Having played quite a bit of modded Minecraft (and to be honest, very little vanilla), I have of course noticed the obvious: mods and mod packs are pretty much ALWAYS a few versions behind. I'm curious why that is. I mean is it that hard to update a mod to the latest version of the game, or just not worth it? Mods for other heavily modded games (Elder Scrolls/Fallout series for example) usually have their mods kept up to date so they can be used on the newest version, but not Minecraft.
Why are mod/packs always a version behind?
- Thread starter DigitalWino
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Run a personal modpack for a week and your question will be answered.
If you don't have time for that, ill just tell you.
Sometimes updating a mod will break its compatability with others. Or the update may require a version of forge the other mods are just not ready for.
So to answer your question. Yes... yes it is too hard to just update. Most pack makers are unwilling to go through the rigmarole of trouble shooting their pack, especially if they already have a functional pack.
Edit: I think I misunderstood your first question. It's because Mojang is notorious for making new updates unstable for modding. Qe are not on 1.8 because it was deemef too unstable to work with. Also skyrim / fallout hardly updates anything fundamental like minecraft does.
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If you don't have time for that, ill just tell you.
Sometimes updating a mod will break its compatability with others. Or the update may require a version of forge the other mods are just not ready for.
So to answer your question. Yes... yes it is too hard to just update. Most pack makers are unwilling to go through the rigmarole of trouble shooting their pack, especially if they already have a functional pack.
Edit: I think I misunderstood your first question. It's because Mojang is notorious for making new updates unstable for modding. Qe are not on 1.8 because it was deemef too unstable to work with. Also skyrim / fallout hardly updates anything fundamental like minecraft does.
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Basically what @Azzanine just said.
Unlike other games, we don't have an official modding API, so we have to rely on Forge, which although useful is very frustrating when a mod is incompatible with the latest version.
Another thing is that Minecraft is a sandbox game, so many changes and additions would probably be added to a mod in a short period of time. Look at Botania, which in its heyday pushed out a version with new additions every day. Not every pack author has the time to update as fast as mod owners push out updates
So, that's why.
Unlike other games, we don't have an official modding API, so we have to rely on Forge, which although useful is very frustrating when a mod is incompatible with the latest version.
Another thing is that Minecraft is a sandbox game, so many changes and additions would probably be added to a mod in a short period of time. Look at Botania, which in its heyday pushed out a version with new additions every day. Not every pack author has the time to update as fast as mod owners push out updates
So, that's why.
I mean, if you tell me how to make a pack like Material Energy or Crash Landing for 1.8, I'll do it. I can't tell you what's up with the mod side of things, but us pack developers are more than a little reliant on mods themselves updating. When the biggest mods we've got for 1.8 are a super-unstable WAILA and Journeymap, we're a little hard-pressed to make a good pack.
I hope my question didn't come across as accusatory. I wasn't trying to be like, "You guys need to do a better job of keeping your packs up to date," or anything like that. I was honestly curious why it is that mods and packs (the title of the thread was SUPPOSED to be "mods/packs", but after I started the thread I couldn't figure out how to go back and edit the title) tend to be behind the newest version of the game. I mean obviously from the pack side of things, if the mods don't update, there is nothing you can do. I and fully understand that trying to get 50+ mods to work nicely together is far from easy. So I apologize if I what I said came across differently.
Wasn't Minecraft supposed to get an official modding API a while ago? I thought that either Forge or Bukkit was supposed to go official or something. I know that something happened as far as Forge vs Bukkit goes, but I'm not quite sure what (obviously I'm not a modder or a pack creator and I don't keep up on the latest as far as that goes).
Like I said though, I'm just curious about how it all works and why things are the way they are. At some point, I would love to learn Java and make some stupid little mod that does nothing useful just so I can say I made one, lol. But until then I will just have to enjoy the awesome work of others
P.S. Crash Landing is actually one of the packs that I really enjoy.
