Modern Retro Project - Impossibru?
- Thread starter ShneekeyTheLost
- Start date
RP2 is the mod Voldemort would have used. And he would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for those meddling kids.
There was an excessive amount of drama back in the 1.4 era surrounding this mod.
Without wanting to drag up Drama of the Past, the tl;dr version is: Red Power 2 was a closed-source mod done by a single coder who left the modding scene without notice due to... understandable reasons (NOT going to go into THAT can of snakes). However, refused to permit anyone to have her code and when someone tried to post a successor, she pitched something of a fit. There's a LOT more to it than that, but it's the sort of thing that deserves to remain in the past and not get dredged up again.
What exasperated this was that RP2 was a 'staple' mod for many players, because it had Tubes that functioned exceptionally well, think of them as similar to Thermal Dynamics itemducts but without in-line servos/retrievers/filters and needed a machine in a block to perform that function... which beat the holy pants off of the only other option at the time which was Buildcraft's pipes. It also had a Sorting Machine that did a pretty darn good job at sorting stuff out, you could paint tubes to do a color coding thing for effectively 16 distinct channels to sort in, it invented red alloy wire and bundled cable which could go on walls and even ceilings and logic circuits which could do the same, it even had a computer which could generate complex redstone signals based on FORTH (which I always saw as more elegant than using LUA). It also had Frames (from which Funky Locomotion, Remain In Motion, and other such projects had their inspiration).
In short, it was an amazing mod which a lot of people enjoyed which stopped production abruptly and there was a whole lot of drama surrounding this. Demands were made from some quarters, accusations of entitlement followed. Moderators were kept quite busy for several months as one of the biggest flame wars since the Great Tekkit Bee Incident erupted.
That'll do for an explanation, thanks. Paints enough of a picture. I can totally see why that would piss some people off, though. That seems pretty egotistical of the original modder.
I probably would have compared it to the Tinkers/GT war. Or even the GT/EverybodyElse war. The similarities are interesting because, back then, GT was committing the unforgivable sins of making mods that messed with other mods, but these days that's fairly standard fare (although, more properly, these changes have become the domain of the pack-developer, with standard configurability being the big win out of the whole thing)There was an excessive amount of drama back in the 1.4 era surrounding this mod.
Without wanting to drag up Drama of the Past, the tl;dr version is: Red Power 2 was a closed-source mod done by a single coder who left the modding scene without notice due to... understandable reasons (NOT going to go into THAT can of snakes). However, refused to permit anyone to have her code and when someone tried to post a successor, she pitched something of a fit. There's a LOT more to it than that, but it's the sort of thing that deserves to remain in the past and not get dredged up again.
Whatexasperatedexacerbated {} this was that RP2 was a 'staple' mod for many players, because it had Tubes that functioned exceptionally well, think of them as similar to Thermal Dynamics itemducts but without in-line servos/retrievers/filters and needed a machine in a block to perform that function... which beat the holy pants off of the only other option at the time which was Buildcraft's pipes. It also had a Sorting Machine that did a pretty darn good job at sorting stuff out, you could paint tubes to do a color coding thing for effectively 16 distinct channels to sort in, it invented red alloy wire and bundled cable which could go on walls and even ceilings and logic circuits which could do the same, it even had a computer which could generate complex redstone signals based on FORTH (which I always saw as more elegant than using LUA). It also had Frames (from which Funky Locomotion, Remain In Motion, and other such projects had their inspiration).
In short, it was an amazing mod which a lot of people enjoyed which stopped production abruptly and there was a whole lot of drama surrounding this. Demands were made from some quarters, accusations of entitlement followed. Moderators were kept quite busy for several months as one of the biggest flame wars since the Great Tekkit Bee Incident erupted.
Similarly, nowadays seeing "spiritual successors" and whatnot is completely standard fare. Its still a bit of a warm topic in some venues but its common to see a popular replacement mod show up a few weeks/months after somebody else shuts down a popular mod.
