Money making guide for new players

This guide assumes that you have:

1. Read all the server rules.
2. Know how to play Minecraft already.

First of all, welcome to EcoCityCraft! EcoCityCraft is an economy server, and that means that in addition to playing Minecraft, you will also need to try to make money to improve yourself on the server. There are unlimited ways to make money on ECC, but as a new player, your options will be more limited at first.


Chapter 1: The Goal; Resident

As a new player, your rank is Builder. You must pay EcoDollars in order to rank up, and each rank will give you additional perks. Your first goal is to rank up to Resident. Why do you want to do this? Here are some reasons:

1. You can create Trade Signs. These let you do business with other users. They can buy from or sell to you via the sign -- you don't have to be present or even online! Trade signs also let you store extra exp so that it doesn't get wasted when you use an enchanting table (having extra xp when using the enchanting table causes you to end up with less orbs).

2. You will be able to purchase a shop in the spawn market. A shop gives you a place to sell/buy items with other players, even if you're offline. You use trade signs to do this. Trade signs can be placed anywhere you have permission -- like in your shop, or in the Wild.

3. You must be a Resident before you can apply to be a Mayor and get your own town.

4. You get an increased number of LWC protections

5. You can be the co-mayor of a town, if someone adds you as co-mayor.

Click here to see all the perks of becoming a Resident.


Chapter 2: Voting

Ranking up to Resident will cost you $15,000 EcoDollars, so let's get started making money! The first thing you should do is vote for the server. This will give you $1200 EcoDollars ($200 for each of the six votes) and 6 nether stars*. The links to vote are on the front page of this website. Remember to put in your Minecraft username and to type it exactly or you won't receive your money.

Try to vote every 24 hours because this will be your fastest source of money for a long time, maybe forever!

* Nether stars are a currency used to buy unobtainable items. If you choose to, you can sell them for a 200-500 EcoDollars for some additional cash.

Chapter 3: Gear yourself up

The plan is to go out into the world and collect resources to sell. First, we need to gather some gear and items:

1. Type this: "/kit starter". This kit will give you wood tools, logs, sticks, coal, food, and a crafting bench. Use this command whenever available so you don't have to buy too much wood and food.
2. Go to the player spawn market (the portal is at spawn) and look for a good deal on diamonds.
You're looking for a trade sign like this:

[trade]
$[number1]:[number2]
1 diamond:[number3]
[player_name]

Explanation: number1 is the price of the diamond. number2 you can ignore for now. number 3 is how many diamonds are available in total. player_name is the person you're buying from. This sign would sell you 1 diamond each time you click the sign.

Visit enough shops to get an idea of what is a fair price for diamonds, then choose a shop with a fair price. Buy 7 diamonds. We will use these to make two pickaxes and one shovel. If you want, you can buy more diamonds to make an axe, sword, etc. However, you won't need those for awhile, so I would wait on them.

4. Crafting: Look for a shop in the market with a crafting table in it that you can use.

- Make 2 Diamond Pickaxes and a Diamond Shovel
- Make 2 chests
- Make a boat (optional, you may want to sail in the next section)
- Make enough sticks to go with your coal and craft them all into torches.



Chapter 4: Find a base of operations

As a builder with limited resources and no protected place to live, you have only a few ways to protect your possessions. You can lock doors, signs, chests and furnaces. Don't try to build a permanent home at this point, because anyone can come along and destroy it (the Wild is not protected against grief). All you need is an out-of-the-way place to make a room where you can put down some locked chests and locked furnaces.

I recommend putting this room at bedrock level (y = 5), under an ocean. This greatly reduces the chances of encountering other people, which you don't want at this stage of your progress.

Go to the Wild build portals (they are near spawn), and walk through one. Look for an ocean nearby. If there isn't a one nearby, try a different Wild build portal -- there are many portals at spawn to choose from.

