Minecraft Boot Camp

The #1 unofficial guide to dominating Minecraft

Disclaimers / Legal Notifications The boring (but important) bit.

It wouldnt be an E-book if we didnt include this section. Take a quick read through and play by the rules ok? No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without prior written permission of the authors. While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. Income and Earnings Disclaimer We do have a section on making money through Minecraft but you, and you alone, are responsible for any income you make or fail to make. This guide makes no promises of realized income. I can show you how, but you need to make it happen. You recognize and agree that the Author has made no implications, warranties, promises, suggestions, projections, representations or guarantees whatsoever to you about future prospects or earnings, or that you will earn any money, with respect to your purchase of this eBook, and that the Author has not authorized any such projection, promise, or representation by others. Affiliate Disclaimer Per the FTCs recent policy update that requests we be transparent about any and all affiliate relations we may have in this guide. Our only affiliate link is for the CPA network to earn extra money from running a server. It doesnt cost you any extra to join through our link. Resell Rights You do NOT have any resell, reprint or distribution rights to this guide.

Notice Iam not Notch (pity)!

Firstly, I want to stress this part before men with shiny black suitcases turn up at my door. I am not Notch or related to Mojang or any of the Minecraft team in any way shape or form. This guide was not written, produced, requested or used as a door stop by anyone from Mojang. All trademarks, logos and praise for an awesome game belong to them. Im just an experienced player who put together a guide on advanced techniques for playing. Secondly, any of the programs or mods discussed in this guide is not created by me unless otherwise stated. Anything I suggest using has been checked at the time and is considered safe to use. When possible, however, I try and link to a source where the latest up to date version is and I might not have tested it. If I find a version of any tool mention to be a security concern it will be removed from the next version of the guide, but you should always practice due diligence. Use at least one virus scanner with updated definitions, keep careful backups of everything important and, if in doubt, run the mentioned tools and mods under a virtual computer so you preserve your own computer. Windows, for example, lets you do that for free here. Well do our best to keep the guide up to date but we cant be responsible for what happens with the use of third party applications. Lastly, in our Minecraft cheats section we mention third party client mods which allow cheating. Just because theres been some dispute about this lately I want to clear this up I do not support third party clients. The mods I suggest require an actual copy of the Minecraft game and so they should. The game is only a few bucks and considering the amount of playtime you get out of it and the constant updates its worth buying. If you havent already got a copy you can pick one up from Minecraft.net.

Table of Contents What is actually in here?

Section 1: Minecraft Cheats A. Types of cheats B. Why players cheat C. Updates D. Client mods 1. TooManyItems 2. Picka Client 3. DarkMod E. Glitches F. Misc. Section 2: Getting famous on Minecraft A. Can you get famous on Minecraft? B. Getting started C. Getting viewers D. Next steps Section 3: Minecraft PvP guide A. About Minecraft PvP B. Equipment and skills C. PvP Combat D. Attacking E. Defending Section 4: Running a popular Minecraft server A. About Minecraft servers B. Finding a host C. Setting up your server D. Getting players on your server E. Running the server Section 5: Making money from Minecraft A. Making money from Minecraft B. Server donations C. Free server donations D. Youtube and streaming videos E. Misc. stuff

Section 6: Run a Minecraft Event A. About Minecraft events B. Getting the players C. Running the event Section 7: Minecraft skins A. Using a premade skin B. Using someone elses C. Making your own

Minecraft Cheats Types of cheats

Now before I get too far into Minecraft cheats there are a few things I want to point out. Firstly, there are no Minecraft cheat codes. Notch hasn't (not at the time of writing anyway) included any actual cheats in the game. Cheats come in several different forms from glitches within the game and memory editing to mods for the client itself. Some exist within the game itself and others exist because of server side plugins. Secondly, cheating in Minecraft has several different sides to it. Some people cheat solely on single player games and some do it on multiplayers. Not all cheats work on multiplayer, but there are certainly a fair few that do. Out of the ones that do you might well find some servers prevent it through plugins.

Why players cheat

Some players may cheat because they don't want to grind for hours at mining to perhaps build a large structure. Others may cheat because they want more ability within the virtual world and flying around is what they want to do. Others cheat because they want to grief and ruin the fun of others. Now Minecraft is a sandbox game, and griefing is a part of that. I don't support it myself, I don't do it myself but I do recognise that a percentage of the people who read this guide will use cheats to grief other players. I strongly believe that Minecraft is a sandbox game and the duty of stopping griefers does not lie with Notch, with the developers of Bukkit or the creators of the cheat mods. It lies with the creators and staff of each individual server. If you want to prevent griefing on your server there's several ways to do so, and you should have a look at our section on creating a successful Minecraft server. If a player is banned for using cheats they are banned on that server - they can still play both single player and other servers. Nothing actually happens to their account and the only record of the ban is on that individual server. The only exception to this is between a minority of servers who share their ban network so if you're banned on a major server there's a chance others will ban you as well. You do not put your actual Minecraft account at risk however. Thirdly, and lastly, I want to address the concept of attacking or 'DDOSing' a server. And I only bring this up because I see it mentioned (and in some case's happen) around Minecraft servers. Firstly, this is not a cheat it's an attack on a server and is (regardless of what anyone told you) against the law. You will find no kind of guides of that nature here and before attempting anything like this you should ask yourself one question. Is taking a Minecraft server offline for a few hours really worth facing possible legal action? Now that that's out of the way it's time to get down to the cheats.

Updates
Minecraft cheats change overtime, and while cheats are patched and removed others turn up. If you're looking for currently working cheats then make sure you're reading the most up to date version of this guide. When possible Ive tried to link to an area where you can download the most up to date cheat. Remember to use due diligence when using third party tools. Since many of the simple memory edit cheats are now done by mods, there are two sections of Minecraft cheats worth looking at. Glitching, which basically makes use of bugs within the game and custom mods built for the sole purpose of cheating. And custom Minecraft client mods which allow well pretty much anything.

Client Mods
Minecraft client mods are probably the most common type of cheating now. Since everything is done with a client mod you dont even need a tool like Cheat Engine anymore, making cheating more users friendly. Some are kept private while others are freely available Im going to show you some that you can use yourself for free. Client mods can add pretty much anything to the Minecraft client and there are thousands of mods out there you can choose from. But Im going to show you three specific mods at the moment which are the most popular Minecraft cheat mods. There might well be others but these certainly the more popular and will get you pretty much everything possible currently within the game.

TooManyItems
TooManyItems is basically an in game memory editor. It was made by Marglyph and all credit goes to them for making our lives easier. Its a single player only cheat for the most part. It does work if you have OP status on a server but thats not really a cheat, it just saves you from typing in commands.

