5 ms·

Minecraftly: Inspire kids to learn computing via Minecraft

45 points by viet_nguyen 11y ago

wtbob 11y ago
What a fascinating idea. Looks pretty cool — if I ever get back into vanilla Minecraft I'll give it a shot (I've been 100% modpacks for a few years now). Any plans to support some of the more popular modpacks? I can imagine that the server costs for that could get brutal though. These days I'm thinking of getting into minetest (http://www.minetest.net/ http://www.minetest.net/), but the mod scene is pretty primitive there.
- asiekierka 11y ago
  The Minetest API is itself a bit more primitive, as it's server-side-only Lua scripting as opposed to essentially hacking the whole game engine inside out with zero security involved. As for modpacks, they add a lot of RAM usage especially to the whole thing. Minecraft 1.9 also made it possible (theoretically, that is it's possible in the code and probably used by Realms) to run multiple servers in the same Minecraft server instance, saving a lot of overhead on the block definitions, classes, JVMs, etc.
  - Pungea 11y ago
    Where did you learn that Minecraft 1.9 allows for multiple servers in one instance?
- viet_nguyen 11y ago
  I'm trying to build something so minimal and work with existing Minecraft software, easy to install, easy to upgrade as Minecraft upgrade, and can sustain the architecture for years to come. (instead of adding modpacks, heavy plugins, etc..) Minetest is pretty cool, but it isn't really what I'm trying to achieve.
brudgers 11y ago
This might make a good "Show HN" (guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)
bossx 11y ago
Great idea, would be nice to explain how pricing and teleportation between servers works on the landing page.
- viet_nguyen 11y ago
  Sure. I will draw that and explain on the landing page this week.
shirro 11y ago
Got two kids and their mum been playing MCPE all day on mobile devices. I can hear her yelling instructions to her army of builders/warriors as I write. I put together a VPS instance with PocketMine (followed by ImagicalMine, a fork) for them but with no mob ai and lots of other problems it didn't hold their interest compared with playing on the local network. It is a pity that the mobile version isn't more open so third party servers can support it. The family might enjoy something like this but I would never get them lugging a laptop around and driving minecraft with a mouse and keyboard.
- viet_nguyen 11y ago
  Yes, it's a shame that Minecraft's mobile version isn't aligned with Minecraft PC version, while Minecraft PC is better and more popular for online gaming. If you are to setup an online platform for your family, it's best to setup a PC version. It's just more enjoyable for now. P/S: I do hope that MCPE is one day aligned and compatible with PC. For sure it won't be the other way around.
lewisflude 11y ago
Haven't Mojang added restrictions on people being able to charge real money for in-game items? Would be interesting to know how Minecraftly gets around it.
- bmon 11y ago
  I don't think it's really in Mojang's interest to actually enforce those rules. The majority of servers I've ever been on have a "Donation" system allowing you to buy in game perks (currency, commands such as /fly, etc). Incentives like that are what keep lots of servers up, and more people playing the game.
- viet_nguyen 11y ago
  I don't get around it, I respect Mojang and abide by their terms, the subscription is only for cosmetic items. Think of Minecraftly open source as wordpress.org, and Minecraftly demo server as wordpress.com, so at least there is donor engagement from people who are interested. The only thing I don't like about Mojang is how they design Minecraft Realms architecture. It's proprietary and too complicated. I want to build something simplier, more scalable, with better player's freedom in cross-server interaction, and is supported for years to come.
  - Pungea 11y ago
    How is "a chance to win God armors, weapons and tools with full maximum enchantments" only cosmetic? That's found at https://s.m.ly/category/305898 https://s.m.ly/category/305898 along with other stuff that seems to be pay2win.
cheez 11y ago
Who is paying for this???
- ryandvm 11y ago
  I wondered the same thing since TANSTAAFL. Looks like there's a "store" selling various in-game perks: https://s.m.ly/ https://s.m.ly/
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
bottled_poe 11y ago
The "learning" element seems very loosely connected to the product. Call it what it is - a scalable minecraft server.
- viet_nguyen 11y ago
  I know. I haven't opened source it for long, it's just been 2 weeks now. For the past few years, I hired developers to help me make the prototype. As of right now, I feel that it's better to donate the work to the public, and write content, create videos showing people why it's designed like that via Minecraft. The purpose is via this platform, kids can learn conciously or subconciously, so that in the future they can remember that a game with this kind of architecture exists, and build something more scalable, better in the future.
