6 ms·

BitQuest – Minecraft server with Bitcoin-denominated economy

104 points by phaser 12y ago

_wdh 12y ago
This might be a stupid question, but does this mean that the number of Emeralds can that exist in the server is limited by the number of bitcoins that the owner has in the bank? I don't see how they can have a Minecraft world that has an infinite amount of space (and therefore infinite Emeralds) and support cashing out the Emeralds into bitcoins?
- ultimape 12y ago
  If they really are emerald ores, you could pretty easily restrict the biome generation algorithm to only create extreme hills when there is money in the bank. I expect the "mobs are stronger the further away from spawn" is also meant to put a bit of a dampener on the rate you can grab them.
- runeks 12y ago
  You could build an exchange into the game -- a simple bid/ask order book. And add the ability to use more than one currency in the game. Bitcoins could work alongside "Emeralds", and simply be traded voluntarily via an exchange mechanism. Although if people are able to mine Emeralds without some kind of limit, it wouldn't take that long for people with bitcoins to stop bidding on Emeralds, and bitcoins would taker over as the currency (I assume). Would be a very interesting experience regardless of what happens. Of course, this concept of using real money in a game is fundamentally incompatible with the ability to create something out of nothing inside the game. If you can create something without effort, why would you ever pay for it with real money? If, however, items take time to create, people would be willing to trade the item for money. Presumably the item would become increasingly expensive the more labor (or, simply, "waiting") that is put into it -- just like the real world: an entire apartment complex is expensive because it requires a lot of work to build, and 30 year old Whiskey is more expensive than the same Whiskey at 5 years of age, simply because it takes longer to make.
- phaser 12y ago
  Finding emerald within the game is actually pretty difficult. We actually had to make it easier to find. But yeah, there would be a problem if no one donates to the server and the game wallet runs out of bitcoin. We are measuring this with high presicion to makepredictions for our second fundraising stage
ultimape 12y ago
This sounds a whole lot better than the bitcoin ran minecraft server where you were meant to put in your coins into the server's wallet... Then again, that XAPO thing sounds a little weird. Like most things bitcoin, I'm weary of a scam.
- runeks 12y ago
  No server should hold any bitcoins, that's not necessary (and a huge systemic risk). The server just needs to be able to interact with the Bitcoin blockchain, and create transactions that a player can pay using a standard Bitcoin wallet (or one that's built into the game, but where the private keys are stored locally). 1. Player 1 wants to trade a shovel with Player 2 in exchange for 10 mBTC, and tells this to the server by generating a bitcoin address that he wishes to receive the funds at, and sending this to the server. 2. The server generates a bitcoin transaction with an output that points to Player 1's address, and asks Player 2 to add an input to the transaction, and pay 10 mBTC from that input to the output added by the server (Player 1's address). The signed transaction is then broadcast. 3. The server keeps an eye on the blockchain, and when the signed transaction makes it into the blockchain (waiting on the number of confirmations that Player 1 and Player 2 agree on), the item is transferred from Player 1 to Player 2 inside the game.
- phaser 12y ago
  We use xapo developer services to separate the server code from the bitcoin wallet stuff. They are a legitimate wallet service with a very cool API but you'll be able to transfer emeralds to any other wallet
Sarien 12y ago
Doesn't this violate the minecraft ToS?
- ultimape 12y ago
  I didn't see anything about paying for stuff. It seems to be run entirely by donation as far as I can tell. I think that means it kosher: https://mojang.com/2014/06/lets-talk-server-monetisation/ https://mojang.com/2014/06/lets-talk-server-monetisation/
  - ubernostrum 12y ago
    They (BitQuest) advertise the "Stores" which apparently have "some incredible weapons and armor". And they are explicitly denominating in BTC and hooked up to a system for accepting BTC payments. Both of which seem to fall afoul of the Mojang post.
    - ultimape 12y ago
      I didn't realize you could buy in-game currency with money. I thought it was a one-way process (mining in game -> bits) used to create a real world value for items in game.
      - phaser 12y ago
        You can't
    - mryan 12y ago
      They also appear to allow cashing-out the in-game currency, breaking another of Mojang's conditions.
    - phaser 12y ago
      We are not accepting payments nor selling the in-game currency thus this is not a pay-to-win game or anything outside Mojang's own recommendations for monetizing servers :D
  - 12y ago
NSCFType 12y ago
