FTB and Forge - Curse Partnership.

[TomeWyrm]

<SNIP>
You can bet your sweet ass (as sure as I'm fat) that Curse will figure a way for mods to reside behind it's premium service. This is worse than WoW because no one uses 10 or 20 mods with Wow but we routinely use 40+ mods with Mc. Can you imagine how long it would take, using the current curse client. There goes the speedy updates we currently all enjoy. Hello premium launcher!!
<SNIP>

I currently have well over 100 mods installed to WoW (Assuming you count like FML in other words: how many modules are loaded). The drops to 73 if you go for individual projects (Like Auctioneer/TradeSkillMaster/MogIt/Titan).

EVEN WITH the curse client parallel download limit (Two addons updating at the same time, no more. You can easily queue up 50 at once for a first install of a mod; I know I did when I re-installed WoW recently). This is still 100 times faster to update than even manually FINDING the updates, let alone navigating the download pages, waiting for the ad showing & bot/spam preventing timers, or unzipping them into my addon directory.

Note that the ATLauncher already does a similar serial download process. Automated, yes, but honestly that's how it's going to get done. One mod at a time, maybe you get the convenience feature of being able to click one button, maybe not. But complaining about having to click your mouse 100 times each time waiting for the previous download to finish seems a bit... whiny... to me.

I have 100+ mods (FML count) installed in my private self-assembled pack for my personal LAN server. I USED to have to load up all 70-odd pages (yay for multiple mods from the same author in the same location!) in my browser, either one by one or in a tab folder (both took similar amounts of time thanks to the MASSIVE lag when opening 70 tabs at once).
Then I get to check each of those pages to see if the version numbers changed on any of my mods (thank god I've got that in a list because nobody could be bothered to standardize the versioning outside of the FML screen. Nearly all my mods do this now, but I remember when 3/4 of them were just IronChests.zip and Thaumcraft.jar instead of ironchest-universal-1.6.4-5.4.1.641.zip which I can at least use!)
Then I get to sit through 1-30 adf.ly screens, at 5-8 seconds a pop. Finally I move them to my mods folder and see what breaks (if anything, usually nothing)

Now I'm using NotEnoughMods, but I still have to waste an eternity sitting through adf.ly links.

So the download throttling? Yeah that's not a concern to me. ANYTHING from a central repository will be faster than what we currently have in place other than a pre-assembled and authorized pack like the ones from FTB... and updating even the MegaSuperUltimateAllTheMods pack for 1.7 or whatever? One mod at a time, if the ENTIRE pack needed an update for EVERY SINGLE MOD. It will take something really close to your maximum download rate, you just have to click some.

=================

My only real concern which isn't simply Moderators from other parts of the curse network being power-abusive and wrecking my Minecraft experience. That's not something Slow can really fix, and Curse likely won't block the ability to Globally Ban. That concern is central-location for mods that doesn't have all the mods. I'm hoping that Lex and Slow can manage to make curseforge appeal to the modders at large. If not this venture is pretty doomed. Because while I don't mind adding a mod or two manually... for packs? That will KILL them for the end user.

 

[xbony2]

Alrighty, page doesn't load but ad does?

That sounds just a tad bit too greedy...

Yeah, this might turn out bad.

 

[FredTargaryen]

Ew, Curse.
Well, that's my two pennies' worth.
I suppose the team is in a better position to understand exactly what the changes will be, and make a decision that doesn't diminish the FTB experience, than the rest of us are anyway.
Good luck, guys!

 

[SatanicSanta]

snopes

I think the worst Curse ads are the ones with sound when you hover over them; I am not a fan of ads startling me in 4am.

 

[jymi]

Ouch... While I'm sure this is good for the FTB guys, I can only say I am disappointed, and will have to continue to just build my own private packs and configs. I despise everything that Curse represents and want nothing to do with it. Seems Curse pushes it's Premium Service too much. I understand it's a business, but it is not for me. I wish all the luck to the FTB team though. You all will probably make a buck off of this at least.

