Most popular pack?

[Azzanine]

The point you're making about people downloading and then not playing (long) is valid.... for all packs Which means that, yes absolute numbers could be lower, but percentage wise it wouldn't really matter

I'm just saying OP should just make a server of the pack they like, as it's just as effective as relying on DL numbers.

Chances are unless OP's taste differs from the norm what they like should mesh rather closely to what the mainstream likes.

You can't go wrong with any of the FTB pack is my ultimate point.



Except don't pick Agrarian Skies or Blood N' Bones (at least if popularity is your prime criteria); BnB is a very good pack but it's also very stuck in the hardcore niche, you will find dedicated loyal players but not a large number, if you get 10 together at once I will be very impressed.
AS is in a similar boat but the map it's self also adds extra complexity that only admins dedicated to providing the best AS experience could achieve, you end up doing a lot of generating islands for every new player that joins and I assume all this would be semi-manual.

 

[pderuiter]

I'm just saying OP should just make a server of the pack they like, as it's just as effective as relying on DL numbers.

Chances are unless OP's taste differs from the norm what they like should mesh rather closely to what the mainstream likes.

You can't go wrong with any of the FTB pack is my ultimate point.



Except don't pick Agrarian Skies or Blood N' Bones (at least if popularity is your prime criteria); BnB is a very good pack but it's also very stuck in the hardcore niche, you will find dedicated loyal players but not a large number, if you get 10 together at once I will be very impressed.
AS is in a similar boat but the map it's self also adds extra complexity that only admins dedicated to providing the best AS experience could achieve, you end up doing a lot of generating islands for every new player that joins and I assume all this would be semi-manual.

true. In the end, if you are the one owning the server, you better put something on it you like

 

[Jadedcat]

Frankly DL numbers could be deceptive, DW20 pack has Direwolf20's influence that will get it the DL's but that doesn't mean they will stick to playing it. I mean I didn't, I think I've DLed all the packs, some I've DL'ed multiple times.

The FTB team has NO reliable way of determining players actual time investment in each modpack, at least without using shady measures that would equate to spying on players. Which I hope think they don't do, hence why Jaded is mentioning DL numbers, as that is information they are entitled to and kind of need. Like a company knows how many units they sold within 99% accuracy but can't easily tell how much you like the product without asking or being told. High unit sales can equate to satisfaction but this depends of whether the item is worth returning if unsatisfied. This goes double for FTB modpacks as there's no returning of mod packs, I bet some people don't even delete packs they don't like.

If I was to put on my pundit cap I would actually wager that if the FTB RF standardization thing happens in 1.7 DW20 might see a slight rise in usage as some people can't do without their EU and MJ based staples. DW20 doesn't quite look like he's ready to forgo IC3 and the like just yet. Then again if he thinks the FTB teams idea was smart, you never know.

Right now though nobody can really tell you which packs are actually popular and in use, at least not enough to reliably base the decision you want to make. You will have to do your own research on FTB server listing sites and tally up the top 20 servers to see what they use.

Or you could do it the easy way and just pick the pack you like and stick with it. For all you know the most used pack might not be the one people want to play. The objective of most server admins tend to not align completely with the wants of players. An admin might pick the pack that causes the least technical headaches but isn't the pack that's most fun.
It also depends on the region your server will be based in, I can count the number of reliable Oceanic FTB servers on one hand I don't think there's a good Horizons server in Oceana so if players in that region where dieing to play that pack they can't so they play another pack.

Um no. We don't track that stuff. We track downloads. And yeah this is kind of my point. Its a bit hard to define "popular". You also have to factor in other things. DW20 has had 23 updates in 1.6 alone. Lite2 has had 9. So more people had to redownload DW20 to keep playing than people redownloading Lite2. Personally I would bet that packs with less updates and downloads near DW20's probably have a similar amount of players. Simply because the packs with less updates will have less downloads.


Let's say pack A has 30 updates in 6months and 500k downloads. And pack B has 10 updates and 250k downloads. Pack B may very well be more popular even though it has less overall downloads simply because more updates increases the overall download count. The only way to tell would be to look at all the average downloads of pack A in a single update vs the same for pack B. And even that might not be fully accurate. If we go by youtuber/streams Ag Skies is currently the most popular pack in modded MC. And I sincerely doubt thats the case.

 

[Azzanine]

true. In the end, if you are the one owning the server, you better put something on it you like

Yes, exactly.
A servers longevity directly correlates to the server owners interest in Minecraft/ Mod. If the Admins interest wains, so will drop the quality of the server and then the players follow.

I've been in that boat many times it's got me a tad jaded with SMP in general. I've actually been directly responsible for letting a server die too as I had a stint where I was "running" (term used loosely) a public vanilla server back in the beta days, before pistons where even in mods.
I know both sides well.

