Minecraft has been driving me a bit mad in the last few days. The Minecraft server I created stopped working and, even after I got it working again, it refused to work with my son’s newly-updated version of Minecraft. You have to understand what a huge problem this i, especially in our household. Minecraft is the game that is always being played. My son plays multiplayer with his mates on there too, and they all use a private online server that I setup so that no other players can get on. To have this not working was, well, a… massive .. issue.
Now I know that there’s probably two or three of your out there who don’t actually know about Minecraft or simply don’t understand it. I think I fall into the latter camp, and tend to just walk around demolishing things rather than being creative in any way. It is all about placing and breaking a block in order to make some beautiful imaginary creation on an island. Imagine virtual lego and you’re getting near. There is no specific goal to accomplish and there’s several different modes so you can choose to be creative or destructive depending on your mood.
Those moods depend on the game mode. You can have survival mode, hardcore mode or creative mode. Here’s the difference..
Survival mode
You have to collect all the resources and materials such as stone, water, mud and wood in order to build a block. Getting hold of these resources is a challenge in itself and there’s also monsters and difficulty levels which will stop you from building your blocks. You’ll need to keep an eye on your health bar and hunger bar and top up both regularly. You can also create weapons.
Creative mode
Pretty much all of the kids have this mode. It’s a relaxed and fun place to be. You can emove or place items instantly and even fly around. There’s no hunger problems and you can simply create buildings and other structures as you please.
Adventure mode
This has been introduced in the minecraft game so that the player can enjoy custom maps and an advanced level of difficulty. Players can interact with the other players while having an adventurous ride. The player cannot destroy blocks unless you posses the proper items.
Multiplayer mode
This is what I’ve been struggling with. If two players are using the same WiFi hotspot then this is easy, but if not you’ll need a server. In the end I found that the solution to my server problems involved solving three different issues. Firstly, the player name I was using had “special characters” – a full stop and an exclamation mark in this case (the server doesn’t like these, but you can play single player fine like this), secondly I had to reboot the iPad to get it to even recognise that the server was online and thirdly I had to recreate the server details on the second iPad we were using. It was all a bit of a faff and to be honest it could be made easier. For a quick fix, do a Google for “Minecraft Servers” and you can join a pre-made one.