Can anyone help me with (bloody) minecraft?

[Vanaqua]

I am really hoping someone can help me work out how to enable my son to play minecraft with his cousins who live abroad. I need it so that there is no chance of a stranger joining. They all play on switch consoles.

It seems to be quite complicated but hopefully I am just missing something!

I think one of you needs to subscribe to Minecraft Realms, then you can create your own private realm which is invite only. Invite the cousins, and they can all play together. Only one of you needs a subscription, and everyone else can join your realm for free.

Thank you so much! Sorry I have no idea why I couldn't seem to find that out. Just googled minecraft realms and seem to be on the right track now.

We didn't bother with Realms as there is a monthly cost and we're tight, having already bought the game and paid for the Nintendo Online subscription as well!
However, that might be the easiest way. From what I recall, our DS and his friend (also on a Switch) became Nintendo friends using the friend code.
Then they both setup free Microsoft Xbox accounts and connected to that in Minecraft.
Once they had both done that, they could invite each other into their own worlds that they had created (but no-one else could randomly join).
If was a bit of a faff though, I must admit!

Ah interesting! I think that's what I was struggling to do. They are already friends but no Microsoft accounts (yet) so maybe that's why we couldn't get it to work.

I think I'm going to just get the bloody realms thing although likewise slightly object to the cost. That way he can add other friends if they want I think.

Of course, if you can convince the cousins family to sign up (and pay) for Realms then win-win ;-)

I nearly had a stroke trying to work this out, it is not straightforward at all, and don't get me started on fucking Minecoins!

You need to set up a Microsoft account and go from there. It was quite simple once I'd got over that bit.

I nearly had a stroke trying to work this out, it is not straightforward at all, and don't get me started on fucking Minecoins!

This makes me feel a bit better. I actually work in a reasonable technical job and was beginning to feel as though I should resign in shame if I couldn't manage this.

I find anything to do with Minecraft so stressful! It’s the worst! I’ve no helpful advice here, just wanted to add my frustrations 😂

I have had no end of frustration with Minecraft. Thankfully my kids now seem to be reasonably fluent in it and I don’t have to get involved. Just today though my 8yo was saying that as his friend has a new tablet they can’t play at the moment. It’s definitely not just you.

Ideally find an older brother/sister who knows it and get them to set it up for you!!

I have managed to set up microsoft accounts for everyone and then it locked me out of Realms. Have reset and then needed a break so am going to continue my quest after work today. They really do not seem to want my money!

God - I set this up during lockdown and it was a nightmare. The Nintendo layers add a lot of complexity. I wrote up the detail for other parents at the time.
Sorry for the long post, and a couple of the links might be out of date.

1. Set yourself up as with a whole bunch of Microsoft accounts (Free)
2. Firstly get a Microsoft account for yourself (the parent) https://account.microsoft.com/ You may already have one from Hotmail, outlook etc.
3. then create a child account in Microsoft family for your child https://account.microsoft.com/family/ 
4. Then set up Xbox accounts (Free):
5. First with your Microsoft account https://account.xbox.com/ choose the gamertag that is how people will find you in Minecraft
6. Then you create one for the child (I can’t remember the exact details here)
7. In your account you can do the settings> “privacy and online safety” to disable a whole bunch of stuff.
8. Now set up Nintendo accounts (Free):
9. Set yourself up with a Nintendo account: https://accounts.nintendo.com/ 
10. Set up a child account for the child.
11. Check setting somewhere to ensure there is no saved credit card and child accounts cant spend money!
12. On the actual console the console account can be linked to a Nintendo account
13. Set up Nintendo Switch Online (Paid):
14. In order to play over the internet on a switch a Nintendo switch online account is needed. There is a family membership, or an individual membership. We did family due to 2 children.
15. Buy in the Nintendo e-shop (via the child’s account if individual) for who wants to play Minecraft online. Your parent account should need to authorise if set properly!
16. Buy Minecraft.
17. Just ensure it is Bedrock edition not Switch Edition. The latter is an old version that maybe doesn’t support online play.
18. On the switch handset the child’s console account should be linked to the Nintendo Switch Online account.
19. Use that account to open Minecraft
20. Choose the “Log in with Microsoft Account” option, and log in with the child’s Microsoft account
21. It’ll ask you to visit https://aka.ms/remoteconnect to do the login – it is a legit Microsoft thing despite looking dodgy.
22. After the webpage login is complete I find the switch hangs for a while. If you can - leave the console and wait and see if it all woks it’s way through. If not I’d had to do this step a few times.
23. On login the switch account and the Microsoft account are now linked up. So you are set.
24. Adding friends:
25. The way that I did it was to use a web-browser and be logged in as the child X Box account https://account.xbox.com/ 
26. Then search for the username to add them:
27. If the settings are right I think both sides would need to invite to be friends for the link to be made (an un-requited friend request is a ‘follow’ I think).
28. Alternately they can search in the game itself for a username to invite to join their world.
29. When users are friends, and they are online at the same time, and have a world with multi-player enabled, then they should see that in the Minecraft initial page after pressing play.
30. It is a bit buggy seeing whether people are online - sometimes you know someone is but they don't appear in the 'friends online' list so you can't join them that way. In a world there is an option to invite someone to join you. The kids have been doing that to get around the issue.
31. Settings: Now they are online settings are important.
32. It’s a nightmare of layers of privacy and parental control settings.
33. A key one is in Minecraft itself – ensure worlds are only set to multiplayer if they want to have other people join them.
34. A World with multiplayer enabled means that friends can see when they are online and join their world. This is the fun bit, but also a problem if they just appear and break a house or something.
35. The Nintendo Online Account now means they can join public servers with random people. We banned this, but on trust only (couldn’t find a setting).
36. If your friends are in someone else’s world then you can join that world (friend of a friend). So beware the friends that friend random people in Minecraft because they can inadvertently allow random people into your child’s ‘world’.
37. Check out your child’s friends profiles in the xbox account regularly.
38. Some bug in Xbox account seems to allow random people to friend your child without them knowing. I check the child’s xbox profile page (by logging in as them) occasionally and block randoms. https://account.xbox.com/  I think it’s called griefing when these people friend a random person then go and steal stuff from the Minecraft (or other game) worlds.
39. Can’t turn off Minecraft chat in parental controls (that I could see) so who they interact with is important.
40. The switch parental control smartphone app is useful to:
41. apply time limits.
42. Restrict age ratings for games – the online account allows them to download games to try for free so age-appropriate settings prevent the worst of this.
43. Nintendo child accounts are reasonably restricted anyway. But the online account does open up more.
44. The Microsoft settings don’t make a lot of sense, I’ve trial and errored a few.
45. Group conversations: Switch doesn’t do voice chat with Minecraft (or at all really), so we used a croup call on another device (Skype / WhatsApp etc) so they could all scream at each other whilst playing.
46. I think there is a limit of 6 people playing in a personal world at any one time. If they need a bigger group area that would involve paying some money for a realm subscription, or setting up a server or something.

Oh wow thank you so much! Will work through this later. I have the multiple microsoft accounts down and I have the right minecraft. I think I made the settings too restrictive to use realms so have tried to fix that!