MINECRAFT

I’m always encouraged when my daughters try to find the answer for themselves before coming to dad for help. In this case they were quick to point out to me that there were some 6,940,000 search results for the phrase, “minecraft lan game not showing up” in Google Search.

In this specific case I had a pretty good idea why they couldn’t play Minecraft together over our home network and it wasn’t something that they were likely to figure out searching through Google Search or watching YouTube videos.

I use my personal home network as a testbed of sorts – and wireless is one technology where you need to-do a lot of testing before pushing it into production. I this case I had replaced my trusty Aruba Instant AP-215s with AP-315s in my home and was testing the newer APs and the 8.3.0.0 software. I’ve got a little of everything on my home wireless network, Windows 10, Windows 8.1, MacOS, iOS, Ubuntu Linux, Lenovo, Acer, Apple iPhone, Apple iPod, Roku, Samsung, Amazon Fire, Motorola, Nest Cameras, and various other IOT devices.

The Aruba Instant APs are configured by default to filter all broadcast packets except ARP requests. This prevents the broadcast that Minecraft emits from reaching other players connected to the same home network.

Once I changed the setting to none and applied the changes the girls were able to play Minecraft together via our home network.

The Aruba IAP-315s are 802.11ac Wave 2 access points and support 5GHz 4×4 MIMO (1,733Mbps max rate) and 2.4GHz 2×2 MIMO (300Mbps max rate) radios. I’m pretty happy so far with the testing… no disconnect issues or performance problems.

Cheers!

Like so many other parents my children have taken to playing Minecraft. After observing some of the language and antics on a few of the public servers I decided to setup a private Minecraft server on a Digital Ocean Linux VPS server which they could share with friends and relatives, and hopefully play and enjoy the game in a respectful manner. I recently purchased the Audible audiobook, Minecraft: The Unlikely Tale of Markus ‘Notch’ Persson and the Game that Changed Everything wanting to know more about how Minecraft came to be. It was interesting to hear about how the Notch Persson creation slowly came to life and grew well beyond his wildest dreams.

My oldest daughter actually penned the following on the subject:

Dear Internet,
I’m Jessica and today I’m writing about Minecraft. In case you don’t know what Minecraft is it is a computer game in which you are placed in a world made out of blocks and you can either creative or try to survive in the world. My parents call Minecraft, Mindkill because to them they believe it kills our brains. This is the part I think they are wrong about. I believe that Minecraft can help one’s brain. In survival, you are using strategies in which your brain comes up with. In creative, you are using creatively in builds which uses your brain. This is why I believe Minecraft is a good computer game and can help the brain.
Thank you for reading,
Jessica

In my defense I only refer to Minecraft and Mindkill when the kids have spent too much time on their computers playing the game. It’s actually a very interesting game in that the game empowers the player to really build whatever their imagination can dream up out of simple 1 meter blocks.

Cheers!

Minecraft LAN World and Aruba IAPs

Minecraft, what are my kids playing?

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