What is Better Minecraft Fabric 1.18?
Better Minecraft Fabric is one of many “Better Minecraft” mod packs by Sharkie. Their goal is generally to keep the minecraft vanilla feel, but add lots of adventure and quality of life mods without changing the major minecraft feel. You won’t get mods with machines, storage, and lots of automation. But you will find structures, new mobs, loot, and danger at every turn. And a quest book.
- Install CurseForge
- Installing Better Minecraft Fabric 1.18
- Installing a local server
- Installing a Free Better Minecraft Fabric 1.18 Server
- Playing the Game
1. Install CurseForge
If you don’t already have the CurseForge mod loader, you should download it for your Operating system.
Then run the installer from your download directory. This may require that you also install the Overwolf desktop app, which is the company that owns CurseForge. This is required to run curseforge and is not a problem. It’s a legitimate software if not extraneous.
Once it is installed, run the CurseForge App, which will look like this if you have a fresh install
Choose “Minecraft” and you’ll be on the Minecraft Java Edition “My Modpacks” page
2. Install Better Minecraft Fabric Instance
In CurseForge, click on Browse Modpacks and search for Better Minecraft.
Click the Install button
The modpack will start installing and when it’s finished, the Play button will appear
Click Play to launch the client
The Minecraft Launcher will update if necessary and load in its own window. At this point, you can close CurseForge if you want. It’s important to note here that while CurseForge loads the Minecraft Launcher, you should always start in CurseForge by clicking the play button. If you run the Minecraft Launcher directly, you may not get the right mod launcher changes. Always start with CurseForge and let it run Minecraft. Unless you’re just playing vanilla minecraft, of course, then it’s fine.
Now that we’re in the Minecraft Launcher, be sure you’re logged in with your Microsoft account.
Make sure the installation next to the Play button reads “Better Minecraft…” and hit play
It’ll take a while for Minecraft to load. That’s completely normal, and for some modpacks it can take many minutes and can look like it has crashed with a white “not responding screen. This is normal! Give it up to 20 minutes (seriously!), though this modpack shouldn’t take that long.
Once Better Minecraft Fabric loads, you will see this screen.
You can click Singleplayer and play by yourself. But we’re here to make a server. So let’s do that!
If you or a friend already have a server, or don’t want one and you’re just going to play locally on your own computer, you can skip to step 4 after Minecraft loads.
3. Install the Better Minecraft Fabric Server
There are many ways to install a Minecraft server. You can install locally and open up your computer and router to share with friends, you can use a cloud or VPS hosting provider that allows you to run Linux and set everything up yourself, or you can go with a Minecraft hosting provider.
We’re going to talk about installing it locally for people to connect to your PC. However if that gets to be too much trouble, or too much for your PC to handle, I recommend going with a Minecraft host. My favorite is StickyPiston.
So if at any point, you’re like, “Nope! I don’t want to do all this”, just skip to the next section called “The Easy Button“
Install the Server Locally
Make sure you have Java installed and available to the server
First you need to make sure you have the correct version of Java installed and available to the server script. Your PC has Java *somewhere* since Minecraft can run, but it may not be in the correct place to run the server. Better Minecraft Fabric runs on Minecraft 1.18.2, which requires Java 17.
Run the windows CMD to open a command window and type java –version, like this:
You want to see 17 (or later) as the major version. If you don’t have it, you’ll need to install it. Or you can find the Java run-time that Minecraft uses to run the game, but it’s probably just easier to run the installer so it’s avaialable everywhere.
There are a number of places to get Java, most google searches will lang you on Oracle. Which can be a bit overwhelming. I like the Adoptium website.
That link will take you to the releases page. Select your operating system (probably Windows), version (17), and package type (JRE). You can use the JDK, but it’s not necessary. You probably want the x64 version, and the .msi version is an easy installer. Choose that and run it.
Download the ServerPack
Back in CurseForge, download the server pack by clicking on the Download Server Pack link. You can also get it directly from CurseForge.com, here:
After it’s downloaded, find the file in your Downloads folder and click on it to extract the contents into their own folder
Then you’ll get a popup like this. You can specify a new location to extract the server to, or leave it in Downloads. It’s probably a good idea to put it somewhere else, but that’s up to you.
R
Once that’s finished, you’ll see a new folder where you extracted it. Open that folder and it will look something like this.
Click the More info button to allow yourself to Run the startup script.
Click Run anyway.
Type “I agree” and hit enter. It will finish downloading the files it needs and will run the Minecraft server.