biot 11y ago
Odd feature matrix. The free version has all the benefits; the paid version has all the limitations. edit: Oops, that's the second time I've glossed over a site and mistaken a company's competitive analysis for a multi-tier pricing plan.
- NegativeLatency 11y ago
  I think the "paid version" you saw is actually a competitor.
bmon 11y ago
That domain must be worth a fortune.
nightcracker 11y ago
https://s.m.ly/ https://s.m.ly/ Garbage p2w microtransactions. Seems like they even sell access to the nether/end, core parts of the game. So nothing to see here, move along, another minecraft server host looking to exploit kids with access to their parents' credit cards.
- viet_nguyen 11y ago
  Minecraftly is open source and going to be transformed to a non-profit organization soon, but I still have operational costs to run the service. In fact, I am further from a p2w model, as there are only cosmetic items and boosters in the store. It took me years to build the first scalable architecture, after many mistakes, but at least I got a working version, and want to donate all the software and ongoing work to the public.
  - nightcracker 11y ago
    Either you're misadvertising what you're selling in the store, or you're flat out lying. Allow me to list some things you're selling (all from https://s.m.ly/ https://s.m.ly/): - Access to Nether and The End worlds. - Higher jobs xp and income! - Buy Lifetime VIP rank and get an extra Treasure Trove, and Dreaded Warrior crates for free! (Dreaded Warrior gives you 300 crates that drop enchanted diamond armors, weapons and tools. Gain a chance to win God armors, weapons and tools with full maximum enchantments.) - Get 850 crates that drop enchanted diamond armors, weapons and tools. - Get $36,000 in game money. All seem pay 2 win to me. On top of that you're selling stupidly basic functionality that shouldn't be for sale: - Mute, kick, and ban other players from your server (and many other admin commands) at (username).m.ly The fact that you're open source is irrelevant. I don't care how your service is implemented, I have issue with your business model and target demographic. Your intentions are also irrelevant, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Actions speak louder than words.
    - viet_nguyen 11y ago
      There is no winning in Minecraftly. I have every intention to make the value added service non pay2win, and if users are not happy about it, I have every intention to change it to fit what users want, paid or not. So far, people are happy with what I provide. There is nothing like god mode, PVP boost, etc.. in here. If you are truly unhappy with a certain part, I will take it into consideration. If you are really just here to hate, I can't help, because companies like Miniclips provide games with the same store system for almost 2 decades.
Zombieball 11y ago
My nephew was quite into minecraft for a while. I ended up setting up an EC2 based server for him. To avoid crazy costs I setup a bit of infrastructure: I managed to pipe the active / logged in user count of the minecraft server to cloudwatch: 30 mins of server in-activity and I had the server shutdown (to avoid paying for it to run 24x7). Additionally I setup a webpage that he could login to (only used basic auth to be honest) and click a "start server" button. This sent the ec2 start instance command to AWS. Granted he didn't have instant play capabilities (had to wait for server boot up) but the costs were quite low. I personally installed any mods or plugins he wanted. I'd highly recommend rolling your own setup like this to anyone interested :)
- lifeisstillgood 11y ago
  My son is just starting down this road - and I have no idea what plugins for minecraft are. If you could put up a blogpost or pointers on this Inwoukd be very grateful
  - viet_nguyen 11y ago
    Sure, I will do that! The reason I created this is to: 1. Tackle my challenge of scalability. 2. I love Minecraft and have seen it being non-scalable for a long time, without people doing anything about it. 3. I want to remove the hassle of you having to setup your own server, with all the installation, and plugins, etc.. Maybe you and your family can just hop in and play, and things will be kept for as long as Minecraft is alive. 4. The already setup version of Minecraftly has a disadvantage that it is limited in terms of plugins. I only choose cosmetics, fun plugins to install in this project, so actually you can't choose plugins, unless you use the open source code and host it by yourself. It's a little like Wordpress.com's add-ons vs wordpress.org self hosted version That is how I view it. :)
    - lifeisstillgood 11y ago
      Please shout when you have got a draft :-)

