Recently, I have not being playing Minecraft due to the fact every time I try to play, I starve to death and have to retrace my steps from spawn. The game just seems very frustrating and not very fun to play, with the monster health being upgraded and when there isn't many animals around, it becomes a struggle for food.
The worst part is when you play on a 1.7 server with no plugins and most of your stuff gets taken, and having to start over again.
In 1.6 I had a lot of fun with my massive mine that crossed three biomes.
Use your ears, use your eyes, look for biomes animals usually inhabit, cut down tons of trees and wait for apples to drop...there's probably a ton of options you're not considering. If you're having trouble at night with little food just hit a zombie and sequester yourself in a hole and wack at their legs. The rotten flesh they drop is edible of course and will keep you from dying even if it runs your hunger bar down faster.
It's either that or drop your pride and turn down the difficulty if you can. If you're playing on a hardmode server you're going to have to deal with it actually being hard and not having your hand held. Really the mobs in this game are a joke, no one should have trouble with them. The only way you'd have issues is if you're far from the server which would cause delays in hit confimation on mobs and them having a easier time hitting you. With you being "aussie" it is a certain possibility. Maybe find something closer to home if thats the case?
The server is hosted in Canada and I am playing it on a slow HP desktop (usually get around 20fps ) because my laptop has heat issues.
That'd do it, by playing on something so far away you're killing yourself off essentially. I've known a few other australians that play on the server I go on and some of them have just as many issues. It's tough being so isolated but finding something closer to where you live would help you substantially.
----Servers are usually a lot harder because the delay equates to more time for the mobs to hit you, you almost have to completely rely on bow and arrow which is hard to get in the first place if you're lagging. However, in sp the game is beyond easy and becomes more of a building game since everything is handed to you then you get bored in an hour. So either it's too hard or too easy.
However, in sp the game is beyond easy and becomes more of a building game since everything is handed to you then you get bored in an hour.
Beyond easy for veteran players. SSP has gotten significantly harder for new players than it ever used to be.
Basically, all of the recent updates have been trying to make the game "harder" (though arguably only making it "more annoying"), because all the veteran players such as yourself keep griping about how stuff is "too easy".
The problem is that, because Minecraft (by its very nature) isn't well-suited to progressive difficulty, most of the changes they have made only really make the very early stages of the game harder.
This, in my opinion, is making the game less fun and more frustrating to new (and casual) players, and driving more of those people away from the game. While simultaneously NOT really affecting the difficulty level for the veteran and well-established players (but arguably adding annoyance).
The OP is yet another example of why things like Dinnerbone's AI tweaks aren't really adding anything positive to the game for many people.
The problem is that, because Minecraft (by its very nature) isn't well-suited to progressive difficulty, most of the changes they have made only really make the very early stages of the game harder.
This, in my opinion, is making the game less fun and more frustrating to new (and casual) players, and driving more of those people away from the game. While simultaneously NOT really affecting the difficulty level for the veteran and well-established players (but arguably adding annoyance).
The OP is yet another example of why things like Dinnerbone's AI tweaks aren't really adding anything positive to the game for many people.
I do tend to forget about new players. When I start a game I haven't played before though, I tend to value games that are difficult. The line between frustrating and difficult is very hard to define.
----I was very against everything that dinnerbone added until I started playing, because I always felt you should at least have to spend a day or three having to collect food to survive for a while. I thought the regeneration consumption was a bad way, but it does a great job of making low-sat foods short-term and giving you more reason to use potions and other things that actually heal you. I also thought the zombie spawn groups were bad but that was mostly due to the 40 block follow range zombies had which was dropped.
----I know everyone cringes whenever I say this but, they should buff mob damage. The counter to that is usually 'you can still kill them the same way and not get damaged'. The thing is, when they hurt you more, you can't just run in the middle of them, because when you do, one is bound to hit you and that's when things start getting difficult.
----My main point I try to get across is that enchants cause a huge problem for sp. They need to make higher tier mobs that can take large chunks out of you even when you have an enchanted iron set, but that would drop more exp. I also feel repairing on enchanted equipment is steep. I shouldn't have to get a mob grinder just to repair a full set of diamond equipment (like 100 levels worth), that just turns me off to all of it, but the lvl1 enchants make mobs look like babies.
