Minecraft for a kid

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Discussion

JABB

Original Poster:

3,589 posts

242 months

Wednesday 25th August 2021
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My son wants minecraft because all his friends have it, so he tells me.
He currently has a Samsung tab 10 and use of a windows laptop. We don't have any other games device.

What is the best / easiest / cheapest way to let him play minecraft please?

jdizz

403 posts

210 months

Wednesday 25th August 2021
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can do mobile gaming, but might be easier to get a second hand PS4/xBox one depending which consoles his friends play on.

Kenny6868

347 posts

151 months

Wednesday 25th August 2021
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My boys asked for Minecraft to play on their laptops. They wanted the Java edition because it allowed them to add more mods and also play with each other. Its only £17.95, so it doesn't break the bank.

Other versions are available including Minecraft Education which is free if you have an education based Microsoft account (ie work in a school or college etc)

beko1987

1,666 posts

140 months

Wednesday 25th August 2021
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I feel the pain... My daughter is very much into it and has been badgering me to get Java for her... My pc runs it fine, we have the microsoft store version Atm...

My son also loves minecraft though, and whilst he does play it on the pc a bit prefers joining world and doing stuff using an android with the minecraft loader on, and the two are incompatible I think...

Or I just need to buy java for her, and if it's any good build a 2nd pc for the boy to play on...

Mammasaid

4,180 posts

103 months

Wednesday 25th August 2021
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It's only £6.49 for Android on the play store;

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com....

If your tablet can run it (and I've no reason to say why not), its a good way of getting into it.

Murph7355

38,669 posts

262 months

Wednesday 25th August 2021
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How old's your son?

My 9yr old has it on his Nintendo Switch (which he's had since 8).

No internet access on that - he just plays with his mates and brother in person. Prefer it that way personally.

h0b0

8,023 posts

202 months

Wednesday 25th August 2021
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My son is also 9 and does have Java edition with access to play on line. We have set some ground rules, including no chat and he is using the office PC off the lounge.

We previously had issues with him not being able to watch films because he was too scared. That would include films you would consider much younger than his age. When he started playing minecraft he would panic when he saw a mod. Now, he is very skilled at building all sorts of crazy things and has no issue dealing with moids. It has given him confidence he did not have previously.

Andeh1

7,170 posts

212 months

Wednesday 25th August 2021
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A game worth encouraging! smile

PeteinSQ

2,333 posts

216 months

Wednesday 25th August 2021
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My sons both play minecraft. The eleven year old plays on a Windows laptop on something called bedrock edition. He plays with his friends online and they build worlds together and play various fighting games etc. During lockdown when schools were shut it was a real lifeline for them all so I would encourage it within limits.

hyphen

26,262 posts

96 months

Wednesday 25th August 2021
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How old?

You can also get the physical blocks and characters along with lego stuff.So to keep them from too much screen time, buy both.

Also Netflix also has an interactive minecraft show, where the viewer gets to choose paths along the way.

AJB88

13,192 posts

177 months

Wednesday 25th August 2021
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h0b0 said:
My son is also 9 and does have Java edition with access to play on line. We have set some ground rules, including no chat and he is using the office PC off the lounge.

We previously had issues with him not being able to watch films because he was too scared. That would include films you would consider much younger than his age. When he started playing minecraft he would panic when he saw a mod. Now, he is very skilled at building all sorts of crazy things and has no issue dealing with moids. It has given him confidence he did not have previously.
Missus lad has this issue, hes 9, still panics now when sees stuff on the game.

xx99xx

2,181 posts

79 months

Wednesday 25th August 2021
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My boy plays it on a Fire HD kids edition. Works fine and friends can join worlds but usually he's just on his own. We keep it on the 'peaceful' and 'creative' setting so it's just about building stuff.

Some Gump

12,832 posts

192 months

Thursday 26th August 2021
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Be aware that the initial cost might not be the only fee.

My son clicked the advert on kindle fire, 5 quid. Not too bad. Except that to actually use the game, you then have to pay 5 quid a month. Didn't bother trying to argue with Amazon, just deleted it and moved on with life!

