Sunday, June 18, 2023

Minecraft Windows 10 edition (app) - edit player name for offline multiplayer

problem: you wish to change your local multiplayer player name

In the Windows 10 edition (not Java), there doesn't seem to be an obvious, straightforward way to change the player name for offline LAN multiplayer.

impact: you cannot change your player name

solution: edit options.txt file

When you run these steps, a txt file will open and you can edit the  mp_playername option to your desired player name for local LAN multiplayer games.

Tested on Minecraft version 1.19.81.

The steps are as follows:

  1. Close Minecraft if open.
  2. Select and copy CTRL+C this path to the options.txt file:
    "%LocalAppData%\Packages\Microsoft.MinecraftUWP_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalState\games\com.mojang\minecraftpe\options.txt" 
  3. WIN+R (open the run prompt)
  4. CTRL+V (paste the path)
  5. ENTER (your default editor for .txt files should open e.g. Notepad)
  6. Edit  mp_playername option (white-space and certain characters likely restricted)
  7. CTRL+S (save the file)
  8. Load Minecraft to see the change.

citation:

I didn't find a direct source for this, but some things I read while researching solutions gave me the idea to search within configuration files that might contain a solution. I found options.txt and the change worked.