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Dedicated Server for Minecraft:EE

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  • Official comment
    Kyle M

    Thanks for posting. There are some technical hurdles to get over on this one, but we are definitely exploring possibilities 

    Pilot now open: https://education.minecraft.net/blog/build-2019-cloud-server-for-multiplayer-coming-to-minecraft-education-edition/ 

  • richard hainsworth

    Hi Fergus

    Great suggestions. I have asked them the same thing a few times. The limits that they have placed on MEE are at odds with what happens in a classroom these days. Its a bit sad.

     

    I recon the more of us teachers that ask the more chance it will happen.

    4
  • Fergus Grant

    Thanks Richard - totally agree. A great product that can be even greater!

    1
  • Fergus Grant

    Cheers Kyle - if you want beta testers, let me know!

    1
  • Frank Ketschek

    I have 40 students in my classroom so the game is useless in the classroom

    -2
  • Per-Ole Fanuelsen

    Would be great if you made a dedicated server solution. We have several projects in our municipality that would fit the use-case for a dedicated server. Also more than 30 slots would be nice.

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  • Bojan Gergi?

    We would like to create the dedicated classroom server at university and to enable different primary school students to cooperate in coding.

    -2
  • Bump this - This is the now - Corona Pandemic - the most needed functionality to be able to teach Minecraft EE online. 

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  • and wen will minecraft ed servers will come out and will it be free

     

    -2
  • John Vincent

    how are there technical difficulties? the server is embedded in the client! plus there are already dedicated bedrock server files! why make it cloud only? you realize there are a LOT of IT people watching this and involved in these deployments? a locally hosted server option is NOT a bad idea.

    3
  • Bob Irving

    Bumping this. Please!

    0
  • Just did read this article about Mojang moving cloud services from AWS to MS Azure and wonder if there is something in the making for MC:EE cloud servers??:

    https://www.engadget.com/minecraft-microsoft-azure-193642521.html

    3
  • Since the start of the outbreak, many events and workshops are held using this wonderful tool. Nonetheless, for all the educators wishing to bring back their school to life within the minecraft world, this is really an obstacle too difficult to work around. We are talking about taking the next step and grant users the ability to connect when they so wish and "simulate" going to their respective classes within an institution. Dedicated servers are definitely a function too important to be missing in times like this!

    0
  • David Eichler

    We NEED a server platform for MME. So many counties have firewall issues, mine included, it makes even a regular shared world (30 kids) impossible because of firewall restrictions. Teachers are at school, students are at home, and the firewall won't let us play together. This isn't a wish, this is a MUST! 

    We have hopefully experienced the power of bringing your entire classroom into one world for a group project or challenge. Imagine if you could host the entire grade of 150-200 kids in one world. Imagine the power and engagement of hosting the entire school 500-1000 people. You are missing a crucial ingredient in the evolution of MEE as a classroom necessity, instead of a classroom treat. 

    Please make this happen soon!

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  • Christoph Peters

    This must work. Every game on Steam can be played multiplayer with 000 issues. The technology is there for a long time already Microsoft Studios, you can do it if you want to. We teachers need classroom tools that work 100% but multiplayer MC:EE does not. Not in a pandemic situation. This must be addressed soon because if the experience stays as it is rather stressful, teachers will turn away. The need to organize classrooms in a server lobby and open up dedicated servers just as you can do in many multiplayer games is BIG. Local classroom are fine and it works but that is not the default use case anymore.

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  • Christoph Peters David Eichler thank you for this insight! We'd love to hear any features you would want in this, and the impact it would have on your students. Keep sharing as we keep exploring!

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  • Sander Jong, de

    I fully agree to Christoph Peters David Eichler 

    Here in the Netherlands we also desperately need a cloud based Minecraft server environment.

    As we move with our IT infrastructure in the cloud and have no local servers anymore we want also for our students a Minecraft environment for anyplace, anytime.

    So no firewalls or client isolation restrictions or the depending of a teachers laptop.

