13. Mods and Multiplayer

In This Chapter

Image Go skin deep: Switch up your threads, adopt a guise, and give Steve the slip.

Image Adopt a mod and give yourself superhero capabilities, add more creatures, or get an invaluable radar system.

Image Sharing is caring: Create a multiplayer game on your LAN.

Image Beam yourself and others around the world with command blocks.

Image Expand your Minecraft universe with multiplayer gaming.

Image Set up your own server and host a permanent world that you, your family, and your friends can all enjoy.

Taking Minecraft to the next level is a rewarding experience. As you customize it, join servers, share worlds, and add mods, you’ll change the way the game plays, adding, in some cases quite literally, dimensions to the standard game.

Customizing Your Experience

You can customize Minecraft in three main ways:

Image Change the main character’s skin so that it looks like someone, or something, else. You can choose from hundreds of thousands of skins, including variations on the in-game mobs, superheroes (although this won’t give you any additional powers), and characters from other games and movies; it’s an endless list. Or you can design your own.

Image Change the in-game textures and sounds, fonts, and menus with a resource pack. Resource packs dramatically improve the world’s look with higher-resolution textures that smooth out the rough bitmaps (although not the actual blocks) of the default world or give it an ambience more befitting your own aesthetics—for example, stepping into a medieval, modern, cartoon, sci-fi, or dungeon look and feel. Thousands are available.

Image Include a mod to add in-game functionality, new tools, items, mobs, and more.

These changes can add a lot of excitement to a single-player game, but they’re also required at times to get the most from particular multiplayer worlds.

I’ll walk you through each.

Changing the Skin You’re In

I haven’t mentioned this before, and you may know it already, but your character in Minecraft actually has a name. Sort of. The original developer, Markus “Notch” Persson, was asked one time for the character’s name, and he jokingly dubbed him Steve. The moniker seems to have stuck, a little like Herobrine, the character that doesn’t actually exist in the game but has become the stuff of legend through mods, Internet memes, and so on.


Note: Who Is Herobrine?

Herobrine is supposed to be a somewhat spooky character who haunts the game, building strange structures and tunnels and doing all manner of dastardly things to the player. He looks the same as Steve but with eyes lacking pupils, and he has become a favorite discussion point for Minecraft-playing kids. Mojang, the maker of Minecraft, has stoked the fires several times in version release notes by including among the usual list of bullet points about things that have changed, a not entirely innocent nod to the meme that they have “removed Herobrine.” Add that to the hoax videos, the actual mods that do add a Herobrine character, and talk among kids, and Herobrine has become as real as the Slender Man, that other Internet spook.

It’s all in good fun, of course, especially at Halloween when Herobrine comes knocking at your door.


So, anyway, back to Steve. Want to spruce him up? Maybe change his look entirely? Make him a her? It’s nice to be distinctive, especially in a multiplayer world. You can, and it’s quite easy to do. The console editions come with skin packs, but on the PC you have a choice of just two skins starting out: the male Steve and female Alex.

However, there are multitudes of further skins online, and you can create your own from scratch or use one of those preexisting as a starting point.

The first thing you need is a skin file. Figure 13.1 shows the default Steve and Alex skins splayed out. Each section corresponds to a particular facet of the character, the top half dealing with the head and the lower half, from left to right, the legs, torso, and arms. Each section wraps around the 3D model file generated by the game with two full layers available. For instance, you could add a watch to your avatar’s left or right wrist, or you can put on a jacket or a cape over the first-layer skin graphic. Moreover, you can individually customize the avatar’s left and right legs and feet.

Image

FIGURE 13.1 Both Steve and Alex’s skin files, splayed out so that they show every surface.

You can change the skin’s display settings within Minecraft. Access them from the main screen by clicking Options and then Skin Customization. As you can see in Figure 13.2, you can toggle layered skin effects such as the cape, the jacket, and the hat.

Image

FIGURE 13.2 Use these settings to toggle different skin layers, and to switch the dominant hand from left to right.

Fortunately, you don’t need to know too much about the specifics of the mapping because there are a number of excellent skin editors available online as well as on iOS and Android devices, and there are abundant preexisting community-created skin files available for easy customization.

