Getting Started - The Ultimate Player's Guide to Minecraft - page 13

Note: Mobs, Spawning, and Respawning
In Minecraft, any other creature besides your player and villagers
(known as NPCs, or non-player characters) is called a mob . The term
originates from “mobile entity.” You'll meet three kinds of mobs in fu-
ture chapters: peaceful, neutral, and hostile. The sudden appearance of
any entity in the game world is called a spawn . Your own character will
probably also die at some point. It's practically unavoidable. In any dif-
ficulty level except hardcore you'll “respawn” shortly after death. There
is no limit to the number of times you can do so.
Seeding Your World
Minecraft worlds are randomly generated using an algorithm that takes a number, or seed ,
asitsstartingpoint.Thisseedcomesfromtheclockthatkeepstrackofthedateandtimein
your PC. As time marches on the clock provides the seed for trillions of worlds, each one
unique. However, you can also override this and provide your own seed. Each world cre-
ated with that seed will be identical in terrain, including the location of mining resources
and also generally the same in mob spawn locations. You can use just about anything for
theseed,includingarandomsetofnumbersorletterssuchasaphrase(“Minecraftrocks!”)
or even your birth date. Actually, something quite fun to do is to create a Minecraft world
seededwithyourownrealnameoryouruniqueMinecraftusernameoremailaddress.Itis,
essentially, a world created just for you. Try it and explore your new domain.
Tip: Sharing Seeds
Share the seed you used with a friend, and your friend can play in Singleplayer
mode in a similar world to your own. Some worlds happen to be more interesting
than others, so this makes for an easy way to share the better ones. If you don't
know it already, you can discover the seed in-game using the Cheat command
/seed . Some websites also provide lists of seeds that create unusual worlds. Keep
in mind that Mojang, the makers of Minecraft, change the world generation al-
gorithm now and then, which in turn changes the world that results from any par-
ticular seed. Match your Minecraft version with the seed for best results.