Theres not really too much to explain. Once installed anytime you open your inventory you get this instead of just your normal inventory options. You have access to the items you want on the right which you can place straight into your inventory. The menu on the left lets you save and load inventory states and theres a trash on the bottom left so you can easily delete items you no longer need. Full installation instructions and download links can be found on the TooManyItems forum thread: http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/140684-173-toomanyitems-in-game-invedit-july-1/

Thats your basic single player item cheat, for the more fun stuff such as flying etc you need to use a client mod made for the purpose. Note that other private ones do exist and have a lot of features you wont see here but these are ones you can use right away for free.

Picka Client
The Picka Client is one of two mods that will work in both single player and multiplayer games. Its easily one of the better known cheating clients but its not hard to figure out why, when its packed with so many features. Credit goes to systat for this one. Again, this is a third party client and while we cant see anything wrong with it you should always be careful when using third party tools and mods. Some clients around will be overly obvious or spam their name or coder when you come in. This one is more discreet than that. It does have the option to flood a server but that tends to get you booted pretty quickly. Toggle the mod options with your up arrow keys and it will show you the hotkey commands for each mode. O for weather and R for fly for example.

The features are pretty self-explanatory and its certainly got some pretty powerful features in there. Everything from flying around and walking through walls to instantly breaking blocks and killing anyone that happens to walk to close to you (on a PvP server). Its also got some pretty unique features like the name change hack (which works on servers that are set to offline mode) which changes your name. This has led to admin commands for normal players and servers do tend to be set to offline mode during update periods.

The following Youtube video shows an example of the namehack and shows the basic use of the GUI. You can see it: HERE To install it you need to download the mod (the links below) and find your .minecraft folder. For Windows 7, for example, the default for this is: C:\Users\(YOURUSERNAMEHERE)\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft In the bin folder youll find Minecraft .jar and you need to make a backup of that (copy it into another folder or your desktop for example). When you want to use the cheat copy in the .jar from the download link and when you want to play the game without the Picka mod you need to replace your original.jar then just start the Minecraft.exe as you normally would. Forum post: HERE Downlaod link: HERE

DarkMod
The DarkMod client has a few less features but there are some in there that you dont get with the Picka client namely hard to detect PvP orientated mods that can really give you an edge when it comes to playing against other players. Sure you can speed around them or fly into the air but that will likely end in a ban if they record you or a mod sees you. Darkmod has some fun little features like auto eating food which means you can just stockpile up on food and be practically unbeatable even fighting against a whole group of players. Theres a standard x-ray but also a player detector which is a fun little tool giving you a window with the co-ordinates and distance of nearby players. Handy if youre tracking someone or trying to get away without having to look back. Its a much lesser known about mod as well so youll hear a lot less people talk about it. It does have the more obvious cheats like flying and teleporting, but if you like a little bit of subtlety to get an edge on a server you play on long term this is for you.

The installation for DarkMod is well nonexistent. You dont need to overwrite your original .jar file since it finds it for itself. You just download and open. It has an automatic update and the mods are handled through the drop down box. You can see a basic example of parts of it being used: HERE Download Link: HERE

Glitches
Glitches are considered cheating on many servers. Its basically abusing a bug in the game to get an advantage. This can vary pretty widely because its usually plugins which make them but I can show you some examples from common plugins. Remember that some servers will consider abusing a glitch a cheat and its completely possible to wind up banned for using these but not all in all cases. There are plenty of glitches out there which just look odd (torches stuck to chests and water on top of torches etc) but there are some that can actually be useful. The main type of glitch is commonly known as the trap door glitch but you can actually do the exact same thing with normal doors. Basically if you close a door as youre stepping through it its closed for everyone else, but you can still walk back in. This is used pretty often in PvP servers, especially ones where plugins prevent other players from opening your doors. Theres a video of it: HERE Theres more to it though. Do you see that few seconds where your client seems to bob up and down? This is where youre actually overlapping with another block and its not really quite sure where you are. Minecraft does an interesting thing if you disconnect at this point. Instead of just pushing you to the side or placing you back where you were it pushes you either up or down in an open spot where it can fit you. This means you can build yourself a shelter without a front door (if you have /home for example) and use a trapdoor to glitch out on top of your roof without risk of other players being able to get in. But theres other ways to cause a similar effect on another players base for example. If a server prevents you from breaking blocks on another players area then you can use this to glitch in (and if they dont you can just break in anyway). Basically you cause an overlap by breaking a block on the ground while moving forward. When your screen starts to jerk around you disconnect and log back in. Unless youre already at sky level it will try to place you upwards in the first available opening so you need to find a spot to break underneath the base a mine is usually a great place for this. You can do a pretty similar thing with boats and minecarts as shown in a video: HERE but you can actually take it a little further than that if you come across a building without multiple layers but a wall in your way. First place a cart or boat down at the edge of their wall and sit in it. Then try to steer into the wall and youll start to jerk around. You can relog here (and itll usually force you up) or if you get another player to push other carts or boats into you it can actually push you straight through the wall.

Another interesting glitch for PvP servers is opening chests through walls youre not meant to be able to break. If theres a wall of cobble between you and a players chest you can break that cobble on your client and the server will tell you it cant be broken and replace it. However, if you open that chest in that split second it remains open, and you can loot it. The last little glitch I think is worth mentioning is pretty simple but you might be surprised how often it can come in handy. You can jump from sky level to bedrock without taking any damage at all. You dont need to drop water or sand or anything like that. Just jump off and let yourself fall for a bit then hit escape and disconnect. When you log back in you begin falling from the point where you logged in, not where you jumped. For longer jumps you can do this multiple times or you can wait until the end and do it once. Its also possible for much shorter jumps, if you click fast enough.

Misc Cheats
There are some cheats which really dont fit into any other headings. But theyre certainly worth looking at and they can be just as big an advantage as a modified client in some cases. Firstly theres an xray texture pack. Now its not as good as xray in a modified client (which both Picka and DarkMod have) but its easy to use and hard to detect. Some servers do have rough anti xray features in place to try and prevent you finding diamonds but even when these are present you can still find other players, bases and chests. There are multiple versions of this kind of thing but wireframe is a pretty popular one. It can take a little bit of getting used to if youre going to play with it normally but believe it or not it can be done. You can see a video of wireframe: HERE And download it: HERE Secondly is an auto clicker and if youve ever played on a PvP server youve probably already seen one although you might not have realised it. Basically its a program which simulates your mouse clicks but does it very, very quickly. Its more commonly used than you might think and most servers dont try and prevent it. The most common use for auto clicking is in PvP fights. Instead of hitting as fast as you can click, you hit faster than humanly possible. You toggle your auto clicker on and off but unless the server has any kind of hit by xyz name its not obvious that youre actually using one.

