Your thoughts on the Technic Platform?

[MachineMuse]

*sigh* Why did this thread turn into another lame flamewar about permissions?

It seems to me like the FTB team could benefit greatly from this Platform technology. Right now they spend a TON of time and effort keeping the packs up to date and stable. If Platform is as easy to use as it looks, it would free up a lot of human resources for the content creation aspect where FTB really excels: FTB's wiki, challenge maps, and themed modpacks are far and away the best I've seen out of the community.

But then, I guess not everyone agrees with the hippie Canadian who thinks everyone should work together and build on each other's strengths.

Is Platform open-source? If it is, then FTB could easily re-brand it with their logo and stuff and just give acknowledgements to the authors of Platform.

 

[Guswut]

The sense of entitlement in this thread is completely disgusting and I would not blame any of the mod authors if they turned their back on the community with middle fingers held high.

If any mod authors did as much, they'd surely be missed by some, but they would not be missed for long because people will fill the void left. It's really just as simple as the law of supply and demand. There is a massive demand for modified MineCraft content, and no where near the supply to meet that demand because of a few bottlenecks, the worst being compiling mods together in a workable way, and making it easy enough for end users to do as much so that they can play together. If someone wants to walk away from this community right as it is starting to truly take off, well, everyone makes mistakes.

Is Platform open-source? If it is, then FTB could easily re-brand it with their logo and stuff and just give acknowledgements to the authors of Platform.

FTB already has everything that the Technic Launcher has in ability, but not in release. The FTB launcher allows people to share modpacks, which are kept up to date based upon the creator's release cycle (I believe, I am not sure of this but it would be a bit silly to leave this out). The FTB launcher does not allow for public modpacks, unlike the Technic launcher (a small modification to the code, and a massive modification to their personal policies), and the FTB launcher is heads above the Technic launcher in the look/feel of the launcher (which is trillions of turtle shells below a real launcher such as MultiMC).
Also, as an entire aside, I would like to personally thank you for bringing MechWarrior to MineCraft.

 

[Molten]

*sigh* Why did this thread turn into another lame flamewar about permissions?

It's pretty simple. Most threads on any subject that go past 5 or 6 pages end up with the same problems.
People new to the thread don't read what has been discussed in the previous pages (and who could blame them) resulting in endless repetition and missinformation. And new posts only pick up on the last few comments. Also there are still people with axes to grind and troll a thread like this with the intention of getting it closed.
The thread stoped being useful a few pages ago tbh when the rational discussion reached a concensus and soon after the first insults began to fly.

 

[Dasein808]

This is an excellent example of the three biggest blights in the Minecraft modding community today:

1) Calling people who don't agree with you "trolls" because how dare they not have the correct opinion on a topic

I referred to Entropy as a troll for the obvious flame bait / taunting post made in this thread; not because I have a different opinion, but nice try.

Hey dudes, I can shed some light on various Plus pack related activities (Warning, goon bias incoming). First: Covert Jaguar tried and failed miserably to have the pack DMCA'd. He actually commited a legit crime by doing so, but whatever. Point is, Covert failed horrifically. Second: We do not use a recoded version of railcraft, a wonderful goon was kind enough to provide the Plus guys with RCTweaks, which cuts out the DRM (weird right? DRM in a mod?) currently present in Railcraft, FML, Thaumcraft 3, and Forestry. Third: If you haven't used Plus Pack or one of its off shoots, do it now. They are incredible sets of mods, and far more fun than any other pack out there. Finally: (This is my Technic loving side) Platform is loving amazing in every possible way, and it quite literally blows FTB's convoluted process out of the water when it comes to Private (or public) packs. Take it as it will gents, stay classy.

Apparently, a mod felt that I was violating rule #1 of the forums by disrespecting this, obviously, respectful individual. So my post was censored.

Well said. However, when those modmakers' bad decisions affect me, don't get upset when I go against their wishes. I did it for Forestry, I did it for Gregtech, I did it for Railcraft, and I'll do it again.

2) Confusing genuine dissatisfaction with and distaste for the attitudes of a select few overstuffed amateur hobbyist developers for entitlement

And if those developers opted to stop developing because of the lack of respect from certain end-users then everyone loses.

3) Assuming we want these aforementioned unpleasant individuals to remain in the community and continue to destroy more than they build

I'm not sure whether you are referring to me or devs with that comment, but in any case, I roll my own pack and play SSP, so you don't have to deal with me.

