Minefold Launches Minecraft Game Hosting Service 67
itwbennett writes "If you drew the short straw among your Minecraft-playing friends and ended up running the game server, this news is for you. A YCombinator-funded startup called Minefold will handle all the server admin tasks for just $5 a month. 'Minefold isn't the first firm to offer servers dedicated to game hosting (see for example gameservers.com) but as far as I know they're the first to structure things so each player pays his own way,' writes Peter Smith. 'In other words, if I want to set up a Call of Duty 4 server at Gameservers I can, but it'll cost me (for example) $15.95/month for a 16 player server. So I pay Gameservers and I get my buddies all to send me a few bucks to defray the costs. It's a messy system. Using the Minefold model, everyone would pay $5/month to play wherever they want. On my server today, on someone else's server tomorrow and on their own server the day after that.'"
ASTROTURF (Score:2, Insightful)
This is the worst astroturf I have seen on Slashdot in years.
Boo!
NOT ASTROTURF (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I still don't see the point.
That's nice. but it has nothing to do with my comment.
Re: (Score:2)
You didn't read the article or information. You pay $5 a month for unlimited access to MineFold (you can get 10 hours a month for free). Access to minefold allows you to play on any map or create your own maps, as many as your want. There are no "dedicated" servers. If there are no people on your maps it will be saved off, once the first player joins your map, it will spawn a new server. I'm not sure if you can lock your map to only specific users but I believe you can.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:NOT ASTROTURF (Score:4, Funny)
We live in a basement, so we're not sure what grass roots actually look like.
Re: (Score:3)
Confrontation just makes it worse. Ignore them and they will go away.
The model is something that should have arrived a long time ago actually. I can see this becoming quite popular for one only reason: it's a modest subscription for the ability to play many multiplayer games (all games they support and you have off course). It is convenience and service in a cheap(ish) packet.
Re: (Score:1)
exactly this.
and the difference between the old model of "friends chip in for access or special privileges on a server" for whatever game worked because they were friends that either got access or special privileges. Defraying the cost of the server operator was already done, or the server doesn't operate. However, the people not paying, aren't looking to pay to play. If they were they would have already been chipping in for special rights or access on whatever server they frequent, or providing their ow
Re: (Score:2)
But platform agnostic. And that is important.
Re: (Score:2)
Not really, its like Xbox Live, with fewer supported games.
Except that, with Xbox Live, the game servers are either running off of one of the players Xboxes (aka the pre-MW2 Call of Duty route) or central servers owned by the publisher (the MW2+ Call of Duty route).
Microsoft has nothing to do with hosting the actual game servers.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
just kick the guys who didn't paypal you cash.
it's not like your deadbeat zero cash in pocket 100% of the time friends will be able to pay for this service either you know.
Re: (Score:2)
It most certainly is news.
I've never paid minecraft before, yet a simply search gave me dozens of companies hosting mc servers.
Some for $5/mo for upto 5 players instead of $5/mo per player.
But please explain to me; what could be so resource intensive in minecraft as to justify a server for just 5 players?
Re: (Score:3)
Minecraft can be pretty grouchy on the RAM it uses.
Re: (Score:3)
It also has shit netcode
They've recently hired the guys who made the Bukkit server plugin to work on the multiplayer, so here's hoping it gets alot better quickly.
Re: (Score:3)
I'll agree that Minecraft does need a whole bunch of optimization for multiplayer applications.
Two areas that kill Minecraft are the mob interactions (something true for most MMO games), but also the world generation routines that are designed primarily for a single player game but ported over to a multi-player environment. This is also the reason why mounted mobs aren't in Minecraft (especially a mounted dragon) because even a one or two player server would croak in a real hurry if you were flying and gen
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You CAN however avoid loading the blocks that nobody is around, so the infinite map is not the limiting factor, number of players usually is.
Re: (Score:2)
It isn't quite infinite distances in Minecraft, even if effectively it is. When the software starts to have number overflows (exceeding maxint distances and such) the generation code gets screwy and produces some weird terrain that is all but impassible. There are some players who have either "warped" out to those distances just to see what would happen or have taken the time and effort to get out to those parts of the map just to see what it could be.
