Minefold (YC W12) Launches Affordable, On-Demand Platform For Game Hosting
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
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.
This model forces all of your friends to pay, instead of just a few.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It's basically a service that is not for everyone but very attractive for some. I assume they are working to make those service attractive for more people, but it's a good fundament.
Believe me, people will find your server. They find servers that aren't listed, and these servers are publically listed.
And they come and they grief. The kids, the 4chan trolls and whatever you want to call them. I've dealt with it on a number of occasions. Someone places a few thousand blocks of water everywhere, which must be removed by hand. (Unless you're using anti-griefing tools, which prevent TNT abuse, lava abuse, allow turning off certain elements, and give you the ability to rollback a players changes by time).
Anti-griefing in minecraft is like backing up your data. You don't think you need it until all your stuff is irrevocably screwed up.
If you play with fiends you don’t need anti-giefing. (Ok, if you do need anti-giefing even though you play with your friends you may not have the best friends.)
Regarding Bukkit, we've been holding off support because of this: http://www.mojang.com/2012/02/minecraft-team-strengthened It's running in beta but the real value of Bukkit is being able to use mods. We're working on an experience that lets people enjoy mods without having to handcraft massive YAML files or run up SQL databases.
However, I must caution against going to far on the side of simplicity. There are plenty of server hosts out there which lock you in to fixed configurations and do not support all the possibilities of what can be achieved with Minecraft. Most hosts have an option for Bukkit, but those that do occasionally limit the plugins you can run or do not allow modifications to the CraftBukkit server itself.
I recently ran into this problem when setting up my own experimental hardcore post-apocalyptic server, heavily modded to significantly enhance the gameplay experience. I looked around at several hosts, but not all of them could support the server I wanted to run. For example, Multiplay supports Bukkit but doesn't let you run a "modded" Bukkit server. To run exphc I needed to mod the CraftBukkit jar file itself, installing the required ModLoaderMP and MinecraftForge APIs to support Buildcraft, IndustrialCraft^2, RedPower2, and the handful of other mods depending on these APIs. Not all gaming-specific hosts allow this, so I went with a VDS.
Furthermore, there are other modded CraftBukkit servers out there like CraftBukkit++, and I hear the fine folks behind MC Port Central (who brought the BC/IC2/RP2 mods to Bukkit, among others) are working on their own fork, incorporating ML and Forge into the server itself. Hosts that only let you run CraftBukkit "recommended builds" miss out on all these interesting and powerful new Minecraft server configurations, pushing the limit of what is possible in Minecraft, beyond what can be achieved using Bukkit plugins alone.
Not to mention, plugins like Hawkeye require the use of a MySQL database, and are widely considered essential for any public server, in order to have a record of and rollback malicious player actions, from cheating or other rule violations. And some of the best and most innovative servers in my opinion, such as hcsmp, have their own website tightly integrated with the Minecraft server, providing real-time updates: logging player statistics, processing donation payments, or even displaying a dynamic map of the world and all player locations.
Of course, if you are targeting small servers, setup amongst friends, much of this is less important. But I'd still argue support for "mods" proper is crucial, as opposed to mere Bukkit plugins. Once I started playing with jetpacks and quarries and airplanes and other advanced technology, I realized, I couldn't go back to vanilla Minecraft. If you guys can crack the nut of setting up an optimally-configured modded Minecraft server, taking out the tedium of resolving block ID conflicts and world protection and backups and updates and incompatibilities, of messing with confusing YAML configuration files or executing SQL or console or shell commands, of downloading mods from adfly and unzipping and extracting and reorganizing the files properly, just to get up and running before you can play the game – I believe you will succeed. Getting set up properly is the biggest impediment for gamers to experience what Minecraft truly has to offer, but it is a completely solvable problem. I wish you the best of luck.
Mind sending an email to dave@minefold.com?
I think this is great. One person or small group should not have to put in all of the time and effort to pay for a server. Spreading it around to everyone is right way to go, and will weed out people who shouldn't be on in the first place.
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.
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'd host my own servers otherwise, but I'm obviously in the minority. I can't host my own BF3 servers, so I'd love a service which let me do so.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
Being able to tag worlds is a simple start.
Best of luck guys. You guys have got something good going!
I've also been working for the last little while on "public" worlds where anybody can join. Spleef arenas are coming soon!
We're keeping a close eye on it ;)
In short words: how about to make portals from one instance to another? Looks like we have really deep understanding how to make this stuff works, at least from gamedesign side. Are you ready for cooperation?
> "Publish games and app activity Minefold may publish scores, achievements, and other activity to Facebook."
That's unacceptable. I have not begun to use your service yet, I have no trust for you, and you haven't told me in any way whatsoever what sort of activity you intend to post.
No deal.
Many sites have begun telling users exactly what user actions will be posted to Facebook. Others use a very simple "we will never post anything without asking you first" prompt to head off these concerns. Both ways work.
But as it is, I have trouble seeing how a hosting service has any business posting to my FB feed.
It would help a lot if you said as much on the site itself :) Also, the permission-to-post can't be turned off at the permission prompt - I'm unsure if this is a Facebook thing or if that permission is flagged as required. Might be worth looking into.
Secondly, can you export your world data if you chose to leave?
Re data export: absolutely. It's not automated at the moment but shoot us an email anytime you want a data snapshot.
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.
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.
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!
Until then, I'm way too tweak-happy and authoritarian to give up my own server.
Looks like a great service for people who just want click and go simplicity though.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
Are the prices missing from the pricing page, https://minefold.com/pricing? Based on the Upgrade to Pro page I think it is $25 for 6 months for unlimited access.
I like the idea, and the distributed pricing mechanism is definitely interesting.
I'll be uploading my latest world shortly after I get off work :)