The vast majority of mod makers are, contrary to popular belief in certain circles, not raging douchelords and thoroughly respectable people. It is, in fact, that very tiny minority of people - I can count them on one hand! - who most demand respect that are the least worthy of it and who get the most flak. A very sizable minority of us actually do want these people gone.

Which brings us back to your original point. You effectively want them gone because they disagree with you.

Sweet.

Put one of each person like that in a room, make sure they have a bad first impression of each other, and enjoy the fireworks. That's the root cause of all the community drama.

I'd say the root cause is a basic unwillingness on the part of some people to respect certain mod authors' basic requests. They're not asking for people's firstborn.

 

[MachineMuse]

FTB already has everything that the Technic Launcher has in ability, but not in release. The FTB launcher allows people to share modpacks, which are kept up to date based upon the creator's release cycle (I believe, I am not sure of this but it would be a bit silly to leave this out). The FTB launcher does not allow for public modpacks, unlike the Technic launcher (a small modification to the code, and a massive modification to their personal policies), and the FTB launcher is heads above the Technic launcher in the look/feel of the launcher (which is trillions of turtle shells below a real launcher such as MultiMC).

I'm not talking about private modpacks or whatever, I'm talking about how much effort it takes for the people maintaining the packs. Right now, the FTB team has a huge slog to keep all the mods and configs up to date in all their packs; this has been mentioned to me a few times by the people involved. If FTB is in any way based on the Spout or Technic launchers, there are complicated YAML files which (in my experience using YAML... I tried using them for MPS keybinds and recipes but) are very easy to permanently damage just by having the wrong indentation style set in your editor.

Meanwhile, the private server I play on has switched over to Platform and we get fresh mod updates every day, sometimes more often if there's a bug in my MPS release or something.

Also, as an entire aside, I would like to personally thank you for bringing MechWarrior to MineCraft.

You're quite welcome

It's pretty simple. Most threads on any subject that go past 5 or 6 pages end up with the same problems.
People new to the thread don't read what has been discussed in the previous pages (and who could blame them) resulting in endless repetition and missinformation. And new posts only pick up on the last few comments. Also there are still people with axes to grind and troll a thread like this with the intention of getting it closed.
The thread stoped being useful a few pages ago tbh when the rational discussion reached a concensus and soon after the first insults began to fly.

Yeah... for some reason I always forget I shouldn't have faith in people... it's probably due to some defect of human nature that I stay optimistic

 

[Guswut]

I'd say the root cause is a basic unwillingness on the part of some people to respect certain mod authors' basic requests. They're not asking for people's firstborn.

Let's try hitting at this from another angle: You want to use BluePower4 in your mod pack, which I made. I demand that everyone that wants to use it is required to get permission from me before using it, as well as include a link to a specific page that has pictures of puppies on it. You include the link in your pack, and ask me for permission as you are working on getting together the rest of your pack. I, though, am off on vacation on Ares, and won't be back for a few months. What do you do?

If you use my mod, you are not respecting my wishes.

If you don't use my mod, then you don't get to use the content you want to use, and your users suffer.

If you use my mod, ask my permission, and make sure to tell me that you're going to use it until I say otherwise, you might offend me because I am a delicate flower and have to remove it later.

While my example may seem overly silly, it really isn't all that silly as we get posts with people asking how to deal with this issue all of the time.

Currently, if you want a custom modpack, the end user is the one that suffers as they need to compile all of the mods, put together the configs in a way that allows them to function together, test to make sure your items and blocks don't overlap, and then stress test to make sure nothing else conflicts strangely. And, of course, there is constant updates required because there WILL be conflicts that you miss.

Instead, what if it was as easy to make a custom modpack as it is to use one of the premade packs from FTB? What if you just picked out mods from a list, and then waited as your launcher built that pack, and then launched it. You'd still end up with some troubleshooting in the game as there would still be mod conflicts, but given a good system people would be able to submit the issues directly to the launcher, which would then go to the mod authors. Unified technical support? Yes please.

The biggest bottleneck in the modded MineCraft community is the keyboard to chair buffer on the enduser's end, as most people that play modded MineCraft don't have the technical ability to deal with the vast majority of issues that spring up. If we can fix that, everyone will win.

I'm not talking about private modpacks or whatever, I'm talking about how much effort it takes for the people maintaining the packs. Right now, the FTB team has a huge slog to keep all the mods and configs up to date in all their packs; this has been mentioned to me a few times by the people involved. If FTB is in any way based on the Spout or Technic launchers, there are complicated YAML files which (in my experience using YAML... I tried using them for MPS keybinds and recipes but) are very easy to permanently damage just by having the wrong indentation style set in your editor.

