If you do not have anything positive to say, please do not post a comment. Thanks!

Hello new members, and welcome to PlanetMinecraft! In this guide, I am going to share what you should look at doing when you first join PMC. And how to gain experience on the site. If you are not interested in a certain aspect of the site, feel free to skip over it. If you see anything that could use more detail, please let me know. Thanks!





First Joining


Well since you are new to PMC, Welcome! We are glad to have you as a member of the community. Since you are a new member and may not know a whole lot about PMC, I would browse the site. Read all the rules to keep out of trouble and see what all the members have to offer to you. There are a lot of amazing projects, Mods, skins, contests, servers, and resource packs out there that you can download and use. Enter the chat and introduce yourself to all the members. We all love to see new members. Get to know some members and get known a little in the community. It will help a lot later.





Gaining Experience


Now this is where a lot of people get excited at. Getting popular and gaining a lot of experience. Gaining experience shows that people like what you post. When you strive for experience, anything can tempt you for stealing other members work. Stay away from that. This is where a lot of people get into trouble. Be sure to make your own content. You may want to ask people what type of content they are looking for. Then when you get an idea, make it and share it with the whole community. The more views, Downloads, Diamonds, and Favorite you get, the more XP you will gain. Make sure to also add your tags to your post. That way if people search it, The SEO will pick it up and show your post link to the person who searches it. Do not become discouraged about what others think of your content. Instead, keep thriving for better work. Concentrate more or add more detail.


I would not suggest trying to gain points by adding only a server. At some point in time you will get rid of the server and then it will get deleted. So you won’t get all the points you used to have. I would stick to Projects, Skins, and Blogs. As they get the most traffic and often a lot of members are searching through them constantly.


- Projects


When you make a project like a map, make it very interesting to everybody. All the time I see projects that are just a small house. These types of projects do not get much activity because it does not catch anybody eyes. Strive to make it the best you can. Make it big, and add as much detail as possible. Detail is what matters the most. Don’t make common things. Like houses and maybe a boat or something. Build an enormous spawn or make a Call of Duty map. These tend to gain a lot more attention because they are not as simple and take a lot more time to build. Although it may seem too time consuming, a lot of players appreciate the people who take their time to make a good build. Sometimes what I do is I grab a really cool photo from the internet and I try to copy it into a minecraft version. Red stone Builds are often popular as well.

Thank you _pepperjack246_

You may want to ask people what type of content they are looking for. Then when you get an idea, make it and share it with the whole community. The more views, Downloads, Diamonds, and Favorite you get, the more XP you will gain."





- Skins



This is probably where people get frustrated. Skins can take a lot of time and effort to make. You always see those skins that have like 500 download and then you see yours with barely any. Well let’s change that. Stay away from solid colored skins. They do not show very much creativity.


Download Paril’s MCSkin3D http://www.planetminecraft.com/mod/mcskin3d/. People now a days look for skins that are highly Detailed with a lot of Shading put into it. Shading can be hard to do, so I will link you to a guide that can help you understand how to shade. I would recommend this program to help with shading http://www.getpaint.net/ and this guide to help you learn how to shade www.planetminecraft.com/blog/a-quick-guide-on-how-i-shade-most-of-my-skins/ Please do understand that some skins look just fine without shading. So you do not have to shade every skin you do.





- Resource Packs



Tons of people like to play minecraft with a little twist to it. This is where Resource packs come into place. These give minecraft a different look. Different looks always make a game look better. Even more though if it is well-made. Some people like fantasy type packs, some like realistic. But make sure to give it time and effort. The colors that you are changing still need to represent the block. Don’t make it a whole bunch of random colors. Also look into changing the mobs, or the hostile mobs. They also make a difference. Make sure it matches the theme you are making. Changing the interface also makes part of this. If your theme is medieval than make sure you change your interface to medieval. And the last part is the tools. The tools should look Interesting. Make sure that they still look like the tool that it is. Don’t make it so it is not recognizable. Keep everything easy to recognize. Don’t make the item un-recognizable. Then it will be hard to identify objects, and we don’t want that.