    At this moment they restrict us from widely use Minecraft in our school.

    In my opinion it should be something like https://www.minecraft.net/nl-nl/realms-for-java  

    But extended with the possibility for a teacher to manage several worlds.

    In the Netherlands there is a community of several schools who use Minecraft EE as a learning environment, so enough customers i think....

    3
  • Christoph Peters

    Thanks Sander Jong, de for putting this back on the table. 

    I need to add and stress that a "Can't connect to server" message equals to: "Sorry, you cannot enter this school". This disqualifies MC:EE since accessibility to schooling is guaranteed by our laws. 30 students need to enter the class. If only 5 of those students have issues about port forwarding, firewall rules or waitlisted URLs this is a complete deal-breaker. This is survival of the fittest which is forbidden in education. And no, I as a teacher can't be the one who configures and troubleshoots parents routers in their households. And in the meantime while I explain to parents how to configure port-forwarding on their local router the student plays Among us with his friends. Actually they think I made a wrong decision highlighting this technology!

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  • David Eichler

    Mr. Minecraft EDU Official, with all due respect, please stop exploring and get coding. We need a server platform more than ever before.  :-) 

    I love MC:EE, I love using it in the classroom. It is very difficult to do this in our current COVID world. OH! and if you need Alpha/Beta testers, I would gladly volunteer my services and my students as well.

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  • David Eichler we hear you! Exploration and needs analysis are a must before coding - there are many different scenarios and needs to uncover before arriving at a solution. We'd love to capture your needs! What specifically would you need in a server platform?

    3
  • Thank you Sander Jong, de and Christoph Peters! We love how specific you're getting - this truly helps our developers understand your needs.

    You mentioned it would want to behave like Realms but allow teachers to manage different worlds. Can you tell us more about these requirements? How many worlds? What other features does it need to have to suit your needs? Anything else in Realms that works as-is that you would like, and anything else you would change?

    2
  • Per-Ole Fanuelsen

    From a technical perspective if we can host something our self it would be great, and easier for teachers so they dont have to use time on setting up servers. I would like something linke this:

    - Works like realms

    - Containeraised servers ( Docker, kubernetest etc...)

    - Easy to join.

    - 100-200 player support.

    - Should be able to joine inside your Microsoft 365 tenant without much trouble.

     

    0
  • Super Per, thanks for sharing! We will share these with our team as we continue to plan for this.

    Also adding

    Shashwat Jain's 10/26/20 comment here so we have it. Shashwat, it would be helpful if you tell us what exactly you would like to see from this feature as a user and the impact it would have on you. Thanks!

    "IS THERE ANYWAY TO JOIN SERVERS USING EDUCATION EDITION, PLS ADD THIS FEATURE IN A NEW UPDATE, AND WHY IS IT TAKING SO LONG FOR 1.16 TO COME IN IT."

    2
  • David Eichler

    Hey, Mr./Ms. Minecraft EDU Official person! I realized I got gender specific in my previous post, no offence intended. 

    So you asked me, “What specifically would you need in a server platform?” I am so THRILLED you asked! And remember, you did ask.

    Let’s dream for a moment. I can only begin to imagine the things that teachers could do with a huge server. Imagine the situations and scenarios we could come up with! For example, our 4th grade studies the Civil War, one of the most difficult concepts we have to teach is how terrain can affect a battle. AKA Higher Ground usually wins (Gettysburg). Now what if we make a hill and ask a group to defend and another group to take it. Suddenly it’s REAL! The kids begin to see it. Can I do this with my mini 30-man classroom laptop server? Yes, but 8 Yankee vs 12 Confederate kids isn’t nearly as effective or impactful as the entire 4th grade of 150 kids storming & defending the hill together.

