Shaders

[LIEKABOWSE]

I felt glory in my heart when I saw this fucking post. I have been trying for so long to budge Nick about it lol. +1 support

[Caanite.]

Supported!

[optical]

I haven't spoken to Nick or Tobs about this at all - but I have had several people PM me about it so I thought I'd address it from my standpoint. Please note that I do not make the rules now - so what I say is just my view, not the rule. At the end of the day Nick and Tobs have the final call, not me.

Personally I don't have an issue with shaders being used since its purely cosmetic - as far as I am aware. If there are shaders that do modify gameplay in order to provide an advantage however, I support banning them altogether. Provided there are none that provide an advatange, I would be fine with them being allowed.

That said - I do not make the rules, and if they're currently disallowed, they will remain so until Nick and Tobs decide to alter the rules. If you use a shader and get in trouble for doing so - this post will not be an excuse to be unbanned.

[clawstrider]

I just want to come in from my viewpoint here. Opticraft never has been, and likely never will be, a "pvp" server. Yes, we have the occasional pvp fight in the set arenas, but overall, 99.999% of the daily goings on in the server are non pvp based. For this reason, I honestly don't see the reason that players are not allowed to use "advantageous" mods.

Now, before I go any further, I want to make the distinction between a "mod" and a "hack" (Yes, I know they're not technical terms, but they serve the purpose).

In my mind, a "mod" refines something that a player not using one could do, with additional effort. Two examples of this would be a minimap mod, or the better sprinting mod.

Considering the minimap mod, a player playing Minecraft could hypothetically put Minecraft in half his screen, and run the SMP live map in the other half. Would this serve as a "minimap"? A pretty decent one, yeah. But it would require him to track his movements, and it would be more clunky and slow. Hell, you could probably even save the whole minimap as a very high-rez picture, and drop icons on it, as a form of "saved places".
If I was to use a minimap, I would not be getting any large bonus over this live-map toting player, save avoiding the effort of having to drag it in the direction he is running every once in a while. While I may be getting an advantage in pvp (In which the seconds do matter), in fairly peaceful environment of Opticraft, it is  no real bonus.

As to the "better sprinting" mod, this is a lot more obvious. While never having used it, I have read the features, and from what I understand, it basically just lets you toggle sneaking or sprinting, instead of having to double tap, then hold down and/or hold down the specific buttons. In a pvp server, this is a massive advantage, and could give you the crucial edge in cutting down your opponents. But Opticraft is not a pvp server, and there are no opponents to cut down. I am struggling to think of a situation where being able to start sprinting slightly faster, or for longer, would ever actually matter.
And of course, a long-term player of Minecraft, who is decently adept at the whole double-tap and hold, could easily keep pace with this sprint toggling runner. Again, we see that the mod is making things easier for the player, not adding unfair new advantages.


Now, as to my "hack" category, that is much easier to define. I'd call it anything that a vanilla player literally can not do, never-mind his skill. Xray would easily fall into this category. Being good at Minecraft does not allow you to see through walls, Xray does. Nodus, or any kind of cheating client also counts here. Can a vanilla player fly, or disappear, or whatever the other hacks it is capable of?

What I'm trying to get at, after this long winded ramble, is that I think we should go a whole lot further than just allowing shaders. I believe that we should totally allow anything fitting into my "mod" category. At the end of the day, allowing these won't really hurt any of the current players, if they choose not to use them. Since Opticraft is by it's nature non-competitive, there are practically no opportunities to be using these for malicious purposes. If we make a couple of our players have more fun by doing this, then I see it as a satisfactory outcome; there is very little downside to this.

The only flaw I can see in this is that some players won't know where to draw the line; where "mod" runs out and "hack" begins. But to this, I think that we should just let the rule of common sense run here. If a player thinks that xray is a perfectly okay thing to be using, chances are that we don't want them anyway.


Sorry this was so long, and I understand if it's a bit too offtopic for this post. If anybody wants me to, I will split the topic into it's own separate one for discussion.  


TL;DR: Opticraft should allow all mods, except for hacks. Opticraft isn't pvp, so there is no advantage to be gained from using small modifications to Minecraft. - Note: If you plan to argue with me about this, please actually read the whole post, not just the TL;DR. Thanks!

[Mattkkk12345]

I just want to come in from my viewpoint here. Opticraft never has been, and likely never will be, a "pvp" server. Yes, we have the occasional pvp fight in the set arenas, but overall, 99.999% of the daily goings on in the server are non pvp based. For this reason, I honestly don't see the reason that players are not allowed to use "advantageous" mods.

Now, before I go any further, I want to make the distinction between a "mod" and a "hack" (Yes, I know they're not technical terms, but they serve the purpose).

In my mind, a "mod" refines something that a player not using one could do, with additional effort. Two examples of this would be a minimap mod, or the better sprinting mod.