Note: You can choose to "update" an older pack of someone else. However this can become tricky. You will need to get the original owners permission to use and update his pack as well as put all the newer textures in. If you do this, make sure to put a link to the original texture pack and put the original owners name somewhere in the new pack you made (like in the post.)





- Blogs



Everybody loves to share tutorials, or things they have done to help others. So share them! Make sure they are appropriate and relative to minecraft or something that you are working on for minecraft. If you are making a tutorial, Make sure it goes in depth and really tell/shows them how to work with whatever you are trying to help them with. If you are doing an Interview, do not do it for a server. These do not attract much attention. Try going for other members of the community. No matter what you make or what category it is in, make sure it is relative to what you are writing about. Try as best as you can to stay on topic. The more you go off topic, the less attractive your blog becomes.


- Mods


Mods are a great way to enhance your minecraft experience. These allow you to change the enviroment around you and allow certain extra things to be done. Mods are not always easy to make though. These require the Language of Java to make. Mods that add a more realistic feeling or adding new armour and such to the game are always fun to have. These add more possibilities to minecraft and allow more items to be crafted. These are usually popular when you make them for a certain gamemode of minecraft. Like PvP or survival. Make sure to try your best and always test your Mods before you post them. Yes you can always go back and edit them. But you want as many people as possible to download them when they first click on the Mod. Good luck!



- Contests

Contests are a great way to contribute to the community, You make maps, buildings, or skins based on the set theme. From there you submit you work and wait till the end of the contest to see what the judges think of your build. They have set standards that I will not go into here for judging work. This is an easy way to gain views, Experience, Diamonds, Favorites, and levels on your account. Make sure to follow all the rules of the Contests and the Site rules to make sure you do not get in trouble for anything! Also make sure your content is original. Do Not copy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Look at the top of the chat box or go under community and click on Contests to see what is active.

If your content comes into great detail and matches the criteria of the contest, you might even be able to win a badge for the contest and potentially become a finalist!

Forum



I would at least take a visit on the forum and leave an introduction thread. The forum is a great way to receive answers to the questions that you have or to get answers from other peoples questions. You can also find a lot of content that may not be found on the other parts of the site. So be sure to check up on the forum every now and then to see recent updates and threads. If you happen to find any content that breaks the rules, just press the report button. Don’t post anything on that thread. It could also get you into some trouble. Try your best to put anything that you post in the right section of the forum. If you happen to put it in the wrong section, send a kind message to a moderator asking them to move it to the correct area.

**When posting on the forum, you can give Emeralds to member's posts. This, will give 2xp to that members account. If you are a big forum junkie, creating helpful, creative threads have a possibility to help get you fame and allow you to level up slowly. However, I do not recommend only relying on this way to level up. Be creative and post some projects and skins.

**Thank you to Yuki and Acier Builds for the information on Emeralds.


If people try to start any fights with you, I would completely ignore them. This is a website to share what you have done, ask questions, and download other peoples work to make your gameplay better. If you get any hatred mail, report it and move on. The less trouble you get into, the better your experience will be.



ChatBox



I am just going to explain a little more about the chatbox area. In the chat area there are many rooms that you can enter. Try to make sure you are in the appropriate room before you make a comment. I see lots of people getting into little trouble because they do not read the rule and go into the right room before they comment. There 5 other rooms designed for 5 other topics. So make sure you are in the right room. If you aren’t sure about a comment or post, ask around. Mods will move you into a different room if you are not in the correct room for the content you are saying. But it does come with infraction points. And of course, those are no fun to have. Try to be as respectful as possible. Nobody likes people who are rude and whine over everything.





If you ever have any questions about topics, or if your post is appropriate for a certain section, feel free to message any site moderator. They are there to help others as well as keep the site clean. If you encounter any problems, contact them as well. If you happen to be banned and your post is taken off, don’t be rude. It will just cause more of a problem.





I hope this guide is helpful to the New and Existing members of PMC. Have a good day!