    To small? Not big enough? Ok how about this, imagine an entire grade school, class by class, setting up hidden cities all around the world. As they build their city each class would learn about government, leadership (elections forming a government, constitution), how to make Laws (Congress), how to build a society (Dawn of civilization). We can explore and discover new cities (Columbus and the age of exploration). We could conquer, NON-violently!! (conquistadors) Send out small groups to settle in a new parts of the world (Colonization). We could buy/sell/trade goods with different city/classrooms, and over time create global markets. We could set up trade routes, moving goods from one city to another, and thus the need to defend them from bandits and attackers in the form of Skellies and Zombies (China’s Silkroad).

    What then? We logoff and we read about the explorers, the colonists, the kings and emperors, the indigenous peoples we meet along the way.

    We write about our adventures using personal narratives. We teach others how to do complicated things in the world to other players in informative essays. We have written discussions/conversations about whether we should sign a treaty with Mr. Keating’s class, he’s tricky. This is opinion writing.  

    Then we do the math! Area and perimeter for our house’s and the land we live on. We plan down to the block, how many of each type of rail we would need to build a railroad from Mr. Keating’s city to Mr. Miyagi’s class. Then how much iron we need to mine to get all those rails. Did I mention how much coal to smelt the iron? It’s all about processing those numbers, writing formulas, algebraic expression. And that’s just elementary math. We would learn about cost and profit, as we do the math to figure out how much money I  just made from selling a cart of skins and iron ingots to a bunch of kids in Ms. Crabapple’s class.

    Let’s not forget about the sciences, as we explore different biomes, discover new creatures to hunt for food and skins, and the dangers of overhunting and overfishing a region, ecology.

    Finally in social studies we learn about hard to teach and understand business concepts like supply and demand, market value, and opportunity cost. I could go on, but I see your eyes glassing over. But you see that’s the point. Where my fourth graders eye’s would normally glass over and quickly lose them after about 15 seconds because… BOOOOORING!

    Not now. Now we have a server. Now all of these abstract and uninteresting concepts are real. This is tangible. This is all real. Every single concept above and so, So, SO Much More. The kids care about what they are learning know. They have investment, immersion, and meaning. They are, engaged.  

    I just came up with this off the top of my head. Imagine what I can do over time. Imagine what a community of teachers could do together from around the world, as a community on this forum. This is what I would like to see in a server platform.

     


    So, to get real:

    We need a server platform just like regular Minecraft, that can be installed either at the school district level on private servers, or on a public server hosting company outside of the county firewalls. We need the ability to connect with everyone in our classroom whether they’re at school or digital learning at home, we need to connect with other classrooms, in game, in real time.

    Server Player Size – Big. No seriously, BIG. 1000 would be a nice round number. Enough for a good-sized elementary school to get everyone on one server, enough for the entire sophomore class at a big high school. I know this depends on the level of technology, but to have the option would be awesome! What if Microsoft and Minecraft were able to offer these server services and capacities to school districts, and individual schools… for a small fee? Well that would be cool too. Right?

    Game World Size: Infinite world, Flat world a must

       Wish - I would love to see a Finite World that you could scale according to your needs. From a small 1-mile world up to 1,000 miles? More? I’m not sure the dynamics of how that could or would work.

       Wish – A Continent World – More alone the size of Austriala vs North-Central-South America, that’s to much. Going back to a huge world server, now instead of a city, each classroom gets a continent. Let the games begin! Kingdoms! Empires! Exploration! First person, meaningful learning.

       Wish – A Cubic world, that is a world that is a Cube – like a sphere, but a cube. Six faces and the ability to round the edge to the next face. This would be epic!

    In Game Elements: Everything that exists in MC:EE should be on the server, i.e. Mountains, valleys, rivers, lakes, oceans, trees, flowers, fruit, veggies, mines, minerals, animals, mobs, tools, crafting tables, chemistry tables, alchemy tables, etc. etc. You know, everything.

    Modes Creative/Survival/Adventure - Yes please!

    Programing – YES! Let’s get that robot blowing the fields!

    Sever Settings: All of the current controls in MC:EE, day/night, weather, PVP, damage, Cheats, classroom settings, all of that.

