Just a story about making it back home.

[johnt]

So, I died the other day, and ended up respawning in a 'dead zone'. A place where another player (or two) had previously been and cleared out the area of animal life, except for some hungry wolves. I didn't just immediately drown myself, although I considered it. What I did was find about a half dozen mushrooms while I was punching trees and avoiding wolves, which let me survive long enough to find a few pigs that had been stranded on cliffs the next day. Then I made a boat and hit the ocean. I've found that taking to the sea can be a life saver in desperate situations -- if you can't find shelter or if you're short of food, you can often go 'chicken fishing' -- axing random chickens that strayed off into the ocean -- something that's safe, even in the middle of the night.

I spent a day and a night following the shoreline around the continent I was on. I found a player's previous base, grabbed some supplies, and asked him how to get back to spawn from there -- he said he never made it. Again, the animal situation was dire -- a few chickens he had stored in his base, which I didn't want to kill, and few animals alive nearby.

I spent a few days making some expeditions inland from his base to see if I could recognize any landmarks, or see any markers, but the only thing I found was a spray of items from, I guess, the spot of the players demise -- including melon and pumpkin seeds and quite a bit of meat. So I decided to go the opposite direction on the ocean, and sailed away from that continent until I saw land that had lots of animals. I managed to find a jungle biome full of stuff, and since I had gotten a half dozen iron nuggets by then, I decided to disembark and look for a Jungle Temple to see if I could short circuit the compass-making process. I wasn't able to, but in searching for a spot to settle in for the night, I found a decent cave system.

I spent a couple of days exploring it, found enough iron for a pick, but as I started going deeper, I started running short of both coal and food, and the cave ran into a deep ravine. I think when I was less experienced with BTW, I'd have just said pushed forward into the abyss, but I actually decided that I had to abandon the cave entirely, take the iron pick plus another 10 or so iron I'd found and try looking for a better location to cave from.

I headed off further away, grabbing everything I could carry, and ended up finding a plains biome with both a nice cave system and an abandoned village. I used the seeds to get some chickens into a hut, and then started exploring the cave. I quickly found enough iron for a hoe, started a farm, and planted a few melon and hemp seeds, and used what was left to feed the chickens. I figured that it might take me a while to get redstone, if that cave didn't go deep enough or was too dangerous, so it's better to be prepared for the long haul. I spent my nights feeding chickens in a village hut or slowly expanding torch light into the cave, and my days searching for wood or animals for more food, leather or wool.

The cave did eventually go deep enough though. I made a sword and had a few pieces of leather and wool armor before I went too deep, but I managed to get redstone and get out without actually facing too much risk. I left the chickens and the farm plants, and headed home -- a trip that took 15 minutes by boat, almost.

I guess the point of this is that even in the worst possible respawn point --almost no food sources and wolves roaming around, I managed to survive long enough to get home by being patient and cautious and not taking chances that aren't necessary. Sure it might have been fun to go charging into that ravine with no armor, a crappy weapon and not enough torches to see if I could get lucky. But why depend on luck?

[Ulfengaard]

Nice story with a good lesson: be paranoid, very paranoid. Sometimes, it won't make sense. Other times, it will save your life. Better the latter than the former. Thanks for the story. Enjoyed it. :)

[FlowerChild]

I enjoyed it as well. Sounds like you had a very satisfying survival experience through deciding to stick it out.

[Slstoev]

Almost makes me wish someone made BTW creepypastas or just a book of survival stories.

[Taleric]

"I found a previous players base.... he said he never made it."

Laughed so hard at that part :)

Very good tale, thank you for writing!

I have to sell my vMC friends of on changing the server to BTW some time, damn wimps XD

Would be interesting to start a "legacy" type SSP BTW world where the map would be turned to the next player after you die once. Rule would be no building at spawn, just where you can, never heading back. Would end up with tons of awesome ruins in barren lands XD

[Chomamonka]

Ohhh! And you could have the server start each new player with a book and quill to make journal entrys. If they survived long enough to store it in the chest the next players would be able to read about the past players experiences and perhaps even learn useful information. :) I like.

[johnt]

I actually kinda like the idea of starting a player with a book and quill. That way A) They can kill time during the night by writing a journal and B) other players can find it when they find their items. Hell it might even be cool to automatically generate it (Day 15: Collected x iron, killed x creepers, etc). I wonder how hard that would be to do as an add-on?

[Anavros]

I actually kinda like the idea of starting a player with a book and quill. That way A) They can kill time during the night by writing a journal and B) other players can find it when they find their items. Hell it might even be cool to automatically generate it (Day 15: Collected x iron, killed x creepers, etc). I wonder how hard that would be to do as an add-on?

I don't think an add-on would be necessary. Everyone could agree to write down their experiences. I would love to participate if you want to get a group together.

[Chomamonka]

If someone is setting this up definitely count me in and send me a pm.

[Anavros]

Alright, I sent out some PMs trying to set up a game. If you are interested and haven't mentioned it already in the thread, PM me and I'll add you to the list. But that's far enough off-topic. I don't want to highjack your thread, johnt.