A Message For The Community

[FlowerChild]

Hey everyone,

Recent events which have resulted in a lot of rather painful conflict within the community have left me both sad, and also resolved to move forward on a number of ideas that I have been mulling over for awhile now. It's very obvious to me that some changes need to be made in my relationship with the mod.

First, I would like to apologize to all of you that have remained loyal fans of BTW throughout the years. It has been an extremely long road for me, laden with a lot of conflict and pain, and it's left me both scarred and with a reflex to fight with ferocity at the drop of a hat both in my perceived defense of the mod, and of my own creative integrity. They may have served a purpose once, but it has become clear to me that many of those reflexes have become obsolete. I am still fighting battles that ended long ago and that has too often lead to misinterpreting good natured members of the community that only mean well with their actions, as perceived enemies that simply aren't there anymore (if they ever really were).

I am deeply sorry for that. I really am. As of late I know that there are situations that have evolved where your love of the mod, and whatever positive feelings you may have had towards its creator have wound up coming into direct conflict. For some, that has reached intolerable levels, and I can both recognize that occurring and understand why.

This has taken a heavy toll on me as well. There have been some incredible highs with this mod. I am not exaggerating to say that it is probably the one thing that I am most proud of having created in my life. But that attachment has also come along with an incredible intensity of negative emotion when I have fought these battles, and one I know I can not sustain in the long run. It is detrimental to my health, my sanity, and any additional goals that I may wish to pursue in my life.

It's obvious that I need to let go of much of that for the sake of everyone involved.

There are many details of this that will need to be worked out to that end. It was important to me to state the above first to hopefully bring a little peace to everyone involved, and perhaps a bit of hope for better days. A brief outline of a few of the things I intend to do in the very near future however:

-I wish to essentially lock down the mod at the current version as "feature complete" (either this one or maybe one more little one TBD). I will continue to provide bug fixes as required, but otherwise, the current version would be considered the final one.

-I wish to open up the mod to add-ons, without the need for permissions or for me to approve of them in any way other than perhaps a prohibition against malicious code. The details of that can be hammered out later, but the idea is to largely take me out of that equation and for you guys to just do as you see fit.

-I wish to open up the mod to whatever style of play players feel like. I may not support them all (difficulty levels, world gen options, etc.), but I am absolutely done trying to police any of that or getting bent out of shape about however anyone chooses to play it.

-I wish to release the source code to the mod so that people can reference it as needed. I'll probably package the code itself with any additional releases much as I used to do with my KSP mod to keep things simple. I may need some ideas as to how to handle the distribution of changes to the vanilla source files to avoid distributing the files themselves however, in accordance with Minecraft's terms of service.

-I wish to open up these forums again for largely free discussion. I still want to moderate in terms of civility and folks not outright trolling, but otherwise, let things loose again. I may need some modding help to that end. I'll likely wait until this transition is well underway to do so to avoid a possible influx of trolls derailing what I hope will be a constructive process, but the intent is to make this a much more open part of the community.

Other points may arise as I think of them. If there are any particular requests that people would like to make to ease this all along, I am open to ideas on it.

Again, to all the fans of the mod out there, you have my apologies for keeping this fight going for way, way too long. I hope you can find it within yourselves to think kindly of me and my work regardless, and to be patient with me as we resolve the details of this transition.

[Niyu]

I don't know what these recent events you mention are, but i just want to thank you for the obscene amount of hours your mod has entertained me. It has been a wild ride and a lot of fun.

I have not been here from the very begining, but it was close to it and seeing the mod evolve from a simple redstone-interacting blocks mod to the whole total conversion overhaul it is now has been great.

[SterlingRed]

You've created a mod that 'fixed' minecraft for me, don't sell yourself short! For 10 years btw has been what I have always thought minecraft should have been or could have been and I've gotten a lot of enjoyment from BTW so thank you for that!

Having a plan for moving forward at this point is good, regardless of how that plan came to be. I appreciate your openness and look forward to seeing what the community does with btw as a 'base platform'.

Best of luck with sorting out the details and with the other things that are more deserving of your time!

[FerretFitz]

As i cant comment on the current issues at hand i can say that this mod has become my minecraft. Ive followed it from the beginning and always seen you as a genius of sorts. Youre decisions always seem very thought out in regards to how youve monitored this forum and controlled your mod. I was around when issues arose with compatibility and modloaders and i believe you handled the situation anyone with a very sacred piece of their intellegence would do. Im glad those things can be forgotten and we all can come together again.

[ko_teknik]

you made the best game ever !
I love you

[magikeh]

Oh wow, this is quite the next step.

