Idiot's guide to Minecraft for the technically challenged

[chicaguapa]

We've finally relented and said DD(10) can get Minecraft. But I'm completely confused with it all. I've tried googling and it's all teenage geeky speak that I don't understand. So I thought maybe we could start an Idiot's guide to Minecraft to help us more technically challenged parents set it up properly and safely for our DC.

My questions are:

I get that you need to register and then download the game. But can you only download it on one PC or several?

Also what's with the 'servers'? Can you make them safe? I searched previous threads and saw that someone was being bullied by two older children.

I'm sure people have other questions too and it's not just DH and I who are completely lost with it all! [shame] Thanks.

[nextsale]

My ds has just got me to pay for the full version playing with mates what is the typed messages on the left of the screen every time I walk past hiding it

[Aralitra]

Hi guys,

I've just found this site while searching for help with a minecraft server.
First of all there are many different companies which will host the server online for you. This takes up no room on your pc's and comes with their vast knowledge of servers and technical help. I pay Nitrous Networks (uk based but hosts all over the world) £4.50 a month for our server which will allowed up to 12 people at anytime to be playing on it. It has a white-list, so only chosen people can access it. You can have a profanity filter to prevent any words you choose being typed. You can administrate it all yourself and any "package" (mods to anyone under 20) can be installed on it. You can also be the admin of it so you can log on to the server to check anything that has been changed and make sure all your security measures are still in place. Minecraft.wiki is a great place to find out about a lot of things but I still find it's written for people with a PHD in minecraft and not the laymen. I'm still trying to find out exactly what things mean so I can comfortably make any alterations i need to. It's a minecraft minefield of jargon btu i'm getting there. Setting up the server was a simple case of googling online minecraft servers, picking one that looked good and setting up a monthly payment, within 30 mins it's up and running and you have full access. The "mod" for minecraft I used was tekkit> There are many different kinds called all sorts of things. imagine your minecraft game you have purchased and downloaded is a car, you buy a kit to add on that does lots of extra things. The "mods" are just like that. They come with advantages such as extra items that have been created for it that do a million different things. Worldguard and worldedit are 2 very good mods to add (i'm still shakey on how to add these things i'm sorry but learning slowly). They help protect the world your children are making and all their buildings and the ones their friends have done to stop anyone (during one of many spats kids have between themselves) from tearing down all the hard work out of spite.
If you already have minecraft and want to use these things, it's very simple. The server hosts will email you the information you need (IP address) and when you click on your minecraft game to play online, multiplayer, it'll say to add server and a box comes up so you can give it a name yourself and then another box to add the ip address. If you get something like tekkit, then when you download that (as any normal program) and open it, you get to log in, with your minecraft details, and you're up and running with a good minecraft modded game, on your own server and fully in control.
With the worldguard and world edit, these get added to your server and come with a long list of commands that are used in game (typed out) and these lists can be found simply by googling worldguard/worldedit commands list.
It's a good place to start at least and keeps them safe while getting all the fun of the game they want to play :)