Wasn't Minecraft supposed to get an official modding API a while ago? I thought that either Forge or Bukkit was supposed to go official or something. I know that something happened as far as Forge vs Bukkit goes, but I'm not quite sure what (obviously I'm not a modder or a pack creator and I don't keep up on the latest as far as that goes).
Like I said though, I'm just curious about how it all works and why things are the way they are. At some point, I would love to learn Java and make some stupid little mod that does nothing useful just so I can say I made one, lol. But until then I will just have to enjoy the awesome work of others
P.S. Crash Landing is actually one of the packs that I really enjoy.
#BlameMojang
And with 1.8 being a major overhaul to the rendering system, we might not get one soon.
sometimes its just not worth it. we are already getting 1.9 snapshots so it might not be worth it to do 1.8.
also not everyone hates modding 1.8. Erasmus Crowley prefers it.
also not everyone hates modding 1.8. Erasmus Crowley prefers it.
So I guess maybe the new changes have made it harder to mod 1.8 now. I hardly understand what is being said but I will sometimes lurk the mod dev forum. What I gleened was that textures need to be added with their model now. Which I think increases the work needed on the assets side of things. Also aparently new physics calculations are making mobs "floaty".
Wether I am right or not about that stuff the main theme I am getting is that modding 1.8 is too much work for unpaid hobbyists to bother with.
That being said the vanilla minigame crowd have done some frankly amazing things with just vanilla and some resource packs.
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Wether I am right or not about that stuff the main theme I am getting is that modding 1.8 is too much work for unpaid hobbyists to bother with.
That being said the vanilla minigame crowd have done some frankly amazing things with just vanilla and some resource packs.
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The basis of modding Minecraft in any significant way is mappings, which are a translation between the gibberish names that Mojang obfuscates the game into before release into names that a modder can actually use and figure out how to do anything with. The problem is that every single release of the game means the names are usually scrambled to something different, so a new set of mappings has to be created, which is time-consuming work for a game as large as Minecraft. The end result is that a large amount of Minecraft simply isn't labeled, and sometimes the labels change between versions.
As of 1.7, the game became significantly larger, and 1.8 larger still. So each major game revision not only means it takes longer to convert the existing mappings, but the new code must be analyzed to determine its function to the best of their ability and labeled appropriately to make the new code usable as well. They don't even bother making mappings for every single release anymore due to the size of the game, it's just not very practical.
There are other factors outside of just the mappings as well, such as creating patches to repair the decompiled source which MCP and Forge rely on. Certain other things that were once vital to the process are no longer necessary to discover thanks to Mojang leaving certain information in the game as of 1.8.3 I think it was. But mappings will always be the crux which holds modding back.
As for 1.8, the community never moved to that for a variety of reasons, including what I would consider a boycott due to decisions made by the Forge team. Some larger mods are gradually stepping over the line, but I doubt 1.8 will ever be widely used for modpacks when 1.9 is already on the horizon.
As of 1.7, the game became significantly larger, and 1.8 larger still. So each major game revision not only means it takes longer to convert the existing mappings, but the new code must be analyzed to determine its function to the best of their ability and labeled appropriately to make the new code usable as well. They don't even bother making mappings for every single release anymore due to the size of the game, it's just not very practical.
There are other factors outside of just the mappings as well, such as creating patches to repair the decompiled source which MCP and Forge rely on. Certain other things that were once vital to the process are no longer necessary to discover thanks to Mojang leaving certain information in the game as of 1.8.3 I think it was. But mappings will always be the crux which holds modding back.
As for 1.8, the community never moved to that for a variety of reasons, including what I would consider a boycott due to decisions made by the Forge team. Some larger mods are gradually stepping over the line, but I doubt 1.8 will ever be widely used for modpacks when 1.9 is already on the horizon.
Its a combination of three factors:
- Newer Versions often break more then they fix, thus creating the need to wait for a demonstrably "stable" one
- Updating mods and QA-Testing them working together is a time consuming, straining task that people like to do as little as possible of
- Most modpack authors are not paid (and those that are not enough to deal with this shit)