As for source release, the community has been working at collecting and archiving existing addons that are open source allowing us to collaboratively keep the spark alive and where code can move hands for ease of 'ownership' transfer. https://github.com/BTW-Community If you're open to this, I think I could help strip out vanilla portions in a way that won't distribute any of the vanilla code (Create a base VMC decomp with MCP, and diff it against the BTW src creating a git patch that can be then distributed as 'src')

Second off, what are your thoughts on releasing your thoughts, notes and roadmaps for BTW? I realize that many things may still be incomplete in your eyes (A painting is never finished - it simply stops in interesting places), yet a rocky roadmap would do wonders for continuing the spirit and direction that BTW has recently taken.

And finally my personal note, thanks. I spent a lot of my early years in BTW creating monstrosities and dirt huts but over time it became a creative outlet for me, from playing to documenting the game. I hope that you can find rest and relief with this next step and that the exoskeleton turns out to just be a cocoon so you can fully extend your wings.

[jorgebonafe]

I don't know what these recent events you mention are, but i just want to thank you for the obscene amount of hours your mod has entertained me. It has been a wild ride and a lot of fun.

Same. Thank you, FC :)

As for source release, the community has been working at collecting and archiving existing addons that are open source allowing us to collaboratively keep the spark alive and where code can move hands for ease of 'ownership' transfer. https://github.com/BTW-Community

Hey, no one told me about this >_>

[Whuppee]

When I heard something of what happened, I was sure you had to be hurting too. I'm not surprised by the respect and integrity shown here, but I'm glad.

Your work alone is massively enjoyable, and through it I've met many of my favorite people. My life is better for what you've built here.

I hope that stepping back is helpful to you. And thank you, for everything <3

[FlowerChild]

Thank you guys. Your positivity and affection here means a lot to me. I put off opening this thread today out of trepidation as to what it might contain, but I'm glad that I did. We'll get all the details sorted in the days to come.

[Epsilon]

I just took a look at the oldest BTW version on my PC. It's BTWMod4-84. But I remember following this wonderful mod transitioning to its own game even before that version. Once there was a "collaboration" with BuildCraft, and I have distant memories of a mod consisting of no more than 10 blocks. Man has it been a journey!

Back then I was younger, less experienced and came in conflict with you FC about "Suggestions & Ideas" I at the time thought to be fantastic... At the risk of getting banned I admit that this is not my first account, as my first one git banned for defending one of my ideas too courageously. But that was a lesson I learned.

And there was a lot to learn from you FC. What impressed me most is your philosophy of game design, and to this day I seek to adapt it whenever I do not forget to do so; in my words it may be expressed as "Do more with what's there already". The best example that I have in mind where the movement changes came: the seemingly simple change to vary player (and NPC) movement speed based on the ground they traverse is genius; it created an incentive to build roads, made caves more dangerous as well as skeletons; it made sprinting a more interesting part of the game; and it had many other impacts that I haven't noticed.

I thank you very much for creating this experience and for being part of my life. I wish you all the best FC.

[jorgebonafe]

At the risk of getting banned I admit that this is not my first account, as my first one git banned for defending one of my ideas too courageously. But that was a lesson I learned.

Spoiler

Show

http://youtube.com/watch?v=GEStsLJZhzo

Sorry, I couldn't help myself :)

[EpicAaron]

As always, I appreciate your candor. I've followed BTW for almost a decade now, I was a kid when the mod started. More than BTW itself, you, Flowerchild, have been a great passive influence in my life. I hope I am not being over dramatic when I say that your self confidence and sense of creativity helped me grow when I felt most vulnerable and alone. I hope that you understand that when we discuss alternate play styles or addons, it comes from a place of devotion. For many of us, BTW is basically Minecraft 2, a medium of expression that we want to explore every aspect of and expand upon over the course of our lives. I suspect I will be playing this game until I am old, showing it and my creations to everyone around me (as I already do).

I think with a game like this, there will always be bad faith trolls. BTW is not a piece of fuzzy mass media. To this day, I still meet people whose only response to being shown BTW is utter confusion: "This just looks like arbitrary difficulty, why would you play something that makes Minecraft harder?" Some people just don't get it. But I want to emphasize that there are still people like me that play BTW constantly and legitimately want to have a community where we can talk about our builds and stories openly and help new players understand why the whole experience is worthwhile.

[FlowerChild]

I hope that you understand that when we discuss alternate play styles or addons, it comes from a place of devotion.

I don't want to get into too much discussion today, as this is a bit of a day of rest, release, and hope, and I'd prefer to not get bogged down in the details. But on this point specifically, because I think it's important:

Absolutely! I recently said during one of these heated conversations something along the lines of (I'm paraphrasing) "I realize this is a great community for a game, but it can be a lousy one for a creator". I absolutely know where you guys are coming from. Always have really. You love the game. I have been a part of many game communities over the years, and never have I seen one with a creator that attempts to maintain the level of control that I do, nor one with such a devoted core fanbase despite that. I am well aware that I am an aberration. I found myself in a unique position with this mod in trying to hold onto the integrity of an idea for dear life, of this little creative niche I had carved out for myself after a career of compromise, with very little at my disposal for its defense other than attitude, and at a time when the nature of content and game creation online was only starting to define itself. I fucked up in a whole host of ways over the course of the project but did the best I could to muddle my way through both some tough situations and all the emotional turmoil that came along with them.