 

[Bubbleo]

Wow Bubbleo, go get your free programmers somewhere else then k? If you don't appreciate these particular volunteers, I'm sure there is another batch you can whine to elsewhere.

Just as i suspected as soon as you have anything negative to say the kids come out, helpful hint stop assuming. Also will you be so forgiving when curse is charging you a premium for the service? Sure FTB will say no this wont happen to us but if I know curse like most that have ever played WOW they will find a way of monetizing it. If I am correct they already have with the Vanilla Minecraft side you need to subscribe to be able to utilize some of the features in the client for Minecraft.

Constructive criticism is one thing, but you are just flat out mean, bring it down a notch, being pushy won't get you any answers.

Moving on... There are still 6 months left for the changes to occur, lets just wait and see and talk about cats. CATS CATS CATS

Maybe I should of posted a picture of a fluffy cat then it wouldn't be so mean seriously people FTB ain't made of glass and nor do they need to be wrapped up in cotton wool they won't break if they hear some harsh criticism, and its not being mean its simply stating some issues that are concerning well me, I for one wish to see FTB move forward and grow but to do that they can't keep making plans and not fully following through with them it gets disappointing.

 

[GPuzzle]

This may lead to the Firefly Syndrome - while people like something, they're so afraid of Executive Meddling fucking up everything that they don't help the actual creators, and the thing gets left in the gutter.

 

[BrickVoid]

why are your result different from mine? as example from the first few pages.

No 1. https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CDAQFjAA&url=http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1020822380?page=2&ei=5u3PUtm2H4WThgeOs4HwCA&usg=AFQjCNF-WwbOB0jcO7imHNCQ_-E2nEVVhg&sig2=FQSVhmZINz_bbdAXrnUSLw
post where people confirm its safe. There was a bad ad, curse got rid of it as soon as they could. This is the fault of adsense more than curse.

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&ved=0CD0QFjAB&url=http://support.curse.com/entries/37138437-Security-Issue-Fake-Curse-Site-and-Client&ei=5u3PUtm2H4WThgeOs4HwCA&usg=AFQjCNGQFgyB1vYuPU-BLS6-wk0bdBT00w&sig2=RI2kCfoAgBxg8jMTldQIog

A fake curse client, hardly Curse's fault lots of stories about this.

Ive heard stories of addons with keyloggers as well, we are taking measure to help prevent this.

Regarding no.1 above, I myself have had a bad experience with an ad regarding the current Minecraftforums site hosted by Curse:

I had found that there was an ad of the "1 weird old tip" variety on one of their inline ads on their site, googled it to find out that these ads are not real ads at all, they're fake ads designed to serve people with rubbishy or non-existent products made by people out to scam those that will try anything. By the time I'd reported it, I could not get it to reappear on my browser and the ad definitely was gone, leaving me holding onto thin air that had been the ad.

Curse were of course very understanding and said if I sent an example in they'd look into it, but the problem is that it's dependent on who their ad provider solicts ads from. In the case of Curse, it's supposedly Google+, now if Google+ really had anything to do with serving such rubbish I'm sure they'd have had a lot of complaints and would have withdrawn the ad long ago. Either some configuration on the Minecraftforums site was allowing the wrong ads through, or they have internal problems that I know little about.

I have since tightened up my security regarding advertising this site and plugins that my browser uses so that I don't see any ads at all. However, if you do go through with this deal with Curse, you will expose me to their launcher, and if that launcher interferes with my Minecraft experience by downloading a virus or some other infection program of any description whatsoever, I can say that I will be leaving FTB forthwith.

As for Curse, they seem like a responsible company, I sincerely hope you get what you sign up for. They are very responsive if someone sends in a complaint, whether it's actionable or not, and hopefully the launcher they publish won't have any issues with my antivirus software, as otherwise it will be blocked and prevented from being loaded at all.

A current problem I am having with the Direwolf20 modpack involves constant lag every two seconds in SSP worlds, but I will say this, I'm much more willing to put up with that than being served irresponsible advertising from Curse. I won't go into details of the problem, suffice it to say I believe the creators of that modpack should look into error reports on Mojira regarding bad hash tables for chunks, because that error was not fixed in the Minecraft.exe until after Minecraft 1.6.4 - it basically meant that certain chunks were getting the same hash key, which is not a good thing.

