What are Minecraft Realms?

The recent Minecraft 1.5 snapshots have included a secret little menu option called Minecraft Realms. This new option is only available to a select number of players but will soon become a public feature available to everyone.

What is a Minecraft Realm?

A Minecraft Realm is a fancy name for a public Minecraft server that's hosted by Mojang. When we say 'Hosted' we mean its running on a Mojang server remotely in the cloud.

When you start Minecraft you might see the new Minecraft Realm option below the Singplayer and Multiplayer options on the main menu.

There is a direct 1-to-1 relationship between a Minecraft Realm (server) and a Minecraft world. So for example, you can't have one realm running several worlds. Each world is a separate Realm with its own name.

How to create a Realm

Clicking the Minecraft Realm option takes you to the Realm options menu. From here you can:

Join a Server (Realm)
Create a World
Configure

Clicking 'Create World' will create your own personal Realm (server). Once created, you can configure your Realm and invite players to join the server.

Minecraft Realm - Create World Options

There are only a few basic options available at the moment including:

Realm Name - the name of your server
Description - a short description
Reset World - deletes the current world and creates a new one
Close World - deletes the world and stops the server
Subscription - allows you to check your subscription status and see how many days are left
Invite/Uninvite Players - allow players to join your server

At the moment you can only invite 4 players to join a Realm which is similar to the Xbox edition of Minecraft.

Note: The Realm option is only available to a select number of Alpha testers so you probably won't see it yet.

Why use Minecraft Realms? Good and bad points

Minecraft Realms are not free but there are good reasons why someone would want to pay for them. They would appeal to players who find it hard to setup their own Minecraft server at home because of inadequate computer hardware or limited broadband speeds.

We take a look at the good and bad points about Minecraft Realms:

Good

Excellent up time - the server will always be available and your world will be backed up
Connection speed - connection speeds to these servers are going to be super fast. Much faster than your average home broadband.
Quick and easy to setup - creating a realm is a piece of cake, no fiddling about with ports or firewalls
No electricity bills - running a 24/7 home server eats into your electricity bills

Bad

They cost money - you need to pay the subscription fees
Limited number of players - you can only invite 4 players (currently)
No mods - mods are not supported on Realm servers

Minecraft Realms are still a fairly new concept so expect to see lots of new features in the coming months including the all-important pricing structure.