Mojang introducing "Realms" Subscription Service to Minecraft

[Guild McCommunist]

Minecraft has made a big splash in the gaming world, being a breakthrough indie title that's sold millions. They've introduced numerous updates and brought it to the Xbox 360 and mobile devices. Now, Mojang is taking another step, introducing a new optional subscription service called "Realms".

Realms allows subscribers to have their own, private Minecraft world, sort of like a server. It'd give control over who and who could not enter their world. The service, according to Mojang CEO Carl Manneh, is geared towards parents who don't want to play server administrator on their kids' Minecraft worlds.

Manneh also went on to highlight possibly adding a new feature to add mods to their world that are guaranteed to not crash, to provide a simpler way of managing your world and mods.

Subscription fees will be between $10 and $15, according to Mojang.

Source

 

[Qtis]

Private servers for $10-15 per month? Not a bad choice if the server maintenance is simple enough and it's free for the rest. Still haven't gotten into Minecraft, but this certainly can make it more interesting.

 

[TyBlood13]

Is this only for 360?

 

[Guild McCommunist]

Is this only for 360?

I think it's PC-only actually.

 

[Gahars]

I guess Notch wants Mojang for his buck.

 

[TyBlood13]

I think it's PC-only actually.

Well you mention the 360 version so that's why I asked. thanks =)

 

[Guild McCommunist]

Well you mention the 360 version so that's why I asked. thanks =)

I was just giving a brief synopsis of Minecraft's expansive history, nothing more.

 

[Rockhoundhigh]

Well considering the game (trolls and all) I have no doubt that plenty of people will be willing to pay for this and in all honesty it's not a terrible price either.

 

[Janthran]

Sounds a biiit overpriced but I wouldn't do this for less anyway so whatever

 

[MasterPenguin]

So basically you're paying to have an empty server lol.

 

[Rydian]

If it's on the lower $10 side, then it'll be cheaper than most minecraft server hosting out there, with the obvious addition of not having to manage the technical stuff yourself. I was paying $12 a month for a server for a while for my friends and I, and it was a hassle to update plugins and the bukkit version and junk. Thankfully most things I used server plugins for have been implemented in vanilla (gamerule/mobgriefing, additional commands, etc.) which is why I was hoping that this would be a good bit cheaper... I'm assuming the $10 is a low number of player slots, but for $12 I was only able to have like 8 people on at a time anyways so assuming the $10 is at least 8 people it'll probably take off.

Also little kids wanting to have their own server can get their parents to pay for one and let the kids run it like an admin without either party knowing how to port forward or run a jar with commandline options and all that shit, and people don't need to memorize IPs/ports or worry about their home IP changing or set up DNS updating and all that shit.

When I was running a server, I probably spent as much time maintaining it as PLAYING IT, another reason I was hoping this would be dirt-cheap (I was hoping for like $5-7 a month, but that's probably too much to ask for).

 

[Forstride]

Is this only for 360?

It's for the PC and Pocket Edition. Yes, Minecraft: PE is getting online multiplayer, although it's only up to 4 players AFAIK.

Anyway, Realms servers aren't moddable, and require a whitelist (So no public servers for the most part). It's obviously not intended for advanced players, but it'd be nice to see some different subscription options to allow for control over the software itself (For things like Forge and mods, importing worlds, etc.). I'd be willing to pay for it if I could at least use Forge mods, otherwise I'll just stick to hosting a private server from my computer.

 

[Bladexdsl]

quit now while you STILL CAN

 

[The Milkman]

Wow? 10-15 bucks a month for what is essentially a white listed server? I can grab a simple server with a good connection and power for 6 bucks a month. This sounds more like an excuse for Mojang to not implement simple server hosting and wring money out of soccer moms.

 

[Rydian]

Wow? 10-15 bucks a month for what is essentially a white listed server? I can grab a simple server with a good connection and power for 6 bucks a month. This sounds more like an excuse for Mojang to not implement simple server hosting.

To implement whatnow?

 

[The Milkman]

To implement whatnow?

Its something on the MC forums that has been requested for a long time now, its just simple click-to-host server hosting. Mojang has to have more then enough funds to run a simple master server which these smaller local servers ping to so users can view these in a server browser rather then having to find ips to manually put in. Its like the server browser in source games.

 

[Rydian]

Its something on the MC forums that has been requested for a long time now, its just simple click-to-host server hosting. Mojang has to have more then enough funds to run a simple master server which these smaller local servers ping to so users can view these in a server browser rather then having to find ips to manually put in. Its like the server browser in source games.

Without port forwarding on the hoster's end, all the data would need to be run through Minecraft's servers, which means... that they're hosting the worlds, which costs a lot more to do. The difference between Minecraft and other online games (Call of Duty, etc.) is that with other online games everybody already has the map to be played, and the map doesn't need to be updates (only the entities). Not so with Minecraft.

This is set up as a way for people to host worlds without port forwarding or even doing any of the technical stuff required to host a world on another paid service.

 

[Kouen Hasuki]

I'm sure this will rake in a few more million to add to the (I think it was 80 million gross) that he already got in, since I have met many a almost ravenous fanboy of minecraft lol

Not that I knock Notch one bit, I'd milk that cash cow till it was skin n bones if I was him lol

 

[The Milkman]

Without port forwarding on the hoster's end, all the data would need to be run through Minecraft's servers, which means... that they're hosting the worlds, which costs a lot more to do. The difference between Minecraft and other online games (Call of Duty, etc.) is that with other online games everybody already has the map to be played, and the map doesn't need to be updates (only the entities). Not so with Minecraft.

This is set up as a way for people to host worlds without port forwarding or even doing any of the technical stuff required to host a world on another paid service.

No, no. I'm not saying actions like port-forwarding wouldn't have to be done. I'm simply stating a server browser which browses servers which are hosted off a users own machine, pings a master server which your client connects to. But I think I understand what you mean about it not being the same thing

 

[Rydian]

I'm sure this will rake in a few more million to add to the (I think it was 80 million gross) that he already got in, since I have met many a almost ravenous fanboy of minecraft lol

Not that I knock Notch one bit, I'd milk that cash cow till it was skin n bones if I was him lol

$12-$20 is what you'd probably pay other game hosting providers for a server though.

No, no. I'm not saying actions like port-forwarding wouldn't have to be done. I'm simply stating a server browser which browses servers which are hosted off a users own machine, pings a master server which your client connects to. But I think I understand what you mean about it not being the same thing

Yeah games that do that do the hard work themselves, but they don't have to handle nearly as much data, and the games are much shorter (minutes to an hour, not days or months straight like MC servers).