Recent Events Discussion (RED) Thread

[Reika]

I find it interesting - as well as several other things I am probably not allowed to say on this forum - that the more lenient I make the system, the more complaints I get, presumably until I totally back out of any checking at all. This is despite people saying otherwise.

@HeilMewTwo, you are a prophet.

It sounds great, but I think you will find that people will start trying to push for unrestricted access, under the excuse of: "You already relented once! Just stop being an a****** and let us do what we want!" Considering I have literally seen the second part of that sentence directed at you already, I do not think this would do much to deal with the crap you have to put up with.

 

[Havvy]

This redesign is removing that option - it is not even compatible with the new system - and it appeared not to work anyway.

But the message is now only about 10 seconds of clicking. I have little sympathy for anyone who claims that is arduous or incomprehensible.

Except that once I'm in the game, I could care less that some mods are out of date, but I *do* care that you're making a network request when I go into a single player game. You're basically saying that to use your mod, you get to know whenever I go into a world, and that is not information I should have to share. If I think to update mods, I'll be looking at the mod changelogs and cherry picking which ones are worth updating. Though if the Curse launcher can notify me of mod updates, then I wouldn't really need mod update notifications in game. But forcing me to ctrl+click to remove what amounts to a popup is *really* annoying and could easily lead to my death because I had to spend in-game time removing a useless notification over playing the game.

 

[Reika]

Except that once I'm in the game, I could care less that some mods are out of date, but I *do* care that you're making a network request when I go into a single player game. You're basically saying that to use your mod, you get to know whenever I go into a world, and that is not information I should have to share

Do you honestly think the times you log in - or any other data for that matter - are logged?

You do realize that I also use player login for all sorts of other syncing, right? Or is that information theft too?

 

[mDiyo]

What happens when 1.9 comes around, there are new builds of your mod, and the 1.8 builds start saying they're out of date? With no way to turn off the update notification, there's an annoying popup every time you start the game. It's not something you can disable and it's definitely the fault of the mod author for not properly checking their mod version against the version of minecraft.

What happens when FTB wants to use the mod, but it updates every couple days? FTB only updates their packs every two weeks or so because there's so many mods and all of them need tested. A mod perpetually saying it's out of date is not good for anyone.

What happens if you don't care if the mods are out of date? Nothing crashes, you're playing a specific version of a pack or maybe you don't want to spend an hour every day trying to update mods. By the time you're in-game, where this message shows up, you're already ready to play. You don't want to spend the 10 minutes it takes to stop the game, chase down the download, and restart the game. If it causes horrible mod interactions, what then? You get to choose between a broken version and an annoying one. In my case the mod gets "oopsed" out of existence.

There are people who find any update messages after you've loaded a world extremely annoying. It's too late; you just want to play the game. Any mod author who puts an update message in-game is lazy; the design is lazy, there are better ways to do this. Not being able to turn off the message just makes you a dick.

 

[Reika]

What happens when 1.9 comes around, there are new builds of your mod, and the 1.8 builds start saying they're out of date? With no way to turn off the update notification, there's an annoying popup every time you start the game. It's not something you can disable and it's definitely the fault of the mod author for not properly checking their mod version against the version of minecraft.

Each MC version has its own file. This is a non-issue.

What happens when FTB wants to use the mod, but it updates every couple days? FTB only updates their packs every two weeks or so because there's so many mods and all of them need tested. A mod perpetually saying it's out of date is not good for anyone.

Also a non-issue. I do not update that often, and when I do update rapidly, it is to fix extremely severe issues for which you would need a server death wish to refuse to use.

Also, experience tells me that even when major packs do update, they do so every several months and often fail to update my mods at all.

Also, too many players do not even bother updating their packs. Look at how many people refused to move past Monster 1.1.1, because "updating is too much work". Yes, that is a verbatim quote from a recent post on my thread, a guy whining about an exploit I fixed a year ago and saying that this is why my "mods have such a s***ty reputation".

What happens if you don't care if the mods are out of date? Nothing crashes, you're playing a specific version of a pack or maybe you don't want to spend an hour every day trying to update mods. By the time you're in-game, where this message shows up, you're already ready to play. You don't want to spend the 10 minutes it takes to stop the game, chase down the download, and restart the game. If it causes horrible mod interactions, what then? You get to choose between a broken version and an annoying one. In my case the mod gets "oopsed" out of existence.

No, old versions inevitably have bugs - literally every version I have ever released has fixed major bugs, crashes, and exploits.

There are people who find any update messages after you've loaded a world extremely annoying. It's too late; you just want to play the game. Any mod author who puts an update message in-game is lazy; the design is lazy, there are better ways to do this.

