The client now logs in and checks the profile after the most recent update to Minecraft Java Edition. This occurs both when the launcher is used and when the Minecraft client is opened. As such you can no longer simple edit the launcher_profiles. json and alter the profile name to use a single Minecraft account for multiplayer LAN games.
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You want to play Minecraft with your family, but there is only one account available. You won’t be able to play online, but you should all be able to play locally over the network without the need for additional accounts with a few configuration file adjustments.
Why Would I Want To Do This?
The answer depends entirely on what you want your kids to do with Minecraft and what their goals are, which is a common source of confusion among parents buying Minecraft for their children.
Each of your children will require a different premium Minecraft account, which costs $27, if you want them to be able to play simultaneously online so they can access different Minecraft communities and servers. Each login to Minecraft is authenticated by the servers, and each user must have a distinct and legitimate Minecraft ID.
However, you don’t need numerous paid premium accounts if all you want is for your children (or friends) to play together at home on the local area network (LAN). You can effectively “clone” a user who has a premium account as long as there is only one such user, and you can modify the profiles of the secondary users to permit extra players to join local games.
The modification prevents you all from playing online and prevents other users from having authorized access to the Minecraft authentication or skin servers. This isn’t a crack or piracy exploit. It does have one drawback, though: when other players view the players, they will all have the same default “Steve” skin. However, it’s a reasonable method for a family to quickly organize a Minecraft LAN party without spending hundreds of dollars on premium licenses.
Having said that, we would encourage you to purchase a full account if you discover that your family is using Minecraft seriously and that the “clone” client you created for the younger children is well-liked. Your child will not only be able to play on the countless fantastic Minecraft servers available and get unique skins for their player character, but you’ll also be helping the game’s development. Even though 99% of my family%E2%80%99s Minecraft play is done in-house on our LAN, for example, everyone in my family has their own account
Let’s look at how to easily get multiple clients running on the LAN for readers who are eager to get started right away. We strongly advise reading The Parents’ Guide to Minecraft for an excellent overview of the game and its premise as well as the multi-part Geek School series covering beginner and advanced Minecraft play for those who are new to the game or parents who may already be feeling a little overwhelmed.
You most likely already have everything you need if you’re reading this guide. But before we move on to the how-to stage, let’s briefly describe what is necessary.
First, you’ll need at least one premium Minecraft account. To ensure that the premium account downloads the necessary assets, you must log into it at least once on each computer you plan to use to play Minecraft.
Second, you’ll need one computer for each additional player. You will be able to play on the local network with a non-conflicting username after a semi-permanent change is made to your Minecraft player profile on this computer. (Keep in mind that none of your game saves or other data will be deleted or in danger of being deleted; however, you’ll need to go back and undo this process if you want to log in with your regular account once more. ).
Finally, you’ll need to create a straightforward resource pack if you want to make local changes to the secondary players’ skins (which will let them see their distinctive skins but won’t affect how others see them due to Minecraft skin authentication). Unless you have a player who sincerely desires a custom skin (that, once again, only they will be able to see), you can skip this final step. In the tutorial’s final section, we’ll walk you through this procedure.
How to Configure the Secondary Clients
You can make all the necessary configuration changes on the backup computers. You won’t ever need to make any changes to the primary Minecraft computer (the one that the original account holder uses), so feel free to continue with the tutorial while seated at one of your secondary computers.
Let’s demonstrate what happens if you try to log in without making the required configuration changes before we get started with the changes. The following error message will appear if the secondary player attempts to join the primary player’s open LAN game while using the primary player’s account:
Minecraft essentially says “Wait. You can’t be John. John already exists!” and that’s the end of it. Local LAN games respect the rule that there shouldn’t be two identical players in the same game even though they don’t fully authenticate through the Minecraft servers like official (and third party) servers do. After all, the effects would be disastrous if it permitted two identical players to sign up for the game because crucial features like on-character inventory and Ender Chest inventories are connected to the player’s username in the world save file.
We must, you guessed it, give the secondary player a new name in order to get around the name check and prevent the mistakes that occur when two players have the same name. To accomplish this, we must simply alter one of the Minecraft configuration files.
Use the convenient shortcut in your Minecraft launcher to quickly navigate to the configuration file in order to access it (without having to sift through the configuration folders).
In order to download the necessary files and prepare the secondary computer for use, you must run the Minecraft launcher at least once and sign in with your primary Minecraft account before continuing. Logging in and clicking the “Play” button once, as you would if you were going to play a regular game of Minecraft, completes the process.
After completing the initial run through to obtain the assets, launch the Minecraft launcher once more as shown above. Note the “Welcome, [username]” entry in the lower right-hand corner first. The name at this point ought to be that of your premium Minecraft account. It should read “Welcome, SuperAwesomeMinecraftGuy” if your Minecraft username is SuperAwesomeMinecraftGuy.
Click the “Edit Profile” button in the lower left corner after you’ve verified your username.
To quickly access the location of the file we need to edit, choose “Open Game Dir” from the Profile Editor screen.
In the game directory you’ll see a file named “launcher_profiles. json”, as seen highlighted above. Open the file in Notepad or another plain text editor.