Vazkii/Botania somehow managed to dodge a bullet here.
Botania's drama's been mostly about the flower decay and RF conversion stuff, and Vazkii's managed the community a lot better than most others did. I 'd like to think the GregTech Bronze and Wood War blew up as big as they did because it was over something so awfully petty, but given that folk had similar responses to DragonAPI erroring out for far more legitimate world-corruption reasons, a lot of it's probably just that end users can't stand crashes. By contrast, the MJ perdition thing had a huge impact on the 1.6.4 and 1.7.10 ecosystem and the eventual Forge Energy API, but nowhere near as much public focus.
RedPower2's thing was bit bigger-scale than that -- with the exception of FlowerChild's BetterThanWolves, probably one of the longest-lasting ones. A lot of modern modding design decisions probably would have come out anyway, but there was a lot of idea space that folk were kinda cautious about touching, and it's been at least part of why both BluePower and Project:Red ended up in kinda ugly spots for a while.
That said, Azanor's in talks with McJty, so hopefully we can avoid anything along those lines here.
RedPower2's thing was bit bigger-scale than that -- with the exception of FlowerChild's BetterThanWolves, probably one of the longest-lasting ones. A lot of modern modding design decisions probably would have come out anyway, but there was a lot of idea space that folk were kinda cautious about touching, and it's been at least part of why both BluePower and Project:Red ended up in kinda ugly spots for a while.
That said, Azanor's in talks with McJty, so hopefully we can avoid anything along those lines here.
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I was actually referring to Vazkii dropping the mod, it being picked up by someone else, and then Vazkii miraculously returning before the new version went too far w/o him. In fact, iirc, whatshername rp2 dev briefly made a comeback too under almost identical circumstances, albeit in a less friendly manner (vazkii credits and collaborates with other devs as far as I can determine)
I'm not following the twitters. What's going on here? Is there some remote possibility that jitty might pick up TC? (I find it hard to believe since McJty's a pretty public-source developer)
Nothing too public yet, just comments on Reddit and the curse forums, but McJty's hoping to just help take some of the workload off, enough that Azanor could handle the conceptual lead stuff. Still trying to figure out if the licensing would even be possible, but I'd not stick a fork in TC yet.
GT's problem wasn't the recipe changes. It was that it caused a cascading balance change that while fine in an isolated IC2+GT environment, turned into a bit of a nightmare when thrown into a mod pack by the unwary dev. By messing with the basic recipes, it vastly shifted the progression around, and if it's a mod included in one of the first popular packs you play, such as Ultimate, or the original Mindcrack packs, it's definitely a sharp shock to the system. The closest equivalent that comes to mind is vanilla MC with Poor Ores, meaning you need to find 9 times as much ore to progress, which is fine. But GT goes and says okay, you're only getting diamond nuggets, and you need blocks to make the diamond pickaxe (or equivalent.)
I hope McJty can manage it. As much as I'm not a fan of his mods, his work is impeccable.
I hope McJty can manage it. As much as I'm not a fan of his mods, his work is impeccable.
dependent upon whom you asked?
I personally felt it had no problems at all
The "vast shifts" you're talking about were choices I made when I used the mod, and made my game more fun.Nice, thanks for the link man.
I understand, but I mean in the packs specifically, it was messing around with vanilla balance, which cascaded into other mods. If GT was the focus, it all fit just fine.
Absolutely. Again, its all about what you choose to bring into your pack (or what packs you choose to play). And some mods have a more pervasive nature than others.
I guess the main problem is that GT did make it into some really core FTB experiences. Looking at you, FTB Ultimate. These days, we're seeing those kinds of shenanigans reserved for niche-ier packs such as Infinity - Expert Mode (which ironically is, itself, completely-gregified and yet very popular)
I only picked up peripherally on the whole Redpower2 issue - heard lots of mutterings but nothing concrete, which is why I'm glad to hear a bit more of the story. I will say thay Project:Red turned out quite nice in the end, and its pipe system ended up owing much more to Logistics Pipes than Redpower. It was also actually surprisingly good - I had some experience playing with it, and found it quite enjoyable!