Considering the minimap mod, a player playing Minecraft could hypothetically put Minecraft in half his screen, and run the SMP live map in the other half. Would this serve as a "minimap"? A pretty decent one, yeah. But it would require him to track his movements, and it would be more clunky and slow. Hell, you could probably even save the whole minimap as a very high-rez picture, and drop icons on it, as a form of "saved places".
If I was to use a minimap, I would not be getting any large bonus over this live-map toting player, save avoiding the effort of having to drag it in the direction he is running every once in a while. While I may be getting an advantage in pvp (In which the seconds do matter), in fairly peaceful environment of Opticraft, it is  no real bonus.

As to the "better sprinting" mod, this is a lot more obvious. While never having used it, I have read the features, and from what I understand, it basically just lets you toggle sneaking or sprinting, instead of having to double tap, then hold down and/or hold down the specific buttons. In a pvp server, this is a massive advantage, and could give you the crucial edge in cutting down your opponents. But Opticraft is not a pvp server, and there are no opponents to cut down. I am struggling to think of a situation where being able to start sprinting slightly faster, or for longer, would ever actually matter.
And of course, a long-term player of Minecraft, who is decently adept at the whole double-tap and hold, could easily keep pace with this sprint toggling runner. Again, we see that the mod is making things easier for the player, not adding unfair new advantages.


Now, as to my "hack" category, that is much easier to define. I'd call it anything that a vanilla player literally can not do, never-mind his skill. Xray would easily fall into this category. Being good at Minecraft does not allow you to see through walls, Xray does. Nodus, or any kind of cheating client also counts here. Can a vanilla player fly, or disappear, or whatever the other hacks it is capable of?

What I'm trying to get at, after this long winded ramble, is that I think we should go a whole lot further than just allowing shaders. I believe that we should totally allow anything fitting into my "mod" category. At the end of the day, allowing these won't really hurt any of the current players, if they choose not to use them. Since Opticraft is by it's nature non-competitive, there are practically no opportunities to be using these for malicious purposes. If we make a couple of our players have more fun by doing this, then I see it as a satisfactory outcome; there is very little downside to this.

The only flaw I can see in this is that some players won't know where to draw the line; where "mod" runs out and "hack" begins. But to this, I think that we should just let the rule of common sense run here. If a player thinks that xray is a perfectly okay thing to be using, chances are that we don't want them anyway.


Sorry this was so long, and I understand if it's a bit too offtopic for this post. If anybody wants me to, I will split the topic into it's own separate one for discussion.  


TL;DR: Opticraft should allow all mods, except for hacks. Opticraft isn't pvp, so there is no advantage to be gained from using small modifications to Minecraft. - Note: If you plan to argue with me about this, please actually read the whole post, not just the TL;DR. Thanks!

Sorry for the long quote....but. I see claws point could, in theory lead to the creation of a page with updated official mod downloads and any outside this would be bannable?. For example we add to the /rules and perhaps in the auto messages (like tie vote ones), go 'here' and see what mods are allowed on this server or something along the lines with that. I do get claws point as there would be future posts asking for more types of mods to be allowed and then this would perhaps turn into a great unmanageable list of mods, unclear to new people what IS and IS NOT tolerated. Thanks - Matt

[Nick3306]

I just want to come in from my viewpoint here. Opticraft never has been, and likely never will be, a "pvp" server. Yes, we have the occasional pvp fight in the set arenas, but overall, 99.999% of the daily goings on in the server are non pvp based. For this reason, I honestly don't see the reason that players are not allowed to use "advantageous" mods.

Now, before I go any further, I want to make the distinction between a "mod" and a "hack" (Yes, I know they're not technical terms, but they serve the purpose).

In my mind, a "mod" refines something that a player not using one could do, with additional effort. Two examples of this would be a minimap mod, or the better sprinting mod.

Considering the minimap mod, a player playing Minecraft could hypothetically put Minecraft in half his screen, and run the SMP live map in the other half. Would this serve as a "minimap"? A pretty decent one, yeah. But it would require him to track his movements, and it would be more clunky and slow. Hell, you could probably even save the whole minimap as a very high-rez picture, and drop icons on it, as a form of "saved places".
If I was to use a minimap, I would not be getting any large bonus over this live-map toting player, save avoiding the effort of having to drag it in the direction he is running every once in a while. While I may be getting an advantage in pvp (In which the seconds do matter), in fairly peaceful environment of Opticraft, it is  no real bonus.

As to the "better sprinting" mod, this is a lot more obvious. While never having used it, I have read the features, and from what I understand, it basically just lets you toggle sneaking or sprinting, instead of having to double tap, then hold down and/or hold down the specific buttons. In a pvp server, this is a massive advantage, and could give you the crucial edge in cutting down your opponents. But Opticraft is not a pvp server, and there are no opponents to cut down. I am struggling to think of a situation where being able to start sprinting slightly faster, or for longer, would ever actually matter.
And of course, a long-term player of Minecraft, who is decently adept at the whole double-tap and hold, could easily keep pace with this sprint toggling runner. Again, we see that the mod is making things easier for the player, not adding unfair new advantages.


Now, as to my "hack" category, that is much easier to define. I'd call it anything that a vanilla player literally can not do, never-mind his skill. Xray would easily fall into this category. Being good at Minecraft does not allow you to see through walls, Xray does. Nodus, or any kind of cheating client also counts here. Can a vanilla player fly, or disappear, or whatever the other hacks it is capable of?