Cheers ...

BrickVoid

 

[Eyamaz]

Regarding no.1 above, I myself have had a bad experience with an ad regarding the current Minecraftforums site hosted by Curse:

I had found that there was an ad of the "1 weird old tip" variety on one of their inline ads on their site, googled it to find out that these ads are not real ads at all, they're fake ads designed to serve people with rubbishy or non-existent products made by people out to scam those that will try anything. By the time I'd reported it, I could not get it to reappear on my browser and the ad definitely was gone, leaving me holding onto thin air that had been the ad.

Curse were of course very understanding and said if I sent an example in they'd look into it, but the problem is that it's dependent on who their ad provider solicts ads from. In the case of Curse, it's supposedly Google+, now if Google+ really had anything to do with serving such rubbish I'm sure they'd have had a lot of complaints and would have withdrawn the ad long ago. Either some configuration on the Minecraftforums site was allowing the wrong ads through, or they have internal problems that I know little about.

I have since tightened up my security regarding advertising this site and plugins that my browser uses so that I don't see any ads at all. However, if you do go through with this deal with Curse, you will expose me to their launcher, and if that launcher interferes with my Minecraft experience by downloading a virus or some other infection program of any description whatsoever, I can say that I will be leaving FTB forthwith.

As for Curse, they seem like a responsible company, I sincerely hope you get what you sign up for. They are very responsive if someone sends in a complaint, whether it's actionable or not, and hopefully the launcher they publish won't have any issues with my antivirus software, as otherwise it will be blocked and prevented from being loaded at all.

A current problem I am having with the Direwolf20 modpack involves constant lag every two seconds in SSP worlds, but I will say this, I'm much more willing to put up with that than being served irresponsible advertising from Curse. I won't go into details of the problem, suffice it to say I believe the creators of that modpack should look into error reports on Mojira regarding bad hash tables for chunks, because that error was not fixed in the Minecraft.exe until after Minecraft 1.6.4 - it basically meant that certain chunks were getting the same hash key, which is not a good thing.

Cheers ...

BrickVoid

As with anyone with lag issues, I refer you to the link in my signature.

 

[QueWhat]

Maybe I should of posted a picture of a fluffy cat then it wouldn't be so mean seriously people FTB ain't made of glass and nor do they need to be wrapped up in cotton wool they won't break if they hear some harsh criticism, and its not being mean its simply stating some issues that are concerning well me, I for one wish to see FTB move forward and grow but to do that they can't keep making plans and not fully following through with them it gets disappointing.

I know I probably shouldn't respond to your statement, and a mod might PM me about feeding fantasy creatures and such, but I felt obliged. After this I shall end this conversation (especially since it is out of topic).

The FTB team is most definitely not made out of glass; they can handle criticism quite well, and they do not need people defending them. However, having spent some time behind the scenes in the past (albeit, a short time) I can confirm that these folks most definitely do what they do freely and do indeed dedicate themselves fully on their free time. Wyld is one of many excellent examples; I remember logging into TS at just about any time of the day and there was Wyld working on the mod pack bugs and drinking his coffee (whether night or morning, he loves coffee). He worked late hours and sacrificed much time and energy while some people were demanding updates and being flat out rude and mean. Anyone on these boards can attest to my personal constructive (and at times, harsh) criticism towards Slow, Jaded, Captain etc. But despite their flaws they have good intentions, because I know I sure as hell couldn't sacrifice myself as much as they have for free (perhaps part of the reason I'm no longer with the team).

My point? Try to be in their shoes and wonder just how motivated you would be to work freely when people are being as mean and unforgiving in their posts. Of course, your form of communication is not new, and after you there will be plenty with similar or worse ways. So I suppose this post is for naught, but still, I said it.

