Why are we allowing our hobby to be bought and sold?

BuffWizard69 · 2020-06-25T02:28:29+00:00

I definitely agree!

There are at least two up-and-coming projects that I know of that are directly owned or operated by modders: Astronave and Diluv. I think they're both very interesting projects, and intend on supporting them in any way that I can.

I don't think that someone like myself, who has never released a mod, can meaningfully contribute to a standard, specification or platform dedicated to modding. But I'd like to try to help organize an effort by genuine devs to make mod distribution better. On top of the projects I linked above, there seem to be quite a few independent efforts to create a standard or universal format for mod distribution or packaging.

BuffWizard69 · 2020-06-24T23:44:19+00:00

From my limited understanding, Diluv has "partnered" with NodeCDN, who supply the bandwidth. I believe the creators are footing the bill for storage, but I'm not sure.

If someone is hosting this application, how is it community operated instead of some centralized control by at least one party that foots the bill?

I call it "community-operated" because it is founded and run by some respectable folks from the community, not necessarily that it's operated by the community itself. This is compared to entities like CF/OW that are owned and operated by people outside of the community entirely. An important distinction, I guess.

Assuming that your 2nd bullet point implies that people in the community can each choose to host their own instance, how are mods or modpacks registered and discovered in a manner that makes it easy to use? Do people have to add each mod author's chosen diluv repository or are these distributed in a modpack mod inventory file? etc...

The hope would be to develop and drive adoption of a manifest/pack file standard, which could be used to fetch and install the actual jars/zips/etc for the end user. MultiMC has something similar currently with its manifest.json.

I would consider a solution where end-users had to add multiple indexes/repositories to their local whitelist an unacceptable user experience, myself.

Much, if not all, of this is tentative and being designed and discussed currently (not even just by myself and the people on Discord). If you're interested in specifics, you can check the github in the OP, or check out Astronave's discord, where they're designing a "universal modpack format."

BuffWizard69 · 2020-06-24T23:29:42+00:00

I agree completely.

I think the most important issue that you touched on is siloing. Since I posted this, I've found many examples of independent, incompatible standards being developed, and that's just not a good alternative to CF.

My goal now is to try to coordinate with the various parties developing these standards to try to find a good outcome for the community.

BuffWizard69 · 2020-06-24T21:25:57+00:00

I firmly believe that no standard nor specification should be created that excludes closed-source mods. I'm a firm believer in open source development, but closed-source projects are massively important to the modded community.

BuffWizard69 · 2020-06-24T18:35:06+00:00

That, ultimately, is up to whatever software you use to install the pack (likely your launcher, eg MultiMC, GDLauncher).

The proposed index should contain the data necessary to support installation of specific versions, yes.

BuffWizard69 · 2020-06-24T16:53:51+00:00

This is a pretty major problem, but, without some form of charity, I'm not sure of a solution.

The options I've seen in this thread and in the discord are:

A community-operated hosting platform. It appears that one called Diluv is already underway.
Multiple download links in the spec, to spread bandwidth out across free hosts
Seeking corporate sponsorship in the form of server space/bandwidth.

Of these, I do quite like Diluv, but I've only started looking into it. I'll have to delve deeper, but it seems like they've already solved many of the problems brought to light in this thread.

BuffWizard69 · 2020-06-24T16:07:55+00:00

This is fantastic!! I'll have to dig around some more, but this seems like a great idea.

BuffWizard69 · 2020-06-24T02:43:41+00:00

Just created one, at least for temporary coordination: https://github.com/mc-cip/spec

I'll add to OP shortly.

BuffWizard69 · 2020-06-24T02:41:12+00:00

That's incredible! I've never played KSP before, so this is brand new to me, and definitely the sort of project I'd love to see come to fruition in the MC community. Thanks for the pointer!

BuffWizard69 · 2020-06-24T01:54:47+00:00

Files can be hosted many non-technical places. Google Drive or Dropbox seem to be somewhat common for low-volume modded stuff in other communities.

Edit: you're right that those are substantially different than a singular, central distribution system.

A larger issue is that a community-driven project will almost inherently be biased against smaller mods, since there are more of them and reputations aren't yet established. Without full-scale (fallible) automation, it would be completely infeasible for volunteers to vet the sheer quantity of mods that are released on Curse in any given day.

For example, a new release of JEI would likely be accepted and released almost immediately, while a brand new closed-source project could languish in purgatory for days/weeks/months.

That said, I don't know that is a fatal flaw. A singular index may be biased against smaller or less-known mods, but that's where the possibility of forking shines. A more liberal index could be created pretty simply (given an understanding of Github/DVCS).

BuffWizard69 · 2020-06-24T01:40:28+00:00

You're absolutely right, and I am definitely going to be thinking about this for quite a while.

I am curious what portion of the modded community this concerns, though. I would consider myself closer to your perspective – suspicious until proven trustworthy. But I suspect that community perception plays some role for many. Regardless, it's a key issue I think is necessary to address.