45 points by viet_nguyen 11y ago

wtbob 11y ago

What a fascinating idea. Looks pretty cool — if I ever get back into vanilla Minecraft I'll give it a shot (I've been 100% modpacks for a few years now). Any plans to support some of the more popular modpacks? I can imagine that the server costs for that could get brutal though. These days I'm thinking of getting into minetest (http://www.minetest.net/ http://www.minetest.net/), but the mod scene is pretty primitive there.

asiekierka 11y ago
The Minetest API is itself a bit more primitive, as it's server-side-only Lua scripting as opposed to essentially hacking the whole game engine inside out with zero security involved. As for modpacks, they add a lot of RAM usage especially to the whole thing. Minecraft 1.9 also made it possible (theoretically, that is it's possible in the code and probably used by Realms) to run multiple servers in the same Minecraft server instance, saving a lot of overhead on the block definitions, classes, JVMs, etc.
- Pungea 11y ago
  Where did you learn that Minecraft 1.9 allows for multiple servers in one instance?
viet_nguyen 11y ago
I'm trying to build something so minimal and work with existing Minecraft software, easy to install, easy to upgrade as Minecraft upgrade, and can sustain the architecture for years to come. (instead of adding modpacks, heavy plugins, etc..) Minetest is pretty cool, but it isn't really what I'm trying to achieve.

brudgers 11y ago

This might make a good "Show HN" (guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)

bossx 11y ago

Great idea, would be nice to explain how pricing and teleportation between servers works on the landing page.

viet_nguyen 11y ago
Sure. I will draw that and explain on the landing page this week.

shirro 11y ago

Got two kids and their mum been playing MCPE all day on mobile devices. I can hear her yelling instructions to her army of builders/warriors as I write. I put together a VPS instance with PocketMine (followed by ImagicalMine, a fork) for them but with no mob ai and lots of other problems it didn't hold their interest compared with playing on the local network. It is a pity that the mobile version isn't more open so third party servers can support it. The family might enjoy something like this but I would never get them lugging a laptop around and driving minecraft with a mouse and keyboard.

viet_nguyen 11y ago
Yes, it's a shame that Minecraft's mobile version isn't aligned with Minecraft PC version, while Minecraft PC is better and more popular for online gaming. If you are to setup an online platform for your family, it's best to setup a PC version. It's just more enjoyable for now. P/S: I do hope that MCPE is one day aligned and compatible with PC. For sure it won't be the other way around.

lewisflude 11y ago

Haven't Mojang added restrictions on people being able to charge real money for in-game items? Would be interesting to know how Minecraftly gets around it.

bmon 11y ago
I don't think it's really in Mojang's interest to actually enforce those rules. The majority of servers I've ever been on have a "Donation" system allowing you to buy in game perks (currency, commands such as /fly, etc). Incentives like that are what keep lots of servers up, and more people playing the game.
viet_nguyen 11y ago
I don't get around it, I respect Mojang and abide by their terms, the subscription is only for cosmetic items. Think of Minecraftly open source as wordpress.org, and Minecraftly demo server as wordpress.com, so at least there is donor engagement from people who are interested. The only thing I don't like about Mojang is how they design Minecraft Realms architecture. It's proprietary and too complicated. I want to build something simplier, more scalable, with better player's freedom in cross-server interaction, and is supported for years to come.
- Pungea 11y ago
  How is "a chance to win God armors, weapons and tools with full maximum enchantments" only cosmetic? That's found at https://s.m.ly/category/305898 https://s.m.ly/category/305898 along with other stuff that seems to be pay2win.

cheez 11y ago

Who is paying for this???

ryandvm 11y ago
I wondered the same thing since TANSTAAFL. Looks like there's a "store" selling various in-game perks: https://s.m.ly/ https://s.m.ly/
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

bottled_poe 11y ago

The "learning" element seems very loosely connected to the product. Call it what it is - a scalable minecraft server.

viet_nguyen 11y ago
I know. I haven't opened source it for long, it's just been 2 weeks now. For the past few years, I hired developers to help me make the prototype. As of right now, I feel that it's better to donate the work to the public, and write content, create videos showing people why it's designed like that via Minecraft. The purpose is via this platform, kids can learn conciously or subconciously, so that in the future they can remember that a game with this kind of architecture exists, and build something more scalable, better in the future.

biot 11y ago

Odd feature matrix. The free version has all the benefits; the paid version has all the limitations. edit: Oops, that's the second time I've glossed over a site and mistaken a company's competitive analysis for a multi-tier pricing plan.