Now, let me introduce you to; FLUFFY KITTY:

Spoiler

He will devour your soul with his fluffy tongue

 

[BrickVoid]

As with anyone with lag issues, I refer you to the link in my signature.

Thanks! That fixed something, for sure! Although I would ask that you forward the part of my post to do with the bad hash table lookup problem to the modpack creator looking after the Direwolf20 pack, because if there's anything they could do to address the issue, that would be much appreciated.

Now all I need to know is why isn't anyone finding my issue in the Direwolf20 thread and posting about it there? If it had been found when I posted it, it would have helped me a lot, and saved me some typing! Perhaps this Curse move might not be so much of a curse after all. Who knows, if it gets me tech support that finds what the actual issue is and lets me know about it sooner, I might just put up with it and see what comes of it.

Cheers ...

BrickVoid

 

[Eyamaz]

Thanks! That fixed something, for sure! Although I would ask that you forward the part of my post to do with the bad hash table lookup problem to the modpack creator looking after the Direwolf20 pack, because if there's anything they could do to address the issue, that would be much appreciated.

Now all I need to know is why isn't anyone finding my issue in the Direwolf20 thread and posting about it there? If it had been found when I posted it, it would have helped me a lot, and saved me some typing! Perhaps this Curse move might not be so much of a curse after all. Who knows, if it gets me tech support that finds what the actual issue is and lets me know about it sooner, I might just put up with it and see what comes of it.

Cheers ...

BrickVoid

Sorry, I don't always get to the direwolf thread. Nana and I are working to overhaul bug reporting (well, mostly him atm. RL is time consuming for me atm) because sifting through the forums is a pita.

As far as the hashkey, nothing I can really do about mojang code.

 

[Jadedcat]

Thanks! That fixed something, for sure! Although I would ask that you forward the part of my post to do with the bad hash table lookup problem to the modpack creator looking after the Direwolf20 pack, because if there's anything they could do to address the issue, that would be much appreciated.

Now all I need to know is why isn't anyone finding my issue in the Direwolf20 thread and posting about it there? If it had been found when I posted it, it would have helped me a lot, and saved me some typing! Perhaps this Curse move might not be so much of a curse after all. Who knows, if it gets me tech support that finds what the actual issue is and lets me know about it sooner, I might just put up with it and see what comes of it.

Cheers ...

BrickVoid

The DW20 bug report thread is huge. I am aware of the hash look up issue. You weren't responded to because I haven't tracked down exactly what is causing it yet. I have to duplicate and track down every bug on the DW20, FTB Lite 2, MF2, and TechWorld 2 threads and take a look at the other threads to see if there's any bugs there I can help with if I have the time. I spend 50 hours a week doing stuff with the modpacks including bug testing I cannot take the time to respond to every bug report with "I'm looking into and will get back to you when I have an answer". Just assume if its posted that we are looking into it and that when we have an answer it will either mysteriously be fixed or we will respond to the post with the known fix.

 

[portablejim]

I don't care that FTB is moving towards Curse. FTB is a group that makes modpacks, maps and a launcher that ties everything up in a nice pretty package. They provide tech support and these forums for the community all for free. They even show up at minecon and host an event or two. This takes money and from what I can tell FTB isn't making a ton so the money has to come from somewhere. So bravo to FTB and I hope all the staff members get a cut of that Curse money.

I am concerned with Forge going under the Curse umbrella. Forge, as I understand it, is THE link between MC and Modded MC (yeah there are some mods that don't need or use forge. No need to mention those as they don't mater in my context). I know Lexmanos has promised it will always be open source and free to use. That's great and I think he could keep Curse from acquiring the license for Forge. However, what if he can't? What happens to modding if Curse gets that license or moves to block the file from being hosted outside Curse? See, this isn't just a move that has consequences for FTB. Forge moving under Curse could be bad for ALL modders that use Forge.

Now, some of you crazy kids will say, "but Sertas, Forge is open source and someone could make a fork of forge and keep it going!" or, "Sertas this is temporary because the Modding API is coming from Mojang. They said so!" or, "Come on guy, it's just the ti......wait, sorry wrong scenario." You're right children except, no one has bothered to make a fork, the modding api is vapor ware until we get a beta and that last part sounds creepy or.....well never mind I digress. Curse getting it's mittens of ad revenue, or evil (depending on your preference) is a really bad thing as they could potentially control all MC modding.

