----With the way things are going, the fact that they are making the API will be the death of the game. Everything will get laggier, more complex and there will be strange bugs all over the place. If they can fix most of the problems in 1.8 before it comes out, then I would be impressed.
I agree that some of the elements being added into Minecraft with the more recent versions have been impacting performance of the game significantly. I completely disagree with your assertion that the API will be a cause of significantly increased loss of performance and in fact would be very much the opposite. With a good API system, most of the new elements of the game like new blocks (such as the recent addition of an iron trap door) can and should simply be implemented as "vanilla" plug-ins that are installed by default when the game is installed.
That is sort of the point of the API as it would allow genuine customization, where you could remake the derpy villagers with perhaps a model you want instead, if you think saddles should have a recipe (just look at the sheaf of posts on that one topic alone), add or remove that recipe and so forth. The API can also be used to help increase performance of your particular copy of Minecraft or how bandwidth intensive a server might become. It allows for tweaking so it can have the depth and detail that you want. Ideally, if the API was properly implemented, every block, every mob, and every item can and should be a plug-in including everything in the vanilla game. If anything, the performance killing parts of the game could even be removed thus increasing performance (potentially) if the API was properly implemented.
Minecraft is still in development,so don't measure it to finished games. Right now, its can't be measured. You can be happy that they realese the unfinished versions, so you don't have to wait until its comes out.
Minecraft is well into its release state. I don't buy the argument that "it is still in development" any more and is an argument that expired when it was proclaimed to be in the 1.0 "released" state. If anything, Mojang is looking at and end of life situation with Minecraft instead and the API could be a legitimate part of that software life cycle. The point of the new content being added by Jeb & Dinnerbone is mainly to extend the life of this game, where most video games usually last in the mindset of most users for about a couple of months and then they move on. That this game continues to have strong sales is incredibly unusual.
Of course its longevity is also one of the reasons it has some hardcore fans. Some people rag on Notch for some design decisions he made with the game, but he did do a whole lot that was right. The point of this thread is that he (Notch) made a promise to support the mod community some time ago with an API and it is an unmet promise with no real apparent plans for that to change.
It's been a "work in progress" for four years now. Entire AAA games with their own mod toolkits have been developed in less time. How long are modders expected to wait before just giving up and moving on? No doubt many already have.
I trust we haven't seen yet the full extent of the damage to the mod community brought in by 1.7.2. I know of at least two modders who have since moved on to other things and reveal little interest in updating their mods once Forge catches up to whatever current version (which is more likely to happen then any API from Mojang). It's just that modders, being people like everyone else, may them too lose their drive. If that already happens on a healthy mod support environment, we can only imagine what an extended period of no mod support can do.
But it is also players that may become affected. Speaking for myself, I'm feeling close to the end of my interest in the game. Vanilla Minecraft just doesn't hold any interest to me. Since pretty much mid 2012, it's the modded game that has been giving me all the fun I ask of a game. I've been stuck on 1.6.4 for 3 months now, while reading and hearing all about the new additions to the game. I'm incapable of playing Thaumcraft, RailCraft, Twilight Forest, Ars Magica, on these new versions. And that slowly but steadily has been eroding my interest in the game.
Meanwhile I have been developing two projects that are currently on hold and suffering from the fact I have lost much interest in the game. I have a total 3D model conversion of the John Smith Legacy texture pack for 3D artists or animators to use on SketchUp or Blender that I was planning to distribute on these forums. There's already 230 models done (5 weeks of real-time work involved) and I'm missing half of that to be finished. But I lack the drive to do it. I also have an half finished tutorial on efficient and organized strip mining, complete with home-made images and graphs that I don't see me interested in finishing anymore. I'm just losing interest in the game, because for 3 months now the game has crystallized.
So, as a player and not a modder, I too have been spending most of my time elsewhere and slowly losing all interest in the game. Not for the lack of a Plugin API, but for the lack of mod support. So from my own experience I would guess that modders, but also players who have can't enjoy anymore the vanilla game, are at risk. This week I have yet to fire the game even once. And tomorrow is Sunday.