----All they need to do is make sure the higher tier mobs CAN hit you and that they do decent damage to enchanted armor and to make repairing enchants cheaper. Then the later game would feel more natural.
I hear your pain. I starved to death over and over and over and over the first time I played. I didn’t go to the internet to learn how to do anything. It was really exciting, and frustrating. That was almost a year ago. I just started a new world 9amplified), and the beginning days where so easy (now that I know everything. LOL. Had my dirt fort up, and bed well before sun down, skipped the nights, and easily cruised into a stable setting of constant camp upgrading.
The game could use some hints for beginners. Something that could be turned off, but let’s people know to make tools, and collect things form the environment. Heck, first mob killed drops a wood hoe, or fishing pole. Something.
I agree that they’ve made many things harder and harder without scalability really. Difficulty could be scaled to days lived. Some things have been made harder through just frustration in dealing with it. (Zombie hordes for example.)
When I started I looked at the achievements for guidance. I do think they should have an in-game crafting guide though. Maybe the stats sheet can take note of what you have so far and tell you what you can make at that point so it doesn't give too much away.
Recently, I have not being playing Minecraft due to the fact every time I try to play, I starve to death and have to retrace my steps from spawn. The game just seems very frustrating and not very fun to play, with the monster health being upgraded and when there isn't many animals around, it becomes a struggle for food.
The worst part is when you play on a 1.7 server with no plugins and most of your stuff gets taken, and having to start over again.
In 1.6 I had a lot of fun with my massive mine that crossed three biomes.
Oh please, you can easily survive off of zombie flesh and apples.... and really? If you were on a server that was against stealing/griefing then you wouldn't have a problem with your items taken away and if they were they would probably be restored if stealing/griefing is against the rules.... The only thing is that none of the minimap things are updated however I just learned how to use coords to find my way to locations so it's all good.
Just learn a little and use your brain You'll be fine.
In my personal oppinion, in Minecraft you make your own game. Like to mine? grab your pick and go for it. Like the adventure? get your food and your gear and go to find new biomes. This game is the deffinition of a sandbox. In other words, you make your way to go through it
I like to be challenged, and I have a lot of fun with a new world. When you start a new map, or when you join a server for the first time there are several ways no to die. Or even, sleep on a bed wherever you like to respawn, put everything you have on a chest, and let yourself starve with no consecuences during the first days until you manage out how to survive.
As been already replied, you can get apples if there's no animals around, or punch some grass and plant seeds near a lake or a river (if you don't move while it grows, your hunger bar will not come down).
There's also a vid that might help you: "how to survive your first night". It's a bit old, but still useful:
Best of lucks!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt. Mark Twain
I do tend to forget about new players. When I start a game I haven't played before though, I tend to value games that are difficult. The line between frustrating and difficult is very hard to define.
----I was very against everything that dinnerbone added until I started playing, because I always felt you should at least have to spend a day or three having to collect food to survive for a while. I thought the regeneration consumption was a bad way, but it does a great job of making low-sat foods short-term and giving you more reason to use potions and other things that actually heal you. I also thought the zombie spawn groups were bad but that was mostly due to the 40 block follow range zombies had which was dropped.
----I know everyone cringes whenever I say this but, they should buff mob damage. The counter to that is usually 'you can still kill them the same way and not get damaged'. The thing is, when they hurt you more, you can't just run in the middle of them, because when you do, one is bound to hit you and that's when things start getting difficult.
----My main point I try to get across is that enchants cause a huge problem for sp. They need to make higher tier mobs that can take large chunks out of you even when you have an enchanted iron set, but that would drop more exp. I also feel repairing on enchanted equipment is steep. I shouldn't have to get a mob grinder just to repair a full set of diamond equipment (like 100 levels worth), that just turns me off to all of it, but the lvl1 enchants make mobs look like babies.
----All they need to do is make sure the higher tier mobs CAN hit you and that they do decent damage to enchanted armor and to make repairing enchants cheaper. Then the later game would feel more natural.
