Vanilla MC "stealing" ideas from mods?

[BestFleetAdmiral]

I've noticed a pattern... Vanilla has been aquireing several new features that don't seem to be entirely their own ideas. Let's see...

Arrows sticking out of people~Pincushion mod

3D items ~ 3D items mod

Fireworks ~ Fireworks mod

Horses/Donkeys/Horse Armor/etc ~ Mo'Creatures

Hoppers ~ Better Than Wolves

TNT carts ~ Railcraft

Really, the only original thing they have made in a while has been their comparators and the redstone blocks. At this rate, mods are going to go extinct! O_O

[disconsented]

No they won't, they will never even be able to get close as long as well have people like Calcava, Chickenbones etc

Also I thought Dr Zark was making the horses and stuff for Mo's.

[Lethosos]

Vanilla With Sprinkles implemented a redstone block before it was even mentioned, but it behaved differently than vanilla.

Ah, well. The walls in that are a better selection than vanilla, anyways.

[Star and Moon]

The sad part is that I can actually believe this.

[theprolo]

Well, they do reserve the right to use mod concepts in vanilla Minecraft. I think a couple of those would be around without mods though - are pincushions, 3D items and TNT carts really that original that only mod makers could have come up with the concept? I think they are definitely doing it to some extent, with or without Modder's support, but since there are mods for basically everything in Minecraft, not everything they do will be an intentional copy of mods.

[watsonj11]

Don't worry, the updates for vanilla come out so slowly by the time they get to the point mods are at now then either no one will play minecraft any more or no one will still mod it!

[Shadow278]

Honestly a lot of ides they could think or want to add are already in mods. I think they should add some randomly generated ruins (Like maybe a few broken houses) or even a new worthy hostile mob that dwells in these ruins to kill you.

[Cheap Shot]

Mojang has managed to add about a dozen small features from mods here and there, and it has taken them like 2 years, even with a source to study and imitate. Meanwhile, modders are making whole actual mods in a fraction of that time. Mojang is not going to catch up I assure you. MC base game content updates at this point are just a huge waste of time.

[watsonj11]

Why do Mojang seem to update so slowly? More people might play Minecraft if they did update faster!

I mean it's not as if there is much added in an update (or seems not to be) every month (if even that) that comes out

[holymage!]

Mojang has managed to add about a dozen small features from mods here and there, and it has taken them like 2 years, even with a source to study and imitate. Meanwhile, modders are making whole actual mods in a fraction of that time. Mojang is not going to catch up I assure you. MC base game content updates at this point are just a huge waste of time.

in other news

[Cheap Shot]

Why do Mojang seem to update so slowly? More people might play Minecraft if they did update faster!

I mean it's not as if there is much added in an update (or seems not to be) every month (if even that) that comes out

Yeah the real question is why do they do so little. Updating too much is bad for us and all modders. But really, many of their updates don't add anything significant or of value and aren't even worth downloading. You're right that they're terribly slow. For their biggest cash cow and flagship game you thing they could spare a few extra people and some more effort. Instead it feels like they're spreading a good worthwhile updates worth of content over 5 and barely any of it is important or of any real substance. Of course none of this is a revelation soooo

[Cheap Shot]

Why do Mojang seem to update so slowly? More people might play Minecraft if they did update faster!

I mean it's not as if there is much added in an update (or seems not to be) every month (if even that) that comes out

Yeah the real question is why do they do so little. Updating too much is bad for us and all modders. But really, many of their updates don't add anything significant or of value and aren't even worth downloading. You're right that they're terribly slow. For their biggest cash cow and flagship game you thing they could spare a few extra people and some more effort. Instead it feels like they're spreading a good worthwhile updates worth of content over 5 and barely any of it is important or of any real substance. Of course none of this is a revelation soooo

[Cheap Shot]

Why do Mojang seem to update so slowly? More people might play Minecraft if they did update faster!

I mean it's not as if there is much added in an update (or seems not to be) every month (if even that) that comes out

Yeah the real question is why do they do so little. Updating too much is bad for us and all modders. But really, many of their updates don't add anything significant or of value and aren't even worth downloading. You're right that they're terribly slow. For their biggest cash cow and flagship game you thing they could spare a few extra people and some more effort. Instead it feels like they're spreading a good worthwhile updates worth of content over 5 and barely any of it is important or of any real substance. Of course none of this is a revelation soooo

[Al3xthegre4t]

They've been working on their own server hosting and mod and texture pack api, they've fixed many many many bugs. And you should give them credit. I would think that having my mod implemented into vanilla minecraft would be a privelige and people should be pleased

[theprolo]

mod api

give them credit

You mean the modding api they were meant to have started before Beta (I think that was when, a long time ago anyways)?

I guess we really should give them credit for working so fast.

[Lethosos]

In case you missed it, that was written sarcastically.

You're welcome, by the way.

[dwwojcik]

In my opinion Mojang is doing a great job. They have been adding various bits and pieces from different mods to keep vanilla purists happy while behind the scenes they fix bugs and slowly but surely rewrite and/or revise the entire source code to allow for the modding API. I don't think people give them enough credit (some people none) for all the work they have done since 1.2 to make the API possible.

Sure, they could release the API now, but when they try and improve things in the next update the API will inevitably break. That's not an API. An API is something that, for example, lets a program compiled on win xp run on my windows 7 computer. That is why forge is not an API. An API would let us run a mod from 1.3 on 1.1 and a mod compiled with 1.0 run on 13w24c. The best forge can do is let us use 1.5.1 mods with 1.5.2 and vice versa.

