Status updates for private mod pack owners

[Watchful11]

Sorry for the late notice. Officially moving to 965 as the default forge. Still a good idea to specify though.

Working hard on the pack updates. 90% chance they go up tonight, small chance I have to finish up tomorrow.

 

[Watchful11]

Azanor has changed his modpack policy. Thaumcraft is now allowed in public modpacks so long as you follow the normal rules, credit, no making money, links, etc. Woox!

The only major mod that does not allow public modpacks is twilight forest.

 

[Watchful11]

Announcing imminent substantial changes to the modpack process.

This semester I am taking 3 difficult programming classes at university. They all have a number of substantial projects I will need to dedicate the majority of my time to work on. I had hoped to bring my modpack tool to a state where it could do the majority of my work for me, but I have not had time to do so. I still plan on continuing its development and further refining the submission process, but at this point I have to cut my losses and do my best to keep the 3rd party pack system open with my limited time. As such, I will be changing the guidelines to roughly the following.

My tool is in such a state that I can generate automatically generate permission files for any mods on the new spreadsheet(which I will continue to add to). People will submit their modpack with permission, consisting of a link, author name and screenshot of permission, for every mod that does not have open permission on said spreadsheet. I will generate a permission file for everything on the spreadsheet, then add the extra permissions at the bottom. Ideally, a large majority of mods will be on the spreadsheet, so most packs will not need any additional permissions. Updates MUST note any added or removed mods.

I will currently support 3 "jar" mods. Forge 953, forge 965 and liteloader. I will assume forge 965 for all packs unless you specify otherwise.

While this will likely end up being a fair bit easier on initial submissions, and not any harder on updates, I will be stricter on requiring submissions to be exactly as I outline in the new guidelines. I will not have as much time to fix problems for people.

I am working on pack updates now and will work on new pack submissions in the order I received them over the next few days.


On a personal note, I am trying as hard as I can to not simply shut down the 3rd party pack system. I enjoy working with all of you on your packs, but my classes take priority. Please bear with me as I get through this period of my life.

 

[Watchful11]

Ran out of time again. I have to be at work early tomorrow. I'll finish up the remaining pack updates tomorrow evening when I get off.

 

[Watchful11]

I got a lot more mods added to the new spreadsheet. I'll continue to add mods as I encounter them. I want that list to be as complete as possible.

I am still working frantically in my few minutes of spare time on getting the permissions tool to a state I can use it(as mentioned above). I am delaying checking the new packs until this is done. Checking packs the old way takes anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour, depending on how closely the author followed the guidelines. With the new method, it will takes seconds. It is simply not a good use of my time to check packs the old way when I am this close to switching. Therefore I will not be checking new packs until this is done. Hopefully this week.

 

[Watchful11]

Getting closer

I am having a really busy week, but I spent a few hours adding more stuff. I still need to add a way to store per pack permissions. That will save a lot of time in the long run. I'm hoping to get that done before Friday so I can spend time getting caught up. We'll see.

Edit: Going through all my messages. My apologies if I don't respond to yours. We have a 30 second spam delay so it would take a good 20 minutes just to respond to everyone. I have added your updates/new packs to my list and I'll get to it as soon as possible.

 

[Watchful11]

I'm happy to announce @Luminus is now helping me check new modpacks. I should have the first few up tonight and the rest by tomorrow evening.

 

[Watchful11]

I think that will about do it.

I can now save all the modpack specific permissions to a file so I can easily access them in separate sessions. I can also easily write out the permissions file. There's still a lot to do before I release the tool to the public, but it's at a point where I can use it to check packs.

I need to fill out the spreadsheet a bunch more, but there's a good chance the new guidelines will be out this week. Also, I will make it very clear what existing packs need to do differently. I don't think there will be much.

There are 3 new packs @Luminus has verified. I did promise to get them up Friday, but didn't end up having time. I will try to get them up tonight. I'll also catch back up on all the hotfixes and questions people have sent me. Luminus is working on checking most of the remaining new packs, so I should be either telling you what's wrong or getting them up within the next couple days.

 

[Watchful11]

I currently have the policy of doing regular updates on Thursday/Friday and then doing some hotfix updates over the weekend. In the past I have been rather lax about this. If you submit a regular pack update Saturday, it may go up with the hotfixes.

