I’ve noticed a lot of posts on this forum and others, by parents who want a persistent server they can install on their home LAN so they can play MCPE with their kids. I’m one of those posters.
Several days ago, I posted on this forum to ask if there was anything available. Someone was kind enough to respond and tell me that there IS an MCPE home server software package I could run, but didn’t give me any information about what it might be called or where to get it. I did some research and came up empty handed.
I tried Pocketmine several years ago. It was OK if you like creative mode but the mob AI was awful. I don’t think it supported survival mode, which is where me and my kids have the most fun. It eventually became incompatible with MCPE so it didn’t matter.
I tried NUKKIT as a server for MCPE this week. It’s pretty impressive in terms of features and connectivity and claims to support survival mode. But in terms of mob AI it was worse than Pocketmine. Mobs never showed up when running it in survival mode with difficulty set to normal or hard, and I couldn’t get mobs to do anything once you force them to spawn.
As you probably know, Mojang has a server that you can download for free, but it only works with the JAVA (PC) version. While we like MCPE, I figured it might be worth the $100 on PC licenses if it would allow us to have a properly functioning home LAN server. To test that theory, I downloaded the trial version of Minecraft PC (JAVA) last night and installed it on one of my Windows tablets.
What a letdown!
The game seemed to work on an ATOM processor running Windows 32 bit, but no matter how you tinker it still requires a keyboard and mouse.
I could install MCPC on some desktop computers I have and set those up, but that ruins the family experience. We sit in the living room and play together. We can communicate with body language and healthy amounts of shouting "Look out for that skeleton behind you!". Playing on tablets makes it a social event, as physically interactive as playing an old-fashioned board game. If we switch to desktop computers we won’t even be able to play in the same room. The last thing I want to do is isolate my kids and get them in the habit of interacting through a computer screen. I can’t really afford to go out and buy three laptops, but even if I did it would be difficult to play using a mouse and keyboard while sitting on couches in the living room.
All of this whining on my part is echoed in dozens of threads by other parents in the same shoes. For a large number of reasons, we don’t want to sign up and stick our kids on online MC servers. We want a vanilla server that we can run in our LAN for our family and possibly when our kid’s friends come over. And now, after suffering through all of my whining, we finally get to my question:
Are there any full featured android based Minecraft copycats that have a persistent server you can download and run at home? By full featured I mean they have an adventure theme (not just a creative mode) and the AI is fully functional when using the server. I spent an hour looking at Terraria last night. Looks pretty cool. Unfortunately, they have the same problem. They don’t have a home server for the Android/IOS crowd.
I know it’s an insult to Mojang. They deserve all the credit for inventing this category of game play. But I know I'm not the only person who wants this functionality and it seems like they’ve been ignoring us for years. Obviously the technology is out there, since they have commercial servers doing precisely what we want. I'd happily pay to purchase a server license if it was reasonably priced for home usage, even though the PC edition is free. Right now I'm not motivated to spend money on anything else from Mojang. I've had a week of frustration trying to set up persistent worlds for my kids and I'm the verge of uninstalling Minecraft and getting them into coding or taking three steps back and doing board games or just switching the thinking process and playing "How to Train your Dragon" with them, which doesn't require any persistent server since you're playing in whatever world DreamWorks provides.
If someone knows of an alternative to NUKKIT that actually works, that will let you battle your way through the nether on your item collecting path to THE END, please educate me! I'd love nothing better than to find out I'm totally wrong.
This forum is buggy. I've spent 30 minutes trying to edit the above post without success, so I'm just going to try a reply instead.
I indirectly mentioned Realms in my original post. Realms won’t work for me and a number of other parents I’ve spoken to for the following three reasons:
1) LAG: You have to have a reliable internet connection. Even though I’m using cable modem, my internet connection is awful. Sometimes we get blazing speeds, and sometimes we get nothing but static. Playing an online game is no fun when there is a ton of lag and drops.
2) Privacy: I know that properly managing accounts for my children is not impossible, but I really don’t want to have to deal with creating accounts for them to connect with. It takes a lot of research to make sure you’ve set it up securely so that undesirable strangers can’t interact with them, so that they can’t make unauthorized purchases, and so that they can still do everything they need to do. In addition, the rules for how accounts are managed are out of my control. If Microsoft / Mojang decide to change the functionality of their accounts six months from now I might not realize there was a change, or understand the impact until it’s too late. I’ve already experienced this with other accounts and have no intention of doing it again.
