FTB Launcher News

[Hambeau]

My guess as to why it goes in AppData is that they want to be able to auto-update frequently but not require admin privileges to do so. Their target audience is probably kids who may not even have admin access to a machine.

...Not to mention that that location is one of the ones automatically backed up as part of your User Profile so you can update Windows and/or move to different machines and keep your desktop (similar to the "Roaming Profile" concept of the past decade).

 

[jikuja]

Whats been done at this point is basically forcing a whole new operating system that requires a new third party acct to use. And I use os as a point of comparison. I said POSSIBLE not practical. I also never said feasible.

Who is forcing to use Curse and for what purposes?

Do you have sources which states than FTB and third party packs can not be played with some operating systems? (Well *BSD requires manual tinkering so let's talk about these tree: Windows, OS X and Linux)

 

[Scottly318]

2 things. First... I used operating systems as an example/comparison. Not direct correlation. Secondly and more importantly I'm stating how I feel. To me it feels like the system that WORKED is being scrapped and that to get the content that was on the previous system requires a switch to something that offers features I have 0 interest in. thsts my issue with the jump to curse. The launcher, despite the code which you have pointed out and I have acknowledged, works. As stated in the op this launcher is going to have the content removed. For people similar to myself, once the content is stripped (ex: FTB branded packs) we're sol. I understand that other options exist to play said packs, but that isn't the issue. So yes... My feeling "forced" is a valid feeling... With evidence to back it up.

 

[jikuja]

As long as there is FTB launcher to use nobody is being forced to create and use curse account. nobody is being forced to change OS. You seem to have clear insight about future. (Things tend to change. I have heard rumors that some thing mentioned in this topic will change at some point)

Ps. Can you tell me lottery numbers for tonight?

 

[SephirothWS]

As long as there is FTB launcher to use nobody is being forced to create and use curse account. nobody is being forced to change OS. You seem to have clear insight about future. (Things tend to change. I have heard rumors that some thing mentioned in this topic will change at some point)

Our current plan is to have both the Curse app and the FTB launcher continue to co-exist over the next few months. This is to give Curse the time needed to add the last few remaining features required for feature parity, at which point the FTB launcher will be retired. Once our launcher is retired then we will debrand it and remove all existing download links from our websites and finish the process of moving all FTB mod packs and other related content over to the Curse app. We still plan to make a bare bones version of the launcher stripped of all branding and FTB content available for those packs that remain on the client and cannot move for one reason or another. We have yet to determine whether download links for this stripped down version of the launcher will be hosted, however it's likely that this will be left in the hands of the pack developers that remain on the old launcher.

This is the problem. The FTB Launcher will be discontinued, and then the only way to get FTB content IS through the Curse app.

 

[RavynousHunter]

Hrm...the FTB packs are available on Curse as a zip download, would this continue being the case? If that's so, and the News section would still contain at least some info about pack updates, one could use the zips to create MultiMC instances and keep them updated that way. A bit more cumbersome, but it avoids needing a Curse account or the Curse launcher, which would be good for those, like me, who have...misgivings about them.

 

[SephirothWS]

Hrm...the FTB packs are available on Curse as a zip download, would this continue being the case? If that's so, and the News section would still contain at least some info about pack updates, one could use the zips to create MultiMC instances and keep them updated that way. A bit more cumbersome, but it avoids needing a Curse account or the Curse launcher, which would be good for those, like me, who have...misgivings about them.

The zips provided have a manifest.json file that is parsed to download each individual mod from the respective location on the Curse website. These zips actually do not contain every mod necessary to put the pack together without some extensive manual work.

 

[Scottly318]

As long as there is FTB launcher to use nobody is being forced to create and use curse account. nobody is being forced to change OS. You seem to have clear insight about future. (Things tend to change. I have heard rumors that some thing mentioned in this topic will change at some point)

Ps. Can you tell me lottery numbers for tonight?

I don't appreciate my concerns being brushed off as if they were unfounded. Especially by a member of the team that, rather than insulting it's user, should be reassuring them. I claim no insight into the future. I made an observation based on what was said in the op. You are not required to agree with me. However... I kindly would request that you give me the same amount of respect that I gave you. I, in all of our exchanges, was respectful and not sarcastic.

 

[Watchful11]

Nothing jikuja said was out of line. A bit sarcastic perhaps, but he's a volunteer and is under no requirements to reassure you about anything.

 

[Scottly318]

My issue was his tone and brushing aside my concerns. Maybe my saying he should be reassuring was incorrect. But I stand by what I've said as whole.

 

[jikuja]

Here I collected something about Curse vs FTB debate. I find attitude against Curse amusing

Curse ToS
Have you compared it with FTB's current documentation?

Note: yes, it's bad but changes have been promised. Source: core team members in #FTB@esper

Curse using too much resources
I've seen multiple bug reports complaining FTB launcher's memory usage. Currently unfixable unless some of the current features are dropped. Also dev team has been reluctant to drop logging features.