       Wish – A setting to be able to vary the length of the daytime and nighttime cycle. Thus, we can simulate the seasons. So, if a standard day is 20 min, 10 and 10, to be able to swing that to 15 min of day and 5 of night, or visa versa would be cool. I know there is a big algorithm involved with the functions diurnal cycle of the world, but It would be cool.

       Wish – A Switch to keep inventory when you die, rather than using the /gamerule command. So many teacher don’t know how to do this.

       Wish – A Toggle to be able to speed up or slow down the rate at which you digest food, thus the need to eat. Appetite - Fast (Three meals a day) – Medium - Slow

       Wish – A Toggle to make mines produce A LOT more resources in each location. (Toggle = Huge – A Lot - Normal – Few [hardship])

     

    What would I add to a full server version?

    If I get one wish it would be for locks.

    -  Chest locks that only allow the creator to open the chest, take stuff out of the chest, or destroy the chest. This would solve SO many social issues while playing in class.

    -  Door Locks - That secure the cubic perimeter of a structure (Roof, Walls, Floor) allowing only the creator of the lock to open the door when it's locked, or destroy any block of the building when it's locked down. Creepers excluded, because boom. This would solve another 30 or 40 social issues.

    If I could get a Second wish, it would be for money, gold coins minted at a minting crafting station. This to be used as an official currency throughout the world? Can each city have their own coin? Own currency? Rate of transfer and exchange?  (Math & Economics). With currency we could set up a true market place.

    If I get a third it would be for a store, or vender. That the student could set up to sell their goods to customers. To be able to set my own price (supply and demand), and for it to work even if they're not in the store at all.

    Conestoga Wagons – Think western expansion and the pioneer days, load up with a maximum weight of food and spare parts, a few cows or horses to pull it. Off we go on a literal 1,000-mile ride to a far-off promised land known as, Oregon! Let’s see who survives the trip.

    Horse drawn wagons – to move goods from point A to point B, like in a caravan, or just a solo player trying to make their fortune as a merchant. (Rise of the merchant class in the middle ages)

    New Creature: Oxen – to plow the big fields, to pull the big wagons.

    -  New Creature Stat: Fatigue - big field, heavy load, they should get tired.

    - New Item Stat: Wear and Tear – Clothing should wear out with time and mileage just like a pickaxe wears out with use, and armor wears out with abuse. This is keep up demand for craft items, like clothing. 

    A Clothing Making Station - Yup, the ability to make clothing skins in game as a craftable, tradable, sellable items. Dare I say, designable?

    Plows – To plow big fields quickly, might be cool too.

    BIG Boats – What if we could build huge boats? What if I could take a big boat and ship a 1000 white marble blocks from my mine to a rich merchant in the mesa biome, far, far away? What if we could take 20 people to explore the ocean and see if there isn’t a way to get to the east, by going west! Let’s sail for the great unknown. Let’s begin the age of exploration.

    Campfires – to offer an AOE protection perimeter from mobs and night critters. Making exploration a little less stressful, a little more adventures, and slightly safer, slightly. The campfire should not be recoverable and you need to feed the fire, or it will go out.

    Tents – to offer protection from mobs and night critters to anyone inside it. Limit the number inside. Tents should be able to be build and taken down. Crafting component, bigger the tent, the more mats and experience to produce. Tents should degrade with use, not so much damage.

    Programable compass – To be able to set it to a destination (Map coordinate). So, in a huge world you could set 0.0.0 as a kind of magnetic north to use as a central point of reference. Or you know, your house, because lost.

    Student Mapping – To be crafted! A student’s path is tracked across the world with an X amount block radius on a map that they can follow to get from place to place. Crafting such maps could be exponentially based on experience and materials, more radius = more mats and exp.

    Huge World Map for Teachers – So teachers participating in a large world server can pull up a full map of the known world, somewhat zoomable, where other cities, and points of interest can be pinpointed across the world. This would help in maybe pointing explorers in the right direction, measuring distances between cities for planning and building purposes. I wouldn’t dare to dream, but the ability to track students on the map who may have wondered off, way off, could be fun. Rather than teleporting we could give them a push in the right direction.

