Christ Centered Gamer

Hi, I'm new to CCG, and my main reason for joining is to do with my 7 year old son, Caleb.

Many of his friends at school and in the village here in the UK, play minecraft at home, and he's beginning to feel like he's missing out. Games his friends invent in the school playing field involve minecraft, and he doesn't know how to be involved.

I don't intrinsically have any issues with computer games, having enjoyed them as a child myself, even though no longer a player.

But, I do have 4 children (Caleb being the eldest at), and the question of appropriateness is going to pop up a lot in the coming years.

Can anyone help with some thoughts about how I could go about assessing whether to let him play, and if so, how?

Thanks in advance,
MikeC

Minecraft is a fun game that I let my kids play. There are two modes survival and creative. The creative mode makes the player invincible to monster attacks and let s them fly and give unlimited resources to build. Think of it as a digital version of legos. The things that people build in Minecraft blow my mind!

Survival mode is all about staying alive from the various monsters and zombies that roam around at night. You have to chop down and mine resources to build shelter, weapons, and armor to keep alive.

My kids enjoy creative more and they play single player. Multiplayer is fun too but kids may not read good or fast enough to the other play's chat commands. We have a family friendly server that has a swearing filter in place but for children as young as yours we ask that a parent play alongside them so they don't ruin or steal other player's items.

Thanks.

I had read somewhere that one can play Minecraft free if in creative / single player mode. Is that true?

And, do I have to download something, or is it all online? We have two Macs that the children use.

And I understand about playing alongside my children at their age.

Oh, and your analogy with Lego is great - very helpful.

My favorite game mode is survival because it is challenging. You get to go on adventures and you get to find new things. In creative mode, you already have the stuff with you and I want to find stuff.

You can play it online, but many prefer to download it because if something is wrong with Mojang's servers or your internet connection, then you can still play. I have downloaded my copy for this reason.

There is a free demo that you can download, but I think you have to make an account before you get it. There is also the outdated classic version that can be played for free from the Minecraft website.

Thanks Emwok. Very helpful.

I have a further question. We've moved house and been on holiday... and now that we're back, I'd like to test setting up mine craft. But we have a mix of computers - some macs, some pcs. Can I install it on all of them? Or best to install on one, and access from any?

Since it's java based it can run on any platform. You can install it on any and all but only one person can play at a time.

At long last we have installed Minecraft on our computer. My son has taken to it quickly but I've realized straightaway that the version I have can only be played in 'Survival' mode.

I see that it's possible to download a version from this site, after 15 posts on the forum. Would this download be in 'Survival' mode also, or available in crative?

By following previous posts in this thread, I found the 'Classic Creative' game on the Mojang website, but am having some problems getting my Ubuntu machine to allow the Java applet to start. I'll work on this, but in the meantime think that it would still be better if I could download the 'Classic Creative' version from this site.

By completing 15 posts we grant players access to our server which has survival and creative worlds. In order to join the server, players must own a copy of the PC game.

Thanks. So if I buy a copy of the game from Mojang, Linux version, do I then download their version, or ignore that and come to your server?

Sorry, I know these are very beginner questions!

When you buy it you'll need to download and install it from mojang and just point it to our server (mc.ccgr.org) to connect to it.

Got it - thanks!

Another newbie questions. Where do I put in the server address so that I connect to the ccgr mc server?

in multiplayer add server, type in mc.ccgr.org click connect!