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Is there a way to stop players being able to see the level seed in Minecraft SMP 1.8 when they press F3? Because they could use this seed to generate a copy of the world and then find the location of strongholds, dungeons, ores etc.

DanielGibbs
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    ...why are you worried about players generating copies of a world in the first place? How is knowing the seed any different from simply opening up the files in an editor and looking manually? – Raven Dreamer Sep 17 '11 at 04:33
  • This world may be copyrighted ... who knows :P – Warface Sep 17 '11 at 04:36
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    @Raven I think he's looking at this from a server admin perspective. Obviously, the players who generate the world at home would have an advantage over those who don't, seeing as only the admin has access to the actual files. – John the Green Sep 17 '11 at 04:36
  • @John - my point is, if he's worried about players having an unfair advantage, there are easier ways to garner one than genning a copy based on the world seed. – Raven Dreamer Sep 17 '11 at 04:37
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    @Raven Hmm, ok. Totally did not get that from your first comment. – John the Green Sep 17 '11 at 04:38
  • @Raven But on a multiplayer server the players don't really have access to the level seed do they? So how could they cheat? – DanielGibbs Sep 17 '11 at 04:47
  • @DanieL - By the virtue of the fact that they're playing on the server at all, their computer has to have parts of the map downloaded to it. It's possible to parse through this if you're technically adept and so inclined. See this answer – Raven Dreamer Sep 17 '11 at 04:53
  • I suppose, but the players I'm concerned about are not that technically adept, but they could easily get the level seed from F3 and then use that. – DanielGibbs Sep 17 '11 at 05:33
  • @Warface secret seed number, would that be like an illegal prime? – Nick T Sep 22 '11 at 00:25

2 Answers2

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While I doubt you can do much to change the client that people use to connect to your server, here's my terribly convoluted solution:

Explore a great deal of the map to force it to be generated then edit the seed in the level.dat file. It should report what the current seed is (which will only do anything when they go further out than you did...and there might be a huge discontinuity when you do).

Nick T
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  • Thanks for your answer. I did actually think of doing something similar to this, but decided against it as it would kinda make the world rather weird. – DanielGibbs Sep 17 '11 at 10:06
  • IF someone wanted to go with this solution, you could probably use a bot to explore the world for you. – Wipqozn Sep 17 '11 at 10:43
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    This is a good if not the only solution, just keep in mind that when you change the seed you also change the biome locations, it may snow in the desert. – hultqvist Sep 17 '11 at 13:53
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Perhaps generate the world in a snapshot, and then update it. The seed should only be able to replicate the world if generated in the same snapshot.

Kane
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