You can bet your sweet ass (as sure as I'm fat) that Curse will figure a way for mods to reside behind it's premium service. This is worse than WoW because no one uses 10 or 20 mods with Wow but we routinely use 40+ mods with Mc. Can you imagine how long it would take, using the current curse client. There goes the speedy updates we currently all enjoy. Hello premium launcher!!

Of course FTB isn't the end all be all for the modding scene. We have Tekkit and At Launcher and both have robust infrastructures and a dedicated fanbase. Yet they all have one thing in common:

FORGE!

Just to refute some points:
1) Future of forge:
All forge is doing is moving the downloads page over to a Curse server. This will:

• Allow, for example, when you go to install Forestry (it's a mod that is curretly on curseforge), it will be able to automatically download forge as well.
• Save money, as he currently uses Adf.ly links on all forge downloads to try and soften the hosting costs.
• Be on a more robust server.

The only forge will be affected is if Lexmanos stops contributing to Forge as on Open Source project, which he has said he will not do. Curse can already fork the project and work on it themselves. Being open source means anybody can work on the code. The only real way they could harm it is to say "While you are employed with us, all code you produce 24x7 is our property.". To which Lex will almost certainly respond with "I quit!" (since he does have another job, Minecraft Forge is just a hobby (if somebody more knowledgeable knows that is wrong, please correct me.)

Lex will have to actually send each release of Forge to the Curse server (or configure one of his own servers to send it for him). If curse starts misbehaving, he stops sending them new versions of Forge and sets up his own server again.

2) The modding api:
The modding API is being implemented, you have already seen part of it...read what I have already written on it.
No, the mooding API will not get rid of Forge. It will mean that a lot of the more simple mods can be written using the API instead of Forge, but some mods are complex to written using the API. And the API should not be as complex as Forge.

 

[SatanicSanta]

I feel like people should understand that Forge can't be closed source; mods would not be able to be "legally" developed if it was closed.

 

[poxun]

Oh well. The Minecraft modding scene and community was good while it lasted. When the switch to Curse happens I'm going to be looking for something else to play.

My background: I used to play WoW along with several friends, wrote a small addon that while not widely popular, was well liked by those who used it.

When Curse came along and consumed all the small modding communities...
I had difficulties updating my addon.
Curse destroyed the small addon developer community I was a part of.
The Curse client kept breaking my mod due to the way it installed it.
When I tried to engage with the Curse community I got a ban for something that was not against the rules (moderator overstepping mark/not reading context before banning) which was later overturned but during that time I lost access to updating my addon. I stopped posting on the forums.
I was annoyed that Curse were effectively making money off my hard work and pretty much did nothing in return.
(edit)Growth in popularity of my mod stalled due to the way Curse emphasised popularity in the way it presented lists of mods to players as mine was always several pages down.
I stopped working on it as it was too much hassle dealing with the issues and idiots that complained the mod didn't do something it didn't actually claim to do.
For months afterwards I would continue to get direct messages through the Curse system to my email inbox asking why I stopped and was only able to stop these by changing my email on Curse to a non existent address.
Two of my friends had their WoW accounts stolen apparently via malware from infected Curse ads which Blizzard did nothing useful about.
One day just after updating my addons my anitvirus popped up suspicious activity from a "system" file. I ended up having to restore from a week old backup and can only assume that the Curse client was the attack vector.
At this point I gave up on WoW in general (as did most of my addon developing friends) and moved on to playing another game.

 

[rhn]

Oh well. The Minecraft modding scene and community was good while it lasted. When the switch to Curse happens I'm going to be looking for something else to play.

My background: I used to play WoW along with several friends, wrote a small addon that while not widely popular, was well liked by those who used it.

