I don't know about you guys, but I've always loved make a giant home out in the middle of nowhere that has everything I need. But..it used to be every time I'd make one of these super-homes, people would find it, and either grief it, or move in near me. No one wants to be griefed, and I like being a hermit, so I don't want people near me! So, I'm here to offer up a little help with my guide to living the hermit life in Minecraft. Now keep in mind, this guide is meant for the players who want a house in the middle of now where, away from everyone else, where they can talk to other players, but don't have to fear being greifed or found.

The number one point to a hermit lifestyle is your home. If made correctly, you'll never have to leave it! You can have all your food inside, along with mines, and all the other necessitates. And here's are some guidelines to build it.

• You first want to find a decent spot. Depending on how you want to construct your house depends on where this is. Best way to build is underground. Why? No one can see your home from a surface map (Iivemap or minimaps when walking by). With that said, I like finding a nice mountain out in the middle of no where. If you have livemap on the server your playing on, use it in isometric view to find this mountain.
  
• Keep your doors facing north. Reason for this is on the livemap, your door can not be seen. Yes, I know: doors are tiny on livemap, why bother?! Well, this is your home, and you will be going to it often. If someone* is watching on livemap, they can find roughly where to look, and if their motivated enough, see if they can find a door. That's why you have it facing north!
  
• Also, when placing your front door, tunnel away from it. If your door is about 10-30 blocks away from the actually "living room" area of your house, people will have a harder time finding a way in.
  
  
• When digging your home out of the ground, try not to make square rooms and tunnels. Again, with a server with livemap, players* can use a cave system finder and see a square room, and decide to look in on it. But if you keep your rooms rough looking, it won't stir too much susption. A good guide to building is to look on livemap at the cave system view and see what caves look like.
  
• Stay away from "fancy" blocks. By this, I mean don't build your house out of unnatural blocks. Stick with cobble and stone, use lava for a light source, and keep all your chests and crafting tables at about depth 30. Reason for this odd set of rules if x-ray. Although many servers have it banned, players do still use it, and with that said, if you keep your home looking like it's a cave system, no one will suspect a thing.
  
• Keep size in mind. Although making everything easy to access from one central point is great, it's not a great idea at times. Reason behind this is for people who watch livemap. If you stay in the same area for too long, people will start to catch on. With that said, try and make your home along a corridor. This will ensure you running up and down the main passage, and make it look as if your mining.
  
  

Now that you have a home coming together, it's about time you make some farms in there! Again, you want to try and keep all "fancy" blocks under the 30 depth mark, as this is usually far enough from the surface that it can not clearly be seen with most x-ray techniques. Some farms you can make are below. Note: I have made every farm listed below, and I will be making a "farming pack" project soon. With that said, the description for each farm is rather limited.

• 
  Semiauto-Mushroom farm. Use a basic water flow system, retained by pistons, and the pistons are operated by a lever. The room you use for this needs very low light: redstone torches work for this, as they provide enough light to see, but not enough to hinder mushroom growth. There is a little more to this, so please check my farm pack when I post it.
  
  
• Semiauto-cacti farm. These have been around for eons, and vary is form. I usually use the basic one with blocks above the cacti to break them as they grow, and water below to push the cacti to a collection point.
  
• Semiauto-melon and pumpkin farm. This is also piston-operated, using a button to power the pistons. You will need a center row of water, with two rows dirt next to that, on either side. The furthest row of dirt is piston driven, pushing up to break the crop, but not the actual plant.
  
• Semiauto-wheat farm. There are two ways to do this: water held back with pistons, or a piston driven planting floor. I personally use water, as it break up the crop, pushing everything forward.
  
• Tree farms. Yes, you can grow tree underground! You just need dirt, and a light strong light-source right next to it, along with enough room for the tree. I usually make a 5x5x8 area for each tree, that may interlace.
  
• Semiauto- Sugercane/reed farm. Again, this is piston driven. Set up the dirt/sand so the reeds will grow in a wall, and then build a wall behind that. At the second portion of every reed, place a piston, and hook them all up to a button. This will break the second and third stock of reeds, but leave the plant to regrow.
  

So you have your house. You have your farms. What else does a hermit need? Nothing, really! But, that doesn't mean you have built a perfect home just yet. The next few times are what I like to all a "well-set hermit needs" as they aren't really needed to live, but nice to have.

• A mine. If you ended up digging deep into the ground, chance are you came across an old mineshaft or cave system. Just open that back up, place a door to keep monsters out of your house, and your set!
  
• Slime farm. Now...this is one of those hit-and-miss things. You may luck out and randomly be near some slime-spawning chunks when you build your hermit home, or you may not. If you want this little feature, look into slime chunks before settling down somewhere. There are tools to find these chunks. Best one is CJB's mod back. Be sure your server allows this mod before installing it!!
  
• An aggressive mob grinder. Mob grinders are always nice to have! And, since your a mole now, there are several ways to do this. You can set up the traditional mob grinder (that's the one with the lava blade and water belts for moving mobs and drops) but then you'll need to find a spawner/set up a spawning room. You can also make a drop tower, which consists of spawning rooms with water and holes to push mobs about, and then drop them to their death. I will provide these in my farm pack as well, if your having a hard time with my poor explanations.
  
• A passive mob farm. Thanks to breeding, you only need to get two of the same animal to get your own little farm going! Best way to do this is just outside your underground home, dig a hole two deep, and place a ladder on the south side of this hole (again, can't be seen on the livemap). With any luck, passive mobs will fall in that hole. And when they do, all you have to do is feed them!
  
• A treasure room! This one can be very hard to do, if not done correctly, and may take some time to do. Basically, find a pool of lava in your home (that is, the portion that's below 30). Once your find this pool, try and make the pool all obsidian, without removing any of it.Sounds imposable, I know, but it can be done with some fancy bukkit work, and skillful removal and replacement of key chunks of obsidian. Once you have this made, make a small room in it, with a door under a block of obsidian: this will hide the door from a straight down view in x-ray.
  
  

Now that you have a perfect home, that you never need to leave, how do I keep it a secret? Easy! Just follow some basic pointers:

• NEVER bring anyone to your home, unless you know they will also keep it a secret. Yes, this may sound paranoid, but people like to ruin the fun of hidden homes.
  
• Don't talk about it more then "My home". That is, don't offer to trade with someone, then say "Oh, let me get that from my house". Again, paranonia kicking in here, but if someone really wants to know where you are, they will follow you on livemap.
  
• Try and stay away from access points: ie, the front door.
  
• If you have the option to, make it so there is no other way in besides a teleport. Most servers use /home, and this will allow you to be the only one to gain access without griefing.
  
  

That's all I have for you right now! Hopefully, someone finds some help out of this, and has fun setting up a hermit house on their server!

*Note: Any time I have refereed to other players on your server, please keep in mind that others may know what to look for in a hidden home, and no amount of clever placing things will save you from players like this, even more so if they have x-ray. This guide is just that: a guide. It is not a bulletproof guarantee that no one will ever find you.