All stories have an ending

Published by Klemen on
All stories have an ending

I know this post is probably a big shock and not expected, but as said, all things have an end, unfortunately. I will try to explain everything as much as possible in this post.

 

 

EDIT:

There are more updated news around this here, as some parts of the future plans got changed and/or polished and better explained here: https://mcreator.net/news/67886/minecraft-116x-and-future-mcreator

 

 

I still remember the day my brother Matej (also developer, moderator, and co-maintainer of MCreator) showed me Minecraft and told me it is written in Java, this was all the way back in the days of Risugami's modloader. I immediately got the idea for MCreator. Since then, the project has kept on growing and becoming better and better, and the community got bigger and bigger, and things started to move faster and faster.

With its growth, there was more and more time needed to maintain the project and the community. In the past few years, I have become very overworked and have reached the point of burn-out, unfortunately. I have another job at a robotics company that pays and will pay the bills, while MCreator is a free project. Unfortunately, I can't maintain both of them. MCreator is time-wise-looking another full-time job for me. My day no longer consists of free time and I had to cut down on all other activities and things I love in order to be able to sustain MCreator while working and studying at the same time.

I was somehow hoping open-sourcing would improve this, but it turned out being an open-source maintainer, no work was taken from me, just additional work of managing pull requests and planning the work was added to the mix. I have big guilt that I gave a false hope with the open-sourcing move as many community members really bit into the opportunity and helped a lot with contributions and new feature additions, but unfortunately, I was not able to foresee the outcome of open-sourcing properly.

What will happen now?

I do not find it fair to just shut it down immediately, as many contributions from the community were already made, so I will try to work with the community to finish the MCreator 2020.5 update in the next few weeks. I will try to add some of the pull requests to the update, but will very likely not be able to add all of them, especially not larger ones. For this reason, I am also asking contributors to slow down with PRs to the official repository, as they might not all get into the update, to avoid any disappointments if I will not be able to merge them all.

I was hoping for a stable 1.16.x Forge to come sooner, but it didn't, so there likely won't be an MCreator update adding support for this Minecraft version (this is not definitive yet, it depends on the time I will have in the first university semester). After the 2020.5 update, I will eventually halt my development of MCreator software.

Open-sourcing might have given MCreator an option for a second life, on the other hand. Some members of the community and contributors might recognize themselves as possible future maintainers. I will keep the MCreator name, as it is part of my life, it is my child. But if there will be community interest in running the project forwards under a new name, new website, and new lead after the 2020.5 update, I will gladly support the new project by promoting it as a successor of MCreator on the website in the future. Keep in mind that I am quitting development entirely so I will not be able to offer any help on the potential future development.

I plan on keeping the website alive as the community is not dying with the end of software development. Matej plans on running mod of the week to the end of this year and making one final yearly recap video. I might be revoking wiki contributor and moderator roles in the future (depends on the need of them and the activity of the users having these roles) but will keep running the website for some time after that, and then once in the future (probably far in the future, depending on the activity of users), put it into the read-only mode.

I would like to thank each member of the community, we were an awesome family. MCreator's community is one of the friendliest and most supportive communities I was ever part of. Big thanks to moderators, wiki contributors, people who helped on forums, thanks to code and translation contributors, thanks to donors who helped me work on this project, thanks to all the people who were making tutorials for MCreator, and thanks to every single user of MCreator that was part of this story. I will be revoking monthly donations as I don't find it fair to receive any more donations from this point on.

I know MCreator plays an important role in the lives of many of you, and believe me, it is very hard for me too, especially after working on this project each day, even during weekends, for almost 9 years. It was a big part of my life and me growing up and I am writing this with tears in my eyes thinking back to all this. But as the title of this post says, all stories have an ending, and this is MCreator's ending.

It was an amazing journey, thank you for everything!

Klemen

EDIT 15. 9. 2020

Thank you for all the positive comments you wrote. I am still reading them and will try to respond to them as soon as possible, but it is a really hard time for me right now. MCreator was all for me, but unfortunately, life has its own ways.

