Godcraft's Open Video to the IndustrialCraft Development Team!

Quote from FenixR

Edit: Also if you think ic2 Public relations its bad, then you don't really bother about RedPower, she has been silent since a while ago and you don't hear people bitching about it too much. (No i don't give a crap that RP almost never have bugs, im just talking about the PR side)

Just had to reply here to clarify, people were bitching back and forth for at least 3 pages recently on the Redpower MC forum thread about the same stuff as here. Then the mods went through, locked the thread, deleted several pages of both sides arguing, and then reopened it. I suspect this happens frequently, and I suspect part of the reason people are getting so frustrated is because no one can even discuss it civilly.

Quote from Veoulux

Just had to reply here to clarify, people were bitching back and forth for at least 3 pages recently on the Redpower MC forum thread about the same stuff as here. Then the mods went through, locked the thread, deleted several pages of both sides arguing, and then reopened it. I suspect this happens frequently, and I suspect part of the reason people are getting so frustrated is because no one can even discuss it civilly.

Well aside from a few people, this seems to be a pretty civil debate going on here

Yeah, if you keep it all under the shadows you are going to get people like Kane who just get frustrated at it and explode. People are actually being smart and helpful here, hopefully together we can come up with some more options for Alblaka to consider.

Ello Al,

I am probably one of those lurkers, who read a lot, but mostly doesn't react.
Why? Because mostly there isn't a need to react.

This time though, before I am going to bed I stumbled after my update round on the mods on this topic. And instead of going to bed, I first wanted to reply a bit.

(Lot of mixed feelings about the video and how it is presented. Had a lot of text about it.. but a tldr is way better. The thought was well, but the presentation of it... almost missed its goal. It could almost been seen as an attack or as an hater wining about his lost toy. I see Kane bouncing around on IRC and more places. He is worried and that frustrates him, so I keep it at that.)

About the issues. I as a server owner myself (a small modded server I run from home for a small group of friends) love to see bugs fixed. I do like an update now and then. But, I don't like daily updates. Why because it can be an hell to implement updates. First you need to see if it works on the server with all those other mods. Second you need to make sure your playerbase updates to. I love running a server, and want to have this as stable as possible. But to have to patch up the server every day is a total different story. More so because its not only server side.

About bugs.. They can be annoying, but as far as they are known and don't melt the server, I can live with that. Minecraft itself is not the most stable piece of software. Next to that, somehow Mojang think its good to update the game every 6 to 8 weeks. Which doesn't make the live easy for the modders, but also for the modded playerbase.

About communication. Hey thats a big word. People go to school for that and even they can't do it perfectly. Keep in mind we are not talking about a company here. They have grown to a semi professional group who brings us one of the greater mods. Still men cannot expect from them that they communicate to us like bigger real company's do. They don't even make a living from this. So every way they do communicate is a plus. And they do communicate.

I do think though that a lot of people expect more. As far as we don't pay them for the mod, we don't buy the mod from them, we have absolutely no rights over the mod. That means we don't have any right about communication or what so ever. We are allowed to play it. We are allowed to post bugs. But that is still no right in this case. A lot of people seem to forget that as it seems. Especially if such mod becomes popular and good. Expectations start to grow, and people will see it as a right to make demands and stuff. The start of those expectations lays with the passion which the playerbase has about those mods. So it is understandable that those expectations start to grow.

Still it is something what a couple of strangers are making for free. They like to do it and the players like to play it. Though it stays something we get for free and in the passion for the mods people tend to forget that.

Keep up the good work. And yes bugs are bad and I wouldn't mind that they are resolved. But I am not going to demand it. And yes I also get worried when I hear nothing for a long time. Still that doesn't give me the right to demand or rant about "bad" communication.

Last but not least. How I see the current modding community. It is a good time for modding. The Pahicraft/Forgecraft is a good example of this. The modmakers talk to each other. Mostly behind screens as it seems, but a lot is going on. Sometimes we hear stuff about it, mostly not. And see it this way. What you don't know, can not influence your expectation. At least it shouldn't.

