FTB and Forge - Curse Partnership.

[systemv]

[ ... ]
With regards to FTB, our plan is at some point in the future to halt development of the current FTB launcher and shift our modpacks onto the new Curse Client. The stated timeline for this is tentatively set at 6 months, however this is not fixed and the reality is that we will make this shift once the functionality of the Curse Client matches the FTB launcher in terms of support for FTB packs, Third Party packs and support for both maps and texture packs.

[ ... ]

With regards to FTB Modpacks, the current team plan to stay on and continue to work on and develop new packs moving forwards. Having said that, we will be facing much more competition. Part of the medium term goals for this project is to make the construction of mod packs much easier for everyone, which means that the actual quality of mod packs will only go up. This will be most apparent once the changes from Minecraft version 1.7+ become more readily used by mod developers.
[ ... ]

These two statements appear to converge towards a point where "in the future to halt development of current FTB launcher" and "stay on and continue to work on and developing new mod packs". A few questions here.

There was a post FTB made previously that put out in effect 'those who wanted to create third-party mod packs would be able to easily mix/match the mods, and make it dirt simple to publish them through the interface under development.' (paraphrased).

Has this changed? What's the time-line forecast for this pack-building and pack distribution mechanism? Is this a Curse project now?

Does this deal change the agreements FTB made with mod-developers to give permission to users of FTB to re-use those mods IF the third-party mod packs are built with the "pending FTB tool" ? Does this mean that support issues regarding the Launcher functionality are going to be in the hand of Curse?

 

[systemv]

I would still caution against them agreeing to anything before checking the legal terms they are signing to thoroughly, and considering the numerous other options out there that can provide what Curse can give them, if not more. I cannot believe that for as talented of a community we have here that there are not other options available that might serve FTB better in the long run. Curse would not have approached them if Curse was not wanting to get something in return.

Exactly. Wait for the other shoe to drop.

This is harbinger for more meat hooks to tear into FTB.

Wait for it.

 

[Tat45]

Things will only get better from here on out. A unified modding architecture will help to light the fire under the behinds of people at Mojang to build support in sooner rather than later. I'm looking forward to what's next.

 

[MajPayne21]

The primary issue that people are pointing out here, though, is that with the internet you can take common-sense steps; ad blocking, noscript plugins, general blocking of the execution of potentially malicious code.

With a launcher, your options are severely limited; if a malicious ad gets pushed to the launcher, it basically acts as a malware conduit.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

Can you use a wrench on a malware conduit to disable output?

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk

 

[Skidd2]

well, after reading the entire thread, i've seen both sides of the argument, and I have some input, after I Isum things up, so i have some context.

1.) people have had bad encounters with curse... the track record for curse as a company has been sketchy, to say the least.

2.)merging forge, ftb and curse could have some big benefits to the community as a whole, but is not without risk or cost.

i'd have more, but its hard to type on a phone... i think that slow and lex should.see what the offers entail before commiting to a contract. I guess, the idea is there, but is it worth it?
I'd write more, but again, phone typing is hard

 

[lekro]

Meh. Now that MultiMC 5 is out, I'm not even touching any other launcher. Even if FTB minecrafts were moved, there's a config option for accessing FTB instances directly from FTB folder.

 

[Nerixel]

Can I just ask, what kind of company wouldn't read the legal terms for something they're signing? Seriously? I don't understand why that's something anyone's even worried about.

 

[Ashzification]

Can I just ask, what kind of company wouldn't read the legal terms for something they're signing? Seriously? I don't understand why that's something anyone's even worried about.

Also: that's what lawyers are for

I wouldn't expect Slow or Lex to sign anything without reading it first...

 

[Nerixel]

Also: that's what lawyers are for

I wouldn't expect Slow or Lex to sign anything without reading it first...