I trust we haven't seen yet the full extent of the damage to the mod community brought in by 1.7.2. I know of at least two modders who have since moved on to other things and reveal little interest in updating their mods once Forge catches up to whatever current version (which is more likely to happen then any API from Mojang). It's just that modders, being people like everyone else, may them too lose their drive. If that already happens on a healthy mod support environment, we can only imagine what an extended period of no mod support can do.
But it is also players that may become affected. Speaking for myself, I'm feeling close to the end of my interest in the game. Vanilla Minecraft just doesn't hold any interest to me. Since pretty much mid 2012, it's the modded game that has been giving me all the fun I ask of a game.
It doesn't help that Forge has changed its IDE system. So now I have to learn a new framework (Gradle), a new IDE (because Gradle is not well integrated with Netbeans), and figure out how to get the new Forge environment set up, to write mods for 1.7 which will actually probably be obsolete by the time I'm done because 1.8 is coming out. I'm seriously considering not doing 1.7 versions and waiting for 1.8 Forge, since that 1.7 -> 1.8 is expected to be much less of a shift and the wait will probably be only 1 month or so after release.
And the API kind of hangs over modders' heads to. When Searge starts working at Mojang (soon, I think), will we get an IDE in a few months? Will I rewrite, recompile, and redistribute for 1.7 to have to do it again in a month for 1.8 to have to do it again this summer for the IDE? Maybe I should just wait 4 months and only have to do one rewrite per mod ever? It's sure tempting. It would be a terrible mistake if the IDE doesn't come out for 3 more years, but since Mojang isn't talking I have to guess.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
If theres nothing, then tell me what the cube.json file is? Its can be placed into resource packs to change the general block modell/texture mapping. Sounds there, textures there. They extracting more game data to be possible to add more stuff. As far as i looked into other games, they have resources outside from the engine. Minecraft has(had) all of it inside,so its not that easy.
Addressed in an earlier post, but the short version is that data is useless without the ability to put code behind it. Model json files may be great for texture artists, but they don't bring us any closer to having honest-to-god Java code from a mod running inside of vanilla than we were four years ago. That's what this discussion is about, and what the P in API stands for.
Oh and now its possible to have a resource pack inside a world save, as they said it will be.
It doesn't help that Forge has changed its IDE system. So now I have to learn a new framework (Gradle), a new IDE (because Gradle is not well integrated with Netbeans), and figure out how to get the new Forge environment set up, to write mods for 1.7 which will actually probably be obsolete by the time I'm done because 1.8 is coming out. I'm seriously considering not doing 1.7 versions and waiting for 1.8 Forge, since that 1.7 -> 1.8 is expected to be much less of a shift and the wait will probably be only 1 month or so after release.
And the API kind of hangs over modders' heads to. When Searge starts working at Mojang (soon, I think), will we get an IDE in a few months? Will I rewrite, recompile, and redistribute for 1.7 to have to do it again in a month for 1.8 to have to do it again this summer for the IDE? Maybe I should just wait 4 months and only have to do one rewrite per mod ever? It's sure tempting. It would be a terrible mistake if the IDE doesn't come out for 3 more years, but since Mojang isn't talking I have to guess.
Or you can just forget about Forge; it only took me half an hour to convert a mod I made from 1.6.4 to 1.7.2, mainly just replacing references to blocks (e.g. Block.stone.blockID became Blocks.stone); other than that, my main class was pretty much just a copy-and-paste job. I could also probably do this with my triple-height terrain mod, except tall mountains would be cut off as I can only use the lower 128 blocks and they can now exceed that (1.6.4 and earlier only used 128 blocks for terrain, rarely more than 120 in practice, so I can just shift that up and add 128 blocks of filler; in areas where trees in Jungle/Extreme Hills exceeded 128 blocks, the game would just use shorter trees).
Ya. I just notice they never made a comment on a plugin/mod api. I heard that bukkit was doing the job for it. I readied it on the Minecraft wiki before.