3) Budget: You have to commit to making payments to keep your account alive. Granted, it’s not expensive. But it’s still an additional bill that has to be paid on a regular basis. Everyone wants residual income. I don’t want additional ongoing expenses. My financial picture (or anyone’s for that matter) can change abruptly, requiring me to drop that commitment to Mojang. Or I can simply forget to make the payment, and lose access. I’d much rather spend a little cash and effort up front and have a server that is 100% under my own control. I can decide who has access and when. And as long as I have electricity to turn it on, I have access to play.
I'm the kind of person who would rather spend $500 to buy a kayak that gets used four times one summer than rent one four times for $40. Once I have the kayak, I have the freedom to go kayaking anytime I want, anywhere I want, and I can keep it and use it for years, so that eventually it pays for itself. I know it's not apples to apples but I approach the MCPE server the same way.
I've done more research. So far none of the clones are any better when it comes to adventuring with a persistent server for Android. I did discover that PocketMine-MP is still under regular development. If you are willing to suffer through the learning curve of configuring the server, finding the right mods, and installing the right mods, you can supposedly create a server that hosts multiple worlds that mostly behaves like a Realms server. Unfortunately there isn't a single package, and you have to go hunting in a lot of different forums to figure out how to install everything. On top of that you may end up with a configuration that runs painfully slow.
I'm not completely unwilling to go through this test of endurance just so my kids and I can play a game together, but right now I'm leaning towards buying a cheap android tablet that I can
left
If I start and share a world, then bury the primary character in a 3 block deep cobblestone tomb, theoretically, my kids and I can have a persistent world to connect to.
Do you have a Windows 10 computer on your LAN? You could buy the Windows 10 version of Minecraft from the Windows store, create your world there and share it on the LAN. The Windows 10 version is part of the Better Together Update and will play cross-platform with the Android and iOS tablets as well as the Xbox One (and soon on the Nintendo Switch as well).
I don't know if it's possible to leave it running 24/7, you might get kicked out for inactivity, but It's worth a try though. Try turning off the monitor sleep mode, then with the player on the computer, not only bury him in a hole, but also open his inventory and leave it open. When I go into an AFK session on the Java edition I do this to stop from getting kicked out of the game if the monitors turn off. If you minimize the game though it may close the world.
I don't know if it's possible to leave it running 24/7, you might get kicked out for inactivity, but It's worth a try though. Try turning off the monitor sleep mode, then with the player on the computer, not only bury him in a hole, but also open his inventory and leave it open. When I go into an AFK session on the Java edition I do this to stop from getting kicked out of the game if the monitors turn off. If you minimize the game though it may close the world.
I didn't see your post when I put up my response, but yes. I have several Windows 10 computers and two of them run 24/7 and don't get a lot of use. Your suggestion is where I was headed - if it will work. Thanks for the tips on keeping the game active, I hadn't thought about opening the inventory.
I think you get a license for the Windows 10 edition if you buy the Java edition, and since they are the same price it makes sense to do it that way. I might give it a try this weekend. It's not as flexible as having an honest to goodness server software package, but it would allow us to play through a survival world adventure together from initialization to the dragon, which is really what I'm after. It will probably take us half a year to do the vanilla adventure together. If we complete it, I can just exit the game and start a new one.
I wonder if you can copy a PE world from an android tablet to Minecraft Windows 10.
I didn't see your post when I put up my response, but yes. I have several Windows 10 computers and two of them run 24/7 and don't get a lot of use. Your suggestion is where I was headed - if it will work. Thanks for the tips on keeping the game active, I hadn't thought about opening the inventory.
I think you get a license for the Windows 10 edition if you buy the Java edition, and since they are the same price it makes sense to do it that way. I might give it a try this weekend. It's not as flexible as having an honest to goodness server software package, but it would allow us to play through a survival world adventure together from initialization to the dragon, which is really what I'm after. It will probably take us half a year to do the vanilla adventure together. If we complete it, I can just exit the game and start a new one.
I wonder if you can copy a PE world from an android tablet to Minecraft Windows 10.
Yes, buying the Java Edition does indeed give you the Windows 10 Edition as well, so it is the best deal.