But part of all this comes with the acceptance that I am not actively developing this mod anymore. That is a conclusion that was very difficult for me to come to, a gradual one over years, and I kept trying to come back periodically and restart my own engines. But it's over, and me hanging on to that attitude in defense of a creative process that is no longer actually occurring isn't helping anyone at all. It's just vestigial, and useless, and destructive.

I have nothing against the community that has grown around this mod. Quite the contrary, you guys are great. I was the one that needed to come to terms with the reality of the situation and accept that it was time for things to change. Your devotion and enjoyment of the mod are wonderful things and I hope this gives you more opportunity to express them.

[Sarudak]

Wow! This is big news.

I wasn't party to anything that went down recently so I'm pretty sure none of that apology was directed at me. Although some of the conflicts we had long ago pushed me to be less engaged with the community hearing your descriptions here make some of what happened make more sense to me. For what it's worth I don't think your perception of enemies at the time was pure paranoia there definitely was animosity toward you from some other communities (redpower, forge) and I think it drove trolling at the very least.

I believe your pride in your creation is 100% justified. I really hope you find the mental relief and catharsis it sounds like you're looking for in taking this path. For what it's worth I definitely still think kindly of you and your work and if you do ever pick up another creative endeavor I hope you're willing to share. I still have fond memories of better than starting manned and better than giant bees.

In regards to the plan it makes me both excited and sad. Sad because it's the end of an era. Your game design work has been truly genius and it's sad that we won't see any more giant Flowerchild updates (changed the whole mod). Exciting because it makes me want to get my hands dirty in trying to make some changes and I look forward to what other creativity people might bring.

In regards to the forum changes I think that sounds great. It's been a bit dead around here for a while. Personally though I would like to keep some of the walled garden feel we have here as I've seen some of the toxicity that frequents gaming forums and I don't think moderating just for civility and trolling is quite enough. I'm rather attached to RULE 1. ;) If you need any help with any of this I have the time and I'm happy to get more engaged in moderating.

[Equitis1024]

BTW and BTSM are my favorite games I've ever played. You have made some truly incredible things, and you deserve to be very proud of what you've accomplished here. I hope whatever comes next lets you find some relief from this stress. Thank you so much for all the years of entertainment and inspiration your creations have provided for me!

[FlowerChild]

Thank you everyone. I really do appreciate all the kind messages. It makes this a much easier process to move forward on.

What I think i would like to do at this point is start tackling the items on my list one by one, perhaps one per day until we get this all sorted out. I have other things going on in my life that I don't want to entirely derail by devoting all my time to this transition in one big lump, and some of this process is bound to take a fair amount of writing / coding / planning, etc.

I think today I'll start with modifying the add-on rules to open things up on that front, since I suspect that's still a lingering question mark hanging around for some.

Will try to address a few specific points that have come up. Apologies to anyone I don't directly respond to. Please know that I am very grateful for your affection.

As for source release, the community has been working at collecting and archiving existing addons that are open source allowing us to collaboratively keep the spark alive and where code can move hands for ease of 'ownership' transfer. https://github.com/BTW-Community If you're open to this, I think I could help strip out vanilla portions in a way that won't distribute any of the vanilla code (Create a base VMC decomp with MCP, and diff it against the BTW src creating a git patch that can be then distributed as 'src')

Hmmm... I'll think on that one. I'm not a huge fan of navigating source repositories like that and would prefer to keep it simple on my end. If at all possible I'd probably like to just put the source out with the mod and let people sort out how they want to make use of that themselves, but I think this is probably a few steps down the road so we have at least a few days to mull that over.

Second off, what are your thoughts on releasing your thoughts, notes and roadmaps for BTW? I realize that many things may still be incomplete in your eyes (A painting is never finished - it simply stops in interesting places), yet a rocky roadmap would do wonders for continuing the spirit and direction that BTW has recently taken.

Yup, I'm definitely planning on doing some of that. My BTW notes are scattered in several piles around my home, me still being a fan of written notes, so it's not just a simple matter of copy/pasting them however. There will definitely be some curating necessary on my part to go through them, decide what's still relevant, type those items up, etc.

To start though, I do plan on releasing what my more immediate plans were for the wither and the end portion (as in conclusion, not the dimension) of the mod, and probably my last couple of pages of action items for people's consideration. If at some point someone wanted to mod in some of those ideas, or variants of them, I certainly wouldn't be opposed. Many of my ideas are broad outlines, a lot of them just questions as to how to address a particular point, as I often times develop them iteratively as I play around with what works in game. There's definitely plenty of room in them for someone to put their own spin on it all.

