2.0.0 Update
The main thing to talk about is the upcoming BTW CE 2.0.0 release. The primary purpose for this release is to move away from mcp, switch to using unified source (instead of having to maintain separate client and server sources), and move to using fabric as a default. Features in this release are still up for debate, as the focus right now is on technical upgrades.
Zhil and Arminias have put in a bunch of really great work getting the tooling set up for BTW development which has helped streamline the process a ton for me and other contributors, and will also help make addon development easier.
Unfortunately, this update is going to break addons pretty significantly. A significant portion of the BTW codebase will be refactored to make it easier to work with and to update FC's outdated coding styles to match modern standards, including renaming classes and fields and moving classes into their own packages.
Along with the update, the default addon development tooling will be moved from mcp over to fabric. This has several advantages:
- MCP has a rather draconian license, meaning we can't do any customization to make the highly manual (and archaic) tool easier to use. Basically all our existing work has been a wrapper to hack some additional functionality onto it, which has been far for perfect.
- Allows addons to use the merged source, reducing time spent maintaining two codebases.
- Gives access to fabric mixins, which will help with addon compatibility significantly.
It is going to be some time before it's possible for BTW itself to make use of fabric (to avoid causing issues with trying to write addons as right now mixins on top of mixins isn't something supported yet). However, eventually we're going to try to get BTW also using fabric mixins which will help with development, and potentially allow for updating to newer (relatively speaking) MC versions to pick up some technical improvements.
Future Plans - Updating MC
This should all be said with the massive caveat that this is very far down the line, if it ever happens at all. This is going to be a ton of work, and is basically entirely dependent on being able to transition BTW's extensive base class edits into mixins without making addon development hell.
That being said, as I mentioned above I would like to see about looking at updating by a couple MC versions, likely onto 1.8. This would let us pick up a bunch of technical improvements including:
- The resourcepack system, including custom sounds and block/item models.
- Modern skins including layers and slim model.
- The overhauled renderer in 1.7, which would also fix layered transparency not working.
- Internal block states, which would massively simplify internal code (basically this is how 1.13+ works, except 1.8-1.12 still exported block states into metadata to save it). This could potentially even be extended to actually backport 1.13's block id system, although that's somewhat questionable.
- Support for MacOS on ARM. 1.5 used outdated applet architecture which is not supported properly on Apple Silicon, and updating to 1.6+ would fix this.
1.8 was chosen because it would have a large number of technical benefits, plus a couple cool features, with only a couple things that would need to be changed to maintain balance. Anything past 1.9's combat changes would require a massive amount of work rebalancing, for very little technical or feature upgrades unless going all the way to 1.13.
This is extremely subject to change, but these are my initial thoughts on the design work needed for updating:
Spoiler
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1.6:
Major issues:
- Regional difficulty - bad change, clashes with tons of established BTW features, needs to be completely removed
- Horses - could be interesting, but would require massive balance changes and so should be removed to start
- Baby zombies - would not fit into BTW curated combat experience imo, should be removed
Minor issues:
- Spiders spawning with status effects - probably removed, doesn't really serve a purpose
- Nerfs to health and regen potions - likely reverted, as these potions are integral to late game combat
- Nether fortress chests - either removed outright or rebalanced ala the temple chest changes
- Terracotta - balanced for clay changes, likely a simple port of how deco handles it
1.7:
Major issues:
- Fishing changes - way overpowered for BTW, should be reverted
- Water breathing - invalidates one of the benefits of having steel armor, probably removed
- Chicken jockey - same issues as baby zombies above, plus respawning chickens is problematic (and chickens spawning in caves would be non-feasible anyway as they would starve), should be removed
Minor issues:
- Packed ice - would need balance tweaks, not sure what though
- Jeb sheep - clashes with HC sheep, should be removed
1.8:
Major issues:
- Ocean monuments - guardians are a very interesting mob that I think would fit in BTW, but would definitely require a balance pass, especially the elder guardians
Minor issues:
- Stone variants - would require the same treatment as normal stone (aka similar to deco's approach but more thorough)
- Endermites - fairly pointless and should be removed or potentially completely reworked into something better
- Rabbits - no idea how to handle them. Not necessarily problematic enough to remove, but would require a balance pass
Major issues:
- Regional difficulty - bad change, clashes with tons of established BTW features, needs to be completely removed
- Horses - could be interesting, but would require massive balance changes and so should be removed to start
- Baby zombies - would not fit into BTW curated combat experience imo, should be removed
Minor issues:
- Spiders spawning with status effects - probably removed, doesn't really serve a purpose
- Nerfs to health and regen potions - likely reverted, as these potions are integral to late game combat
- Nether fortress chests - either removed outright or rebalanced ala the temple chest changes
- Terracotta - balanced for clay changes, likely a simple port of how deco handles it
1.7:
Major issues:
- Fishing changes - way overpowered for BTW, should be reverted
- Water breathing - invalidates one of the benefits of having steel armor, probably removed
- Chicken jockey - same issues as baby zombies above, plus respawning chickens is problematic (and chickens spawning in caves would be non-feasible anyway as they would starve), should be removed
Minor issues:
- Packed ice - would need balance tweaks, not sure what though
- Jeb sheep - clashes with HC sheep, should be removed
1.8:
Major issues:
- Ocean monuments - guardians are a very interesting mob that I think would fit in BTW, but would definitely require a balance pass, especially the elder guardians
Minor issues:
- Stone variants - would require the same treatment as normal stone (aka similar to deco's approach but more thorough)
- Endermites - fairly pointless and should be removed or potentially completely reworked into something better
- Rabbits - no idea how to handle them. Not necessarily problematic enough to remove, but would require a balance pass