Or you can just forget about Forge; it only took me half an hour to convert a mod I made from 1.6.4 to 1.7.2, mainly just replacing references to blocks (e.g. Block.stone.blockID became Blocks.stone);
This is not practical for many reasons. Many mods are heavily dependent on Forge or make large modifications to the game that would take considerable effort to inject directly in the game binaries or otherwise risk serious conflicts with other mods. Players would also have a much harder time installing their mods if they had to manually incorporate each mod into the minecraft binary.
I'm not even sure why I am saying all of this. I thought it would be pretty obvious. Just because your mod is easy to port that doesn't mean this is suddenly how we should mod the game. Heck, it's because of the problems we had with direct modification of the code that Forge was born. And you suggest we go back to the mod equivalent of DLL hell? Hell, no!
Or you can just forget about Forge; it only took me half an hour to convert a mod I made from 1.6.4 to 1.7.2, mainly just replacing references to blocks (e.g. Block.stone.blockID became Blocks.stone); other than that, my main class was pretty much just a copy-and-paste job. I could also probably do this with my triple-height terrain mod, except tall mountains would be cut off as I can only use the lower 128 blocks and they can now exceed that (1.6.4 and earlier only used 128 blocks for terrain, rarely more than 120 in practice, so I can just shift that up and add 128 blocks of filler; in areas where trees in Jungle/Extreme Hills exceeded 128 blocks, the game would just use shorter trees).
It seems that in almost everyone of your post includes minimal advertising. The reason people use Forge is to prevent direct modifications to the game, and you are suggesting to directly modify the game's code. Your mods are not the same as other mods. Your mods may not include the same problems as others. Unless all mods were identical, you really can't speak for every mod.
This is not practical for many reasons. Many mods are heavily dependent on Forge or make large modifications to the game that would take considerable effort to inject directly in the game binaries or otherwise risk serious conflicts with other mods. Players would also have a much harder time installing their mods if they had to manually incorporate each mod into the minecraft binary.
I'm not even sure why I am saying all of this. I thought it would be pretty obvious. Just because your mod is easy to port that doesn't mean this is suddenly how we should mod the game. Heck, it's because of the problems we had with direct modification of the code that Forge was born. And you suggest we go back to the mod equivalent of DLL hell? Hell, no!
----Yes, base modification is the entry-level version of modding. It's not often that those mods can work together and everyone likes having 13 mods at once for some reason. They really need to spend an entire update on the API then give us a comprehensive manual that would teach even the entry-level modders how to make compatible mods using the new system. That's just a pipe dream however.
----Yes, base modification is the entry-level version of modding. It's not often that those mods can work together and everyone likes having 13 mods at once for some reason. They really need to spend an entire update on the API then give us a comprehensive manual that would teach even the entry-level modders how to make compatible mods using the new system. That's just a pipe dream however.
One thing to point out, and I'm extremely sympathetic about this too, is that Mojang is still a small company and will never be able to generate the API documentation and tutorials that a large company like Microsoft could, using the DirectX manuals and software examples/templates for comparison. The only way that Mojang is possibly going to be able to get the API properly documented is to get volunteers from the mod developer community assisting on something like a wiki.... which I should point out is also how Mojang currently documents simply playing Minecraft in the first place. Notch couldn't afford to hire somebody to package the game in a real fancy manner with a printed manual (even a PDF file) explaining how to play Minecraft when he started, and at this point it is sort of useless to even try.
Then again, this is why I say that the community engagement in the development of the API is a sign that nothing is really happening either. If Mojang is going to be dismissing these kind of volunteers, it will be indicating a significant shift in how they operate as a company. I agree with you that spending several months dedicated mostly (it doesn't even need to be 100%, but it does need to be a major push) to working on the API would be a good idea. If they are going to be writing this manual or even coming up a tutorial of some sort, it will take even more time.
