Correct. The Mod packs are the thing. Jaded's Magic Farm has been a major lesson -- it's relearning a lot, and trying to learn a lot of new stuff. Food doesn't work anything like it did before, and between the hunger changes, the tool changes (TiC + Iguana + some more tweaks), and the nastier mobs, well, imagine trying to learn minecraft without a comprehensive wiki -- Hunger Overhaul changes how food works, Pam's HarvestCraft gives lots of new food, but just try to find docs on the details. And the whole new behavior of mobs isn't documented either.
And that's just the most obvious mobs -- there's another several dozen mods that change things to be learned.
I am actually using the vanilla launcher. As far as I know, I'm the only one on the testing team using a Mac, and the beta launcher was never available for the mac. I'm skilled enough that if you give me a mods folder, and a config folder, and tell me which version of forge to use, I can put that together. But I'm able to do that because I've done low-level cr*p with minecraft since beta 1.9 (even writing my own shell script launcher to have multiple versions in different directories back in 1.2.3 to 1.4.7). I spent the time playing with, and learning, the vanilla launcher, as well as the 1.6 version of magic launcher, and frankly I can probably update my shell script launcher soon if I wanted to. (It's not going to be pretty -- I don't know how to parse the json files from bash, but as long as they don't change much I can just use their known contents).
But I despair at the streams and videos of the testing, I have yet to find any stream or youtube video (apart from Jadedcat) of any tester having extensive knowledge of the game. In fact the last one I saw the guy was trying to punch trees in the spawn area and didn't even know ....... really ......
Ok, you are talking to me. That was me.
For Alpha 1, I actually took the time to take the list of mods, go through, look up each mod's forum thread, get a quick statement of what the mod was about, read the OP, and any wiki I could find, look for anything that was a potential mod interaction to document what would need to be tested, etc.
I was trying to get exactly what you were asking for -- extensive knowledge of the mod pack, and what needs to be tested, etc. -- to give us a roadmap for organized testing.
After one day, and barely making it to the end of the A's, I asked the others on the team to help me. Well, at the time, the team was a lot smaller, and the help didn't happen. And, the mod pack kept getting updated and modified. I got one play session on that pack, and the biggest thing I noticed -- and the person I played with confirmed -- was that hunger drained much faster than normal. (Apparently part of Pam's harvest craft, I think.)
But then the server was changed to Alpha 2 -- which was changed to Alpha 3 before I had a chance to use A2.
For A3, I didn't bother to try to document what was in it -- everytime I tried to understand what I was playing before I played, I lost the time/chance to play. I just went in and tried to play. I knew about TiC, and Iguana's tweaks, and thought I understood it well enough to play. (I didn't -- I made a few oppsies because I was basically learning a whole new game, that just happens to use the same engine).
But ... Spawn Protection? Do you know how often I've run into spawn protection?
I never run into it in single player.
My multiplayer world? Not only did I turn spawn protection off (well, "0") because it's a private server for a few friends, not a public server ruined by griefers, but the whole issue didn't even exist back in 125 when you actually spawned at the spawn point rather than a random spot near the spawn point (not to mention the x/y/z instead of x/z/y spawn location bug) with a large protection area needed; besides, since it's a small private server, we're all op anyways.
Spawn protection? I've tried playing on public servers, only to find the whole "Anyone trying to start gets hit by PvP'ers or griefers even on servers that prohibit the whole thing". The only thing I've ever seen that actually looks like it would work properly is GriefPrevention, which actually works for single players -- everything else I've seen is either aimed at guilds or is more roll-back than prevention. Or worse, when you start you can't do anything and are in a "welcome" area and have to first become a member before you can begin playing.
