Minecraft Realms

[Shengji]

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2 ... bs-service

Discuss!

As a parent, I think this is really quite good. There are some areas of the internet, like Minecraft servers which children can easily access and which are difficult to control. If Mojang can provide a secure area, I'd happily pay!

The portals idea is especially worthy of discussion though, that could potentially allow users to create an MMO with individual realm members creating their own little bit of the game, adding their own quests, towns etc.

[Graphite]

$10 to $15 per month for running a server? Sounds a tad steeper than most hosting services.

[DaveYanakov]

Question is whether the service would support mods. I'm not seeing anything on the subject here.

[FaceFoiled]

I think this would just be a regular server where you can do your thing and have fun with others online, in a secure and family friendly environment. I can see the appeal of that for a lot of players to be honest, especially for the younger community that plays.

Cost wise.. $10/15 a month might be a bit steep for that, especially as you do not have any control over the server itself - just access for (what I would assume to be) a basic server.

[haphazardnuke]

In the future we aim to offer certain profiles with mods that are certified to work without crashing, but this will still be a safe and easy way for kids and families to play Minecraft online.

(End of the 4th paragraph in the article)

I'm actually a bit worried about this. If Mojang starts offering server profiles with "certified mods", they could start another mod community war. There are way too many mods that would fit the requirement of not crashing, so there will have to be a more selective process. Everyone will be fighting to get their mod on the list, and I see it spiraling into a huge mess.

The idea of cheap Vanilla servers hosted and monitored by Mojang, however, I have nothing wrong with. In fact, it reminds me of how Valve hosts servers for TF2 and such. If Mojang can guarantee a fairly smooth server that will never crash or shut down, I think this Realms thing will be a really good move. They're using Multiplay for the PC version, but I don't know much about how their servers do. Amazon has the mobile version, though, so no worries there.

[Whisp]

Question is whether the service would support mods. I'm not seeing anything on the subject here.

The article says that they want to offer crash save predefined configurations with mods in the future.
EDIT: ninja'd

10-15$ sounds a bit step for a single person, but considering anyone with a minecraft account can play on a friends realm, it could be a really cheap offer, if the server is strong enough for a dozen or more players, especially if there are modded options.
But only time will tell. And at least I wouldn't hold my breath for the mentioned mod configurations. ;)

p.s.: am I the only one that had a good laugh about the way Shengji's url was shortened?

[Rianaru]

p.s.: am I the only one that had a good laugh about the way Shengji's url was shortened?

Just noticed it now...my sides...ow

[ion]

to the OP if the mojang team can give you a parent some kind of parental controls when setting up a realm it may be good, if not it's just the same old server thing.

[Shengji]

to the OP if the mojang team can give you a parent some kind of parental controls when setting up a realm it may be good, if not it's just the same old server thing.

Oh, absolutely, if it's properly integrated directly into mc and offers controls then it's worth it. If it takes more than an hour a month of my time after initial setup and doesn't adequately allow me to protect my son then it's a non-starter.

[finite8]

The thing i'm worried about is Mojang only offering specific services and fucntions on their "Realms" that can't be obtained through the normal server module. i.e: The idea of portals to jump to other worlds. If private servers are unable to do this and it becomes an exclusive "premium" feature for those that pay for the extra realms access, i will be cranky.