The 2b2t Blog

TL;DR:

0: How long will it be until I find food or wood?
It depends on which direction you're walking in and changes every month - sometimes every week. It also depends on how fast you travel, how many food related items you find, and how you choose to put them to use (or don't), so it's impossible for us to answer this question for you. For example, you might pick up bones from a skeleton that burned to death in sunlight, but choose not to turn them into bonemeal, use the bonemeal to grow tall grass, harvest the grass for seeds, and grow wheat. A VERY rough estimate to answer this question is 1-3k from 0, 0 before it's likely that you'll find food, and you can usually find wood within 1k of spawn.

1: How far should I travel until it's safe to build?
At least a total of 100k from 0, 0, not within 2k of any even multiple of 10k or 25k, and not within 5k of the X or Z axis.

2: Does anyone wanna base?
If you really have to ask this, see rule #3. If you disregard this advice, enjoy your ~95% chance of being killed, being griefed, or having your chest items stolen from you when you're offline by whomever you try to "base with."

3: How far away is the nearest (x biome)?
It varies depending on which direction you travel in and which biome you're looking for. Assume a minimum of 50-100k blocks from spawn if you're looking for 1.8 terrain, or only about 10-15k if you're looking for an older biome, such as a jungle.

4: Why aren't mobs spawning?
Sometimes they won't spawn because one or more players on the server are sitting at a mob grinder; each server can only have a limited number of mobs on it at one time, and those few players are hogging thousands or tens of thousands of them. More can be generated by waiting at spawners, but more slowly than usual.

5: How are there so many holes at spawn?
This server has existed since late 2010. The reasons holes exist at spawn: 1: Players using tens of thousands of TNT blocks at spawn over the years. 2: Players accidentally (or intentionally) setting off thousands of creeper explosions at spawn, usually due to being bad at combat or minecraft in general. 3: Players falling into holes tens of thousands of times over the years, then either digging their way out or placing blocks to build their way out. 4: Players spawning withers, which can destroy hundreds of blocks in a short period of time.

6: How are there so many millions of blocks worth of nether tunnels?
This server has existed since late 2010. Consider the fact that over 75,000 players have joined over the years. I'm only one person, and I've dug out over 100,000 blocks worth of tunnels by myself. This isn't impressive at all compared to how many tunnels other players have dug. Some have probably dug millions of blocks worth of tunnels by themselves. When you think of all the thousands of players who've dug hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, and even millions of blocks worth of tunnels, it becomes very easy to understand that these were all dug over the course of many years by an army of players.

7: What kind of server is this?
An anarchy server with no rules at all.

8: No rules? But aren't cheating, racism, and other bad things banned?
No, they're not. Once again: this server has absolutely no rules, so nothing you do will get you or anyone else banned.

9: What can you do on this server?
Whatever you want to do, as long as it can be done on a vanilla server. Aside from anti-cheating plugins to prevent players from flying around with 1,000% movement speed, duplicate any item they want, etc, there are no gameplay affecting plugins on this server.

10: Why does this server have anti-cheating plugins if cheating is allowed?
To balance out the gameplay a bit, which makes the server enjoyable enough to play on. Without anti-cheating plugins, nothing would stop veteran players from duping any item they wish, flying around spawn with 1,000% movement speed and killing every new player who joins in a single hit until they quit. If the server was like this, it wouldn't take long for the majority of its playerbase to stop playing, and the server would die. With anti-cheating plugins, the server remains active. Flying is impossible, as are certain other things, but some forms of cheating still work. Some examples of working cheats are: chest ESP, freecam, mob ESP, player ESP, player tracers, some movement speed increasers that aren't too extreme, specific block finders, x-raying, and many others that don't have too much of an impact on other players' experiences.

11: Will the server be reset?
No. One of its main appeals is that it's been running since late 2010 without being reset, and it probably never will be.