Did I have any documentation prepared about that mod pack? No. I had not played it before in it's 147 (15x?) incarnation, and my opinion of TiC being overpowered is fairly well-known -- Jaded teased me about it. I don't like TiC. I think it would be great if you had only one "upgrade" slot on your items -- three is too many. Maybe some people want two. Maybe mDiyo could make the number of slots on your items a config option -- no, when I suggested that, it was turned down. The whole thing of some tier-1 items having 2 parts while others have three parts means that they aren't equal quality -- more parts means more special abilities. Your "tool binding" part has no effect except to add special abilities -- so paper is a free extra slot. In general, the whole TiC system is just not well thought out -- even if you had some material that gets faster as it wears out, and it made sense to say that using it on the head results in faster mining, does it make sense that the handle would also behave that way?
Stock TiC, with no changes, completely obsoletes normal tools. Other than maybe an initial pick to get started, there's basically no point to anything other than a "max enchanted" diamond pick, and then only because unbreaking 4 / efficiency 5 exceeds TiC's best -- but repairing TiC equipment is easier (so unbreaking doesn't matter), and E5 needs a beacon for it's instant break.
Iguana's tweaks, with the leveling system -- you start with NO upgrade slots, and gain then as you use the tools; the tools do wear out and need to be replaced; repairs get more and more expensive as you go -- actually makes a really good balance. The additional changes of not allowing certain types of materials to be used for certain parts is also a good improvement.
But changing from basically 5 mining strengths to 7 mining strengths?
Removing the ability to even make a wood sword -- and yes, they do really exist?
Not even being able to make a hoe or axe initially?
Having the choice to use TiC instead of being required to use TiC?
Stock TiC overpowers vanilla tools.
IG makes TiC a choice, no longer obviously overpowered.
But magic farm's configs are set to prevent vanilla tools (remember, IG can do either mode, and defaults to no vanilla).
How well do I know TiC? Give me 30 minutes and a chance to review a choice matrix, and a supply of materials, and a pre-built smeltry, and I can make a decent pick. So this isn't going to be an easy mod pack for me to play and test.
Now, none of that gets to the other flaw of TiC. The material costs don't match. A vanilla pick takes 2 "handle" and 3 "material"; a TiC pick takes 2 and 1. TiC adds tons of ores, for very little purpose, and then adds a doubling system on top of that. So if you had an ore that generates one block per chunk with TiC's system, it would be roughly 6 blocks per chunk if you did not have doubling and had three times the material expense.
So TiC's ore gen isn't balanced for vanilla purposes. And TiC isn't balanced for vanilla. In fact -- personal opinion here -- given how much ore vanilla tosses at you, any mod that can't get by on vanilla's ore rates, and needs to double it -- any mod where doubling isn't just a waste -- has excessive material costs for what you build. And "one ore per chunk" of the nether ores is just bad.
I have yet to find any stream or youtube video (apart from Jadedcat) of any tester having extensive knowledge of the game.
I'm calling you out. I think you're full of it. My challenge: Play Terra-Firma-Craft without using any wiki or guides. After all, it's just a mod -- a single mod -- for Minecraft, right? So it should be the same game, right? You should have extensive knowledge, and know what to do, right?
HA.
Knowing the engine, and knowing the specifics of the pack, are very different.
I was playing what was basically a new game (my thaumcraft experience is little more than using a harness and googles of revealing; I've never used P's HC, Hunger Overhaul, etc), and you saw me run into a game mechanic that I have never had to worry about before. Ever.
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Like Jaded, I will acknowledge my lack of tact, and lack of diplomacy. I think you are judgmental and arrogant (the two often go hand-in-hand). I am even recognizing that I'm being slightly rude in this paragraph. But you seem to feel that you can tell when someone doing testing is incompetent, when the truth is we're asked to test, without proper knowledge, without access to op privileges to test the high-end stuff, with worlds that reset daily, with modpacks that are changed daily without even giving us a "what's new" heads up -- we have to go through the list of mods and see what's changed -- and you seem to feel that we should do better -- that *you could do better*. I'd love to see you try. Hence, my TFC challenge. I know I would fail at it. You?