You can also use them to hit mobs faster which doesnt really help kill them any faster but it does make it easier (because you dont need to keep on clicking). It also means on servers with plugins like McMMO (which give you skill levels depending on how many times you do something such as hit a player or mob) you can max out your skill in a matter of hours instead of weeks or months. This then leads to you killing players even faster with a higher skill level. One last use for it is actually building quick 1x1s or glitching up walls where you cant build. For example if you cant build in an area because of a server plugin you can still drop a block or two and jump onto a wall before your client is told that you cant place that block. With an auto clicker, you can place these blocks a lot faster. There is a simple auto clicker program which is commonly used with Minecraft or, if you prefer, you can make something a little more custom with a macro script. The commonly used auto clicker: HERE

Or you can use AutoHotKey (for Windows) or iKey (for Mac) to make a custom macro. I havent had a chance to try it for Mac but heres a basic example of an AutoHotKey one:

F1:: Loop ; { if not GetKeyState("F1", "P") ; break ; ; Otherwise Click ; } Return

If you really put the time into it you can do a lot with macros like this. From scripting quick bots to mine out entire areas or grind skills to automatically building a complete building with the push of a button.

Getting Famous on Minecraft Can you get famous on Minecraft ?

If you didn't already know, Minecraft has had a staggering interest on video sites like YouTube. If you stick any video on there with anything vaguely related to Minecraft, it's going to get viewers. A 'let's play' video is a name given to a video of someone playing a game. To some this might seem like a strange concept but you shouldn't underestimate the appeal of a lets play. They can be done on any kind of game and basically all you have to do is record your voice, screen and play the game. There are several people widely considered as professional or famous Minecraft players. No doubt you'll at least have seen one of their videos whether you knew it or not. But what I'm going to show you in this chapter is how to make a name for yourself in the Minecraft world, and with the millions of people watching these videos trust me - that's a good place to be. And the funny thing is it's not all that hard to do. I'm going to show you how to get started, what kind of things you can record, how you can get a lot of players watching your videos very quickly and what you can do when you've 'made it'.

Getting Started
So first things first, before you start worrying about what to record you're going to need to be able to record. Now its possible go do this without a microphone, but not really advisable. Some people are a little shy about using their voice online, but people will enjoy your videos more if you actually talk and the more they enjoy, the more they'll keep watching. Most people will have some form of standalone microphone or headset, if you don't they're pretty cheap and well worth getting. If you have the money then a good quality microphone will make your videos all that better but a standard one will work fine, just remember to speak clearly into it. The next thing you'll need is some screen recording software. There are a couple of choices for this but the more popular will be between Fraps and Camtasia. You can pick up a free trial for each of them and see which you prefer. Now the problem with screen recording software is it can be pretty heavy going on your computer hardware. You want to make your videos as easy to watch as possible but if you're recording slowly then check your settings and see what you can do to free up some resources. Fraps is better known for getting a good frame rate and make sure you're getting the most you can from your Minecraft client as well.

I won't talk you through the basics of working the software, its pretty straight forward and if you do need help the website for each explains how it works. I'll assume you can figure out enough to record, and you'll also have to make a YouTube account if you don't have one already (consider making the username something about Minecraft). Now you need to figure out what exactly you're going to film. Some people film different mods or servers as a kind of 'review', others film themselves and their friends hanging out and doing whatever and others record massive builds or contraptions and tutorials. Some of the better planned ones even work out an entire storyline and have several people working together to make the videos. You could do the same as other people do, or even do something completely out of the box. There are some 'real life Minecraft' videos out there and a few 'Lets grief Minecraft' for example. So basically, as long as its Minecraft people will watch it. But taking the time and getting a good idea is the best way to go from some people watching your videos and get to Minecraft fame.

Getting Viewers
So you're ready to record, you know what you're going to record but how do you get people watching your videos? Well this is going to be a lot easier than you might think. Within the first hour you're going to start getting your first fans. Ok first you're going to upload tour videos to YouTube properly. There are other video sharing sites but you don't need to worry about them quite yet, YouTube is by far the biggest so its the one to focus on. When I say upload a video properly, I dont mean just clicking the right buttons. Firstly your title for your video should catch attention. Instead of calling it 'Me playing Minecraft' or 'Minecraft day one' you want to describe a bit of what happens in the video and make it more appealing to people. You have to remember they're probably looking at a lot of Minecraft videos so you have to make them want to pick yours. 'My Minecraft house against 10,000 TNT who will win?' is a title people would watch and it describes the video for example. You might think this looks like common sense but it can be the difference between your video getting 100 views or 10,000. Next up you need to fill in the description for the video. Be sure to mention that it's part of your Minecraft let's play series and its episode (whatever number it is). You can ask them to subscribe and check out your other videos for the rest of the series.

In the tags, really you can put anything related to Minecraft. Be sure to include the basic ones like 'Minecraft let's play' and then add others which describe your video. If you get chased by creepers then add 'creepers' or 'creeeper race' it just helps people find your video. If you're stuck trying to decide on one then you can always just search on YouTube for Minecraft videos and see what kind of thing pops up.

Now that your video is up and ready to be found by people on YouTube, you're going to help it along by getting some fast visitors. There's a bunch of Minecraft forums and the more you do this with, the more viewers you'll get but as long as you do it with the main one (http://www.minecraftforum.net/) you'll be on to a good start. You're going to use this forum for three things. Firstly you're going to get the lets play on this list: http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/72854-minecraft-lets-play-series-directory Secondly you're going to make a thread about your lets play. You can do this either in the general section or the 'share your creation' section. Anytime this gets bumped, more people will see your thread and probably watch your videos so every time you update you want to post in this thread and encourage other people to share ideas or reply to you in that thread. Lastly you're going to ask your audience what they'd like to see. You can ask this in the video as well but either ask in that post or make a new one titled 'what would make this lets play better' or something similar. Not only will this make your viewers feel more engaged with you but you'll get even more traffic from the forums from having two threads. So now your first video is up and you've got a few hundred views, where do you go from here? Well you make more videos for a start. You don't need to force yourself, this is supposed to be fun remember, but try and update as often as you can. You don't need to plan out absolutely everything but do try to have something in mind before you start recording. Five minutes of watching someone bounce in circles saying 'Im bored' isn't very entertaining. If you cant think of something to do, then maybe try something different like play with a new mod or server. Lastly, you want to encourage your viewers to keep coming back. Ask them to subscribe to your channel and ask any questions or give suggestions in the comments. This not only helps your viewers stay interested but a large amount of subscribers, likes and comments shows YouTube that people like your video and it'll show up more often - getting you even more viewers!

Next Steps
Becoming famous on Minecraft is not an overnight thing. It's not for everyone, some people prefer to just play the game and do their own thing, and others like to stand out from the crowd. There are plenty of reasons to do something like this. You might do it just for fun, you might do it to help get publicity to a Minecraft event or server or you might even do it to make an extra bit of money (you can see more about this in the making money from Minecraft section).