The villager trading mechanic can be exploited to provide unlimited emeralds: The game has NPC villagers, each of whom are dressed according to their profession. Professions indicate to the player which items are available for trade. There are a number of possible items per profession, and each villager will make available around a dozen of them. Villagers who are librarians may trade an emerald for a 20-something sheets of paper. Paper is crafted from sugar cane. Players can build massive sugar cane towers. Normally, villagers stop trading items after a while and lock the item from the trade screen. All can be locked except the last trade. So if you get a librarian villager that has paper as its final item, that means unlimited emeralds for you! Obtaining villagers isn't a problem even if villages are hard to find since zombie villagers can be cured into normal villagers. Villagers obtained can then be 'farmed' in simple villager breeders, you just need two to start with. Professions are randomly assigned at, um, birth. Setup for all this is several hours of gameplay, less with some help. The primary thing is finding a zombie spawner underground (plentiful) or an occupied village above ground (not so plentiful). After that, it's just a matter going to the sugar cane tower and grabbing hundreds of sugar cane, crafting it to paper and visiting a librarian for a while. It takes like 10 minutes to trade a full inventory of paper. Repeat ad nauseam. You don't even have to bring a pickaxe.
- pbhjpbhj 12y ago
  Presumably, given the modifications they've made, they can mod it so that villagers won't trade emeralds. Mind you I've found a few previous attempts at integrating minecraft and bitcoin but they all appear to have closed down, eg https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BitVegas https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BitVegas where a bug was exploited to take all the server owners bitcoin and leave them unable to run the server.
- ultimape 12y ago
  I'd imagine the bitcoin mod would trigger on 'break emerald ore' in the world, and that a flag would be set upon 'place emerald ore' to prevent silktouch from causing it to be fired more than once.
  - DanBC 12y ago
tshadwell 12y ago
This would be great if the primary demographic for Minecraft didn't become almost entirely children.
- Karunamon 12y ago
  I'm not sure that's even remotely accurate. Just because a game is popular at all ages does not mean its primary demo are kids.
  - duskwuff 12y ago
    Minecraft is hugely popular with kids: http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-discussion/discussion/115432-whats-the-minecraft-players-average-age http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-discussion/di...
    - Karunamon 12y ago
      Minecraft is hugely popular, period.
Already__Taken 12y ago
How do they do that map?
- _wdh 12y ago
  It looks like it's been generated by http://overviewer.org/ http://overviewer.org/, I guess they've got a cronjob or something that runs that as a script and generates the html and then it looks like they use an <iframe> to load the map on the page. Really cool, makes me want to start running a minecraft server again.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- rocky1138 12y ago
  Dynmap? Example: http://minecraft.xandorus.com:8123 http://minecraft.xandorus.com:8123
grouchysmurf 12y ago
Somehow this reminds me of REAMDE by Neal Stephenson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reamde http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reamde).
everyone 12y ago
I'm confused. Can you mine emeralds in the game, then export them out as bitcoins, then turn the bitcoins into dolars, thereby earning real world money in the game?
- runeks 12y ago
  That depends. If Emeralds take time to mine, then it's likely that people will be willing to pay money for them (like people usually are with all other items that take time to make). But setting a peg between Emeralds and bitcoins won't work, it will have to depend on people voluntarily trading in the game. For every bitcoin you get out, someone else must have put one in.
- phaser 12y ago
  Yes, you can. We also made emeralds easier to find in this first stage so we have lots of them flowing inside the world. Emeralds are also good for buying stuff other people craft, tipping other players and entering tournaments, and we are working on more ways to use them. We have found most players don't cash out and use it to have fun
- brighton36 12y ago
  Who said Bitcoin wasn't real-world money...
kordless 12y ago
I've built a way to deploy a Minecraft server using Bitcoin and spent a bit of time last weekend trying to get qrcode.js to run inside scriptcraft.js. My intent is to show a Bitcoin QR code for paying for the instance inside the instance's world. Marketing. https://www.stackmonkey.com/demo/minecraft/ https://www.stackmonkey.com/demo/minecraft/ and https://gist.github.com/kordless/beba0a6fa8edcda3b15a https://gist.github.com/kordless/beba0a6fa8edcda3b15a
Yadi 12y ago
best of two worlds? :). pretty cool.

