Looters’ Follies

Entry 6 (May 20, 2022)

Well this got super delayed again. And like last time, it’s partially on account of real life, partially technical difficulties.

I was tired of seeing so much red on the map in the ocean where I found the stronghold, so I decided to mix up some more potions and do some more exploring up there. I started with the stronghold itself, since I’d found the portal room pretty quick on my first visit and hadn’t really poked around the rest of the place. Unfortunately, it seems to be pretty dang small. I found maybe half a dozen rooms, none with anything of interest.

The portal room is obvious from outside, but not much else. (+337 E / −1,517 N), looking west.

Neither digging into the walls nor swimming around outside yielded any disconnected sections, either. Oh well… it’s not like I can find “otherside” yet anyway. At least outside there were quite a few axolotls, and I took a couple home with me for eventual breeding. For now they’re swimming around adorably in a small pond at Spawn.

Little cute buddies! (−266 W / −185 N), looking north.

Returning north, I criscrossed the ocean to revisit the various shipwrecks and ruins I’d spotted back when I was initially mapping the area. I know there are more efficient ways to get just about any of their possible loot (except hearts of the sea, but how many conduits does one really need?), but exploration is my favorite part of this game, and I am but a humble crow hunting for shiny trinkets to decorate my nest and impress my mate. (Hello to my one dedicated reader! You’re cute. 😘)

Anyway – spending so much time down where it’s wetter, I finally started encountering drowned in more serious numbers. None dropped their tridents for me (I really oughta prioritize getting Looting on my sword), but I was able to get something else precious: Copper. Since I’m playing on 1.17 but won’t actually have any Caves & Cliffs terrain until 1.19 drops, the moist zombies are my only source of the stuff, and before coming home I managed to get just enough to put a lightning rod up on the chimney. I like building with wood, but always worry about fire taking away all my hard work.

Took long enough.

Up on the roof. (−251 W / −225 N), looking southeast.

But while I was out there, something dawned on me: I was only seeing drowned out in the open, spawning in the dark. Weren’t they supposed to be guarding these ruins I was raiding? The wiki says so…

After some thinking, I realized what probably happened. To confirm my suspicions, I made a copy of the world and enabled cheats, then teleported to an ocean monument. No elder guardians. I tried a woodland mansion. No illagers. Damn. Okay.

Here’s the problem: When I first generated the world, I wanted to leave it as untouched as possible until I actually arrived to explore. I didn’t want villagers to get wiped out by zombies before I ever set foot there, and so on. So I did the sensible thing and… set the difficulty to peaceful. Which did exactly what it’s supposed to do and despawned all hostile mobs, including the ones that generate with structures and never spawn again later. Oops.

So that’s the “technical difficulties” I mentioned. Fresh on the heels of my misadventure with Time Machine, I had to generate another blank version of this world, all the way out to the Halo, this time without touching the difficulty. Instead I disabled doDaylightCycle, doFireTick, and doWeatherCycle. (And now I realize doMobSpawning probably would have come in handy. Oh well.) That part was easy and took care of itself overnight. But then I got grumpy at the thought of needing to again go into MCA Selector and selectively delete and replace large areas there and, well… I just set the whole thing aside for a few weeks.

Anyway. It’s over and done with now. So unless I discover something else I unknowingly screwed up, I shouldn’t have to do any more world editing until 1.19 comes out, and we still don’t have an estimate when that’ll be.

FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU—

Back in the game, I decided to do some prep work for venturing into the End to fight the dragon. Then, instead of doing that, I finished upgrading my fishing rod, adding Bait Masterson to my collection of perfect gear. Hey, get your mind outta the gutter. Bait Masterson was an EverQuest NPC, himself named after the old west’s Bat Masterson. For all its flaws, EQ holds a special place in my heart and was also, I think, my first experience with video game fishing. Freeport, where Masterson could be found, was my first character’s hometown, and it was off the East Freeport docks where I finally got my first skill in that game up to 100 and officially became a master baiter.

But yeah, after that, I started prepping.

Among other things, I wanted to bring some Slow Falling potions with me. Those call for an ingredient I hadn’t come across yet: A phantom membrane. So I stayed up a few nights working on a little excavation project beneath the Spawn marker. As the sun set on my fourth day without sleep, I chopped a hole in my roof and climbed up, Trueshot at the ready.

By midnight, the phantoms hadn’t come. Bad luck. I thought maybe there were just too many hostile mobs already, so I started taking out any that I could from a distance. To my surprise (unfortunately too much surprise to grab a screenshot), I managed to complete the Sniper Duel challenge with a skeleton I didn’t think was far enough away! Only the second time I’ve done that.