You can access many of these through a web-based editor and then load the new skin directly into your account on Mojang’s minecraft.net server. Having it on Mojang’s server ensures that when you log into a multiplayer server, everyone else can also see your customized skin, but you will need to exit Minecraft and reload to also load the new skin. Use F5 to switch to an external view to admire your new attire.

Minecraft Skin Editors

There’s been something of an explosion recently in the number of skin editors available online, as downloadable applications for PC, and on mobile devices. Some of the iOS and Android apps work extremely well. Most cost a few dollars, and it takes just a few taps to upload the skin so you can view it on the PC edition of Minecraft.

However, you’ll find a better collection of editors online. I’ll show you the best three I’ve found so far.

Miners Need Cool Shoes

This site http://www.needcoolshoes.com, like many others, surrounds much of the screen with TMA (too many ads), but it’s worth it. The 3D editing is intuitive, it makes it easy to load in community-created skins and edit them and then send them to your Mojang account, and it supports Minecraft’s v1.8 multiple layers. See Figure 13.3.

Image

FIGURE 13.3 Miners (always) need cool skins.

The Skindex

The Skindex, at http://www.minecraftskins.com, is one of the easier-to-use free-form skin editors. It shows a skin wrapped around a 3D model (see Figure 13.4), so you can easily rotate and adjust the skin one pixel at a time. It also has extensive community integration. Visit the site, select a skin, and then click Editor to adjust.

Image

FIGURE 13.4 Men in Black—or any color you like. The Skindex’s editor is one of the easiest to use, with pixel-level adjustments on a 3D rotating model.

Novaskin

Novaskin, at http://minecraft.novaskin.me, provides a comprehensive editing system, although with an at-times daunting interface. However, the integrated search system makes it easy to find existing skins and edit them with precision. Novaskin has a huge community with an easy search interface to find the one you want. See Figure 13.5.

Image

FIGURE 13.5 One of the many Sonic the Hedgehog skins loaded into the Novaskin editor.


Note: Slim Skins

Minecraft uses two skin wireframes for players: one with 4-pixel-wide arms for Steve and one for 3-pixel-wide-arms for Alex. When you load your skin into your Mojang account, you should also indicate whether it is based on Steve or Alex to ensure that it displays correctly. You’ll see the option to do so on the upload screen.


Loading Your New Skin

These (and other) editors create new skin files that you can save to your PC. You may also be able to load them directly to your Minecraft account, but if you’d prefer to do that later or can’t do so directly, follow these steps to load a saved file:

1. Log in to your account at http://minecraft.net.

2. Click the Profile link at the top of the screen.

3. Select Steve or Alex as the skin model.

4. Click the Choose File button and select the skin file you previously saved.

5. Click Upload.

6. Relaunch Minecraft to download the new skin. Press F5 to toggle between the different view modes.

Resource Packs: Change Your World

Resource packs replace the default textures, sounds, menus, icons, and even the clouds, sun, and moon, although some are more complete than others. Figure 13.6 shows one example. The packs come in all shapes and sizes. Some are ambitious, whereas others are quite simple in scope. All, however, are easy to install. Just select the correct Minecraft version. While you should find that v1.7 packs work just fine, for the most part, with v1.8 and v1.9, you may want to use the exact corresponding version to be sure.

Image

FIGURE 13.6 The Dokucraft: The Saga Continues resource pack, like many of the other good ones, changes the default textures and also the styling of all the interface elements and menus.

Installing a resource pack is easy:

1. Download the pack. Try one of these three:

Image Planet Minecrafthttp://www.planetminecraft.com

Image Minecraft Texture Packshttp://www.minecrafttexturepacks.com

Image MinecraftDLhttp://www.minecraftdl.com

2. Open the Options menu and click Resource Packs.

3. Select Open resource pack folder to open the directory where the game accesses resource packs.

4. Move the downloaded resource pack file to that folder. You can see the interface in Figure 13.7.

Image

FIGURE 13.7 Resource packs on the left are available but not yet active. Those on the right, including the default, are already loaded.


Tip: Are You Packing? Try This

Among the many thousands of resource packs, there are a few that you should definitely try to get a proper taste of to see just how fabulous they can be. The ones below are carefully constructed, go beyond being just derivative, and provide a complete overhaul that’s gleefully lacking glaring errors. Just remember that you’ll get best results by finding the version of the resource pack that is an exact match for your current version of Minecraft, so search for them on the sites above and then select the most appropriate link.