104 points by phaser 12y ago

_wdh 12y ago

This might be a stupid question, but does this mean that the number of Emeralds can that exist in the server is limited by the number of bitcoins that the owner has in the bank? I don't see how they can have a Minecraft world that has an infinite amount of space (and therefore infinite Emeralds) and support cashing out the Emeralds into bitcoins?

ultimape 12y ago
If they really are emerald ores, you could pretty easily restrict the biome generation algorithm to only create extreme hills when there is money in the bank. I expect the "mobs are stronger the further away from spawn" is also meant to put a bit of a dampener on the rate you can grab them.
runeks 12y ago
You could build an exchange into the game -- a simple bid/ask order book. And add the ability to use more than one currency in the game. Bitcoins could work alongside "Emeralds", and simply be traded voluntarily via an exchange mechanism. Although if people are able to mine Emeralds without some kind of limit, it wouldn't take that long for people with bitcoins to stop bidding on Emeralds, and bitcoins would taker over as the currency (I assume). Would be a very interesting experience regardless of what happens. Of course, this concept of using real money in a game is fundamentally incompatible with the ability to create something out of nothing inside the game. If you can create something without effort, why would you ever pay for it with real money? If, however, items take time to create, people would be willing to trade the item for money. Presumably the item would become increasingly expensive the more labor (or, simply, "waiting") that is put into it -- just like the real world: an entire apartment complex is expensive because it requires a lot of work to build, and 30 year old Whiskey is more expensive than the same Whiskey at 5 years of age, simply because it takes longer to make.
phaser 12y ago
Finding emerald within the game is actually pretty difficult. We actually had to make it easier to find. But yeah, there would be a problem if no one donates to the server and the game wallet runs out of bitcoin. We are measuring this with high presicion to makepredictions for our second fundraising stage

ultimape 12y ago

This sounds a whole lot better than the bitcoin ran minecraft server where you were meant to put in your coins into the server's wallet... Then again, that XAPO thing sounds a little weird. Like most things bitcoin, I'm weary of a scam.

runeks 12y ago
No server should hold any bitcoins, that's not necessary (and a huge systemic risk). The server just needs to be able to interact with the Bitcoin blockchain, and create transactions that a player can pay using a standard Bitcoin wallet (or one that's built into the game, but where the private keys are stored locally). 1. Player 1 wants to trade a shovel with Player 2 in exchange for 10 mBTC, and tells this to the server by generating a bitcoin address that he wishes to receive the funds at, and sending this to the server. 2. The server generates a bitcoin transaction with an output that points to Player 1's address, and asks Player 2 to add an input to the transaction, and pay 10 mBTC from that input to the output added by the server (Player 1's address). The signed transaction is then broadcast. 3. The server keeps an eye on the blockchain, and when the signed transaction makes it into the blockchain (waiting on the number of confirmations that Player 1 and Player 2 agree on), the item is transferred from Player 1 to Player 2 inside the game.
phaser 12y ago
We use xapo developer services to separate the server code from the bitcoin wallet stuff. They are a legitimate wallet service with a very cool API but you'll be able to transfer emeralds to any other wallet

Sarien 12y ago

Doesn't this violate the minecraft ToS?

ultimape 12y ago
I didn't see anything about paying for stuff. It seems to be run entirely by donation as far as I can tell. I think that means it kosher: https://mojang.com/2014/06/lets-talk-server-monetisation/ https://mojang.com/2014/06/lets-talk-server-monetisation/
- ubernostrum 12y ago
  They (BitQuest) advertise the "Stores" which apparently have "some incredible weapons and armor". And they are explicitly denominating in BTC and hooked up to a system for accepting BTC payments. Both of which seem to fall afoul of the Mojang post.
  - ultimape 12y ago
    I didn't realize you could buy in-game currency with money. I thought it was a one-way process (mining in game -> bits) used to create a real world value for items in game.
    - phaser 12y ago
      You can't
  - mryan 12y ago
    They also appear to allow cashing-out the in-game currency, breaking another of Mojang's conditions.
  - phaser 12y ago
    We are not accepting payments nor selling the in-game currency thus this is not a pay-to-win game or anything outside Mojang's own recommendations for monetizing servers :D
- 12y ago