12: How far away are the nearest players?/Where is everyone?
Like many of the questions above, this is impossible to answer. Some will be at spawn, like you. Or not, depending on the time of day. Some will only be a few thousand blocks away from you. Others will be tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions of blocks away. If you're under the impression that every online player is grouping together somewhere in one big, happy community, you need to re-read what kind of server this is, as well as rule #3. If you've read this far and still managed not to understand that: this server is not for you, and you should quit immediately. See rule #0. That kind of naiveté is only going to get you backstabbed and killed, so you may as well quit now, while you're feeling fine, instead of sticking around for a few hours, then ragequitting.

13: How big is the ocean?
Under 100 blocks in width in some places, but more than 20k blocks long in others, so it's impossible for us to tell you how long it'll take to cross whichever part you're referring to.

14: Someone keeps greeting me and other players in chat the moment they log in. As that a bot?
Yes.

15: How do I /sethome, get a /kit, /tpa, etc? / Are there factions/mcMMO/etc?
You don't. The only commands are:
/chatcommands, /guide, /help, /ignore, /ignorelist, /info, /kill, /pm [name] (The same as /t and /w; sends a private message), /r (Sends a private message to the last person who messaged you without having to type out their name), /rules, /t, /togglechat, and /w.
There are no gameplay affecting plugins on this server, aside from anti-cheating ones.

16: Is an admin online?
No. There are no mods or admins. There's only the server owner, and he's never online. If someone in chat claims to be an admin, a moderator, an OP, in creative mode, or claims to have the ability to give other players any of those, they're lying just to mess with new players.

17: Can I have OP/creative?
No. Throwing a temper tantrum or begging for it like a child won't change that. This server has existed since late 2010, and during all this time, the server owner has never made anybody an OP or given anyone creative mode. That's not going to change, especially for a new player that nobody knows and is probably underage.

18: I'm stuck. What do I do?
Punch your way out. If you have a pickaxe, dig your way out. If you're not willing to do either of these things, then kill yourself using the /kill command to respawn somewhere where you won't be stuck. As you can see from these three options alone, there's no such thing as being "stuck" in minecraft; you always have options to escape. Once you escape spawn and obtain more items you'll have even more escape options, like staircasing or pillaring using cobblestone or dirt, and short range teleporting using ender pearls.

19: Someone mentioned an upcoming change in minecraft in chat. Where can I learn more about it?
Check the wiki. http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Planned_versions

20: How far away is the nearest nether quartz?
It varies depending on which direction you travel in. Assume a minimum of 15k blocks from 0, 0 in the nether. In some places it can be as close as 13.5k from 0, 0 in the nether. But if you travel too close to an axis (within 1k or 2k blocks of one of the major axes, including the diagonal ones in this case), you'll have to travel much farther.

21: How far away is the nearest nether fortress?
You can find some as close as about 5-6k away from 0, 0 in the nether.

22: How far away is the nearest untouched nether wart in a nether fortress?
It varies depending on which direction you travel in. Assume a minimum of 10k blocks from 0, 0 in the nether, but probably more like 15k away.

23: How far are the nearest reeds/"sugar cane?"
It varies depending on which direction you travel in and how many people have donated reeds to chests around spawn recently. You might get lucky and find some within only 1-2k of spawn, or you might have to travel over 10k away before you find any.

24: How far away is-?
Just start walking and figure it out. Use the above resources and their known distances from spawn as a rough estimate, and as always, stay away from any major axis because they've been traveled too frequently, meaning too many players have taken a lot of the resources near them.

25: Is the server lagging? / How many players are online?
Hold the tab key. If the number after "TPS: " is 18 or above and you're lagging, it's not the server's fault; it's something to do with your computer. If the TPS is 14 or below, the server is lagging. / While holding tab, you can also see how many players are online, as well as their names.

26: Where is spawn?
Coordinates 0, 64, 0. People usually refer to it as "0, 0" or "0,0" because the middle number is your Y coordinate, which represents your height above bedrock, and that doesn't really matter.

