are some changes in my playstyle I've noted:

The gloom at night during new moon and stormy nights made me realize I can't see my way home if I get caught outside after dark, so now I build roads with torches every so often to keep the path lit up. I used to just deal with unlit roads until nethercoal so I could light the whole overworld. Now I feel like I'm slowly working my way towards lit up nights.

The above has me mining exposed coal more often than before. I used to just get enough torches to keep the main area of my base lit up so I could mine without a furnace going. Now finding easy coal feels like finding easy iron.

Now that getting around after dark can be a literal nightmare, I'm building roads like mad. I used to try to find an excuse to build roads, like maybe to connect resource nodes (caves, forests, beaches, jungles, etc) to my base.

Hardcore hoofsies has me avoiding cattle like they're demon spawn. Sometimes, I get nervous building roads or killing other animals nearby. My current world looks like it's inhabited by me and cattle right now. Also, I'm killing all the animals nearby, even chickens, because saving animals for later is no longer an easy chore. I'd rather kill them and find more than waste precious time trying to push or otherwise trick animals into becoming seeds for my bacon tree.

I still don't have an iron pick because I spend more time with coal and roads, but since my roads inevitably pass by caves, it's easy to check a few out every day before getting down to business. I may have enough for a pick and a hoe in the next couple of minecraft days.

Even though I haven't died yet, I'm sure all the extra road building is going to make dealing with hardcore spawn much easier. If I get developed enough before first death, I may be able to get by with using my re-spawn day to simply get stone tools and food, then just build a few roads around until I find my main roads and come home. The redstone compass may just be a last resort. I will have to actually experience this in my game, however, so this is just speculation.

Now I must return to the game. I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to build my mushroom farm once I get the mushrooms. It seems I may actually have chickens before I have chests full of mushrooms this time.

[Gilberreke]

The gloom at night during new moon and stormy nights made me realize I can't see my way home if I get caught outside after dark, so now I build roads with torches every so often to keep the path lit up. I used to just deal with unlit roads until nethercoal so I could light the whole overworld. Now I feel like I'm slowly working my way towards lit up nights.

Haha, yeah, I keep walking around with a stack of torches and slabs. Maybe we need glowstone half-slabs :D. The whole "managing the dark" aspect is pretty cool, though I always forget to pay attention to it, due to new moon being so rare. I still have to adjust I guess.

[Soupy Delicious]

I have a story of my own. I honestly don't think my heart has ever thumped so powerfully in my chest before, and I think I forgot to breath for a good few seconds.

I had just gone very far east, by boat, from the safety of my life-barren home on the biggest hunt for food yet. I'd spent around three and a half hours on a very big field of snow and animals harvesting foods and had finally decided to leave the poor piggies to their mourning. Day came, I shoveled away the dirt door I had made protecting me during the night, and started back towards the long ocean voyage awaiting me. I got myself about 20 metres from my dirt hole, and had managed to snip two creepers' creeperhood along the way, whereupon I spotted a skeleton decked out in a full suit of shiny iron armour. I had never seen this before, and decided, with the 160 slabs of dead animal in my pocket, to have a go at him or somethin smart like that.

Within 5 shots of his bow I was erecting a haphazard dirt barricade, with the most horrified and regretful expression present on my face. The two creepers I had befriended were blocking the way for the finalizing of my barricade construction, but I found they were also blocking the way of the relentless stream of arrows coming my way. They saved my life.

I went through 4 stone tools killing that skeleton, mainly because I was so weakened by my initial clever charge. This story would be nothing much if it were not for the valiance of those two creepers.