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while strolling through antenna, a post by gardenappl about their experience as a modded minecraft modpack maker caught my eye. I thought I was the only modded minecraft player/modpack maker/ server hoster on gemini and so never mentioned it. I'm happy enough to be wrong though. This article is more or less a stream of conciousness reflecting some of my thoughts with modded minecraft in general. But also wanted to share some of my thoughts on gardenappls modpack project which spurred this whole thing.
Gardenappl's "Developing a lightweight Minecraft modpack in 2022, part 1"
Gardenappl's "Developing a lightweight Minecraft modpack in 2022, part 2"
I, like many, have a long history with the game. Easily clocking in thousands of hours over my decade-long relationship with it. From my making online friends in my pre-teen days, to using minecraft a vehicle to connect with my elderly father suffering from alzheimers as an early adult. The game means a lot to me, but im not here to spin you a emotional tale or brag about spending thousands of hours of my finite life staring at a screen. Im saying all this to let you know that Im somewhat of a "minecraft expert" if there can be such a thing.
Ive been there since the early alpha days and was part of the modding community from its very beginnings. I still remember the excitment of getting elemental arrows and the original Equivalent Exchange working. There were no mod loaders then so you had to stuff all the mod data files into minecrafts %appdata% jar file and hope there were no conflicts. Things have come along way since then.
The first two real achievements of the modded minecraft community was "The Technic Pack" and the original "FTB Pyramid challenge" both springing up roughly around the same time. The Technic Pack, later known as "Tekkit" was one of the first mainstream modpacks because of the ease of the launcher it came packaged with. For the first time, any brainless child (which always was and still is the major minecraft demographic) could play with mods due to the no fuss no muss nature of the technic launcher.
FTB Pyramid was originally a challenge map created for PAX 2014 (I think, dont quote me there) which incorperated mods into its core progression. Making the players challenge themselves to complete difficult goals through mods. many MC Youtubers played the pyramid challenge map, making it unreasonably popular in a short amount of time. Thus the FTB group was consolidated as the de-facto modpack making group.
Shortly after, The FTB team created the FTB launcher and began releasing some of the most refined and released modpacks of the games history. For a time from about game versions 1.2.5 to 1.7.10 , they were the big fish. No doubt making a TON of cash through server advertising deals. That was, until they sold out to Curse. Ported all their modpacks to the new Curse launcher and the newly minted curseforge site. All while discontinuing their own FTB Launcher, probably because of some do not compete agreement.
Eventually Curse got absorbed by Twitch turning the Curse launcher into the Twitch launcher. And Twitch themselves got absorbed by Amazon, who ultimately sold curseforge to another company by the name of Overwolf. Gotta love corperate conglomeration, amirite?
In many ways the FTB team shot themselves in the foot the moment they sold out. Curseforge became the de-facto place for modpacks, not their launcher. Anyone can submit a mod or modpack to curseforge. FTB now had competition from rivaling individual modpack makers in an ever growing open market. Eventually it seems that FTB was able to slip out from whatever contract they signed. Making a new launcher and releasing new packs. But The damage is done and even though they are trying to rebuild, the lightning in a bottle they captured in the mid 2010s is long gone.
The current age of modded minecraft is a mature one. The years have allowed modpacks to evolve and grow. A diverse range of gamplay experience fitting a bunch of interest depending on the player and there philosophies. Some people like challenges and wierd rules which alter core gameplay progression, some people want to respect the vision of vanilla and only use mods which align with that vision. Some people still yet dont care about vision and want a 400+ modpack with as much content as possible, stability be damned.
The tools to install mods are simple, one click drag and drop style. If someone cannot find a modpack which fit their taste and needs, its never been easier to make your own or modify an existing one thats close enough. Anyone can slam a couple of mods in Forge or Fabric, modify some configs and recipes, and call themselves a modpack maker. Appl goes over the difference between forge and fabric in their own part 1 article, I recommend going there for further reading on the subject.
As a fellow experienced player and amateur pack maker, gardenappl's efforts, concerns, and documentation with their own modpack are quite enlightening to read through. The effort they take in building their pack with FOSS tools as much as possible. Mod liscencing and API distribution as you can imagine, is complex and annoying. is up to each individual mod maker and how much control they want on their projects. Understandably, many of them are completely closed source and want you to go through their website to get the mod. Optifine being the Number 1 example.
Creations cant help but be in part a statement of the creators idealogy. The kinds of brushes and paints an artist prefers, the kind of languages and libraries a coder prefers to build their software. Whatever priorities and biases a person sets when making something ultimately carries over to the creation in one way or another.
In the Linux/FOSS/Smol communities decentralization, minimalism, and openness are prevalent ideas, obviously. Many people treat the usage of open source software as much a personal statement of their idealogy as a functional utility. Politically, The FOSS/smol movement can be seen as a grass-roots marxist movement aimed to pushback against capitalist corperate desire for control and ownership of everything digital. "Free as in Freedom" is the motto.
My point is, Appl seems to want to cut out curseforge as a mod from the equation, use open source tools to build and package the modpack. Their modpack will ultimately be mixed-source built on a closed-source base no matter how its built or distributed.
This almost seems like trying to shove a square block into a round hole. Sure with enough time and effort you can slam that block into the hole a couple hundred thousand times until either the block or the hole wears down, but the easiest and most efficent option for everyone would have just been to put the block in the square hole. Curseforge, like Nexus, is what the modding community has settled down on out of convinence. Trying to cut them out of the picture when building a modded game is like shooting yourself in the foot and running a marathon, slow and painful.
Like I previously mentioned, I have a modded MC server set up. Vaskii's "Crucial Update 2" Modpack with a few things added that I wanted. It might suprise you that I mainly play another persons modpack, with all my talk of being a "modpack maker". Like I said, anyone can slap some mods together and call it a day. It takes a lot of EFFORT to maintain a proper one.
Crawling through configs, editing duplicate or conflicting recipes, making sure the correct versions of the mods go well with the modloader. making everything truly refined and polished. Lets not even get into all the BS that can happen when you want to update the pack. Its a lot of work for what ultimately is supposed to give you pleasure and not a headache.
The most memorable modpacks arent the half-assed kitchen sinks, its the packs with original vision and real passion behind them. I just dont have the desire to spend the time to develop something like that. And if im honest, I doubt I have the vision or passion either. Appl mentioned that they fell off the game years ago and is back in it for the nostalgia factor. In many ways, im jelous of them and everyone who took a LONG break.
For me, I never stopped. Ive had the better part of a decade to have my fill of the minecraft experience, modded and all. And believe me, I HAVE had my fill. The spark is gone. The nostalgia wave has already come and gone for me. The only reason I play at this point is for my dad. He was never much of a game person, but minecraft is the one game he enjoys playing and he wants me to play with him. Its one of the few ways I ever got to do anything together with them, and im grateful for that oppurtunity. But I dont enjoy minecraft like I used to.
Honestly, games in general are rapidly loosing their appeal to me and have been for a long time. Maybe im growing up, maybe im getting tired of staring at a screen for entertainment instead of living a real life. Im at the point where I have life goals to work towards and playing games doesnt get me anywhere on that front. I cant help but feel all that time I spent in front of the screen was a waste of human life. Then I ask myself: "If its something I truly enjoyed, was it ever really a waste?"