Considering dropping Forge

[Blueblade11]

Well, im a bit late to post my 2 cents, so i'll just say one thing.

After reading 8 pages of the thread, i must say i will be torn between the tech mods and BTW. But after playing pure BTW for the first time since vMC 1.4_01, i think this is the way to go. As a blessing in disguise, incompatibility means the mod will have to be played by itself, the way it was meant to be!

And besides which, next to the other forge mods, BTW was a bit out dated (no no offense...), but this way, i think ill enjoy the mod a bit more.

But the main thing is that BTW now has a brighter future!

EDIT: Im still going to enjoy the compatibility while it lasts though.

[Durandir]

I haven't been able to play any Minecraft, and thus BTW, for a while now due to RL things and Skyrim. But I have followed what is happening with the two mods I feel I cannot play without; BTW and Redpower. So this is going to put a damper on my enjoyment of playing Minecraft again, for sure. While I love the progression of things in BTW, how it all seems more natural than other mods that more or less give you powerful machinery right away, I love the way you can use redpower in Redpower...

I think this is because I went to school a couple of years working with electronics and stuff. Various things happened, meaning I don't work in that field today, but I still love to fiddle with it. I am not that good at making things completely from scratch though, which is why just using redstone dust and torches doesn't cut it for me. I need the finished logic gates because of that. Also, you also need way to much space to make things real complex things I feel.
Because of this I am afraid I will use RP instead of BTW once I get to play again. This saddens me. But it is your mod, and I will certainly keep a profile running BTW to at least test it out now and then. But my main world will be RedPower... er... powered.

I bet you don't have any plans to make something similar in your mod once the tech progression reaches the age of electricity or whatever either, as that will be the exact thing Eloraam has done with her mod.

[walker_boh_65]

You drop forge and the compatibility that came with it. Am I sad that I won't be able to test out Railcraft with BTW, yeah, will I just get 2 .minecrafts, of course. Besides its just a test, my minecraft gets updated just seconds before BTW is put in, so I am in support of you 100% FC.

[Blueblade11]

Well, i gues this is a bit of a blessing in disguise.

Compared to other mods, BTW takes a long time to progress thourguh the tech tree, whereas other mods are BAM BAM BAM if you have the resources.

So maybe playing them separeately is good.

[MoRmEnGiL]

On the matter of utility vs gameplay experience, I think I'm somewhere in the middle in some points. For eg, I wanted to try buildcraft alongside btw, but the gameplay core I wanted to keep was btw, I merely wanted bc to faciliate some things, mainly pipes for my item storage room, and, as a kind of "cheat", the quarry to spare me of endless hours of resource gathering. And erasing quite a few islands.

In my mind, I wasn't looking to play buildcraft, that would take a world dedicated to it, which would give me the BC experience, as opposed to the BtW experience. I was just looking for ways to save time. While being creative and enjoying it of course, because otherwise there's invedit and TMI. So no, I didn't want to use engines and fuel, I just wanted 2 very specific things for some very specific functions, not to further enhance my gameplay,that was just fine.

This is also the reason I love contained mods. Like railcraft, or early RP for eg, each one can be used along anything and doesn't change anything but one very much isolated aspect. So you can take railcraft and slam it alongside any mod, aether, btw, BC, EE, whatever, and it will work as intended, and change nothing in the other mods gameplay. Unless of course it is a mod focused on minecarts and rails :P

The reason I never used redpower, is that my mentality is always to use an easier shortcut only when I feel I have mastered (to my standards) the vanilla functionality.

Not only in btw, this was the reason for e.g. I never used scoop or any of the other premade irc script bundles back in the golden days of irc. If I used it, I would never learn a thing about irc, the commands and how things work. (Of course when I got acquainted with things, I just started making my own scripts but I digress).

My point in all this wall of text is that not everything has to offer a new gameplay experience to be used, sometimes all you want is some particular functionality while retaining what you had, because what you had is your main thing, what you like. ;]

[Mr_Hosed]

I say drop Forge compatibility. Your mod isn't really meant to be played side-by-side other mods. It's more of "what vanilla Minecraft should be". The only draw back for me will be the loss of compatibility with Equivalent Exchange, but x3n0 (creator of EqEx) offers a non-forge distribution so maybe they would still work together =) That being said, EqEx is very end-game over-powered items anyways so...