Image Dokucraft: The Saga Continues—A swords and sorcery pack with animated textures that enliven the game.

Image Faithful 32—Faithful because it replicates Minecraft’s default textures but in a higher-resolution format. I highly recommended this if you just want to improve the standard look.

Image Ovo’s Rustic—Beautifully designed to look like the Wild West. Once you install it, you’ll love the new pickaxe.

The default Minecraft textures use a grid of 16×16 pixels. Consider this the size of the pattern placed on each side of a standard block such as cobblestone. Custom resource packs allow this to increase from 16 to 32, to 64, to as high as 128×128 pixels per texture. However, the higher the resolution, the more of a hit it will take on your computer. Typically any system can handle a texture of 32×32, and this tends to be where most of the resource packs fall, but switching to 128×128 may well make Minecraft unplayable due to the additional demands those textures place on your computer. If that happens, just restart Minecraft, open the Options menu before starting a game, and switch back to a lower-resolution resource pack.


5. Switch back to Minecraft, and you should see the pack’s information appear in the list. If it doesn’t, chances are it’s not compatible, so just delete it.

6. Click to select the resource pack. You may not see anything happen for a few seconds or more, as Minecraft extracts the contents of the pack and then reloads its resources. Once it has, you’ll typically see some subtle or major changes to the window, including the styling of buttons and usually a change in fonts, although this depends on the contents of the pack.

7. Press Esc to return to the game. (There’s no need to go back through all the menus.)

8. Voilà! You’ve just installed your first resource pack.

Now, a caveat. There’s a lot of confusing information in some of the downloads. You’ll see references to MCPatcher and Optifine, complex file paths, and more. You can feel free to ignore these. They’re old news, left over from earlier versions of Minecraft.


Caution: Beware the Pop-Ups

Downloading resource packs—and mods, for the matter—can be a tricky business. Most creators try to make some funds from their efforts, which is no problem at all (they’ve often put thousands of hours into them), but it does lead to one of those first-world problems: pop-ups. You can quickly become lost in a sea of spring-loaded pages, interspersed misleading download buttons, strange captcha entries, and, at times, downright duplicity. Unfortunately, there’s no real way around this. Websites such as AdFly and MediaFire offer a way for the creators to make a bit of a return for their efforts, at the expense of forcing adviews on everyone downloading that pack. Pop-up blockers provide varied results, sometimes working and other times preventing the download from taking place. Just take care out there, never enter your credit card details, and watch out for misleading links.


Mind My Mods

Mods are the marvel of Minecraft because they can change almost every aspect of the game. Want the ability to fire arrows that explode on impact like a block of TNT? Why, certainly. Want radar that shows every nearby mob overlaid on a map? No problem. Explored your way through every biome there is and, gosh, just want a bit more variety? There’s a mod for that, too, and it can generate worlds of fantastic variety.

So what, exactly, is a mod?

In a word, programming. Mods change the way Minecraft works by replacing parts of Minecraft’s own program code with their own routines and by adding additional functionality that goes beyond the original program’s design. And herein lies the danger. Mods are the equivalent of the Wild West, living within the ordered confines of Minecraft’s civilized releases. They are not officially supported by Mojang, and every time a new version, or even a small update to Minecraft comes out, there’s a very real risk that the new code will be sufficiently different from the previous version to turn perfectly working mods into piles of binary mush. In turn, installing a mod designed to work with a previous version of Minecraft into a new version may break Minecraft itself, forcing a complete reinstallation of the core game files.

Things become even hairier when mods try to coexist. One may change a routine on which another relies, breaking it, and so on. It’s a fragile existence. I’ve even heard of one user, and perhaps there are many more, who continues to use Minecraft v1.4 because they don’t want to lose compatibility with the 90+ mods they have installed.


Caution: Mods Change Worlds

Mods can add new items, block types, and all sorts of additional data to a world’s saved game file. This can have a permanent effect on any world that you open in a modded version of Minecraft. If you just want to test a mod, do so by creating a new world when you have the mod loaded rather than a world to which you may want to return. Alternatively, create a backup of that world or your entire saved game folder. See “Installing Forge Mods,” later in this chapter, for details on locating this folder. Copy the folder to any convenient location outside the Minecraft directory. Restore it later by copying it back over the original folder.