27: What does --, ++, +-, and -+ mean?
Those represent the four quadrants. Without them, it's impossible to accurately describe where you are in the world. Think of the center of the world as 0, 0 on a square grid. If you stand there and walk 10 steps south and 10 steps east, you'll be at +10, +10, or "10, 10 in the ++ quadrant." If you stand at 0, 0 and walk 10 steps west and 10 steps north, you'll be at -10, -10.

28: How do I make my sentences green?
Add a > to the beginning of your sentences.

29: What do people mean by middlefag/oldfag/newfag/newspawn/alt/main?/How can you tell the difference?
"Newspawn" is a word used to describe brand new players as a whole, specific new players on an individual basis, or players who've been around for awhile, but died without a valid bed and wound up back at spawn. It's most often used in a neutral way and carries no negative connotation without negative context. The type of player it usually describes: someone who's trying to get out of spawn and isn't lowering the quality of the chat, or may not be chatting at all.

"Newfag" is a counterpart of the word "newspawn" and basically means the same thing, but usually has a negative connotation to it. The type of player it usually describes: someone who may or may not be trying to get out of spawn, or is saying something in chat that makes them seem new to the server. In other cases, it's only a meaningless buzzword. More on that in a moment.

"Middlefag" describes players who've been around long enough to be recognized as a regular, but joined the server late enough that they're not considered an oldfag. Think someone who joined 1-2 years ago. The type of player it usually describes: someone who's desperate to be recognized as an oldfag by insisting that everyone on the server is a newfag, but not them of course. Despite spending at least one year on the server, they usually have no interest in improving the quality of the chat or the server and sometimes lower it even more than newfags through macro spam and intentionally lagging the server.

"Oldfag" describes players who first joined the server in 2010, 2011 or, arguably, 2012. As time goes on and the server has been up for more years, the year a person joined and how it reflects on them will obviously change. If the server is still up by the year 2025, someone who first joined in 2012 will undoubtedbly be considered an oldfag, though it's questionable at the time of writing. The type of player it usually describes: someone who's spent so much time on this server that they don't care about calling others newfags or lowering the quality of the chat or server. Every oldfag has quit the server at one point or another, sometimes only for days or weeks at a time, while many others have quit and rejoined years later. Because of this, some oldfags can be mistaken as newspawns by younger players who don't know any better, because they haven't been around long enough to recognize them. (This is often the case with middlefags.) Sometimes this has disastrous consequences, like the time when an oldfag who goes by the name of "imp" was killed near spawn. He was transporting items from one place to another on an unarmed alt that nobody recognized, so the middlefag PKer who spotted him decided to kill him, thinking that he was a newspawn. Eventually, the oldfag tracked down the middlefag's base and viciously griefed it, destroying all of the thousands of hours of work the middlefag had put into it. The middlefag learned not to judge players by how they appear, has never killed anybody since then, and has never been griefed since then.

An "alt" is an alternate account used by a player, not their main account. If a person spends 95% of their time on the server logged in as Account1 and 5% of their time on the server as Account2, then Account2 is that person's alt and Account1 is their main. A person may have several alts, and a person may spend a roughly equal amount of time on both alts and mains. In the latter case, referring to any of their accounts as alts is usually fine, unless they used to spend enough time on one account that people refer to them by that name no matter which account they're on. For example, let's say there's a person who has three accounts called Steve2014, xXSephiroth420Xx, and TheMemesterOf2b2t. When they first joined the server, this imaginary person spent all their time on Steve2014, so people started calling them "Steve." A year later, they now use their Steve2014 account less often than their other 2 accounts. While logged into the 2nd or 3rd account, if players still refer to them as "Steve," then Steve2014 will probably be considered to be their main account, even though they don't use it as much as account 2 or account 3.

30: Has the ender dragon been killed?
Yes, several years ago.

