So last night I was sitting around chatting to a few people about various things when something dawned on me. After some quick verification it turned out that today is the first anniversary of the birth of FTB.
Twelve Months ago a group of us sat around in the Direwolf20 IRC channel just chilling and chatting with not a lot planned for the weekend. In order to help pass the time I came up with an idea to have a race against one of the other Direwolf20 Admins (aka Nishtown) to see who could built 10 items from various mods
the quickest. Honestly when compiling the list, I expected it to last a week or two. It included items such as a functioning Red Power Sorting System and a working Industrial Craft Nuclear Reactor. We played using the same pack that Direwolf20 was using for his series. Instead of taking a week or more, less that 48 hours later, we finished within 20 minutes of each other.
We had enough fun that weekend that the following weekend we did something similar, except this time we started in a void world with a glass monument to display items.People watched this on stream and enough people were interested in trying it out for themselves that we released a private little pack for our community. The map started to grow in popularity within our community to the point where we really wanted to do something that was a bit more special. Getting together with a few members of the community we expanded on the idea and one of the community members (Shadow) put forth a plan to automate the process of item in, reward out. That map was built and released to the community at large. Soon after we built a multiplayer version on request for Direwolf20 and Nearbygamer and much fun was had while they spent 4 hours (I kid you not) trying to figure out how to get iron.
The youtube series was a huge success, but one thing always held us back. There was no easy way to install the mods or the map. Various attempts were made to get a solution to this and in time the FTB launcher was released and the forums created. The community expanded rapidly and today we arrive at a point where I look back at what has been an incredible year. Along the way of course there has been high points and low points as inevitably always happens. Good friends have been made and an awesome community has evolved around us.
However we havent even come close to finishing yet. Plans are already in place for the future. Work has already started on the next generation of FTB maps. In a couple of months we will have a group of FTB staff getting together at Pax East where we plan to host an open FTB server and an Official FTB Tournament hosted by the Pax East team. We still have more official packs that will be released once the necessary mods have been completed and some other stuff behind the scenes that we will talk about in the future.
I want to finish this post by doing what people normally do at times like this, and that is thanking everyone who has contributed towards FTB over the last 12 months. The amount of people that have had involvement in one form or another is pretty insane. When you take into account Mod Developers, Website Developers, Launcher Team, Pack Team, Map Builders, Forum Moderators and many many more people, I wouldn't even want to guess how many people that is. Well over a hundred though at a guess. Of course I have to thank everyone who uses the FTB launcher and have played the maps. We haven't always gotten things right, but we have always tried to do our best and no matter what,most have you have stuck by us.
p.s.For anyone still reading this long post, on a personal level to celebrate this year, I will be recreating the event that started it all off. From 5pm GMT (12pm EST) I will be livestreaming
on twitch.tv/slowpoke101 where we will follow in the footsteps of a year ago. A list of 10 achievements have been set out and a random spawn will be selected. This will start a race to complete the objectives in the fastest time. (there are no prizes, this is purely for fun.) Everyone is invited to join in over the weekend. A section in the forums will be opened up where you can link streams or youtube videos of your attempts or if you want just post screenshots of your progress through the challenges. I am sure along the way we will be joined by all sorts of people stopping by to say hello etc, so feel free to join in.
Thanks,
Slowpoke.
Twelve Months ago a group of us sat around in the Direwolf20 IRC channel just chilling and chatting with not a lot planned for the weekend. In order to help pass the time I came up with an idea to have a race against one of the other Direwolf20 Admins (aka Nishtown) to see who could built 10 items from various mods
the quickest. Honestly when compiling the list, I expected it to last a week or two. It included items such as a functioning Red Power Sorting System and a working Industrial Craft Nuclear Reactor. We played using the same pack that Direwolf20 was using for his series. Instead of taking a week or more, less that 48 hours later, we finished within 20 minutes of each other.
We had enough fun that weekend that the following weekend we did something similar, except this time we started in a void world with a glass monument to display items.People watched this on stream and enough people were interested in trying it out for themselves that we released a private little pack for our community. The map started to grow in popularity within our community to the point where we really wanted to do something that was a bit more special. Getting together with a few members of the community we expanded on the idea and one of the community members (Shadow) put forth a plan to automate the process of item in, reward out. That map was built and released to the community at large. Soon after we built a multiplayer version on request for Direwolf20 and Nearbygamer and much fun was had while they spent 4 hours (I kid you not) trying to figure out how to get iron.
The youtube series was a huge success, but one thing always held us back. There was no easy way to install the mods or the map. Various attempts were made to get a solution to this and in time the FTB launcher was released and the forums created. The community expanded rapidly and today we arrive at a point where I look back at what has been an incredible year. Along the way of course there has been high points and low points as inevitably always happens. Good friends have been made and an awesome community has evolved around us.
However we havent even come close to finishing yet. Plans are already in place for the future. Work has already started on the next generation of FTB maps. In a couple of months we will have a group of FTB staff getting together at Pax East where we plan to host an open FTB server and an Official FTB Tournament hosted by the Pax East team. We still have more official packs that will be released once the necessary mods have been completed and some other stuff behind the scenes that we will talk about in the future.
I want to finish this post by doing what people normally do at times like this, and that is thanking everyone who has contributed towards FTB over the last 12 months. The amount of people that have had involvement in one form or another is pretty insane. When you take into account Mod Developers, Website Developers, Launcher Team, Pack Team, Map Builders, Forum Moderators and many many more people, I wouldn't even want to guess how many people that is. Well over a hundred though at a guess. Of course I have to thank everyone who uses the FTB launcher and have played the maps. We haven't always gotten things right, but we have always tried to do our best and no matter what,most have you have stuck by us.
p.s.For anyone still reading this long post, on a personal level to celebrate this year, I will be recreating the event that started it all off. From 5pm GMT (12pm EST) I will be livestreaming
on twitch.tv/slowpoke101 where we will follow in the footsteps of a year ago. A list of 10 achievements have been set out and a random spawn will be selected. This will start a race to complete the objectives in the fastest time. (there are no prizes, this is purely for fun.) Everyone is invited to join in over the weekend. A section in the forums will be opened up where you can link streams or youtube videos of your attempts or if you want just post screenshots of your progress through the challenges. I am sure along the way we will be joined by all sorts of people stopping by to say hello etc, so feel free to join in.
Thanks,
Slowpoke.