See also the Far Lands [minecraftwiki.net] article on the game wiki that e
Re: (Score:2)
Minecraft has (at least) 2 things going against it. First, it's hard to optimize because every cubic meter can be any of ... a lot of blocks (128? 256? dunno). Plus, the world is 256 blocks tall. If you want to render a square around the player that is 256 meters from the player (which is pretty small) you need 512x512x256 data points which is 67 million blocks. You can do a LITTLE optimizing (Most of the space above 128 is empty, for example) but as players modify the world those optimizations could actual
Re: (Score:3)
256 types of blocks (unless it is an 'anvil' map which has a 4096 limit of block-types).
The world is segmented into chunks 16x16x256 blocks which are grouped into "region" files.
They are stored zipped but seems to be stored in raw structures when running the game.
Each block does not only have a type, but a damage/data value. There is probably also quite a bit of overhead...
The game is overall lacking from optimization and just 'work' on getting things streamlined only a tiny bit better.
Focus seems to be on
Re: (Score:2)
At the very worst case, a 16x16x256 chunk of 256 types could be compressed as a 256x256 8-bit PNG file. Since most of the map would be repetitive (either empty space or vast quantities of "ground" or "wall"), it should compress quite well. To keep the world consistant during play, you'd only need to send regular cumulative delta's and an occasional fresh full image.
Since I don't play the game, I don't have a good idea of the damage/data/etc values, but I dare bet most of them would have a similar repetitiv
Re: (Score:1)
The 16x16 chunks around each player are also loaded for each player, so the minimum static data per player would be 256 256x256 8-bit PNGs, or 16MB.
But memory to store the blocks is hardly the main problem, even considering that players can move across a chunk in 3 to 4 seconds unassisted, or much faster in ever-popular powered minecarts. Memory to light and shade (and determine the occlusion of) each block is far more challenging when things other than sun emit light, and many blocks occlude or alter light
Re: (Score:1)
Blark. The active chunk circumference is apparently 21x21, not 16x16: http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Chunks [minecraftwiki.net]
Re: (Score:2)
The damage values and data are used for more unusual block types or minor variants, like the material types for stairs or the contents of a chest. Much of that could be put into a custom chunk in a PNG file though that could be expanded or restricted depending on how much detail has been added by players in the area.
Most chunks in Minecraft are pretty ordinary and mundane, used as a filler to connect one area to another. If you have some very busy players on a very active world with a large number of play
Re: (Score:2)
PNG uses the same compression as the Minecraft chunk data, actually.
It's stored via ZLIB (DEFLATE algorithm). The "damage/data/etc values" are 4-bit arrays, and the chunks are split into 16x16x16 slices that are only stored if there is any meaningful data within.
Pretty good ideas - that's why they used them!
Re: (Score:2)
I am working on a home-grown Anvil map tool, so I have some insight into how the world is stored.
Chunks are stored as 1D columns of 16x16x16 3D slices, of which there may be up to 16 vertical slices per chunk, and each slice has several additional 3D blocks of data representing 4 bit data values such as sky/torch lighting, enhanced block IDs (those extra 4 bits that get you from 256-4096), damage values, entities, etc. Some of these additional data blocks are only stored if they contain anything. Each chunk
Re: (Score:2)
Shoot, I meant to say ZLIB, not GZip.
Re: (Score:3)
A medium sized server eats 2 gigs of ram easy... if you have a lot of players expect anywhere from 2 to 6 gigs of ram depending on the size of the world.
Network-wise it eats bandwidth like a fat kid on cake.. (I love mah cake!)
It is extremely sensitive to latency.. to the point that anything above 100ms makes it extremely dangerous to fight mobs like creepers as they will have blown up by the time you have hit it a second time with your sword.. So in MP it is almost always a 'bow and arrow' thing unless you
Re: (Score:2)
Java. need more details?
