Just spreading awareness about whatever the fuck Mojang thinks they're doing. Given their enforcement of the EULA, or the lack thereof, this probably isn't going to have as huge of an impact, but I think it's still something worth talking about.
The Minecraft EULA itself as of 2nd August. I've got the attention span of a rat on cocaine, so if someone could check if Rock solid's points are an accurate summary of the EULA, I'd appreciate that.
The link for these Usage Guidelines is not working for me for some reason, but the linked reddit thread on the article says that all private servers will be treated as if commercial. If that's correct, it's pretty concerning.
I really can't wrap my head around why. Doing this on public servers I think is annoying, but there's at least some logic to not wanting kids to stumble into mature content. Private servers though? What could possibly be the reasoning?
Honestly, I've been considering minetest the real successor to minecraft. It's just really decent, and it doesn't have all the risks of minecraft being controlled by someone else including opening the game being gatekept by their centralized servers.
Minetest is great. Love the FOSS nature of it as well. I don’t think it’ll ever see really mainstream adoption, due to the (intentional) lack of content without mods, but Minecraft itself could absolutely learn a thing or two from its cubic chunks system and tightly integrated modding system.
I had no idea this existed, but now that I do I'm going to check it out!
I've been hoping for a spiritual replacement since I bailed on Minecraft itself -- after many years, originally being an alpha backer -- once Microsoft apparently decided that you need to sign up for a Microsoft account just to play. Your original Mojang account is no longer good enough. I'm not doing that, even if they do give me a stupid cape. (I don't use a Microsoft account with Windows, either. I don't need to be tracked, profiled, or advertised at any more than I already am, thank you.)
I had a feeling when the acquisition was announced that Microsoft would be the beginning of the end of Minecraft, but I have to say it took quite a while longer than I thought it would initially. And I think know what they're doing, here. Minecraft is a hugely popular platform for kids, and they're trying to mitigate potential backlash from kids being exposed to naughty language or objectionable content on private servers (which is a factor of any game that has, or is basically completely built out of, user created content). This all started with their bullshit about banning people for chat content even in private servers, and I don't think even now we've hit the bottom of the ravine on that yet, either.
Not EEE. This looks like a form of enshittification. It sounds like Mojang is trying to capture all value for themselves by claiming absolute control over everything.
EEE is about unilaterally extending an otherwise open standard in incompatible ways to drive out the competition. The move is shitty but EEE has a specific meaning and it's not a general "MS sucks" abbreviation.
I think the idea that it is EEE comes up because they promised specifically to keep the Java version running parallel to the bedrock version of Minecraft.
But with the Java version you have free modifications and can run a server for free, while for the bedrock version the user has to pay for the mods and the server.
Microsoft seems to try and slowly chip away from the Java version with the goal to make users move over to the bedrock version. Or perhaps they will soon ban mods for Java with an excuse like they can’t control whether the Java mods are save for children..
I am pretty sure they would prefer to extinguish the Java version of Minecraft, though. Because they earn more money with the bedrock version which has basically a huge item shop.
Realtalk, once Hytale drops I'm probably dropping Minecraft. It's everything I want them to add but without me having 13 years of experience with the game. Something new with QOL and easy modding sounds great.
Afaik they're operating on an older version of the game and thus aren't subject to new EULA updates unless they update to a version of the game that comes out afrer this EULA goes into effect
Even if they updated to a new version, the hack clients developers would probably just update their custom clients to ignore Mojang's server ban list and call it a day.
The new EULA is a joke and it's easier to tell everyone to use a third party client (which is most of the time better than the official one) than try to abide to them.
In addition to that, I was told at one point that 2B2T doesn't update to a more current version because some of the administration mods they rely on are not available for newer versions.
I don't think Microsoft will ever be able to pull the plug on 2B2T except via some kind of lawsuit; IIRC, you can configure a vanilla(ish) Java Minecraft server to not even care about authenticated users, which is right up an anarchy server's alley anyhow, so not even by banning accounts or revoking licenses can Microsoft prevent them and their players from running an instance of the Java client and server.
Another one bites the dust. Sad to see Mojang digging their grave like every other company these past few weeks...
I keep seeing MineTest poping up, might have to give it a try soon enough.
Minetest is confusingly both a game engine and a playable game. You probably only ever played the basic sandbox game it comes with by default and thought that was it had to offer. There exist much more feature rich and developed games on the minetest engine. many many games and mods and texture packs.
You may be interested to know about the game 'mineclone2' developed on the minetest engine, which aims to be a faithful FOSS clone of minecraft specifically. I am actually a dev of mineclone2 and can tell you I believe that it is the next best thing to the real deal. A lot of hard work and time and polish has gone into the game by many talented people. Its not perfect, there are rough edges, some things still need work, but its a stable and faithful vanilla experience. Its far superior to minecraft in both performance and modability. Plus bugs are getting squashed and more features are getting added all the time both to mineclone2 and the minetest game engine.
judging a quick read of that, it seems most if not all of the changes only apply to commercial use(thankfully), they even specify it under the personal use area,so that makes me feel a little better. That being said I made it to no name brands such as mods with branded automobiles before my ADHD brain lost interest as well
Ah, I guess, that would be why I saw this random mainstream streamer today "just checking out Minetest", while also having set up their own server for their friend group and everything...
The software 2B2T and other major servers run is typically custom made. The reason servers like 2B2T need a player queue is because the official Minecraft server software is garbage and runs everything on a single CPU thread, placing a firm upper limit on how much stuff can run on a server. Server networks like Hypixel shuffle players through lobbies and mini games on various different servers to spread the load, but since 2B2T is a single world, they have to run a custom, highly optimized server file to be able to handle their player numbers. If Mojang would invest in developing more scalable server software, player queues would be a thing of the past without having to ban them, but Mojang would rather harass server owners for having to accommodate Mojang's poor product than actually fix the underlying issue
Some time ago, I like making my own servers in localhost, for testing plugins, configurations and more, but this is not good. Where is the freedom to make servers at your own? Well, making not p2w and not breaking obvious things, for this part:
Servers with ANY content not suitable for 10 year olds are now prohibited
It just problem of the parents. Also.
Any server, piece of online content such as video or other may be taken down due to any reason whatsoever
This can be regulated with plugins for chat if it is post on the chat.
It's a problem of the owners who make these decisions, they can make the server better or not.