The good news? Modding Minecraft is no longer the minefield it used to be. There is a solution coming. Mojang has committed to releasing an official programming interface which will ensure that mods have a way to work with Minecraft without actually trampling all over the program’s code. But there is no release date as yet. However, there is a similar alternative that you can use right now. It’s called Forge.

Forge acts as a layer between Minecraft and mods. Mods designed to work with Forge talk to it instead of trying to insert themselves into Minecraft. Forge then handles the Minecraft side of the discussion. Forge is, in its way, just another mod, but it ensures that all the others using it “play nice.” It also simplifies the installation of mods. You’ll see how this works later in this chapter.


Tip: Worry-Free Modding

Prebuilt mod packs can prevent you from spending a lot of time worrying about compatibilities by downloading versions of Minecraft with various mods already tested and packed into a single-click installation. Check out Technic Launcher (http://technicpack.net), Feed the Beast (http://feed-the-beast.com/launcher), and ATLauncher (http://atlauncher.com/downloads) to experience Minecraft in what is often a very different form from the vanilla game.


Before we get to the step by step, I have good news and I have bad news for you concerning Forge. The good news is, as I stated, the Forge system makes installing and managing mods a headache-free process. The bad news is that Forge and, therefore, compatible mods also lag a little behind the release versions of Minecraft, so with v1.9 out, you may find that you can still only play v1.8 when using Forge.


Tip: More About Forge

Programming a mod for Forge is beyond the scope of this book, but if you want to learn more about it, I highly recommend picking up a copy of Sams Teach Yourself Minecraft Mod Development, by Jimmy Koene, published by Sams Publishing. In addition, I’ve covered the subject of Forge and mod installation using different and sometimes quite simple techniques in my book, The Advanced Minecraft Strategy Guide.


Now, then, let’s get to the good stuff.

Installing Forge Mods

Forge makes mods easy. Don’t leave home without it. Follow these steps to install:

1. Download the Forge installer from http://files.minecraftforge.net. Look for the recommended file for your version of Minecraft under the Promotions list at the top of the page. (In this case, promotions simply means that it’s a promoted file and has nothing to do with advertising.) Then click (installer) under the Downloads column.

2. You’ll pass briefly through an ad network. Wait five seconds and then click SKIP in the top-right corner of the web page to download the file.

3. Open the downloaded file to install. Usually everything is correctly set by default, but ensure that Install client is selected (see Figure 13.8). You’ll see a file path to your Minecraft application folder. I’ve never seen the installer get it wrong, but you can adjust it if you see a problem. Then click OK.

Image

FIGURE 13.8 The Minecraft Forge installer.

4. Within a second or two, you’ll see a window confirming that Forge was successfully installed.

The installer obviously installs its own files, but it does so in a clever way, by creating a new profile in the Minecraft Launcher. Select the Forge profile or your standard profile to quickly switch between the modded and un-modded versions of Minecraft.

To test the installation, open your Minecraft Launcher and click the Profile drop-down menu. You’ll see a new profile called Forge. Select this and click Play. If your Forge installation was successful, you’ll see some additional information on the title screen in the lower-left corner, as shown in Figure 13.9.

Image

FIGURE 13.9 Forging ahead: Look for the additional text in the title screen to confirm an active Forge.

Forge on its own doesn’t add any visible functionality to Minecraft. For that you need to install an actual mod. Notice the Mods button on the main game screen; you’ll use that to retrieve a list of any currently installed mods.

Forge makes adding and removing mods as easy as drag and drop, although you’ll first need to get to the actual mods folder. Follow these steps:

1. Click Options from Minecraft’s title screen.

2. Select Resource Packs.

3. Click on Open resource pack folder and use your standard file system controls to go up one folder or directory level to the main Minecraft folder. Within that you’ll see the mods folder. Forge adds this folder on installation, so you won’t see it if you haven’t yet installed.

4. Copy or move any forge-compatible mods into this folder.

5. Restart Minecraft to load the mod and start testing it.


Note: No Need to Decompress

Mods are usually found inside a .jar file or a .zip. Either works just fine; there’s no need to decompress the zip first.


Here’s a small list of mods you can try to get started. Remember to always download the version that corresponds to your Minecraft version; Forge doesn’t remove that particular requirement, and you may need to wait a while for these mods to be updated to the latest release, but you can always adjust the Forge profile in the launcher to use an earlier version of Minecraft that is compatible.

