I've run servers for friends and I only see one huge problem: 90% of my friends wouldn't pay for a Minecraft server. They play, but it's just not how my servers ran. I paid for it, and a few others who understood what I did and what it cost, would help as well.<p>But 90-95% of my players were not paying members. They were great people and I loved having them on my server. I wouldn't kick them or demand they pay in an instant. But they weren't paying players. They were casual players, friends and friends of friends.<p>This model forces all of your friends to pay, instead of just a few.<p>If I sent this server to my friends, and they found out they had to sign up to play (or only get 10 hours free a month), they likely wouldn't make my server their home. They might come and play, but they won't make it their home. They're not paying players.<p>I wish these guys luck and the best but I will tell you right now, most servers don't have an everyone-pays system. Even the big servers and themed servers, the 100+ servers, most of them have rewards and incentives for paying, but few require payment up front.<p>This seems to fly in the face of the realities of this industry. I wish them the best but I imagine that this is going to be a constant source of background issues until they open up an option to let one person subsidize the cost of a single game world so there can be free players (unlimited hours) on it.<p>EDIT: No bukkit support? Only vanilla servers? That's rough, all of the big and popular servers run Bukkit, and every server I've run uses Bukkit. There's not even any coherent anti-griefing or administration tools in vanilla! Hopefully this is a huge priority.
This is a wonderful business and I really think they will go places. Minecraft servers are a huge part of the game, looking at our statistics for the servers section on the Minecraft forum it's clear there are <i>millions</i> of people trying to find a place to play every month, if Minefold can convert 10% of those to paying players they're going to do extremely well.<p>I was at Minecon (Minecraft Convention, Vegas November 2011) and while sat at a table with one of the Mojang employees I listened to a father and his son explain how managing a Minecraft server was hard work and they wish that Minecraft would have some sort of "simple" system for it; login and play. No screwing around with finding a company then managing a server and dealing with issues, just pay -> play. Minefold is what he described.<p>congrats on the (full) launch, marketed properly this service could easily capture 90% of the casual Minecraft players market. There will always be people who want full control over their Multiplayer experience and they are catered to by (quite literally) hundreds of companies, Minefold is the first company I've seen that that properly caters to casual players.
I wish these guys could become Official Trusted Server Providers for games like Battlefield 3 -- there's a (commercial and technical) process required to get approved.<p>I'd host my own servers otherwise, but I'm obviously in the minority. I <i>can't</i> host my own BF3 servers, so I'd love a service which let me do so.<p>Figuring out how to do in-game server creation and signup would be even better, maybe as a revshare partnership with the game publishers or developers.<p>In general focusing on games where the server is needed for fair play, and people who play with strangers, seems like it could be viable. I'd be unlikely to trust someone else's server to not be hacked (although most hacks are client side, there's stuff you can do on the server too).<p>Maybe integrating some nice voting, voice chat (STILL a weak area on pc gaming vs. xbox360), ladders/ranking, training/clan servers, etc. would make sense, as soon as you leave the Minecraft specific world.<p>The next step after that is making MMO-type persistence and maybe selling items even easier for small game developers; an alternative to EA or Steam for self-distributed games? Or things which Steam doesn't provide.
Wow. This is great. You guys make it so easy! The business model itself is quite interesting. Considering that each person pays for hours, are there any features down the line to add features that enhance community features?<p>I play on a small server with friends (which is cheaper than minefold atm), so at the moment I'm primarily looking at what value you can add by adding onto the ability for you guys to easily connect people, create maps, etc.<p>A few examples: Make it easier to categorise worlds that I might to join. For example, some servers are just creative, others are PvP, some can be survival, or others flat. Another option could be to be able to 'block' worlds (no more destroying/creation) so that anyone can jump in and run around words that people have created without asking for permission (thinking about the massive lotr one). Or, for example, making it easy to find spleef arenas for the occasional fun.<p>Being able to tag worlds is a simple start.<p>Best of luck guys. You guys have got something good going!
A friend (at BioWare) and I are cracking up, because we had considered the idea of doing EC2-based hosting of Minecraft (and Terraria) servers about 6 months ago. We ran an SMP server for a while, doing lots of performance testing and profiling.<p>However, we just couldn't see how we could get our margins to where they'd be worthwhile without raising the price of a hosted server to the point where it'd scare off potential customers. Low margins + a fair amount of customer support = something I didn't want to consider.<p>Kudos to someone putting the thought into that and solving the margin issue, spreading the per EC2-instance income over a much larger pool of people and raising the overall revenue-per-server.<p>In the meantime, I have other crazy ideas I'm working on while I try to line up a new day job. Good luck with this one!
So has the pay by the hour model been completely replaced by Minefold PRO? The reason I am asking is that I see <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/qrush/status/117244523083595776" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/#!/qrush/status/117244523083595776</a> on the pricing page and I remember seeing this in the past here on HN and the pricing model was different.
At first I frowned a bit at the no Bukkit support, until I remembered that all of those guys have recently been hired by Mojang :) Eventually the stock server should be just as awesome with super modding support.<p>Until then, I'm way too tweak-happy and authoritarian to give up my own server.<p>Looks like a great service for people who just want click and go simplicity though.
This is awesome. I ran my own server for several months for a bunch of 10 year olds. But it was a pain in the butt. Keeping it up, paying the bills and so forth. Minefold solves the problem brilliantly.<p>The kids (or their parents) each pay their own way, they can choose to pay (and play) as much, or as little as they want. Dave and Chris have been fantastic and the service is continually improving.<p>I wish them well, it's solving a real problem for me and every parent I've introduced to the service has had no problems paying for their kids to use it.<p>The other thing I've noticed is that the kids love cloning servers too, so they can easily find maps they like, clone it then blow it up without needing to be invited.<p>I discovered the service here a few weeks back and I've been using it ever since, great to see them launch now into the "wild" as well.
Very nice! I built a demo of simple, pay-by-the-hour minecraft servers about a year ago but never launched. Lately I've been thinking about resurrecting that project. I guess now there's some competition.<p>Its pretty clear that previous solutions weren't simple enough for casual users. There are plenty of people who have no idea what RAM is but who would love to have their own worlds that their friends can join. I think the world sharing aspect is a big part of this and you guys have hit the nail on the head. Well done and good luck!
Looks pretty cool!<p>Are the prices missing from the pricing page, <a href="https://minefold.com/pricing" rel="nofollow">https://minefold.com/pricing</a>? Based on the Upgrade to Pro page I think it is $25 for 6 months for unlimited access.<p>I like the idea, and the distributed pricing mechanism is definitely interesting.<p>I'll be uploading my latest world shortly after I get off work :)
Is this really a problem? I mean ... there are tons of gaming-server providers out there offering minecraft hosting (with unlimtied playtime ofcourse). the only new thing i see is the forced bill split. am i missing something?
I am not a regular minecraft player, but I tried it because it took me 10 seconds to sign up. I think Minefold could cause a big jump in the number of people playing these online multiplayer games.
This is actually a great idea, many gamers I know who don't work in IT are dumbfounded by all the hoops they have to go through just to get a server up and running, let alone maintenance.