Rising from the permafrost, an ancient beast shakes off the icicles and bellows: it is
Sponge Docs Pop Quiz #26
Welcome again to our perpetual circus of enquiry, where bystanders and passers-by are just as welcome to participate as the grizzled and weary denizens. Enlighten us with your experiences and opinions, grant us all a view from eyes not-our-own.
Are there any plugins using the Sponge Plugins Reload command yet?
The plan is for plugins to do whatever they want to do when this is called. It wonāt be much use unless plugin devs use it. Who is already using it and who has plans to?
Does the expanded Sponge Timings help you narrow down server problems?
New features added to the sponge timings report (thanks @blood and @Aikar) have enabled much deeper tracking of Sponge and itsā plugins. There is also a thread seeking sample timings reports. Will this help you and your server?
Will you be affected by the new Minecraft promotional restrictions?
The recent announcement by Mojang has ruffled many feathers. The implications are still a bit fuzzy, so help us clear the air on this. Who wins and who loses?
All is over for this episode, and we thank you for reading this far. For those who just joined us, hereās a link to last weekās quiz, and the links go all the way back. We shall meet again, when the gibbous arkle moon rises once more. Until then, farewell.
First, I didnāt know that there is such a thing. Second, for my small plugins I always loaded the config value when I need to use it and I didnāt cached it. This way I donāt need a reload command. But for bigger plugins this is definitley good. I hope that this will be implemented widley and āusefullyā.
I never heard of that reload command before.
I only used timings to see what it looks like. I never used it productively.
I donāt know what I should think of that. Iāve never seen such promotions and I think the Minecraft community doesnāt suffer under this new restriction.
I tried, but people immediately complained that I was relying on unreleased API version. Iām waiting for a 4.1 release to reintroduce it.
I honestly think this hurts more then it helps. But I can understand if Mojang want more control over their brand. Iād much rather them say āfor anything outside of these restrictions we are happy to negotiate, contact us for detailsā So they can pre-approve any cross promotions happening.
Yes, Iāve done it for my plugin, but like @ryantheleach, I had a problem where Pixelmon users are stuck on a version before this was implemented. I found a way to support it for servers using the newer API though, so itās now available for those who can use it.
It raises an interesting point though. Weāve got all these new features in 4.1-SNAPSHOT, but us devs have to make a choice between targetting 4.0.3 and 4.1-SNAPSHOT, and to use lots of the new features, we have to target 4.1, but then 4.1 is a large range of builds. Is it possible to make faster (maybe monthly) API 4.x releases so we donāt have to keep telling servers to use the latest SF/SV builds? It would help us so we can target stable points, rather than referring to builds, we can refer to versions and make it easier to support our userbases. Iād be happy to follow a (for example) monthly release track so we know we have a stable 4.x, and Iām sure other devs, and possibly server owners, would agree.
Speaking of APIs, something thatās been irking me is that 4.0 ā 4.1 is a breaking change because of the requirement that was introduced to require the EntitySpawnCause on spawning items, something that wasnāt required for 4.0 and it really did catch me out - as well as others (see Nexus and EssentialCmds). I thought the guarantee was not to break 4.0 plugins for 4.x - this is something that did.
I donāt run a server myself, but for those Iāve got fingers in pies with, itāll definitely help work out whatās going on. More information is always good in this regardā¦ if you know how to read it!
Nope - I think itās fair enough that Mojang donāt want companies to ride on their coat tails and see none of the revenue. If a brand wants to do something with Minecraft, there is nothing stopping them contacting Mojang anyway and coming to an agreement thatās beneficial for all.
I likely plan to use it. 4.1 should be dropping (hopefully) soon, and what Iām working on might take some time anyway.
Donāt run a server except a test server but Iām certain it will help server owners/sponge devs track down any issues with server performance.
Certainly not. Seems rather silly to use Minecraft to promote material imo but Iām sure thereās people that do and Mojang has the right to protect their property.
One of the complexities of this new Mojang promotional arrangement is that it applies equally to companies and non-profit organisations. This would seem to encompass educational institutions, museums and galleries, as well as the usual load of free-enterprise. It implies they may not commission works that would be used for promotional purposes. Iām not entirely sure it was intended to reach that far, but much depends on what is interpreted as āpromotionalā.