TooManyItems

http://goo.gl/vyE3JG

TooManyItems (which everyone calls TMI) is one of the most popular and useful mods, providing an incredible enhancement to the inventory window (see Figure 13.10).

Image

FIGURE 13.10 TooManyItems greatly expands the inventory screen.

TMI adds a host of controls to the window for quickly setting up stacks of inventory items, enchanting items up to any level, brewing potions, and controlling other aspects of the game, such as the time, weather, and difficulty level. It also supports saving and reloading stored inventory configurations.

Although a mod such as TMI makes it ridiculously easy to get through the game in Survival mode, the ability to quickly load a particular configuration of items or blocks makes it quite useful for construction projects in Creative mode.


Note: Not Enough Items

Another mod that is quite similar to TMI adds the useful ability to view the crafting recipe for any item in the game as well as for new items added by other mods, as long as they’ve been programmed to work with TMI. It isn’t quite as complete as TMI in some other respects but is definitely worth a look. You’ll need to install Code Chicken Core as well as the mod. You can find the latest versions of both at http://mod-minecraft.net/not-enough-items-mod/. Install them both at the same time by loading them into the mods directory and remove TMI for now, if it’s already installed. Open your inventory in Minecraft, hover over any craftable item, and press R to see its recipe or U to see recipes in which the item is used.


Ruins is one of a substantial number of mods from AtomicStryker that add some epic functionality to Minecraft. This mod, in particular, will dot your worlds with a large number of different structures and dungeons. Some embed mob spawners, chests with loads of loot, traps, and more, while others, such as that shown in Figure 13.11, will give you a great place to call home.

Image

FIGURE 13.11 Need a quick castle? Find one and so much more in the Ruins mod.

Once you’ve wandered the barren lands of The Overworld to your heart’s content, install this mod and pepper the landscape with an exciting range of new structures to explore.

Progressive Automation

http://goo.gl/BisO9I

This mod adds a suite of useful machines to Minecraft. These can chop and plant trees, plant and harvest crops, breed and kill mobs, gather eggs, shear sheep, and much more. Each machine follows an upgrade path to make it more powerful.

Progressive Automation (see Figure 13.12) strikes a nice balance between not changing the core of Minecraft too much and yet also providing a way to start getting into aspects of machinery that take away some of the more repetitive tasks while playing on Survival. You’ll find full documentation at https://goo.gl/WrMdd7.

Image

FIGURE 13.12 This may look like a lot to add to vanilla Minecraft, but the machines are actually quite easy to implement.

This is another community favorite. It adds a very handy and highly configurable map to the top-right corner of the screen (see Figure 13.13). It makes it easy to add multiple waypoints for navigation; move quickly between them; highlight biomes; and show nearby passive and hostile mobs. Note that you’ll also need to install LiteLoader. You’ll find the link for that on the VoxelMap home page.

Image

FIGURE 13.13 VoxelMap has several useful display modes but, more importantly, also provides a fast way to set waypoints so you can find your way home—or wherever.


Tip: More Mods

There’s no single go-to list of mods, but there are two good sources. Planet Minecraft provides a very comprehensive offering (http://goo.gl/1folnq). For best results, look for mods that include [FORGE] in their title and remember to match the displayed version to your own Minecraft version. Also visit MCF ModList (http://modlist.mcf.li) for a curated and easily searchable list of mods by version. You may find it a little easier to navigate than Planet Minecraft.

The mods listed in this section provide just the tiniest glimpse into what is quite an amazing amount of custom development. Mods exist that can change the tiniest detail or alter the entire experience. Just remember to tread carefully when downloading or going through a custom installation and be sure to install the mods one at a time, launching Minecraft in between to ensure that a mod hasn’t broken the main game. If it has, just delete the mod and move on to the next one.


Multiplayer Madness

Playing Minecraft by yourself is all well and good (“sniff”), and there’s plenty to keep one occupied. But playing as part of a group can be a lot more fun and, if creative builds are your goal, hugely more productive.

Minecraft provides several ways to party up:

Image LAN—Share your world on your local network, and anyone on the same wired or wireless connection can join in.

Image Join a multiplayer server—Jump into any server to join other players. Some servers support hundreds of players at the same time, engaged in acts both creative and combative. More on these below.

