Recent Events Discussion (RED) Thread

[erindalc]

I can see Curse not making a statement because of it being considered an internal matter, and because it's likely they aren't allowed to discuss reasons for firing people due to some legal reasons. I know I've seen that be used as the reasoning for companies not discussing that. With the people who are upset about this, I can promise you that they're a minority of the Curse users, probably somewhere in the range of less than 5%, and out of those people, it's an even smaller amount who are actually going to end up leaving the Curse system for MC. The vast majority of players simply do not care who's working at a company so long as they can still play their game.

The difference between this and the OVERKILL incident is that Curse hasn't (to my knowledge) promised the community anything in terms of keeping certain people hired, whereas OVERKILL promised multiple times they wouldn't add microtransactions. Plus, combine the new microtransactions with the absurd amount of DLC / P2W features of the skins, and you're asking for a riot. This is just a handful of people being fired. People who Curse can replace without too many issues.

Yes you're correct. I didn't mean that Overkill and Curse are the same, I just meant that both have done things their communities don't think were a good idea without asking for a response, and then not responding at all/for a while to the community feedback.

Now obviously, Curse isn't going to ask us about how their employment is going to work, and I would never think that they would. But suddenly laying off/firing three people, popular people, without warning or explanation, and them having them sign NDAs makes me thing that something bad happened. I have seen the argument that its part of their contract or something, but it still doesn't seem right.

TL;DR Even if this event does seem small and insignificant to Curse, it's clearly not to anyone who takes a look at the community right now.

 

[Padfoote]

Many people haven't accepted it with open arms. Some people only use the Curse client so they can play a certain pack, e.g. Agrarian Skies 2.

Doesn't matter what a few people are doing. So far it seems like the majority are using it. And those who are only using it for a pack or two are still using it, which is a success for Curse.

That may be an American thing (which I know Curse and the involved parties are), however, as a European, Squid may be under the assumption you sign a contract to work without anyone around. That is how it is in most places in Europe.

If that's the case then there's no point in arguing about their contracts. They're an American company, they're going to do things our way.

Yes you're correct. I didn't mean that Overkill and Curse are the same, I just meant that both have done things their communities don't think were a good idea without asking for a response, and then not responding at all/for a while to the community feedback.

Now obviously, Curse isn't going to ask us about how their employment is going to work, and I would never think that they would. But suddenly laying off/firing three people, popular people, without warning or explanation, and them having them sign NDAs makes me thing that something bad happened. I have seen the argument that its part of their contract or something, but it still doesn't seem right.

TL;DR Even if this event does seem small and insignificant to Curse, it's clearly not to anyone who takes a look at the community right now.

I don't know, I still don't see why it's such a big deal to the community, and still think people are blowing this way out of proportion. We'll see what ends up happening, but I doubt much if anything will come of this.

 

[FyberOptic]

I don't know, I still don't see why it's such a big deal to the community, and still think people are blowing this way out of proportion. We'll see what ends up happening, but I doubt much if anything will come of this.

Basically this. Nothing will come of it. Even if the worst case scenario came out that Curse fired them without notice and that it only hired them to convince the community to get on board, it wouldn't change anything. It's not even the worst of the rumors we've heard about Curse.

Besides, most players don't even know these peoples' names, let alone the drama that exists around them. And honestly, I doubt it would matter to the majority of people who do know who they are, since it doesn't affect them playing the game. Convenience fuels complacency.

 

[keybounce]

Keep in mind these people had the chance to review their contracts before they signed them and could have declined it at any point before signing on. They were (or at least, should have been) well aware of what they were getting into. Don't act like this whole thing is Curse being evil because they had contracts and NDAs. That's ignoring a vital half of the equation.

A contract may sound completely harmless when you sign it, but show out to be a great mistake later on. It's very easy to disguise a dangerous pharagraph as a harmless one, especially when you're dealing with people who don't have any experience with contracts.

The first rule of signing contracts is to have a lawyer review it before you sign anything. It's not a valid excuse to say you didn't know what a paragraph meant because you decided you would be fine without a lawyer. Ignorance isn't an excuse, it's a way to put the blame on everyone but yourself for something stupid you did.

Contracts ...

Way back when, contracts were a negotiated agreement between two parties who understood what they were agreeing to, and there were court rulings (aka "case law") based on that.

Today, contracts have become non-negotiated, non-negotiable, "take-it-or-leave-it" terms, between two people, only one of which understands what is being said, and somehow, those rulings are supposed to still apply?

This is a big core issue. "Always have a lawyer review things"? How many EULA's do you take to lawyers? How many "By using this site you agree to these rules" do you casually get "click-by" coerced into agreement with?

