If you are like me, One or more of your children are most likely in love with Minecraft. But the biggest problem you run into is “How can we all play together”. Minecraft is mostly Cross Platform, meaning players from different systems(Nintendo Switch, XBOX, Playstation, PC, Mobile Phone) can play together. Since Minecraft was purchased by Microsoft, this is done by simply creating and using a XBOX Live ID. But we still run into another issue. You can only join players worlds while they are online. So how can everyone play together while people are offline? The answer is simple, Dedicated Servers. The Advantage of dedicated servers are that they are always online, regardless of who is on or not. So players can join and leave as they choose. Here is a quick guide on how to host a Minecraft Server for your kids.
There are two ways to achieve this:
Locally Hosting a Minecraft Bedrock Server
Locally hosting requires you to have a spare PC around your home. The PC will act as a always on Server that players will connect to.
Pros:
- FREE
- Easy enough to setup and test out.
- Join World from any device in your household.
Cons:
- Requires Port Forwarding from your firewall to spare PC if you want others outside your home to play.
- Manually have to download new updates and copy your world and settings over.
- Requires an always on PC, or having to boot up the world anytime you want to play.
To start up your own server first create an account and head over to Minecraft’s Bedrock Server Download Page and login (https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/download/server/bedrock). There will be two versions of the download. Windows and Linux.
Choose which version applies to your OS, Download, Unzip the file(right click extract all in Windows), Edit the server.properties file to your liking and run bedrock_server.exe when your ready to launch your server.
Note: When running the server, a console window will run with all the logs from your server, if you close this your server will shutdown.
MineCraft Bedrock Server Dedicated Hosting
For a while I tried hosting locally a server for my kids. But many times it was just in the way. My PC would have to be on all the time, they’d ask me to update the server, server was down, I didn’t remember to start it in the morning. Whatever the reason, it seemed to always be an issue. So I decided to look for a way it could always be on. Which is why I turned to Pebblehost.com. They have Minecraft Bedrock Servers starting at $1 dollar a month.
With the 1GB plan, I’m able to have all 3 of my kids on plus a few of their friends with very few issues. Want a little more wiggle room? You can upgrade to a higher GB plan anytime. They offer a full Website panel to control every detail of your server, as well as see current usage. To upgrade the server to the latest release, simply go to the console option.
Click Restart, and during the reboot the console will ask you if you’d like to perform an upgrade. Simply type yes and hit enter in the window that says Enter a command…
Pros:
- Cheap – Start for as little as a dollar a month.
- Easy to setup and customize.
- Easy to upgrade with each release of Minecraft.
- Always on and anyone around the world can connect.
Cons:
- Default Port for Minecraft costs extra(requires dedicated IP). Additional fee is about $3.50 a month.
So that in a nut shell is how to host a Minecraft Server for your kids. One side note to keep in mind, Consoles don’t have a dedicated server join option. So it requires some work arounds to get working. You can use a App such as Bedrock Together (IOS or Android) or you can follow the guide over at https://github.com/Pugmatt/BedrockConnect.
Versions of Minecraft Bedrock
DISCLAIMER: This Article contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission at no extra cost to you!