Image Host a multiplayer server—Start up your own server, punch a hole through your firewall, and share your Minecraft world with the rest of the actual world.

Image Join realms—See the “Minecraft Realms” note in the following pages.

A few prerequisites apply to joining any multiplayer game, no matter the connection method. First, each player needs his or her own account (or Minecraft license), even on a local-area network (LAN). Second, the Minecraft client has to match the server’s version. This means a v1.9 client can’t talk to a 1.8 server. However, remember that you can play Minecraft by using an earlier version from the Minecraft launcher. Open the Version drop-down list, select the target Minecraft version, and then click Play to continue.

Finally, some servers ban players for using mods, and on a LAN game, all the mods that change blocks or add new items must match between the client and server. Once resource packs support mods, this will probably be a much simpler requirement: Just install the recommended resource pack, and you’ll be ready to go. For now, though, ensure that the contents of your mods directory match across all PCs if you’re playing on a LAN.

Sharing and Joining on a LAN

To set up a LAN server, open any Minecraft world:

1. Press Esc to open the Options window.

2. Select Open to LAN.

3. Join a LAN server by clicking Multiplayer on the title screen and look for an available server. For instance, I have a local Minecraft server named LAN World, as shown in Figure 13.14. You’ll also see the account name of the user hosting the session, as well as the name given to that world.

Image

FIGURE 13.14 Joining a LAN server.

4. Double-click its name to join the server.

That’s all there is to it. In a few moments, you’ll appear at the world’s spawn point.


Tip: Teleporting Other Players

Bring other players to your location quickly and easily with the teleport command. It’s a sort of “beam me up, Scotty” for Minecraft. Make sure you start a multiplayer game with cheats on and then type /tp playername, replacing playername with the name of the player you want to teleport. Press Enter, and you’ll zap that player directly to your location. See http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Commands for a complete list of commands.


Joining a Multiplayer Server

Just as mods expand Minecraft’s functionality in any number of useful and imaginative ways, multiplayer servers create whole new worlds that can take the experience even further. These servers allow you to communicate with other players either cooperatively or combatively, depending on the server’s rules. Some are plain vanilla, meaning there’s not a lot of difference between them and a standard Minecraft world besides it being multiplayer, but many others are carefully constructed, elaborate masterpieces with special code that provides a heavily customized experience for players. The Shotbow Network shown in Figure 13.16 is one such example.

Image

FIGURE 13.16 Shotbow’s game lobby, showing just a few of the game types as well as other players.


Note: Minecraft Realms

Minecraft Realms is a subscription service that provides an easy way for families or groups of friends to host small cooperative servers of up to 20 players. Although it’s simple enough to set up a LAN game if you’re all on the same network, Realms works across the broader Internet, so players can get together from all over the world. The Pocket Edition also supports Realms, with the goal of supporting up to 10 players per server, and the service will no doubt make its way eventually to the console editions. Realms servers also include a range of prebuilt worlds with fun components to them, as well as mini-games that can be played at any time so that you temporarily swap out your world for one set in a battle arena, on a parkour map, or someplace else.


The first thing you should do is locate an actual server. There are literally thousands to choose from, and sites such as planetminecraft.com and minecraftservers.org do a great job of keeping complete databases running. Some servers are open to one and all, while others require registration. Most are free to some extent, although paid subscriptions may provide access to use otherwise full servers and give you other benefits.

Join a multiplayer server by following these steps:

1. Click on Multiplayer in the title screen.

2. Select Add server.

3. Type in a server name. (It can be anything you like that will help you identify that server in the future.)

4. Type in the server address and click Done.

5. Select the server from the list (see the earlier Figure 13.14) and click Join Server or just double-click the server’s name.

Most servers drop you into a game lobby where you can see the different game types and read the server’s rules. These usually include information on permitted mods, so make sure you read the signs or any books dropped into your inventory, as this can help you avoid getting banned.

The following are some servers to start with:

Image TeamExtreme (http://play.teamextrememc.com)—This group claims to have the biggest Minecraft public server in the world. It is pretty heavy-handed with rules, but the world is incredibly detailed, and you can meet a lot of Minecraft-savvy players here.

Image Shotbow (http://us.shotbow.net)—The Shotbow network hosts a huge range of game types, each with its own particular rules. It tends to have some hardcore players, so make sure that your skills are up to speed before you visit.