YAML are just ugly files with horrible formatting, having used them via Bukkit for long enough to know that people CAN use other systems (tabs, commas, non-declarative spacing? What joy is this I feel in my heart?).

That aside, though, does the Technic Platform really help in regards to the config files? From what I've seen, all it does is allow you to declare new versions to your modpack, which people then download automatically when their version is older. It then overwrites the more recent version. If that is the case, it won't end up being all that much easier for the FTB team, unless I am mistaken in regards to what you meant (or something else. It wouldn't be the first time, nor the last time).

Now, if the Technic Platform was designed to allow you to upload only the CHANGED files (for example, everything in our pack stays the same, but we update MPS to version ∞.3.4 (from ∞.3.1), all we'd need to include in the modPack.zip for the latest version would be (besides the folder structure of course) the updated MPS version. If it worked like that (or works, I am not sure. If it does, please tell me so I can do a dance'o'joy) things would be a lot easier in regards to the amount of data that'd be constantly flying around.

Meanwhile, the private server I play on has switched over to Platform and we get fresh mod updates every day,sometimes more often if there's a bug in my MPS release or something.

Excellent, I am glad to hear that it is working properly! The server I'm co-running will likely be switching fairly soon as well for that same reason. An example of a recent problem: Someone accidentally murderboated the server because we were using an older version of ExtraBees. We updated the version of ExtraBees, and everyone had to manually update their version of ExtraBees. This wouldn't be that much easier in regards to time (we'd still have to spin off the new version of the modpack to our pack repository, and people would still have to download it) but it'd be that much easier in regards to effort ("Where do I get that mod from?" "Where does it go?" "Who are you, again, and why are you on my computer‽" could be heard. Our userbase is fairly good in regards to these things, though) is vast.
A better example: We decided to upgrade to XyCraft's latest version fairly late at night. We all manually update our XyCraft version, only to find that it requires the latest Forge version. In MultiMC, this is fairly easy to resolve, but it's still something that most users have not done. Everyone got through, although the headache of having to deal with this manually is fairly up there. And trying to imagine a userbase of non-technically savvy people really gives pull towards the Technic Platform.

 

[LazDude2012]

Guswut: It takes effort, but with Platform and Technic's new Solder repository system, your modpack can and will only update changed files.

Also, for all the public/private debate, there's a "Keep pack hidden" option on Platform. There are 39 pages of public packs, but IceWolf yesterday said there were over 400 pages of private ones

 

[Guswut]

Guswut: It takes effort, but with Platform and Technic's new Solder repository system, your modpack can and will only update changed files.

I have lots of effort to give, so I'll be looking into that as that'd be an optimal solution to the update issue. Thanks!

Also, for all the public/private debate, there's a "Keep pack hidden" option on Platform. There are 39 pages of public packs, but IceWolf yesterday said there were over 400 pages of private ones

An often overlooked fact is that private packs mean you don't really need to worry as much about whitelisting as the only way to get on your server is to have an exact copy of the mods and config used on your server. It could be reverse engineered from the error message given via Forge, but the amount of effort is vast in that regard.

 

[Velotican]

This took a while to post so it might be a little out of context now, but: so then Dasein808, I'm not going to bog the thread down with a quote war for long but sure, I'll bite this time. You'll probably find this was blunter than you were expecting.

Firstly, in the post you quoted from Entropy I see absolutely nothing trollish whatsoever so indeed your disrespect was unwarranted. Labouring this point will be silly ("YES IT IS" "NO IT ISN'T" etc. etc.) so let's not.

Second:

I'm not sure whether you are referring to me or devs with that comment, but in any case, I roll my own pack and play SSP, so you don't have to deal with me.

To clarify, I was referring to specific mod devs and I thought that would be pretty clear. I think you just said more about yourself than you meant to.

Which brings us back to your original point. You effectively want them gone because they disagree with you.

Sweet.

Now when did I ever say I was a nice guy?

I would say that your assertion was an oversimplification but it's a valid interpretation I suppose.

I actually feel these specific individuals are obstructionist nuisances and we'd all be all be a lot better off if they left and never came back. I'm not going to pretend that everyone can get along but I'd certainly hope the vast majority of us can, and they're not helping one bit. Not everyone is open to discussion, understanding an opposing viewpoint and reaching any appropriate compromises and when dealing with those individuals you either avoid/ostracise them or steamroll right over them. We've seen plenty of examples of both in the community and the latter is most effective when an individual goes out of their way to make avoiding them impossible and force a confrontation.

