5 year old playing Minecraft

[Ashleynicole228]

My son has started playing Minecraft the past month. I have gotten into it with him. He really enjoys it but doesn't know anyone else that plays. Does anyone have kids that play and can tell me how to enter a code to play together? I'm lost on that part!  Also, how much Minecraft is too much? haha

[prouddad3]

We have a 6-year old son and a 4 1/2 year-old who are now obsessed with minecraft, going strong now since about christmas.

What you will need:

1)  a registered account for each player ($26.95 per account from minecraft.net).   

2)  a computer (desktop or laptop) for each player

3)  a router for your home network

To play with your kid(s) at home:

a)  start up a single player game on 'your' machine, using your registered minecraft account

b)  hit the ESCape key and select "open to LAN"

c) on your child's machine, log in to minecraft under his account and choose "multiplayer".  At this point, the machine should recognize that there is a LAN game available and you can connect to it.

The above is assuming you have the PC version, of course.   I tried to get multiple machines to connect to each other using my own account, but it didnt work.   When i bought 'gift codes' and registered unique accounts for each of my kids, it worked like a charm!   I much prefer playing on our own LAN rather than exposing my kids to the wild west of the internet at their young age.  We have a blast

[Ashleynicole228]

I downloaded a version onto the PC. It isn't registered so I guess I cannot play from my PC with him on his?
 

[prouddad3]

correct, you need to purchase an account for each player via http://minecraft.net/store to enable multiplayer.  The minecraft game file (minecraft.exe) is free, but multiplayer requires the paid version, which is account-based

[SpiderMum]

My 4-year-old likes to play with us. She can't do much yet, but she likes to sit in our lap and help us design stuff.

I've started playing with other people on an unschooler server online. Check it out" http://www.icomputerz.net/

[Ashleynicole228]

Okay we got two accounts now! All paid for ;) I found a server last night and we played for a long time building a lot, and now today the server won't connect. I'm going to try to open a LAN and play that way. I applied for the unschooling whitelist server from the link about, but I am not completely sure what unschooling is. We have a lot of fun but most servers we find are hard to play and confusing and has bad behaviors.

[Ashleynicole228]

Originally Posted by prouddad3 

We have a 6-year old son and a 4 1/2 year-old who are now obsessed with minecraft, going strong now since about christmas.

What you will need:

1)  a registered account for each player ($26.95 per account from minecraft.net).   

2)  a computer (desktop or laptop) for each player

3)  a router for your home network

To play with your kid(s) at home:

a)  start up a single player game on 'your' machine, using your registered minecraft account

b)  hit the ESCape key and select "open to LAN"

c) on your child's machine, log in to minecraft under his account and choose "multiplayer".  At this point, the machine should recognize that there is a LAN game available and you can connect to it.

The above is assuming you have the PC version, of course.   I tried to get multiple machines to connect to each other using my own account, but it didnt work.   When i bought 'gift codes' and registered unique accounts for each of my kids, it worked like a charm!   I much prefer playing on our own LAN rather than exposing my kids to the wild west of the internet at their young age.  We have a blast

Okay I did exactly as you said. I went on my sons computer, yes a PC, and clicked multiplayer, it recognized my open LAN world but would not connect at all to it. I tried starting a world on his PC and opening to LAN then came to my PC but it won't even recognize an open LAN at all ;(

[Cassidy68]

My son's friend had this problem at a Minecraft playdate here a few days ago-- turned out his laptop's firewall was blocking it. Try turning off the firewall on his computer and see if that does it...

[prouddad3]

Originally Posted by Ashleynicole228 

Okay I did exactly as you said. I went on my sons computer, yes a PC, and clicked multiplayer, it recognized my open LAN world but would not connect at all to it. I tried starting a world on his PC and opening to LAN then came to my PC but it won't even recognize an open LAN at all ;(

ah ok, yeah Minecraft LAN can be finicky with firewalls.   The good news is since your son's computer can see your world, you are close.  (I went through similar hoops)

1)  First thing to try is:  write down the number (ie 192.168.1.251:54567 *just an example*) that you see from your son's computer after it sees the open LAN world on your computer.  Then on that same screen, choose "direct connect" option and type in that exact string of numbers that you saw.   For some reason, direct connect works 'better' that simply clicking on the open LAN world.  Hopefully, this will do the trick

If this doesn't work or if your operating system (OS) is windows 7, let me know

[lilempressmommy]

sorry, I know this is an old thread but couldn't help resurrecting it! My husband just started playing Minecraft on the XBox and our daughter is enthralled. (I probably would be too but I have no time to play!) I may set up her homeschool laptop to play too. Need to check out the specs.