The truth is, new players are always going to have a really hard time, and, even if they play peaceful, they will probably still die, so not much can be done. In more helpful news, most people start playing minecraft because their friend play it, so they can generally get help, and even if they can't, it rather quickly becomes clear that dieing really will not lose you anything unless you die miles away from home.
What I would go with to fix the easiness late game would just be the reduction of the damage that armor reduces (perhaps add a ton the the condition of the armor to make it worth making), so when you were in full diamond, you would still take 1/2-1 heart, as opposed to 1/2 heart every three hits or so. I say this because I modded a mob to do like 6 hearts of damage, and with full diamond, you still take almost nothing from it. Additionally, enchantments really put it over the top, even with very small enchants, you can increase the effectiveness of armor a ton, so a nerf to protection enchantments might be good too. This is especially notable because of the relatively low cost of enchanting, seeing as once you have the table, you have nothing else to spend XP on, so you might as well enchant things.
Additionally, Mojang could add some mobs to the over world that do part of their damage (or all of it) through armor (similar to wither skels) so that armor would not be as powerful. Currently, with the exception of the witch (which spawns very rarely, and is rather easy to kill if it is alone) and the cave spider (the reason it is one of the most feared mobs, but still spawns only in certain, controllable, places) all the mobs that do this are in the nether (blaze, wither skel, ghast(kinda)). This causes me to never use armor in the nether as it simply doesn't help enough to outweigh the cost of making it, but no such mobs really occur on the over world in any amount worth noting. So a new mob that did something of this nature (and spawned normally) could really aid the game. The nice thing about mobs like this, is they wouldn't be too hard in the beginning, but they would never really get easier.
I find it interesting that the OP wrote that they found the game was too hard ... and in response, people are posting suggestions for making it harder.
I wrote a big long post about this. For the sake of brevity, I won't repeat it; you can read it here. The tl;dr version can be summed up in a single word: NO.
Minecraft does not need to be harder for beginners just so that experienced players find it challenging. No how, no way, period. The only actual effect that would have would be to reduce the number of new players -- and it's that, namely discouraging new players from joining, not old players not feeling challenged, that kills a game, any game.
Anyone remember, back in the paper-and-dice days, a game called Squad Leader? It was a wargame, a very, very good one. And it killed itself off. The publishers added supplements and expansions and whatnot, and in the end, it required multiple large boxes, a stack of rulebooks the size of a small textbook, and a whole weekend devoted to nothing else, to play a game. Experienced players, who had reached this point incrementally -- they were playing the game when it was much simpler, and learned each new rule expansion as it was published -- kept on playing. But it was absolutely daunting for a novice. Few people were willing to put out the effort to learn how to play. And Squad Leader died, a victim of its increasing inaccessibility.
Sure, after you've been playing Minecraft for a while, elements of the game get easier. The solution to that, though, isn't to make it harder for people who aren't you. The solution is to add an additional difficulty level, just like "easy", "normal", and "hard" -- we'll call it "extra-hard" -- so you, too, can find a challenge now that "hard" is too easy for you. That, I would fully support.
As for the OP, and the problem with surviving: For SSP, play on Normal. You won't starve to death. First thing, punch some trees, set up a crafting table, make a wooden pickaxe. Dig a hole in the side of a cliff, make a door with the wood you got from the tree punching. If you're lucky and there were some sheep where you spawned, kill a few sheep and make a bed, too. If not, well, you've got plenty to keep you busy during the night and while you're waiting for the mobs to despawn in the morning: enlarging your hideout, making a furnace, burning some wood into charcoal, etc. While you're waiting for morning, make a set of stone tools and a stone sword. Clear out a nice big house. With any luck, you should hit some coal while you're at it. Next day, go medieval on the trees. Pick up any apples. Clear tall grass (just punch it) and collect seeds. Use that stone hoe you made to till some land near water, and plant seeds in the resulting farmland. Keep chopping down trees. You're going to need a bunch of fences: you want to build one 6 squares in every direction away from your front door, to keep creepers from blowing you up when you step outside. You're going to want to fence in your new farmland, so animals don't trample your crops. And you're going to want to build some animal pens, so that as soon as your wheat is ripe, you can go into the ranching business. Find some sand, make glass, give your hideout some front windows so you can look out and see if there's anything inside your fence. Now you're safe, secure, and equipped with resources, and you can start to pwn the world. The critical thing, IMO, is making enough fences to build that creeper cramper -- the fence to keep them from blowing you up when you step out the door. Once you've got that, all the rest is easy.