Do you have any numbers to do comparison between FTB launcher and Curse?

Curse's installation location
Installing things in C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Curse Client seems to cause serious debates(wrong location for binaries and wasting precious SSD storage). Well FTB Launcher uses both %appdata%\ftblauncher\ and %localappdata%\ftblauncher\ FTB Launcher stores zipped modpack files in those folders(=~100 MB per pack). Why nobody mention that?

Location of Minecraft files
Both FTB Launcher and Curse's minecraft plugin offers option to change where minecraft instances are installed. I see zero problems here.

Personally I've been using Curse as long as I got alpha access, Better than FTB launcher. Curse still misses few features to for full feature parity as soon as those are added I'm happy with that and would recommend it for all.

Few notes:
Linux support: I do not count linux support as part of the feature parity. Curse Voice/client was never promised to be ported for linux. Solution to install packs in linux was promised. FTB Launcher is still being distributed and packs are being updated for FTB launcher => promise not fullfilled yet but packs are still playable with linux even Curse was *recommended* by core team.

Forced account creation/usage: *meh* Try collecting good list of users who refuse to create accounts and possible reasons. That thing should be handled in some other location than in news thread(Personal comment: I do not have forum powers and do not try to do back-seat moderation). Then ask slow/core team if they want alienate part of the users.

Friend sync hacks: I don't like things I read. Those hack looks awful. I would like to see Curse's comments/answers

Offline mode: does it work?

Whats been done at this point is basically forcing a whole new operating system that requires a new third party acct to use

Written in paste tense. Not true yet. I could not detect if that message included wrong unsourced facts or user's feeling. (I'll go with facts || And this is the reason why I asked source for the claim)

Like I said things might change in the future. Only core team and/or Curse knows about facts about future plans.

 

[RealKC]

Nope.

I have a Curse account and I'm 13, your point is invalid.

 

[RavynousHunter]

The zips provided have a manifest.json file that is parsed to download each individual mod from the respective location on the Curse website. These zips actually do not contain every mod necessary to put the pack together without some extensive manual work.

Argh, that's annoying. Though, if such a thing is...well, a thing, you could probably develop an extension for MultiMC that would eat those and spit out a useful modpack/update.

 

[jikuja]

Argh, that's annoying. Though, if such a thing is...well, a thing, you could probably develop an extension for MultiMC that would eat those and spit out a useful modpack/update.

I forgot to mention. FTB Launcher have command line arguments to change those cache and "dynamic" content directories. We added few command line args for various use cases but never tell about them

 

[Magzie]

As far as I know there is off line mode for curse but you have to be logged into the app.

 

[FyberOptic]

Argh, that's annoying. Though, if such a thing is...well, a thing, you could probably develop an extension for MultiMC that would eat those and spit out a useful modpack/update.

At its core it's basically:
1) Check url that gives latest Minecraft database version number
2) Download latest compressed json database if different
3) Pick modpack you want from database
4) Download pack zip
5) Use pack manifest json to identify mod file IDs
6) Create folder, dump overrides/configs in, download mods
7) Party time

The database also contains info for every file of every mod on the site, so you can use that to correlate the file IDs to view what's in a modpack before installing.

Whenever I get around to it I might make a CLI tool to find and grab mods, since that might be handy for putting servers together.

 

[egor66]

In the end FTB will just be a minor part of curse & nothing else, is it better to be a minor fish in a large pond, or to have your own pond.

The way things seem (mho) to be going ftb will join jaded...& Co.

 

[RavynousHunter]

I forgot to mention. FTB Launcher have command line arguments to change those cache and "dynamic" content directories. We added few command line args for various use cases but never tell about them

Oh my...to GitHub! I am curious.

At its core it's basically:
1) Check url that gives latest Minecraft database version number
2) Download latest compressed json database if different
3) Pick modpack you want from database
4) Download pack zip
5) Use pack manifest json to identify mod file IDs
6) Create folder, dump overrides/configs in, download mods
7) Party time

The database also contains info for every file of every mod on the site, so you can use that to correlate the file IDs to view what's in a modpack before installing.

Whenever I get around to it I might make a CLI tool to find and grab mods, since that might be handy for putting servers together.

I might try my hand at that, too. Colour me curious.

 

[FyberOptic]

I'll work on it in my free time, but I put together a basic command line interface in Java for searching so far. Thought about making it download and convert packs into the MultiMC import format.

 

[Vaupell]

Sad news indeed.

I will be going back to the old days of launching a "downloadable modpack for my server"
Because in no way or manor can i support this.

Of course we won't have a large impact on this, but I do have and average of a lot daily unique Ip's on my server.
and 100 of them are regulars. We discussed this in a closed forum, and agreed a seperate modpack "old school" will be the way to move forward.

It was nice running with you FeedTheBeast, but as many things. Aparently this has come to an end aswell.