Captain Answer

1,361 posts

193 months

Thursday 26th August 2021
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My younger son is 10, been into Minecraft since he was around 7/8 which I always supported esp with things like making crafting, circuits/etc with redstone it gets them thinking about how stuff works and is made

He mostly plays on switch or x-box one, tho he has it for phone, laptop and tablet and plays them a bit. I got him a kids coding Rasberry Pii and he's done a fair bit in that too, it shows stuff like using variables, loops, etc etc

I think through that he got into other make and craft games, he is playing sub-nautica and farming simulator (which I play a lot) and see a lot of similarities there

My older son 11 has played a little mostly with his brother but isn't as keen, he's more into Nintento Platform style games - they do both enjoy playing Minecraft Dungeons together tho (as do I, we play as a 3 or 4 strong team together)

The_Jackal

4,854 posts

203 months

Thursday 26th August 2021
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Simple answer get him the version his mates are playing. This goes for all "dad" questions about what the kids want game wise.
The whole point is that he fits in. If he cant play with them online easily, its a waste of money.
He will want the cool mods his mates have, simple as that.

JABB

Original Poster:

3,589 posts

242 months

Sunday 29th August 2021
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He's 8. We have a laptop but no consoles. He has use of a tablet, but not all the time. We wish to restrict his access to the online content. We also want to keep costs down. He uses some kind of Microsoft account at school.
Will the education version be a good start to progress from?

blackscooby

319 posts

286 months

Thursday 2nd September 2021
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My lad (11 last week) has been a MineCraft addict for a few years now, other games have been and gone yet MineCraft still remains.

He plays on the Xbox with some of his mates, but also creates MineCraft servers on a Mac Mini that him and his mates can play online, but in a private environment using port forwarding on the router so his mates connect to the Mac Mini's MineCraft port.
It means that him and his mates aren't playing on the wide web so to speak and aren't exposed to everyone.
Some of their MineCraft creations are simply amazing, and I've had to create scripts to back them up as they've spent so much time creating these worlds.

I have to confess we don't use an official MineCraft launcher (although we do have a pukka MineCraft account). but use something called "tlauncher" so we can run private servers.

He's now into creating his own MineCraft servers, configuring the server config file and setting it all up without me assisting. Useful skills in setting stuff up and debugging why it won't start up etc.

Of all the games I think MineCraft is just ace ticks so many boxes.

Edited by blackscooby on Thursday 2nd September 10:37

PeteinSQ

2,333 posts

216 months

Thursday 2nd September 2021
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blackscooby said:
My lad (11 last week) has been a MineCraft addict for a few years now, other games have been and gone yet MineCraft still remains.

He plays on the Xbox with some of his mates, but also creates MineCraft servers on a Mac Mini that him and his mates can play online, but in a private environment using port forwarding on the router so his mates connect to the Mac Mini's MineCraft port.
It means that him and his mates aren't playing on the wide web so to speak and aren't exposed to everyone.
Some of their MineCraft creations are simply amazing, and I've had to create scripts to back them up as they've spent so much time creating these worlds.

I have to confess we don't use an official MineCraft launcher (although we do have a pukka MineCraft account). but use something called "tlauncher" so we can run private servers.

He's now into creating his own MineCraft servers, configuring the server config file and setting it all up without me assisting. Useful skills in setting stuff up and debugging why it won't start up etc.

Of all the games I think MineCraft is just ace ticks so many boxes.

Edited by blackscooby on Thursday 2nd September 10:37
Sounds amazing, must get my son to look into this.

HiAsAKite

2,407 posts

253 months

Saturday 11th February 2023
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Thread revival! My kids are getting into Minecraft, but we don't have it on any machines at home. Kids are young (4 and 7).. so "any" minecraft would probably work. But like the idea of being able to apply mids in the future, the kids crafting etc

We have a number of old laptops (win10), Linux laptop, raspberry pi4 (8gb ram - usually running pi-hole) and xbox360.

Wondering the easiest way to set something up with our own server (self hosted on one of our machines) with 3 or 4 users within our home network.

Has anyone tried this?
Do i need and endpoint license/copy of the game per machine, or just once (even if multiple users using)

Do i need a sever licence? I presuming i can't get the xbox360 to use the same server as the laptops?

Dont mind spending a small amount of money as a one off,not interested in any kind of recurring payments.

Can I host a sever on the rpi, and then play it on the laptops accessing the server


So many questions.. so few answers!
Its mainly about working out where to start... and not spending money on copies of the game which are not needed/ end up incompatible.


My current minecraft experience? Limited to playing the trail version on my ubuntu machine .

Badda

2,810 posts

88 months

Saturday 11th February 2023
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Install it on a kindle fire. Done.