Head toward the ocean. Once you get there, step back from the shore about 20 blocks and begin digging stairs downward towards the shore. DO NOT DIG STRAIGHT DOWN, EVER! Use your shovel for sand, dirt and gravel. Use your pickaxe for stone and ores. You want to be digging down towards bedrock and also be heading towards the ocean. This will eventually put you under the ocean at bedrock level. Keep an eye on yourself on the live map and once you reach a position out in the middle of the ocean, away from civilization, dig out a small room that will serve as your base. 10 long x 10 wide x 3 high is a good starting size.

Chapter 5: Setting up your base

First, set your home point to this location:
Type "/sethome".

Now whenever you type "/home" you will be teleported to this location! You now have a quick way to get back to your base.

Place your double chest and your crafting table. Before doing anything else, LOCK YOUR CHEST!:

Type "/lock".
Click on your chest.

This makes it so that you are the only person who can open or destroy that chest. You now have a safe place to put all your items.

Next, craft a furnace (or two, or three, whatever) and place those in your base. LOCK ALL OF YOUR FURNACES!:

Type "/lock".
Click on your furnace.
Repeat for each furnace that you have.

This makes it so that you are the only person who can use or destroy that furnace. You now have a safe place to cook your ore and other items.

You can tell that they are locked by clicking on them -- you will see a message that says something like "This Private Chest is registered by you." I'm not 100% sure of the exact wording.


Chapter 6: Let's go mining

Put everything in your chest except your diamond pickaxes, diamond shovel, porkchops and torches. When you run out of torches, you will need to go back to spawn to buy more wood (or use /kit starter). Let's go to the Mining World. Type "/spawn". Near spawn, there is a portal that will warp you to the Mining World. Go through the portal.

Walk out a fair distance away from the portal, diagonally. You want to get away from the portal in both the x and z direction. When you are over a few hundred blocks away, start digging stairs downward until you get near bedrock. Try to stay between y=5 and y=13 while mining, because this is the area where you will make the most money. We've done some research on these forums, and the best levels for making EcoDollars are levels 9 through 12. You will find all types of ore here, including Redstone Ore and Diamond Ore.

Pick a direction to dig and dig straight ahead. Your mineshaft should be small - 2 x 1 - just enough for you to fit inside. This will let you cover ground quickly, and every 2 blocks broken will reveal 6 new blocks for you to possibly find ore. Just mine straight ahead and collect any ores that you find along the way. When your inventory gets full, you can sell items to the server to make more room. For example:

/sell blocks
this sells all the blocks in your inventory, like cobble, dirt, gravel, etc.

You can also specify items to sell:
/sell cobblestone
/sell dirt
/sell gravel
/sell redstone
etc, etc....

If your inventory is full and you don't want to sell anything, use /spawn or /home to sell or drop off your items.

If you run into an area that's already been heavily mined, just turn 90 degrees and start mining straight ahead in a new direction. Try to always be getting further and further from the mining world spawn.

Finally, I wanted to talk about the arch-nemesis of all miners -- LAVA. When you run into lava, don't panic. Just back away from it and place down a block or two to stop the flow. Lava flows very slowly, so if you keep your head and give it space you will be fine. Back away from the lava source 10 or so blocks and begin mining upwards. Build stairs upwards until you think you are above the lava, then continue mining straight ahead again in a 2 x 1 tunnel. Once you can no longer hear the lava, it is probably safe to dig stairs downward and return to your previous 'y' coordinate.

As an alternative, you can hold shift while walking backwards and looking down to build a bridge under your feet as you walk.

Chapter 7: Mining Loot

At this stage of your ECC career, these are my recommendations:

Sell these drops to the server:
-Lapis Lazuli
-Redstone
-Cobblestone/Smooth stone
-Dirt/Gravel/Flint

After cooking Iron Ore/Gold Ore with the Coal you find, also sell:
-Iron Ingots (You could look for a player spawn shop to sell to instead, not a big deal though)

Save these items:
-Save your coal for furnace use and for making torches.
-Save your diamonds to make more shovels and pickaxes. Don't bother getting repairs for your tools until you switch to enchanted tools. Eventually, when you have plenty of diamonds, you can begin selling diamonds to other players if you wish.
-Sell your gold ingots to a shop in the user marketplace -- just make sure you're getting more than $10 (the server price). The portal to the market is near spawn.