NSCFType 12y ago

The villager trading mechanic can be exploited to provide unlimited emeralds: The game has NPC villagers, each of whom are dressed according to their profession. Professions indicate to the player which items are available for trade. There are a number of possible items per profession, and each villager will make available around a dozen of them. Villagers who are librarians may trade an emerald for a 20-something sheets of paper. Paper is crafted from sugar cane. Players can build massive sugar cane towers. Normally, villagers stop trading items after a while and lock the item from the trade screen. All can be locked except the last trade. So if you get a librarian villager that has paper as its final item, that means unlimited emeralds for you! Obtaining villagers isn't a problem even if villages are hard to find since zombie villagers can be cured into normal villagers. Villagers obtained can then be 'farmed' in simple villager breeders, you just need two to start with. Professions are randomly assigned at, um, birth. Setup for all this is several hours of gameplay, less with some help. The primary thing is finding a zombie spawner underground (plentiful) or an occupied village above ground (not so plentiful). After that, it's just a matter going to the sugar cane tower and grabbing hundreds of sugar cane, crafting it to paper and visiting a librarian for a while. It takes like 10 minutes to trade a full inventory of paper. Repeat ad nauseam. You don't even have to bring a pickaxe.

pbhjpbhj 12y ago
Presumably, given the modifications they've made, they can mod it so that villagers won't trade emeralds. Mind you I've found a few previous attempts at integrating minecraft and bitcoin but they all appear to have closed down, eg https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BitVegas https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BitVegas where a bug was exploited to take all the server owners bitcoin and leave them unable to run the server.
ultimape 12y ago
I'd imagine the bitcoin mod would trigger on 'break emerald ore' in the world, and that a flag would be set upon 'place emerald ore' to prevent silktouch from causing it to be fired more than once.
- DanBC 12y ago

tshadwell 12y ago

This would be great if the primary demographic for Minecraft didn't become almost entirely children.

Karunamon 12y ago
I'm not sure that's even remotely accurate. Just because a game is popular at all ages does not mean its primary demo are kids.
- duskwuff 12y ago
  Minecraft is hugely popular with kids: http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-discussion/discussion/115432-whats-the-minecraft-players-average-age http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-discussion/di...
  - Karunamon 12y ago
    Minecraft is hugely popular, period.

Already__Taken 12y ago

How do they do that map?

_wdh 12y ago
It looks like it's been generated by http://overviewer.org/ http://overviewer.org/, I guess they've got a cronjob or something that runs that as a script and generates the html and then it looks like they use an <iframe> to load the map on the page. Really cool, makes me want to start running a minecraft server again.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
rocky1138 12y ago
Dynmap? Example: http://minecraft.xandorus.com:8123 http://minecraft.xandorus.com:8123

grouchysmurf 12y ago

Somehow this reminds me of REAMDE by Neal Stephenson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reamde http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reamde).

everyone 12y ago

I'm confused. Can you mine emeralds in the game, then export them out as bitcoins, then turn the bitcoins into dolars, thereby earning real world money in the game?

runeks 12y ago
That depends. If Emeralds take time to mine, then it's likely that people will be willing to pay money for them (like people usually are with all other items that take time to make). But setting a peg between Emeralds and bitcoins won't work, it will have to depend on people voluntarily trading in the game. For every bitcoin you get out, someone else must have put one in.
phaser 12y ago
Yes, you can. We also made emeralds easier to find in this first stage so we have lots of them flowing inside the world. Emeralds are also good for buying stuff other people craft, tipping other players and entering tournaments, and we are working on more ways to use them. We have found most players don't cash out and use it to have fun
brighton36 12y ago
Who said Bitcoin wasn't real-world money...

kordless 12y ago

I've built a way to deploy a Minecraft server using Bitcoin and spent a bit of time last weekend trying to get qrcode.js to run inside scriptcraft.js. My intent is to show a Bitcoin QR code for paying for the instance inside the instance's world. Marketing. https://www.stackmonkey.com/demo/minecraft/ https://www.stackmonkey.com/demo/minecraft/ and https://gist.github.com/kordless/beba0a6fa8edcda3b15a https://gist.github.com/kordless/beba0a6fa8edcda3b15a

Yadi 12y ago

best of two worlds? :). pretty cool.