Emeralds are just like gold. Useless, but are somewhat rare and have a cool storage block. Same goes with lapis but lapis is far more common.
Today I was playing Vanilla Minecraft. I had a full inventory and found an emerald. There was a village near my house.
I just ignored the emerald. If I want emeralds then I can just farm wheat and trade it in. Plus, it's very unlikely that I will get a good trade anyways.
I personally voted gold. The block looks nice, adds an air of wealth, but they are relatively useless, mainly because villager selling prices are astronomically stupidly high. With some crafting use, and a reduction in villager price demands, emeralds would be wonderful.
I voted equivalent to gold. Sure, they have limited uses and could benefit from an upgrade, but there is a use for it nonetheless. I used to run a village and I expanded on it until it was pretty large. Needless to say, it was an opportunity for me to become a business mogul, trading in wheat and other easily obtained commodities and then buying other stuff, or simply just growing my store of emeralds for the future, or just because I want to.
They can be traded for ("crafted into") diamond tools and armor, so I guess they're as "valuable" as diamonds. They are fully renewable, though, which means if something happens to them (like falling into lava, perhaps,) you can always just make some new ones. If you lose a diamond, that diamond's gone -- you have to go find another one and dig it out of the ground. But if you lose an emerald, you can just grow some wheat in your wheat farm and trade it to some NPC villager, who'll just pull another emerald out of his butt. Then you can just grow the wheat back, and be right back where you started. So, while emeralds are just as "valuable" as diamonds, at the same time, they are not necessarily as "precious."
I consider Emeralds inferior to iron, because I don't use them when building structures, and villagers rarely have something I would want to buy in bulk. I think the most Emeralds I have acquired in a world is maybe a stack, as I happened to have a mining output in extreme hills, and I had a fortune III pick on me whilst mining.
Priceless. Mined emeralds are the goal of Minecraft. Diamonds, although useful, are just the stepping stone to mining emeralds faster. The fact that you can't build anything else out of emeralds proves that they're at the top of the value chain. They are the ends, everything else is the means.
I'd say the way they are implemented now that they'd be akin to "Gold" to me. Gold however is far more common and can be used in a wider variety (though I wish they'd allow craftable Gold Coins and Silver Ore for Silver Coins / Equipment).
If Emeralds were used to enchant equipment along side other various gems like Ruby's, Topaz's, Sapphire's, Amethyst's, Garnet's, Onyx's, and so on / so forth - or used them as a proper currency such as Emerald Coins or something (and more available) then I'd say they are on par with Diamonds. But the developers aren't that bright so yeah.
If Emeralds were used to enchant equipment along side other various gems like Ruby's, Topaz's, Sapphire's, Amethyst's, Garnet's, Onyx's, and so on / so forth - or used them as a proper currency such as Emerald Coins or something (and more available) then I'd say they are on par with Diamonds. But the developers aren't that bright so yeah.
Just because you think something is a good idea does not make it so. Mojang obviously is going in a different direction to having a "proper currency". To me that sound more like a feature of a RPG, not a sandbox.
Because the trades are riddiculous, i rarely trade whit them.
I mainly trade whit the Priest to get Enchanted books, everything else i could get in much less time for a much less tendentious work. Villager offering Diamond boots for 50 emeralds? Id need to farm a whole chest full of wheat to aquire that. Might aswell go strip mining whit my fortune 3 pick and get 2 boots from a single vein.
Wow, man. I've heard of ridiculous trades, but...
... you're really unlucky. Check for any mods that cause this. (For me, diamond boots are 10 emeralds.)
Because the trades are riddiculous, i rarely trade whit them.
I mainly trade whit the Priest to get Enchanted books, everything else i could get in much less time for a much less tendentious work.
Villager offering Diamond boots for 50 emeralds? Id need to farm a whole chest full of wheat to aquire that. Might aswell go strip mining whit my fortune 3 pick and get 2 boots from a single vein.
^ This. The only trade I have gotten from a villager (which I considered worthwhile) was an Unbreaking II Efficiency II enchant for an axe, for 3 emeralds. All other trade have been ridiculous, for example 7 emeralds for an iron tool. It seems villagers rate emeralds below iron
Emeralds are just like gold. Useless, but are somewhat rare and have a cool storage block. Same goes with lapis but lapis is far more common.
Today I was playing Vanilla Minecraft. I had a full inventory and found an emerald. There was a village near my house.
I just ignored the emerald. If I want emeralds then I can just farm wheat and trade it in. Plus, it's very unlikely that I will get a good trade anyways.
So equivalent to gold
Village Mechanics: A not-so-brief guide - Update 2017! Now with 1.8 breeding mechanics! Long-overdue trading info, coming soon!
You think magic isn't real? Consider this: for every person, there is a sentence -- a series of words -- which has the power to destroy them.
Your post made me lol
If Emeralds were used to enchant equipment along side other various gems like Ruby's, Topaz's, Sapphire's, Amethyst's, Garnet's, Onyx's, and so on / so forth - or used them as a proper currency such as Emerald Coins or something (and more available) then I'd say they are on par with Diamonds. But the developers aren't that bright so yeah.
Just because you think something is a good idea does not make it so. Mojang obviously is going in a different direction to having a "proper currency". To me that sound more like a feature of a RPG, not a sandbox.
EDIT: grammatical error...
They are easy to acquire but very useful.
A fair few people here seem to not have done much trading.
Sugar Cane Farm Alternatives: http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/2162971-sugar-cane-farm-alternatives/page__hl__+sugar +cane +farm
Wow, man. I've heard of ridiculous trades, but...
... you're really unlucky. Check for any mods that cause this. (For me, diamond boots are 10 emeralds.)
^ This. The only trade I have gotten from a villager (which I considered worthwhile) was an Unbreaking II Efficiency II enchant for an axe, for 3 emeralds. All other trade have been ridiculous, for example 7 emeralds for an iron tool. It seems villagers rate emeralds below iron