To me, given the nature of Mojang and the depth of capabilities of the fans... especially the mod development community... that sort of engagement needs to happen again but with some real progress and some clearly defined goals. The API needs to be started in some fashion, not as a fully completed thing but with a couple of pieces that would allow for some elementary modding to take place and be properly treated as a work in progress that will take multiple updates to complete. Simply to keep the developers from getting crushed by the fans, there needs to be some sort of "moderator" group that can communicate with the developers, where legitimate questions about how things work and parameters in the API can be asked, but to also filter out FAQ type questions that could be answered by experienced plug-in developers who are not a part of Mojang. Regardless, some sort of communication channel must happen between the plug-in developers and Mojang (both ways) in order for the API to be successfully developer at a reasonable cost to both Mojang and not burn out the Minecraft development team.
Dinnerbone should not be expected to write the full and complete documentation for the API himself. Besides, there are plenty of fans who would be willing to do that as volunteers.
So, as a player and not a modder, I too have been spending most of my time elsewhere and slowly losing all interest in the game. Not for the lack of a Plugin API, but for the lack of mod support. So from my own experience I would guess that modders, but also players who have can't enjoy anymore the vanilla game, are at risk. This week I have yet to fire the game even once. And tomorrow is Sunday.
Pretty much this.
Mojang hiring Searge, combined with the major game changes that came with 1.7.x, basically killed MCP. Whether that was intentional or not doesn't matter, it happened regardless. Severely damaging MCP development in turn severely damaged development of all modding, Forge-based and otherwise, throughout the community.
Because modding is such a huge part of Minecraft's appeal (and in-turn, success), severely hampering the communitiy's ability to mod the game is a dangerously heavy blow to the game's interest level. If I were Mojang, I'd be in panic-mode at this point, and putting every ounce of effort I could into getting a workable API ("Mod-" "Plugin-" or otherwise) out to the community. If that meant delaying new features, etc., then so be it.
If I were Mojang, I'd be in panic-mode at this point, and putting every ounce of effort I could into getting a workable API ("Mod-" "Plugin-" or otherwise) out to the community. If that meant delaying new features, etc., then so be it.
I couldn't agree more with your statements here Divinius, however...
The major issue is that Minecraft is totally infested with bugs - we see this every time they release a snapshot and provide a list of fixes.
I have very little confidence that an API will actually work properly because the underlying code is so, so broken.
I think Mojang should, in this order:
1. fix the core code and get it working properly
2. develop and release a proper API
3. add new features
Really Mojang? iron trapdoors before an API ?!? Get your priorities straight.
It's been a "work in progress" for four years now. Entire AAA games with their own mod toolkits have been developed in less time. How long are modders expected to wait before just giving up and moving on? No doubt many already have. On top of the waiting, there's the frustration of Mojang's constant rewriting of Minecraft internals. This breaks the mods that exist and are working today, which would be worth it if something would ever come of it, but there's no indication that it ever will.
Well said!
Mojang's approach of saying absolutely nothing about the API is ridiculous - they need to rethink this and get something out to the public - something simple like "not this year" would be a good start.
You guys are ridiculous. You all sound so childish and it's positively entertaining. I'm fine being patient, Jeb created "Jebs Law" specifically for people like you, for shame.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." §7- Mark Twain
You guys are ridiculous. You all sound so childish and it's positively entertaining. I'm fine being patient, Jeb created "Jebs Law" specifically for people like you, for shame.
Why is it ridiculous to ask Mojang: "will the API be out soon, so I don't have to spend weeks recoding my mods twice?"
You might not share this frustration, but others do, and there's nothing entertaining about that at all.
Searge was definitely hired for this purpose. I'll also say I heard directly from someone who isn't supposed to say much about it that Searge's work would drastically change how we discover, install, and play mods.
That leads me to think it's going to be fully-integrated into MC like with Steam Workshop. Assuming the team does a good job with the API, it's going to make it a lot easier for mod devs to update their stuff to new versions, too.
Thing I like about all these "Nececeary Steps" is that they make it easier to write mods.
1.3 - Combination:
Sure we had to rewrite everything, but it was worth it. no more only singleplayer mods!!!
1.7 - No more item ids:
sure more stuff to rewrite but we have to do that every update. No more ID conflicts.