The idea of Forge is brilliant. The reality sounds like a political mess. Maybe that's why Risugami never went beyond Modloader being a package loader.

[DaWhiskers]

I agree with all of this. There probably should be a governance committee or something - and some leadership. I had hope that I could provide some time over there, but my schedule was not compatible, and no real joint committee has emerged. Sounds like plan B needs to be found...

I agree with both of you on this man, but one of the major problems I think such a project faces is that it absolutely does need some form of strong leadership that determines what should and should not go into it. Finding someone that would both be willing to devote the amount of time necessary and whom the community would accept in such a role would be extremely difficult (I think I'm immediately ruled out on both counts ;) ).

Obviously, with the vastly different skill levels and personal objectives of various modders, such an API couldn't be completely open or it would soon spiral out of control and become an absolute mess.

It really leaves me scratching my head as to what the optimal solution would be. As someone mentioned above the lack of financial incentive to keep people in line further complicates the process. Leading programmers has been likened to herding cats in the past, and I suspect without any money in the equation, that turns into drunk cats :)

From my past experiences with projects, the one thing that helps these kind of things is that the lead needs to be strong with their leadership skills (as FC states) but also as needs to be someone without their own agenda, ie a non-modder. I'm sure with his past experience in the gaming industry FC has seen many a development where the overall body in charge of how things go probably could not write enough code open a .txt file. This helps as they keep the project on track with the vision of the project, rather than adding functionality for their own devices.

[Lighthouse]

Predicted this will eventually happen based on how things going on MCF Forge thread.

I do not think that BTW would lose players, since BTW is not really meant to be used with other major modifications.


Although, I am sadden by the result, we really need decent platform for Minecraft modification and Forge was very nice candidate. But again, without fun and dedications, mods cannot exist in the first place. ;)

[Chaechew]

I recently turned a clan mate(group of fps gamers) of mine onto BTW. He used other mods.
His most recent comment was "I think next update i will just install BTW and leave the rest out."

I tried the other mods just cause of compatibility was possible, however after my first quarry i just packed everything up put it the parts and pieces in storage.

The only thing i would truly miss is optifine since the old clear water mod is no longer being updated. I like utilizing water building. Glass domes under water which is impossible(ish) or at least less of a point if i cannot see under water well, plus it helps my FPS.

One message is played over and over. I am not having any fun. You need to have fun. You give us have fun. We want you to have fun too. The more fun you have, the more fun we have. The balance of it all is what makes it the most fun.

I am a programmer by nature(not by employment) myself, i enjoy the code. It gets frustrating when i cannot do what my vision is because the functionality is not there in the language i used for the project due to other features being available that i needed. If you can create your vision then that is what matters. No programmer should have to give up their vision and creativity when it can be helped.

People will just have to choose. Whose vision do they see for themselves.
I for one am BTW. My clan mate is a BTW convert.

lol just got a vision for "I'm a PC" commercial.

[Narzuhl]

Hey Guys.

I only registered to add some ramblings of mine to the thread. The outcome has been stated clearly and it will go it's way. While I think that BTW is one of the best mods out there, RedPower is actually my favorite one.

But most of the discussion actually seems to be ABOUT Eloraam.. but taking place WITHOUT her. It's okay to vent a little. But you guys are all great people. So is she. Don't fret about who make what feature in their mod... all of them are good. But everyone does things with a different flavor. I think that's good. I think that's GREAT.

I do NOT see how this should lead to hatred. If the forge needs better "management" - why not set up a better forum, a better bugtracker or whatever? The as I understand it is: if most of the code in forge is done by Eloraam, the reason for it might be: nobody else did it. And as far as I have seen, most of the forge hooks ARE pretty generic. It's not as if they seem tailored specifically for RedPower.

I add this not because I want you, FlowerChild, to keep using Forge... But I think creating a "Plan B" API (what SpaceToad mentioned) would end up having the same problem: someone has to maintain it. With forge it seems to be Eloraam. Instead of creating a new API *and* a (let's call it) "government" to maintain it... Why not *only* create a more community based approach for the Forge (as it was intended anyway)?
I think you just can't bash her, if no one wants to step up and do the job.