When Curse came along and consumed all the small modding communities...
I had difficulties updating my addon.
Curse destroyed the small addon developer community I was a part of.
The Curse client kept breaking my mod due to the way it installed it.
When I tried to engage with the Curse community I got a ban for something that was not against the rules (moderator overstepping mark/not reading context before banning) which was later overturned but during that time I lost access to updating my addon. I stopped posting on the forums.
I was annoyed that Curse were effectively making money off my hard work and pretty much did nothing in return.
(edit)Growth in popularity of my mod stalled due to the way Curse emphasised popularity in the way it presented lists of mods to players as mine was always several pages down.
I stopped working on it as it was too much hassle dealing with the issues and idiots that complained the mod didn't do something it didn't actually claim to do.
For months afterwards I would continue to get direct messages through the Curse system to my email inbox asking why I stopped and was only able to stop these by changing my email on Curse to a non existent address.
Two of my friends had their WoW accounts stolen apparently via malware from infected Curse ads which Blizzard did nothing useful about.
One day just after updating my addons my anitvirus popped up suspicious activity from a "system" file. I ended up having to restore from a week old backup and can only assume that the Curse client was the attack vector.
At this point I gave up on WoW in general (as did most of my addon developing friends) and moved on to playing another game.

Hmm yeah know what you mean. WoW is dead. And addons for WoW is dead...(Sarcasm if people didn't get it).

If people are stupid enough to click on suspicious adds, then they better unplug their internet right now. Cause they will for ever be hijacked/keylogged etc. And you can hardly blame Curse for there being a few bad adds in the mix(This is the internet we are talking about...), since they are not directly responsible for which adds are chosen and specially not since they have been vigilant to take them down quickly.

Software doesn't get people infected, carelessness/ignorance from the user does.

 

[Hyperme]

If people are stupid enough to click on suspicious adds, then they better unplug their internet right now. Cause they will for ever be hijacked/keylogged etc. And you can hardly blame Curse for there being a few bad adds in the mix(This is the internet we are talking about...), since they are not directly responsible for which adds are chosen and specially not since they have been vigilant to take them down quickly.

We can totally blame Curse for not screening their ads to make sure they aren't malicious. It's also fun how you assume people who create malicious software are the kinds of people who wouldn't exploit every trick in the book, from fake download buttons to ads that simple bypass the clicking part.

Anyhow, I'm pretty sure this is a failure waiting to happen. Hopefully Forge's license prevents any attempt to closed-source it.

 

[Gaz_]

We can totally blame Curse for not screening their ads to make sure they aren't malicious. It's also fun how you assume people who create malicious software are the kinds of people who wouldn't exploit every trick in the book, from fake download buttons to ads that simple bypass the clicking part.

Anyhow, I'm pretty sure this is a failure waiting to happen. Hopefully Forge's license prevents any attempt to closed-source it.

I'm sorry but it would be impossible to screen every single advert that that put on websites as it would take too much time and effort. Every site that has advertisements on them will likely have a malicious add displayed at some point in time.

About the Forge license, please read the previous posts on this page and the page before.

 

[rhn]

We can totally blame Curse for not screening their ads to make sure they aren't malicious.

Oh yeah because a company that earns money can of course afford to hire out tons of people to do every little job in house. Obviously curse should just create an advertisement department..

It's also fun how you assume people who create malicious software are the kinds of people who wouldn't exploit every trick in the book, from fake download buttons to ads that simple bypass the clicking part.

I havent used it for ages, but just opened up the Curse client to have a look. Granted I see myself as rather intelligent, but I think most people should be able to distinguish that square in the bottom left from the rest of the UI. As for the websites, you can very easily block those adds(Firefox Addblock+ ie.).
And bypassing the clicking part? Lol, sure if it was 1995. Or you don't keep your software up to date. Billions are being spend on preventing loopholes to make that impossible. Don't blame Curse for you running bootleg unupdated software.

Anyhow, I'm pretty sure this is a failure waiting to happen. Hopefully Forge's license prevents any attempt to closed-source it.

As it has been said a hundred times: Curse will deliver a delivery method of forge and modpacks. They are not taking over either...