TL;DR Mojang has been working harder on the mod API than it may seem and they have good reason to postpone its release.

*Note that I am not a modder, I am a java noob, I am tired as I write this, I am not a Mojang insider, and this statement is based solely on what I have heard/understand and may or may not 100% guaranteed accurate.

[Cheap Shot]

In my opinion Mojang is doing a great job. They have been adding various bits and pieces from different mods to keep vanilla purists happy while behind the scenes they fix bugs and slowly but surely rewrite and/or revise the entire source code to allow for the modding API. I don't think people give them enough credit (some people none) for all the work they have done since 1.2 to make the API possible.

Sure, they could release the API now, but when they try and improve things in the next update the API will inevitably break. That's not an API. An API is something that, for example, lets a program compiled on win xp run on my windows 7 computer. That is why forge is not an API. An API would let us run a mod from 1.3 on 1.1 and a mod compiled with 1.0 run on 13w24c. The best forge can do is let us use 1.5.1 mods with 1.5.2 and vice versa.

TL;DR Mojang has been working harder on the mod API than it may seem and they have good reason to postpone its release.

*Note that I am not a modder, I am a java noob, I am tired as I write this, I am not a Mojang insider, and this statement is based solely on what I have heard/understand and may or may not 100% guaranteed accurate.

An "insider" told me the bukkit guys they brought in did pretty much nothing on the API for a year. Sounds about right.

[Al3xthegre4t]

You do know that theyve just released a new game scrolls and are working on that as hard as minecraft,

[dwwojcik]

An "insider" told me the bukkit guys they brought in did pretty much nothing on the API for a year. Sounds about right.

Really? Slackers. At least there seems to be progress now.

[ziberoo]

You do know that theyve just released a new game scrolls and are working on that as hard as minecraft,

That's a different team though, surely.

[Cheap Shot]

That's a different team though, surely.

Indeed. Different staff assigned to that project.

[dwwojcik]

I think the sticking arrows was vanilla a long time ago, but then was taken out and re-implemented by the mod. Then Mojang recently added it back in to vanilla.

[shaaaa]

Cheap shot summed up all my thoughts.

[Enzer]

I think the sticking arrows was vanilla a long time ago, but then was taken out and re-implemented by the mod. Then Mojang recently added it back in to vanilla.

This is correct, arrows being stuck into players was a thing that was developed right before or after the introduction of Endermen, it was taken out at a later point because of rendering issues and then recently re-added because they found a fix for it.

An "insider" told me the bukkit guys they brought in did pretty much nothing on the API for a year. Sounds about right.

Yeah, but didn't it take most of the bukkit guys six months or more to even get moved from their respective countries to Sweden? Might just be an excuse, but I can see them not wanting to start on such a major project that can't really afford a fuck up until everyone could be physically present to discuss the damn thing. (Not saying that much work has been done since then, but it isn't like they are not working on it in some way.)

I've noticed a pattern... Vanilla has been aquireing several new features that don't seem to be entirely their own ideas. Let's see...

Arrows sticking out of people~Pincushion mod

3D items ~ 3D items mod

Fireworks ~ Fireworks mod

Horses/Donkeys/Horse Armor/etc ~ Mo'Creatures

Hoppers ~ Better Than Wolves

TNT carts ~ Railcraft

Really, the only original thing they have made in a while has been their comparators and the redstone blocks. At this rate, mods are going to go extinct! O_O

3D items is based on code that has been around since more or less Alpha that was just never fully integrated into the game, it was the same code that renders the item in a players hand. I'm actually pretty sure the Dev's stated that you could have found the code for it in versions of minecraft way before that mod was even released.

Fireworks were done because of when that patch was slated to be released, they thought it would be a nice addition for the holidays, and had nothing to do with the fireworks mod. Fireworks have been a thing for over a thousand years, it is not a unique idea to that mod author.

Horses/Donkeys/Armors. They fully admitted to working with DrZ and gave credit to his help, though their implementation isn't a straight rip of the code from what I understand. Either way, horses are not a unique idea and have been in many many other games, horse armor was done by Bethesda (as well as other sources) way before Mo'Creatures was a thing, and people have been bugging the devs to add horses since I think late alpha/early beta.

Hoppers were also done in buildcraft and I don't see finger pointing at one mod author adding a similar concept. Hoppers, again, are also something that is used a lot in the real world, and are used heavily in train yards for certain kind of material loading.

TNT Carts I really don't see as a unique idea and as far as I know, Mojang was the first ones to start placing items inside the carts to be pushed around (chest carts). I also believe that the RC tnt carts and vanilla tnt carts work differently (vanilla's blast strength being based off of the carts speed when it is ignited), I could be wrong though since I haven't used RC in ages.

Really, I don't see it an issue of "Mojang's slowly adapting concepts from other mods into their game to make up lack of content" and more "there are thousands of mods with very mundane, none unique, real worlds solution, objects, animals, what have you". Every example I see of someone going "they're stealing ideas" or "they are unoriginal" or "they're lazy" is usually pointing at a completely unique mundane thing from the real world or a feature that has been screamed at them from the community for years (such as the redstone block, which has been something people bitched for since Beta). Really, I'd be more raising my eyebrow if the dev's started adding actually unique mod ideas, like the a copy of the Twilight Forest or the Vis Node system from TC if they ever decided to expand upon magic in MC outside of enchantments. :P