Show me a way that is both before game launch and not just a console message that 90% of people cannot even figure out how to open, much less who will actually read it.


Now here is a question: Assuming it was possible to give a "dirt screen, click to continue" message as soon as is possible - likely still a few minutes into launch - how would people react to that?

 

[ScottulusMaximus]

Aii Reika, classic case of inconveniencing everyone to sort out the few... It never ends well.

Seriously, just stop. Someone complains about a fixed bug or exploit cos you were minetweaked or whatever by all means tell them to f right off but do NOT continue this path of f'ing your entire(deminishing) user base to deal with this.

This approach has never and will never work in any situation, you just piss yourself and everyone else off. The only thing you will succeed in doing is irritating everyone and you will STILL deal with all these problems.

EDIT: but I shall now withdraw from this thread again because it(like Stupid Things) has become a Reika circle jerk.

 

[MysteriousAges]

It looks neat, but seems like a lot of trouble for getting rid of update notifications.

 

[King Lemming]

As I have said before, I am never going to add the ability for a user to just once set an option and never be notified of updates again.

The command still exists for those capable of entering it.

Maybe add it so that it only shows once per update?

 

[Havvy]

Also, experience tells me that even when major packs do update, they do so every several months and often fail to update my mods at all.

Also, too many players do not even bother updating their packs. Look at how many people refused to move past Monster 1.1.1, because "updating is too much work". Yes, that is a verbatim quote from a recent post on my thread, a guy whining about an exploit I fixed a year ago and saying that this is why my "mods have such a s***ty reputation".

So experience tells you a sizable percentage of the player base does not care about updating mods. This is not because they are ignorant, but because they don't want to deal with maintaining a complex environment - once it works, touching it again could break things. It's a game, not a job. If they don't want to update because it's too much work, that's a valid complaint. If they then go and complain about some exploit fixed in a later version, you have valid grounds to ignore them. It's not a reason to try to nudge people to update the mod by putting an unblockable popup in front of their faces.

No, old versions inevitably have bugs - literally every version I have ever released has fixed major bugs, crashes, and exploits.

If every old version has major bugs, crashes, and exploits, then the next update will probably also have major bugs, crashes, and exploits. It might have less, but I can't escape them completely. If I choose to stay on an old version, I'm not choosing between no bugs and bugs - I'm choosing between old known bugs versus new unknown bugs.

Show me a way that is both before game launch and not just a console message that 90% of people cannot even figure out how to open, much less who will actually read it.

Put an entry on the title screen for "Mod Updates" that when clicked, will do the mod update check. Even better, make the thing that does that its own mod and have mods talk to it through an interface that only passes minimal information about the mod: Name, Version, Update Check URL. Only do the mod update checks when the user goes to the Mod Updates page. If they don't go to it, then the user doesn't care. And if the user doesn't care, don't show it to them. But there's no reason to check if the mod is up to date when the game is loading or when a world is loading.

Outside of Minecraft.jar, it could be up to whatever launcher the user is using to do the checks. Curse Voice could add that functionality easily, if it doesn't already.

Now here is a question: Assuming it was possible to give a "dirt screen, click to continue" message as soon as is possible - likely still a few minutes into launch - how would people react to that?

It would still take up the user's time. It'd take up a lot of time if it blocked the rest of the loading process until dismissed, or take up 2 seconds times the number of out of date mods.

Do you honestly think the times you log in - or any other data for that matter - are logged?

You do realize that I also use player login for all sorts of other syncing, right? Or is that information theft too?

Given the amount of spy agencies out there, it's entirely possible somebody is logging. And even if it isn't, I shouldn't have to care about this threat model at all.

When I log into a single player game (which Minecraft in a single player world is), nothing should be making HTTP requests unless I request it. What information are you even syncing? Do you really need to be doing that syncing? If not, you shouldn't be doing so without permission. But seriously, what information are your mods sending to servers?

 

[1M Industries]

So experience tells you a sizable percentage of the player base does not care about updating mods. This is not because they are ignorant, but because they don't want to deal with maintaining a complex environment - once it works, touching it again could break things. It's a game, not a job. If they don't want to update because it's too much work, that's a valid complaint. If they then go and complain about some exploit fixed in a later version, you have valid grounds to ignore them. It's not a reason to try to nudge people to update the mod by putting an unblockable popup in front of their faces.



If every old version has major bugs, crashes, and exploits, then the next update will probably also have major bugs, crashes, and exploits. It might have less, but I can't escape them completely. If I choose to stay on an old version, I'm not choosing between no bugs and bugs - I'm choosing between old known bugs versus new unknown bugs.