Minecraft PvP Guide About Minecraft PvP

Many gamers by nature are competitive and at one point 'who can build the biggest tower' wasn't enough and Minecraft PvP was born. If you want to PvP you'll have to either go to an arena or a server with PvP enabled on the entire map (usually excluding the spawn). PvP servers are a very different thing than the normal build server and you'll usually find a different player base. Minecraft PvP can either be individual players on their own or it can be clans, guilds or factions against each other. The basic gameplay of collect materials and make items will be the same with the difference being you need to protect your base and chests from other players. I'm going to show you some basic PvP tactics for combat, attacking another player base and defending your own. This assumes that you're playing with the standard client. If you're cheating, be it with something obvious like flight or speed or something a little more subtle like an auto eater or perhaps an auto clicker then you're going to easily win every fight anyway. The tactics for PvP when your cheating is to make as many people as mad as possible - before you get booted from the server.

Equipment and Skills

First thing is equipment. If you're serious about the server you're playing on you'll want to build some mob farms or something similar to gather materials for you. There are loads of YouTube videos out there which can show you how to do this if you don't know how. If you're going to fight then you'll want to have diamond armour, full durability if possible. You'll also want a diamond weapon (normally a sword but depending on the server mods axes and picks are also effective). You'll want a bow and at least a stack of arrows, more doesn't hurt. You'll need food to heal with, mushroom stew heals the most and it's easy to make with a mushroom farm. You might also want to carry some easier food like bread or pork to top up between fights. If you're not fighting in a restricted arena then you should also bring a pick, some torches and a stack of cobble. Put your weapon, bow, pick, torches and cobble on your bars and line the rest with the food. You want to be able to use that food quickly, Minecraft fights rarely last long so try to use the same keys each time and get used to them. Even on servers which have a delay on arrow spam, bows are your best friend. They might not kill as fast but if you dont have one yourself youre just going to get kited around by the players that do.

If your server uses a plugin which enables player skills (such as swords, axes and bows) you want to grind up your skills as much as possible to be able to do the maximum damage. You can do this in a few hours maximum if youre using an auto clicker. It can also be worth training skills like acrobatics (by falling a lot) which can help you avoid damage in a PvP fight.

PvP Combat
Every combat situation is different. Sometimes you can build yourself a quick tower and just bow your enemy and other times you're going to have to just spam your mouse and hope you hit. There's only so much you can do with Minecraft PvP combat but there are some basic tactics to use. Health can be nukes down fast, especially in melee range. So try to use your food and keep your health bar topped us as much as you can, while still keeping up the pressure yourself. Just as you have to stop hitting to eat, they have to do the same and it can build a momentum. If in melee range don't stand still and click. Players are not zombies so the basics walking forward and back won't cut it, but if you're faster at reacting than they are you'll land a lot of extra hits. If you're good with the mouse you can strafe around them in circles while still landing hits. A gamer mouse helps with this kind of thing but it's not completely necessary. A big part of Minecraft PvP is fought with a bow. A bow is slower damage and easier to heal through. Some servers delay the shots but it can also be harder to hit. It is great however for kiting other players around doing damage while they cant hurt you. Even better if they've forgotten a bow, or they're a worse shot than you. Shooting a bow in Minecraft takes a bit of practice to get right, especially at range but with a bit of practice it can make a huge difference to your game. If they have no food it's an easy kill, if they do then you empty their bars of food before going in close range for a quick kill. If you're fighting multiple opponents then melee should be used carefully. Most Minecraft players are not great at PvP strategy so you may be able to get them to hit each other, but a few too many hits from more than one person and you're going to lose. Staying at range and keeping a close eye on all of them. If one of them stops the other may panic at suddenly being one short and that's a good time to push for a kill. Other than that, it's whoever aims best and clicks faster. Future expansions might expand on the PvP but who knows. Don't forget, PvP fights itself are only half the work - the other half involves taunting them in the server chat. ;)

Attacking
So now you're set for combat what about attacking other player bases? Well finding the base really depends on the server. Some you can check the map to see where they own territory, with others you'll ace to wander or mine around until you find it.

Once you find it, again it's down to the server. If its a basic server and you can interact with their land then your goal should be kill them, and drop lava on their spawn point. That'll keep them busy while you loot their chests. If the server has mods that protect land from easy editing then you need to either drag a creeper towards their wall or door or make a TNT cannon (an example of this can be seen HERE). The one exception to this is if they protect their walks and/or door with a flow of lava or water which will prevent your TNT. In this case, you need to go to the nearest plot of land you can build on and alternate between lava and water. Because the water flows faster than the lava and server mods don't register this as you placing the block you can spread cobble into their territory. You can use this to block their water/lava flow and then TNT cannon through that cobble and their wall/door. A lot of PvP servers use this method to protect their base, very few use lava and water buckets to bypass it.

Defending
As for base protection there's a basic build you can do which protects your base from TNT, lava and even griefing if mods prevent other players from opening your doors. You're still vulnerable to players using teleport hacks but there's nothing you can do about this. Firstly build your basic base out of cobble or something easy to get. Something strong like cobble is better against creeper or TNT explosions than wood or dirt for example. You want to double layer this, and in the walls where you're building chests, you want to use furnaces to prevent people opening the chests from the outside. Next you're going to outline the entire base with obsidian. It might not look pretty, but let's see them shoot through it. You can do this by placing lava sources and pouring on water, or you can mine them and place them yourself.

The alternative to this is layering your roof and placing a water source on the top so water pours down and covers the walls. Commonly known as a water wall, this prevents explosions reaching your walls, this can leave you open to lava though. For a door, you need to make this carefully so they can't shoot through it. You build it in an 'S' shape with three one way steel doors and water blocks pouring out. It might look a little strange and walking out is awkward but they won't get through that door. The wall layering prevents players abusing a glitch to get through it but if you leave a small gap below they can glitch up, or if you build at sky level they can glitch down. So either leave a gap below and on top of at least 3 blocks or build on bedrock. For complete protection cover your base in obsidian, have only the s shape door as a one way exit (you can always break the door back in) and for good measure stick a water wall over it with infinite sources on top and build it down at bedrock below the sea. Its less work than it sounds and nobody is going to get in there. If the server allows it you can also remove the door and use the trapdoor glitch (mentioned earlier) to get through your ceiling. If you have a friend not playing on that specific server, you can also store your more valued items on him so even if your base is raided at least they dont get everything.

Running a Popular Minecraft Server About Minecraft Servers

Easily one of the best parts of Minecraft is playing online and without Minecraft servers it just wouldn't happen. Anyone can run a server at very little cost, but running a popular Minecraft server is a different story. I've ran several highly popular long term servers and I'm going to show you how you can max out your server cap, keep your players and even make money from playing Minecraft .

