Mining

Originally posted by DthBlayde: sounds like the answer is simple then: quick and easy material harvest? Surface. Hoping to score gold, silver or diamonds underground? deep mine.

Besides, the amount of time spent travelling from spot to spot on the surface pales in comparison to the thousands of units of a given material we could pull up from a mine, in one spot, beneath our feet.

To add to this, it isn't even like you have to dig deep. The main mine is literally just a few blocks below the surface node.