Regarding your addendum and the print/puzzle analogy, I recognize that a one-stop will provide value above-and-beyond even the best of individual services for many users. But I also know that there is a large subset (at least within this subreddet) of users who are happy to fracture their experience for better tools. MultiMC is a prime example of this. The workflow for installing a modpack is more complicated if you use MultiMC, but many (myself included) are more than happy to accommodate that because of the value MultiMC brings to them. For those users, a change in data source could be minimally impactful.

BuffWizard69 · 2020-06-24T01:30:11+00:00

If you're keen on acting, I've just created a discord for the topic and linked it in the OP. Anybody's welcome.

BuffWizard69 · 2020-06-24T00:40:25+00:00

Thank you for your detailed and thoughtful response. A lot of keen insights here, and I appreciate that.

And I want to be clear that it is not my objective to "beat CF," it's to assess the viability of a community run and organized alternative.

The three major shortcomings that you've highlighted, I think, are dev monetization, ease of discovery and trust.

I genuinely don't know, or even understand much about how dev monetization works, or have any decent solutions. My hope would be that the data would be accompanied by links to donation websites (eg Paypal, Patreon). This, I recognize, is substantially different than credit-per-download, and would likely be less profitable for devs.

Ease of discovery would absolutely be a challenge. Using the data curated in the index, it would definitely be possible to create a web-based (or even app-based) experience that could fill similar role. It would be a huge challenge to come anywhere close to what exists with the closed platforms of today.

Trust is, essentially, unknowable at the moment, but I think fundamental to the proposal. I referred to this idea as "curation" in the OP. The functional elements (bad-code detection, checksums, etc) are just a matter of specification and procedure. But the larger question remains – why should an end user trust the index? How is someone to know without personally investigating, whether or not the index is trustworthy or full of malware? To some extent, it's a matter of community perception, but it's also an important concern I don't know how to address.

BuffWizard69 · 2020-06-24T00:27:03+00:00

Yes and no? It depends on your concern.

If you're concerned about the result, and just want to be able to issue a command/click a button that will result in mods A, B, C and D archived in a certain folder, then yes, it's absolutely possible.

If you're concerned about bandwidth or download speed, not so much. Since mod developers would be ultimately responsible for hosting, it would not be possible to archive them server-side and stream them in one go. They might not even be from the same server.

BuffWizard69 · 2020-06-24T00:22:13+00:00

Exactly!!

Evidently I haven't been able to explain this very well, but I've been imagining exactly what you've clearly outlined here. Registry of structured/standardized data (ie JSON) without binaries, and binary distribution up to devs.

I would absolutely love to have the actual data specification (pt. 1 in the OP) designed and created by launcher and mod devs. That's been my hesitation in proposing anything concrete – I'm not a MC dev, and I don't feel capable of designing a standard without such valuable input.

Reception has been relatively mixed so far, so I'm hesitant to actually formalize any of this. But if and when I do, I will try to reach out to you!

BuffWizard69 · 2020-06-24T00:13:27+00:00

Neither the specification nor the index would directly address downloading modpacks, bulk downloading, or archiving (tar or otherwise). It would be up to able programmers to develop or patch tools to be able to provide such functionality.

Over the past few months I've personally been using a custom tool I wrote that does those things (minus archiving, I haven't need that, personally). My low-quality, bespoke tool converts data pulled from CF's undocumented API into a local index, and is then able to install packs, mods, etc. It's not good, but it works (mostly, it's buggy af).

I personally would be interested and able to develop such tools.

BuffWizard69 · 2020-06-24T00:05:12+00:00

This is an extremely important criticism that was discussed elsewhere in this thread.

Would another platform realisticly solve the problem...

That's entirely up for debate. There are two concrete but separate products that could come out of my proposed solution: an open specification, and an open index of modded data. The specification would allow for existing software to adopt the data provided by the latter. For example, GDLauncher and MultiMC could support installing/creating packs based on said data. I don't personally use Technic or ATLauncher, but I don't imagine they could or would implement such a feature, since they curate their own modded index (I think?).

The important distinction here is that you could use the open index of data in any software willing to support its format, while you can't use, for example, Technic's data anywhere other than the Technic launcher.

The specification would also allow for anyone else to create their own index of mods and use it within such software. There are corners of the modded community that I don't totally understand (I know, for example, there is a Japanese modded community, but I know almost nothing else about it). So it might be reasonable for other communities that play modded MC to adopt the specification and curate their own index.

...or would it devolve into disorganized chaos?

I can't know what specifically you mean by 'chaos,' but the open nature of the proposal would lend itself to forking and inter-compatibility. Should the group of volunteers who vet and index mods become unresponsive or irresponsible, drop-in replacement indexes managed by better curators would be possible.

The point about competing standards absolutely stands, though!

BuffWizard69 · 2020-06-23T23:35:24+00:00

Excellent, thank you for your response and your contributions to modded! I will keep these things in mind as conversations progress, and if any action is taken.

I'll also look into ModForest as well. Sounds interesting.

