I don’t think they’ll purposely kill modding. The Java version is going to be on the internet for a long time, even if MS/Mojang officially drops it. I think MS may make modding more difficult just because the newer Win 10/Pocket version won’t be Java-based, and it’s missing some of the features of the better supported branch. I know MS wants to get at some of that sweet DLC pack money they’re missing on PC and mobile, but outright make mods forbidden? Nah. They’ll likely just offer the official DLC skin packs in their store and let players figure out mods on their own.
I don’t understand this comment - Unity had C# support in version 1.0 ( just over 10 years ago), back when it only ran on OSX.
Teiman
4743
I have not touch C++ in one billion years, so I don’t know a word about any of this. But is my impression, why have CLR as a target for C++ if you will not use it for cool shit.
Anyway theres one million ways to allow modding for a game. You could implement a modding API and load a external module. You could support a interpreted language and load external modules. You could load DLL files written in you-don’t-know-how. You could recreate the architecture in a very modular way, and provide the source code for a few modules, so they can be rewriten. You could rewrite the architecture in a server client way and have the server or the protocol public, to allow people to rewrite new servers or new clients or a proxy that intercept the protocol and correct/modify/change/inyect into the protocol. You could write your program as a producer-consumer, with the producer adding task in a queue, and the consumer reading and removing items from the queue, and allow a third-party observer to consume from the queue, add stuff to the queue. You could render to memory, and allow third parties to render to this memory before is painted to the screen. You can compile your game for a VM, then have this VM open sourced. … (note: one or two of the above are redundant)
But I am a modding maximalist, so is normal that I think this way.
mok
4744
Comment was not about when, but more about that they are in there (as opposed to something like Java). As Unity has become more popular amongst the learning to program by making games crowd, it is cutting into that market. MC in C# will increase that share, and in 10 years will make C# even more popular as Java’s popularity will wane.
Teiman
4745
That is a challenger for the Misundestament of The Decade.
Javascript is a bad fit for games, because you don’t know how fast or slow or how much or little memory is going to use some code. The type of stuff game programmers care, made Javascript a suboptimal proposition. Then theres good ones, like LUA or native ones.
But in other places Javascript is very vital and a lot of people use it, more people every day.
Just now, JS is the most popular language in github by a wide margin.
http://tech.co/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Most-Popular-Languages-According-to-GitHub-Since-2012-loggly-infographic_v2.png
Lot of kids are using Java to learn programming before being formally trained
“What language to teach to kids” is a open question nobody has found a good answer yet. Java is probably damaging these kids ability to solve problems with software.
But because we don’t have a answer to “what language teach to newbies”, maybe Java wins by default.
Gendal
4746
Because then you would get reflection for ‘free’. All of those techniques you listed for allowing modding on a game are hard to implement well, where as just enabling reflection suddenly allows anything to be modded. This has downsides obviously, and it pushes the onus for compatibility on to the modders instead of the original developers, but the results as minecraft can attest to are pretty spectacular. And really buggy too, I won’t deny it. I think there is a middle ground that can be reached here, but either way managed languages like Java & .net really open the doors for modders.
Targeting the CLR with C++ was not a serious suggestion on my part, and it would likely require the same amount of effort as just porting it to C# or at least run at the same speed.
Teiman
4747
Oh… I am not a C# or Java developer so the idea of having so much “late binding” power is new to me. I understand now.
All the ideas I proposed are “early binding” and require a lot of initial effort and give littel/limited power (so is high effort/low reward). But what you suggest is low effort/high reward.
And see, now we have over a dozen posts already. No real flamewar yet, but let’s see how it will unfold further.
Meanwhile back to on-topic:
Recently I began feeling that minecraft itch again, so installed and also the FTB launcher. And then got stuck: It offers me a huge list of mod packs with even huger lists of mods included in each. But no real information on what all of that means.
