Arg, fuck, kill (ranting at cpw)

[FlowerChild]

It appears I've gone off on twitter again. Cpw's comment last night about the Optifine author deciding to choose "crappy modding" in going with base-class modifications struck a chord with me, and admittedly set me right off. I've been on a tirade about Forge, creativity, and the senselessness of compatibility as an ideal in a creative pursuit ever since.

Just felt the need to vent here for a moment. I think I've got a hell of a lot of anger bubbling up in me about 1.6 and the state of modding MC in general, even as I prepare to step away from it.

[Panda]

Im sorry Flower my man :( *hugs*

Here this video has made me feel better for years:

[FlowerChild]

Im sorry Flower my man :( *hugs*

Nah, it's all good man. There's been something simmering beneath the surface with me and cpw for months now, with him taking not so subtle (but too indirect to call him on) shots at the BTW community and my method of modding, and his statements about Optifine last night just brought it to a head.

I think I needed to get this out, and it's helped me crystallize my thoughts on why compatibility is actually a *bad* idea for many mods (not all...for some it is absolutely the right choice).

The stuff I'm currently saying about imposing conformity on a creative pursuit is exactly what I mean, and I don't think it's ever really coalesced for me like that before. The stuff about how guys that are all science are currently determining the nature of something that is *both* an art and science is also bang on IMO. It's the first time that it's really occurred to me that these guys just don't understand how their actions affect creativity negatively, and how they're basing their decisions solely on a scientific ideal while being totally clueless about what it's actually doing to the creative side.

If you ever tried to tell a non-commercial artist that they must conform all their creations to the work of others to maintain a unified appearance, they'd tell you exactly where to shove it (any self respecting artist anyways). Yet within the MC modding community, doing precisely that is being held as some kind of ideal, but again, it's becoming clear to me that this is largely because the people that are originating that point of view are *all* science. They just don't have a clue about the creative aspect of making games, and thus consider it irrelevant.

It's also clued me into the fact that saying "fuck compatibility" really is probably the best design decision I've ever made. When you look at the kind of features I've been doing as of late, I'd be breaking compatibility with other mods with practically each release, having to deal with the massive amount of bitching that comes along with that, or, more likely, I just wouldn't be making those same kind of strong design decisions out of fear of the backlash that would result.

In other words, it would absolutely stifle my creativity and force me into making weaker decisions than I am now for the sake of conformity.

Anyways, like I said, I think this is a good thing and that I needed this in order to really make these realizations, both about the MC modding scene and what it has become (and why I need to get the fuck out), and also in terms of how my own decisions have impacted the quality of the mod in the long term. I think allowing myself to really get pissed about it and vent all the shit that's built up over my time modding MC is a crucial step in moving on to bigger and better things.

[icynewyear]

wanna pop on the irc and rant in style? <3

[FlowerChild]

wanna pop on the irc and rant in style? <3

Oh wow dude. Why the fuck didn't I think of that? <3

[Gears]

wanna pop on the irc and rant in style? <3

Oh wow dude. Why the fuck didn't I think of that? <3

See, Flowerchild, this is one of many reasons why I love you.

[BigShinyToys]

I think the compatibility thing is because of two main reasons. One the mods are not strong enough to stand on there own feet by them selves and need others to be a "fun/useful" . Secondly they see mods as only adding to the game not changing it. BTW proves that changing the game at its core can create new and better experiences. As for why they keep harassing BTW and trying to force it forge I don't know.

[RandomObj3ct]

although though i do love occasionally playing 'Super over the top forge mod game' (it's a different game, hence why i am here to play 'true Minecraft') i agree with what your saying about how the community is getting terrible.

interacting with quite a few forge using groups i can say that it's not just the modders against creativity and being different, the mod using community is just as bad.

6 things matter to them:

- STUFF!!!
- compatibility with age old mods that should lay down and die (*cough ic2 *cough [seriously, that has needed to just die quietly for months now])
- MOAR STUFF!!!
- allowing integration into x popular mod
- things to work with red power, despite it entirely being eelorams fault that they don't, causing annoyance to modders as they have to make it work with frames etc.
- MOAR FUCKING STUFF!!!, FILL MY GAME WITH HUNDREDS OF ORES AND PLANTS AND BIOMES AND ANIMALS AND WEAPONS AND TECHNOLOGY THAT DOES THE SAME THING THESE OTHERgurble5rubleBLOCKSblurbDO AND GARBLEURBLEGURBLE [*proceeds to choke on the shear amount of shit they are saying]

the Universal electricity mods are a brilliant example of how the community reacts to something 'different', it was a new energy API that based itself of real world values and was built to be able to take advantage of many of forges new mechanics. for a while it was like Voldemort in Harry potter, it could not be spoken about. this is even when a few mods under the API were far better than a counterpart ic2 mod. the modular force field system mod broke in to two separate mods by different people, purely because the new one used this api, this is despite the mod being a hell of a lot better design and feature wise (no new ore!!! what do you think this is?). Soon it began to allow easy integration of buildcraft power, forget what was looking to be a much better balanced tech mod, lets through that out the window to allow buildcraft & other mods with all there issues to run the machines! and so it was more popular in an instant.