The remainder of your post was illuminating, as you are clearly in the "respect is assumed" pile of folks, while I am quite obviously by this point in the "respect is earned" pile, so we're probably never going to agree. This assumption is especially important:

And if those developers opted to stop developing because of the lack of respect from certain end-users then everyone loses.

It's a common argument. I don't agree with it. Perspective is important here: we're talking about modifications for a block-building sandbox game we all happen to like. As with anything in life, it's as important as we choose to make it. Probably because of the massive time and energy investment on their part with no meaningful compensation for it, it appears common for mod devs to have a distorted view of how important their work actually is, or at least subconsciously even if they're consciously aware of it. I'll get back to this in a moment.

Assuming a mod dev quits, you first assume that they don't release their code for someone else to take over. MFFS changed hands recently, for example. Asssuming they leave and take their mod with them, although yes there is a initial gulf caused by the loss of the mod the vacuum is eventually filled by another enterprising individual and balance is restored. Applied Energistics is an excellent substitute for Logistics Pipes whose official version has fallen way behind and is languishing in developmental limbo at worst and a slow crawl at best. AE is already looking like a fantastic, successful mod and a highly worthy successor for the logistics niche in the mod pool and all that had to happen was that Logistics Pipes disappeared long enough to restore demand for that particular mod type.

Am I going to yell at Krapht for "not updating fast enough"? Hell no, that would be silly. Krapht has his priorities in order and I highly respect that. LP will come back when it's ready and he's ready - and this leads back to my first point; if, in your hobbies you become so engrossed in them that you're willing to attack others, forego basic hygiene, or otherwise allow your personal standards of decency to slip because people are not engaging with your hobby in the way you want them to, it is extremely likely that you are threatening your own mental health by continuing to pursue that hobby and should stop for a while, if not permanently. Most of the mod devs I am referring to have demonstrated enough obvious stress and discomfort with their volunteer work that they really should have taken a break by now.

In particular with these individuals I have noticed a worrying trend in that they feel obliged rather than willing to continue with the project. We all need to remember that none of us are forced to play, none of us are forced to mod and we don't actually owe each other anything at all. It's perfectly fine to walk away one day.

Finally, we should all remember that once we make something public, we open it up to discussion, criticism and external input. If we consider these elements undesirable for a specific work, we should have them remain private. The second something is public, it ceases to truly be yours and yours alone, though the law strains to try to say otherwise. In fact if your creative works don't inspire others and breed further creativity you're Doing It Wrong.

Perhaps this has helped clarify my position better.

 

[RetroGamer1224]

Velot makes a very good point. In the end it doesn't really matter. MC will continue with or without mods. People will still play with or without mods. Some things like plugins may help make server play easier but many can stick to SSP and be happy.

After a night of sleep I can be a bit more clear on how if feel. Small backstory is I work with the public and I seen how petty people are. They want this or that and want You to give it to them. From this viewpoint I can totally understand how some mod authors want their stuff to not be messed with or moved around without their expressed permission. That is why I get very emotional on how people with skills in coding should be working and earning money with those skills. Again the skill and not the mod is what I am talking about.

 

[Dasein808]

To clarify, I was referring to specific mod devs and I thought that would be pretty clear. I think you just said more about yourself than you meant to.

It would have been if it weren't colored by the context of point #1.

A lot of people seem to view mod devs work as nothing more than code. I feel that this is largely an unrealistic and unfair depiction. I may never have met Azanor irl, but I feel like Thaumcraft (and other similar large scale mods) is (are) infused with a portion of its creator's personality and style.

Could it be reproduced or improved by another developer? Perhaps, but I would hate to see it either go away or be forced to play someone else's revision.

 

[Guswut]

It would have been if it weren't colored by the context of point #1.

A lot of people seem to view mod devs work as nothing more than code. I feel that this is largely an unrealistic and unfair depiction. I may never have met Azanor irl, but I feel like Thaumcraft (and other similar large scale mods) is (are) infused with a portion of its creator's personality and style.

Could it be reproduced or improved by another developer? Perhaps, but I would hate to see it either go away or be forced to play someone else's revision.

That is a fairly subjective view, and one that I cannot support as there is no logical reason for as much. Yes, Thaumcraft would end up being different if, for example, MachineMuse or King Lemming took it over. But the issue is that it appears as if you are stating that it would be worse, when, in reality, it'd merely be different.

