There's another dimension... I forget what it's called. It's this weird place full of lava and weird monsters and shit. Every step you take in there is worth 8 (I think) above ground - something like that. So if you made a gateway, stepped through, made another gateway, stepped back out, you'd be 8 steps onwards in whatever direction.

To make a gateway: make a structure out of obsidian with a gap big enough to walk through (2 high x 1 wide) - so essentially a 3x4 wall of obsidian with the centre two blocks missing (you can also miss off the corners to save on obsidian). When that's made, set fire to the bottom of the hole and then it should quite obviously turn into a dimensional gate and you can walk through. I believe shit in the other dimension can come through too though so be careful.

It's scary in there.

Sorry, just checked and the gap is 2x3. So the structure needs to be 4x5.

And the dimension is called The Nether :O

http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Portal

I've heard of this obsidian before but never found it. Hard enough to find iron for me.

Obsidian occurs where water and lava meet. You can actually manufacture it by causing water and lava to meet yourself. It's a pain to mine as it takes about 15 secs per block with a diamond pick.

Best way to find it is: get deep - either dig down or find a big looking cave and keep moving downwards till you find lava. Then move sideways (either following caves or tunnelling, whichever is suitable) and listen out for water/lava. Eventually you'll find some, it's not all that rare at the right depth (far more common than diamond). It always occurs on the floor, is often underwater and is black, so it can be fairly hard to spot if the area's not well let. It'll often be underwater too. It's also quite hard to mine as it'll often be over lava.

Obsidian is formed when water flows into a Lava source.
(When flowing water and flowing lava meet, you just get Cobblestone.)

Buckets are your friend. :)

I shall have to find some diamonds yet, found none.

Go deeper.

Iron is not normally found above sea level.

Go even deeper.

Diamond is only found at the deepest levels.

There's a chart somewhere, that tells you the numbers, so you can count down from sea level until you get to the appropriate depth.

Ohh, OK I will. I have a few scary pot holes I've not properly been down to yet.

I really wish there were indestructible tools. It eventually becomes frustrating when even your diamond tools constantly need replacing. I mean, I know it pushes the exploration on and all that but it'd be nice to have a pick and spade that just never degrade. Maybe some new super-rare material or something. It's annoying having to carry around a stack of diamond when I go exploring. Especially when a creeper booms me miiiiles away from spawn and I lose it all.

Used to be a glitch in multiplayer where if you dropped a tool and picked it up it would be fully repaired, but this got fixed :'S

</random thought>

Is diamond that bad?

I was under the impression that it was several orders of magnitudes more robust, and wouldn't need a great deal of replacing? :(

It's ok. Spades are the worst because they're so quick, you can go through a diamond spade in no time. Picks are a bit better but I'll still tend to use 3 or 4 on one of my expeditions. I mean, I tend to find more diamond than I use up making new tools, but still, it would be nice to get to a point where you just don't have to worry about it. Was SO nice when multiplayer had that glitch.

We really should get a Teh server going. Even just a temp thing that's not always up. I'd host one myself but my paltry 512k upstream can't handle more than about 3 players.

Just tried connecting to that - I guess it's your machine and it's not up now?

As soon as I've get a spare evening, I've been intending to experiment with the server stuff - but I haven't the foggiest when that will actually be at the moment. :(

Kos says he has a fancy upstream - can we get him to do it?

Cool with meeeee.

MineEdit lets you add things to your inventory, and repair partly used/damage kit. It even lets you add lots of dynamite to your inventory, for those /really/ big projects.

Yeah, I think anything like that tends to spoil the game though. It's difficult not to get carried away.

Having said that, it's fun to dynamite the fuck out of a world when you're bored with it.

CHEATING! :@

Yeah, it was on for a couple days but only patch connected to it :(

 

My upstream isn't great but should be ok for a fee players. When I get virgin's 100mef line I'm also getting a new pc /just/ for serving up .minecraft :C

 

Also also, coal is not essential now. You can turn wood into charcoal in the furnace, charcoal burns for the dame length as coal and can be used for torches too.