then there's stuff like biomes o plenty, seriously why the fuck is that popular? it consists of a ridiculous amount of biomes, only about 5 of which are good to live in, the rest are just half arsed, boring, impractical to live in or are just plain ugly... yet this is still the most popular biome mod, forget extrabiomes, that's old, forget highlands with its much better designed biomes. BoP has hundreds of biomes, it is obviously betterer than teh overs.

there's only about 2 or 3 mods that would be fun to play stand alone in the entire modding community
- BTW (obviously)
- Thaumcraft: balanced and gollums can actually do a hell of a lot
- Red power: unpopular here i know but there is no denying it is a solid tech mod, the frames are so versatile in what they can do.

that's all i can think of, everything else has become a generic bland mod that can only exist as a small part with a shit ton of other mods that do the same.

it's sad to see how the community has gotten to this stage, despite the fact sometimes your rants can get a tad over the top, you are right here, there is absolutely nothing wrong with not using forge, sure it has a lot of nice powerful features making it a good option but not using forge /= sloppy coding, in the case of optifine it's an absolutely ludicrous statement, how can you do those sort of modifications to the game without modifying it. Fun fact: if forge is editing class files (which it has to) does that mean it is sloppy coding?

i think this is more about the little business that forge has created, bullying optifine into requiring forge brings man more users to adfly links, many need optifine over wanting it, optifine requiring forge would be a substantial boost in adfly clicks.
^^ and thus we have the biggest problem in the modding community, bloody adfly, as somebody that was using mods before modloader was popular, this is the most damaging thing in the modding community (i miss wildgrass, better blocks, nethercraft etc. of those days, when your mod was just a good mod and not a source of hate and bullshit throughout the internet.)

i just scrolled up and realized how much i had typed, i obviously was due for a rant to it seems...

i will also add the use of memes against you really says something about what they are doing.

[Sage]

Just a quick reply to show my support (I have an exam in an hour)...

But really, your analisys is one of the most thought provoking thing I ever read on the situation on MC's modding scene, and on a certain extent, on game dev. Gotta go now, but first a sincere thank you for have sticked to your guns in all this time. It has benefited "us", the players, in an incredible way.

[FlowerChild]

it's sad to see how the community has gotten to this stage, despite the fact sometimes your rants can get a tad over the top, you are right here, there is absolutely nothing wrong with not using forge, sure it has a lot of nice powerful features making it a good option but not using forge /= sloppy coding, in the case of optifine it's an absolutely ludicrous statement, how can you do those sort of modifications to the game without modifying it. Fun fact: if forge is editing class files (which it has to) does that mean it is sloppy coding?

Please be careful about verifying the accuracy of your statements in such conversations (they'll inevitably be used against us). To my knowledge, Forge is no longer modifying base classes, which is why cpw has started getting high and mighty about people not doing so.

[RandomObj3ct]

Please be careful about verifying the accuracy of your statements in such conversations (they'll inevitably be used against us). To my knowledge, Forge is no longer modifying base classes, which is why cpw has started getting high and mighty about people not doing so.

i was not aware of this, could rephrase that as meaning that old forge is sloppy in that sense i guess.

i understand the basics code but have no idea how that works, don't you need to edit something in the base classes to make use of new classes, you need to reference an object somewhere to initiate forge. does forge overwrite the main method or something to replace minecrafts default launching code?

i hope that makes some sense, i am learning java, until recently i have wanted to make a mod (the community is turning me off though) still gotta learn java first, i will not let myself be one of those people that makes a basic mod, then burns out trying to do anything remotely useful due to lack of understanding and shit code...

[FlowerChild]

I'd prefer not to get into the technical details of how they're doing it. Frankly, I don't even care as I'm far more interested in creating gameplay than the kind of coding wankery those guys are obsessed with. Given that's all they do, that's all they're interested in, and it's the myopic standard that they use to judge other mods by. I simply use code as a means to an end to achieve what I wish, but to them it's obviously an end in itself. As the saying goes "when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail".

I trust cpw's technical competence sufficiently that if he says they aren't modifying base classes anymore, that they're figured out a way to do it.

Granted, I also think his high horse about adhering to copyright is entirely misplaced, as are the hoops he's getting modders to jump through to do this, given he's still deobfuscating and reverse engineering Mojang's code.

