Bukkit: The Next Chapter

Discussion in 'Bukkit News' started by EvilSeph, Feb 28, 2012.

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  1. Offline

    EvilSeph

    [​IMG]

    What follows is a written account of Bukkit's story. If you'd rather know what the big news is, skip to the bottom. However, we'd appreciate it if you read through our entire story as it gives us an opportunity to show appreciation and give thanks to the many people, groups and companies that helped us throughout our adventure.

    When we started up Bukkit in December of 2010, we decided we wanted to do things right. Right from the beginning we wanted to be sure we were bringing about a positive change to Minecraft, one that Mojang themselves would approve of. To that end, we set up a meeting with Mojang to get a feel for their opinions on our project and make sure we weren't doing anything they didn't like. The gist of the meeting was that Mojang "liked what we were doing" but not how we had to go about doing things. Unfortunately, we both knew that we had no alternatives, so we continued along - albeit now with the reassurance that our project would most likely not be shut down any time in the future. We decided to create Bukkit to provide the Minecraft community with better tools to manage and extend their server, but our ultimate goal has always been to give the Minecraft community what it needed and wanted to make our favourite game even more enjoyable and being able to do so in an official capacity is our dream.

    Shortly after the launch of Bukkit, after I had posted an innocent announcement to get developers interested in Bukkit, our project exploded with activity. While I had anticipated developer interest and had planned for such, the added interest from the community as a whole was simply overwhelming. So much so that it had begun to put a strain on my dedicated server and actually was pushing it to the point of hardware failure. Luckily, it was around this time that Curse approached us and offered to set-up a temporary Amazon EC2 instance while they purchased new servers for our use. Unfortunately, the Amazon EC2 instance also could not keep up with the demand and was proving to be too costly. So, we asked around for help and Multiplay's Steve Hartland put us on one of their boxes free of charge while we waited for new servers to be purchased and delivered.

    One of the goals of the Bukkit project, or maybe just my personal goal, was to solve what I felt was a big problem within the Minecraft community: it was largely impossible for someone new to Minecraft to discover the unlimited potential of Minecraft modding. Not only would they have to deal with unwieldy and clunky forums, but there was also no central place for sharing your work. In answer to this problem, we endeavoured to create a new service dubbed Fill which we hoped would address all the needs of the community but were unable to gain any ground. We were simply not experienced enough to run something of this magnitude nor did we have the resources to pull it off. One day we were discussing the idea of Fill and our desire to provide a central download solution for the modding community and the WoW players on the team brought up Curse and the success they've had with WoWAce. At that point it all came together, not only did Curse have the resources to pull off something as large as we were envisioning in Fill, but they had the success, experience and scalable software with WoWAce to do so. With that, it was clear to everyone that Curse was the best route to take and dev.bukkit.org was born.

    When news broke out about Mojang organising a Minecon, the entire community was alight with excitement and anticipation. Even today, I still find the sheer dedication from the fans unbelievable and overwhelming. Though we were also excited about Minecon, there was no way we would be able to go since Bukkit is an open source, free project. Much to our surprise, though, Curse had other plans in mind. They decided to fly us over, cover our tickets and accommodation, host us in their booth and setup a panel for us. I've never met a company that cares more about gaming than Curse: when the possibility of their supporting the Bukkit project first came up, we were all blown away. Curse wanted to throw themselves behind our project. They wanted to provide us with the support and resources we needed to continue functioning, no questions asked and their desire to send us to Minecon further reinforced this opinion we had of them. Thanks to their support, we were able to go to Minecon, have a great time and put together a panel filled with our fans, as well as sneak off to a secret meeting with Mojang.

    Back in December of last year, my team and I were invited to Stockholm, Sweden by Mojang to discuss the future of Minecraft - and most importantly the future of Minecraft modding and the official Minecraft modding API. Having just recently met in Minecon, we mostly knew what to expect but were blown away by Mojang's hospitality and the surreality of actually being in Stockholm with them. Not only were we able to visit the Mojang HQ but we were also given the opportunity to be part of the launch of Cobalt (which was simply fantastic) and got to meet the entire team of talented individuals at Mojang. We spent the majority of our time with Mojang shooting ideas back and forth and getting a taste of what was to come and how we might be able to become involved.

    Which leads me to today. Our meeting at Minecon was just the beginning and after having flown us out to Stockholm to get to know each other, it was clear that the potential to do truly great things together was there and we were eager to explore it. After all, we had already been given a direct line to the Minecraft team, the source code and were actively providing Mojang with (exploit) patches and improvements. The next logical step was to figure out the best way to continue working together, perhaps in a more official and intimate capacity. After careful and lengthy consideration, the best course of action became clear. My team and I had already achieved what we wanted to when we started the Bukkit project: provide server admins with the means to easily customise and run their server and provide developers with an easy to use, properly designed API to bring their insane and cool ideas to life. The next obvious step was to make it more official and with news breaking out that Mojang was interested in developing an official Minecraft API, we knew just how to do that.

