Building Minecraft Server Modifications

It shows a lot of what to do and I think it is good if you are making a server

After reading the first 3 chapters I was able to create my first sample plugin for the Minecraft Bukkit (CraftBukkit) server software. Building Minecraft Server Mods is the first book by Cody "Codisimus" Sommers. A great piece of technical writing by a beginner, the first version of the book does suffer from a few editing errors, but I believe that to be a problem caused by the publisher and should not be held against the author. This book is not for beginners, and Cody explains that very early on. I have a bit of experience with Java and I teach computer programming so I had no trouble following the explanations. Cody explains just enough to you to complete the things you need without making it too complicated. I did have a few problems at the start because I tried using Eclipse (which I am not very familiar with) instead of NetBeans which Cody uses throughout the book but I was able to get everything working. He even provides a link to his website where readers can learn basic Java if they don't have experience with the language. The examples are simple enough to understand but complex enough to make them useful and to give you more meat to work on for developing your own plugins or using his examples as a base to start from. The prose of the book is very informal and should be easy to understand for most readers. I was quite happy to start learning how to create plugins for Minecraft servers and the ideas provided in Cody's book have really got me excited about starting some projects. Great work by a new author!

This a good way to get started learning the Bukkit API. It does have its flaws. The first (though beyond the author's control and probably not a problem when it first came out) is that its becoming outdated. The first plugin you write assumes a method that now returns a collection will return an array. Fortunately its not easy to convert, but you have to know enough Java and be familiar enough with your IDE to to figure it out. Someone who wasn't yet comfortable with these things could be lost. Another is the paradox of saying you should know Java before hand for the book to be useful, and then assuming you don't and teaching a lot of Java basics. I know this probably isn't really completely a flaw, as many may read don't have this knowledge, but for me it did at times feel like too much hand holding on knowledge I thought would be assumed. I would say that if you want to do much with Bukkit of Forge you should know or learn Java -- it will really open up possibilities, and is really the only way you can fully understand anything you aren't spoon-fed. The third is that it spend too much time just talking about servers and how to run them for my taste. Again, like with the Java basics this cuts both ways as many are likely to pick this up because they are into the game and dream of running a server and having custom plugins without actually having run a server before. Slow is something that cuts both ways, depending on how much you know -- for many it may be a good things -- if you know how to run servers and know Java (I've been using Java for years, have run a couple small servers, and written Forge mods, so I probably was ahead of many readers) this may seem to go to slow and the first three chapters may be skipable, but its still does a good job introducing Bukkit). If you are completely new to all this, then this will get you started, as long as your willing to keep learning. Over all its a good book, a good way to get started with the Bukkit API; also, the Kindle version is an excellent deal and lack the flaws found in Kindle editions of some books. Just be warned that in the future Bukkit itself my come to be replaced by a newer API called Spoonge.

Great book! Ever wanted to learn the ins and outs of a Minecraft server? Find all the information in one place can often be challenging. This book walks you through setting up a Craftbukkit server and essential plugins. Then it takes you further into explaining how you too can build custom plugins to work with Minecraft. I am only currently half way through the book, but am totally delighted. I have read and reviewed other books thinking I just wasted so much time and it didn't even deliver what the title promised. I am very pleased with this book so far. If you are excited and want to learn about Minecraft multiplayer servers I recommend this title.

It is short, but it really has the important points that I needed for a minecraft server setup.

This book does not live up to its promises - can it be called a book at all? It's so thin! - I was really disappointed when opening the packet. "_That_ is a book?" were my first thoughts. Scanning through the text did not mitigate me either. My impression is that the author wastes the first 50% of the pages with how to setup a minecraft server on a windows machine. Oh Lord! I wanted to learn about building server mods ("plugins") - as the title suggests - and not be told how to fire up the minecraft-server. If the author thinks that's really necessary, why not just write "download there release of your choise from dl.bukkit.org and the `java -jar craftbukkit-dev.jar` in your favourite shell, be it windows or unix). The rest of the book does not have much conent either. You'll learn more if you download some simple plugins from github, and read the the API docs on http://jd.bukkit.org/rb/apidocs/ I waited for 3 weeks for this book, and now that I have it, I'm really disappointed Maybe I'll just send it back. It's not worth the - how much is it? - 30 bucks!