Hi everyone!
While we continue working on the foundation of Minecraft itself, we'd like to get started on our promise to involve the community in shaping the official API by having our first planned Minecraft API discussion. This Saturday we're hoping to have an informal discussion on the community's thoughts and ideas on what they feel the API should provide and how it should be shaped. We already have some topics in mind of our own that we'd like to cover, but we encourage you to prepare some of your own topics of interest for the discussion for you and us to get the most out of the opportunity.
To keep things manageable, we'll most likely have to limit the amount of people that are able to talk. As such, we'll be giving representatives from modding groups that develop a modding platform, like Bukkit, Spout, etc. priority when selecting who will be provided with voice. If you're a part of a group that is interested in attending, please elect two representatives (one backup in case the first can't make it) and RSVP in a post below.
If we feel that more participants will be manageable, we'll provide other modders with the ability to participate. We wish we could just let everyone talk, but that would be a bit too crazy, sorry. If you believe that there is a better way to go about doing this, feel free to mention it in a post below and we'll take it into consideration.
If you're interested in joining us for the discussion, we're planning to hold the meeting this Saturday at 20:00 CEST on the Esper IRC network in the channel #minecraftdev. If you can't make it, we'll be providing logs of the meeting after the fact. For people who won't be actively participating in the meeting, we'll have another channel #minecraftdev-discuss where anyone is able to discuss the current topic in the meeting.
Who:
To keep things manageable, we'll most likely have to limit the amount of people that are able to talk. As such, we'll be giving representatives from modding groups that develop a modding platform, like Bukkit, Spout, etc. priority when selecting who will be provided with voice. If we feel that more participants will be manageable, we'll provide other modders with the ability to participate. We wish we could just let everyone talk, but that would be a bit too crazy, sorry.
If you're a part of a group that is interested in attending, please elect two representatives (one backup in case the first can't make it) and RSVP in a post below.
What:
An informal discussion to get an idea for what future discussions should be about, a feel for what ideas people have regarding the API and so on.
When:
This Saturday, June 30th 2012, at 20:00 CEST (check what time this is in your time zone).
Where:
Moderating meeting will take place in #minecraftdev on the Esper IRC network, irc.esper.net. Regular discussion will be taking place in #minecraftdev-discuss.
List of Attendees:
- Afforess from Spout
- Searge from MCP
- Amaranth from Bukkit
- UltraMoogleMan of WEDGE fame
- RoyAwesome of Spout GUI fame
- TkTech of #mcdevs and MCEdit fame
- Jarvix from Canary
- LexManos from Minecraft Forge
- FlowerChild of Better Than Wolves fame
- ShaRose of GuiAPI and ID Resolver fame
- Cojo of Tropicraft fame
- Corosus of ZombieCraft and Tropicraft fame
- medsouz of SocialMiner fame
- Xie of Xie's Mods fame
- Snowl of MCForge (classic) and LibMinecraft fame
- DV8FromTheWorld from Minecraft Port Central
- Kulttuuri from MinecraftEDU
- Eloraam of Minecraft Forge and RedPower fame
- sk89q of WorldEdit, WorldGuard and CraftBook fame
Agenda:
- Our plans for involving the community in the API development process for the future.
- Our considerations on how we might handle contributions.
- Our plans for keeping the community in the loop.
- The direction we're taking to prepare for the API.
- General Q&A.
Hope to see you there!
// The Minecraft Team
[10:47] == Loganvz [[email protected]] has joined #canary
[10:47] <Loganvz> I want to punch my internet provider.
[10:48] <Loganvz> 16 times in a row.
[10:48] <l4mRh4X0r> Do it!
[10:48] <Loganvz> I could..but I'd go to juvy.
[10:48] <Loganvz> Internet was down for 8 hours.
[10:48] <Loganvz> Missed the entire conference.
You don't really need to sign up to use irc.