    I am extremely pleased and proud to announce that, as of today, the Bukkit team has joined Mojang. When discussing the possibility of a modding API publicly, Mojang was concerned that they would be unable to provide the community with a suitable and powerful enough solution and we honestly feel that our experience building Bukkit will help them do so. Thanks to our work with Bukkit, we have a years worth of experience, failures and lessons to help us develop a proper modding API and intend to do whatever it takes to produce one that satisfies the needs of the community. Now that we have an opportunity to design the official Minecraft API, we intend to make it a suitable replacement for Bukkit, if not a significantly better one, while bukkit.org will remain a community for modders for the foreseeable future.

    Official announcement from Mojang with more information: http://mojang.com

    [​IMG]

    A big "thank you!" is due for the many sponsors we've had over the life of the project:
    [​IMG]
    Curse
    eXophase.com - for hosting the project at the beginning and helping us get off our feet
    Unimatrix
    Arcdigital
    Multiplay - especially Steve Hartland
    [​IMG]
    AllGamer - especially Clinton and Scott
    Our Staff who work tirelessly and thanklessly to keep everything in order
    and, of course, Mojang for giving us a chance, taking us seriously and supporting what we’re doing.

    And to you, our community and our family: thanks for sticking by us through thick and thin, we really would not be where we are today without you.
     
    jflory7, Acharige, iiHeroo and 88 others like this.
  2. Offline

    hatstand

    You what would be nice? If Mojang started hosting the Minecraft community themselves.
     
  3. Offline

    iPhysX

    hatstand Mojang servers go up and down like a yoyo xD
     
    Stone_Tigris, tyzoid and mrvertigo27 like this.
  4. Offline

    Don Redhorse

    Congrats to the guys who deserve it... and this is the end of bukkit as stated on mojangs homepage

    Which leaves a big gap on where and how the new minecraft server api find plugins and a place to talk about.

    While it is understandable that this was done in secrecy the past has shown that the track record of embracing the community isn't very high.

    There is no way that people who weren't able to run one community now run two projects at the same time. I feel pity for those people who worked a lot for a greater good and got kicked in the back by this.

    On the other side a lot of stuff makes sense now... all the drama in the last months.. if you have a new project you work up to on your radar you neglect the old project.

    I don't know if this is good or bad for minecraft knowing how rigid and non communicative the bukkit team was concerning ideas and feature request.

    What I do know is that this means the end of bukkit... as there is no reason anymore to be here and server admins and developers will need to find a new place to meet.

    Bukkit was a great project and it filled a big gap. The team did their best to help us along, but there will be a new player on the ground when bukkit goes down... like with heyo.

    To much issues are still valid and not fixed, to much bad blood was spilled.

    Oh btw: I found this nice article and sites and would highly appreciate if some people here on the forums would read it.

    http://fortuito.us/2007/05/some_community_tips_for_2007

    http://www.communityspark.com/the-real-purpose-of-forum-moderators-revealed/

    and of course http://www.communityspark.com/ and other helpful resources.

    Don't get me wrong... EVERYBODY did his best in the bukkit team.. some just more than the others.. and the team in total deserves this move.

    Have fun... RIP...
     
  5. Offline

    hatstand

    Sad truth. They really should invest more in their web stuff. At least a backup login server. Or three.
     
    Stone_Tigris, mrvertigo27 and iPhysX like this.
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    Kainzo

    I always hated the name "bukkit" - glad to see it being phased :D
     
  7. Offline

    rominos2

    But concretely, with what the future is made of for the plugin devs ?
     
  8. Offline

    Deadwing

    Good news, and keep up the great work guys!
     
  9. Offline

    Don Redhorse

    yep... NOW... but that's it bukkit is dead... Mojang wrote that, and EvilSeph too. It still makes me wonder why people can't even READ correctly (not even interpreting it one way or the other) and just think that everything is fine.

    and what will be next? A notice from EvilSeph that... blablabla.. and nothing...

    See MOST of EvilSeph announcements and promises, which were never fulfilled or kept. Not always because of him, but he did never really comment on them afterwards either.

    But we are talking about 3 different parties here: People who are frustrated because they were neglected, shunned or mistreated, people who don't really care (the majority) as long as the can have fun one way or the other, and people who would jump in front of the train because somebody told them it would be the best.

    I have never seen so few visible interaction and help from moderators like in these forums, I have never seen so few interaction of a team with the community in these forums and I have never seen such kneejerk approaches to management like in these forums.

    Will we get feedback about concerns voiced here? I highly doubt.

    I dare anybody to proof me wrong that bukkit will go downhill and that the community will become more fragmented like it is now.

    And before you start replying.... did anybody really say what is happening with bukkit in the future? If there is somebody else taken over? (Which would be possible). What the plans are to have a vivid developer environment for the new API, how to exchange ideas, give feedback etc?

    Sure... all this CAN come.. but again the track record is against it, just take a look in the Bukkit Project and Community Feedback and how many threads in there saw interaction from the bukkit team, not the mods.
     
  10. Offline

    B3NW

    If this in the end means a rework of the whole framework, please be sure to think of performance in mind too, when talking with some bukkit devs in the past, it was clear bukkit wasn't initially designed around performance but more so for ease of use, please take into consideration both :) I'm talking scalability here.