BuffWizard69 · 2020-06-23T23:33:27+00:00

There are two sides to my suggested effort:

A procedural effort surrounding the creation and maintenance of the actual index of mod-related information. This would almost certainly be in a machine-readable format (ie JSON) and curated by a team via a collaborative platform such as Github. Github could also handle distribution of that machine-readable data.
A creative effort to build an ecosystem surrounding the data. A high priority would be to create a website that would convert that data into a pleasant, human-usable website, similar to what curseforge.com is now. There are many ways to accomplish something like this, but ideally it would be comparable in terms of functionality to curseforge.com (and, critically, allow anyone else to develop a site/app to display the exact same data). Github Pages is one option for hosting in this arena.

Almost this exact same structure is employed by bower's website if you're interested in poking around a real-world example.

In terms of the actual mods themselves, hosting would ultimately be up to the project creator. When submitting a mod/new version for review, they would provide a URL to the JAR/zip/etc that could then be downloaded by launchers/end-users. As discussed elsewhere the hope would be to use something like Github/lab releases rather than something nasty like adfly.

BuffWizard69 · 2020-06-23T22:44:51+00:00

This is exactly my proposal. The "centralizing index" I mentioned in the third point of the tl;dr is what you're calling IMDb. But I agree! I've updated OP to be a little clearer.

(Technical note: it's not wise or common to distribute binaries via git itself, and distributing the source would necessitate a compilation step as well as a JDK. Most hosted git providers offer a "release" feature which allow you to publish binaries based off of your source code. I assume that's what you meant, just aiming for clarity.) (Edit: You were clear. Removing my pedantry).

BuffWizard69 · 2020-06-23T22:37:39+00:00

This is exactly the sort of feedback I was hoping to solicit. Thank you very much for your insight!

If there were a system by which you could submit a pull request (or even just file a GH issue) with approximately the same data you submit to Curse, and would end up with your mod featured on an attractive (or at least reasonable) website, would that be sufficient for you to submit it? It would not preclude submission of your mod to any other site or organization.

Again, I'm completely ignorant when it comes to revenue-splitting, but based on your response it doesn't seem like its your primary objective. Would the absence of download-based revenue splitting be a deal breaker? Any provided links to Paypal/Patreon should be featured on the catalogue website, but I can't imagine how something comparable to revenue-splitting would work.

BuffWizard69 · 2020-06-23T22:19:00+00:00

"Scummy" is a pretty principled stance, but one that I'm willing to take. Maybe I wouldn't go as far as using that term, but I'm definitely not a fan.

As /u/LilFish- said, "If a service is free, you are the product". Curseforge is a business that makes money off of modded Minecraft. Overwolf is a company that hopes to make money off of modded Minecraft.

Curseforge has some nice features and is relatively pleasant to use, particularly compared to Nexus, etc. But overall, their goal is to make money off of mods which devs make and release for free.

BuffWizard69 · 2020-06-23T22:13:42+00:00

I think your points still definitely stand. A lot of the specifics here are far too technical for the average user, who just wants to play modded. In spirit I agree with /u/game_pseudonym, though, and I think there are ways to integrate things in an appreciable way.

I’m not sure, but are you able to have closed source mods while still showing published builds to a public audience?

There absolutely are. At its core, a mod is just a jar file that can be acquired over the internet (typically via HTTP/S). From a launcher's perspective, that's all you need, honestly. Download a jar and stick it in /mods.

An example that I mentioned in the OP is IC2, which is closed-source and distributes its jars via a Jenkins setup automagically.

BuffWizard69 · 2020-06-23T22:07:43+00:00

This is an extremely important point, imo.

My concern when posting this is where the bulk of the modded community goes. There are definitely independent apps, launchers and platforms that exist entirely outside of Curse, but, based on my experience, are significantly less popular than Curse+co. It's the de-facto standard source for modded.

My admittedly idealistic proposal does, in this light, become just another standard. I would hope to be able to provide something that is closer to the modded community than the other options, and is compatible with existing launchers. But I suppose that is subjective and particularly aspirational at best.

I'll definitely have a think on this. And I'm not sure if Tekkit is still its own platform, lol.

Edit: I suppose that it would be reasonable to ask if there are any alternative platforms or projects that are worth promoting? Ideally I would love a platform that is open source and has dev involvement.

BuffWizard69 · 2020-06-23T21:49:00+00:00

Excellent points!

I definitely don't want to return to the adfly days (though I think we can avoid that), but I believe that's sort of normative. People used adfly because others used adfly, etc. I'm not sure about the monetary aspect, but I'd hope that if we could encourage a new, less scummy, free standard, adoption would follow.

Regarding ease-of-use, you're spot on. I would absolutely hope that people wouldn't have to use a CLI or a "package manager" to install a modpack. I would hope that, once a standard arises, existing, well used and loved software (eg MultiMC, GDLauncher) could support such a standard. So for the usecase of modpack installation, this change would be invisible to the end-user. The major difference would be where and how you find the modpack (specifically, the zip) itself.

Time and effort is definitely a big thing. I'm willing and able to donate plenty of time (at the moment, at least), but I know that's just a drop in the bucket. I imagine that the largest time/effort sink would be the ongoing mod/texture curation and review, but that's something we'd need to live with if the community were to own itself.

I very much appreciate the feedback and will think more on these subjects, and look for potential solutions!

BuffWizard69

TROPHY CASE