MCreator 2020.5 is out. Now it is time to talk about the future of the software and the website a bit, as I promised. I will also explain about 1.16.x situation. More in the article!
Short summary
So around two months ago, I have announced I will have to stop developing MCreator. This article here is to explain a bit more about why, when, and how this will happen.
So why will I stop working on it? The truth is, I love working on MCreator, and now when it is open-source, it is even more fun to work with all the people and manage all this, I really like doing this. But the problem is bills have to be paid, but MCreator is a free project. So I can't do MCreator as my full-time job and thus needed to get a job. This new job took me a lot of time from MCreator and while MCreator is fun, it is also a job. I need to review pull-requests, fix bugs, add features, help many people asking on the forums, tracker, maintain servers, website, moderate website, fight with spammers on the website, and much more. Due to all this and another job, I was getting really overworked and even experienced quite severe burnout two months ago. Currently, I paused the job due to my final year of university, so I got a bit more time to work MCreator, as we can see in the 2020.5 release :D I may have a few more months of time, then I will do my master's degree and after that (and possibly during that too), I will no more have enough time to do all this.
Software future
So due to the reasons noted above, I had to take a hard decision I will have to stop developing MCreator in the scope I did in all these years. This means in the future, I will no longer code MCreator the way I do now and add new features to it. Because MCreator is open-source, I am quite sure it will live under new names in new forks (eg. MCToolkit, ...).
So what will happen to the MCreator software? Well, the plan is that I will no longer work on it as I did now, but downloads will stay and so will servers, so it will continue to work in the current shape (forever). I may release occasional updates in the future, but these would not be feature updates, but only bug fixes and possibly updates to the future versions such as 1.17.x in the far future. Keep in mind this is not a promise, just a thing I may do if I will start to miss MCreator's code and will have some spare time :D In case some fork will completely take over, I may not do this at all (or may, who knows ;) ).
So the software status will essentially be "low maintenance only" in the future. This means some minor bug fixing or Minecraft support updates may happen in the future but not in the pace it used to be as I don't have the time I used to have.
Website future
The website will remain up even after I finish the last update. It will not just go down, as some speculated. I plan to keep the servers running as long as the ads can somehow cover the expenses of the website. I will still try to help on the forums from time to time, and moderate the mods and plugins posted. New moderators and wiki contributors are still welcome, and the community shall live ;)
Minecraft 1.16.x
So many of you asked if 2020.5 will add 1.16.x support. Well, it did, but only for Bedrock Edition. So I promised a chance of 2020.6, the very last update, that would add the full 1.16.x support. I was thinking a lot about this and decided I could probably handle this. So the news is, 2020.6 will happen. But due to the fact that the year 2020 is ending and I don't know how long updating to 1.16.x will take, it might be actually a 2021.1 release.
Roadmap for 2020.6/2021.1
So what is the plan for MCreator 2020.6/2021.1 update? I currently plan to do 2 snapshots:
Snapshot 1:
- Bug fixes
- Externalization and translations
- Support for 1.16.x (Forge and data packs)
Snapshot 2 (pre-release):
- Some minor new features (the scope depends on the time it will take us to fully update to version 1.16.x and my time)
- Bug fixes of the new 1.16.x generators
Contributors are welcome to help in the process (eg. porting some procedures, mod elements, and such to 1.16.x, testing, ...), following the roadmap, of course.
So that's it for this article. I hope I have covered all the commonly asked questions from the community and explained things well. If you have any more questions, suggestions, or doubts, feel free to leave a comment.
Comments
Answering all this, is MCreator going to continue to exist, only obsolete,? Well, it is acceptable and if it is true you have to do many things and maintaining mcreator is difficult, the truth is that I get a little sad since I love making mods and it costs me a lot to do them without a tool, it is also something sad since the whole community It will continue to exist but ..., I don't know what to say, I hope you do well with your new job and bye ;D (If something was not understood, it is translated from Spanish to English by google)
"Answering all this, is MCreator going to continue to exist, only obsolete,?" Yes, in a way, I explain it a bit better than yes in the article ;)
I will not be straight up leaving too, just won't be able to focus that much on the project anymore, but I will be around here very likely.
This is great! I hope that you doing this really helps you Klemen, your life and education are very important. Whenever you work you should not feel extremely stressed all the time, work hard at the job you do great even if your offered a "better" job think about it think if it is a better job for you. That means will you still get enough rest, spend time with family and friends, and will you be the most productive at that job. Just remember if a certain job offers more money it may not be worth it. That is just my advice.
Also, based on your plans will the option for the end and nether biomes happen?
I think it would be healthy if you took a good break; then, if you really want to, resume work, but more as a programmer rather than wiki contributor, website manager, social media manager, community manager, and lead programmer, among other things that I can't remember. It amazes me that you've stuck with this for so long, despite its tax on your personal life.
Of course, I'm not telling you what to do, but I also don't like to see people overworking themselves to maintain what used to be a passion project. So take it easy, man, and enjoy life! I look forward to see what the community will do with MCreator in the future!
Thank you, for forever changing the modding community.
what about custom models for bedrock edition?