We'd have a whole lot more modules or well designed interfaces, and the research system may actually be redesigned to not be a massive resource sink and actually be a research system as opposed to a game of guess-the-goat or look-it-up-online. It'd surely not go down the same route, but that is because they are not the same people. It is your opinion if you want to claim that it'd be a worse route, and an opinion that you cannot support either way as it'd require that we be able to view the alternative routes directly, which we cannot do as we lack access to a computer powerful enough to properly simulation the required data.

Besides that, though, you appear to believe that you are entitled to having things designed in a way that minimizes the impact to your life without accounting for the impact to other people's lives. As such, your opinion in respect to the people that would want something that would cause the change you don't want supports them as much as it supports you.

The difference is that we need to all start wanting what is best for the community (just no five year plans, please!), because that is what will end up being best for most everyone. If that means we lose a wonderful mod like Thaumcraft, or it ends up going down another path by a new developer, then that is what needs to happen.

 

[Dasein808]

That is a fairly subjective view, and one that I cannot support as there is no logical reason for as much. Yes, Thaumcraft would end up being different if, for example, MachineMuse or King Lemming took it over. But the issue is that it appears as if you are stating that it would be worse, when, in reality, it'd merely be different.

I'm not saying it would be worse. I'm just saying that I'd rather not have to risk it by simply respecting its creator's basic requests because I really like it as it stands.

Besides that, though, you appear to believe that you are entitled to having things designed in a way that minimizes the impact to your life without accounting for the impact to other people's lives.

If I felt that way, then I'd probably play a pre-made modpack instead of compiling my own. My life would be much easier if I didn't have to struggle to manually update 68 different mods.

To that end, I think that the platform being discussed sounds like a possible solution. I just have trouble understanding people who are so unwilling to respect some devs' basic requests.

Are some devs bigger prima donnas than others? Probably, but that's the nature of people. If I enjoy their work, but disagree with their attitude, I prefer to respect their requests in the hope that they will continue it.

 

[RetroGamer1224]

To play devils advocate. When something is picked up by someone different it may come out worse and different. Examples from real life are things like when Monte Cook left D&D. We got different and more helpful in 3.x but in 4th edition we got different and bad. Same thing for authors. V C Andrews has been gone for years yet every year a new book is released. Quality varies with each other but too many auhtors can dilute the original product.

That being said if an author has collabteration or help with their work there can be benefits. I will use Minechem as my example. A wonderful mod that slowly fell behind but is now getting new life put into it. Things are changed but the changes seem to be better for the mod. Same can go for fossiles and archiology getting new life put into it.

I firmly believe that what needs to be done is empowerment. Not the players learning to code but flexability as well as the knowledge to customize their gaming experience.

 

[Velotican]

I just have trouble understanding people who are so unwilling to respect some devs' basic requests.

There will be some individual variation but it comes back to the "respect is earned" mentality, and that conversely you can also earn disrespect; that someone can commit an offense of intention severe enough to be worthy of spiting as punishment. This is why stuff like spite piracy exists, where people are so offended by the actions of the company behind the creative work that they will pirate the work explicitly to damage the company through their wallet and the bad PR. You can argue that there are better methods of expressing displeasure such as simply ignoring the product entirely, which in the business world does indeed work very well.

In the case of mods, however, some devs, inexplicably, consider overexposure to be undesirable and would be perfectly happy if no-one used their mod so long as their creative vision was intact. This would be fine except their mod is public already and it's a lock the gate after the horse has bolted situation. Ignoring their mod would not spite them; using their mod against their wishes does.

Whether this is a productive attitude or not is highly debatable but the intent of this post was to help people understand the point of view better.

 

[LazDude2012]

You know Velotican, I had never heard the difference explained that way before, and had been wondering, (I'm generally on the "respect is earned" side of the fence) why I have always been in conflicts about this. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[RetroGamer1224]

Some of it comes down to how the internet works. The cost of a lot of information is that anyone can and will access it. If say a company made sure that their product remains untouchable, as in closed sourced and other methods, then that company will slowly vanish. Think about it, if say google wasn't open sourced with their browser and such then all we would have is IE and what ever odd restraints the big M would put on it.

It is competition that brings about healthy change. The desire to stand out from the crowd. Plus we also have to figure by in by the community of modding for MC is still young. There are still growing pains that need to be overcome.

 

[Guswut]

I'm not saying it would be worse. I'm just saying that I'd rather not have to risk it by simply respecting its creator's basic requests because I really like it as it stands.

Alright, that is understandable.