1.7 - Netty:
rewrite all networking code, but netty is more efficent. Netty is allot easier to code.
This gives mojang an excuse to do stuff that does not add content to the game. All Minecraft does now is steal from mods and change their code to prepare it for the "Plugin API". HALLELUAGH HALLELAUAGH IT MIGHT COME BEFORE THE UNIVERSE ENDS!!! In my oppinion they will never add it because They will NEVER be able to cover everything. Eveen if Forge and FML die but there will still be mods overriding minecraft stuff. So they are basicly just making massive changes to make it esier for modders. if you look at code from 1.2.5 it is nowhere near as good as 1.7.4 code.
I agree that some of the elements being added into Minecraft with the more recent versions have been impacting performance of the game significantly. I completely disagree with your assertion that the API will be a cause of significantly increased loss of performance and in fact would be very much the opposite. With a good API system, most of the new elements of the game like new blocks (such as the recent addition of an iron trap door) can and should simply be implemented as "vanilla" plug-ins that are installed by default when the game is installed.
That is sort of the point of the API as it would allow genuine customization, where you could remake the derpy villagers with perhaps a model you want instead, if you think saddles should have a recipe (just look at the sheaf of posts on that one topic alone), add or remove that recipe and so forth. The API can also be used to help increase performance of your particular copy of Minecraft or how bandwidth intensive a server might become. It allows for tweaking so it can have the depth and detail that you want. Ideally, if the API was properly implemented, every block, every mob, and every item can and should be a plug-in including everything in the vanilla game. If anything, the performance killing parts of the game could even be removed thus increasing performance (potentially) if the API was properly implemented.
Minecraft is well into its release state. I don't buy the argument that "it is still in development" any more and is an argument that expired when it was proclaimed to be in the 1.0 "released" state. If anything, Mojang is looking at and end of life situation with Minecraft instead and the API could be a legitimate part of that software life cycle. The point of the new content being added by Jeb & Dinnerbone is mainly to extend the life of this game, where most video games usually last in the mindset of most users for about a couple of months and then they move on. That this game continues to have strong sales is incredibly unusual.
Of course its longevity is also one of the reasons it has some hardcore fans. Some people rag on Notch for some design decisions he made with the game, but he did do a whole lot that was right. The point of this thread is that he (Notch) made a promise to support the mod community some time ago with an API and it is an unmet promise with no real apparent plans for that to change.
Version 2.1 now updated for MC 1.6.2
I trust we haven't seen yet the full extent of the damage to the mod community brought in by 1.7.2. I know of at least two modders who have since moved on to other things and reveal little interest in updating their mods once Forge catches up to whatever current version (which is more likely to happen then any API from Mojang). It's just that modders, being people like everyone else, may them too lose their drive. If that already happens on a healthy mod support environment, we can only imagine what an extended period of no mod support can do.
But it is also players that may become affected. Speaking for myself, I'm feeling close to the end of my interest in the game. Vanilla Minecraft just doesn't hold any interest to me. Since pretty much mid 2012, it's the modded game that has been giving me all the fun I ask of a game. I've been stuck on 1.6.4 for 3 months now, while reading and hearing all about the new additions to the game. I'm incapable of playing Thaumcraft, RailCraft, Twilight Forest, Ars Magica, on these new versions. And that slowly but steadily has been eroding my interest in the game.
Meanwhile I have been developing two projects that are currently on hold and suffering from the fact I have lost much interest in the game. I have a total 3D model conversion of the John Smith Legacy texture pack for 3D artists or animators to use on SketchUp or Blender that I was planning to distribute on these forums. There's already 230 models done (5 weeks of real-time work involved) and I'm missing half of that to be finished. But I lack the drive to do it. I also have an half finished tutorial on efficient and organized strip mining, complete with home-made images and graphs that I don't see me interested in finishing anymore. I'm just losing interest in the game, because for 3 months now the game has crystallized.