Hope this wall of text is readable as English isn't my first language.

Just figured I should throw my two cents in as well.

Addressing Kane Hart

First of all I am displeased with the video calling out the mod authors and such, it literally took about a dozen attempts on my part to sit and listen to it as it just strikes me as a terrible idea regardless of the issues at hand as I have seen it backfire spectacularly more times than I care to admit to. As well as being really disappointed that there were a few parts where I felt the line was crossed between intelligent statements of concern into inflammatory comments and personal attacks on some of the authors.
My final thing is in the end you came across as trying to threaten them with other mods replacing them which isn't a good idea when you want someone to do something for you.
XY and EU appear to be much younger than IC/IC2 and I don't think either of them intends to try and directly muscle IC2 out it's current niche.

I'm going to stop now, As far as I know you are a decent person as I really haven't noticed you before but in the last two days whenever I have seen your activity on forums it has been in a negative light.
Done addressing Kane Hart

Addressing IC2 team

I would like it if there was more communication but I have long since come to terms with the fact that for most mods the community as a whole with all the children and childish members makes that almost impossible with the nagging and complaining for and about ETAs.

I am completely uneducated on the issues of build-systems and such so I can't speak out one way or the other.
With regards to out-side help with fixing problems, it's your call, it sounds like there are some people with the talent to help if it is a workload issue but again from my own experience sometimes too many people with their differing work and code styles leads to stuff breaking more spectacularly down the road.

Again I'm not personally informed with minecraft modding but it sounds like the 1.4 update will shake things up again for the coders and authors so in my opinion it might be best for us all to just leave things be and just chill and deal with it until things settle down to the point where the future is predictable.

With regards to betas and testing, I have no strong opinion either way, it would be nice to have open access to testing pre-releases but again looking at other mods it is pretty much pointless without a proper error reporting set up and a system and rules in place to discourage the people who make "something broke, fix it" style error reports without useful info.

I'm done for now, my train of thought is long gone after trying to write without sounding like I am attacking either side.

FenixR

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allow any kind of flithy paws into their code

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Because alblaka isn't mojang? and Ic2 isn't minecraft either.

you just like ic2 devs in general - ignoring whatever posted on forum, taking only your own opinion in account there is nothing to duscuss with you.

but ok, i will still discuss, lets talk about:

I dont see comments like "IT'S NOT OPEN SOURCE GTFO BITCH DONT MAKE MODS" on www.minecraftforum.net, OMG WHY THEY EDIT MINECRAFT??? THEY NOT ALLOWED, IT'S NOT OPENSOURCE!!!

I dont see similar posts on forge forums.

I dont see anything similar on bukkit forum (ofc *you* dont know, but bukkit team distribute SOURCE of minecraft from github) (in case of ButtHurt take this https://github.com/Bukkit/mc-dev)

well, conclude, you failed and by flithy paws are ok.

for everyone else, it's not RP2 discussion.

Why do i feel my energy sapping every time i read any of your posts... It gets worse when i have to re-read it because sense you make so little of it at times. Anyway... im going to dissect your post to try and fucking make some sense:

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Rawcode: you just like ic2 devs in general

I like every devs in equal measure. Be it ic2 or bc or whatever. And i support them and their views, wherever it is with open source projects or closed source projects or mid open or half closed or whatever they consider their project to be.

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Rawcode: ignoring whatever posted on forum

Can you specify which forum? This one? MCF? what forum exactly?

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Rawcode: taking only your own opinion in account there is nothing to duscuss with you.

Im only exposing my opinion in full before giving a shit about others. After that they are free to take it apart and some discussion may happen (Like this one)

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Rawcode: I dont see comments like "IT'S NOT OPEN SOURCE GTFO BITCH DONT MAKE MODS" on www.minecraftforum.net, OMG WHY THEY EDIT MINECRAFT??? THEY NOT ALLOWED, IT'S NOT OPENSOURCE!!!