For SMP, play on a different server. Sounds like yours is full of jerks.
What I would go with to fix the easiness late game would just be the reduction of the damage that armor reduces (perhaps add a ton the the condition of the armor to make it worth making), so when you were in full diamond, you would still take 1/2-1 heart, as opposed to 1/2 heart every three hits or so. I say this because I modded a mob to do like 6 hearts of damage, and with full diamond, you still take almost nothing from it. Additionally, enchantments really put it over the top, even with very small enchants, you can increase the effectiveness of armor a ton, so a nerf to protection enchantments might be good too. This is especially notable because of the relatively low cost of enchanting, seeing as once you have the table, you have nothing else to spend XP on, so you might as well enchant things.
Additionally, Mojang could add some mobs to the over world that do part of their damage (or all of it) through armor (similar to wither skels) so that armor would not be as powerful. Currently, with the exception of the witch (which spawns very rarely, and is rather easy to kill if it is alone) and the cave spider (the reason it is one of the most feared mobs, but still spawns only in certain, controllable, places) all the mobs that do this are in the nether (blaze, wither skel, ghast(kinda)). This causes me to never use armor in the nether as it simply doesn't help enough to outweigh the cost of making it, but no such mobs really occur on the over world in any amount worth noting. So a new mob that did something of this nature (and spawned normally) could really aid the game. The nice thing about mobs like this, is they wouldn't be too hard in the beginning, but they would never really get easier.
Yes, that's another thing. In my mod I make iron give you about 6 armor bars, diamond 8 and chain 9 so that mobs can get through a little better. I do think they should have half and half with mobs that bypass and mobs that can't. I like the idea of adding a goat that headbutts so that it does fall damage, although you can get feather falling so that would only work for so long.
I find it interesting that the OP wrote that they found the game was too hard ... and in response, people are posting suggestions for making it harder.
I wrote a big long post about this. For the sake of brevity, I won't repeat it; you can read it here. The tl;dr version can be summed up in a single word: NO.
I read your post in the thread you linked. I wish I could +1 it about 1000 times. I don't know why so few people understand this.
Sorry, I forgot to mention that everything I was talking about was for late-game which is completely off topic, but that's just what I tend to do.
What usually gets you from newb to 'can survive' is knowing how to craft a sword. An achievement tells you to kill a monster and shows a sword but doesn't tell you how to make a sword. So, in short, if you can't figure out how to make a sword then you are doomed to die over and over again.
Also, if you don't hurt animals or chop down enough trees in the beginning (and don't look at the wiki) you are doomed to starve when starting out.
In short, if you don't like experimenting, minecraft isn't for you.
Sorry, I forgot to mention that everything I was talking about was for late-game which is completely off topic, but that's just what I tend to do.
What usually gets you from newb to 'can survive' is knowing how to craft a sword. An achievement tells you to kill a monster and shows a sword but doesn't tell you how to make a sword. So, in short, if you can't figure out how to make a sword then you are doomed to die over and over again.
Also, if you don't hurt animals or chop down enough trees in the beginning (and don't look at the wiki) you are doomed to starve when starting out.
In short, if you don't like experimenting, minecraft isn't for you.
Which can be expected for a game that is purely about creativity.
I admit I am a skilled player at the game, able to build, able to wire redstone, able to fight, but at the end of the day you have a bunch of people who rely solely on server commands to get anything done in the game or MCEdit to create their massive structures. Why people need artificial help is beyond me. If a player needs help in Minecraft, there should be help available help within the game. Also, there's just a lot of people who don't want to be clueless and frustrated, maybe even bored. Now, you see those guys at Mindcrack, and they're seemingly never bored, because they don't have a lack of creativity.
I definitely think Minecraft should have some sort of optional tutorial system. Yes, cheaty cheaty. However, there are too many people who can't play the game, constantly get trolled, or worse, banned because they didn't understand something. I reckon that if Mojang wants more players, they have to introduce them into the game. That's not PaulSoaresJr's job, not the Yogscast's job, that is Mojang who should be providing the best content and hardest work for their own creation.
