So, um, Anyone playing MINECRAFT?

[fesworks]

www.Minecraft.net

Easily one of the awesomest, simplest games online, and it's not even out of Beta! (only recently went from Alpha to Beta). You can Mine and you can craft. At night, monsters come out! It's all in blocks and 8-bit graphics (though you can get new skins). You have one objective: survive.

Anyway, multiplayer (which requires a server host), is really cool (if you play on a non-public server with friends, to avoid griefers). It's like an MMO almost. You can work together to build stuff and such..

Anyway, view this fanmade trailer to get a great feel of how awesome this game is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5fS4RF3ht0

I'm currently playing in a multiplayer with a friend's friend's server.

Single player is still really cool, but, of course, lacks the social element. Perfect if you really want to feel completely stranded in the middle of nowhere.

[Gwyn]

Been playing Mincraft for a little while now. I haven't settled down in a world. I keep making new ones and experimenting then deleting them. I should look into getting on a small server...something that wont have a lot of greifers on it.

[fesworks]

Well, I have a few worlds. Mostly because of the updates. I wanted to be in a snow world... but now with Biomes, you can find new areas as you go out farther. before it was stuck to s single type.

I think right now, there's not going to be many changes that would really need one to make a whole new map.

If I could somehow run a virtual server or such from my computer and leave it on, I wonder if that would work, for a few people anyway. I have no clue at all.

[Xepher]

Do they have a linux server? I'd consider running one on xepher.net if you could manage/admin it. I'd need to make sure it wasn't gonna chew up all our bandwidth or anything, but for a couple dozen people, it'd probably be no problem.

[Databits]

It's an mmo server Xeph.  Consider this:  A private RO server (which is a relatively simplistic game) with approximately 80-100 players online will chew up around 800GB of bandwidth per month.  I've only ever seen minecraft, as I refuse to play another mmo while in school.  But from what I've seen, it looks like a relatively simplistic game.  Seems to have some changeable world stuff, a few enemies here and there, and very few actual things the player can do (mostly it's the same repetitive thing over and over).  It's also a bit faster paced than something like RO, meaning that it's probably sending/receiving data, or expecting to send/receive data at a faster rate (being this is a first-person game it'd likely use UDP).  Because of that, as well as the need to send all that world changing data to any nearby players who can observe it, it'd probably be at least 250GB+ / month for around 12 players.

[fesworks]

It's only an "M"MO, if you let it be. Otherwise, with restricting who's on, it's just an MO.

I've never played on one of those huge ones... sounds ridiculous o_O

[Xepher]

Yeah, I was figuring the 12-player size thing if a few people here wanted to have a co-op environment. 250GB/month isn't too bad, so I'm still open to the idea if someone wants to try it.

[Gwyn]

I'd be all over playing on it...but I hate responsibilities.

[fesworks]

I already play it a bunch, so I'll likely play a bunch here, too. Though I tend to play in binges

-Fes

[Gwyn]

Okay, Okay. I'd give running it a shot.  I'm kinda sorta network, internet communication retarded tho, but I'm sure there are wikis for that kind of thing. When it just comes down to banning people or whatever I can manage.

I just really really want an online server to play on that I can be sure I wont get griefed on. I will even EVENTUALLY pick up a gift copy of minecraft for the Xepher here, when I manage to get some money.

[Xepher]

Well, figure out what you need from me, and let me know. Though I imagine you can probably run it from your shell account already.

[Gwyn]

The bottom of this page has the instructions for the server software. http://www.minecraft.net/download.jsp

Let me know what I can do to get it running.

[Xepher]

I've "installed" the server and have it running. I don't have Minecraft though, so...

Anyway, if anyone wants admin access to it, I've set up a minecraft user on the server, and it's running the MC server in a screen. Apparently you can type commands directly into console there. Let me know if you want to admin it (and if you're someone I trust, e.g. anyone in this thread so far) message me, and I'll give you the password to login. In the meantime, I would assume anyone that wants can connect, so someone needs to figure out how to lock that down. :-)

[Gwyn]

Again, I'll give doing that a shot, unless someone else has an intense desire to do so. As for making the server a little more protected, you can set it to "private" and the server wont be listed and I would just have to give the address to anyone who wants to log on.

[dragyn]

(I know I'm not really a member here anymore...but I'm still allowed to hang out here, right?)

You can also use whitelisting on a minecraft server, so only people on the list can join. 

Just felt I should point that out.