[Stormweaver]

From my past experiences with projects, the one thing that helps these kind of things is that the lead needs to be strong with their leadership skills (as FC states) but also as needs to be someone without their own agenda, ie a non-modder. I'm sure with his past experience in the gaming industry FC has seen many a development where the overall body in charge of how things go probably could not write enough code open a .txt file. This helps as they keep the project on track with the vision of the project, rather than adding functionality for their own devices.

I think that this is probably how things should have been managed to be honest; having someone in charge who simply organises other people might be a pain in the ass for the people doing all the actual work, and would no doubt irritate said people; but it would have kept things on track. The main selling point of an API is that it's non-invasive, keeps any class modifications down to a minimum, and is easily accessible by people who are developing both itself and mods for it. So far as I can gather from what I've read so far, these are also the things that the API's lost sight of, development-wise.

To be honest, the one thing that I'm starting to feel a touch worried about is that I figure that sooner or later, the time's going to come where mojang look at the current APIs in development, and decide to work with whatever team is making the one they feel to be the 'best' one at the time (mojang looking to work with modders has recent precedent; they've already approached the optifine dev, for example) - there's no way around the fact that for any half-decent API, it has to be at least partially maintained by the community or else it loses it's purpose, or is made instantly redundant. While modloader is the obvious choice, forge's popularity and increasingly widespread use will garner some attention. Not that this would technically be a bad thing; it's just that I like to be able to trust that if someone is working on something for the community, that they're not putting their own interests ahead of everyone else's. Monetary gain is all well and good, but pointedly making other people's work redundant by naturally being in the best position to both update first and include everything ever I just don't think I'd be happy with.

I sound bias? Unfair? Downright rude? Well...maybe not so much rude, but hey, opinions are opinions. And mine were best summed up earlier in the thread, by myself:

The forge mods in general had their own niche's - Buildcraft allowed for generic automation, redpower allowed for 'simple' redstone wiring, IC allowed for various ways to manipulate and improve on your resources, and BTW gave early-game progression. Back when it started out and 'Look! all of this is now compatible!' was a force getting more people interested in the mods, this individual functionality worked.

The thing is now, most mods that actually do anything require the use of redstone. Most people don't understand/don't want to learn about redstone. So they install redpower. And then they find out redpower lets them do what they wanted in the first place anyway. If hypothetically I was the kind of person who assumes people to be manipulative and scheming until shown otherwise, I'd probably give her a pat on the head right now and say 'well played'.

[Camerinthus]

I do NOT see how this should lead to hatred. If the forge needs better "management" - why not set up a better forum, a better bugtracker or whatever? The as I understand it is: if most of the code in forge is done by Eloraam, the reason for it might be: nobody else did it. And as far as I have seen, most of the forge hooks ARE pretty generic. It's not as if they seem tailored specifically for RedPower.

Actually, it's been mentioned several times here by FC that he's had trouble geting Eloraam to add in hooks he's wanted, and by the railcraft author (forgot your name, sorry). So it's not that she's the only one willing to add hooks.

[logorouge]

Yet again, I'm late to the debate.

Facts:
-I use Forge only because BTW requires it.
-All the other mods in my ever-changing modlist are non-forge mods.
-For me, Better Than Wolves isn't a Minecraft mod, it IS Minecraft.

Now, it's a shame things didn't turn out the way we all hoped, but if FlowerChild drops the Forge, ironically it will reduce my compatibility issues with other mods. So yeah, you won't see me argue against that change. But if the way the Forge is managed is detrimental to FC's enjoyment and BTW's development, I'm almost wondering why we're having this debate.

[bechill]

Ive never gotten to use BTW in my actual play worlds anyway, along side BC, IC2, RP2, Railcraft, etc anyway, as BTW uses entirely too many block ids for me to consider it compatible with all the other mods I really want to have as well. That said, I'm still sad to see this happen with forge, and I will probably join the 2 minecrafts lot in order to enjoy BTW.

[FlowerChild]

Actually, it's been mentioned several times here by FC that he's had trouble geting Eloraam to add in hooks he's wanted

Actually, no. With everything else I've said about Eloraam, that is not a problem I've said that I have had.

What I said is that I no longer felt comfortable speaking to her, and as a result of THAT was no longer adding hooks to the Forge. As far as I know, the lines of communication were always open between us and *I* was the one that chose to close them out of frustration with her behavior.

As far as I know, she was almost always available on the forge IRC channel if people wanted to talk to her, as was I until I stepped away a month or two ago.