    In closing, this was what I came up with, over about an hour of brainstorming. What we need a server to do, what such a world could do, and what meaningful lessons it could facilitate through the grade levels.

    As a final thought, if you are looking for a game designer who understands how Minecraft can be used in the classroom from a student and teacher perspective, can create a great many more possibilities of where to grow the game educationally, explain to programmers conceptually how it could work, and teach teachers how to implement these lessons, well I might know a guy. Just saying. 😊

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  • David Eichler this is incredible! Thank you SO MUCH for taking the time. We might just need to host an upcoming focus group for sure!

     

    Also adding in

    Elina Ung - putting your post here so others can see!

    Pls add servers! They are SO fun! I even made words like a minigames world I call mc.minigames.net I made it that it has skiyblock, skywar, bedwar, parkour, housing, spleef, and LOTS more. I made other worlds too like how-to survival. Also, PPLLLLSSS add mods! I was about to do a gt project on minecraft edu but i has no mods bc I want chairs and devices. anyways, Add servers and mods PLS! I know lots of people ask and tell you this but that means you guys should add them! 

     

    -ELina

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  • David Eichler

    Minecraft EDU Official - I would love to do a focus group on server design. Sign me up!

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  • I would love to participate too, if possible! 

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  • richard hainsworth

    Incredible David Eichler , thank you so much. You have inspired me to continue to persevere with this.

     

    Kyle , this has been going on for 2 YEARS now.

     

    This is what you and Microsoft are holding back.

     

     

    1
  • Milo Wearn

    Hmm... yeah its been a long time. It would be nice to see a standalone server app for MC:EE.

    1
  • Andrew Forgrave

    Kyle-M  Bryan Sanders (archived) David Eichler 

    It’s wonderful to see this conversation taking off again after a two-year hiatus. I have been speaking with Minecraft-EDU-Team recently about a project that I am working on. (For years I have acted as moderator/admin on a number of different Java-based Minecraft servers for educators. There are so many wonderful plug-ins that can be used to provide for a very safe and creative space for teachers and kids — But those don’t exist with M:EE/Bedrock.)   In the short term, I want to be having educators doing some coding projects within a shared world, and of course with COVID we will all be working remotely. I had thrown out a question maybe 10 days back asking if anyone had used Windows 10 Edition, Code Companion, and a Bedrock server to get around the tenant restrictions imposed by M:EE — but it sounds as if that isn’t workable. I couldn’t get the Code Connection working with a hosted Bedrock server  – – although I don’t know if the answer is as simple as configuring the ports differently?  maybe the Microsoft/Mojang techs to get that going, but it looks as though there will be an option for us to use some M:EE demo accounts so that everyone can be together on the same server for the duration of our training session. 

    I’ve also wondered if there would be interest in a shared M:EE server for Minecraft Mentors to meet on and collaborate? I think this would be a wonderful mechanism to gather feedback about future requests and also beta test them prior to releasing them as part of an M: EE server platform. 

    I don’t understand why it isn’t possible to establish an M: EE capable server. I get that there is an interest in making the technology as simple as possible for beginning/novice educators to hopefully scale the implementation of Minecraft in education, but we had a great collection of educator features in the #MinecraftEDU modded Java plug-in eight years ago (not to mention other plug-ins that could be thrown in like World Edit, for example), and it’s a shame that Microsoft/Mojang can’t see their way clear to support a Java-based education plug-in. It would make things so simple to host servers, keep the learning spaces safe for kids by managing access using whitelists, using plug-ins to protect claims, etc. It could be trivial to import a class list from excel into a whitelist! 

    however, assuming that a Java-based education plug-in isn’t in the works, we need some serious movement forward on an M: EE server. I’m keen to be involved in helping to move things forward in anyway possible. Let’s keep the discussion going, and keep the pressure on so that this gets addressed! 

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