how to host your own minecraft server 2017

The boys have been up on their new servers for a couple of weeks now, and everything is running smoothly. Of course they each wanted their own server, and I couldn’t see a reason why not as I hoped this would be a good computer programming learning opportunity.

They used their allowance, I paid, and I hoped I wouldn’t regret it. GForce offers several Minecraft server options, and we chose the Iron option at $5 a month which comes with 1GB of memory, a dedicated IP, and all the options any Minecraft enthusiast could want. One of their Minecraft friends already had one running and configured, and he was volunteering to get them started. The boys explained that you can now buy a server running on someone else’s computer but still manage it yourself. I thought we had put the whole server issue to bed. I had tried to explain that servers were a lot of work and that their computers probably weren’t powerful enough to support a server with multiple users playing the game.

“Mom, can we have our own Minecraft servers?” Huh? They had asked me this before, and we even tried to configure our own server–another hair pulling intensive computer skill fiasco. I was innocently reading my book half paying attention to the football game that was on when they hit me. Then came the Minecraft Launcher along with the boys getting a bit older, and now they are more self sufficient installing mods and updates. Sure, installing some of those mods required every bit of computer programming skill I have. “Everything you need to know is in this YouTube.” I paid, and we downloaded, and then the work began. It all seemed so innocent when my boys asked to buy Minecraft on the PC several years ago. The game seems rather harmless if not graphically inferior didn’t we do bitmaps back in the 70s? Sometimes I feel like I’m trying to survive my child’s Minecraft addiction. I even helped build a Creeper head as a Halloween costume. Although I admit that I’ve never played Minecraft, I am well versed on what a “Creeper” is and what “spawning” means. Dinner conversations often focus on “ Minecraft this” and “ Minecraft that.” I’m always trying to change the subject to something else. Sure, they like Disney Infinity on the xBox 360 and various apps on the iPad, but Minecraft leads the pack. At our house, Minecraft is the most popular video game with my boys who are ages 10 and 12.

How to host your own minecraft server 2017