    EDIT: I forgot to say congratulations! :)
     
    iPhysX likes this.
  11. Offline

    d3fin3d

    Congrats on joining the Mojang team! Hopefully this means things generally improve for server administrators.

    A few questions to gauge how this will affect server admins:

    Does this mean that 1.2 will be the last craftbukkit release?

    Should server admins still use craftbukkit, but for releases in the future transition to the official minecraft_server software?

    Will the official mod-compatible Mojang server software be released quicker than the Bukkit RB's have been in the past?

    What does this mean for permission plugins like PEX and how much work will this mean for existing bukkit mods to become 'official minecraft server' compatible?

    Thanks :)
     
  12. I totally agree. That's definitely a huge downgrade and very bad for the entire community!
     
  13. Offline

    Evenprime

    Congratulations to the team! Modding is important for a long living game, nice that Mojang finally got that.

    I hope that the direct access and ability to finally fix Minecrafts problems at their source (server and clientside) will greatly improve the experience for everybody.
     
  14. Offline

    efstajas

    Wow, that's awesome news.
     
  15. Offline

    Diamond00744

    Cool! I am very happy!!!
     
  16. Offline

    darkcloud784

    So basicly you guy sold us out, and decided to go with something that will get you money rather than provide for a community. As sleaker pointed out a few threads back, your basicly killing any sense of community and destroying the possibility for further developers input.
     
  17. Offline

    sillyrosster

    You should still call it Bukkit. But this time it's official. :)
     
  18. Offline

    Doctacosa

    This sounds totally awesome, and I'm very much looking forward to what the future has in store for us. Bring on the mods and full server modding support on the day that each release hits!
     
  19. Offline

    elberethz

    Congrats, hopefully we will see a stable official API that won't require so many hacks everywhere...
    Starting from scratch will hopefully help having something cleaner.

    For sure the fact that this becomes closed source can be seen as a downgrade, but if the API is well done and well documented it should stay the same for most plugins developers.
     
  20. Offline

    Serejai

    Of course they sold out. Bukkit has been nothing but empty promises for over a year now and as soon as the new Spout server comes out everyone would have left here in a heartbeat. They took the job offer in order to remain relevant by forcing it upon people.

    Business 101!
     
  21. Why were Afforess's post and all posts quoting him deleted?

    (Apparently the community gets angry when it's censored ^^)

    EDIT: The posts were restored!
     
  22. Offline

    Felbane

    I think what a lot of people fail to realize is that with Bukkit being GPL, anyone can take over the codebase. Or, more likely, someone will take the bits and pieces of what's good about Bukkit and integrate it into something better. Bukkit isn't dead any more than McEdit is dead. It's just that the original authors are moving on.
     
    Stone_Tigris and Zeroth like this.
  23. Offline

    austin101

    Congrats on your new partnership! I have been waiting a long time for more online features to come in the default minecraft!
     
  24. Offline

    Jacek

    There is no reason the server can't be open source really. Since it's the client that they sell.

    The recent developments of Bukkit have relied on community input (bleeding) it will be sad to see all of that go if is does have to be closed source.

    It will also be sad to see what happens to the forum, since there will be basically nothing here I imagine an awful lot of people will just leave (I most likely will).

    I don't like the idea of trying to move my server over, since some of the plugins I rely on will definitely not re-write from scratch like will presumably be needed. Saying that though, that is the risk of using a third party product.

    Also
    Grow up.
     
  25. Offline

    Sleaker

    But if you want to update and manage it with every new MC release you have to put in all the same effort of updating with mc-dev bindings etc. This is more unlikely now that there are going to be multiple alternatives that are going to stay updated. If people are wanting to stay open-source the suggestion would be to move to helping develop Spout, as you don't have to maintain all the minecraft obfuscation stuff due to it having no MC source.
     
  26. Offline

    Don Redhorse

    which would be a change to bukkit
     
  27. Offline

    Sleaker

    Hmm, apparently someone reads through attempts/suggestions at improving the community.
     
  28. Offline

    JohnTheRipper

    Well, farewell Bukkit, I think Spout is the best chance right now.

    Think about it, closed source vanilla plugin framework or open source multi-core supporting Spout? Easy choice.

    So, when Bukkit is integrated into Minecraft, are plugins going to break? Will plugins.bukkit.org still be used for plugin tracking?

    The only good thing I can see is that, finally, we won't need to wait for Bukkit to update after every Minecraft update.
     
  29. Offline

    BioRage

    So, bukkit is kicking all of its developers to what made bukkit is bukkit today in the ass :)

    Don't blame them, wonder what there getting paid now.
     
  30. Offline

    Zeroth

    The next year is going to be so full of community drama!

    Stay strong, Bukkit (now Mojang) team! I think this is a good turn for everyone!

    Also, a QA session would probably be a good idea. :p
     
  31. Offline

    EvilSeph

    As announced on Mojang.com:
    Sorry for the silence, I'm having lunch!
     
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