[Slstoev]

IMO if he's so cock-sure this is the way to be done - why not make his own game which can be modded to hell and not bitch at the MC community?

[EvanT]

Making a fun game requires an other sort of creativity than writing code does.. Its like solving problems vs. seeing the problem.

[FlowerChild]

Making a fun game requires an other sort of creativity than writing code does.. Its like solving problems vs. seeing the problem.

Yup, they're two different skills that people often confuse as being one. How many times have people referred to me as a "coder" because I make a mod? It's basically like viewing something as a collection of parts rather than the whole it creates.

The other thing that people seem to have a hard time wrapping their head around (both programmers and designers) is that I might actually possess both skills. I tell people I'm a designer, and they assume I can't code. I tell them I'm a programmer, and they assume I can't design. That isn't just isolated to modding btw, but is something I ran into a lot in the industry as well, where people couldn't seem to comprehend that someone might be skilled at both. Oddly though, that's largely how the game industry started. I taught myself to code specifically because I wanted to make games, at a time when kids like Richard Garriot were one man game dev teams.

Heck, it's particularly funny in the MC scene, given that's exactly what Notch is.

[Stormweaver]

So forge no longer needs to be put in the JAR file? Must be an accomplishment for the ages, that one. It's not like the vast majority of people who mod their minecraft don't already use utilities like multiMC and MCPatcher to mod the jar for them, trivialising the process anyways.


I can't see this as anything more than a "We did this, it's better than yours! Use our way! dinnerbone namedrop!"

[Mason11987]

Guys, is it a big deal to modify a jar?

Because I may have discovered a simple way of doing it. You actually can just open the jar and drag and drop. Obviously this must be an original discovery on my part because it looks like the forge folks are talking about it like it's comparable to solving a rubik's cube. This isn't even new! I actually did this way back in the days when BTW was part of forge! I'm really sorry I didn't share my secret installation technique with everyone way back then, everyone could have saved a lot of time.

It's amazing how these forge folks, who appear to be reasonably intelligent adults are so stressed about going to extra lengths and modifying everything they've worked on just so idiotic children can play 100 mods all together slightly easier.

Anyway, I read your twitter comments, and they were great. Well said! It's unfortunate that it would be harder to garner a decent following for a mod without first bowing to forge pressures these days. I remember when you started out you were "considering" modloader compatibility. Today the idea of a non-modloader non-forge mod would be absurd. I just hope that if there's other creative individuals out there they'll throw out all compatibility and take your lead in just making something cool.

[CrafterOfMines57]

i understand the basics code but have no idea how that works, don't you need to edit something in the base classes to make use of new classes, you need to reference an object somewhere to initiate forge. does forge overwrite the main method or something to replace minecrafts default launching code?

I can't be certain, but I think it's implied that the Forge team wants the guys behind Optifine to use a coremod and take advantage of Forge's bytecode injection capabilities (http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/185 ... -advanced/) rather than use base class edits. Honestly that seems like quite a lot more work to do (if it is true, again, no verification backing me here that that is what they want to be done) instead of just making the base class edits they have always done.

EDIT: It appears that, according to cpw, there is now a Mojang-provided way to inject your own code into Minecraft.

[Sage]

W00t! Round 2! I'm going to do some cheerleading in front of the screen for you ;)
...<ahem>...

Anyway, why can't he just let people code how they want? If Forge is so mighty and all, it should be their loss. It's almost as he get some pleasure seeing other modder using his API. A new kind of fetish...? (or maybe is the good old power desire mashed up with a coder perspective :S )

[FlowerChild]

Anyway, why can't he just let people code how they want? If Forge is so mighty and all, it should be their loss. It's almost as he get some pleasure seeing other modder using his API. A new kind of fetish...? (or maybe is the good old power desire mashed up with a coder perspective :S )

Dude...it's what he does and obviously takes pleasure in. Coding appears to be all he knows and all he does, so lacking any useful hooks to provide, and lacking an actual mod to work on, he descends into ever greater levels of coding wankery in order to justify his own position and to expand his own hobby.

When your hobby activities revolve around making an API as opposed to a mod, and you want to practice your recreational activity, well of course you're going to want to work on your API, just like I want to work on my mod. However, in the case of an API (and it can happen with a mod too), that means continually looking for new things to add on to it. At a certain point, that will inevitably descend into wankery where you're working on stuff that nobody needs, but which you feel compelled to produce anyways "just because".

When it was me, Space Toad, and Eloraam working on it, we all had our own mods which were our primary focus. Thus, anything we added to the API (or at least that was the theory, in practice we all know what happened), was only added if someone actually needed it, because it just took time away from our modding. None of us really wanted to be working on the API if we didn't have to, and in the long run, I think that may have been a good thing.

