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Minecraft removing obfuscation in Java Edition

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Re: Minecraft removing obfuscation in Java Edition

#241

Post by naruhodo »

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…

If my memory serves, the stated justification for not going open source was copyright and trademark protection. Apparently, that is no longer a concern, if it ever really was.

Now I'm bracing for them to drop support for Java Edition entirely and go strictly Bedrock in a couple of years.

Perhaps Minecraft 2.0 is finally nearing release.

Re: Minecraft removing obfuscation in Java Edition

#242

Post by strbean »

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.

This was how many Runescape bots were developed back in the OSRS days. At some point (RS2?) they made the client super thin so there were no longer methods for high level game functionality (walk to here, get amount of gold in inventory, etc.).

Re: Minecraft removing obfuscation in Java Edition

#243

Post by rstat1 »

throwaway290 wrote: post #183
einsteinx2 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the whole point is there are no more mappings. I’m not sure what the trap is supposed to be?

Your mod uses variable name FooBar in ways Microsoft don't like, Microsoft sues you for copyright before the judge would have to admit it was just coincident.

They've had plenty of opportunity to do this and haven't, so would find it incredibly unlikely they would magically start to have a problem now

Not to mention doing would basically kill game as one of the biggest reason people even still play Minecraft is the modding scene, not the minimum viable effort that have been the official updates for last number of years.

Re: Minecraft removing obfuscation in Java Edition

#244

Post by squigz »

kgwxd wrote: post #179
nisegami wrote: post #64

I consider Microsoft to be genuinely evil as an institution, but this is still nice to see.

I fear it's the first step to announcing the discontinuation of Java Edition development.

I don't really think this would be the end of the world, would it? Much of the content they've added over the past few years has been of questionable merit, at least to me. Surely at some point they'll run out of ideas that can reasonably fit inside vanilla Minecraft?

(But no, I don't think they're going to stop JE development. I'd bet it's still the far more popular version, and they probably still make plenty of money from sales)

Re: Minecraft removing obfuscation in Java Edition

#245

Post by vintermann »

speedgoose wrote: post #105
gbear605 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The music is definitely considered classic, you can find tons of people online talking about how it means a lot to them - and personally, I really loved the music.

I remember the early Minecraft musics from C418 to be relatively unconventional, especially some of the jukebox discs. I started playing Minecraft again recently and while it sounds like it’s the same artist, and it’s still somewhat contemplative, it’s not dissonant anymore.

It's not the same artist. C418 had a very good deal with Notch's Mojang, letting him keep rights. Microsoft demanded that he sign over the rights to further music as work for hire. He refused, as a result the newer music in Minecraft is made by other composers who signed on to that deal and try to make music fitting with C418's style.

Re: Minecraft removing obfuscation in Java Edition

#246

Post by Brian_K_White »

beachy wrote: post #137
userbinator wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

First time I have heard of object-oriented obfuscation. I get it, but in general I don't get the OO hate. It's all about the problem domain imo. I can't imagine building something like a graphics framework without some subtyping. Unfortunately, people often use crap examples for OO. The worst is probably employee, where employee and contractor are subtypes of worker, or some other chicanery like that. Of course in th…

If everyone does it wrong, then that alone means it itself is wrong.

Re: Minecraft removing obfuscation in Java Edition

#247

Post by vintermann »

astrobe_ wrote: post #30
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…

You can add the Flight Simulator series to the list, which spawned a vast ecosystem of add-ons, both free and commercial. I believe though, that what you actually need as a big or small company, is good game first and foremost; the engine is secondary. When the community around a game reaches a critical mass, the very small percentage of its members who have the skills to modify things becomes significant as well. Fo…

Not sure if I understand exactly what you mean by reified, but Minecraft has a ton of minigames based on server-side mods which clone other popular games. Sometimes popular Minecraft minigames/mods even get implemented as standalone games.

Battle royale games were almost certainly heavily inspired by the Minecraft minigame which predates them. Factorio has the old industrialcraft mod as an acknowledged inspiration. Vintage Story is basically standalone Terrafirmacraft (and by a dev from that, as I recall).

Re: Minecraft removing obfuscation in Java Edition

#248

Post by beachy »

jdswain wrote: post #182
beachy wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First time I have heard of object-oriented obfuscation. I get it, but in general I don't get the OO hate. It's all about the problem domain imo. I can't imagine building something like a graphics framework without some subtyping. Unfortunately, people often use crap examples for OO. The worst is probably employee, where employee and contractor are subtypes of worker, or some other chicanery like that. Of course in th…

(Hi Andrew) It's the misuse of OO constructs that gives it a bad name, almost always that is inheritance being overused/misused. Encapsulation and modularity are important for larger code bases, and polymorphism is useful for making code simpler, smaller and more understandable. Maybe the extra long names in java also don't help too, along with the overuse/forced use of patterns? At least it's not Hungarian notation.

Jason! Couldn't agree more.

Re: Minecraft removing obfuscation in Java Edition

#249

Post by vintermann »

nkrisc wrote: post #156
astrobe_ wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can add the Flight Simulator series to the list, which spawned a vast ecosystem of add-ons, both free and commercial. I believe though, that what you actually need as a big or small company, is good game first and foremost; the engine is secondary. When the community around a game reaches a critical mass, the very small percentage of its members who have the skills to modify things becomes significant as well. Fo…

The thing is, Minecraft of 10 years ago (or more) wasn’t even really that great of a game. It wasn’t bad, I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t that great. What it did do right was be very open-ended and be conducive to modding, both of which were amplified by multiplayer capabilities. I would wager that most of the fun players have had in Minecraft is from experiences that were built on top of Minecraft, not from the game’s o…

It was, as far as I can tell, the first game which was infinitely procedurally generated yet changeable. Huge procedurally generated games have a long history but in e.g. Elite or Seven Cities of Gold you couldn't modify the world in any meaningful way. The closest is probably dwarf fortress, but there the modifiable world is pretty small (or was when Minecraft came out).

That made it a great game. I think it was inevitable that the first game which combined these two, infinite procedural worlds and free modifiability, would be a huge success. Worth noting also that infiniminer, despite the name, didn't have the infinite part worked out!

Re: Minecraft removing obfuscation in Java Edition

#250

Post by userbinator »

beachy wrote: post #137
userbinator wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

First time I have heard of object-oriented obfuscation. I get it, but in general I don't get the OO hate. It's all about the problem domain imo. I can't imagine building something like a graphics framework without some subtyping. Unfortunately, people often use crap examples for OO. The worst is probably employee, where employee and contractor are subtypes of worker, or some other chicanery like that. Of course in th…

It's all about the problem domain imo. I can't imagine building something like a graphics framework without some subtyping.

The keyword being "some".

Yes, there are those who can use OOP responsibly, but in my (fortunately short) experience with Enterprise Java, they are outnumbered by the cargo-cult dogma of architecture astronauts who advocate a "more is better" approach to abstraction and design patterns. That's how you end up with things like AbstractSingletonProxyFactoryBean.

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