[misterwuggles]

It's funny you should say that man. When those elements were introduced to Buildcraft, that's exactly the point at which I decided to try it. I thought their inclusion was absolutely brilliant, and turned the mod into a game.

We're obviously looking for very different things in mods. It seems you want pure functionality, while I want a gameplay experience.

I dunno if it's just the way things are now, but it seems like 'mods' in general are becoming much less like the mods that I remember. When I think of mods, I think of primarily Half-Life 1 mods, and maybe some of the more extravagant SC/WC3 UMS maps to a lesser extent. Something that keeps or uses the core of the game and almost completely changes everything else or adds an entirely new layer of gameplay. Some of them may retain the spirit of the game, but it was always more than just a couple additional features. It was usually very nearly an entirely new experience. That's usually what I'm looking for in a mod, and probably the reason that BTW is what I've finally been able to settle on.

As for BC, I agree. The pipes and machines were certainly neat and very well done and an awesome and welcome addition to the game, but the inclusion of an in-mod power system just adds a sense of synergy that makes it a more complete mod and experience for me (though I haven't tried it as much as I'd like to just yet thanks to BTW).

[FlowerChild]

I dunno if it's just the way things are now, but it seems like 'mods' in general are becoming much less like the mods that I remember. When I think of mods, I think of primarily Half-Life 1 mods, and maybe some of the more extravagant SC/WC3 UMS maps to a lesser extent. Something that keeps or uses the core of the game and almost completely changes everything else or adds an entirely new layer of gameplay. Some of them may retain the spirit of the game, but it was always more than just a couple additional features. It was usually very nearly an entirely new experience. That's usually what I'm looking for in a mod, and probably the reason that BTW is what I've finally been able to settle on.

Yeah, I'm much the same way. I think what I still consider to be "mods" are now considered "total conversions" or what have you. Most of the mods I've installed and played in my life are the kind of old-school fps mods that could only be installed alone, and which provided a unique gameplay experience onto themselves.

That's why I mentioned in my interview that thing about considering the whole "expecting to install a bunch of mods together" thing to be somewhat of an aberration. It's a rather foreign concept to me in terms of what I think of mods as being, and I think it really does place a lot of undue pressure on mod developers to keep everything working with everything else.

I do think this is likely to be how thing evolve for mods in games in the future however. I guess I'm just a bit of a throw-back in this way :)

However, one thing that does kind of amaze me is that things have gone this way for Minecraft without even having a modding API. A strong API would seem to be a requirement for those kinds of compatibility expectations.

[FlowerChild]

And as far as I have seen, most of the forge hooks ARE pretty generic. It's not as if they seem tailored specifically for RedPower.

Dude...I'd like to respond to this by quoting a couple of lines from MovingObjectPostion.java that really got under my skin:

Code: Select all

    // Added for RedPower subblocks.
    public int subHit=-1;

Yes, that's RP SPECIFIC code in a general API. That variable has no functionality outside of RP, and is not part of any hook. It's a mod specific base-class modification in an API and is clearly labeled as such. There are also no other modifications to that base-class that would justify the inclusion of something like the above.

[CovertJaguar]

Actually, it's been mentioned several times here by FC that he's had trouble geting Eloraam to add in hooks he's wanted, and by the railcraft author (forgot your name, sorry). So it's not that she's the only one willing to add hooks.

Yeah, its not that I couldn't get the hooks I wanted in if I really wanted to bug Eloraam, its that there is no defined process for doing so and no place to post hooks where they will get the community review they need. The main reason I wrote my own API is precisely because I have no experience doing so and so didnt want to force something into Forge that may or may not be up to the quality standards. Well that and the fact that Eloraam shot down most of my early suggestions, which admittedly where not up to standards. But by doing it this way I have the ability to redact any errors I may make in the process. And my intention was always to submit the MCL to Forge once it stabilized into something that more than just Railcraft was using successfully. I know I will have to update it at least once more (aside from the MC version update) before its at that point. The question then becomes, how does one submit it to Forge?

[misterwuggles]

A strong API would seem to be a requirement for those kinds of compatibility expectations.

See, I just don't understand how someone can EXPECT compatibility. It can be nice and it can be neat and it's an admirable thing to work towards, but it should never be expected. Not only can it be a gigantic hassle, it's simply not your or any other modder's responsibility to work around other mods and people. It's a gosh dang shame that there are people out there that aren't going to play BTW simply because they can't play it with a thousand other mods at the same time. I'd rather see people give it an honest try and hate it than never bother due to a lack of expected compatibility.

