Minecraft Forums

I think this is a great move for minecraft modding in general. I have already signed up and had a bit of a play. I do have a few questions though

1. How does the repository work in reference to the packager? The details on CurseForge seem very sparse on this feature
• I currently use a python script to compile/reobfuscate/pack my code, will this cause issues?
2. I have noticed there is currently no way to download minecraft mods within the curse client.
• Will this be something that is added in the future?
• What changes will we have to make in the files we upload to make our mod compatible with this feature (if it is added)?
• Will this feature also be avaliable for coremods? Furthemore will we be able to specicify both a coremod and a "regular forge mod" in our downloads? (My mod will soon require this)
3. In the future what is the best way to contact the curesforge team about issues/question sucha s the ones above?

Quote from EnzerDeLeo

Yeah, seeing that the feature to select separate jars was added only last week, I am not too surprised that things are a little bumpy for getting a modified jar to work. Today is Thursday meaning we should be getting another snapshot, so who knows what new features will be pushed. The whole compartmentalizing to separate the engine and version sounds like something that is more in the works than something we will see immediately. While I wouldn't be surprised if that was a change made for 1.6, I also wouldn't doubt that there was a bit of misunderstand and that the whole version system was setting up ground work for such a change. From what we were told during Minecon 2012, the eventual goal is to have the game completely separated from the engine to the point where MC itself is a plugin.

I really don't mind the fiddling at the moment, I only did it to see if it would work. To tell you the truth I was actually quite surprised that it did. Although I guess in a way it does go to prove that having this functionality may not actually require so much work.

What keeps bugging me about the "engine split" is (coming from a modder's perspective now) what happens when something needs to be edited in the engine itself? Will that not destroy all the other "versions"? Sorry for bringing it back to the API, but we were told that the future modding API would allow us to edit "everything" (source) yet this engine/game spit seems to me that it would either make it more difficult, more prone to crashes and/or just more messy.


All in all, at the moment, I don't have any problems with the launcher (hell it makes playing minecraft on ubuntu less of a hassle) it will just be interesting to see exactly how this engine split thing will pan out.

Quote from wiimanclassic

1. Learn to spell.
2. The engine and game being separate is part of the API they're working on, why the hell are you talking about it here like it's part of the launcher?

1. Ohh wow, I miss-spelled launcher, whoopy doo.
2. It specifically mentions that new versions will be compartmentalised (i.e. engine away from the versions)

Ok I have spent a bit of time investigating the new luancher a bit more in hopes of finding out how much of a blow this will be to modders (which I probably should have done before originally posting).

I was able to get a modded 1.5.1 minecraft with forge as well as a mod working using the new launcher. So short answer not a whole lot. Getting a modded version of the game however required renaming/editing of a few files, but I assume majong will automate this better. Interestingly forge still dumps the "/mods" folder inside the ".minecraft" folder meaning that Forge at least isn't compartmentalising it as Mojong seems to would like. This really seems like the only thing Forge might need to change for the new luancher (which is actually quite trivial).

Right now there is really none of this separate jars for the engine and version that is talked about in the OP. Weather that is a bit of misinformation or something that is not implemented yet is anyone's guess. If it is not misinformation I can see many mods being crippled by it. If it says how it is however changes will be easy to adapt to.

Quote from Monochron

Where will Mincraft be storing this info about what version I am using and all of that?
In the Registry? Some file in the .minecraft folder?

Quote from The Dukenator

I doubt they'll store it in the registry, but I'm not sure where exactly.

It is all stored in a .json file within the versions folders in .minecraft. Registry makes zero sense because minecraft is cross platform and the registry is not.

Quote from EnzerDeLeo

The biggest breaks in format, from what I understand talking with other mod developers, have had to deal mostly with changes in the engine. I know that 1.5 had several changes in how rendering worked, causing a lot of rewrites. While I do not know for certain, I would bet pretty high that the changes to rendering were related to the rendering engine rewrite. Regardless, any major changes to any format is being done for the API, there is no reason to change formats for major parts of the game all willy nilly if it didn't have a good reason.

Yeah the big thing was changing how items/blocks are rendered. Lucky I had very few items in the current re-write and have gotten to know the item rendering code better than the back of my hand so it wasn't such a blow to me. Others have been quite crippled by it.

As a side note, I believe there was also suppose to be a lighting engine re-write on the horizon (I thought that was supose to be 1.6 has it changed?), yes this could also break mods.

Quote from EnzerDeLeo

The OP goes into this vary issue, it was one of the things they addressed. It is planned for Jars to be stored in a folder called versions, each update to minecraft would have its own folder in versions (1.5.1, 1.5.2, 1.6, etc). Mods that require modify the jar would have their own folder inside versions, so you would have a folder called something like Mine And Blade and inside that would be a copy of the minecraft jar that is modified however you needed it. That jar will not be touched by updates to minecraft and the client selects which version of the jar they wish to use. I assume they have a system planed that allows for multiple modded jars to be used. Again this is not a system that has been pushed out yet since it has not been finished, which is why there is no way for you to currently modify the jar. From the sound of it, it is something we will probably start seeing in about a week or at least hear solid details on how this works. It is too early to get in a huff about how this system works because we know very little detail outside of the Dev team asking mod developers to be patient.