So, as a player and not a modder, I too have been spending most of my time elsewhere and slowly losing all interest in the game. Not for the lack of a Plugin API, but for the lack of mod support. So from my own experience I would guess that modders, but also players who have can't enjoy anymore the vanilla game, are at risk. This week I have yet to fire the game even once. And tomorrow is Sunday.
It doesn't help that Forge has changed its IDE system. So now I have to learn a new framework (Gradle), a new IDE (because Gradle is not well integrated with Netbeans), and figure out how to get the new Forge environment set up, to write mods for 1.7 which will actually probably be obsolete by the time I'm done because 1.8 is coming out. I'm seriously considering not doing 1.7 versions and waiting for 1.8 Forge, since that 1.7 -> 1.8 is expected to be much less of a shift and the wait will probably be only 1 month or so after release.
And the API kind of hangs over modders' heads to. When Searge starts working at Mojang (soon, I think), will we get an IDE in a few months? Will I rewrite, recompile, and redistribute for 1.7 to have to do it again in a month for 1.8 to have to do it again this summer for the IDE? Maybe I should just wait 4 months and only have to do one rewrite per mod ever? It's sure tempting. It would be a terrible mistake if the IDE doesn't come out for 3 more years, but since Mojang isn't talking I have to guess.
Geographicraft (formerly Climate Control) - Control climate, ocean, and land sizes; stop chunk walls; put modded biomes into Default worlds, and more!
RTG plus - All the beautiful terrain of RTG, plus varied and beautiful trees and forests.
Addressed in an earlier post, but the short version is that data is useless without the ability to put code behind it. Model json files may be great for texture artists, but they don't bring us any closer to having honest-to-god Java code from a mod running inside of vanilla than we were four years ago. That's what this discussion is about, and what the P in API stands for.
What does this have to do with anything?
Or you can just forget about Forge; it only took me half an hour to convert a mod I made from 1.6.4 to 1.7.2, mainly just replacing references to blocks (e.g. Block.stone.blockID became Blocks.stone); other than that, my main class was pretty much just a copy-and-paste job. I could also probably do this with my triple-height terrain mod, except tall mountains would be cut off as I can only use the lower 128 blocks and they can now exceed that (1.6.4 and earlier only used 128 blocks for terrain, rarely more than 120 in practice, so I can just shift that up and add 128 blocks of filler; in areas where trees in Jungle/Extreme Hills exceeded 128 blocks, the game would just use shorter trees).
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
This is not practical for many reasons. Many mods are heavily dependent on Forge or make large modifications to the game that would take considerable effort to inject directly in the game binaries or otherwise risk serious conflicts with other mods. Players would also have a much harder time installing their mods if they had to manually incorporate each mod into the minecraft binary.
I'm not even sure why I am saying all of this. I thought it would be pretty obvious. Just because your mod is easy to port that doesn't mean this is suddenly how we should mod the game. Heck, it's because of the problems we had with direct modification of the code that Forge was born. And you suggest we go back to the mod equivalent of DLL hell? Hell, no!
It seems that in almost everyone of your post includes minimal advertising. The reason people use Forge is to prevent direct modifications to the game, and you are suggesting to directly modify the game's code. Your mods are not the same as other mods. Your mods may not include the same problems as others. Unless all mods were identical, you really can't speak for every mod.
One thing to point out, and I'm extremely sympathetic about this too, is that Mojang is still a small company and will never be able to generate the API documentation and tutorials that a large company like Microsoft could, using the DirectX manuals and software examples/templates for comparison. The only way that Mojang is possibly going to be able to get the API properly documented is to get volunteers from the mod developer community assisting on something like a wiki.... which I should point out is also how Mojang currently documents simply playing Minecraft in the first place. Notch couldn't afford to hire somebody to package the game in a real fancy manner with a printed manual (even a PDF file) explaining how to play Minecraft when he started, and at this point it is sort of useless to even try.