I guess I'm a little old fashioned with this thinking but even in Minecraft where mixing mods is the norm, I still have trouble understanding where people are getting this sense of entitlement in regards to mod compatibility.

[Awfulcopter]

Your complaints about Eloraam are specific, and your complaints about Forge are nebulous. This leads me to conclude that your problem is mostly with her rather than the API. Not that I doubt that your fears about an increasingly obscure code base are wrong. I just think that without the personality conflict, that it could have been salvaged. You are testy, critical, and elitest. That makes me conclude that the root of your inability to work things out with Eloraam was your personality, rather than hers.

I think you did a disservice to the Minecraft community by quitting forge. I think this is a step backwards for Forge, and for intercompatibility between all mods, not just between BTW and the rest. I know this is your hobby, that you pursue for your own amusement. You will do as you please, and see fit. But you asked how we felt it would affect us. This is how I feel.

I thank you for all the great work you've done, and hours of amusement I've gotten from BTW. But I think this decision will hurt my fun in the long term.

[Camerinthus]

Actually, it's been mentioned several times here by FC that he's had trouble geting Eloraam to add in hooks he's wanted

Actually, no. With everything else I've said about Eloraam, that is not a problem I've said that I have had.

What I said is that I no longer felt comfortable speaking to her, and as a result of THAT was no longer adding hooks to the Forge. As far as I know, the lines of communication were always open between us and *I* was the one that chose to close them out of frustration with her behavior.

As far as I know, she was almost always available on the forge IRC channel if people wanted to talk to her, as was I until I stepped away a month or two ago.

Ah, ok, sorry. I must have misunderstood you. My bad :( At least on the part of the railcraft author that's true. (right? I don't want to screw up again >_>)

[FlowerChild]

Your complaints about Eloraam are specific, and your complaints about Forge are nebulous. This leads me to conclude that your problem is mostly with her rather than the API. Not that I doubt that your fears about an increasingly obscure code base are wrong. I just think that without the personality conflict, that it could have been salvaged. You are testy, critical, and elitest. That makes me conclude that the root of your inability to work things out with Eloraam was your personality, rather than hers.

http://www.mod-buildcraft.com/forums/to ... ing-forge/

And I would also like to point out that at the start of this thread I specifically stated that my problem is with Eloraam. I listed her specifically as one of the two things that has dragged me down on working with the Forge. Has my personality played a roll in that? Most definitely. But I am also not the one putting out release after release with copies of features from other Forge-authors mods.

What I am is the first person to publicly state their displeasure with that, how much it's pissing me off, and take action based on that. I fail to see how anyone would expect me to collaborate with someone who is actively engaged in such activities.

[Awfulcopter]

Your complaints about Eloraam are specific, and your complaints about Forge are nebulous. This leads me to conclude that your problem is mostly with her rather than the API. Not that I doubt that your fears about an increasingly obscure code base are wrong. I just think that without the personality conflict, that it could have been salvaged. You are testy, critical, and elitest. That makes me conclude that the root of your inability to work things out with Eloraam was your personality, rather than hers.

http://www.mod-buildcraft.com/forums/to ... ing-forge/

I guess that goes to show that you can be testy and critical, but also be in the right. I shouldn't have criticized without being party to what was happening behind the scenes.

[TSA]

English is not my native language so i will try to explain myself the best i can.

1- this mod needs forge just to be compatible with other mods. Right?

2- i have seen a lot of mods and the most have nothing to do with minecraft, others just add trivial or useless stuff for minecraft itself. i cant see minecraft as a future related game so buildcraft, redpower, IC^2 or other mods that are similar to these do not catch my attention.

3- i really like BTW and i have met battosay on youtube and he made me realise how great this mod is.

4- we cant forget that a lot of people use BTW with other mods but if you are not satisfied with the way forge is going and it somehow is forcing you to drop it, we will understand and the ones who have to choose between your mod and other mods will think witch mod gives them the best experience of minecraft.

so in my opinion, and i am just talking for me, you can do whatever you want, i will always choose your mod as my first priority.
keep going the good work, i hope you are having fun modding minecraft.

just notify us when you about to make your final decision.

crums

TSA