For instance, the local museum had an Opal exhibit, and the local Hackerspace was asked to create a kid friendly environment, they originally decided to create a recreation of Cooper Pedy in Minecraft, with a whole bunch of opal facts spread around the place, and potentially some kind of programming or modding or something.
This would have been impossible without contacting Mojang given the new rules.
And may potentially also cover future State of Sponges if it counts as advertisingā¦
@ryan
I donāT think that the latest EULA change wouldāve affected them as they werenāt advertising their opal exhibit with a minecraft mod or map, right? Creating stuff ingame and showing it to people should still be fine, as long as you donāt use it to gain attention (-> advertisement) with it.
If however theyād upload said map onto their homepage (and the map includes for ex. the museums itself as a building), then theyād have a problem.
If itās for something directly related to Minecraft, such as mods (eg. SpongeForge) it can get promoted. That much is explicitly set forth, afaik. The issue is for third party stuff, that has no natural connection with the game.
Was not aware of this. Possible I might use it in the future but as of now, all my plugins have dynamic configs.
Havenāt look into it yet.
Wellā¦at least I donāt have to worry about someone trying to sell me bs that I donāt want or need. Advertising has gotten a little out of hand pretty much everywhere. Soon theyāll be in our dreams
I already implemented it into ChitChat 2.0 which is still heavily in development. As itās in such a heavy development I donāt need to be afraid of breaking compatibility (I already do because I target API 5.0 for that one).
While I donāt run anything at the moment, it will probably be of huge help when I start a modded 1.9 server.
Iām a bit cautious about it, but I am also willing to see where it goes. At the moment I feel itās a tad bit too restrictive.
Planning to hook that for two of my plugins, cause it will remove some boilerplate code sure.
Not critical enough for me yet at my dev stage, in coming weeks, yes, it will be a bit helpful
I see no problems with those restrictions - its not intended to interfere with any legitimate community play or use - its intended to prevent McDonalds and Walmart from making their own special mods, or from servers having external advertising in the game like from BestBuy or Applebees or plastering advertising signs and banners for movies as part of an ad campaignā¦ Its to catch the advertising-marketplace people who keep pushing new places and ways to saturate ads and find people willing to get a bit of money, who are responsible for us being face-to-face with condom ads in urinals in mens rooms / pregnancy test ads in stalls in womens bathrooms, fitting cycling ads into a little green-space behind the catcher at a baseball game, embedding the Pepsi logo into center ice of a hockey game, painting the Nike logo on a communication satellite launch rocket, etc, etc etc ā places that say āman, oh man, the coverage we can get for our logo or movie by slapping it here or there in this new mediumā¦ā and then suddenly, the entire marketing world is all on the bandwagon ā mojang wants to prevent McDonalds from providing financial incentives for having a mcdonals-mod that adds quarter pounders and arch-blocks to the game, or from building a server that ākids can join for free and spend time exploring with their friends Ronald and Grimaceā¦ā that has a nonending cycle of propaganda/advertising messages in the chat, or NPC players that persuade advertising, etc"
Yet, If I wanted to make my own mod that made mcdonald items and blocks to make chairs and tables and cash registers to build restaurants in game, or build a server that uses the standard blocks to make mcdonalds restaurants and pixel art all over the place, and the currency on the server is chicken nugget based, and Iāve added the hamburglar as a mob entityā¦ but done this all as a fan-based thing only, and do not recieve any money from McDonalds or agencies representing mcdonalds, its fine.
That awesome Disneyworld server gets to exist just fine, as it was built out of love and admiration by a community, and they can do what they do there. Disneycorp, on the other hand, cant make the same server as a company owned product even to allow free access to all ā as it is themselves the company promoting their ābrand awarenessā
I will use it eventually, but Iām going to wait until 4.1.0 is official. It could definitely be useful.
Havenāt the foggiest idea what a timing is. All I know is that it slows down my GitHub navigation because src/main/java doesn/t route directly through to org/spongepowered/api, I have to click org/spongepowered/api in a separate window that also contains co/aikar/timings first.
I donāt know. Didnāt know this was a thing until I clicked that link. As long as it only applies to corporations and organizations, Iām good. But Iām a little bit sad; when actual advertising money goes into making these things, they tend to be pretty good. Remember Verizonās phone mod? But, again, as long as the community can still do whatever the hell they please, Iām pretty much ok with it.