Within the . json file you’ll see an entry that looks like this:
The username for the official Minecraft account is John, or whatever name is listed next to “displayName.” Change the name while maintaining the quotation marks to the username of your choice.
To enable John and Angela to play together on the LAN, we are changing “John” to “Angela” in this instance. Since local network games do not authenticate user names against the official Minecraft server, changing your display name will not normally result in an error when logging into a remote Minecraft server.
For the changes to take effect, save the document, shut the Profile Editor window, and restart the Minecraft launcher.
Double check the lower right corner again. The username you edited should now be used in place of the default one for the premium Minecraft account (in our case, it should and does read “Angela”).
Launch Minecraft on your main computer, load a map, and then start LAN play to test everything out. Invite the second player to join the currently running LAN game.
You should see the secondary player with the new username and the default Steve skin, or something similar to what we see in the screenshot above. You’re now to free to play together!.
Keep in mind that, as we noted above, the in-game username is connected to all player data. If “Angela” wants to change her username, she should first transfer all of her in-character belongings into regular chests in a secure area before doing so.
Simply navigate back to the previous page to undo the recent changes we made. Change the displayName variable back to the original value (the user name of the premium account holder) in the json file.
How to Change the Local Skins
The addition of a custom skin for the secondary player is an optional but entertaining step that some players might want to take, as we mentioned earlier in the tutorial.
There is one significant caveat with this: since displayed skins are controlled by the Minecraft content servers, any player who is not authenticated will always be displayed to other players in a default skin. This indicates that if we use this little trick to change Angela’s skin to a different skin, Angela will be the only one to notice the change.
However, it is simple to give the secondary player a custom skin if they really want one for screenshots or just for fun.
The simple Minecraft resource pack is the secret to our little avatar-skin con. In essence, resource packs enable users to replace the texture, or graphic, of almost all game objects with different textures. While typically done to enhance (or change) the appearance of the environment, in our case we can use it to swap out the player skin.
Check out our article How to Restyle Your Minecraft World with Resource Packs for a detailed look at resource packs in general, including how they operate and where to find entertaining resource packs for your game. We’re only going to give you a quick tutorial on how to create a dead-simple resource pack for your secondary player’s skin in this article.
Creating the Resource Pack
Make sure you are initially logged into the computer you just changed the name on. Second, employ the same shortcut we used in the section before to access the game directory (Launcher – Within the game directory, look for the /resourcepacks/ folder.
Within the resource packs folder, create a new folder. You should give it a sensible name, such as “Single Player Skin Changer” or “Angela Skin,” so that you can remember it later (and in the game). Open the folder and create a new text document. Inside the text document paste the following text:
Save the text document as “pack. mcmeta” (make sure you switch the file extension from . txt to . mcmeta, and don’t save it as “pack. mcmeta. txt”). The next step is to make a series of nested folders that resemble the resource pack’s actual asset folders in Minecraft. The “assets” folder needs to have a “minecraft” folder inside of it, and that folder needs to have a “textures” folder inside of it, and so on.
Finally, you need to place the .png file of whatever skin it is you want to use in that folder and rename it “steve.png”. In our case we grabbed this Star Wars Sand Trooper skin from Minecraftskins.com, pasted it into the folder, and renamed it.
Loading the Resource Pack
The following step is to launch the relevant instance of Minecraft and install the resource pack. Select Options – from the in-game menu by pressing the ESC key.
You can see the “HTG Skin” pack we made specifically for this tutorial in the screenshot above. The resource pack icon will change to a Play icon when you first click it. Click it again to move the icon to the “Selected Resource Pack” column. Then click the “Done” button.
The steve. Again, we want to emphasize that only the player applying the resource pack can see the change, but it’s still a fun way to customize the appearance of players on the secondary machines. png file from the resource pack will replace the default Steve skin and, as seen above, you’ll be decked out in the new skin!
Simply alter a configuration file and add an optional resource pack, and you can play Minecraft on a local network with multiple computers. This isn’t a way to hack the game for online play, as we stressed in the introduction, and it does have some restrictions. The technique is appropriate for temporary LAN parties or allowing younger siblings to play. However, if it is within your means to purchase a copy for each full-time player in your family, we strongly advise you to do so.
SAME MINECRAFT ACCOUNT on 2 PC LAN PARTY?! (NEW UPDATE ERROR)
FAQ
Can you play Minecraft multiplayer with the same account?
Players can launch the game on various devices using the same account. There is one key caveat, though. Online play is only possible on one of the devices. The other things can be anywhere in the world doing whatever they want, but servers and other things are limited to one device.
Can two people play Minecraft on one Microsoft account?
In Windows, select the Start button, Settings (cogwheel), Accounts, and then Other Users. After clicking Add Someone Else to This Computer, enter their details.
How to play multiplayer LAN games with a single Minecraft account?
The main action you need to be able to perform is to easily change the player’s profile name on the Minecraft launcher or client. The server uses the profile name to identify each player in the LAN game. To solve this problem, all you have to do is tell the Launcher to run Minecraft in offline mode.
How to play Minecraft on 2 computers with 1 account?
Open a world to LAN, then change your username on a different computer and join the lan world to play on multiple computers using the same account.