Finding a Host

First thing is first you need to have a host. Now unless you have a pretty high spec computer you can leave on 24/7 as a dedicated host with a big Internet connection (and most people don't) you're going to need to rent one. Now this does cost money, but don't panic you can make this back. To start with you could look at somewhere like Multiplay. They have virtual servers which are low quality but they are cheap. You can use this as a base and then upgrade when you need to. We had to upgrade to a proper dedicated host after the first week but it's down to what you have available. For a dedicated host you have a lot of choice, there are specific Minecraft hosts and well known game server hosts like i3D. I can't suggest any one in particular because deals and prices change all the time and it might well have changed before you read this. If you search for something like 'dedicated server' you'll see loads. If you can't decide then i3D is one of the best known game server hosts if you have enough money to start it, and Multiplay is a cheap option if you dont.

Setting Up Your Server

If you go with a host like Multiplay you can configure most of your server from a website. Its nice an easy but the control you have over it is limited. If youre going with a dedicated server youre probably going to need to set it up yourself. When setting up your server you might be tempted to choose windows as an operating system. Remember you don't play from the host and you want the most resources as possible so choose Linux, CentOS to be specific. Don't worry; it's not too hard to run once you get the hang of it. Again things do change over time, so rather than talk you through installing a server and then have it change I'll point you to guides that will always work. Guide to installing the basic server: http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Tutorials/Setting_up_a_server

Guide to installing Bukkit (which enables mods and further configuration): http://wiki.bukkit.org/Setting_up_a_server All the basics to configuring the server can be found on those wikis and this guide focuses on running a server in the long run, not setting it up. There are loads of videos which show you how to set up a server and everything you need is there. If you are having problems you can always ask on the Minecraft server forums. If you dont want the hastle of this then there are alternatives. Like specific Minecraft hosts like Minecraftserverhost.net who preinstall everything for you. So your server is setup and ready, but you need a design.

Designing Your Server

Every Minecraft server is different. You don't just want to install every plugin you think looks fun because that will just make a mess and slow tour server down. You need to find something like a theme you want to go for. A relaxed building server or a competitive PvP server for example. And from there, group PvP or solo? Are the builds protected or public? Can your builders only build certain things or is it whatever they want? There's plugins like MCMMO etc... Which give players stats and classes just like World of Warcraft or pretty much any MMO. But keep it simple as you can and keep it on point. Think what kind of server you want, and keep out the rubbish. You might want to copy an existing server you liked, but think you can do it better, or come up with something unique. Minecraft is a big place; you'll find someone to play anything. I do want to mention anti cheat mods, of which there are a few. They do certainly help and they're worth using but never make the mistake of thinking they will completely prevent cheating on your server. They only do so much; really what you need is a moderation team (more on this later). There's a lot of freely existing plugins you can download and use from the Bukkit forums but you might not always find what you want in there. If you want something a little extra then you'll either have to know PHP, know a friend who knows PHP or perhaps ask on the forums if someone would be able to make you such a plugin. There's a lot to get started with right there on the forums though. So once you have your server setup and ready with the mods and design you'll need players. You can have the best server in the world, but if you don't get players to it then it's wasted. Luckily, it's really easy to get your server packed full of players.

Remember that the type of server you design will also affect how easy it is to get players and what kind of players you attract. PvP servers tend to attract an older crowd for example. And if you're doing unique you might have an easier time of getting people to connect.

Getting Players on Your Server

There's a few ways to get new players, and some of them are quicker than you might imagine. When starting your server you can literally start seeing your first players within a few minutes of the server going online. The Forums

First things first, and from my experience this is going to be the key way to get your server traffic. The Minecraft forums. If you take a look at the server sections of the forums you'll see for yourself how busy they are, and this is largely players looking to find a server to play on. It may be they're brand new to Minecraft (it is always growing) or maybe they're just bored of their server and looking for something new.

So you have Minecraft players already looking for a server, you just need to stand out from the others and a reason to join yours. And since most people do this pretty badly, thats not hard to do. You'll need an account, register a new one under the name of your server, and post a new thread. In the thread you want to give a description of your server and give people a reason to click onto your thread and not someone elses. You obviously cant describe your entire server, so just give them the main points. You want to show what your server is about; the main features and something which makes it stand out. Youll hold their attention for maybe 30 seconds before they either decide to try your server or just click over to a different thread. Take your time to make the post properly , make that 30 seconds count.

The title is one of the most important parts, it needs to be descriptive and catch attention to even get them looking at the post. For example:

PvPCRAFT [NO whitelist] [Faction Based PvP] The most competitive PvP in Minecraft!
Now for the post itself you can just post nothing but your server IP. And it will work, people will go on it. But most people will just click off your thread without giving your server another look. If you look at some of the other servers they use images and maybe videos, they get the players attention. The servers with a better looking thread will get more players. So start off with a similar title. Sticking with the PvPCRAFT example I'd go with something like

Get in in the toughest Minecraft PvP - Think you can handle it?
If possible you want a logo or something, even a server screenshot. People like images; we don't deal well with large blocks of text online. Once you get enough players on the server you want to put a quick YouTube video together (more on this in a bit) and add that to the thread as well. Put the IP to the server near the top (for the people who don't want to read the thread) and again at the bottom (for the people that do). It's also a good idea to use a DNS rather than an IP. For example server.PvPCRAFT.com. Talk to your server host if you don't know how to do this, some may have already done it for you. Include the server features (use clear bullet points) and you don't need to go into too much detail here. Just give them enough so they know what the servers about and they can work out the rest when they're there.

Now as soon as that thread is posted, you'll most likely see players start to join. And every time that thread is posted on, it'll bump to the top of the list and new players will see your thread. Since you can get a lot of new players this way its worth your while keeping this thread bumped. Now you can't just bump the thread yourself - that's against the forum rules and can get your server listing removed. Some servers post multiple listings or use bots to bump their threads up, but you don't even need to go this far. The way that I keep my threads up (on the rare times my servers are not at cap) is by getting the players to post on the thread. Make a short link for the thread (for example at bit.ly) and have your server post every hour or so about it. You can ask your players to post to support the server or you can give them an incentive for example:

[Server]: Get yourself a free diamond! Post something useful in the server thread once per day! (Insert link)
Then every time your players post the thread gets bumped. After a few minutes when it falls down again you can go and reply to whatever your players posted this will bump it again. This will bring new players in who will post in the thread and the loop continues until you hit cap.