The server is hosted in Canada and I am playing it on a slow HP desktop (usually get around 20fps ) because my laptop has heat issues.
There's the problem right there, HP! They usually bog the PC down with craploads of stuff you either don't need running or aren't going to use in the next 100 years so the first thing to do is take it to a technician or computer friend you trust, and have it tuned up so that it's only running what is actually needed.
If you don't notice a significant performance improvement after that, I would suggest you post your specs in a topic under the appropriate support forum on this board's index.and ask for options for upgrading your PC.
If you already own a high specs PC and it is running slowly, I would seriously recommend having it checked over thoroughly, as you either have a virus infecting it or the PC might have performance issues or a part is broken or worn out and in need of replacement or upgrading. I had an older model PC a while back which was running games well until it started having issues. When I had it looked at, it turned out that a fan on the graphics card in it had broken a blade and when this card was replaced with a newer one, the issues went away.
Yeah I'm not totally a new player since I have played the game since 2011, so I can craft and sword and that.
Also doesn't help when you fill half a 1tb hard drive, slows things down A LOT.
The worst part is when you play on a 1.7 server with no plugins and most of your stuff gets taken, and having to start over again.
In 1.6 I had a lot of fun with my massive mine that crossed three biomes.
Enderdragon Roar in the Overworld
Rollercoaster
It's either that or drop your pride and turn down the difficulty if you can. If you're playing on a hardmode server you're going to have to deal with it actually being hard and not having your hand held. Really the mobs in this game are a joke, no one should have trouble with them. The only way you'd have issues is if you're far from the server which would cause delays in hit confimation on mobs and them having a easier time hitting you. With you being "aussie" it is a certain possibility. Maybe find something closer to home if thats the case?
Enderdragon Roar in the Overworld
Rollercoaster
That'd do it, by playing on something so far away you're killing yourself off essentially. I've known a few other australians that play on the server I go on and some of them have just as many issues. It's tough being so isolated but finding something closer to where you live would help you substantially.
Beyond easy for veteran players. SSP has gotten significantly harder for new players than it ever used to be.
Basically, all of the recent updates have been trying to make the game "harder" (though arguably only making it "more annoying"), because all the veteran players such as yourself keep griping about how stuff is "too easy".
The problem is that, because Minecraft (by its very nature) isn't well-suited to progressive difficulty, most of the changes they have made only really make the very early stages of the game harder.
This, in my opinion, is making the game less fun and more frustrating to new (and casual) players, and driving more of those people away from the game. While simultaneously NOT really affecting the difficulty level for the veteran and well-established players (but arguably adding annoyance).
The OP is yet another example of why things like Dinnerbone's AI tweaks aren't really adding anything positive to the game for many people.
----I was very against everything that dinnerbone added until I started playing, because I always felt you should at least have to spend a day or three having to collect food to survive for a while. I thought the regeneration consumption was a bad way, but it does a great job of making low-sat foods short-term and giving you more reason to use potions and other things that actually heal you. I also thought the zombie spawn groups were bad but that was mostly due to the 40 block follow range zombies had which was dropped.
----I know everyone cringes whenever I say this but, they should buff mob damage. The counter to that is usually 'you can still kill them the same way and not get damaged'. The thing is, when they hurt you more, you can't just run in the middle of them, because when you do, one is bound to hit you and that's when things start getting difficult.
----My main point I try to get across is that enchants cause a huge problem for sp. They need to make higher tier mobs that can take large chunks out of you even when you have an enchanted iron set, but that would drop more exp. I also feel repairing on enchanted equipment is steep. I shouldn't have to get a mob grinder just to repair a full set of diamond equipment (like 100 levels worth), that just turns me off to all of it, but the lvl1 enchants make mobs look like babies.
----All they need to do is make sure the higher tier mobs CAN hit you and that they do decent damage to enchanted armor and to make repairing enchants cheaper. Then the later game would feel more natural.
The game could use some hints for beginners. Something that could be turned off, but let’s people know to make tools, and collect things form the environment. Heck, first mob killed drops a wood hoe, or fishing pole. Something.