Put an entry on the title screen for "Mod Updates" that when clicked, will do the mod update check. Even better, make the thing that does that its own mod and have mods talk to it through an interface that only passes minimal information about the mod: Name, Version, Update Check URL. Only do the mod update checks when the user goes to the Mod Updates page. If they don't go to it, then the user doesn't care. And if the user doesn't care, don't show it to them. But there's no reason to check if the mod is up to date when the game is loading or when a world is loading.

Outside of Minecraft.jar, it could be up to whatever launcher the user is using to do the checks. Curse Voice could add that functionality easily, if it doesn't already.



It would still take up the user's time. It'd take up a lot of time if it blocked the rest of the loading process until dismissed, or take up 2 seconds times the number of out of date mods.



Given the amount of spy agencies out there, it's entirely possible somebody is logging. And even if it isn't, I shouldn't have to care about this threat model at all.

When I log into a single player game (which Minecraft in a single player world is), nothing should be making HTTP requests unless I request it. What information are you even syncing? Do you really need to be doing that syncing? If not, you shouldn't be doing so without permission. But seriously, what information are your mods sending to servers?

When you log into a singleplayer game, your login credentials go to Mojang, no matter what, so it is a moot point. That is how you get skins etc.

 

[Tahg]

Actually, skin requests are a simple GET with the name of the skin as the filename. They have nothing to do with login credentials, nor do I really see how that's relevant. There's an expectation that when you enter your login into the launcher (not Minecraft) that info gets sent somewhere.

 

[Havvy]

When you log into a singleplayer game, your login credentials go to Mojang, no matter what, so it is a moot point. That is how you get skins etc.

Actually, skin requests are a simple GET with the name of the skin as the filename. They have nothing to do with login credentials, nor do I really see how that's relevant. There's an expectation that when you enter your login into the launcher (not Minecraft) that info gets sent somewhere.

Re: Login credentials - Yeah, that's Mojang's DRM. It also opens me up to many of the same threat models, but as Mojang is a corporation with a ToS, I also don't have to worry about other threats.

Re: Skins - Fair point. I leak who I see in the multiplayer world (or possibly who I see in my single player world if the mods with "famous" players get skins via Mojang server). Though if I don't use a mod that gets skins, I can avoid making http requests during normal gameplay. But again, these go to Mojang servers.

 

[1M Industries]

Actually, skin requests are a simple GET with the name of the skin as the filename. They have nothing to do with login credentials, nor do I really see how that's relevant. There's an expectation that when you enter your login into the launcher (not Minecraft) that info gets sent somewhere.

Ok, fair enough. I did not know that. Thank you for letting me know!

 

[Reika]

So experience tells you a sizable percentage of the player base does not care about updating mods. This is not because they are ignorant, but because they don't want to deal with maintaining a complex environment - once it works, touching it again could break things. It's a game, not a job. If they don't want to update because it's too much work, that's a valid complaint. If they then go and complain about some exploit fixed in a later version, you have valid grounds to ignore them. It's not a reason to try to nudge people to update the mod by putting an unblockable popup in front of their faces.

As I have said countless times, it is impossible to ignore them when they exist in this great of a number - and are as loud as they are - and the rumors some of them spread that do real damage. Just last week I had another mod developer angrily demanding to know why I was still shipping their API...because the person reporting it was using a version 8 months old. I am bracing for the day that someone really big comes raging at me because of a certain major inter-mod exploit I fixed last July but still see reported daily.

Also, what do I do about people hiding (or worse, falsifying, which has happened, and one instance of which wasted 6 hours of my time chasing an elusive bug I fixed in November) their versions, knowing that anything other than the latest will be summarily rejected?

Given the amount of spy agencies out there, it's entirely possible somebody is logging. And even if it isn't, I shouldn't have to care about this threat model at all.

When I log into a single player game (which Minecraft in a single player world is), nothing should be making HTTP requests unless I request it. What information are you even syncing? Do you really need to be doing that syncing? If not, you shouldn't be doing so without permission. But seriously, what information are your mods sending to servers?

OK, you know what? Remove my mods right now. They send packets, so they are sending data to and from your IP every time a whole bunch of things occur, and could theoretically be tapped. Oh wait, you might want to also remove all the other mods. Oh wait, vMC itself sends tons of packets every time anything worth noting happens. Oh wait, your posting here sent your IP to a server.

...See the problem?

If you want 100% security, you need to live in a cave in Antarctica.

EDIT: but I shall now withdraw from this thread again because it(like Stupid Things) has become a Reika circle jerk.

...Seven people hating on me, and at the time of you posting, none in defense and it counts as a "Reika circle jerk"....