They're just a little very slight bit smarter than that

 

[Yusunoha]

ooh heck no, as soon as slowpoke sees the contract, he'll sign it, lean back in his chair while reading a newspaper and will look outside the window thinking "I should buy a boat"

 

[rhn]

well, after reading the entire thread,

2.)merging forge, ftb and curse could have some big benefits to the community as a whole, but is not without risk or cost.

Those two statements does not correspond. Nothing is getting merged...
Forge is staying Forge. FTB is staying FTB. Only thing that is planned to happen is Curse taking over the distribution and hosting of mods and modpacks. Forge will still develop Forge. FTB will still develop FTB packs and maps...

 

[Andrej Savikin]

I am ok with anything if they don't ask me for a penny to use ANY of the services that curse provides.

 

[Nerixel]

I am ok with anything if they don't ask me for a penny to use ANY of the services that curse provides.

That's one of Slow & Lex's conditions.

 

[Hambeau]

Can you use a wrench on a malware conduit to disable output?

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk

If you find such a wrench please post the recipe ASAP! I've actually been receiving Nigerian scam e-mails since the first, and you'd think everyone knew about those by now.

 

[Vagrant0]

Also: that's what lawyers are for

I wouldn't expect Slow or Lex to sign anything without reading it first...

Oh, I'm sure they have looked it over in some regard... But when dealing with contracts, especially contracts which seemingly benefit the party other than the one who initiated that contract, sub-clauses, exploitable loopholes, or hidden conditions are standard fare. Even if Curse was one of the most benign companies out there, there is that saying about getting something for nothing, and there always being a catch. From what was mentioned here though, it sounds more like either they're going off a verbal discussion of possible terms, or that they aren't being particularly clear on what this partnership really means. Considering that Slow has mentioned repeatedly in the past that he wants to keep FTB under his own control and to be able to freely grow the brand, only to just suddenly agree to this, it certainly raises valid questions.

 

[Essentiality]

This is, at a glance, terrible.

Curse just takes what is normally free (dedicated modders and 3rd-party developers who enhance games) and try to monetize it. Things like this don't need a "Premium Service" to avoid data caps, etc.

 

[rhn]

This is, at a glance, terrible.

Curse just takes what is normally free (dedicated modders and 3rd-party developers who enhance games) and try to monetize it. Things like this don't need a "Premium Service" to avoid data caps, etc.

You kinda hit it right on the money there in the first sentence: at a glance...
Curse is NOT making money on mods and games. They make money(yes its a business they pay peoples wages and probably have a slight annually profit, but its not a magical money machine!) on supplying a mod managing and downloading tool as well as lots and lots of bandwidth.
And it has been stated.. god know how many times now.. that there will not be any need for subscriptions. The service will be completely free(not counting a few advertisements probably). If the deal goes through you get a professionally developed and supported launcher for ALL mods and modpacks for absolutely free! All you have to do in return is to ignore a few advertisements on the rare occasion that you actually need to spend longer time looking at the launcher.

 

[TheMike]

After a lot of thought, let's just sit back, grab some popcorn, and see how this plays out. Although a deal with Curse seems a bit sketchy, I'm willing to give this deal/partnership a chance.

 

[Nerixel]

If we're being technical about it, the FTB launcher already has an advertisement on it, the one for Creeperhost. There might be one or two more on the new launcher, I don't see it as a huge problem.

 

[BrickVoid]

If you find such a wrench please post the recipe ASAP! I've actually been receiving Nigerian scam e-mails since the first, and you'd think everyone knew about those by now.

This kind of makes me glad I switched from using my old ISP's email service and manually filtering all the raw spamcrap sewage outflow to get the email itself to gmail which already filters 98.5% of it plus 0.5% of the good email, leaving me with 1% worth of real mail most of the time!

Hot tip for anyone wanting an email address they can let loose in public, use a Gmail address, most of the raw spam sewage already gets filtered right out of it!

If it wasn't for Gmail I would probably never have seen some of Slow's replies to this thread, as the past few weeks have been increasingly busy where spam flow is concerned!

Cheers ...

BrickVoid