It doesn't really matter what people post - the vast majority of people don't read past the first post for a server listing but whenever possible get them to post something useful for the few people that do bother to read that far back. This is something people dont realise when they leave a bad server a negative review theyre actually helping them get players. So you can get your players from the forum, but there are plenty of other places if you want as well. Server Review Sites

There's the server review websites, which get some traffic. You can get your players to vote on them once per day in exchange for a diamond as well for example. I'm not a big fan of these because really it's just the busier servers that rank, not the better ones, but it's still worth doing. Theres a few of them around but THIS one is pretty popular. YouTube Videos

A lot of servers use YouTube videos for promotion. This can tie in quite well with the section on getting Minecraft fans but even outside of this you can just record a few scenes from the server and post them on YouTube. Tag and title it with Minecraft server and try and record some interesting events or builds that will attract new players. Mention the features of the server in the video and/or description. You also need to include the server thread and/or IP. You can upload multiple videos for extra traffic and once theyre up theyll keep bringing new players to the server. The one thing many servers do is just a fly through of the server or something. Try to actually show something entertaining or interesting that make people not only want to finish watching the video, but want to join in. Facebook

Next up is Facebook. There's a lot of ways you can promote your server here but the easiest way is to create a Facebook fan page for your server and get your players to join (again you can reward them for joining). Minecraft players tend to have Minecraft players on their Facebook list that will see your server when their friends like it. It also gives you a way to keep players updated and get in touch with players who have left the server to get them back. Other Servers

You can go to other servers and advertise your own. I wouldn't suggest spamming chat, that will just annoy people, but you can do it without spamming. For example you could pick a small area in a busy spot and put down a few signs with your server features and URL and/or IP. Try and go for servers related to yours. There is no point promoting your PvP server on a nonPvP role playing server, for example.

You can also talk to smaller servers about mergers for example, but really I dont understand why people do this. It doesnt take a lot of work to drive new players towards your server and if its a good design its even easier to keep them there. Minecraft Websites

There are a lot of Minecraft websites out there and some of them can get a lot of traffic from Minecraft players. Most of them will have a contact page where you can get in touch with the owner. If you can get a review or banner of your server up there you'll get a lot of easy players. Some websites might charge for a banner or something but if you offer to write a little article or two in exchange for a link to your server you'd probably get a few takers (website owners are always on the lookout for new content) which would mean a lot of players looking at your server. And you'll be writing about Minecraft so it's not like it's even that hard. These are all optional and you can pick and choose the ones you want to try. The one thing I would suggest you always do is the forum post, with enough bumps you could keep yourself at server capacity purely on that alone.

Running the Server

So now you have your server setup and a good stream of regular players and new people joining. You need to look at running it properly in the long run to get the most out of it and maintain your players. Updating and New Content

From time to time Minecraft updates and brings new content to the game but in between that you might want to keep the server exciting for your players with events and new content. Events can be managed manually by yourself or your mod team (more on that later) and content can be added with server plugins. The thing you need to be careful of is the balance of the server and carefully testing plugins before putting them on your server. A rookie mistake, I see a lot of poorly managed servers do, is test plugins live for the first time on the server. Set a server up on your own computer and test it out there first. And to keep the balance of the server, just think of what you're adding to the game compared to what's already there. Don't just add it for the sake of it - add it if its needed or the players will enjoy it. Get player feedback on new updates but don't feel that you need to change everything they want. On one of our hard mode survival servers players were having an easy time with the mobs so we changed how they acted. Several players complained but the vast majority of the server loved it. That was why they were playing a hard mode survival after all. So do what right for the server, you can never please everyone.

Getting Staff

One of the things I don't understand (although I don't complain about it) is how people want to be staff members on servers. It's maybe one of the only places people will actually want to work for free. There are a few tricks to it though; you can't just take anyone if you want a successful server unless you're really lucky. First up - know what you're looking for and how many. It's easier to promote mods and reserve admin for only yourself. It limits the abuse they could potentially do. A rogue mod can cause a lot of unhappy players so while having the help on the server is great you want to make sure you pick the right people. And log the mod commands as well to be sure. Maybe make it a habit of checking the mod command log once every day or two. Just so you can keep track of who's doing what. Don't be shy about confronting them about questionable use. If they have a good reason they'll be able to explain and if they don't - well they won't be surprised when you demote them. First rule I go by is I don't mod anyone who asks. When you want a mod then get people to apply. I've had people tell me if I don't mod them they'll quit the server - never would I mod someone like that. Ideally you want people you at least think you can trust. Look for maturity and ideally the person I go for is someone who is genuinely helping people out - not just the ones that do so when they think you're looking. It's also a bonus if they didn't join the server with friends, means there is a little less likely hood of abuse of power. Once you've chosen suitable candidates get talking to them a bit. When are they available? Do they have Skype, TeamSpeak or vent with access to a microphone? Do they understand what's required of them? Have they prior mod experience and, if so, why are they no longer there? Ask them anything you want to know before hand, it's better to let their hopes down early than find out there's a problem later. Once I've chosen my mods I'll show them the basic commands of the server but I take it a little further. I'll take them a remote or locked off area if the map and show them currently existing bugs and cheats. I'll use custom clients and in some cases Ill get them to do the same. The main line of defence against cheats is your mod team properly understanding them. If they know what to look for - they'll do better at catching it. It takes a thief to catch a thief as they say.

Donations

Now before I begin this part, there's actually an entire section on making money from Minecraft and donations is a part of that. In there I actually cover one method of donations which currently no other servers use; it gets you donation money without your players paying a thing. But for now we're going to focus on more basic donations. Donations help support a server and the cast majority of servers have them. Usually servers accept payment through PayPal and if you haven't already got an account you can sign up with them for free. Donations can be handled differently depending on how you want to do it. Some just ask the players for donations purely to support the server they play on and help keep it running. Others offer items or sometimes commands (such as /spawn and /home) so donating players can teleport around. If you want to give your players something for donating you'll usually find a lot more of them do. But you want to make sure you're not giving them too much and making it completely impossible for non-donators to play. Another key point you should remember is that you should appreciate your donations, but your players still need to appreciate you and the rules of the server. If a donator breaks the rules, they're banned in the exact same way anyone else would be. You'll also get a lot of 'if you make this change I might donate' and I choose to ignore this kind of thing. Partly because you shouldn't make server changes for one person and partly because

these types of people are (in my experience) unlikely to donate anyway.

Another thing you need to consider when setting up your donations is how you want to do it. Most servers take a single up front donation, some take smaller monthly donations while others give in game currency for donations and players can buy items or use commands in exchange for that currency. Its a kind of 'pay as you go' donation system, and there's plenty of currency type plugins you can use for this. A one-time donation usually means a higher upfront payment but if your players stick around (as they should) then you won't have donations for future. Most servers who do this kind of donations rely on players leaving their server and freeing up room for new donators so they usually don't have great long term goals. A monthly or 'pay as you go' donation system means a steadier donation stream and a server more suited to e long term, but you do get fewer donations to begin with.

Continuing the Server

Now your server is up and running, full of players, monitored by your moderator team and taking donations you look at the long term. Keep your players entertained with events and new content, keep your mod team motivated, keep your server files frequently backed up in case anything goes wrong and most of all - enjoy running the server!