What is neutral then? A thread dedicated to why I am the antichrist (which, by the way, someone called me today)?
[That is, of course, a joke, before someone goes off to accuse me of a strawman argument.]

Maybe add it so that it only shows once per update?

I can probably do that, but, now the million dollar question:

Is that going to satisfy anyone complaining here?

Honestly, even if I added the config to turn it off globally, I will still have people complaining - many people have told me this explicitly - and even if I remove it entirely, I find it not unreasonable to imagine now people flipping out about how I "do not care about packs" when I refuse 99.9% of bug reports from 99.9% of packs because they are not using the latest version.

 

[HeilMewTwo]

I find it interesting - as well as several other things I am probably not allowed to say on this forum - that the more lenient I make the system, the more complaints I get, presumably until I totally back out of any checking at all. This is despite people saying otherwise.

@HeilMewTwo, you are a prophet.

Mewtwo's prophet that is.

 

[NJM1564]

As I have said countless times, it is impossible to ignore them when they exist in this great of a number - and are as loud as they are - and the rumors some of them spread that do real damage. Just last week I had another mod developer angrily demanding to know why I was still shipping their API...because the person reporting it was using a version 8 months old. I am bracing for the day that someone really big comes raging at me because of a certain major inter-mod exploit I fixed last July but still see reported daily.

Perhaps you should use github as your bug report repository and require that anyone who posts there list there version number on the first line. Then you or others designated by you would be able to easily ignore anyone who isn't using the matching numbers or has not added the numbers in question.
You could even create sub sections for each version number and have a big flashing message saying to update the mod if they go into those old sections.

 

[Flipz]

As the thread owner: This thread was created to avoid cluttering the Whats New thread. That is the only firm basis for it's origin.

Now as for what should be talked about here, a couple of things:

• Minecraft related. Other areas may tie into the minecraft world but don't stretch it (vanilla, modded, packs, texturepacks, meh)
  
• Topics that the community can benefit from currently discussing. If the events happened a month ago, or a year ago and it actually benefits the community to talk about it now, that mean that whatever it is hasn't been resolved or is still relevant.

What should not be talked about.

• Anything that does not benefit the community at all. Yes this an ambiguous rule, judgement calls are made all the time concerning it.
• If the discussion is hateful towards someone it does not belong here. Period. You may not agree with something someone has said or done, and respectfully bringing up quality points is cool, flaming/hating/gossiping about/shaming is not cool.
• If a topic has a dedicated thread because it has monopolized pages and pages of this thread it gets discussed there, not here anymore.
• If a topic has been deemed "resolved" don't beat the dead horse. If people agree to disagree and "all" points have been brought forwards, talking about it more is inevitable not going to produce healthy, pleasant discussion.

If you acknowledge that a conversation is being held between two people instead of a legitimate discussion you may want to consider a forum conversation, but I understand that other people may still benefit from hearing what you have to say.

We have a great community here with Feed the Beast, we don't all share the same opinion and that is completely ok, we can still discuss things. People can generally be trusted to remain respectful to one another and be generally decent. This will hopefully continue.

Added to first post. *Returns to perch, watching carefully.*​

 

[TomeWyrm]

Honestly, even if I added the config to turn it off globally, I will still have people complaining - many people have told me this explicitly - and even if I remove it entirely, I find it not unreasonable to imagine now people flipping out about how I "do not care about packs" when I refuse 99.9% of bug reports from 99.9% of packs because they are not using the latest version.

Honestly? You're going to get complaints from SOMEONE no matter what you do, even nothing. What you have to decide is if the people complaining are actually bringing valid points to the table. There are privacy-focused people that are going to go bonkers any time anything sends any data anywhere, you just talked to a very mild version of that kind of person. That thought process is (from what I gather, obviously not speaking for the person, this is my take based on observation) one of the major reasons why LexManos hasn't baked a mod update checker into Forge. Every time I see the subject brought up he starts talking about "phoning home" and the discussion goes nowhere.

Also: http://forum.feed-the-beast.com/threads/reikas-update-checker.80312/

This is swiftly evolving into a discussion worthy of it's own thread, and it's been brought up many times before. Hence my creation of the thread linked above.

 

[Reika]

I agree that it needs its own thread, and I have taken all my responses there, as should anyone else wishing to respond.

 

[NJM1564]

Um has anyone taken a look at the curse launcher lately?
It seems to have a ton of packs that I have never heard of. Including packs dedicated to subscriber servers and beta test packs. Are they just going to let any pack on there.
Not to mention it's a total disorganized mess.
The simplicity, the ease of finding what you are looking for, and the ability to see what mods are in a pack at a glance.
These are the hallmarks of the FTB launcher. These are what separates the launcher from other packs. And what made it better.