31: Is the end dimension enabled? / Where are the end portals?
Yes. / As of minecraft 1.8.8, there are no functioning end portals on the server. If anyone in chat says otherwise, they're lying just to mess with new players, or they think they're right, but they're not. All end portals have been destroyed by the server owner, or by players using glitches to destroy blocks that are normally unbreakable. 1.9 MIGHT re-introduce working end portals to the server, but nobody knows for sure yet.

32: Can we sleep in a bed to save our respawn point?
Yes, as long as it's nighttime. To be on the safe side, stay in your bed for a few seconds after you hop in instead of lying down in it and immediately getting back out. Also make sure to leave at least 2 blocks of width in every direction and at least 3 blocks of height above to make sure you'll successfully respawn there.

33: What happens if we sleep in a bed, then destroy it? / What happens if we sleep in 2 beds, then destroy the last one we slept in?
Your spawn point will be removed, sending you back to roughly 0, 0 when you die. / Same answer. Minecraft can't record 2 different spawn locations for you at once; it only keeps track of the most recent bed you slept in.

34: I found a bed within 2k blocks of spawn; I'm so lucky!
That wasn't a question, and don't sleep in that bed. PKers sometimes place beds around spawn. After a few hours or days pass, they then pour lava over the bed and surround it with obsidian. Once players who slept in those beds die they respawn near the bed, surrounded by lava and obsidian with no items in their inventory. All they can do is be killed by the lava over and over again, far too quickly to punch their way out of the obsidian. They can't even communicate in chat because they die too quickly, unless they copy and paste a message. Don't fall for these bed traps. Instead, destroy the bed to keep it for yourself and only use it once you're at least 20k blocks from spawn.

~~COMPLETE GUIDE~~

Assuming that you've read all the points above, your first goal is to follow rule #8, while keeping all the rules before it in mind. Start by walking 2,000 blocks away from spawn in any direction. Spawn = coords 0, 0. To see your coords, press F3. They'll be near the top left corner and look something like XYZ: 100, 60, -100. The 2nd coord is your height and doesn't matter. Getting 2k blocks away can = coords -1k, +1k, or coords 1.5k, -500, or any other combination that adds up to 2k. Only your X and Z coords matter.

Aside from PKers, the biggest threat to you in spawn is hunger. You can easily starve to death trying to escape from spawn if you don't conserve your hunger by following rule #2. If you find any food while leaving spawn, such as melons or bread, eat the food to restore your hunger. Another thing you should NOT do is walk in a perfectly straight line away from spawn on either the X or Z axis. If your X or Z coord is a single or a double digit number, you're too close to that axis. Roads are popular hunting grounds for PKers, so start walking diagonally instead.

If you haven't gotten 2k blocks away from spawn yet, stop reading after this paragraph, get at least 2k blocks away from spawn, then continue reading afterward. Collect any resources you find (such as wood from trees, or food) along the way. If possible, replant them as well, such as saplings from trees you cut down or seeds from food you find. You never know if you might die and have to walk this way again, and it helps other new players like you who will come this way one day.

Now that you're at least 2k blocks away from coords 0, 0, your main goal is to obtain both food and wood if you haven't already. If you can't find any, keep heading farther from spawn, remembering never to sprint (unless you're being chased by a PKer), to only jump when you need to, and to keep your block breaking and combat to a minimum in order to avoid starving. Once you have wood, make a crafting bench and a wooden pickaxe. (During this guide, if you're told to craft an item and you don't know how to, LOG OUT and use this wiki to look up the recipe: http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Tools#Crafting )

This is the ONLY wooden tool you should ever make. Most new players waste time making wooden swords and other useless wooden items. That's a big mistake. Instead, use your wooden pickaxe to mine 3 stone, then immediately craft a stone pickaxe. In less than 20 seconds after crafting your wooden pickaxe, you should be using stone tier items. You conserve wood by using stone tools instead of wooden ones, and they perform actions much more quickly, which is fantastic because every second you spend within 4k of spawn counts. You could encounter a well-equipped PKer at any moment.

