Edited 18th September 2018

I would like to hear the opinions of the community on this, and particularly from those of you who have been following the mod for a year or more, based on your experiences during that time. It may be important.

Minecraft 1.7.10

As we all know, the LOTR Mod runs on Minecraft version 1.7.10. This version was released around three years ago. Since then, there have been six major Minecraft updates, and a great deal of minor ones.

So why haven't I updated the mod to a newer version? Why are we still on 1.7.10? In case anyone hasn't already heard, allow me to explain.

Firstly - there is simply no point. There is nothing in the newer versions of the game that would benefit the mod enough to warrant updating. (In my own opinion, few of the features past 1.7.10 seem very interesting to me, and a fair amount of it seems to be almost 'missing the point' of the game - but that's another subject). But there is certainly nothing in the new versions to look at and think, 'wow!. The mod really needs that!' In my opinion the thing that comes closest is the client-side mount lag fix in 1.9+, but that alone isn't enough to make it worth updating everything.

Edit: The commands in newer versions, and the new water mechanics (in 1.13) are great as well... but the above point stands.

And that's a big reason, because it would be a whole lot of effort. Updating a mod to a new Minecraft version is not straightforward. It's not only renaming things - there are a great deal of functional changes in the code, things working differently, maybe even some things disappearing and then you have to go and dream up new ways to achieve what you want. Updating a mod of this size is a huge task - this mod interfaces with almost all parts of the game, in many complex ways. But updating this mod from 1.7.10 to 1.10, or 1.12, would be a truly monstrous task. Updating to any new version requires going through all changes in the intervening versions - and in the 1.8 update, Mojang made a great many changes to the game's internal logic which were terribly disruptive to modders - or rather, dare I say, destructive. And that's just for mods that add new blocks, items, and entities. Again, I cannot overemphasise how complex some parts of this mod are, and how many areas of the game it interfaces with. A significant amount of the mod's code would need to be completely redone. The thought of updating to a new version horrifies me.

Also, there is no reason to believe that the ability to play Minecraft 1.7.10 or run a server on 1.7.10 will disappear any time soon. In fact, I'd be willing to bet one will be able to play the mod on 1.7.10 indefinitely.

With that out of the way-

Is the mod's community 'dying'?

I don't like to use such a dramatic word. And I'll answer that question right away. No, the community is not dying.

None of the statistics available to me suggest that it is. The Facebook page is gaining a steady number of new likes every week, around 20-30, and lately that has even been increasing. The number of daily page views on this wiki averages around 12000, which is a drop of maybe around 30% from a couple of years ago, but that's nothing drastic. The official server's player count does not seem to be decreasing.

The community isn't growing significantly in popularity either - but that's a good thing, as far as I'm concerned. Too much popularity inevitably harms a community.

So, no, it doesn't seem to me as if the mod is at risk of falling into the unknown.

However, it does feel like there may be a slight decline. I don't think there is any need to worry that the community will fade out within, say, the next year (update: it didn't, even with a year-long wait for a new mod update!) - but I can't predict the future, and I would rather not risk a slight decline increasing and passing beyond the point of no return. I'm sure we will always have dedicated core followers - but a lively community needs more than that.

And, as much as I regret saying it, there's no doubt that the mod could potentially attract many more people if it were on 1.12 instead, or some other newer version. People are lazy on the Internet, and I suspect there are many people out there who might potentially come to love the mod but simply don't like the thought of downgrading to an older Minecraft version. Even though it's not really hard at all to load up the launcher and install an older version.

And the longer the mod stays on 1.7.10, the greater this effect will become.

Updating?

So, let's imagine that the mod updates to version 1.12 (or any new version) and consider the pros and cons. Here is what I predict would happen.

I would need to spend a long time updating, and it would be no fun at all. It would be some very tedious, repetitive, unsatisfying work. I can't predict how long it might take, but I'd expect it to take a few weeks, a couple of months, at least. (Of course, there would be no new features in that time.)

Mind you, that's only to get it to a stage where it actually runs on 1.12. Just to get the code to compile. Even if it crashes as soon as it starts. But that's the bare minimum, and there would still be a lot of the mod that's not expecting all the subtle changes in the new vanilla code. This means Bad Things.

After that, I imagine there would be a period of fixing all the new bugs that crop up. Things like crashes, severe bugs, important features not working at all. There may well be some more dangerous bugs that would cause corruption of player data, or corruption of builds. People will need to find these by play-testing and report them, and hopefully I would be able to fix them in due time. I imagine this period would last for about a month in the best case scenario. (Of course, no new features in this time either.)

And then, once the mod gets to a stage where it can at least pass as playable, where nothing crashes immediately and most things work properly - it will still be bugged, for several months. There will be all kinds of minor, subtle, non-obvious bugs lurking around for a long time. No, the game might not crash when you talk to an Elf - but perhaps some drinks can't be placed down, or some NPCs don't seem to spawn (or they spawn inexplicably less often than they should) or the Utumno respawning is broken, or you get two sets of rewards when you complete a miniquest, or redwood planks can't be used as fuel.

Little things like that - but there would be so many of them. And because I'll only be able to fix them if someone discovers one, and realises it's a bug, and reports it to me, they would stick around for a long time. Some may last for months, some may last over a year... and some may well go unnoticed forever. (Now there would be new features again, if slowly at first.)

And, I must add, there is a small chance that the update would render all previous worlds completely unplayable. Now I have no reason to think this - I haven't looked at the 1.12 code yet, so I don't know the exact specifics of how 1.7.10 block IDs are converted into post-1.9 IDs - but it's possible, and the severe impact makes it worth mentioning despite it currently being unfounded speculation. Ultimately, I wouldn't know until after I'd done the bulk of the work and got the mod to the 'starts without crashing' state.

So that's that.

What do you think?

Now, back to the start: I would like to hear from veterans of the community on this. From up here upon Taniquetil, it doesn't seem to me (or the mod team) as if the community is at risk of dying out - but it may seem otherwise to people who have actually experienced being part of the community over the past couple of years.

So now I ask you to answer in as much depth as you can: Do you think the community is 'dying'? Or do you think it's stable? If you do, what makes you think so? How fast do you think it's changing - and do you think something must be done about it?

Not for the mod itself, but for the future of the community - do I need to strongly consider updating to a newer version?