Minecraft Realms Now Available Worldwide
The Minecraft Realms subscription service is now open for business worldwide.
Mojang announced this week that Minecraft Realms is now available for the PC and Mac worldwide. The news arrives after the company launched the subscription service in the United States back in April. Eventually, Mojang plans to offer the service on other formats in the future, such as the Pocket Edition.
"Realms is the easiest way for you to host a Minecraft world online. You and your friends can work on an awesome creation, adventure into the depths, or play one of our featured mini-games with just a few clicks," the studio announced. "The servers are always available, and can be restored to an earlier point if something goes wrong. Realms is run by Mojang and simple to set up."
Minecraft Realms costs $13 per month, just two dollars less than your standard MMOG. Subscriptions are made available on the Mojang account page, and offered in 1, 3 or 6 month packages. As with other MMOGs, players will get a discount by choosing a longer subscription. The server is also up 24/7, so players can jump into their world at any time as long as they keep their subscription active.
The good thing about Minecraft Realms is that the service doesn't require users to set up LAN networks, configure IPs and tanker with the ports; all that is done on Mojang's end. Only invited players can join a Realms server, which is good news for parents. The host can even add or remove players from their approved list "with a few clicks."
The FAQ reveals that subscribers will be able to export their maps at any time, even for a limited duration after the customer's subscription has expired. Like regular Minecraft maps, Realm worlds have no size restrictions, as the service supports infinite terrain. To use Realms, customers will need to run the most recent release of Minecraft.
To get started with Minecraft Realms, head here.
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
Kevin Parrish has over a decade of experience as a writer, editor, and product tester. His work focused on computer hardware, networking equipment, smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, and other internet-connected devices. His work has appeared in Tom's Hardware, Tom's Guide, Maximum PC, Digital Trends, Android Authority, How-To Geek, Lifewire, and others.
-
edogawa You could also, I don't know, run a Minecraft server off a raspberry pi which will be cheaper long run, and you have more control over your server.Reply
13 dollars to run a MC server seems a bit pricey to me considering how little is required, 5 maybe, but what do I know. -
qlum Minecraft servers don't tend to run well on a pi, as the memory requirements for the server are pretty big.Reply -
edogawa Reply13332525 said:Minecraft servers don't tend to run well on a pi, as the memory requirements for the server are pretty big.
From what I've seen it can handle a small handful fairly well, but yea I doubt it will handle 8+ on a large map to well. Looks like you can get servers hosted elsewhere for less than 5 bucks too. -
razor512 Insane ripoff.Reply
For $5 per month you can sign up for any number of VPS's and simply run the minecraft server application on that. Performance is extremely good for around 20-30 people at the same time on the cheapest plans.
Why would someone spend $13 a month for a server that only allows 10 simultaneous players?
A friend of mine uses a $10 per month VPS for feed the beast (50 person) and a 32 person teamspeak server at the same time. -
gm0n3y Is this $13 for the server or $13/month for each player? I'd imagine that it the server hosting fee which is a bit high though not terrible. If it's per player then that is atrocious.Reply -
Mac266 Its $13 for the server per month. I think the main thing here is reliabilty; the server should always be up, and the fact that it is run by mojang, so support should be high.Reply