I wasn't party to anything that went down recently so I'm pretty sure none of that apology was directed at me. Although some of the conflicts we had long ago pushed me to be less engaged with the community hearing your descriptions here make some of what happened make more sense to me.

It's likely I don't even remember some of those conflicts man, given there have been so very many. There have been several times in recent years when people have made reference to disputes I've had with them in the past and I have no idea what they're talking about. Please don't assume any lingering resentment on my part for whatever it was, as I certainly don't have any.

In regards to the forum changes I think that sounds great. It's been a bit dead around here for a while. Personally though I would like to keep some of the walled garden feel we have here as I've seen some of the toxicity that frequents gaming forums and I don't think moderating just for civility and trolling is quite enough. I'm rather attached to RULE 1. ;) If you need any help with any of this I have the time and I'm happy to get more engaged in moderating.

For sure! Your help would be greatly appreciated! And yes, I don't want to drop this being a safe place for discussing the mod without undo toxicity. Hence my mention of "civility". I don't really see there being major changes to the forum rules, more to what they're applied to. Like more reduce "don't piss me off" to a very narrow band of not being unduly rude and such.

At the risk of getting banned I admit that this is not my first account, as my first one git banned for defending one of my ideas too courageously. But that was a lesson I learned.

Lol! Absolutely no worries :)

[kaos78414]

Hats off for making these difficult decisions man. I think mental health comes first, so I support you in any decision you make to keep your head healthy.

I've been a kind of quiet observer on these forums for a long time, because for me this place served as the ignition for my career - I always felt attached to it. So I want to say I'll always be thankful to you and this community for getting me excited about programming at a time when it would influence me the most. Thanks everyone. I look forward to seeing what you guys do in the future.

[FlowerChild]

Sorry for the delay in posting the updated add-on rules. I was trying to figure out an overall license for the mod that would accommodate both add-on development and other uses as well.

I've decided to go with Creative Commons Attribution, which can be found here:

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

So essentially no rules other than I would appreciate a mention if stuff from the mod is used elsewhere. That's the overall gist of things, and I think should answer pretty much any outstanding question as to the extent of this transition. I'll do a write up in the add-on sub-forum though soon as I get a chance, and the license itself will be attached to the next release in place of the current copyright notice to make it official.

[Sarudak]

WRT to creative commons. I'm assuming you already read and considered https://creativecommons.org/faq/#can-i- ... o-software ?

[FlowerChild]

WRT to creative commons. I'm assuming you already read and considered https://creativecommons.org/faq/#can-i- ... o-software ?

Ah, fair enough. I was not aware of those, because yes, I also do want this to apply to the source code. I'll read that over later on, but suffice to say I'll be going with the most permissive license, with attribution.

[EtherealWrath]

Better than Wolves has had a place in my heart almost as long as I've played Minecraft. It was one of the first mods I installed, and one I came back too like an old friend.
Your dev notes and perspective taught me a lot about game design and player behaviour.

I hope these changes give you the peace of mind you need to move forward in life. Best of luck with your future projects.

[Sarudak]

Ah, fair enough. I was not aware of those, because yes, I also do want this to apply to the source code. I'll read that over later on, but suffice to say I'll be going with the most permissive license, with attribution.

Not to get all up in your business but based on what I think you're trying to accomplish might I suggest the MIT license for the source code? Short, simple, extremely permissive, compatible with other open source licenses and requires attribution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License

[FlowerChild]

Not to get all up in your business but based on what I think you're trying to accomplish might I suggest the MIT license for the source code? Short, simple, extremely permissive, compatible with other open source licenses and requires attribution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License

Nah, it's totally cool man, but I think I'll just go with the original creative commons license I proposed. I do not want to get tied up in this any more than necessary, have zero intent on ever litigating anything involving any of this, and would rather just get it done with and move on. If this license is not absolutely perfect for the cause I see no reason why that will have any tangible impact on anything at all.

If there are serious concerns that anyone has on how the license I am proposing (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) would negatively impact them, sure, let me know and I'll look at other options, but otherwise let's just roll with it. I don't think it gets much simpler than "do what you want but please give me credit where appropriate".

[Mason11987]

All seems really reasonable, and a good way to move forward.

Hope these changes alleviate some related stress you've felt in your life!

Thanks for the post FC, and for all the great times over the years with this mod :).

[Moldiworp2]

Well, what a revelation. Thanks for all you've done mate, I can't wait to get my hands on the source, and I hope that you moving on enacts more positive change in your life, until that change itself needs changing. Love you FC, you showed me mods can be better thought out than the OG game itself. <3 I wish you Safety and strength.