Sorry if this has already been requested, but apparently it's too short a term to search. Also sorry if it already exists, I don't see it on the feature list and it's been a reason given to me why some mods have not been ported to Bukkit. Let me start by saying that for my private server, we love Bukkit. A good few mods installed that really give some variety. However, that variety is lacking and paling to the variety mods like IndustrialCraft, now for SMP, have. Simply, the non-bukkit servers have something that seriously supersedes Bukkit right now; the ability to add blocks and GUIs to the game. Why does Bukkit not have these, especially when this program aims to unify mods to a more compatable format?
Then isn't it time we got one? People got this working for Industrialcraft, why can't Bukkit? Vanilla MC has a way of knowing what mods people are missing clientside.
It's up to Mojang whether or not they want to allow this sort of stuff to happen within the official client once they release the modding API they've been talking about. You basically have two options right now: Create both a client mod and server mod with the new features you want, and ask that all of your players download this client mod to connect and play on your server Wait until Mojang implements something that will allow this sort of behavior officially. The obvious problem with #1 is you will be severely restricting the number of users that can play on your server. Many users will not waste their time downloading and installing a client modification just to connect to a server.
Once Notch does something, huh? Oh you make me chuckle. Notch hasn't done anything original since dyes. He'd borrowed heavily from mods and called it updates since.
Yeah but maybe it's better that he uses the mods. After all, 10 of 1000s of people are much more creative than small team.
If people are looking at a server running "Planes" or "SDK Guns" it wouldn't be too much of a deal for them to download a client for the server. We're looking at a few months at least for a modding API, and in the end it might not even have all the features we need.
It might be a pain to support in some ways, but I bet a decent GUI API would be quickly adopted MC-wide, especially if it had a short url like mcgui.org or something to download it from, and an easy install.
I really doubt a plugin developer would even touch development of something like this simply for one reason: Notch has stated that he plans on adding official mod support *at some point*. So whether it's five years down the road or it hits tomorrow, the uncertainty of spending hours of time dedicated to something that could very well be put out to pasture once the official API has been released is not appealing to many people. I'd love to see new GUI elements that make servers an actual different landscape, but until Notch decides the direction he's going with mod support, I'm pretty sure Bukkit will remain unable to touch the client side of things.
