Introduction

We all need a bit of down-time and your Member Zone subscription or Patreon membership gives you access to the truly wonderful Gosforth Handyman Minecraft server. This is a friendly, peaceful SMP (Survival Multi-Player) server aimed towards creativity and building.

Adults only (18+) and all abilities welcome. It makes no difference whether you’re a Minecraft noob or a gaming expert – as long as you know the basic controls you’ll be fine. We have a lovely community and the more experienced players love helping out those who are new to the game. Press ‘T’ to chat! 🙂

You’ll need to use Minecraft Java edition (Windows / MacOS / Linux). Sorry but Bedrock / console edition is not supported. Here’s a quick overview and how it all started:

The server is aimed mostly towards building stuff rather than PVP (Player vs Player). PVP battles are fine but do it in an area away from main builds with players who have agreed to this sort of gameplay. In other words, don’t just randomly fight everyone!

• Minecraft Server Rules
• Minecraft Server Access

Getting started in The Overworld

Head out from Spawn for around 500 blocks or so and build, build, build! To keep the central Spawn area tidy (i.e. the Gosforth Handyman logo) spawn protection is enabled (50 x 50 blocks). That means you can’t break or place blocks in this area.

You’ll initially Spawn around 0,0 – you can check your coordinates by pressing F3. The coordinates are shown in X, Y, Z format where Y is height. So you’re mostly looking at X and Z. It’s handy to check your coordinates from time-to-time in case you get lost!

Players have started building the central city area around spawn. So far this includes:

• Shared villager trading hall
• City apartments
• Market square
• Pub
• Museum
• Map room
• Gold farm
• Spider farm
• Various other builds

All players can get involved in the ‘city zone’ builds so feel free to start your own builds any time! As such you’re best not building your own personal base in this area. Temporary bases in the city zone are fine and feel free to make use of the nearby village. Watch out for the Pillager outpost!

There’s no rush to do anything – play at whatever pace you like. Once you’ve chosen a location for your base please use signs to make it obvious who it belongs to. It’s a good idea to build your main base away from other players’ bases to avoid mines and farms overlapping. Existing base locations are listed on Discord.

The Nether

Feel free to use the nether tunnels! They’re a safe(ish) and fast transport system. Bring a boat for the ice tunnels and it’s wise to wear something gold since they’re not totally mob-proof yet. There’s a portal to the nether tunnels near Spawn. When you’re building your own tunnels please match the height of the main existing tunnels. A good size is 4 blocks tall x 3 blocks wide with a slab base to prevent mob spawns. Again, this is very long term. Until slabs are in place keep Nether tunnels max 2 blocks wide in Crimson Forest biomes to prevent Hoglins from spawning

The End

All twenty End Gateways have been opened to give full access to the Outer End Islands. We’re in the process of building a structure to link these together. Outer end islands may be reset from time to time to allow for regeneration of loot. So bear this in mind if you decide to build out there! Feel free to re-summon the dragon any time you like but please make other players aware via Discord.

Game Mode

We’re playing in hard survival mode but don’t panic! It really isn’t that hard and it actually makes late-game activities easier with better mob drops and loot.

I play Minecraft like an absolute wimp and manage just fine. If in doubt get some food, make some torches and hide in a hole until day time – or better still just sleep if you have a bed!

Client-side mods

Client-side quality of life mods are fine as long as you’re not cheating (so no x-ray!). Mapping mods are fine – I personally use the following via the Fabric loader:

• Xaero’s Minimap (on-screen map)
• Xaero’s Worldmap (off-screen big map)
• MiniHUD (useful on-screen info)
• Big Sign Writer (big signs)
• Sodium (performance enhancements)

Server-side mods

We’re keeping things very standard on the server side with just some basic multi-player improvements via Vanilla Tweaks. Pre-loaded data packs include:

• Fast Leaf Decay
• Double Shulker Shells
• More Mob Heads
• Multiplayer Sleep

Ready to play? You can join any time and it doesn’t matter whether you’re an absolute beginner or speed-running expert. It’s a fantastic, welcoming community and we’re all happy to help. Have a quick read of the rules and get yourself on the server!