If I felt that way, then I'd probably play a pre-made modpack instead of compiling my own. My life would be much easier if I didn't have to struggle to manually update 68 different mods.

Yeah, I know that feeling. We've got around 150 mods on the server I run (HarvestCraft adds dozens, but it is worth it!). But you are still attempting to maximize your gains with minimal effort (a premade mod pack would not give you enough excess benefit to be worth the lack of additional content).

To that end, I think that the platform being discussed sounds like a possible solution. I just have trouble understanding people who are so unwilling to respect some devs' basic requests.

The boil it down, the issue is that you are coming at it from a moralistic standpoint, and others are coming at it from a legal standpoint. The devs may very well not have the legal ground to stand on to say that people cannot use their modification pack because it contains one of the dev's mods without them adding a link to puppies. If that is the case, it then means that we move mods BACK to the place that they are in pretty much EVERY OTHER modding community, which is that the modders are damn greatful whenever someone wants to use their mods, and they don't make demands of people that want to use it.

Again, if you make a mod for the sake of making a mod, then why aren't you allowing people to use your mod? If someone wants to make a modpack and include your mod, that should be a GOOD thing!

Are some devs bigger prima donnas than others? Probably, but that's the nature of people. If I enjoy their work, but disagree with their attitude, I prefer to respect their requests in the hope that they will continue it.

First off, it's a "request". It is not a command. It is not a demand. It is not a requirement. It is something requested. They cannot demand that you click the puppy link (although we'll surely see some modders that add such things to their code if the wind starts blowing against them, of course).

That aside, I would still say you are not focused on the correct perspective. The big picture here is that what we want is for MineCraft to be easier to play modified. That means making it easier to download modifiers for MineCraft, which means that things need to be easier than they are now as things, as they stand, are not easy enough for the vast majority of users as I'm sure you can agree with. That is the reason premade mod packs even exist.

To play devils advocate. When something is picked up by someone different it may come out worse and different. Examples from real life are things like when Monte Cook left D&D. We got different and more helpful in 3.x but in 4th edition we got different and bad. Same thing for authors. V C Andrews has been gone for years yet every year a new book is released. Quality varies with each other but too many auhtors can dilute the original product.

As part of that example, D&D e4 spawned the movement of the open sourced D20 movement, which has caused a great deal more growth for the D20/P&P gaming userbase. D&D may have suffered (and is still suffering), but the P&P world has grown because of it.

I'd consider that a good thing.

That being said if an author has collabteration or help with their work there can be benefits. I will use Minechem as my example. A wonderful mod that slowly fell behind but is now getting new life put into it. Things are changed but the changes seem to be better for the mod. Same can go for fossiles and archiology getting new life put into it.

Both of those mods were outdated when I checked them last, and both looked awesome. I agree that it's nice that we can get good ideas brought back from the dead, at times.

I firmly believe that what needs to be done is empowerment. Not the players learning to code but flexability as well as the knowledge to customize their gaming experience.

I disagree. The vast majority of MineCraft users will never try modded MineCraft because they think it is too hard to get into. Most that end up finding a premade mod pack will end up sticking with that pack and defending it to the death because of emotional attachment. And those that take the step beyond that to start making their own packs (the few, the far between) often end up being alone because no one else shares their specific configuration.

When MineCraft is easy enough to produce a modified version and allow others to use that it becomes a non-issue, we'll see a massive surge in the modification community.

 

[RetroGamer1224]

You are right Gus. A huge majority of games don't use mods for a wide varity of reasons. By empowerment I mean a player can see many options and choose how they wish to play. Be it vanilla to modded. Heck they can only play adventure maps for all I care. My point was options and variety. Things that help people grow.

 

[Guswut]

You are right Gus. A huge majority of games don't use mods for a wide varity of reasons. By empowerment I mean a player can see many options and choose how they wish to play. Be it vanilla to modded. Heck they can only play adventure maps for all I care. My point was options and variety. Things that help people grow.

Yup, I agree completely.

What I see as the next step is that Mojang stops playing around with adding more content, which, at this point, they're pretty much duplicating content that already exists, and starts making a proper unified MineCraft launching solution with an API that can take advantage of being a direct part of the MineCraft codebase.

From there, they either need to provide hosting for modifications, or they need to provide a unified database for MineCraft modifications which then allow people to customize the way their game plays. It'd be great if there was a set of interfaces, one for mods, one for modpacks, one for texture packs, and one for maps (similar to the way FTB works).

From there, keeping things in a unified system would allow for all MineCraft users to take advantage of the possibilities.