Swords Survival [PVP/PVE/CREATIVE] [FACTIONS/RAID] [SURVIVAL] JOIN NOW!

Mining

• Stone is extremely hard, making tunneling with a pickaxe impractical. Players will have to scout the wilderness for natural caverns, or make their own caves with much-improved TNT (see below). This brings exploration, navigation, and risk-taking to the forefront of gameplay. The most successful players will be those who map the surface and develop a clever marking system for caverns.

• The TNT recipe produces 3 TNT, and each TNT explodes 100% more violently versus Vanilla TNT, making TNT a useful tool for mining and worthwhile to craft. Further, exploding TNT will produce a more "natural" devastation with lots of fallen rock and other rubble.

• Cave-ins are a persistent threat. Mining ore softens the stone around it, which can then fall and injure the careless player. Dirt and grass, which is often compacted into a solid mass in cavern ceilings and floors, will also come crashing down when disturbed. Of course, TNT can make a really big mess, since it also softens stone to subject it to the pull of gravity.

• Loose materials like cobble and dirt will fall like sand and gravel, forcing players to solve mining obstacles (like giant pits) by bringing appropriate building materials with them or getting very creative in their approach, rather than just using the dirt and cobble they conveniently picked up along the way.

• No permanent flames near diamond level (there's not enough air!). Players will have to get creative with their lighting, for example using dimmer redstone torches (spooky!), moving lava around with buckets (dangerous!), using glowstone (expensive!), or lighting temporary flint/steel fires (risky!). This also discourages players from dumping water on all the lava, since it can be a valuable source of light, holding monsters at bay.

Combat

• Double monster spawns near and under sea level in normal worlds. Caves are now more scary than the surface, as they should be.

• Spiders are more common under sea level and randomly drop web around them when slain, potentially introducing obstacles into an ongoing combat situation.

• A portion of creepers spawn charged, and will explode with the power of (Vanilla) TNT at the slightest touch. Get out your bow and arrow, run like hell, or get creative. Even falling from a small height may set off a charged creeper, making them truly terrifying to deal with. Be aware of your surroundings!

• Endermen sometimes teleport the player during combat.

• Blazes spawn near bedrock in the normal world. These blazes are unstable and will explode violently when slain, often causing cave-ins.

• Blazes spawn everywhere in the nether, not just in nether fortresses, and may split into two full-health blazes when slain. They drop gunpowder and glowstone dust, both useful for faster diamond mining in the normal world. They also drop fire when attacked, introducing combat obstacles.

• Magma cubes are more common in the nether, and explode into blaze form when damaged.

• Skeletons have a chance to fire a knockback arrow or a silverfish, and your arrows will pass harmlessly through them.

• Zombies slow the player on attack, and often come back to life shortly after being slain, pushing players to rush forward into the unknown. If slain while burning, they will never re-animate.

• Zombie pigs are always hostile, because the nether isn't scary enough otherwise. When slain in nether fortresses, they reliably drop nether wart.

• Ghasts are impervious to arrows and drop 10x loot and experience when slain. Players will have to work hard to beat them, or flee in terror as fireballs explode behind them.

Building

• Realistic block placement rules will force players to think a little harder about construction.

• Monster grinders are inhibited, meaning that most designs simply won't work. Players should take risks if they want rewards.

Farming

• Irrigating crops is now non-trivial. Buckets will not carry SOURCE water uphill or over long distances. With some effort, players can use buckets to spread source water without changing elevation, for example digging and filling a trench to take water from a nearby pond to their fields. Players can eventually irrigate anywhere by collecting and moving ice (requires silk touch enchant) or trading for ice, then melting it. Remember, most crops do not REQUIRE water to be useful, they just produce faster when it's nearby.

• Broken wheat will drop fewer seeds, requiring players to farm grass as well to keep their crops going. This re-introduces a bonemeal application which has been mostly forgotten.

• Melon seeds will not be craftable from melon slices, restoring their status as a rare and desirable dungeon find. Players can still "roll the dice" by breaking a full grown melon stem to see if they get an extra seed back.

• Bonemeal won't work on mushrooms. Mushroom farming will be limited to the more challenging and scientific mushroom spreading mechanic (dark place with suitable head room and room for shrooms to spread).

• Nether wart isn't farmable. Instead, players can get more by killing zombie pigmen in nether fortresses.

• All sheep are white, but may be dyed temporarily (for one shearing). Brown sheep are really just dirty white sheep, and black sheep are really just dirty brown sheep. :) This encourages players to learn how to make various dyes, and explore farming options for those dyes. It will also make some wool colors much more rare than others, since some dyes are more difficult (or impossible) to farm.

General

• Putting out a fire up close (by hitting it or trying to smother it with a block) will catch the player on fire. The best approach is to dump water or destroy the block beneath it.

• Environmental damage like falling, explosions, and suffocation reduces health more, and often applies temporary effects like slowing, blindness, or dizziness.

• On death, a small portion of the player's inventory disappears forever, discouraging players from killing themselves to restore health and hunger. After respawn, the player won't have a full health and food bar.