 

[pderuiter]

Um no. We don't track that stuff. We track downloads. And yeah this is kind of my point. Its a bit hard to define "popular". You also have to factor in other things. DW20 has had 23 updates in 1.6 alone. Lite2 has had 9. So more people had to redownload DW20 to keep playing than people redownloading Lite2. Personally I would bet that packs with less updates and downloads near DW20's probably have a similar amount of players. Simply because the packs with less updates will have less downloads.


Let's say pack A has 30 updates in 6months and 500k downloads. And pack B has 10 updates and 250k downloads. Pack B may very well be more popular even though it has less overall downloads simply because more updates increases the overall download count. The only way to tell would be to look at all the average downloads of pack A in a single update vs the same for pack B. And even that might not be fully accurate. If we go by youtuber/streams Ag Skies is currently the most popular pack in modded MC. And I sincerely doubt thats the case.

AgS is the hype of the moment. And it deserves to be, it's a good pack.

 

[Jerx99]

I guess one alternative would be to count the amount of launches instead of downloads (no idea if this is actually possible within the launcher, just voicing my thoughts). Then maybe limit it to only count once per day for each individual user (so as to not overvalue packs that happen to crash a lot )

 

[pderuiter]

I guess one alternative would be to count the amount of launches instead of downloads (no idea if this is actually possible within the launcher, just voicing my thoughts). Then maybe limit it to only count once per day for each individual user (so as to not overvalue packs that happen to crash a lot )

Can you imagine the outrage if it ever came out that the launcher was spying on your ftb habits?
think man, think
People can't even handle openEye, let alone this if it were to become reality

 

[Azzanine]

Can you imagine the outrage if it ever came out that the launcher was spying on your ftb habits?
think man, think
People can't even handle openEye, let alone this if it were to become reality

I guess if you really think about it there isn't too much harm that could come from them knowing what and how long packs are played. My only niggleing concern would be whether my Minecraft account credentials would have to be collected and stored and how secure the servers holding that data would be.

 

[pderuiter]

I guess if you really think about it there isn't too much harm that could come from them knowing what and how long packs are played. My only niggleing concern would be whether my Minecraft account credentials would have to be collected and stored and how secure the servers holding that data would be.

Of course it doesn't really matter. Then again, come to think of it, they can already check when you're playing and what. If they really needed the numbers they could get them.

 

[Bibble]

Can you imagine the outrage if it ever came out that the launcher was spying on your ftb habits?
think man, think
People can't even handle openEye, let alone this if it were to become reality

From a technical standpoint, this wouldn't necessarily need to be a launcher-side thing. You could log update checks (as it does on launch), rather than downloads.

 

[pderuiter]

From a technical standpoint, this wouldn't necessarily need to be a launcher-side thing. You could log update checks (as it does on launch), rather than downloads.

That's indeed what i was referring to when i said they already check when and what you're playing

 

[psp]

Ultimate is my personal ,most favorite awesome best cool fun, modpack ive ever played.

Frankly the direwolf20 packs lacks any sort of balance personaly to me direwolf20 packs seem like a bad version of monster ultimate or unleashed packs.

(Nothing aginst Direwolf20, I just think his packs are stupid, But its just my opinion sooo.)

 

[Jadedcat]

Well technically.. we got the download numbers yesterday and Ag Skies is the mos popular by unique downloads ... sorry

 

[Azzanine]

Well technically.. we got the download numbers yesterday and Ag Skies is the mos popular by unique downloads ... sorry

It is a somewhat challenging/ fun pack. Plus you have Direwolf20 doing a lets play with it too with Pahimar, not quite sure what kind of influence he'd have on DL numbers though.

 

[egor66]

Ultimate is my personal ,most favorite awesome best cool fun, modpack ive ever played.

Frankly the direwolf20 packs lacks any sort of balance personaly to me direwolf20 packs seem like a bad version of monster ultimate or unleashed packs.

(Nothing aginst Direwolf20, I just think his packs are stupid, But its just my opinion sooo.)

Kind of agree with this while I am & have been a long time fan of DW, the pack is just too easy, & gets boring fast even with the number of mod, mho ofc.

 

[Jerx99]

It is a somewhat challenging/ fun pack. Plus you have Direwolf20 doing a lets play with it too with Pahimar, not quite sure what kind of influence he'd have on DL numbers though.

Just looking at views of first episodes we have:
DW20 + Pahimar: ~210k views
Generikb: ~230k views
Yogscast Duncan: ~500k views
Caveman: ~130k views
aypierre(french): ~225k views
luke4316(spanish? portugese?): ~75k views

And a lot of less popular series as well... So players, youtubers and viewers alike seem to be flocking to the pack (which, granted, is very well suited for an LP format with the HQM).

Also, I guess a lot of views are duplicate, I know I watched atleast a few episodes of the first 4 listed (currently just sticking to Generikb, as I find DW20's voice to hurt my head when watching for extended periods of time, and the Yogscast just seem abit clueless)