The First 24 hours

During the first 24 hours that you are in game, your character has a few bonuses. First, you are surrounded by a light that makes it easier to see at night and in mines. This is very convienient as you get used to things and find out where you are in the world. Secondly, you are able to go to the bartenders for refreshment. As you saw in the tutorial, the bartenders fill up your food and water bars as well as provide a boost to your nutrition – you will want to keep these bars high as you learn the ropes, and the bartenders are a great way to keep you going during the first 24 hours.

Water

Water is actually more important than food, although you can not directly die from thirst. Without water, your stamina restores extremely slow, and when you are low on water, you start to see the effects of this. Without stamina, you can barely walk or perform any actions. If you are not in a safe place – this can definitely lead to death if an aggressive creature shows up.

The first thing to know about water is that any water in the game is drinkable – a lake, ocean, even a puddle in a mine. The second thing to know is that, as in the real world, you need a container to take water with you if you want to drink away from a water source. The easiest container for water is a pottery jar. These are pretty easy to create if you have access to clay. There is a part of the tutorial that walks you through creating a bowl, and a jar is made in a similar way. Dig up some clay, use your hand to create the clay jar, fire the jar in a fire to turn it into a pottery jar. Once made, simply activate it and right click on water and select fill – later on, you can drink from the jar just like a normal water source.

It is good to know where water is at all times. As previously mentioned – water is pretty safe when running from mobs.

When I first started out, I went to Pristine, and I stayed within viewing distance of the spawn point. There was a bartender and water – two things I could not do without as I tried to understand how to survive. I did not realize how many creatures there were that wanted to kill me because I stuck to civilized areas and kept an eye on the clock – never going more than a few hundred tiles away from the spawn.

On Release, Sloping Sands is in a pretty bad spot. You have a small and a large lake to either side (at first I thought the large lake was the ocean) and a mountain to your back (North). Moving South or West takes you to areas that are pretty civilized, but when the server was starting, they were filled with huge numbers of deadly creatures – they have been culled since, but trolls are still hanging around – particularly at night. There is a guard tower not to far away to the South, that can be used for protection – just make sure you shout Help in local chat rather than the CA Help channel. If the guards don't respond, run to one of the lakes or back to Sloping Sands for protection. The server is still in its starting stages (only about 2 months old), so it is much less developed than many of the more established servers.

Next time I'll take a look at how to feed yourself.