I dont see similar posts on forge forums.

I dont see anything similar on bukkit forum

If your english was any good as your coding (Sadly it isn't[CLARIFICATION before you get a sudden itch of butthurtness, you english is bad, your coding i dunno]), you would have realized that i never said any of those things as a "FACT". Lets read what i said one more time shall we? (Or at least what i think you are "quoting")

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FenixR: And in no way does mojang says "Any mod for our game must be open source and allow any kind of flithy paws into their code"

Ok then, what i tried to said here WAS NOT that mojang doesn't allow any kind of modifications to their code because they are closed source and stuff. Its obvious they allow it because mods exist after all. WHAT i was actually trying to say with that phrase its that mojang in no way whatsoever forces mod devs of their game (Minecraft) to follow the same way they did by allowing MCP and mods to exist even though its a "closed source" project without an official api (And if you did not know, notch the one who made this mess of a game was against it at first but jeb convinced him iirc). And i said that in response to this comment:

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Silty: In the end, if Mojang lets us mod and patch their game in whatever way we want, what right does Alblaka have to prevent us from doing the same to his mod, as long as we only distribute the patch and don't claim his work as our own?

So, re-responding to that person, mojang does not force mod devs to follow their ways (And if they did Closed Source with the ability to make addons would be that particular way if you ask me) so alblaka have all the rights in the world to keep anyone he doesn't want, to see his code.

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Rawcode: (ofc *you* dont know, but bukkit team distribute SOURCE of minecraft from github)

No i didn't know, thanks for the tip though!

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Rawcode: ...Butthurt...

Could not resist, such a fun word that everyone should know what it means.

Oh and btw, you can't really inflict butthurt if you completely misunderstand what someone said and blow it out of proportions, in your case its more of herp derp in your post... I think? Im not that really well versed in internet slang and their meanings.

So i strongly suggest you to take a deep breath, and read my or any post a few times and think it well before posting the first thing that comes from your mind so you don't misunderstand it and blow it out of proportions. (And while you are at it, please take a english grammar book/course, for everyones sakes D: )

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Could not resist, such a fun word that everyone should know what it means.

You have no idea how often this comes in handy

/On Topic/
RawCode Sorry but I'm going to take FenixR's point of view for two main reasons. One

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Rawcode: I dont see comments like "IT'S NOT OPEN SOURCE GTFO BITCH DONT MAKE MODS" on www.minecraftforum.net, OMG WHY THEY EDIT MINECRAFT??? THEY NOT ALLOWED, IT'S NOT OPENSOURCE!!!

This didn't really happen, he seemed against your bug fix posting, but that was only because it was done without permission on a closed source project, and I wouldn't consider it at the "DON'T MAKE MODS" all caps level you claim it was done at.

Two

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you just like ic2 devs in general - ignoring whatever posted on forum, taking only your own opinion in account there is nothing to duscuss with you.

yes, they are good devs, they take time out of their days to make sure IC2 happens. And isn't taking your own opinion into account pretty much the point of this thread?

To me, closed source is closed source. By that I mean that I don't think it is a good idea to release the code into the wild for just anyone to mess around with, the people like you and Greg that have the intelligence to decompile the code and fix things inside of it are great, but if the source was just handed out to random people with little coding experience, how many quality addons or improvements would honestly result from this?

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This didn't really happen, he seemed against your bug fix posting, but that was only because it was done without permission on a closed source project, and I wouldn't consider it at the "DON'T MAKE MODS" all caps level you claim it was done at.

Main argument was "it's not open source you cant edit it", well, i have no time and money for english gramma (and wont use google translate), my entire post was about "closed source does not mean that you can't edit".
And open source does not mean that everyone will steal code.