NegativeLatency 11y ago
I think the "paid version" you saw is actually a competitor.

bmon 11y ago

That domain must be worth a fortune.

nightcracker 11y ago

https://s.m.ly/ https://s.m.ly/ Garbage p2w microtransactions. Seems like they even sell access to the nether/end, core parts of the game. So nothing to see here, move along, another minecraft server host looking to exploit kids with access to their parents' credit cards.

viet_nguyen 11y ago
Minecraftly is open source and going to be transformed to a non-profit organization soon, but I still have operational costs to run the service. In fact, I am further from a p2w model, as there are only cosmetic items and boosters in the store. It took me years to build the first scalable architecture, after many mistakes, but at least I got a working version, and want to donate all the software and ongoing work to the public.
- nightcracker 11y ago
  Either you're misadvertising what you're selling in the store, or you're flat out lying. Allow me to list some things you're selling (all from https://s.m.ly/ https://s.m.ly/): - Access to Nether and The End worlds. - Higher jobs xp and income! - Buy Lifetime VIP rank and get an extra Treasure Trove, and Dreaded Warrior crates for free! (Dreaded Warrior gives you 300 crates that drop enchanted diamond armors, weapons and tools. Gain a chance to win God armors, weapons and tools with full maximum enchantments.) - Get 850 crates that drop enchanted diamond armors, weapons and tools. - Get $36,000 in game money. All seem pay 2 win to me. On top of that you're selling stupidly basic functionality that shouldn't be for sale: - Mute, kick, and ban other players from your server (and many other admin commands) at (username).m.ly The fact that you're open source is irrelevant. I don't care how your service is implemented, I have issue with your business model and target demographic. Your intentions are also irrelevant, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Actions speak louder than words.
  - viet_nguyen 11y ago
    There is no winning in Minecraftly. I have every intention to make the value added service non pay2win, and if users are not happy about it, I have every intention to change it to fit what users want, paid or not. So far, people are happy with what I provide. There is nothing like god mode, PVP boost, etc.. in here. If you are truly unhappy with a certain part, I will take it into consideration. If you are really just here to hate, I can't help, because companies like Miniclips provide games with the same store system for almost 2 decades.

Zombieball 11y ago

My nephew was quite into minecraft for a while. I ended up setting up an EC2 based server for him. To avoid crazy costs I setup a bit of infrastructure: I managed to pipe the active / logged in user count of the minecraft server to cloudwatch: 30 mins of server in-activity and I had the server shutdown (to avoid paying for it to run 24x7). Additionally I setup a webpage that he could login to (only used basic auth to be honest) and click a "start server" button. This sent the ec2 start instance command to AWS. Granted he didn't have instant play capabilities (had to wait for server boot up) but the costs were quite low. I personally installed any mods or plugins he wanted. I'd highly recommend rolling your own setup like this to anyone interested :)

lifeisstillgood 11y ago
My son is just starting down this road - and I have no idea what plugins for minecraft are. If you could put up a blogpost or pointers on this Inwoukd be very grateful
- viet_nguyen 11y ago
  Sure, I will do that! The reason I created this is to: 1. Tackle my challenge of scalability. 2. I love Minecraft and have seen it being non-scalable for a long time, without people doing anything about it. 3. I want to remove the hassle of you having to setup your own server, with all the installation, and plugins, etc.. Maybe you and your family can just hop in and play, and things will be kept for as long as Minecraft is alive. 4. The already setup version of Minecraftly has a disadvantage that it is limited in terms of plugins. I only choose cosmetics, fun plugins to install in this project, so actually you can't choose plugins, unless you use the open source code and host it by yourself. It's a little like Wordpress.com's add-ons vs wordpress.org self hosted version That is how I view it. :)
  - lifeisstillgood 11y ago
    Please shout when you have got a draft :-)