Image The Hive (http://eu.hivemc.com)—The Hive is full of games that are great for kids and anyone else who wants to have a bit of fun. There’s an arcade with paintball, hide-and-seek, survivor maps, and a Herobrine game.

Image Supercraft Brothers (http://mineca.de)—Supercraft Brothers is something of a riot, offering fast-paced player-versus-player (PvP) gaming. There is quite a range of servers and game play styles, so make sure you also visit http://minecade.com/SuperCraftBrothers.

Image Phanatic (http://play.phanaticmc.com)—This busy server offers Creative mode, a host of mini-games, and a Hunger Games mode, based on the premise from the popular film.

Image BeastsMC (http://c.beastsmc.com)—Don’t let the name perturb you; this is an excellent server for creative builds. The same host also offers survival and hardcore multiplayer.

You’ll find a huge range of impressive servers out there, some with incredibly extensive worlds and gigantic creative builds. Look through the server lists to find one that suits you. There is, truly, something for everyone.


Note: Changes for Multiplayer Server Operators

Mojang made big news in June 2014 when it published a substantial change to the game’s End User License Agreement (EULA). The new wording expressly forbids Minecraft multiplayer server operators from charging players real money for features that are already a part of the Minecraft code base.

For instance, historically you’ll find servers that offer various incentives for players that are based in real money transactions. Some of the perks improve the user’s capabilities in the multiplayer world, while some for-pay features are little more than vanities (custom titles and so forth).

This EULA change sparked a lot of controversy in the Minecraft community, both for and against. Above all else, we must remember that, at the end of the proverbial day, Mojang owns the Minecraft code and therefore has a right to define the software’s acceptable use policy.


Hosting a Multiplayer Server

Hosting your own server is a rewarding way to create a consistent, stable world that you and others can connect to from anywhere. It does require a little technical knowledge—especially if you want to be able to access the server externally—but nothing insurmountable.

The basic steps are fairly simple, and you can use a white list to ensure that only you and your trusted family or friends can join. For now, though, I’ll show you how to set up the server on the local network. You can actually do this even if you have just one PC.

Follow these steps, and you’ll be up and running in no time:

1. Download the server software from http://minecraft.net/download. Choose the .exe file if you’re running Windows or the .jar file for any other platform.

2. Create a new folder and move the downloaded software to it.

3. Double-click or open the downloaded file to launch the server. You’ll see a window similar to that shown in Figure 13.17.

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FIGURE 13.17 The Minecraft server provides a clean interface for managing players and should run well in the background on all but very low-specification computers.

The server does a few things on the first run, generating a new world and also creating a number of configuration files. The world generates into a folder called, appropriately enough, world, in the same directory as the server software. Its format is the same as those that the Minecraft client creates, so if you’d like to share a world you’ve already created, shut down the server and copy that world from the saves directory of your Minecraft application into the server directory and then rename the folder world. Restart the server to share it.


Tip: Host with the Most

If hosting with your own hardware doesn’t appeal to you for security or other reasons, but you still have an urge to share a world for collaborative creation or otherwise, consider using a paid hosting provider. Numerous providers online specialize in Minecraft hosting and will provide you with all you need, including configuration and customization tools. Mcprohosting.com starts for as little as $2.50 per month for five players.


Once you have a server running on your local network, you need its IP address to connect. The IP address is the address on your local network, and it usually looks like 192.168.0.x or 10.0.0.x, where x is the final IP number assigned to your computer.

Discovering the IP address depends on the server’s operating system. On Windows, you’ll find it under the network card or Wi-Fi connection in the Network and Sharing Center in the Control Panel. Select the active connection and click Details to see the IP address. On OS X, open System Preferences under the Apple menu, click Network, and then click the active connection. You will see the IP address under the Status line in the right panel of the window. If you’re using Linux, I’m just going to go right ahead and assume that you already know the address or know how to discover it.

Connect to the server using the same steps as you use to connect to a multiplayer server, using the IP address as the server address in the Add Server window.

Opening the server up to the broader world requires a few more steps, and it is not without risks because you’ll have to expose your server through the firewall to the untethered wilds of the Internet. I can’t provide specific steps as this is all about router configuration, and routers are all different, but here are some pointers that should help:

Image Assign a permanent local IP address to your server. You want to ensure, for example, that if your server is addressed on your local network as 192.168.0.4, it stays that way. Typically, IP addresses are dynamically assigned within the local network, but if your router supports IP reservation, you can use the MAC address of the server to assign a permanent local address.