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but if the source was just handed out to random people with little coding experience, how many quality addons or improvements would honestly result from this?

cant find any reimplementation of BC, NEI or FORGE, reason is simple - nobody cares, ever with source none will attempt to change author and upload mod somewhere (actually there are idiots that do it, but this can't harm popular mod).

Other side - wave of super fast bug fixing at moment of source publishment WONT HAPPEN, it wont happen at all, one with proper skills to fix *obfuscated* 3rd party mod wont waste his time on 3rd party mod and will make his own.
One without skills to run MCP wont have a chance to fix anything ever with fully documented source.

I suppose everyone's got their preconceived notions about what it means to be open sourced. The term so often evokes charged feelings and socio-political debate these days. The fact of the matter is that like most things, it isn't a matter of absolutes. There is a lot more grey than black or white.

For that matter, I have yet to see an open source project that is a total free-for-all. What makes it an open source model open is that anyone can view the source code--that's it. It most emphatically does not mean that everyone and their uncle can write back to the master at will. Open source does not turn a project into a subway wall with every passerby overwriting their own brand of graffiti.

Also, open source does not necessarily mean just the Free Software Foundation's 'utopian' GPL3 vision. The project leadership is free to choose a license that makes sense independent of the development model (provided they don't violate the Mojang license.) If they want to have a clause in the license that says users can only play IndustrialCraft on Thursdays and only if you have an attractive redhead on your lap, then they have the right to release under that license. (If only they'd provide the redheads...) They can have that license and use an open source development model.

Furthermore, they can also prohibit redistribution under their license, or allow it for non-commercial applications, or whatever they see fit. Alblaka can keep essentially the same license he has now if he chooses.

There is no more risk of clones, bad addons, or other such nonsense than there is now. Anyone with even the skill to code a bad addon, or even just an eighth grade reading level, can easily drop IC2 into MCP.

Unfortunately, without access to the reversion control system, that's what a well meaning community member would have to do if they wanted to help out. To non-programmers, that may seem like no big deal, but since that happens outside of a reversion control system, it is a nightmare (or at least a PITA) for the devs to try to merge those changes into the master, especially since they've been coding on a branch too and their current stuff isn't the same as what we can download. That's what reversion control systems are designed for. That in turn makes devs just toss out community contributions because it feels like more work to merge than to just tackle the issue yourself. You lose out on a valuable resource that way. The community can be a great resource in this department if you let it.

I am wondering where all these bad vibes against open source are coming from and especially that idea that every coder out there on this forum is a crappy coder. Beside that being a bit insulting and far from the truth, I'd like to give another idea to this:

Imagine you are the best coder in this world and you go to a forum for a game played by all kinds of ages. Usually in those forums about a hand full of people are very active, post comments on everything and especially insult everyone trying to "harm" their beloved game. Happens here, happens in basically every other game forum as well. Now you see people posting "crappy" code. You could go and post to point out the mistakes and how to make everything better in just a few minutes, but the best chance for an answer is that above hand-full of people rampart your answer and shit-storm about it for the next few days. And now imagine you are old and experienced enough to know that this will happen.

This doesn't only apply to good programmers, but probably to everyone else who is especially good at something and has many other worries than to argue with random people over the Internet. And now please think about it why all of a sudden people you never heard of before post in this thread. And why those hand-full of shit-stormers (love that word) harm their beloved game more than they are doing good by doing that.

Hi Alblaka. I've only just started using IndustrialCraft (and mods in general) starting with v1.106. I've watched entire seasons of DireWolf's videos and listening to you guys on the server is what really got me excited about modding. I love hearing the technical stuff and would love to be on a server like that, beta testing things (I love being able to test out new software, regardless of what it is. It's just something I've always enjoyed).

I was a little disappointed with v1.106, especially because it was my first try at IndustrialCraft and after scouring the forums and bug tracker, I noticed that most of the bugs I'd encountered are apparently fixed. I was excited about the fact that this would be the next release and I'm now checking these forums daily, waiting for an updated release.