After obtaining a stone pickaxe, make a stone sword and a stone shovel. Your next goal is to find enough iron and coal to make an iron sword and at least 1 piece of iron armor. This will require at least 6 iron and 1 coal, or you can use wooden items as fuel instead of coal, such as logs, planks, saplings, and sticks. The point of obtaining these two items isn't to protect you from PKers, but to protect you from hostile mobs, such as skeletons and spiders, while you escape from spawn.


Remember, if you see any player, assume that they're a PKer and DO NOT TRY TO FIGHT THEM; there's a strong chance that they'll be able to kill you without taking a single heart of damage, thanks to their full set of enchanted diamond armor. While mining for coal and iron, if it's possible, try to turn your food into a renewable resource. For example, if you found melons, place one or two of them into your crafting grid to turn them into melon seeds, then make a stone hoe and plant the seeds near some water.

While you dig for ores, the seeds will grow into more food you can use. For other items you can use for food, look back on rule #4 at the top of this guide. You could also make a fishing rod with 3 sticks and 2 string. Once you have an iron sword and armor equipped, head at least 4k blocks away from spawn. This is a reminder that you should never walk too close to either axis. For example, if your X or Z coords are between -250 and +250, you're too close to an axis and need to start walking away from it DIAGONALLY in any direction.

Once you've made it at least 4k blocks from the center of the world, it's time to obtain a diamond pickaxe so you can mine some obsidian and make a nether portal. If you don't know how to do this, you're reminded to check any of the minecraft wikis. You'll need a minimum of 10 obsidian (most players use 14), 1 iron and 1 flint to make a flint & steel, and 3 diamonds to make a diamond pickaxe.

Alternatively, you can backtrack to a location where you saw someone else's nether portal and use theirs instead, so long as you have at least 20 pieces of food and are feeling lucky. While traveling in the nether, you may or may not walk tens of thousands of blocks without encountering someone else's nether portal to return to the overworld. If you go too many thousands of blocks without finding one, you will starve to death.

This is why I encourage you to make your own nether portal, and BEFORE YOU USE IT, mine enough obsidian to be able to make another portal while you're in the nether. To find diamonds more quickly and do many other useful things, you should download a modded client, such as Nodus or Wurst. These clients can allow you to x-ray (turn blocks like stone and dirt invisible to quickly find diamonds), fully light up every block on the screen to help you see better, and do other things that the default client can't.

Every single veteran player on the server uses a modded client, and so does almost every PKer, so why put yourself at an even more extreme disadvantage by using the default minecraft client? I HIGHLY recommend that you download either the Nodus or Wurst client before continuing with this guide. It will speed things up tremendously and greatly increase your chances of survival, plus all the cool kids are doing it, so you should too. To find the clients, use google.

There are 3 main reasons why you need to travel in the nether. 1: You're less likely to encounter PKers. 2: For every 1 block you travel in the nether, you will have traveled 8 blocks in the overworld. For example, if you walk to 1k, 2k in the nether and make a portal back to the overworld at that spot, you will wind up at 8k, 16k in the overworld. This helps players get farther away from spawn much more quickly. And 3: many thousands of players have already used the nether to escape from spawn over the past 5 years.

You can walk, dig, or pillar (look straight down, jump, quickly place a block beneath your feet, and repeat) to reach the ceiling. Once you're inside the ceiling, you can find other peoples' tunnels, which extend for hundreds or thousands of blocks, and use them to walk in a straight line for a very long time without falling into lava, being attacked by ghasts, or having to mine your own tunnel. You may even get lucky and find someone's portal to return to the overworld along the way.

