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Minecraft removing obfuscation in Java Edition

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Re: Minecraft removing obfuscation in Java Edition

#81

Post by YesBox »

armchairhacker wrote: post #2

Minecraft, Roblox, Geometry Dash, Trackmania...these are games that succeeded because of their communities. Alone, they don't provide much for the average player, but creative players build interesting things that appeal to everyone. I think one of the reasons Vision Pro and metaverse have been struggling is because their engines are bad. Not just locked down, but hard to develop on (although I don't have personal ex…

I disagree with regard to Minecraft (only game I played in that list). I bought the game while it was in alpha and even then the single player experience was outstanding and sucked me in. I still have vivid memories from 15+ years ago. The balance of creativity and survival (and friggen creepers) was perfect.

I dont think I am alone in saying this. IIRC the game was making millions while still in alpha.

Re: Minecraft removing obfuscation in Java Edition

#82

Post by 6SixTy »

krackers wrote: post #61
NelsonMinar wrote: post #51

It's extraordinary to me that Minecraft is both the game that has the most robust mod community out there and that the modders were working from obfuscated, decompiled Java binaries. With elaborate tooling to deobfuscate and then reobfuscate using the same mangled names. For over a decade! What dedication.

Me too. Having only a vague familiarity with the game, I thought that mods were using some official plugin system. I had no idea that minecraft modders (presumably kids/teens?) were not only reverse engineering things but also creating an entire ecosystem to work around proguard.

There is and kind of isn't. There are community led modding apis, but also datapacks that are more limited but still allow someone to do cool stuff leveraging tools, items, etc already in the game.

If you remember entire contraptions of command blocks doing stuff like playing Pokemon Red in Minecraft or "one commands" that summoned an entire obelisk of command blocks, the introduction of datapacks pretty much replaced both of those.

Re: Minecraft removing obfuscation in Java Edition

#83

Post by nightpool »

krackers wrote: post #61
NelsonMinar wrote: post #51

It's extraordinary to me that Minecraft is both the game that has the most robust mod community out there and that the modders were working from obfuscated, decompiled Java binaries. With elaborate tooling to deobfuscate and then reobfuscate using the same mangled names. For over a decade! What dedication.

Me too. Having only a vague familiarity with the game, I thought that mods were using some official plugin system. I had no idea that minecraft modders (presumably kids/teens?) were not only reverse engineering things but also creating an entire ecosystem to work around proguard.

Not only working around proguard, but Minecraft mods are built on top of an incredibly cool and flexible runtime class file rewriting framework that means that each JAR can use simple declarative annotations like @Inject to rewrite minecraft methods on the fly when their mod is loaded or unloaded. This massively revolutionized mod development, which was previously reliant on tens of thousands of lines of manually compiled patches that would create "modding APIs" for developers to use. Putting the patching tools in the hands of the mod developers has really opened up so many more doors.

Minecraft also has a plugin system based around JSON file datapacks, but it's a lot more limited. It's more at the level of scope of adding a few cool features to custom maps then completely modding the game.

Re: Minecraft removing obfuscation in Java Edition

#84

Post by unleaded »

kragen wrote: post #34
ajkjk wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no, I think they're looking for the official game to be open sourced... that's much more appealing than a knockoff since it's the version everyone actually plays.

It's much less appealing because it's much harder to mod.

less appealing to who? Lots of 13 year olds learned to code by writing minecraft mods so it can't be that hard. You also get the benefit & satisfaction of it actually being in Minecraft—yes, they are both very similar games where you explore and place blocks in a procedurally generated world, but it really does matter. I can't really explain why if you don't get it but it's evident people do care even when they know about Minetest.

Re: Minecraft removing obfuscation in Java Edition

#85

Post by SkiFire13 »

1313ed01 wrote: post #70
NelsonMinar wrote: post #51

It's extraordinary to me that Minecraft is both the game that has the most robust mod community out there and that the modders were working from obfuscated, decompiled Java binaries. With elaborate tooling to deobfuscate and then reobfuscate using the same mangled names. For over a decade! What dedication.

I am terrified by Minecraft mods always being distributed from dodgy download sites and not rarely come with their own Windows EXE installers. And as far as I know there is no sandboxing at all in the game (uhm, no pun intended) so once installed the mod has full access to your computer?

> I am terrified by Minecraft mods always being distributed from dodgy download sites and not rarely come with their own Windows EXE installers.

That's not their main mean of distribution, most often those sites were just third parties unrelated to the mod authors that repackaged the mod and somehow got a better SEO. But TBF back in the days the UX/UI for installing mods was pretty terrible. Nowadays there are more standardized and moderated distribution websites from which you just download the .jar of the mod.

> And as far as I know there is no sandboxing at all in the game (uhm, no pun intended) so once installed the mod has full access to your computer?

This is totally true though.

Re: Minecraft removing obfuscation in Java Edition

#86

Post by RGBCube »

Even if they made it Source Available it wouldn't hurt them much, because Minecraft is very easy to pirate and the reason anyone pays for anything at all is because you need an account in Mojang's authentication servers (which people do not want to move off of for various reasons).

Hell, they could even make it Open Source with a clause preventing other companies from using to code to make a profit. It's too big to fail.

Re: Minecraft removing obfuscation in Java Edition

#87

Post by matteotom »

pwdisswordfishy wrote: post #4

> But we encourage people to get creative both in Minecraft and with Minecraft – so in 2019 we tried to make this tedious process a little easier by releasing “obfuscation mappings”. These mappings were essentially a long list that allowed people to match the obfuscated terms to un-obfuscated terms. This alleviated the issue a little, as modders didn’t need to puzzle out what everything did, or what it should be call…

Were the mappings only a subset of the obfuscated classes/methods/etc? Basically making the mapping a sort of public API

Re: Minecraft removing obfuscation in Java Edition

#89

Post by hnuser123456 »

kg wrote: post #18
beeflet wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people are asking for The Metaverse. Currently, the entire VRChat userbase. But you're right that there is not a large population of people willing to throw cash at it outside of a minority of virtual furries

Critically, VRChat works on desktop (though it's an inferior experience), and you can incrementally enhance your experience with it by doing things like webcam face/hand tracking instead of buying an expensive headset.

VRChat is also consistently active with people making new worlds/maps, avatars, etc. There also used to be a client modding scene with e.g. melonloader but that got cracked down on around 2022. The "metaverse" however, does it even exist? Is there a vrchat-like, meta-built social vr environment available on quest hardware?

Re: Minecraft removing obfuscation in Java Edition

#90

Post by userbinator »

NelsonMinar wrote: post #51

It's extraordinary to me that Minecraft is both the game that has the most robust mod community out there and that the modders were working from obfuscated, decompiled Java binaries. With elaborate tooling to deobfuscate and then reobfuscate using the same mangled names. For over a decade! What dedication.

More proof that you don't need the source code to modify software. Then again, Java has always been easy to decompile, and IMHO the biggest obstacle to understanding is the "object-oriented obfuscation" that's inherent in large codebases even when you have the original source.
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