What I'm trying to get at, after this long winded ramble, is that I think we should go a whole lot further than just allowing shaders. I believe that we should totally allow anything fitting into my "mod" category. At the end of the day, allowing these won't really hurt any of the current players, if they choose not to use them. Since Opticraft is by it's nature non-competitive, there are practically no opportunities to be using these for malicious purposes. If we make a couple of our players have more fun by doing this, then I see it as a satisfactory outcome; there is very little downside to this.

The only flaw I can see in this is that some players won't know where to draw the line; where "mod" runs out and "hack" begins. But to this, I think that we should just let the rule of common sense run here. If a player thinks that xray is a perfectly okay thing to be using, chances are that we don't want them anyway.


Sorry this was so long, and I understand if it's a bit too offtopic for this post. If anybody wants me to, I will split the topic into it's own separate one for discussion.  


TL;DR: Opticraft should allow all mods, except for hacks. Opticraft isn't pvp, so there is no advantage to be gained from using small modifications to Minecraft. - Note: If you plan to argue with me about this, please actually read the whole post, not just the TL;DR. Thanks!

The only problem with this is that its completely inaccurate. Xray is a mod not a hack, you download it and i modifies your game, same with all of the other "hacks" that you list. All of them are in the form of mods. Nothing separates them from the mini map mod, both add something that didnt exist in the game previously.

We never banned shaders, we banned all mods because it was the easiest way to try to prevent people from using bad ones. The problem with banning all mods that give you an advantage is that what gives you an advantage is subjective, its much easier to just ban all mods except optifine. Now you may say, well if you said they can use optifine, what makes saying they can use shaders any differently? The difference is that optifine is a specific plugin, we know what it does. Shaders on the other hand does not describe a specific plugin, there are tons and the simple fact is that we dont know what else is in that shaders pack.

That being said, you guys have optical on your side so your chances are pretty good

[clawstrider]

The only problem with this is that its completely inaccurate. Xray is a mod not a hack, you download it and i modifies your game, same with all of the other "hacks" that you list. All of them are in the form of mods. Nothing separates them from the mini map mod, both add something that didnt exist in the game previously.

Now, before I go any further, I want to make the distinction between a "mod" and a "hack" (Yes, I know they're not technical terms, but they serve the purpose).
In my mind, a "mod" refines something that a player not using one could do, with additional effort.

Now, as to my "hack" category, that is much easier to define. I'd call it anything that a vanilla player literally can not do, never-mind his skill.

Possibly you misunderstood what I was trying to say. I was redefining the words mod and hack to suite my own purposes. If you want, we can call them A and B. The difference is what the vanilla player can and can't do, not how the client modification is actually run. Let me know if you still don't understand. This was a case of me being lazy and using two pre-existing terms.

[Nick3306]

The only problem with this is that its completely inaccurate. Xray is a mod not a hack, you download it and i modifies your game, same with all of the other "hacks" that you list. All of them are in the form of mods. Nothing separates them from the mini map mod, both add something that didnt exist in the game previously.

Now, before I go any further, I want to make the distinction between a "mod" and a "hack" (Yes, I know they're not technical terms, but they serve the purpose).
In my mind, a "mod" refines something that a player not using one could do, with additional effort.

Now, as to my "hack" category, that is much easier to define. I'd call it anything that a vanilla player literally can not do, never-mind his skill.

Possibly you misunderstood what I was trying to say. I was redefining the words mod and hack to suite my own purposes. If you want, we can call them A and B. The difference is what the vanilla player can and can't do, not how the client modification is actually run. Let me know if you still don't understand. This was a case of me being lazy and using two pre-existing terms.

I understand what you are trying to say, however mods are mods, simple as that. The purpose of a mod is to add something to the game that wasn't there before, so all of the things you listed fall under that one category.

[gavin1928374655]

Weren't shaders built into the game? And shaders are basically fancy texture packs anyway

[jcgaming]

the shaders in the game are not exactly good i think they where mainly  mojang testing if they could implement them

[DeeKay]

sooo, no?

[Nick3306]

sooo, no?

Roll your eyes all you want, did you even read my post? lol

[DeeKay]

sooo, no?

Roll your eyes all you want, did you even read my post? lol

I wasn't rolling my eyes at you per se, it just seems these types of suggestions carry on for some time and could be ended with a yes or no. Yes I read what you said, but I had no opinion on this suggestion, so to think I was somehow taking down your reasoning calls for another

[XzTriggerHappyzX]

To be honest, i can't see any bad side to having the shaders installed...
it doesn't give you any advantage over another player. theres nothing against having this mod allowed? if there is please mention them in dot form so it's easier to understand. thanks guys!
 - Trigger

[VoreReznor]

I love the look of this specific mod and would definitely add this if it is allowed.

That being said, will there be 3 new posts tomorrow about other visual or performance enhancing mods.  Also will all staff be expected to know the downfalls or bugs that these mods might add to other players experience?  /helpop my shaders didn't install properly now i cannot psvisualize? or who knows what other little glitches could happen while connected to opticraft. 

Maybe we could have a trial run with a few selected staff and trusted before giving a mod the ok?