I don't play it on an Android tablet, so I'm not certain how to export a world there. On Windows 10 you just click the pencil icon next to your world name and export the world as an .mcworld file. If you can get an mcworld file from your tablet onto your PC you should just be able to double-click on the file and it will import into your Windows 10 Edition.
For those very few of you who are curious about this experiment it works. Mostly.
I was able to create a world, put my character in a hole in the ground, open his inventory, and leave the game running. However:
If the screensaver kicks in, the game stops broadcasting and other players can't connect.
If you lock the workstation, the game stops broadcasting and other players can't connect.
If the other players want to sleep in the beds, they can't. (unless I get off the couch, walk upstairs to my office and make the Windows 10 player sleep in a bed then come back downstairs and resume playing with my kids).
The only nuisance is the third problem, because the Windows 10 PC is an old developer workstation as big as a horse. I don't want to bring it downstairs and clutter up my living room, so I can't think of an easy fix. I'm going to see if I can remote into the desktop with my laptop and get the W10 player to sleep in his bed when my kids want to sleep in the game.
I also ran into a problem where the Windows 10 profile name is the same as the one I use to play on my android device, so I end up with two players in the game with identical names. That's a separate challenge though so I'm going to start a different post.
There is a YouTube video that has a solution for one player sleeping in the Bedrock version. Maybe see if you can find that video and try it out. It does require a couple of command blocks running in a loaded chunk, but if you build the device next to the guy in the hole, this should work.
If you don't mind not getting achievements, you could also give the character you play "Operator" privileges in the world. Then if someone wants to sleep you could just run a command to set the time to day.
My kids like earning achievements, but the important thing is being able to get to the dragon without cheats. If I turn on cheats, can I still go through all the steps needed to get to the dragon without cheating?
Incidentally, the file structure is identical from Android to Windows 10 Bedrock. I noticed that the performance was vastly superior If we played together with the Windows computer as host than if we played with my tablet as host. I copied all my "personal" worlds from my tablet to the PC so I could share them with my kids and they all worked without flaw. The only problem I've run into is that the PC version of me now has all my points, dogs, etc, and I have to start with nothing when I join, even though I'm joining with the same name. I'm working on getting around that.
As long as you're not using cheats to give yourself tons of diamonds, or equipment, having cheats turned on for you doesn't really make a difference. You can still get to the end legitimately and defeat the dragon. Just don't switch your game mode to creative, that's really cheaty.
Oh, and there are a ton of free worlds out there that you can download as well. Google for MCPE Maps or MCPE Worlds and you will probably find quite a few on the same sites where you will find the texture packs and other resources.
I’ve noticed a lot of posts on this forum and others, by parents who want a persistent server they can install on their home LAN so they can play MCPE with their kids. I’m one of those posters.
Several days ago, I posted on this forum to ask if there was anything available. Someone was kind enough to respond and tell me that there IS an MCPE home server software package I could run, but didn’t give me any information about what it might be called or where to get it. I did some research and came up empty handed.
I tried Pocketmine several years ago. It was OK if you like creative mode but the mob AI was awful. I don’t think it supported survival mode, which is where me and my kids have the most fun. It eventually became incompatible with MCPE so it didn’t matter.
I tried NUKKIT as a server for MCPE this week. It’s pretty impressive in terms of features and connectivity and claims to support survival mode. But in terms of mob AI it was worse than Pocketmine. Mobs never showed up when running it in survival mode with difficulty set to normal or hard, and I couldn’t get mobs to do anything once you force them to spawn.
As you probably know, Mojang has a server that you can download for free, but it only works with the JAVA (PC) version. While we like MCPE, I figured it might be worth the $100 on PC licenses if it would allow us to have a properly functioning home LAN server. To test that theory, I downloaded the trial version of Minecraft PC (JAVA) last night and installed it on one of my Windows tablets.
What a letdown!
The game seemed to work on an ATOM processor running Windows 32 bit, but no matter how you tinker it still requires a keyboard and mouse.