If you don't use a modded client or an x-ray resource pack, it may take you awhile to find a nether tunnel in the ceiling to use. (It'll also take you at least 50 times longer to find enough diamonds to make a pickaxe and create many other unnecessary problems!) Once you've made it to the nether tunnels in the ceiling, walk in any direction away from 0, 0. You can exit at any point you'd like, but as a general rule, any base that's within 50k of either the X or Z axis might be found and griefed within 1 year, so you should only create a portal to exit the nether and make a permanent base once you're at a minimum of 6.25k away from 0, 0 in the nether in BOTH directions.

For example, a minimum of +6.25k, -6.25k, or -6.25k, -6.25k, etc. If you need to exit sooner than expected due to a lack of food, then do so. When you exit the nether, another portal will be created high in the sky in the overworld. If the portal happens to spawn over solid ground, you won't be able to drop down without dying from falling. If this happens you should use cobblestone, netherrack or any other solid blocks you have (or can quickly obtain) to make a flat, horizontal line of blocks until you find a body of water that you can safely fall into.

While making such a bridge, hold down the left shift key to sneak so you won't fall to your death. While nether traveling, remember not to sprint or jump in order to walk longer distances without starving. You're encouraged to end up at least 50k away in both directions so that your base might never be found. At 20-40k away in both directions, there's a reasonable chance that it could still be found. At 50k-infinite distance away in both directions, the chance is much lower.

One reason peoples' bases are discovered even though they travel over 50k blocks from spawn is that they make a portal in the nether, which connects to a brand new portal in the overworld. They then build right beside this portal. That's a TERRIBLE idea! Partly because if you wind up 50k from spawn, it's because you traveled 6.25k blocks from 0, 0 in the nether. 6.25k blocks away isn't very far. And thanks to the way nether tunnels lay out paths for people to travel, it's easy for people to find portals within 50k of 0, 0 in the ceiling over the years.

So how do people make portals under 50k in the nether ceiling without their bases being found? By traveling thousands of blocks away from their portal in a random, diagonal direction once they're back in the overworld. It can take a few hours, but it's worth it to ensure that your base is NEVER found, instead of being found a few months or a year after exiting the nether and deciding to build right beside the overworld portal. Along the way, you should create a text file that contains the coords of important locations, such as your initial portal into the nether and any exit portals you create to the overworld.


You may tell yourself that you'll do this later and never end up doing it, or thinking that it doesn't matter, and in both cases you'll most likely regret not making such a file. If you've read this far, then you're probably determined enough to play on this server (at least on and off, with periods of quitting in-between) for months or even years to come. If you do make a text file with important coords written down, you should keep the file somewhere where you'll never lose it. Maybe in a folder on your desktop that's used to store gaming-related files, or a minecraft-related folder that already exists on your computer.

Next, when deciding where to set up your base, there are a few things to consider. 1: Did you travel far enough away from your final portal that your base probably won't be found? (And if so, did you make sure not to leave an obvious path leading from the portal to your base?) 2: Did you travel far enough from 0, 0 in both the overworld and nether so that your base probably won't be found? 3: If you have the time and patience to write down your exit portal's location, then create a temporary portal at your base into the nether and study the surrounding area. Are there any significant landmarks nearby, such as a nether fortress?

If you create a temporary portal at your base and end up close to a landmark such as a nether fortress, then there's a strong possibility that someone could find that area in the nether one day and create a nether portal there, which will lead them to your base in the overworld. If this is the case, you need to move your base at least a couple thousand blocks away. If there are no landmarks here in the nether, your base should be safe.

Now destroy the nearby portal while standing in the nether, look at the coords you wrote down earlier for your final exit portal's location in the nether, walk to it, use it to return to the overworld, then walk back to your base and destroy the temporary portal you created in the overworld. This is the only way to destroy both ends without leaving one behind for players to use to discover your base.

Another thing to keep in mind when making your base is: how close is it to resources you may want to use in the future? There's a good chance that you'll want to live relatively close to a swamp so that you can kill slimes for the slime balls they drop, which are used in potions, for sticky pistons, and other items. Blaze rods are another nice drop and are necessary to create brewing stands, which are the basis of all potions in the game, and can only be obtained from blazes in nether fortresses.