Making Money from Minecraft About Making Money from Minecraft

One common misunderstanding I see among the gamer community is assuming that only the owners and developers of a game actually profit from the game. And true they probably make the 'lions share' and that is right, but they're certainly not the only ones. Looking at Minecraft, consider the following people: Owners of websites such as the Minecraft wiki, forums and various Minecraft news sites. Game server host companies, who rent out monthly slots for Minecraft servers.

And going even further out than that People who create guides (like the one you're reading) for games (such as Minecraft). YouTube and YouTube users who get revenue share from their videos. Paid scripters (this is a small category - but they do exist). The 'Minecraft ripoffs' or variations who get attention for 'being like Minecraft'

So it's more than just Notch and Mojang making money from the existence of Minecraft. And the fun part is - you can get in on this list. Now we're not talking about starting up a website or a guide, we're not talking about competing with Minecraft. There's probably thousands of ways to make money from Minecraft - maybe you've even thought of one yourself but I'm going to show you a few basic ideas that can get you started, and earn a little extra cash on the side. Now before I get into this, I want to make it clear that we're not talking day job replacing kind of money. You're not going to make your millions from Minecraft, but I have seen some surprisingly large figures float around and all I can say is - there are a lot of people playing Minecraft, and some of them have deep pockets.

Server Donations
The first method of making money from Minecraft is probably one of the more obvious. If you've seen multiplayer Minecraft servers (which I'm assuming you have) you'll have seen that most of them accept donations. Now the misconception over donations is that they're only spent on server hosting. What a lot of people don't realise is that server staff, especially on the better servers, put a lot of time into running their server. Some servers distribute some of the donations between other staff members, some use them purely for the server hosting and others take at least part of it for themselves. And that's ok.

Servers do take a lot of work to manage properly and you're providing a service to your players making your server available for them to play on. As long as you're keeping the server online for them to play on and doing the best you can to keep it a good quality server then I don't see a problem in those donations supporting the staff putting time in behind keeping the server running, just make it clear what the donations are used for. It would be immoral to setup a server, take the donations and shut them down again. Not only that, you'd probably just end up with all the donations being disputed on Paypal which might very well lead to your account being closed. But if you provide a good quality server then you'll find your players are often eager to donate to keep you working on the server. Now this is not to say that donations are always easy to get. It can depend on several factors such as what perks you're offering for donations (if any) and what kind of server you run. I usually find that PvP servers, or harder more competitive servers attract a more mature player base who will donate for perks to have an 'edge' over other players. Comparing the donation for a creative build server compared to a PvP server is usually no contest, but that's not to say that creative servers don't get donations, they just get less.

FreeServer Donations

The one thing I do want to show you is a great little method you can use to get donation money without your players having to actually pay a penny. This is great because you will get a lot of players that want to donate to the server but can't afford to or are too young to - this is a great alternative and you'll be one of very few servers doing it. In fact I don't remember seeing any other server other than my own using this method. It basically involves CPA (Cost Per Action). Marketing

companies want to collect details to market to and they're get people to fill out surveys to get that information. For every person you get to complete a survey - you get money. It ranges largely from $0.50 - $10 a survey depending on which survey they do and what country the player is from. It takes them a few minutes to do and it's easy for you to setup. You'll get paid monthly through Paypal, check or direct deposit. There's two ways you can do this, the first way is to just offer them a choice of items per survey or get them to fill out multiple surveys until they make enough for a standard donation. I tend to offer both and give them a choice of what they'd like to do. This shouldn't replace your standard donation setup, but it does work as a great aside and earns you some extra donations you wouldn't otherwise get. So let's get you started!

First of all you're going to need a website. It doesn't need to be paid one; you can use a Webs.com or even Blogger site if you want. Some game server hosts even give out websites but it's down to you how you want to do that. Make a page on that site marked 'surveys' or 'free donations'. On that page you're going to put on a contact script. Now I'm not going to walk you through this since it should be pretty easy if you're not a technical person then you're going to need someone who is to help you with the server anyway so you could ask them to help you with this. If youre really pushed for this you can always ask on a forum. You can use something as basic as an email contact form (a good example HERE) and you'll get email alerts when your players complete a survey. Nice and simple to setup, you just need to watch your email. Basically you want a form on the page which lets your players enter their in game name and select what item they want for example. Now there might be an automated way to do this, but we couldn't find a way to do it that wasn't open to abuse (which would mean people cheating the system to get a lot of free items without doing surveys). So the best way to do it is to use something like this and check the email to see what player completed a survey, check to see if the survey was done and if so you give them the reward. Now you have the page with the form for the player name and the reward they want (for example) you need to get the survey blocker over this. One of the best to use for this is CPALEAD which you can join (for free) from HERE. You don't need a website to sign up - just tick the 'I don't have a website' button and in the box provided tell them you run a games server and will give digital rewards in exchange for surveys. You shouldn't have any problem getting accepted pretty quickly. Once you have an account login and create your widget. You can navigate their manually or just click HERE. Select 'virtual currency' and it'll lead you through making the banner. It'll take a moment or two and once you're done you'll have a code like this:

<script type="text/javascript">var isloaded = false;</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://trackingoffer.info/overlay_gateway.php?pub=46691&gateid=MTk1MjQw"></script><scri pt type="text/javascript">if (!isloaded) { window.location = 'http://trackingoffer.info/abp'; }</script>
Don't use that code - it's just an example. You need to use your own if you actually want to get paid for the surveys. Now copy and paste that code onto the same page as your form and save. Now when you load that page the banner should come up, and you can't enter a player name until you fill out a survey. If you have any problems with this (which you shouldn't) you get in touch with their support and they'll help you HERE.

Now all you have to do is tell your players they can do a survey a day to get a diamond for example. What you actually give out is down to you and your server but it's a great way to make some extra cash from donations. We did an entire section on how to run a proper server which covers how to build a successful server so we won't go into all of that again. But if you want to make some money from playing Minecraft while having some good fun at the same time, consider starting up a server.

YouTube and Streaming Videos

Another section we've mentioned is how to become well known in the Minecraft community. This is done largely through YouTube but there's more to it than just recording yourself for the sake of it.

If you didn't already know, YouTube shows advertising one some (if not most) of its videos. You'll likely have seen some of the inlaid ones (the video ads that play before the video itself) as well as the standard banners to the sides of the videos.