Yeah I did read the OP, here is the quoted text

The new version of Minecraft is expected to be compartmentalized. Instead of having "Minecraft" as an entire game to modified, there will be a "core" Minecraft - essentially, the game's engine and crucial data - which all things will be built upon. Jar files which determine how the game runs will have their own locations, called "Versions", which will be selected from the new launcher. This includes everything from actual vanilla versions of Minecraft to the most complex mods imaginable. For example, if you were to install a mod called "Baconcraft" - which involved adding modified files to the minecraft.jar file, custom folders, assets, and textures - you could place it in a Version folder called "Baconcraft", and select it from the launcher when you started the game.

What I took from this is there is 1 jar for the engine, then many to determine how the game should run on the engine.But what happens when you need to edit things on both?

Now looking into the current state of the launcher, the "core minecraft engine" is basically just texture packs, lang files and sounds (which really isn't an engine). Which really seems like a bit of mis-information in the OP. If it does stay like this, then really no problems here and really shouldn't be too much of a burden. I also want to point out that the only reason I know this is because I did what others have told me I wasn't aloud to do, and that is download and test it myself.

Interestingly it looks like saves are also shared across versions

As for "there is no way for you to currently modify the jar", that is only because they wrote it to sync.

Quote from EnzerDeLeo

Not sure what part you are quoting here, may have misunderstood me. I do know that the github was something that was stopped when they had a developmental meeting to discuss how they were going to tackle the API and what needed to be done with it. They probably moved to keeping this somewhere else for the time being.

I quoted directly from your post to me, if I misunderstood sorry. But in any case, there really hasn't to my knowledge been much in the way of discussions with modders. Really seems like either they won't bother or it is still very far of (I actually hope for the 2nd)

Quote from EnzerDeLeo

This is my point exactly because there are several mod developers who are doing just this to the devs, including you in your early post. As someone who has gotten crap from mod users for not getting your stuff updated when the user wants you to get updated, I would expect you to understand how ironic it is when you turn around and do the same thing to the minecraft devs.

I voiced my concerns here, didn't constantly insult the devs personally, very big difference.

TBH I admit that I probably opened my mouth a bit to early and should have played with it a bit more (even though according to wiimanclassic I am not aloud to do this) and for that I am sorry. I am still worried that what I have been doing for the last couple of months will be for nothing, but will wait it out until it is more developed.

Quote from EnzerDeLeo

Again, people need to settle down and wait until solid information and a useable version of these features are out, everything is in a heavily WIP version right now and the majority of the features, while planned, have yet to be implemented.

I guess I thought it was in a more usable state to begin with (them releaseing a snapshot and all). It would also be good to get some more solid information, even some of the stuff in the OP doesn't make too much sense and may not be 100% correct (eg what I pointed out above). Probably just miscommunication somewhere.


I was also under the impression from the technical description that it was set up in a way that you can have a single mod enabled at once (getting this from the download source feature). Again this doesn't make sense and largely dismissing it until we see a more polished version. But it goes to show that more details should be released.

Quote from Chaospillager

So... Mod API is coming soon. Not really soon, but a few months soon. And I love being able to change versions. I hope I can play Alpha through the new launcher. If that happens, BEST. LAUNCHER. EVER! But I hope it's like where you have sub-folders, so you can choose which version. So there's Beta and inside are the version, and Full with those version in it, etc. But, they did say that it will be possible to open mods through the launcher, so maybe someone else will put the versions in there. Or maybe, there will be a launcher mod for it. OMG! DUMBEST IDEA EVER!

I wouldn't even say it is comming soon, a few months actually sounds optimistic.

Quote from EnzerDeLeo

----snip----

I never said anything about engine rewrites which if memory serves is what this update was suppose to bring, I agree those need to be changed. I do have a problem with completely changing the format of the game like they have that will mean that I have to yet again throw out most of the code and start from scratch. And this is all for something that really doesn't seem all that useful.

When I said about trying the developmental version, it was all for a test to see how it delt with a modified jar. Yes I know it is in development, but what it does is re-downloads the minecraft jar on each run. The only reason to do this is to sync with some online server. There is currently no way of setting up a custom version which I am sure will be developed. What will really be the determining factor is how this is actually handled. If it is basically a separate copy of the version folder, and allow for example the "mods" folder within, then there really is no issue. Anything else may require me to toss basically all the code, making what I have been working on for the past couple of months entirely redundant. I guess it will also depend on how forge handles it.


As for "they are working to make a bunch of mod developers", do you have a link where I can sign up? the only time I have heard about anything along these lines was a project on github that has not been updated in about 9 months (I assume they have another code base) and a discussion about a year ago at an entirely inappropriate time for me (it was something like 3 am).


As for suggesting to wait a few updates, I know for a fact that mod users will abuse any modder who does this (I have been on the receiving end of it).

Look it may completely blow over and not end up being as bad as I think. Maybe I should have waited until all of these features are available to voice my concerns. But seeing how it is suppose to be released sometime within the next month I am still sceptical.


On the other hand, the new launcher is now downloading the correct versions of lwjgl for linux 64 bit so at least they have fixed that bug

So basically modders yet again get the short end of the sword with yet another major mod breaking update. All this "new" and "ground breaking" luncher brings to me is yet another major rewrite to my mods. Every update requires small re-write, but the last few have required extensive rewrites. This seems like it will be even worse. Furthermore downloading the development luncher, it is currently impossible to edit the minecraft jar (all edits are overwritten)


We get promiced an API literally nearly 2 years ago and all we get is empty promises of an APi that will likely be inadequate for the majority of complex mods. Why do we continue to do this while majong treat us like second class citizens.