New OutRiders Forums

Roxanne wrote:It looks pretty cool and addicting!! I may do it if others play and we can build another NORbie land! Did you say that there were private servers, Talo?

There are, but the free ones usually lock you down to 4-5 people per server online at a time.

I bought it by the way.

I have never gotten a straight answer on this and have not had the time to research it myself. What does it take to setup a server? Do they have rented ones you can own as a private land and control who comes and goes on it?

Gilen wrote:I have never gotten a straight answer on this and have not had the time to research it myself. What does it take to setup a server? Do they have rented ones you can own as a private land and control who comes and goes on it?

There are basically 3 (soon 4) options for multiplayer Minecraft

Direct Connection
You can set up your game as a multiplayer host while you are playing it. Your friends can connect to your client, and you can play from there. The problem is, Minecraft worlds can get pretty big, and everybody is off doing their own thing, it can dramatically slow down the performance of your client. But for 1-4 players, this is a good option. The only thing you lack is persistence. You've got to be running the host for others to connect, obviously.

Personal Server
You can set up your own standalone server, but as I said, Minecraft can get pretty demanding as you get more people online (even a large handful of them), also most people don't have a good enough upload speed on their home Internet connections to make this very fun. If somebody has a good, stable internet connection, and a good PC lying around, this isn't a bad option at all.

Instructions on the Minecraft wiki

Rented Servers
There are several companies that offer private Minecraft server rentals so you and your friends have a persistent world to play on. There are some free options, but they generally limit you to 4-5 users logged in at a time.

RedstoneHost - Server for 1-16 players is $12.95/mth, or $9.95/6mth.
ServerCraft - Server for 1-14 players is $19.99/mth.

Those are just two examples, there are many more.

(Upcoming) Minecraft Realms
Mojang is going to start their own server subscription service called Minecraft Realms, its currently in invite-only beta. The beta is currently limited to 4 concurrent users at a time, but they've said that will change. Right now, what we don't know here is pricing and server capacity.
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Obviously I'm just starting. I've played some offline and I'm having fun, but I haven't gone online yet to play with NOR members. I don't know how many NOR members are interested in playing Minecraft regularly, nor what kind of capacity we'd need as far as "concurrent users" goes.

That said, it would be really nice to have a NOR Castle to defend from creepers.

From what my son's tell me, a normal castle would not be proof against creepers unless your walls are made of obsidian or bedrock.

Gilen wrote:From what my son's tell me, a normal castle would not be proof against creepers unless your walls are made of obsidian or bedrock.

Unless they changed the behavior of Creepers sometime in my absence from the game, a Creeper won't self destruct unless a player comes within a certain range of the Creeper. Basically you have to pop their "space bubble" just to get their fuse to light. Otherwise they just walk around staring at you.

So as long as someone doesn't approach a creeper near the castle walls, it wouldn't normally destroy the wall.

Endermen are a different story however....

I bought the game yesterday and, after a minor speedbump during installation, I've been having alot of fun! I would be interested in pitching in for our own server :-) I've already made a channel for Minecraft in our TS3 so....yeah, let's go!!!!

Roxanne wrote:I bought the game yesterday and, after a minor speedbump during installation, I've been having alot of fun! I would be interested in pitching in for our own server :-) I've already made a channel for Minecraft in our TS3 so....yeah, let's go!!!!

Btw OJ, your board avatar totally rocks!!!

Roxanne wrote:

Roxanne wrote:I bought the game yesterday and, after a minor speedbump during installation, I've been having alot of fun! I would be interested in pitching in for our own server :-) I've already made a channel for Minecraft in our TS3 so....yeah, let's go!!!!

Btw OJ, your board avatar totally rocks!!!

Lol thanks