What you might not know, is that if your YouTube account starts to get some traffic YouTube will actually offer you a chance to join up with them and profit from your YouTube videos. You don't need to worry about the ads or anything; Google will pretty much take care of that for you. All you need to do is keep getting views, and that's easy to do if you're following the section from earlier. The more views you get, the more you'll make from each video. On top of that your subscriber list will grow which means each video will make more and more each time. As well as advertising you could mention Minecraft products like t-shirts or eBooks inside your video itself or within the description of the video. Most will give you some kind of commission per sale. For example you can sign up with Amazon Associates and sell Minecraft stuff through Amazon and get a cut of the profit. Once you're well established and have a popular let's play you could take it a little further. You can, for example, make a video about your server and get a lot of easy players (and possible donations) there. You could contact other servers and offer to do a video on their server for a small fee. One possibility is to stream live events. Justin.tv for example is used by StarCraft 2 players to stream their games live and they're given the option to show ads to their viewers which they can do once every half hour. They make a small profit each time they show the ad and the more viewers they have, the more they get. It's in beta just now but if you have enough followers (which you can get with some work and following the guide) you could promote your live stream for the following week and you'd probably get a spot easily enough to show your ads. Once you start getting a following you might be surprised how many people will sit and watch you play Minecraft if youre entertaining enough. You could even setup a website for your videos and promote this website in your videos. On there you can sell Minecraft related items such as Minecraft t-shirts on Amazon or guides such as this one. Basically, there's a lot you can do.

Misc. stuff
There's probably hundreds if not thousands of ways to make money on Minecraft. Basically you look for what people want and, if you can teach them, you can charge them for it. Now you're armed with the tools you need to make a server or let's play popular - you could contact the owners of servers or let's play and offer to get them more fans and players - for a fee.

You could setup people's servers or (if you know how to do so) offer personalised mod coding. Heck if youre really out there you could offer server setup and mod coding even if you cant do the code (and pay someone else less to do the plugin for you).

A lot of servers dont know how to properly promote themselves and have little traffic. Server owners are generally prepared to pay to get this traffic (since they are paying for the server after all) and know you know how to get a lot of players on there you could even offer this service. Basically there's a lot you can do to earn some extra money, but don't let it become a job Minecraft is supposed to be fun. Remember that!

Run a Minecraft Event About Minecraft Events

Minecraft events are usually not that common, except for small local ones but they can be a lot of fun and they can be surprisingly easy to put together. A Minecraft event can be about pretty much anything. Some are about following a storyline event led by the creator, others are about group building a large structure or themed area and others can be a PvP event. They make great YouTube videos which go along well with the section on getting YouTube followers watching you on Minecraft. We actually had a fairly large PvP event at the launch of this guide, giving a few copies away to the top ranking winners. Now you can run smaller events on your own server (if you run one) of course. But for larger events it's going to take a little more work. You need to have your own server setup (or a server admin who's got plenty of open slots and probably some people to help you watch it (trying to organize anything online is a pain think of the spam to begin with. You need to have a concept whether its a story line event or a PvP tourney and you need to plan it through. You cant rely on players doing things by the rules so whatever it is you do; you need to be able to enforce it yourself. Server plugins can do part of this for you but really its best to keep things carefully controlled with admin commands especially if its a large event.

Getting the Players

An event can be any size you want, or at least any size you can fit onto a server. Getting the players for an event is generally even easier than getting them for a server (and that really is saying something). If you already have your own YouTube following or server (two things weve covered already) you already have a place to start promoting your event. You need to make it something fun that will appeal to people, you might want to consider prizes and you certainly want to pick a reasonable time to run the event. Once all this is decided its time to tell the world about it! If its a small event then its really as easy as telling a few friends and maybe getting them to bring their friends. But if its something a bit larger scale then were going to need people to know about the event! First things first, were going to use the Minecraft forums again. Put together a thread the same as you would for the server (but not in the server thread obviously) a day or two before the event. Make it look good; explain what the event is about what time its on and how they can connect to the server. Throw in an image or two and answer any questions people have. Keep bumping the thread, especially closer to the event time. Youll get a lot of people interested in coming along if your event idea is interesting but you want to make sure they remember to come.

You could start up a Facebook group and get people reminded of it there, and it might be an idea to open the server early so people can get in beforehand and sit around for a while. Practically all of your players at the event will most likely have found out about it not long before it starts. You can go a little further than this if the forums are not getting you the players you need. Send a few private messages or emails to server hosts related to your event. For example if its a story line event contact role playing server hosts or if its a PvP tourney contact PvP servers. Tell them about the event and offer to promote their server during the event if they place a message about your event in their in game announcement or at the top of their server thread. You could also do the same thing with Minecraft websites get them to link to your event and you promote their website (theyll have contact pages if you want to try this). You might be surprised how many would do this.

Running the Event

Once your event is planned and the players arrive its time to run the event. Its a good idea to bring along your server mod staff (if you have any) or friends. Depending on how big the event youre planning is you might need to use chat channel plugins to prevent too much spam. Even a few dozen people and your chat box will become unreadable. Remember you can still bump the post while running the event although you might want to change it to event now running to get people in. On the flipside youll also have to kick/ban a lot of people wholl turn up just to try and grief the event. Its best if you try and answer as many questions and properly explain the event on the forum thread so if people ask questions someone else can answer or they can read the thread again. You dont want to be answering the same question a dozen times while trying to run the event. Youll need to have planned out how to actually run it before starting. For a PvP tournament you could build an arena that only staff members have access to and place the spawn point in a non PvP area above it (so they can see but not get down). You can have a chest with equipment in it (or better yet a sign or lever with a plugin giving out equipment on click) and then manually summon players down. A PvP or building event would be the easiest to run. Make sure people understand what theyre building or how the tourney works and limit the spam as much as possible. If youre using protected areas remember youll need to secure them with plugins and its a good idea to prevent fire and lava flow unless needed for the build. A story line event will take a lot more planning and youll have to pre-empt something going wrong. Youll also really have to keep an eye on the chat spam or itll be ruined on some players as they lose track of the story. Its why its better suited to a smaller event.

Recording these events is a great idea. If you cant do it yourself because youre busy running it then try to at least catch some highlights or get a friend (or even some of the participants) to record it if they can.

Minecraft Skins

Using a Premade Skin

When you first enter Minecraft you have the default skin which many of us are now familiar with. But when youre playing on multiplayer especially you want to be able to customize your appearance. I mean if we all went around looking the exact same itd be just like playing World of Warcraft! If you didnt already know, you can change your skin HERE.

Using Someone Elses

If you see a skin you like you can copy it yourself from another player to edit or use it exactly like they were. Some players might get annoyed if you copy something they worked on and run around the same server as them however so be careful what you copy. You can download another players skin as long as you have their username: HERE

Making Your Own

If you like something a little more custom, then you can always make your own and its not that hard. You can do it manually using whatever graphics program youre used to (Ive included a cheat sheet here so you can see what part does what) but its usually easier to do it piece by piece this way, at least until you get the hang of it.

Or you can use a great 3rd party site called Miners Need Cool Shoes (http://www.minershoes.com/) which lets you create your skin while seeing it. It also lets you edit a skin you upload.

Using the two together, you can download anyones skin and edit it with this.