I could install MCPC on some desktop computers I have and set those up, but that ruins the family experience. We sit in the living room and play together. We can communicate with body language and healthy amounts of shouting "Look out for that skeleton behind you!". Playing on tablets makes it a social event, as physically interactive as playing an old-fashioned board game. If we switch to desktop computers we won’t even be able to play in the same room. The last thing I want to do is isolate my kids and get them in the habit of interacting through a computer screen. I can’t really afford to go out and buy three laptops, but even if I did it would be difficult to play using a mouse and keyboard while sitting on couches in the living room.
All of this whining on my part is echoed in dozens of threads by other parents in the same shoes. For a large number of reasons, we don’t want to sign up and stick our kids on online MC servers. We want a vanilla server that we can run in our LAN for our family and possibly when our kid’s friends come over. And now, after suffering through all of my whining, we finally get to my question:
Are there any full featured android based Minecraft copycats that have a persistent server you can download and run at home? By full featured I mean they have an adventure theme (not just a creative mode) and the AI is fully functional when using the server. I spent an hour looking at Terraria last night. Looks pretty cool. Unfortunately, they have the same problem. They don’t have a home server for the Android/IOS crowd.
I know it’s an insult to Mojang. They deserve all the credit for inventing this category of game play. But I know I'm not the only person who wants this functionality and it seems like they’ve been ignoring us for years. Obviously the technology is out there, since they have commercial servers doing precisely what we want. I'd happily pay to purchase a server license if it was reasonably priced for home usage, even though the PC edition is free. Right now I'm not motivated to spend money on anything else from Mojang. I've had a week of frustration trying to set up persistent worlds for my kids and I'm the verge of uninstalling Minecraft and getting them into coding or taking three steps back and doing board games or just switching the thinking process and playing "How to Train your Dragon" with them, which doesn't require any persistent server since you're playing in whatever world DreamWorks provides.
If someone knows of an alternative to NUKKIT that actually works, that will let you battle your way through the nether on your item collecting path to THE END, please educate me! I'd love nothing better than to find out I'm totally wrong.
Mojang provides private servers called Realms.
3) Y
This forum is buggy. I've spent 30 minutes trying to edit the above post without success, so I'm just going to try a reply instead.
I indirectly mentioned Realms in my original post. Realms won’t work for me and a number of other parents I’ve spoken to for the following three reasons:
1) LAG: You have to have a reliable internet connection. Even though I’m using cable modem, my internet connection is awful. Sometimes we get blazing speeds, and sometimes we get nothing but static. Playing an online game is no fun when there is a ton of lag and drops.
2) Privacy: I know that properly managing accounts for my children is not impossible, but I really don’t want to have to deal with creating accounts for them to connect with. It takes a lot of research to make sure you’ve set it up securely so that undesirable strangers can’t interact with them, so that they can’t make unauthorized purchases, and so that they can still do everything they need to do. In addition, the rules for how accounts are managed are out of my control. If Microsoft / Mojang decide to change the functionality of their accounts six months from now I might not realize there was a change, or understand the impact until it’s too late. I’ve already experienced this with other accounts and have no intention of doing it again.
3) Budget: You have to commit to making payments to keep your account alive. Granted, it’s not expensive. But it’s still an additional bill that has to be paid on a regular basis. Everyone wants residual income. I don’t want additional ongoing expenses. My financial picture (or anyone’s for that matter) can change abruptly, requiring me to drop that commitment to Mojang. Or I can simply forget to make the payment, and lose access. I’d much rather spend a little cash and effort up front and have a server that is 100% under my own control. I can decide who has access and when. And as long as I have electricity to turn it on, I have access to play.
I'm the kind of person who would rather spend $500 to buy a kayak that gets used four times one summer than rent one four times for $40. Once I have the kayak, I have the freedom to go kayaking anytime I want, anywhere I want, and I can keep it and use it for years, so that eventually it pays for itself. I know it's not apples to apples but I approach the MCPE server the same way.
I've done more research. So far none of the clones are any better when it comes to adventuring with a persistent server for Android. I did discover that PocketMine-MP is still under regular development. If you are willing to suffer through the learning curve of configuring the server, finding the right mods, and installing the right mods, you can supposedly create a server that hosts multiple worlds that mostly behaves like a Realms server. Unfortunately there isn't a single package, and you have to go hunting in a lot of different forums to figure out how to install everything. On top of that you may end up with a configuration that runs painfully slow.
I'm not completely unwilling to go through this test of endurance just so my kids and I can play a game together, but right now I'm leaning towards buying a cheap android tablet that I can
Has anyone attempted this?
