Minecraft Servers

[siddymcwalker]

Hey everyone, I'm looking for a bit of friendly advice please, my technical knowledge isn't exactly extensive!

I like to play minecraft with a group of friends, but we've become a little frustrated with joining other people's servers to play together. There are a couple of reasons: sometimes there isn't enough space for all of us on the server we want, and also we'd just like to be able to dictate our own terms of play and rules sometimes. The one solution I thought of is to host games on our own server, but the problem is none of us really know anything about it!

Does anyone have any experience with this sort of thing? What type of server, and with what capacity, do you think would be appropriate? There are usually a handful of us, but we'd want to make it open to other players too - the more the merrier!

Thanks in advance!

[Cartoon Head]

There are so many options on server renting, just google minecraft server and you will be inundated with options.

Like everthing else you get what you pay for, you can even set your own PC up as a server if you don't want to pay for one, not reccommended though as it opens your PC to others.

When you go to the server sites there will be options for player slots etc, again, the more options the higher cost usually, but if you have a group of friends it will be a few dollars a month each.

[siddymcwalker]

Hi Cartoon Head, thanks for the help. I've been having a look around and found a blog post from a web host recommending a dedicated Minecraft server, which sounds like a great option in terms of capacity. I've heard virtual hosting is also an option though - I can't see a great difference in cost when looking at comparable specs, but looks like a cheaper but less powerful VPS is an option. I guess we'll have to decide how much power, player slots, etc. we need! Wouldn't a dedicated server be more stable?

[Cartoon Head]

Yep of course, but also more expensive I would imagine.

When I get home tonight I will try and dig out the information on the one we used a while back.

[willybepop]

I went the route of free. Downloaded MyMcAdmin and installed the server on my home computer. Then created a virtual private network using Himachi. My friends connected via the free client they downloaded and we played off of my system. The downside is that my computer had to always be on. The setup for me was easy, but I admin networks for a living so I may not be an option for everyone.