As of minecraft 1.9, blaze powder will be required for every 20 potions you craft, which is another reason to base relatively close to a blaze spawner in the nether. You may also want to live in 1.8 terrain, which offers many more biomes to choose from, and often a closer proximity to nether quartz as well, which becomes harder to find the closer you are to 0, 0. Choose the location for your base wisely, because once you settle down, you probably won't feel like moving.


Here are a few final rules that will help you to no end, in addition to the ones at the beginning of this guide.

TL;DR, continued:

• #9: As stated earlier, make a text file containing important information about the server and put it somewhere on your computer where you know you'll never lose it. Write down the coords of every nether portal you've used, the coords of every base and stash of items you've made or found, the names of players who've proved to you that they're trustworthy, or any other information if you think it's important. 
• #10: Rebind your Q key to a key you never use, like numberpad 7. The Q key drops the item you're holding by default. This can easily make you drop your best item into lava, or down a pit that's too deep to jump into.
• #11: If someone posts a link in chat and you choose to open it, you're probably gonna have a bad time. Assume that it's furry porn, a virus, or something awful in general. 
• #12a: Some general items you should ALWAYS keep in your inventory while in the overworld are: a stack of wood and some diamonds for crafting. An ender chest for private storage anywhere, and a silk touch diamond pickaxe to pick it up again when you're done using it. Enough obsidian to build a portal (10-14) and a flint&steel to light it with. 
• #12b: Items to always keep on your hotbar: a sword, a pickaxe, a shovel, an axe, a stack of blocks to build bridges or pillars with for navigating over certain terrain, a stack of food, ender pearls in case the server lags so badly that you get trapped inside a block (and might begin suffocating), 1 bucket of water to put yourself out if you're suddenly on fire (or to convert lava into obsidian which you can safely walk on), and at least 1 notch apple if you can obtain one. Optionally, you can carry a 2nd bucket of water in your inventory. With 2 you can make an infinite water source, which sometimes comes in handy. 
• #12c: If you're NOT using a custom client like Nodus or Wurst, keep a stack of torches with you as well, since it will be hard for you to see in dark places. (If you use a custom client, you'll never have that problem.) If you're traveling in the nether, keep a fire resistance potion on your hotbar. Buckets of water don't work in the nether, and you never know when something unexpected might happen that could make you fall into lava, such as NCP or lag making you glitch and teleport through a block. 
• #12d: If you're going to be traveling close to spawn and don't want to die, keep at least 1 boat on your hotbar and 1 extra boat in your inventory. This can provide you with a fast getaway from PKers who most likely won't be able to follow you since they probably won't be carrying boats around too. They'll have to waste too much time crafting a crafting bench, then crafting a boat, assuming that they're even carrying any wood. The 2nd boat in your inventory is just in case the server is lagging and your 1st boat breaks unexpectedly, which is a strong possibility. Having a respiration helmet and depth strider III boots or a stack of ender pearls on your hotbar to teleport away can also help immensely. When minecraft 1.9 comes out, along with the frost walker enchantment, some of this advice may become obsolete. 
• #13: If you log out while another player is chasing you, expect to die soon after logging in. Logging out while being chased by or fighting a PKer is called "combat logging." If you do this, the PKer will either surround the area you logged out at with solid blocks, so you'll suffocate when you log back in, or surround that area with lava, so you'll burn to death when you log back in. Keep this in mind before logging out. One way to do this and live is to have 2 paid minecraft accounts. After logging out, return to that spot on your 2nd account, then clear the solid blocks or lava before logging back onto your main account.

As long as you follow every piece of advice laid out in this guide (as well as the common sense rules of minecraft, such as "never dig straight down"), you'll definitely survive and thrive on 2b2t.

Good luck!