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.
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.
We recognized that problem pretty early on. Some of our favorite customers have been teachers using Minecraft in their classrooms and in cases like that having one person paying makes total sense. Working on it! We decided to launch with individual accounts first because that's what made most sense for us and our 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.
Good to hear! Glad to hear that you're working on it! I've hosted with four different providers, and I've run a server myself, so I promise my criticism comes from someone who has spent countless hours and countless dollars on the task of running a Minecraft server...
This looks great, I'm really excited for what the future holds for Minefold. I am all too familiar with difficulty of setup and maintenance of Minecraft servers, and if you guys can make it painless I think a lot of people will be interested.
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.
I think the model here is playing with your friends, so anti-griefing and administration is not so important - but it does limit how useful the service is, sure. It's certainly not a great service for starting a huge server where you play with strangers or people you hardly know. I thimk the whole payment model isn't the best for a huge server, but I think it's great for getting together with friends. The execution is also awesome. It's incredibly simple, while most other services are opaque amd confusing to set up (for what I assume is most of Minecraft's target demographic).
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.
Anti-griefing is important on any semi-serious server that is publically available or doesn't use a strict white list.
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.
I know that. But what we are talking about here are servers that do use a white list. You can’t even make them public, you have to invite people.
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.)
Servers cost a significant amount of money. If your friends aren't willing to pay $5 a month, then they don't care enough about Minecraft and probably wouldn't be much of an asset for the server. If its not worth that much to them then you should find some friends who like Minecraft or switch to a free hobby.
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.
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.