I agree that they’ve made many things harder and harder without scalability really. Difficulty could be scaled to days lived. Some things have been made harder through just frustration in dealing with it. (Zombie hordes for example.)
Beginner hints would be good though.
Oh please, you can easily survive off of zombie flesh and apples.... and really? If you were on a server that was against stealing/griefing then you wouldn't have a problem with your items taken away and if they were they would probably be restored if stealing/griefing is against the rules.... The only thing is that none of the minimap things are updated however I just learned how to use coords to find my way to locations so it's all good.
Just learn a little and use your brain You'll be fine.
I like to be challenged, and I have a lot of fun with a new world. When you start a new map, or when you join a server for the first time there are several ways no to die. Or even, sleep on a bed wherever you like to respawn, put everything you have on a chest, and let yourself starve with no consecuences during the first days until you manage out how to survive.
As been already replied, you can get apples if there's no animals around, or punch some grass and plant seeds near a lake or a river (if you don't move while it grows, your hunger bar will not come down).
There's also a vid that might help you: "how to survive your first night". It's a bit old, but still useful:
Best of lucks!
Mark Twain
Try using Optifine when it updates if the server or your client on 1.7+ if its 1.6.4 or under your covered http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/249637-164-optifine-hd-c6-fps-boost-hd-textures-aa-af-and-much-more/
The truth is, new players are always going to have a really hard time, and, even if they play peaceful, they will probably still die, so not much can be done. In more helpful news, most people start playing minecraft because their friend play it, so they can generally get help, and even if they can't, it rather quickly becomes clear that dieing really will not lose you anything unless you die miles away from home.
What I would go with to fix the easiness late game would just be the reduction of the damage that armor reduces (perhaps add a ton the the condition of the armor to make it worth making), so when you were in full diamond, you would still take 1/2-1 heart, as opposed to 1/2 heart every three hits or so. I say this because I modded a mob to do like 6 hearts of damage, and with full diamond, you still take almost nothing from it. Additionally, enchantments really put it over the top, even with very small enchants, you can increase the effectiveness of armor a ton, so a nerf to protection enchantments might be good too. This is especially notable because of the relatively low cost of enchanting, seeing as once you have the table, you have nothing else to spend XP on, so you might as well enchant things.
Additionally, Mojang could add some mobs to the over world that do part of their damage (or all of it) through armor (similar to wither skels) so that armor would not be as powerful. Currently, with the exception of the witch (which spawns very rarely, and is rather easy to kill if it is alone) and the cave spider (the reason it is one of the most feared mobs, but still spawns only in certain, controllable, places) all the mobs that do this are in the nether (blaze, wither skel, ghast(kinda)). This causes me to never use armor in the nether as it simply doesn't help enough to outweigh the cost of making it, but no such mobs really occur on the over world in any amount worth noting. So a new mob that did something of this nature (and spawned normally) could really aid the game. The nice thing about mobs like this, is they wouldn't be too hard in the beginning, but they would never really get easier.
I wrote a big long post about this. For the sake of brevity, I won't repeat it; you can read it here. The tl;dr version can be summed up in a single word: NO.
Minecraft does not need to be harder for beginners just so that experienced players find it challenging. No how, no way, period. The only actual effect that would have would be to reduce the number of new players -- and it's that, namely discouraging new players from joining, not old players not feeling challenged, that kills a game, any game.
Anyone remember, back in the paper-and-dice days, a game called Squad Leader? It was a wargame, a very, very good one. And it killed itself off. The publishers added supplements and expansions and whatnot, and in the end, it required multiple large boxes, a stack of rulebooks the size of a small textbook, and a whole weekend devoted to nothing else, to play a game. Experienced players, who had reached this point incrementally -- they were playing the game when it was much simpler, and learned each new rule expansion as it was published -- kept on playing. But it was absolutely daunting for a novice. Few people were willing to put out the effort to learn how to play. And Squad Leader died, a victim of its increasing inaccessibility.
Sure, after you've been playing Minecraft for a while, elements of the game get easier. The solution to that, though, isn't to make it harder for people who aren't you. The solution is to add an additional difficulty level, just like "easy", "normal", and "hard" -- we'll call it "extra-hard" -- so you, too, can find a challenge now that "hard" is too easy for you. That, I would fully support.