I don't really have an opinion on open sourcing the software as I feel that is a personal decision and not for the greater masses to decide (I am in favor of open source in general with my own programming though and I do prefer open source projects), but I do think that a place to get these bug fixed updates as soon as they're fixed is important. Even if they are only test versions, for people who know what they are doing (which I like to think of myself as someone who has at least enough knowledge to know when an issue is my own screw up), it would be nice to have the option.

I like the way Forge is set up with Jenkins and how they have recommended and development versions. I also like the way Bukkit uses GitHub and Jenkins to distribute they're software and that they also allow "Pull Requests" so people can help fix the bugs themselves and eventually get them included in the code. I'm heavily into using development tools like those to help keep the load down on the projects I work on and I can honestly say they have saved me a lot of stress in the long run keeping people up-to-date with various projects. Using a Jenkins style set up also helps with the PR side of things by allowing users to keep track of what's happening with the project as things are implemented, rather than waiting for a PR person to announce something. I also think it helps keep people interested in the project if they know, for sure, that development is still moving at a steady pace.

Learning Jenkins and an automated build system was a bit daunting for me but once I worked it out and we got something set up, it helps immensely. Whatever you decide though, I hope this project continues moving forward and gets updated regularly. After playing with the mod, I can say that there is nothing else quite like this available to the Minecraft community and with that, I will continue to support the mod however I can.

I also thank you and the team for volunteering your time to work on things like this as it furthers the gaming and Minecraft community. One last thing is to the people who come across as thinking they deserve this mod because they use it... Remember that the developers are not getting paid for their work and they do it because they enjoy it. As a volunteer developer on some projects myself, it can de-motivate you when people don't seem to appreciate your work when it works but then expect you to drop everything to work on it when something goes wrong. What I'm trying to say is support the project because you use it and try to help further discussion and debate on these topics rather than trying to derail them when you're not happy with something.

WTF man?! Why you had to say something about book? If you dont like it or something then dont complain about it because its fully seperate thing. And now back to mod. Theyr not making mod for YOU. Usualy mods are started because one nice guy wants to have something more added into minecraft, and as i know modding is a hobby, and not a job. Lets take a look at Better Than Wolves just for rude example. Why that mod was created? Because FC wanted to fix and add stuff to minecraft that he wanted to see. In other words he was making mod for him self, and just shared it with mc community. He almost never listsens to some random people poping around and giving ideas. Why? (well not really. he looks at suggestion topics but he almost never accepts any ideas ) As i said he's making mod for him self. When he adds feature does he listen to shit loads of peoples saying that this feature sux? No, because it's his hobby to make this mod, and he adds what ever he wants, and mod users just bares with him and accepts what he adds because they dont have choise. So why the heck your making a bubble out of this when you should be happy that this mod exists, and if modders dont want to work or dont have ideas then they can and you dont have any rights to blame them for creating mod that they want to have in mc, and share with community. You should really check out, and say something like that about BTW. They will instantly ban you with all this bullshit that you say because its useless post/video/thread, and they dont even care So F you. You dont like how peoples work? Go ahead and do it by your self. Dont know how? Then shut your mouth, and be happy with what you get

Anyways sorry for sort of rudeness but.. meh... why you needed to make such a not nice video? I firstly thought that it'll be like: Oh its an awesome mod thank for the work that you put in and TAKE YOUR TIME with it

I like the direction this "Bump" seems to have gone, although they way the bump occurred may have been a little, ...harsh"

Al, If its technical expertise that is giving you a bit of a fright with jenkins/github you may consider reaching out to some folks that have already been using these systems for some time, I am sure at least 1 would be willing to throw a lifeline.

PS: Kane, you need a PR guy or something (Just to go over your stuff before it lands)

Some ideas I had during lunch on how to define the development process in an open source community version:

- Use GIT differently from how you're using it right now (~Alb). It has the wonderful option to create as many branches as you want and merge them together usually flawlessly. This allows people to submit minor changes on a one-per-branch base, without affecting development on other branches. People should do baby-steps here in the beginning as one branch/commit per bug, as I expect the code-base to be volatile once this is really open until the major things have been done.