[kregoth]

Making a fun game requires an other sort of creativity than writing code does.. Its like solving problems vs. seeing the problem.

Yup, they're two different skills that people often confuse as being one. How many times have people referred to me as a "coder" because I make a mod? It's basically like viewing something as a collection of parts rather than the whole it creates.

The other thing that people seem to have a hard time wrapping their head around (both programmers and designers) is that I might actually possess both skills. I tell people I'm a designer, and they assume I can't code. I tell them I'm a programmer, and they assume I can't design. That isn't just isolated to modding btw, but is something I ran into a lot in the industry as well, where people couldn't seem to comprehend that someone might be skilled at both. Oddly though, that's largely how the game industry started. I taught myself to code specifically because I wanted to make games, at a time when kids like Richard Garriot were one man game dev teams.

Heck, it's particularly funny in the MC scene, given that's exactly what Notch is.

Had to comment on this, it's extremely true in the gaming industry. There's a distinct distrust between developers and programmers, Why? I have no fucking clue! Many large companies only have a select few developers/designers, the rest are "code cattle"! This is exactly the opposite as to how companies like Valve, Google, and Double Fine. the companies believe that every single employee has the capability of fulfilling both roles, or more. In my honest opinion, those companies are just giant Think Tanks. But it works.

Which goes back to this whole forge versus modders crap I hear about all the time, it's retarded. We have coders bitching at developers, because they love uniformity, and attempt to restrict developers from building what they want. They don't have any design talent, if it's there it's purely coding design :P. So many newbie programmers are trying to mod, and thats where they go to, because it's easier and everyone else is going to the same place. So they end up joining the stupid rant :(

I think it's sad to see so many "developers/designers" leave the modding scene simply because of the hostility. I don't know how you deal with it FlowerChild, I would have never shutup about it, would probably get banned :P

[FlowerChild]

I think a big part of the problem is the general public not seeing design as an actual skill set. I've mentioned how people tend to label me as a "coder" when they see my mod, and I've also mentioned many times in the past how everyone thinks they're a game designer and the problems that causes. You even see modders make the oh so popular "ideas are cheap" statement, when the only thing that statement indicates to me is that the person saying it has probably never had an actual good idea (and has certainly never earned a living having them). I've said it before, and I'll say it again: ideas may be cheap, but good ideas certainly are not.

It's a poorly understood skill set, so when someone pops up with a new mod, it is viewed as "code". The creativity that goes into it is intangible, so most people don't see it. The detrimental effects that pressuring someone into adopting the status quo with "y u no Forge?" are thus similarly invisible.

Concepts like creative control and integrity are complex and most people, especially 14 year old gamers, are totally clueless about them. We saw this during the BWF fiasco, where mention of such topics were treated as non-issues by the masses, like they were just having meaningless fancy words thrown at them.

Really though, I think those concepts are the very reason I chose to mod after a long career in the game industry where I could not fulfill those creative needs.

So again, I think it's a "sum of the parts" perspective problem. There are many that seem to only see the code as being the mod itself, and are oblivious to the unified whole that it forms, the separate skill required to create that whole, and the detrimental impact focusing on the parts can have on its creation. I'd say its roughly the equivalent of seeing a painting as a collection of pigments, and bitching at an artist over their choice of materials while totally ignoring the image they've created through their use.

[DreamsofFury]

Imo ascetic mods such as for example, Biblocraft, Jammys furniture, pams mods, various biome mods, and MAYBE Mo'Creatures should be even considered a "must have" kinda thing, unless the mods mesh well together and actually do something for each other any major content mods should never touch, and if someone wants creative freedom to do something as basic and useful as just improving overall game performance without actually adding anything to the game then they should be left alone, specially if its not hurting anyone and it sure seems, to my inexperienced eye, Optifines class edits dont hurt forge at all.....so why bother....

Gonna stop here before I end up with a wall less readable than Randomobject's.

[MoRmEnGiL]

The entire thing is kinda funny and sad though, because no one confuses the architect with the builder/labourer. It's not a unique concept, but due to it being a relatively new field (computer games that is, and "new" is very relative), it hasn't found its way yet in the public consciousness.

And even if ideas are cheap and/or someone has a very good one, it's also about implementation. I mean how many times has a good core concept been ruined by Hollywood? Being able to translate stuff out of someone's head into practical designs is not something a pure programmer is necessarily good at.

[Sage]

Yeah, I think that the core of the problem is that coding (or any other manual skillset) is the limiting factor in transforming our imagination into reality, so it is the hard part and what we feel as the obstacle, thus we see this as the main capacity of people who have it, while the ideas used to shape reality are "cheap" because everyone has them.
However, ideas often sucks, but we don't like admitting this to ourselves, so we don't see the value of really good ideas, and people who have them.