Morning came, but the phantoms didn’t. I went back to my digging and tried again the next night. This time, I didn’t have to wait long, and soon claimed my first membrane! Again neglecting the F2 key (sorry), I quickly retreated back inside and down to my brewing stand to add it to the awkward potions I’d left waiting. Back on the roof, another trio appeared before dawn, and soon I had squirreled away another membrane for later. On top of that, the phantoms brought me to the halfway point of completing Monsters Hunted! Long way still to go, but a milestone nonetheless…

I also mixed up some potions of Regeneration, Strength, and Swiftness. Overkill? Perhaps, but I’m not the most confident (nor competent) fighter, and I’ve only twice battled the ender dragon before.

And I wasn’t alone.

And I had elytra the second time.

And she still killed me.

My point is I want to take the advantages I can.

I’m undecided if those advantages include a totem of undying. Probably not – seems like a shield would cut way down on the need for a totem in the first place. On the other hand, tracking one down would would be a good excuse for more exploration; I’ve been slacking on that front ever since finding Intersylva. I don’t even have all of the Core mapped yet.

I did finally go back and fill in the rest of the area around the village, though, so at least those maps are complete now.

As usual, mapping has its benefits. I know mountain views are cheating, but… this makes me want to go take a train trip. (−2,037 W / +1,042 S), looking northwest.

Seriously, why are all the flower forests hiding down south? (−2,276 W / +1,910 S), looking southwest.

Pretty colors. (−2,398 W / +1,913 S), looking southeast.

And – even if there’s no going beyond it yet – the Halo is ready for adventure, and it feels like it would be wrong to “beat the game” without having made the journey out there.

So on that note…

After returning from the mapping trip, I decided the makeshift map wall down in the “vault” was getting too crowded. It was always going to need a bigger space, and the time had come.

I like that the Spawn area is still pretty rural, and I don’t plan on overrunning it too much with builds. There will probably never be giant towers or anything here, and in fact I’m not even really keen on having anything much larger than the house around. So that rules out, say, a giant map wall outside. Instead, I wanted to add a map room underground. I plan on eventually building an Overworld rail network (that is still the entire point of Minecraft, after all) with an underground Spawn station as its main hub, with the map room serving as (part of?) the station concourse.

For demonstration purposes only. Appearance of final product may differ.

An underground floor map means there’s plenty of room for it to grow, and no need to climb around just to see the whole thing.

Obviously it’s not finished yet (so… many… bookshelves…), but it’s off to a nice start, I think. The ceiling could still use a little jazzing up. (That one block isn’t misaligned – it’s a more subtle marker for Spawn than the gold block up on the surface. The corresponding map is of course directly underneath.) That tunnel in the back returns to the vault (those bricks are actually the rail tunnel to the mine), and I was planning for it to be temporary, but it’s just too convenient, so… secret piston door? Never done one of those.

The main entrance down is a log‐lined open‐air staircase. With window, because why not? (−254 W / −166 N), looking north.

The map room is built just a tad deep so as to keep the axolotl pond above intact and natural. (−254 W / −170 N), looking north.

My Mending guy sells bookshelves, so I figured it’d be easier getting some from them instead of farming all that leather myself – but that called for a lot more emeralds. Since Intersylva has so many farmers, I set to work on building a pumpkin (and melon I guess) farm. Like the sugar cane farm, it’s partially buried to make it at least somewhat harmonious with the landscape, and I ended up taking down my little vine tower to make room.

Diggy diggy hole, as they say. (−248 W / −167 N), looking east.

A bit boring, but good enough. And there’re actually paths this time! (−259 W / −165 N), looking east.

Action shot. I’m proud of the trapdoor roof!

Updated view from the the upstairs window at home. It’s… still rather a mess, if I’m honest, but progress is progress.

Did some more upgrading and now have full Mending armor, which adds my (still nameless) Netherite chestplate to the perfect gear list. (I’m starting to think being able to “re‐roll” villagers who haven’t locked into their professions is a little OP, but that genie’s outta the bottle for this world.) My new shield, Calamity, has Mending as well, though I do need to get another Unbreaking book for it.

This is only tangentially related (it’s where the whole enchanting setup is), but I also finally made those candles I’ve kept saying I should make.

So… yeah. Did a lot of digging waiting for phantoms. Basically ready, inventory‐wise, for the End. Not actually ready to “beat the game” before doing more exploring. I’m thinking I’ll start by looking for another village… recruit a cartographer if there isn’t one already… then pick up a woodland explorer map and see where it leads. Keep venturing on, out to the Halo, with some discoveries along the way and hopefully a totem or two in the bag. Then come back for the dragon fight.

Yeah. I think that could work.