I do believe that RP2's mod maker had intended the mod to merely be a stepping stone, practice if you will, on the way to creating her own game based on the concept, and that Minecraft made a good engine and framework on which to test and build ideas and functionality. Bearing that in mind, that would explain her ferociousness in pursuing her ownership of the IP - in these cases, if you don't protect it, you run a very real risk of losing it. Don't underestimate just how important it is to protect your intellectual property, if you want it to stay yours. Food for thought.
I do believe that RP2's mod maker had intended the mod to merely be a stepping stone, practice if you will, on the way to creating her own game based on the concept, and that Minecraft made a good engine and framework on which to test and build ideas and functionality. Bearing that in mind, that would explain her ferociousness in pursuing her ownership of the IP - in these cases, if you don't protect it, you run a very real risk of losing it. Don't underestimate just how important it is to protect your intellectual property, if you want it to stay yours. Food for thought.
The only problem I have with that is that it's a mod. Mods aren't your property. It's editing someone else's work. They really should be for the community. At the same time, people shouldn't take your stuff and steal it for their own, either, but if you're getting out of the game, there's no IP to protect. It's Mojang's IP.
Make your own standalone game, I'm 100% with you.
Edit: FTR, I have direct experience. I'd done modding for other games. I inherited the project from someone else, and I passed it on before I lift. It was nothing but a labor of love and as far as I was concerned, it belonged to the community of fans that played it. You can mod to practice your coding and design skills, but if you want to make your own IP, you gotta make your own IP.
Make your own standalone game, I'm 100% with you.
Edit: FTR, I have direct experience. I'd done modding for other games. I inherited the project from someone else, and I passed it on before I lift. It was nothing but a labor of love and as far as I was concerned, it belonged to the community of fans that played it. You can mod to practice your coding and design skills, but if you want to make your own IP, you gotta make your own IP.
Well, no that's... that's not true at all. Yes, mods modify Minecraft's code, but there's a HUGE amount of work done in terms of coding mechanics, blocks, items, not to mention the creative property of block models, skins, effects etc. That's a very slippery slope, and one that's been discussed in great detail on these forums. Don't get me wrong, if it comes to monetisation, that's very shaky ground because it IS based on Mojang's IP ultimately, but I'd be very careful about dismissing out of hand the ownership of the creator, and especially so about implying ownership by the community. That sense of entitlement can put modders off VERY fast.
And one could argue that RedPower has always been Eloraam's IP - she created a mod based on a game that she had come up with, it just happens that said game isn't finished yet. But I do believe it is THAT way round.
There was a huuge amount of work I put into my mod as well. But modding is a community piracy project, essentially. It's not your property to protect.
If you have an idea you want to use in your own IP, then you can protect it by not working on a public project like this. I'm sorry, and I'm sympathetic, but I feel she is in the wrong here. And I feel it's a very clear line, and not all that close to it.
Edit: To be more precise, she's also free NOT to share anything. I just think it makes her look bad. If she wanted to protect it, she shouldn't have used it in the public domain. It's purely an etiquette issue. Since I'm guessing she didn't invent Minecraft modding, she benefited from other mod makers in the community as well. All modders do.
If you have an idea you want to use in your own IP, then you can protect it by not working on a public project like this. I'm sorry, and I'm sympathetic, but I feel she is in the wrong here. And I feel it's a very clear line, and not all that close to it.
Edit: To be more precise, she's also free NOT to share anything. I just think it makes her look bad. If she wanted to protect it, she shouldn't have used it in the public domain. It's purely an etiquette issue. Since I'm guessing she didn't invent Minecraft modding, she benefited from other mod makers in the community as well. All modders do.
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