In the United Stated of America, we've got a real core issue. We've got a constitution that restricts courts to dealing with the case at hand, and that states that all laws are made by the legislature (explicitly prohibiting courts from making laws). Instead, we have courts that ignore that, and choose to uphold prior court rulings even when it is in violation of the constitution.

But that's getting way out of line from the issue here.

Contracts *can and do* contain clauses that seem to imply one thing to one person, and another thing to another person. Everything from a credit card company saying "all disagreements will be resolved by arbitration", and then "Oh, no, our view is true by default, we don't have to ask an arbitrator to agree with us first", to ... well, look at your own experience.

NDA's ... NDA's are evil. Period.

I can fully understand, and accept, NDA's of the form "Don't tell anyone about our technology or what you were working on". That's fine. That's company secrets.

But "Don't tell anyone about your own feelings/beliefs/opinions/views of working here"? In the USA, that should be regarded as unenforceable violation of free speech -- yet again, for some reason, judges uphold that.

I don't understand it.

We have a constitution that is supposed to protect us from having rights taken away by others. Instead, it is ignored.

Up until very recently, I thought Curse was an European company. Finding out that they are a USA company, and supposedly subject to the rules of the USA constitution, and instead that they are doing what they are doing?

Basically this. Nothing will come of it. ... And honestly, I doubt it would matter to the majority of people who do know who they are, since it doesn't affect them playing the game. Convenience fuels complacency.

This. The only way that ordinary players would find out about this is ... well, not. Ordinary players don't play modded. Modded minecraft was, if I recall the data correctly, about 5-10% of total minecraft play.

But what about ordinary modded minecraft players? Well, if there was a big public relations push to get people to know about it? There's a reason people in business have public strikes -- to get other people to be aware of what is happening.

There is no organized public relations system for modded minecraft. There is no place where a "minecraft news" reports on "which groups are on strike against which organizations and why". There is no "Details at 11!".

You go through a browser, to a site, and download a mod? Is there a big banner there talking about "A strike is in effect against curse! Use X instead"?

You go through a launcher, to download a modpack. Is there any place where you see "Modpack X is no longer on curse, go to Y instead, and here's why"?

For that matter, if a launcher only downloads a modpack through curse, is there any way for the user to find out about the happenings?

If it's the curse launcher, getting a modpack only through curse, then there probably is no way to tell what's happening, besides altering the modpack to be political. That's probably going to be considered over the line by a large number of international players who see this as a USA only thing.

If it's a different launcher that has the ability to display messages, and fetch a pack from different locations? Sure. What launchers do that?

I'm realizing now that all the modpack fetchers and launchers I know of are designed to fetch packs from their sites only -- curse from curse, ATLauncher from AT's stuff, etc. I don't know of a generic "My job is to read a description file, and fetch from whereever that description file says" launcher/downloader.

 

[Lethosos]

Just to point out one thing with the last paragraph: Technic only keeps locations of modpack addresses in their database. The packer has to maintain a location of his/her own for the actual files. Even Solder, the special update software Technic distributes, needs to be on the same sites that the individual modpacks reside.

Okay, I'm back to watching, I just wanted to make that distinction clear.

Sent from my Puzzle Box of Yogg-Saron using Tapatalk 2

 

[NJM1564]

Guys. Lower the bloody pitchforks.

Yes so you can wipe them off and raise them again. Don't want them to rust.

 

[NJM1564]

If you don't want to be "attacked", you probably shouldn't post about how your business is safe in a thread about how some old friends of you were just fired from their jobs. It'd be far more appropriate to post a comment saying that you feel for your friends, and then talk about your business if anyone actually asked. Doing what he did makes him come off as extremely unfriendly and corporate.

He wasn't positing about his business so much as not wanting the entire community to start panicking screaming that the sky is falling or that FTB was going to get shut down.
He probably did say that he felt bad for his friends. In private over voice chat.

It would hardly be proper to say it out here where it could be made to seem like he was just curing favor with the community for being so compassionate. Cause that's apparently some thing that he would have needed to consider given how the community is reacting.

 

[RealKC]

This is a lot of drama... What's an NDA BTW?

 

[Lethosos]

Non-Disclosure Agreement.

Sent from my Puzzle Box of Yogg-Saron using Tapatalk 2

 

[RedBoss]

One big point:

1. Contract work is a business term for a "non-permanent" employee that allows tax benefits for the "employer." These agreements are by definition, intended to be temporary.

Modded Minecraft is a NICHE gaming community. More than that, our type of "technical" modded Minecraft is even more niche. Simple proof of that is the huge chunk of the MC user base that are playing on consoles, which you can not mod. Vanilla accounts for most of the Minecraft market. Bukkit and plugin type mods far exceed our player base. To accept a temp position, based on a niche market of Minecraft, that is further dependent on random, amateur programmers or pro hobbyists, is a huge risk.