I have done this partly for my workload, being able to do everything at once makes it a lot easier. But this is also partly for the pack authors. Without this policy, your pack update could happen anytime in the days after you submit it. This causes server owners to not know when to update their server.

However, I have never really asked what your opinion on the matter is. Additionally, in the future I may be expanding my "upload capacity", ie, adding more team members to help me.

So here's the question, how much do you care about knowing when your pack will be updated?
Answer here!




Same ole comments as before, sorry I didn't get the packs up, trying again now, new guidelines out soon, really.

 

[Watchful11]

The results so far of the poll are very clear. Everyone wants something different. I will start thinking of how I should change the process, but it's not going to happen overnight.

At a guess, it will probably be a once a day thing. You will submit your update, we will process it and upload the pack to the repo. We will message you saying your pack will be up today. Then at a certain time each day, maybe midnight est, all the xml files will be uploaded, which makes the launcher able to access the pack. Again, this is just an idea, none of the infrastructure for this is even close to being set up yet.

New guidelines. Still working on these. I'm trying to come up with an easy way for pack authors to submit all the info about their mod without putting it all in a text file. Over the last year of working on these, I have learned that people will make a text file in whatever format they want, which makes it impossible to automate reading of them. In turn, this makes it hard to know when people change things in the info file, since I would have to manually compare everything.

Anyway, getting closer, will muddle along as is for a bit longer. If you want to watch my progress, I set up a github page.

Working on updates now.

 

[Watchful11]

Quick notice. I've been tied up with homework the last few days and have not even had a chance to read my messages. I'll do that and get back to everyone tomorrow.

 

[Watchful11]

Getting a lot done with my week off. If all goes well, I'll have more announcements later in the week.

Since I don't have any school to worry about, updates will likely go up Thursday this week.

 

[Watchful11]

Azanor has changed his modpack policy. Thaumcraft is now allowed in public modpacks so long as you follow the normal rules, credit, no making money, links, etc. Woox!

The only major mod that does not allow public modpacks is twilight forest.

Either he's reading this, or he has been planning on doing this for awhile.

Benimatic has opened up the modpack policy of twilight forest. It is now allowed in public packs.

And um, Mo'Creatures is the only major mod left that doesn't allow modpacks!

 

[Watchful11]

APPLICATIONS NOW CLOSED
I am now officially looking for people to add to the 3rd party modpacks team. The work won't be difficult, but will require being able to politely answer messages. The amount of work will also be very fluid. I'm hoping to set up a system where any of the team members can update packs as they come in, so you can help as much or as little as you want.

If you are interested, please message me, either in your modpack conversation or a new one. Please tell me something about yourself as well as why you want to work on the 3rd party modpacks team. Consider this a sort of test of competency, so try to use proper spelling and grammar.

 

[Watchful11]

Apologies to everyone. I was really hoping I would have enough time this week to get some of the stuff I had planned done. But it continues to drag out.

Many thanks to the people who have already messaged me about the team. I'll get back to you over the next few days.

Unfortunately I didn't get the pack updates done tonight. Should be up tomorrow after I get off work.

 

[Watchful11]

Got a bunch more applications, thanks again. I think I got almost everything else caught up, so I'm hoping to have time tomorrow to properly read all of them.

 

[Watchful11]

Well, I have way more applications than I need team members, so I'm going to have to do something I hate and tell most of you no. Unfortunately, I have another of those weeks where a bunch of deadlines pile up together, so I don't have much time to pick among all of them. I realize the irony, I don't have time to get people to save me time, but I don't want to shortchange the people who really want to help. I'll respond to everyone soon, promise

Apologies also for all the messages I haven't responded to yet. I'll get to them soon as well.

 

[Watchful11]

Got just about everything caught up. This weeks packs are updated, all messages are replied to. The only exceptions are the new pack submissions. I've got all the new team members checking the new packs and I will either get them up or respond with the problems soon.

I have a project due tomorrow night as well as another one due the day after that, so I likely won't be able to get hotfixes up till Sunday.

 

[Watchful11]

As of now, applications for the 3rd party modpack team are closed. I've now got more helpers than I know what to do with. Hopefully I can get them doing all the "grunt" work so I have time to improve the system in general.

For those still wondering, 1.7 support is indeed getting closer.

 

[Watchful11]

Got a lot done today. Packs updated, 9 new packs up, including some that have been waiting way too long. The team is reviewing all the remaining packs and we should hopefully get messages about them out over the next few days.