- In general everyone can pull the code at any time from any branch. This allows devs, wannabe-devs and testers to have a look and maybe give their feedback and input.
- To get commit rights, one must first send in a patch file that is reviewed and if considered accepted, the person is granted commit rights. This is the base hurdle so only those who really want to contribute (and know how to use their tools) are able to request permission. More on the commit rights later.
- For all Alblaka as the Mod-Owner has the last word. Only he may accept feature changes and he reserves the right to reject everything he doesn't like.

There are 3 main branches:
- Experimental: This is where Alblaka (and maybe others) pur in their ideas/major code changes, the "What if?" branch. Only requirement: game must still be playable, as in "doesn't crash too often". Bug-fixes may happen but are not required.
- Development: One a feature or set of features has been accepted, it is put into the development branch. Here all bug-fixes happen and ideas/code might get improved or slightly modified (under the control of Alblaka) with the target to have a fully releasable version in the end. Requirement for all commits is to be compilable and fix bugs/improve code without introducing new bugs.
- Release: Once a development branch has been stabilized enough, it is branched out to a specific release version branch. Once this is done that version is considered released and only bug-fixes that address stability issues may happen to this branch. New features or improvements of existing features do not belong here. There is a minimum delay of 1 month per release, so not every minor change caused server admins the trouble to update.

To sort out those who contribute to the mod and those who rather don't contribute, the Jenkins build system uses a Karma-System (there are several existing plugins for that), that in general gives points to good contributes and decreases those points for bad commits. As an idea:
- Everyone starts with 0.
- Every commit that works fine and fixes bugs gives +1.
- Every commit that works but introduces more bugs that it fixes gives -1.
- Every commit that does not compile or has other very obvious bugs as in "You never tested this even once!" gives -5.
- If someone gets too low on score, his commit rights are revoked.

While the "not compiling" thins is pretty easy to measure (compile fails), the big question is how to detect the amount of bugs added/removed. Tools like FindBugs might be helpful here. On the other hand those only detect coding bugs and not logic bugs. so some kind of human interaction seems to be inevitable.

Other things:
- For every branch there is a thread/mailing list so people can give feedback to the right code and version.
- There should be a standardized way of submitting bugs/requests. The primary focus here is ease of use as I expect more non-technical feedback than actual coders to use it. This doesn't have to be a highly sophisticated tracking tool, even the forum could be a solution, just something that works fine for the task.

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Use GIT differently from how you're using it right now (~Alb). It has the wonderful option to create as many branches

are you kidding?
everything you stated valid for github (and any other public source tracker, ever for google docs).

Quote from Alblaka

Can I add a clause to make a redhead sit on my lab in general? o.o

I dunno, that seems like a pretty powerful clause to add, there might be some repercussions...

Quote from Alblaka

Additionally, the idea of creating a semi-public source hub, permitting 'trusted' (aka invited) persons to submit code changes (which then need approval) sounds reasonable to me

Trying that with my failed attempt at updating Rocket Science, I have the wonderful tendency to go "OH, shiny object!" whenever something I find interesting, which eventually fades to "meh. I'll fix that later" as I do stuff with it.

While i was reading the second Alb~ post (this one)

that music kicked in my head That dramatic music and that is a nice IC story i remember, so get back to topic i played ic alone, then with few friends. And we like don't complain and stuff, fuck us right? I mean, I never had a real issue to complain even with death- threatening JP's it was nice additional danger or just had look for water to land in case i flew too high, and personally i like IC the way it is now, and development, as official assohole told is quite nicely blogged/responded on forums opposed to RP/BTW.I just lost my idea why i am posting, don't worry be hippie (insert solar-flower there).
PS None of my nukes exploded or world was destroyed because of bugs.

Pardon me it was Certified not Official