Apparently some mods are tiny and the name of the mod already pretty much says what it means. But then there are mods that are potentially huge (e.g. Galacticraft). But when I try to click the link, or google for it, I get thrown to websites often containing just a forum and there is no description on what the mod generally does.
So I have no idea whether “Horizons” is better for me compared to “Infinity” or any of the other mod packs. Am I missing some obvious website somewhere which reviews modpacks or something?
I guess “professional” minecrafters donä’t have this problem, because probably they grew up with all these mod packs growing around them and followed their development. But the last time I played minecraft was when it was still going for a tenner and had no mods to speak of…
If you haven’t played the game for a long time, why not just try it without mods and see the vanilla differences?
I need to post this in the Nerd Rage thread, along with internet articles/blog posts that lack a publishing date. So many times when I go to mod pages on forums, all you get is a ‘Hey, here it is!’ post and a link. So frustrating if you have heard something might be interesting but have no actual idea what it is.
The FTB forums (and FTB Reddit) have become the de facto place to discuss all things modded Minecraft. The FTB forums specifically will generally have a thread for each of the modpacks, where the OP gives more data about what it’s about.
For example, Infinity is a “kitchen-sink” pack with a huge pile of everything. Horizons is a pack designed specifically to highlight uncommon or up and coming mods instead of the old standbys.
Personally, I recommend trying one of the questing packs. Giving you concrete goals allows you to learn the mods without just being overwhelmed. Agrarian Skies (either 1 or 2), Crash Landing, Regrowth are all excellent ones in this mold.
Resonant Rise 3 is the shizz right now. The Agrarian skies packs are pretty good. Regrowth seems really cool as well.
the FTB launcher really simplifies modding etc.
I recommend the Lord of the Rings mod if you like, uh, Lord of the Rings. Haven’t really tried any other Minecraft mods but that one is quite a bit of fun.
And it’s a modern thing (cause all modern is crap, obviously), i mean this sincerely, it never used to happen in the past, but these days it’s like the internet has got all lazy and can’t be arsed doing the job properly, so it just dumps you from a link to a front page somewhere with no actual info relevant to what you just followed. Modern, lazy, crap. It’s why the world is going to end pretty soon.
In relation to YourConscience post about that, i also found it took a while to get my bearings with modding Minecraft (and i speak as a pretty hard-core mod user, sometimes mod maker in many games). I was lucky in that i first saw a mod pack (I think RPS ran an article about it) which persuaded me to get Minecraft, so that initial link and setup was fairly straight forward, but when i wanted to add a few extra things to that build it got pretty messy, just in relation to finding mods. I had to have one that slowed down the speed of the day/night cycle as that was driving me crazy (i’m not a kid high on speed these days) and that was like hunting for a needle in a haystack (as it turned out).
Most of the minecraft forums are…well run by kids (and kids are fine and cool etc) so not that well structured or logical perhaps? It is a minefield of minecraft. So be patient, take your time and with a lot of exhaustive research you should be able to find and get working what you need.
I dunno, I seem to remember configuring HIMEM.SYS and stuff back in the day. I know we have Steam and whatnot now, but…
Teiman
4756
Is even on the top #5 of “NO NO” for modders.
- Don’t base your mod on a popular movie or book
- Don’t steal people stuff withouth consent
3. Don’t base your website in a forum software
- Don’t mess with people configuration files
- Don’t forget to give your release a name or number to identify the version
But you always get newbies making mistakes.
Pet peeve of mine! Change log notes, screenshots, credits, etc … but not a single word about WHAT IT DOES. Grr. I miss you, ol’ README.TXT!
mok
4758
- Don’t base your mod on a popular movie or book
Someone please school me as to why this is a NO NO…Is it because #2 gets in the way? Or did people just hate the Hunger Games mod that little kids loved so much?
In short, if you don’t enforce your trademarks, you lose them. Mod authors have been getting cease and desist letters from corporations since the 90’s.
Because your ass is going to be sued, I suppose.