I noticed new versions started to emerge and I really like this. I would like just point out that naming new projects something like MCreator + adjective could be a bit confusing for users regarding the maintainership of the software. Ideally, I wanted the names to be something like XYZ - The successor/fork/next thing/ ... of MCreator. If you still want to use "MCreator + adjective", just make sure to clarify this is a new version and new software based on MCreator and is not MCreator itself. Naming it MCreator 2 or similar is not acceptable as this is still the original name and too confusing.

Another thing I want to clarify is that MCreator is licensed under the GPL-3.0 license, so all forks need to use this license too due to legal implications and need to be open sourced under this license. Make sure to understand all the requirements of GPL-3.0 when making forks and distributing them (including things like keeping the original copyright notice for the year 2020 and only adding new ones for the modifications of the source code).

TLDR variant

Some users don't read all text and make assumptions and spread incorrect information, so here is a short summary for such users, excluding reasons and backstory. 

In short, the software development will stop after 2020.5, the website and community will remain up, so will downloads and plugins, open sourcing allows others to make new variants of MCreator under new names. MCreator is not dead-ending, nor shutting down, but the development will be halted in the future. The software will still be downloadable and usable, the website will still be up, and the community will still be here to be part of.

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Comments

It truly has been a roundabout path. I have been using Mcreator for 2 years now, i saw it grew up in a dramatic way, even if it is sad for it to be discontinued, its ok, because i know you are leaving for a good reason, hopefully this community will continue the project, thank you, Klemen

OK... I saw the post at its release day but couldn't find the right words.. So now...

I had a feeling that mcreators development would slow down because of the failed conversation to Microsoft and the the opensourcing step. I can't believe how hard this must be for you both, but at the end, I guess you made the right decision. I can totally understand your situation because I am in a simelar position.

I am also working on a very passionate and ambitious project. A racing game for mobile that does not exist in such form and i can fill a gap in the market.

Sure I don't have heavy pressure or a time line but there was a time where I was putting All, and really all of my energy and freetime into that project. I realised that I was also overworked and had no real fun in my life anymore and got depressed at some point. This was the point where I hit the brake and was thinking about what things I could change to have more joy in my life.

Since then, I am still working on my project but when I don't feel like it anymore, I just end working on it for that day.

However I personally in your place would have it done a bit different. Putting the work on mcreator down is the right step for now... Maybe for years... But not forever.

However. I think you did the right thing. Enjoy your life! :) You both matej and klemen! Mcreator is and will ever be unique!!

Maybe things in the future will change, but we will see. The problem is that I need the job to pay the bills and it is not going anywhere, so time gap for MCreator will not become any better. In the future, there will be even less time due to new responsibilites that come with life. Thank you for your kind words! :)

I'm proud of you. You did a wonderful thing for soo many people.
While this ending is sad, its also a happy one.
You have alot ahead of you in the future, and I see them being great things.
I also see MCreator living on in your vision and footsteps.
I hope you have a wonderful life, and are as blessed as many of us were when discovering this amazing tool to create what would have otherwise not been possible.

To the community, lets not let this die. I know we have some amazing coders out here, lets see if we can band together and keep the ball rolling. But let us never forget to started, and maintained MCreator. Lets never forget the purpose of such amazing software.

hah nice apri fools prank man! a bit outside of april but nice none the less

wAIT

its not a prank?

T-T

Klemen why did you do this to me? Anyways I'm making a fork under the name Crafter... I am currently making a website for it (not live yet). Wish me luck. Also good luck with that new job of yours I hope I will see you on the news for being the best at that company... Also, does this mean pylo will finally be getting around to make those drones?

I'm so sorry you have to quit the development, thank you so much for making MCreator, I love it so much and it is amazing. I hope the community can keep updating it...

Thanks for everything Klemen I wish I was there to support you sooner, but I am just now exploring your software. Its amazing the impact you left on the modding community and how simple you have made it to make mods. If I ever do get better at programming I do hope to help revive MCreator and keep it going. Thank you again for this amazing community and software that you have made and i wish you good luck on your robotics journey

This brought a tear to my eye :(
If it weren't for Mcreator, I probably would not have ever even dreamed of making a mod. It just seemed like one of those things that I'd never be able to do... I guess i was wrong ;)
Thank you Klemen, for making this amazing program!

I am sad that MCreator is ending, but I am glad that you are taking consideration for your well being. So long partner, you and your project made me and many others interested in programming.



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