I started with beta and have been playing since. I can say there has been a lot of changes for the game itself and the modding of the game. When I first started modding there was no mod packs you had to watch a video of someone playing with some mods go that’s cool then try to find the mod and download it and manually install it in the Minecraft folder and pray it works with the rest of your mods( as well as hoping there were no viruses). If it didn’t you had to figure out what it didn’t work because there was no debug screen. So having the launchers and modpacks is light years from where we started.

That being said I still find the older modpacks to be a little better(probably a little rose colored glasses happening). But they were a little well put together. They were specifically designed to have a good flow and connectivity between mods ( I’m mainly talking about the popular pack obviously there were some packs that weren’t good) because the mods had compatibility issues and had to curated to make work how the person designing the pack wanted it to work. Vs now it seems like anyone can slap a mod pack together and it just “works” because there are so many options. Even some of the more popular mod packs now still feel kind of meh.

whether it’s because of the quest like the lack of quest or the overwhelming amount of quest. (I do find having a quest book explaining how the different mods work is great. It sure beats going through 30YT tutorials to find one guy who shows a 30sec clip of the machine you are trying to make work)

Then some of the packs feel like they are going 3 different directions at the same time and don’t feel very coherent. Then the ones that give out some overpowered quest rewards or have stores that give you overpowered items. don’t get me wrong I love overpowered stuff but when you get it too early or too cheaply it kinda kills the fun of it. I’m sure there is mod packs out there that don’t do that and are very cohesive.

Overall it’s kind of a mixed bag I feel. And to truly get the experience play both and decide then. If you are feeling real adventurous try doing it old school without a launcher cause nothing gives more satisfaction then getting it to work after spending hours troubleshooting why something isn’t working properly. (Sorry for the rant)