You will get a decent amount of XP from mining -- Lapis, Redstone, Coal and Diamond Ores give you XP. Also Gold and Iron give you XP when you cook them in a furnace. I recommend using this XP to enchant Diamond Pickaxes. A good set of enchanted diamond pickaxes will GREATLY increase the amount of money you are making from mining.

Chapter 8: Enchanting Tools

As soon as you hit 30 levels of XP, go enchant a diamond tool (preferably a pickaxe at first). You want to go as soon as you hit level 30 because you will waste some XP if you wait until later levels to use it (after you get Resident, this problem goes away because you can put extra XP into trade signs). Put down your bed in your mine shaft and set your homepoint. Get a diamond item that you want to enchant and go to the enchanting rooms near /spawn. Click on the enchantment table, put your tool in the box, and select the level 30 enchantment.

Your initial goals are:

1. Get a pickaxe with high Efficiency (III or IV) to mine Stone, Iron Ore and Gold Ore
2. Get a pickaxe with high Fortune (II or III) to mine Redstone, Lapis, Coal and Diamond Ore

Getting both of these on a single pickaxe is even better. Unbreaking is also very helpful to have when combined with Efficiency and/or Fortune. Some people like to mine with a Silk Touch pickaxe, but then you have to sell the ores to players. I prefer to just sell items to the server. There is plenty of information out there that explains what these enchantments do, but I'll briefly explain why they're so helpful.

-Efficiency: Each level increases the speed that you break blocks. If you break blocks faster, you make money faster. For example, Efficiency IV will give you +200% mining speed.

-Fortune: Each level increases the number of drops that you get from blocks that drop items (like Redstone Ore, Lapis Ore, Diamond Ore, etc). If you get more items per block, you get more money while mining. For example, Fortune III will give you a chance for 1, 2, 3 or 4 diamonds from a single ore! It averages out to 2.2 diamonds per ore instead of just 1 diamond per ore with an unenchanted pick.

-Unbreaking: Each level essentially adds an extra life to your tool. If your tool lasts longer, then you don't need to stop mining to go get it repaired as often. This helps you to make money faster. For example, an Unbreaking III will last 4 times longer than an unenchanted tool.

-Silk Touch: All blocks broken with this tool will drop themselves, even if they normally drop something else. For example, Redstone Ore will drop a Redstone Ore block instead of Redstone Dust. Smooth stone will drop Smooth stone instead of Cobblestone. Ores take up less space in your inventory, so you can mine longer before taking a break. Ores can only be sold to players, however, you often get a better price than you would get just selling to the server -- if you can find a buyer.

When your enchanted tools get low on durability, offer to pay someone to repair your tool. Just say in chat that you are trying to buy an Enchanted Repair, or "e-repair".

Keep enchanting new tools each time you get 30 levels of XP until you are satisfied with the quality of your tools. If you decide you don't like mining, you can try enchanting axes to use while renting out someone else's farm.

My goal at this point would be to get:

Efficiency IV, Unbreaking III, Fortune III diamond pickaxe

or

2 diamond pickaxes - one for Efficiency, the other for Fortune. This two pick system can simulate the effects of the better single pick above. Use the Fortune pick for coal, redstone, lapis, diamond and emerald. Mine everything else with the efficiency pick.

If you have extra enchanted picks that you don't need anymore, see what you can get selling them to other players.

Chapter 9: Getting to $15,000 EcoDollars

All you have to do at this point is to keep collecting resources and to keep saving your money. Don't spend money on anything that you don't absolutely need. Don't spend any money on the Lottery. Vote every 24 hours. You'll hit $15,000 before you know it.

 

The guide got really out of date, so I went through and modernized it.