As you can see, it crashed. But that’s ok. It’s on purpose. Press any key to continue and go back to the folder above to click start.bat again.
The server is now running and you can connect to it from your own local game by entering localhost in the server address.
Anyone on your local network should be able to connect to it by putting your local IP address with the port 25565, for example 10.0.0.20:25565.
You can find your own local IP address by running the ipconfig.exe program from a command prompt.
Friends OUTside of your network will need your public IPV4 address and enter that into their server configuration, again with :25565 at the end of it.
You can find your public IPV4 address from any number of websites like this one: https://whatismyipaddress.com/
If your friends cannot connect to your server, that probably means your router needs to be configured for port forwarding. That’s not something we’re able to cover here but you can do that if you are able to connect to your server’s router. Put your network’s gateway address into your router to connect to it. Or contact your ISP.
To get that and your local IP address, type cmd into the windows search bar and run the command prompt. Then in the command prompt
Then in the command prompt type ipconfig.exe and enter. Here’s where to find your local IP address and gateway address.
4. The Easy Button!
Try it out on a Free Sticky Piston Server for 24 hours that you can continue with ongoing
The easiest way to play with friends on a server is to get a managed minecraft server with a Minecraft hosting service. There are many options, but my favorite is StickyPiston. You can get a free 24 hour trial on StickyPiston.co where you can try out a modpack for free, alone or with friends! No credit card is required and it just takes a minute.
Be sure that Minecraft is running and ready to go before you do this step. If nobody logs in in a few minutes, this trial server is shut down and deleted. If that happens, you can start another one, but that’s just more time!
Click here to go to Better Minecraft Fabric on StickyPiston.co
On the homepage search for Better Minecraft. Better Minecraft [FABRIC] – 1.18 will appear.
From here you can either click the blue button to get a free 24-hour trial or click the yellow button to order a server directly.
If you do the free trial, you can convert your server to a paid 7-day, 30-day, or longer.
Here’s what the Free Trial process looks like. After clicking tht blue Trial button, you should end up on the trial page for Better Minecraft Fabric.
Note: You may need to search for “Better Minecraft” and you’ll see it. Click on “Better Minecraft Fabric” and scroll down.
Click the “Start Server Now” button. You can check the box that you’ve installed & started the modpack because you have! You should make sure that the versions match.
You can see the version of the modpack in CurseForge on the “My Modpacks” screen. If these don’t match, it won’t run!
Once you start the server, you’ll get this prompt, if you choose “Yes” you can enter your email to get the server link sent to you in case you want to keep this server later. If you choose “No”, you’ll have another chance in the server screen on the StickyPiston website before the trial ends, but this is safest because after it’s gone, it’s gone!
If you’re quick, you can watch the server load and see the console log fill up with messages.
When it’s finished, the Orange “Starting” spinner changes to green “Online”. That’s it! you’re all set.
Click on the IP address and port to copy it. Send it to your friends so they can log in too!
And let’s go back to Minecraft…
5. Play the Game!
If you’re playing on a server, click the “Multiplayer” button. If you’re playing by yourself with no server, click “Singleplayer” and create a world there, and you’re finished. Playing on a server with friends is fun, and there are also lots of other good reasons to play on a server, which you can read about here: 10 Reasons to Play Minecraft on a Hosted Server. If you want to try a server, jump back to step 3.
Click the “Add Server” button to enter your server info.
Enter anything you want for the Server Name, and paste the IP address and port into the Server Address field. you need the whole thing!
Note: If you are playing on your own PC, enter just “localhost”
Then click Done.
After the server is loaded, you’ll see it appear with a “0/4” and a green set of bars. You may see spinning blue bars, which means the server is still loading.
Click on the server name and click “Join Server” or you can click the arrow that appears over the icon on the left.
You’ll see some loading screens and then you’ll be in the game. You’re ready to play!
You can see that I have a quest book and a biomes book. There’s some structure over there that I’ve never seen before. Let’s go check it out! That’s what this pack is all about — Exploring!
If you’re using a StickyPiston trial server, keep in mind as long as someone is logged in, your server will be available for up to 24 hours. After that, you can continue your world in a paid server.
Click the Yellow button to order a server with this world (or a new one) or if you’ve entered your email, there will be a link there!
Have fun!
If you do order a premium server from StickyPiston, use the code “JANGRO” for 20% off monthy or longer plans, for life! That lets them know that I sent you, and I get a small commission. Your purchase helps support my content creation and spreading the modded word!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8poiPHLjQes
Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this article. If you have any feedback or questions, please post them in the comments. And please do check out my YouTube Channel. Link below.
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