Do you have a Windows 10 computer on your LAN? You could buy the Windows 10 version of Minecraft from the Windows store, create your world there and share it on the LAN. The Windows 10 version is part of the Better Together Update and will play cross-platform with the Android and iOS tablets as well as the Xbox One (and soon on the Nintendo Switch as well).
For that matter, is there any reason I couldn't run the Windows store version of Minecraft on one of my PC's and leave it running 24/7?
I don't know if it's possible to leave it running 24/7, you might get kicked out for inactivity, but It's worth a try though. Try turning off the monitor sleep mode, then with the player on the computer, not only bury him in a hole, but also open his inventory and leave it open. When I go into an AFK session on the Java edition I do this to stop from getting kicked out of the game if the monitors turn off. If you minimize the game though it may close the world.
I didn't see your post when I put up my response, but yes. I have several Windows 10 computers and two of them run 24/7 and don't get a lot of use. Your suggestion is where I was headed - if it will work. Thanks for the tips on keeping the game active, I hadn't thought about opening the inventory.
I think you get a license for the Windows 10 edition if you buy the Java edition, and since they are the same price it makes sense to do it that way. I might give it a try this weekend. It's not as flexible as having an honest to goodness server software package, but it would allow us to play through a survival world adventure together from initialization to the dragon, which is really what I'm after. It will probably take us half a year to do the vanilla adventure together. If we complete it, I can just exit the game and start a new one.
I wonder if you can copy a PE world from an android tablet to Minecraft Windows 10.
Yes, buying the Java Edition does indeed give you the Windows 10 Edition as well, so it is the best deal.
I don't play it on an Android tablet, so I'm not certain how to export a world there. On Windows 10 you just click the pencil icon next to your world name and export the world as an .mcworld file. If you can get an mcworld file from your tablet onto your PC you should just be able to double-click on the file and it will import into your Windows 10 Edition.
For those very few of you who are curious about this experiment it works. Mostly.
I was able to create a world, put my character in a hole in the ground, open his inventory, and leave the game running. However:
If the screensaver kicks in, the game stops broadcasting and other players can't connect.
If you lock the workstation, the game stops broadcasting and other players can't connect.
If the other players want to sleep in the beds, they can't. (unless I get off the couch, walk upstairs to my office and make the Windows 10 player sleep in a bed then come back downstairs and resume playing with my kids).
The only nuisance is the third problem, because the Windows 10 PC is an old developer workstation as big as a horse. I don't want to bring it downstairs and clutter up my living room, so I can't think of an easy fix. I'm going to see if I can remote into the desktop with my laptop and get the W10 player to sleep in his bed when my kids want to sleep in the game.
I also ran into a problem where the Windows 10 profile name is the same as the one I use to play on my android device, so I end up with two players in the game with identical names. That's a separate challenge though so I'm going to start a different post.
There is a YouTube video that has a solution for one player sleeping in the Bedrock version. Maybe see if you can find that video and try it out. It does require a couple of command blocks running in a loaded chunk, but if you build the device next to the guy in the hole, this should work.
If you don't mind not getting achievements, you could also give the character you play "Operator" privileges in the world. Then if someone wants to sleep you could just run a command to set the time to day.
/time set day
My kids like earning achievements, but the important thing is being able to get to the dragon without cheats. If I turn on cheats, can I still go through all the steps needed to get to the dragon without cheating?
Incidentally, the file structure is identical from Android to Windows 10 Bedrock. I noticed that the performance was vastly superior If we played together with the Windows computer as host than if we played with my tablet as host. I copied all my "personal" worlds from my tablet to the PC so I could share them with my kids and they all worked without flaw. The only problem I've run into is that the PC version of me now has all my points, dogs, etc, and I have to start with nothing when I join, even though I'm joining with the same name. I'm working on getting around that.
As long as you're not using cheats to give yourself tons of diamonds, or equipment, having cheats turned on for you doesn't really make a difference. You can still get to the end legitimately and defeat the dragon. Just don't switch your game mode to creative, that's really cheaty.
Oh, and there are a ton of free worlds out there that you can download as well. Google for MCPE Maps or MCPE Worlds and you will probably find quite a few on the same sites where you will find the texture packs and other resources.