For mod pack creators:
DON'T: just take someone else's pack, toss in/remove a couple of mods, then call it all good.
DO: Come up with a 'Mission Statement' for your pack, then choose mods that fit that mission statement.
For example, you can see the Mission Statement I had for ShneekeyCraft in my sig: less is more. Basically, I had a 'minimalist' or 'lite' mod pack with fewer mods that was able to run on lower-end machines with fewer problems. I also put a LOT of time into the config files for cross-mod compatibility and synergy. So I had a tightly knit lite pack designed primarily for people newer to the modded minecraft scene. Unfortunately, the target audience was not particularly large, so there were very few tears shed when I stopped development.
DON'T: be a douche to mod authors, particularly when it comes to distribution rights.
DO: make sure you comply with any mod pack requirements for the mods you plan on including in your pack.
Seriously. It doesn't matter if your personal ideologies consider the idea of restricted distribution rights to be abhorrent... the rest of the dev community will be very upset with you. At the very least, every single launcher that I am aware of demands that you have permissions for distribution for every mod in your pack (unless you roll on the Curse launcher and restrict yourself to mods hosted on Curse, in which case they do it for you), and your pack will get yanked and your reputation completely ruined if you just start tossing mods into your pack and the mod devs get upset with you. If a mod author is not letting you put that mod in your pack, then shrug it off and use some other mod.
DON'T: be 'that guy' and spam every thread under the sun with adds for your mod pack you just made. The only thing that will happen is you will very upset forum moderators cleaning up after you and issuing various warnings or vacations. In fact, that's probably the fastest way to kill off any chance of your mod pack getting popular. Everyone will simply recall you being 'that guy' and ignore your pack entirely.
DO: feel free to have a link in your sig, a SINGLE thread in the APPROPRIATE forum, and discuss it if the topic comes up.
DON'T: spam updates too rapidly, unless you are fixing bugs, in which case you should probably be on 'dev' versions until you get to another stable 'release' version. Spammed updates make server populations cry.
DON'T: ignore bug reports and never update. Because then people lose interest.
DO: set yourself an update schedule. Not necessarily 'weekly' or 'monthly', but more along the lines of 'when I get enough mods updating with relevant content'. To give you an idea: Vaskii updates Botania like some kind of super sayan ninja. Every time I update... there's another dang update. Don't bother trying to keep up with the updates, just make sure if there's a major relevant update (for example, the Hydrodrangea not consuming water on infinite sources patch), it goes into your next update.
This is a fine line to tread. You need to make sure your pack doesn't contain crash bugs, but on the other hand, updating too rapidly can cause servers to have issues because then everyone needs to download your new pack.
DON'T: put your pack download behind adf.ly or other paid service. In addition to being a violation of the terms of most mods use, it also arguably violates Mojang's EULA. So don't do it, mmkay?
DO: put your pack on a launcher that makes sense for you. In fact, you can even have it on multiple launchers if you want. Each launcher has pros and cons, find one that suits you.
DON'T: just take someone else's pack, toss in/remove a couple of mods, then call it all good.
DO: Come up with a 'Mission Statement' for your pack, then choose mods that fit that mission statement.
For example, you can see the Mission Statement I had for ShneekeyCraft in my sig: less is more. Basically, I had a 'minimalist' or 'lite' mod pack with fewer mods that was able to run on lower-end machines with fewer problems. I also put a LOT of time into the config files for cross-mod compatibility and synergy. So I had a tightly knit lite pack designed primarily for people newer to the modded minecraft scene. Unfortunately, the target audience was not particularly large, so there were very few tears shed when I stopped development.
DON'T: be a douche to mod authors, particularly when it comes to distribution rights.
DO: make sure you comply with any mod pack requirements for the mods you plan on including in your pack.
Seriously. It doesn't matter if your personal ideologies consider the idea of restricted distribution rights to be abhorrent... the rest of the dev community will be very upset with you. At the very least, every single launcher that I am aware of demands that you have permissions for distribution for every mod in your pack (unless you roll on the Curse launcher and restrict yourself to mods hosted on Curse, in which case they do it for you), and your pack will get yanked and your reputation completely ruined if you just start tossing mods into your pack and the mod devs get upset with you. If a mod author is not letting you put that mod in your pack, then shrug it off and use some other mod.
DON'T: be 'that guy' and spam every thread under the sun with adds for your mod pack you just made. The only thing that will happen is you will very upset forum moderators cleaning up after you and issuing various warnings or vacations. In fact, that's probably the fastest way to kill off any chance of your mod pack getting popular. Everyone will simply recall you being 'that guy' and ignore your pack entirely.
DO: feel free to have a link in your sig, a SINGLE thread in the APPROPRIATE forum, and discuss it if the topic comes up.
DON'T: spam updates too rapidly, unless you are fixing bugs, in which case you should probably be on 'dev' versions until you get to another stable 'release' version. Spammed updates make server populations cry.
DON'T: ignore bug reports and never update. Because then people lose interest.
DO: set yourself an update schedule. Not necessarily 'weekly' or 'monthly', but more along the lines of 'when I get enough mods updating with relevant content'. To give you an idea: Vaskii updates Botania like some kind of super sayan ninja. Every time I update... there's another dang update. Don't bother trying to keep up with the updates, just make sure if there's a major relevant update (for example, the Hydrodrangea not consuming water on infinite sources patch), it goes into your next update.
This is a fine line to tread. You need to make sure your pack doesn't contain crash bugs, but on the other hand, updating too rapidly can cause servers to have issues because then everyone needs to download your new pack.
DON'T: put your pack download behind adf.ly or other paid service. In addition to being a violation of the terms of most mods use, it also arguably violates Mojang's EULA. So don't do it, mmkay?
DO: put your pack on a launcher that makes sense for you. In fact, you can even have it on multiple launchers if you want. Each launcher has pros and cons, find one that suits you.
