Posts by Vroomfondle

Quote from MagusUnion

Remembered something: I've had alot of support requests from Technic users in the past who have stated that they are required to use their forum ID to log into the launcher, from which to have access to the mods and such to play Minecraft from. Now, this login is based off a Technic forum account, and that in order to use said launcher, you have to register on the forums first.

In this case, would it be possible to count these login actions as site views, which indirectly count as ad views for the site to generate income? Would make sense, but I don't get how the code ties together in that respect...

This is simply wrong. You can download the launcher, and use it without ever having anything at all to do with the forums. The only requirement is that you have paid for Minecraft since you must pass Mojang's login authorization. The launcher is open source as well, so any other suspected sneakiness is easy to refute.

It is stupid rumors like this that cause a lot of the drama imho.

Quote from MagusUnion

I like how you assume that I would have trouble installing mods. You think I would support the Forge so much if I didn't already know about the limitations of the MC engine to begin with? Humor me more then. That last line is about the only good line that I have seen you post so far in this entire forum. No doubt that you probably already know that's what I do currently anyway.

Do you not read your owns posts? Or are just so angry that you can't have a coherent discussion?

If you are willing to discuss any part of this topic I have entered into without all this "ARGH GOONS!" "ARGH GOONSWARM!" nonsense I will be happy to ablige.

Quote from MagusUnion

That's a very big damn logistical error, period. You're basically saying that 'only mods in Technic pack are worth playing, and all other mods are shit'. I'm sorry, but who gave you the damn right to say what mods I wanted, much less to judge which mods are 'worth the community's attention'? That's a VERY big claim to make: Who the hell do you (and Goonswarm) think you are in saying what mods I should/shouldn't be playng with my Minecraft? You think you have any RIGHT or MERIT to even begin to make such an action like that towards me? Course not, so don't sit there and say that it's 'ok' to railroad specific mods to users, and neglete others just because you 'don't like them'. That's not your choice to make with people, and no amount of SA spin doctoring is going to justify that...

You failed to quote the reasons why an additional mod might cause an error. Here is a hint: It has to do with current limitations of the minecraft engine, and not any personal preferences. You are more than welcome to remove and add whatever mods you like from your installation of the Technic pack. I will even personally help you out if you are having trouble. But, there are only so many resources available, and some mods simply do not work together. And as a bonus, you are free to not install the Technic pack, and install/configure whatever mods please you.

Quote from MagusUnion

But this is Kakermix, beloved 'hero' for Goonswarm: an organization that loves to profiteer off of making online play miserable for everyone and defiles every game that they touch with bile, malevolence, and spite. They don't ask permissions because they LOVE pissing people off with their actions, and spinning some 'but we're helping you out bro' justification afterwords. In every post (yes, every post) either Kakermix or another fellow goonswarm member has stated that they 'are doing good' by either 'donating money and not using adfly', 'giving more publicity that you may have ever got', 'made it easier for people to enjoy your work'. Sure, they did those things, but at what price? Increased installation problems and help requests, further issues with incompatibility and off-the-wall technical errors, and even more of the useless 'when iz thiz mod be update 4 1.x.x.x?!?!/!/11?!'... About half of the errors encountered actually have to be solved thru manual re-installation of said mods, which leaves most users further behind square one than if they had not touched the pack to begin with...

For future reference, the #1 cause of Technic troubles is the user trying to install it into a minecraft installation that is not clean. This requirement is plainly stated in the installation instructions. The second most common error is trying to install an additional mod not included in the pack. Sometimes this is simply a block id conflict. Other times it is an outright compatibility conflict with an existing mod or mod requirement. Most often these conflicts are because the additional mod is not Forge\Optifine\TMI compatible. The typical response is to tell the user that they will either have to do without Technic or the additional mod and/or petition the mod author for compatibility. It has been really nice seeing more and more mod authors either adopting Forge outright, or at least providing Forge compatibility. This is a step in the right direction. A widely accepted open compatibility layer is something most of the modding community can get behind.

As for users asking for updates...you really can't be serious? That is going to happen anyway. You might as well blame Mojang for updating minecraft.

