REPORT - "The Most Valuable Game"

I may have mentioned this in some of my previous posts, but when you are in survival mode, you have to be extremely careful about food, depending upon your level of difficulty. Here is the list of (non-monster) mobs from least valuable to most that can help you dramatically throughout gameplay.

1. Cows: the most valuable form of livestock to you is definitely cows. Cows spawn just about anywhere in the upper world and can give you milk, beef, and leather if you have the necessary tools to obtain these items. Milk is essential to cooking a cake, or just having to quench your thirst from time to time. If you are planning on storing it for rations only use one bucket - you must use your metals with caution. Beef, for when you kill a cow is good for having meat. Obviously, you don't need to capture a cow and then kill it to obtain this food, you just hunt on your own time. The best way to do this is to hunt cows farther away from your center of activities so as not to lose the mobs nearest you in the event that you need to capture some for more rations. Leather cannot be used to make a saddle like in the older version of Minecraft, but it can be used to make leather boots, caps, tops, and leggings for basic protection from the elements and monsters of the game. The applications of these three items can make or break a player, so be efficient with your tools!

2. Chickens: the second most favored animal in minecraft is the bird that we have all come to know and love - the chicken. When you kill a chicken, a few things might come out of it - raw chicken, a broken egg, and/or a feather. Raw chicken can be used as food for more rations, and provides more energy when cooked. The broken egg is useless in this case - but if you keep a bunch of chickens fenced in, you can collect the eggs they lay inside, and use that to make a cake. The feather can be used to make arrows for a trusty bow for some long-range clean-shooting hunting. Add it to a stick and a tip of flint to the feather, and you have an arrow to test yourself with for some safer hunting.

3. Pigs and Sheep: in my opinion, sheep and pigs are the less useful mobs, and here's why. Sheep, once killed drop wool. If you harvest the wool using sheers, the sheep doesn't grow it back. That is all the sheep is good for. Unless you obsess with making sure that every room in your village or civilization has a nice carpet and picture frames, then you don't need more than 3 pieces of wool to get by in Minecraft. Once you make a bed, you don't HAVE to have sheep near you all the time. You can dye sheep for decoration and make fun colors, but it is just a waste of resources. Pigs are just fun to hunt. When you kill them, all they give you is raw pork that can be cook. If you just need to get food to start off with, they are the ideal mob to attack and kill first. Once you are sure there are no more of those, you can begin with other mobs to expand and get more food and things to help you along the way.

4. Squid: squid make for an interesting mob, since, besides fish, they are the only aquatic mobs in the game. All they are good for, however, is being the source of ink sacs, which can be used to dye wool. Ink sacs have no other purpose, and are the only thing that comes out of squid. Keeping squid near you won't help you dramatically, so it is good to focus on other mobs first.