On a more serious note though, Minceraft (at least the beta's I was playing and I think the server sw was in alpha) were recource hogs. If you had more than 10 active users and a lot of activity you could easily fill 2GB if not more..
And that is only the server RAM, not OS not JVM.
Re: (Score:2)
But please explain to me; what could be so resource intensive in minecraft as to justify a server for just 5 players?
It's written in Java.
Stop laughing, I'm being serious!
Clear Advertising (Score:5, Insightful)
Can I post advertisements here too?
Re: (Score:2)
of course you can. Like here's my minecraft server mc.bongaming.com
Reminder to Slashdot admins (Score:1)
Commercials aren't articles. Thanks loads.
I don't see the point (Score:5, Insightful)
Giant advertisement notwithstanding, this whole thing seems a bit pointless to me. First of all, I can't for the life of me find out what the individual specs are for the servers. It certainly matters for Minecraft. Second, you can get a decent enough server for $6-8 a month. Good enough to cover 1-5 players, with the details of the hosting plan plainly laid out before you.
They only support the stock server which in many ways is inefficient and frustrating. They do mention their intent to support bucket, but that's not available now.
If the prices were tweaked and they elaborated a little more on the kind of hardware they're offering you for your server, I think this could be an interesting addition to the many many companies already offering minecraft hosting. But right now it just does not seem to interest me.
Re:I don't see the point (Score:5, Insightful)
A server without bukkit is mostly useless for anything but 100% trusted players... Which there are few...
Being able to control griefing and do rollbacks alone is a critical feature of bukkit that NEEDS to be there for a pay server..
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
I use . They have decent starter packages. The $35/month package (which comes with a free Mumble hell YES) is perfect for that medium-sized server of a dozen or so people who play whenever. [mossycobble.com]
The service is usually pretty good. More importantly, though, is that you pretty much have full access to your server to install mods or however you like. There's no "approved" and "unapproved" list or anything of the like, nor are you prevented from backing up or tinkering with your files however you may need to.
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly. Not that I would switch because I PREFER to do all of the administration myself, but there is a lot left to be desired from what they are offering and considering the price ranges, it's definitely not at a point where it would be worth it for your average users. Interesting take on things though.
I died a little inside reading the post (Score:2)
Doesn't add up. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
But you get a server FOR minecraft...
Those other hosting services host all kinds of stuff. It's not for minecraft only. Minecraft only services are way better than anything else when it comes to the awesomeness that is minecraft. You won't want to use some generic hosting for minecraft. It's just wrong to do so.. You need a minecraft server and a minecraft pc and a minecraft chair and a minecraft tablet and a minecraft house! It's meta! You simply must buy minecraft only hosting services or you'r
Re: (Score:3)
Funny thing is, without support for popular plugins, it's not even a good minecraft host!
Unless you are playing with a circle of 100% trusted friends (and even then, being able to do a rollback when someone makes a mistake is good) .. this is going to be mostly useless (in addition to being an insane ripoff).
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So let me get this straight: I can pay gameservers.com $14.95 for a 16-player server, or my group can pay a total of $80 to Minefold for the same thing. This is what passes for innovative these days?
If you and your friends have several different servers (more likely when they expand this to include more titles), it doesn't take long for this to actually be cheaper.
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds pretty innovative to me!
Re: (Score:2)
They're probably expensive anyway, yes, but you can't consider all the games alike - a player on Micecraft probably eats way more resources than a player on your average FPS.
In fact, you can see that in their site: a slot for CS Condition Zero is 0.61E, but for the same game at 1000 fps it's 2.71E.
Re: (Score:3)
good luck with that (Score:2)
sorry. getting money out of random players won't work.. and per-slot for clan servers it's cheaper to get your own.. even if you have to wrestle donations out of some of your mates.
Condescending summary (Score:2)
Apparently hosting a Minecraft server for friends is "drawing the short straw"? The thing is easier to set up than a ****ing HTTP server, how are these people supposed to be enticing admins when they insult the intelligence of said admins?
Silly (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)