 

[RealKC]

• Gendustry for 1.9.4 will be out in the next few days

Forestry is out for 1.9.4?

 

[erindalc]

Forestry is out for 1.9.4?

In alpha, link here: Forestry_5 [Jenkins]

EDIT: I stand corrected, its on curseforge now:
http://minecraft.curseforge.com/projects/forestry/files/2304454

 

[FyberOptic]

Oh geez. Then I really hope this isn't a big update.

It's a content update more than anything, which is actually refreshing for a change. I didn't do hardly anything to get my 1.9.4 Meddle stuff working on 1.10.

 

[FyberOptic]

Content updates are fine. Some of the changes actually seem a bit exciting. And if there's no major internal changes, it should be possible to make a coremod that lets 1.9.x mods run on 1.10...

I'm half expecting MCP to dump a load of mappings changes in again, like they did with 1.9.4. Not sure why they bother with SRG names if we need to physically update mods at every point release again.

 

[sgbros1]

Just released a new mod for 1.9 & 1.9.4

FlintCo - http://minecraft.curseforge.com/projects/flintco

FlintCo Allows you to disable wooden tools/weapons and replace them with flint tools/weapons. you can also leave wooden tools/weapons enabled and use flint tools as a extra tier for a vanilla feeling.

I have included 3 different recipes easy, normal and hard. there is also 2 recipes to craft flint easy and hard. I have also added in a flint ore that drops flint when mined.

Flint ore?

That's... gravel... right?

 

[Golrith]

So... Apparently Mojang has released a 1.10 snapshot? There's some information about the new features on the Minecraft wiki.

I really hope they're not screwing everything up again. And I really hope there's a while until the final release. Updating mods all the time is annoying.

I love that most of the new stuff (from a players perspective) has existed in modded MC for many many versions. Again, nothing new, unique or interesting being produced.

 

[lenscas]

I love that most of the new stuff (from a players perspective) has existed in modded MC for many many versions. Again, nothing new, unique or interesting being produced.

The problem is, what isn't already been done?

The content updates are only for the vanilla players as the modded players already have everything that is in the scope of peoples imagination that is possible withing the boundaries that is minecrafts code base. To make it even harder for mojang to make a content update that would appeal to modded players they can't add things that don't make "sense" for the minecraft world. They can't just add a power system like rf and machines that run of it, the vanilla players would freak out.

Making an update that focuses on content for modded players is just a lost battle.

Having said that, we as modded players also don't know enough about the vanilla content. I wouldn't be surprised if most people here have no clue how to use endermites for farm enderman. I wouldn't even be surprised if people here did not know they could be used for that.

 

[FyberOptic]

Making an update that focuses on content for modded players is just a lost battle.

Mojang's biggest problem is the constant internal changes rather than actually focusing on the content. Nothing added in 1.8, 1.9, and now 1.10 snapshots have required any of the major overhaul that they continue to make to the game. Stuff like separating item and block color overrides into an entirely new mechanism in 1.9 and 1.9.4. Why? What does that gain other than another decrease in performance of searching more hashmaps every time anything is rendered? The end result to all of this rewriting is more bugs, when they still haven't fixed ones from previous rewrites.

Modders have historically done more with a lot less, because their focus is specifically content. Mods haven't particularly improved as a result of any of these rewrites. Ironically, some of them got worse, like Thaumcraft 5 did initially due to 1.8's lack of flexibility. Though I guess to be fair, that was as much Forge's fault as it was Mojang's.

 

[NJM1564]

Mojang's biggest problem is the constant internal changes rather than actually focusing on the content. Nothing added in 1.8, 1.9, and now 1.10 snapshots have required any of the major overhaul that they continue to make to the game. Stuff like separating item and block color overrides into an entirely new mechanism in 1.9 and 1.9.4. Why? What does that gain other than another decrease in performance of searching more hashmaps every time anything is rendered? The end result to all of this rewriting is more bugs, when they still haven't fixed ones from previous rewrites.

Modders have historically done more with a lot less, because their focus is specifically content. Mods haven't particularly improved as a result of any of these rewrites. Ironically, some of them got worse, like Thaumcraft 5 did initially due to 1.8's lack of flexibility. Though I guess to be fair, that was as much Forge's fault as it was Mojang's.

I think the point for mojang is to make it easier for them to add new content. They have never really seemed to care much for modded.
As for performance, just get a new computer. That's a big win for microsoft. :/

 

[masterzh]

new day...

and @Aroma1997 with Industrial Craft

Explosions in the EnergyNet are enabled again. If you connect a machine to an improper voltage, it will explode.

Lol and 10 years later feature is back... good that i dont care for IC2 anymore...