Then again, this is why I say that the community engagement in the development of the API is a sign that nothing is really happening either. If Mojang is going to be dismissing these kind of volunteers, it will be indicating a significant shift in how they operate as a company. I agree with you that spending several months dedicated mostly (it doesn't even need to be 100%, but it does need to be a major push) to working on the API would be a good idea. If they are going to be writing this manual or even coming up a tutorial of some sort, it will take even more time.
To me, given the nature of Mojang and the depth of capabilities of the fans... especially the mod development community... that sort of engagement needs to happen again but with some real progress and some clearly defined goals. The API needs to be started in some fashion, not as a fully completed thing but with a couple of pieces that would allow for some elementary modding to take place and be properly treated as a work in progress that will take multiple updates to complete. Simply to keep the developers from getting crushed by the fans, there needs to be some sort of "moderator" group that can communicate with the developers, where legitimate questions about how things work and parameters in the API can be asked, but to also filter out FAQ type questions that could be answered by experienced plug-in developers who are not a part of Mojang. Regardless, some sort of communication channel must happen between the plug-in developers and Mojang (both ways) in order for the API to be successfully developer at a reasonable cost to both Mojang and not burn out the Minecraft development team.
Dinnerbone should not be expected to write the full and complete documentation for the API himself. Besides, there are plenty of fans who would be willing to do that as volunteers.
Version 2.1 now updated for MC 1.6.2
Mojang hiring Searge, combined with the major game changes that came with 1.7.x, basically killed MCP. Whether that was intentional or not doesn't matter, it happened regardless. Severely damaging MCP development in turn severely damaged development of all modding, Forge-based and otherwise, throughout the community.
Because modding is such a huge part of Minecraft's appeal (and in-turn, success), severely hampering the communitiy's ability to mod the game is a dangerously heavy blow to the game's interest level. If I were Mojang, I'd be in panic-mode at this point, and putting every ounce of effort I could into getting a workable API ("Mod-" "Plugin-" or otherwise) out to the community. If that meant delaying new features, etc., then so be it.
I couldn't agree more with your statements here Divinius, however...
The major issue is that Minecraft is totally infested with bugs - we see this every time they release a snapshot and provide a list of fixes.
I have very little confidence that an API will actually work properly because the underlying code is so, so broken.
I think Mojang should, in this order:
1. fix the core code and get it working properly
2. develop and release a proper API
3. add new features
Really Mojang? iron trapdoors before an API ?!? Get your priorities straight.
Iron trapdoors were merely an excuse to please those who are not satisfied with the snapshots, due to non understandable content being released.
Yep. Oh yeah I had another thought...
Maybe the Forge Team should re-code Minecraft while Mojang works on the API...
Well said!
Mojang's approach of saying absolutely nothing about the API is ridiculous - they need to rethink this and get something out to the public - something simple like "not this year" would be a good start.
They would be given too much false hope for next year. A year is not long enough.
Why is it ridiculous to ask Mojang: "will the API be out soon, so I don't have to spend weeks recoding my mods twice?"
You might not share this frustration, but others do, and there's nothing entertaining about that at all.
I do agree with you about being patient though...
That leads me to think it's going to be fully-integrated into MC like with Steam Workshop. Assuming the team does a good job with the API, it's going to make it a lot easier for mod devs to update their stuff to new versions, too.
Sounds like it's worth waiting for.
1.3 - Combination:
Sure we had to rewrite everything, but it was worth it. no more only singleplayer mods!!!
1.7 - No more item ids:
sure more stuff to rewrite but we have to do that every update. No more ID conflicts.
1.7 - Netty:
rewrite all networking code, but netty is more efficent. Netty is allot easier to code.
This gives mojang an excuse to do stuff that does not add content to the game. All Minecraft does now is steal from mods and change their code to prepare it for the "Plugin API". HALLELUAGH HALLELAUAGH IT MIGHT COME BEFORE THE UNIVERSE ENDS!!! In my oppinion they will never add it because They will NEVER be able to cover everything. Eveen if Forge and FML die but there will still be mods overriding minecraft stuff. So they are basicly just making massive changes to make it esier for modders. if you look at code from 1.2.5 it is nowhere near as good as 1.7.4 code.