There was an earlier meeting too.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/73774243/ModAPILog.txt
Why not have the actual mods stored on the severs themselves? This allows one-off mods to be made. I also found that a large bottleneck seems to occur with the storage devices as well, as every time a backup cycle occurs on the server I play on there is lag. Lag also occurs when someone leaves or joins. Figuring out how to control the mods I am a bit for a loss with, but I think a simple text file (or series of files in a folder) in place of a mod repository would be a good place to start as it does not take up much space.
To save bandwidth, I think the client can send a list of installed modifications and version numbers, along with its render distance. The sever then sends the missing mods and only the chunks that will be rendered or the maximum load distance specified in the server configuration file. The trick will be keeping track of the various render distances used by the many clients.
I also read that mojang held back on what they could have added because of the move but there will be a point this year maybe the the modders will not be able to keep the code updates fast enought between version and they might try to find a way so that a code that worked in 1.0 now workmen in version 8.27
At least that is wat I gleemed besideds the fact that the major coders want to find a way to get some money for their work easily.
im probably misinterpreting your post, but google sethbling biome editor and you will find a plugin for mcedit that lets you change the biome of a specific chunk. therefore, i think as long as the way worlds are saved isnt changed, the api wont have a part in the biome saving of a world.
In going over the log, it appears as though what is being proposed is almost a complete from scratch re-write of Minecraft. The basic mechanics of the game are going to remain including the quirky behavior of redstone, the block-like nature, and all that we have come to love, but the API is going to force a substantial re-thinking of how the game is being put together.
The issue you have brought up is one of the things they talked about, including a hard separation of the client and server portions where the client would only be worrying about aesthetics like direct rendering of the image and the server would be dealing with almost everything else. Currently there is a whole lot of trust toward the client... trust that is misplaced and is the root of some "hacking" and griefing in the game.
It will be interesting to see how complete this will make the game. If I'd venture to guess, the API is not coming out in version 1.4, but rather Minecraft 2.0, as it will really be that big of a change. I don't know what Jeb is going to call it (naming versions is very subjective) but it will be huge.
A lot of very good ideas were presented, and I want to thank all of those who threw in their $0.02 into the discussion on both channels. I sure hope that Mojang puts together the developer website for the planning and development of the API as I'm sure there are many other people who have ideas on what ought to be put into the API. It is ambitious as hell in terms of the scope of what was discussed.
It is very dangerous what is being proposed, in terms of the fiscal health of Mojang. I've seen a great many companies, including companies that were extremely well capitalized and should have done well which were in a position that Mojang is in at the moment which shot themselves in the foot and screwed up only to go bankrupt and disappear. I sure hope that Mojang doesn't do something very stupid with this API, and they certainly can. On the other hand, if Mojang pulls this off they are going to have some real staying power in the game development industry and be a real powerhouse that will make Stockholm one of the major video game development centers of the world. Rewards go to those who take the risk, so it will be a fun ride to see where this goes.
At the moment I see Mojang doing the right thing, respecting the fan community, and doing some stuff that I had only hoped other software development companies would do with their user base. The only other company which came close to doing something like this was Borland International, before they got a bunch of clueless suits which screwed up that company and flushed their whole product line into the toilet (not to mention being subverted by Microsoft and having their entire engineering team hired away). I could say ditto for Apple Computer, but that company went to the dark side in the mid-late 1980's and never let Steve Wozniack do the things he could have (and IMHO should have) done.
and when people join the server, they can download the mod from the server and play ;p
If you are using MCP, it may be possible that the 1.3 snapshot could be a huge blessing... but the changes are drastic and substantial for all but the most simple mods that only add a new recipe, block, or mob. It was something explicitly mentioned in the chat where the API developers commented about how big of a change this latest update has been, where they are hoping mod developers start to work with the upcoming MCP snapshot.
Thanks,
xDrapor
---------
Author of DynamicBan
Here are some unofficial summaries/logs from the first Minecraft API meeting:
Logs (meeting starts at 18:03):
http://sbnc.khobbits.co.uk/log/logs/old/minecraftdev_[2012-06-30].htm
Summary:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1puSEflHIqFNgSpoHUjr3esYTyYkifkMf0vQ6JDoaGmM/edit
A few questions:
What does this mean, exactly? *is not technically inclined*
YES.
EVEN MORE YES.