As for the OP, and the problem with surviving: For SSP, play on Normal. You won't starve to death. First thing, punch some trees, set up a crafting table, make a wooden pickaxe. Dig a hole in the side of a cliff, make a door with the wood you got from the tree punching. If you're lucky and there were some sheep where you spawned, kill a few sheep and make a bed, too. If not, well, you've got plenty to keep you busy during the night and while you're waiting for the mobs to despawn in the morning: enlarging your hideout, making a furnace, burning some wood into charcoal, etc. While you're waiting for morning, make a set of stone tools and a stone sword. Clear out a nice big house. With any luck, you should hit some coal while you're at it. Next day, go medieval on the trees. Pick up any apples. Clear tall grass (just punch it) and collect seeds. Use that stone hoe you made to till some land near water, and plant seeds in the resulting farmland. Keep chopping down trees. You're going to need a bunch of fences: you want to build one 6 squares in every direction away from your front door, to keep creepers from blowing you up when you step outside. You're going to want to fence in your new farmland, so animals don't trample your crops. And you're going to want to build some animal pens, so that as soon as your wheat is ripe, you can go into the ranching business. Find some sand, make glass, give your hideout some front windows so you can look out and see if there's anything inside your fence. Now you're safe, secure, and equipped with resources, and you can start to pwn the world. The critical thing, IMO, is making enough fences to build that creeper cramper -- the fence to keep them from blowing you up when you step out the door. Once you've got that, all the rest is easy.
For SMP, play on a different server. Sounds like yours is full of jerks.
The golden age: it's not the game, it's you ⋆ Why Minecraft should not be harder ⋆ Spelling hints
I read your post in the thread you linked. I wish I could +1 it about 1000 times. I don't know why so few people understand this.
What usually gets you from newb to 'can survive' is knowing how to craft a sword. An achievement tells you to kill a monster and shows a sword but doesn't tell you how to make a sword. So, in short, if you can't figure out how to make a sword then you are doomed to die over and over again.
Also, if you don't hurt animals or chop down enough trees in the beginning (and don't look at the wiki) you are doomed to starve when starting out.
In short, if you don't like experimenting, minecraft isn't for you.
Which can be expected for a game that is purely about creativity.
I admit I am a skilled player at the game, able to build, able to wire redstone, able to fight, but at the end of the day you have a bunch of people who rely solely on server commands to get anything done in the game or MCEdit to create their massive structures. Why people need artificial help is beyond me. If a player needs help in Minecraft, there should be help available help within the game. Also, there's just a lot of people who don't want to be clueless and frustrated, maybe even bored. Now, you see those guys at Mindcrack, and they're seemingly never bored, because they don't have a lack of creativity.
I definitely think Minecraft should have some sort of optional tutorial system. Yes, cheaty cheaty. However, there are too many people who can't play the game, constantly get trolled, or worse, banned because they didn't understand something. I reckon that if Mojang wants more players, they have to introduce them into the game. That's not PaulSoaresJr's job, not the Yogscast's job, that is Mojang who should be providing the best content and hardest work for their own creation.
There's the problem right there, HP! They usually bog the PC down with craploads of stuff you either don't need running or aren't going to use in the next 100 years so the first thing to do is take it to a technician or computer friend you trust, and have it tuned up so that it's only running what is actually needed.
If you don't notice a significant performance improvement after that, I would suggest you post your specs in a topic under the appropriate support forum on this board's index.and ask for options for upgrading your PC.
If you already own a high specs PC and it is running slowly, I would seriously recommend having it checked over thoroughly, as you either have a virus infecting it or the PC might have performance issues or a part is broken or worn out and in need of replacement or upgrading. I had an older model PC a while back which was running games well until it started having issues. When I had it looked at, it turned out that a fan on the graphics card in it had broken a blade and when this card was replaced with a newer one, the issues went away.
Cheers ...
BrickVoid
Also doesn't help when you fill half a 1tb hard drive, slows things down A LOT.
Enderdragon Roar in the Overworld
Rollercoaster