Image Use the router’s port forwarding to send all traffic the router receives on port 25565 to the server’s local IP address.

Image In almost all cases, your Internet provider assigns you a dynamic IP address—an address that can change without notice. Static IP addresses cost extra, sometimes hundreds of dollars, so I recommend using a dynamic DNS service instead. I prefer dyndns.org, but there are many available. A dynamic IP address ensures that you or others can reach the server from anywhere with a standard address, such as http://mcserver.mydyndns.org. You then type that address rather than an IP address into Minecraft’s Add Server page. In many cases, it’s possible to configure the router to talk to one of the more common dynamic DNS providers, but if not, then you will be able to download a small piece of software from the provider that will keep the domain name version of the address up to date and running smoothly, even if your Internet provider changes your external numerical IP address.

Finally, you should take some steps to protect the Minecraft server application to prevent just anyone from logging in:

1. In the small chat bar just below the main window log in the server’s display, t /whitelist on. This ensures that only people specifically approved to access the server can log in. Anyone else who tries will simply be disconnected.

2. Add the account name (the Mojang or Minecraft account used to log in to the game) for everyone you want to grant access to the server. Do this by typing /whitelist add playername, replacing playername with the actual name. The white list is a file contained in the server’s directory. If you need to add a lot of names, you can do so just be typing them into the file itself, using a plain text editor, with each name on a single line.

3. Add yourself as an operator so that you can control the server from any Minecraft client by typing /op yourname. Again, replace the latter part with your actual account name. If there is a potential downside to multiplayer Minecraft, it is that the screen can get pretty busy with chat and status messages. Figure 13.18 shows what I’m talking about.

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FIGURE 13.18 In a multiplayer session, type /help to see the commands that are available to you, based on your privilege level.

4. Create a startup script that will automatically restart the Minecraft server if the power goes down or the server hardware resets.

That’s the essence of a Minecraft server. You can do a lot more besides, including setting up a texture pack that will automatically download to anyone who joins, adding Bukkit mods (see http://wiki.bukkit.org), and more, but I’ll leave you to discover these on your own. You can find a wealth of material online, and also in my advanced guide, The Advanced Strategy Guide to Minecraft.

Hosting a customized Minecraft server is, perhaps, the ultimate expression of not just playing but also optimizing the Minecraft gaming experience and sharing it with others.

Spectator Mode

Minecraft includes a neat enhancement to Multiplayer mode called Spectator mode. This game mode, which can be enabled by issuing the command /gamemode 3 or /gamemode spectator allows the player to fly around the world without interacting with it in any way.

While you’re in Spectator mode, you can fly through blocks and entities, but you cannot impact them. Spectator mode is a “fly-only” mode, which means you won’t be walking anywhere in the world while you’re in that mode. Use your mouse’s scroll wheel to change your speed; you can fly much faster here than in Creative mode.

As you’d expect, your avatar can’t take any damage while in Spectator mode. Also, you can keep your existing inventory but cannot access it.

Finally, you can “possess” mobs by left-clicking on them. Performing this action allows you to take on their view of the multiplayer world, although at this writing, the mobs freeze in position. This may, of course, change in a future update.

The Bottom Line

Minecraft is one of the most open games on the market. From skins to mods to hosting a server, it’s a malleable ball of clay, waiting to be shaped by your hands.

Fortunately, you don’t need to start from scratch. Many dedicated developers, artists, and designers have traveled this road before. Thousands of mods, tens of thousands of servers, and hundreds of thousands of skins are already out there.

The ultimate player is not the one who simply finishes the game but the one who takes it ever further—from fantastic constructions to amazing redstone contraptions, from ludicrously complicated automated farms to tricks (the TNT cannon comes to mind) that go far beyond any of the game’s original intentions. Minecraft is fertile ground, an endless expanse of possibility both within gameplay and also deep within its code. Multiple mods can spawn something like programmatic chaos, but when well orchestrated can result in an experience that sings.

Enjoy, and if you ever think you’ve gone as far as you can go, take another look. There’s a new experience just around the corner. I hope to see you there.

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