Quote from Cadde

If someone is using Techinc pack i will redirect them to the Technic pack thread/forums/whatever they have if they run into a problem.
And i will still suggest they DON'T use Technic pack for the above reasons and the fact that installing mods isn't rocket science... Heck, even installing the Rocket Science addon isn't rocket science.

This is more than welcome. The only time we ever redirect support issues back to the mods is if it is an obvious bug with the mod itself and it may be an issue that hasn't been posted in the mod's thread a hundred times already.

Installing most mods, particularly those contained within Technic (thanks Forge), is not a difficult process that is true. However it can be time consuming and fiddly, and in the case of multiplayer you can have compatibility issues. A lot of people don't want to put up with the hassle. They just want it to work. Technic provides one answer. Until there is an overall means of dealing with compatibility and ease of installation Technic and the like (Servers distributing their own packs for example) are here to stay.

I'm really excited about the Mojang/Bukkit API, Spout, and the things Chicken Bones is working on. Things could get really interesting really fast.

Quote from ccrraazzyyman

I think the technic pack should be taken down because they completely circumvent the adfly links that Spacetoad and Eloraam use for their mods. I hate the adfly, but I like the mods so much I'm willing to put up with it.

You do realize that there is software out there that lets the user completely circumvent ad.fly and similar services? This software provides absolutely nothing to the community and are in fact far more damaging. Ad.fly and the like are horrible methods of income not to mention rude, potentially distructive, and in my opinion ripping the modders off. By clicking an ad.fly link the average user is going to think they have done their part, and paid their fair share.

If you really would like to support the mod makers simply donating $1 would provide far more income than the average number of clicks you might generate through the interstitial adds. That $1 covers 250 clicks. I personally have never come even close to 250 downloads of any single mod. Now imagine that a single mod has 30,000 users, and each one of those users donated $1. See my point?

Don't support ad.fly, Donate, and see the service that the mod packs bring to the table.

Quote from FnordMan

"blown out of proportion"? Not really, the Tecnic pack person basically has admitted to outright stealing of other's work without permission. This is utterly wrong in more ways than one and should be stopped. Doesn't matter what their motivations are.

Is that better or worse than the modders "stealing" from Mojang and not admitting it? It is like you read only part of the above, or only picked out the part you felt comfortable with. You could even go as far to say that the mod packs are infringing less because they are not taking the mods as their own unlike the modders themselves.

Very nice reply, and I am somewhat surprised. The vast majority of people, some of them well known, have absolutely no idea of their position. The very same arguments they use can be used against them, and they have no idea.

I would like to point out a big misconception though. I am pretty sure I know the motivations of the creators of the two largest mod packs pretty well. The initial and primary motivations of both packs (Yogbox and Technic) is to create a minecraft "world" that contains features (mods) that are interesting to them personally, and to make the installation and compatibility as easy as possible.

Just as the modders were addressing what they felt were holes in their Minecraft experience so have the mod pack authors reacted. Ease of installation and compatibility are the issues being addressed by the mod packs and they are just as important to the modders as the mods are to Minecraft. These issues have been somewhat addressed, but they are not completely resolved. This is why the mod packs exist and why they will continue to exist until the issues are addressed.

I feel that the whole situation has been blown completely out of proportion, and that the mod makers that are holding a hard line are doing themselves a disservice for no real benefit.

Reading the Minecraft ToS clearly puts the entire modding community on very shaky ground. It clearly states not to distribute anything they have made or to distribute modified versions of anything they have made. The entire modding community requires this. I hope the new API Jeb is working on clears this up, and hopefully Mojang will adopt a proper licensing agreement since even this is a matter of licensing and not of copyright.

A couple of fun facts:

Copyright infringement is not theft. This has been decided by several courts and has never been refuted.
Copyright infringement in all but very rare cases is a civil matter, and as a result the only guaranteed rewards for a won case are provable losses/damages.

From here:
http://www.minecraft.net/terms

"Do not distribute anything we've made. This includes, but not limited to, the client or the server software for the game. This also includes modified versions of anything we've made."

"If you've bought the game, you may play around with it and modify it. We'd appreciate it if you didn't use this for griefing, though, and remember not to distribute the changes."

So, stop being silly. Have fun and be amazed that any of this stuff works together at all.