MCCL Revived

Podcrash announced the client’s closure because we’re removing our SSO, and doing so will break the client. The client’s development has been abandoned for years, so I felt it was not worth investing more time and energy into maintaining it.

However, I didn’t recognise or consider the damage it would do to the communities and the players. I do not believe in the future of Mineplex. But I do believe in the communities and the spirit that it represents. I hope that moving forward, the leagues will continue to adapt and evolve to not rely on Mineplex, and I’ve already lent my support to parties involved in doing that with the open-sourcing of Invicta’s code base (a server that Podcrash was making to recreate popular gamemodes using code owned and developed in whole by Podcrash Ltd and not using in any form code previously owned by Mineplex LLC). I hope that will continue to help the leagues grow and not rely on third-party companies to provide game modes that are loved and enjoyed and have been for over 10 years.

It’s no secret that the idea of a Minecraft client dedicated to supporting a couple of hundred players is not sustainable in the long term as a business. We’d need many more players to make any business out of it. So, I want to look forward to the future, not as a business but as a community project. I am proposing that the Podcrash Client be reformed as an MCCL Client. A partially open-source, fully community-driven development. It is backed not by a company that has to justify costs and expenditure and all that rubbish but by me. The infrastructure cost, which requires money, will come out of my pockets. When you, the community, think it’s sensible, we can look to open a Patreon or other community-led funding that can take over the costs, and any remainder can go to elements such as prize pools, community funding for volunteer developers etc. That will be a decision again led by the community. Not by me.

There’s the rising question of a Minecraft launcher. I think it’s important that the launcher continues to exist to allow some of the core elements, such as the anti-cheat and screenshotting, to work while reducing the risk of exploits. For this, I think we should completely refresh the launcher. The core elements I believe to be important are:

• Minecraft version support
• Mod selection – which can include bundles of required mods for the different leagues, aka a CVC bundle with anti-cheat, screenshotting, and any CVC mods.
• Account Profiles for Minecraft accounts
• Update logging for features.

As this is a community project, developers will be drawn from the community. Noid and I have agreed to spearhead the development of the launcher and core mods, described below, but the leagues should start looking for developers within their community to help build add-on mods that can integrate with the launcher and core mods. We’ll be working on creating a simpler pathway to integrate and access more information on how to do it.

We’ll be calling volunteer developers who are building “Community Mods” Community Developers are people with access to the public documentation and the ability to support their mods but won’t have access to core mods to avoid them being leaked and potentially open to exploits.

At its core, Trusted Developers are those who have been vetted by Noid and me and will have full source code access to the Launcher and core mods. We’ll also be in charge of reviewing code for community mods. We intend for trusted developers to be made up of experienced, and respected community developers. Trusted status will be given to people we believe are acting for the best of the community. 

Trusted developers will not have access to personal or sensitive data on players such as IP’s. This is to ensure that even if a bad actor was to join the Trusted program there would be limited damage.

The idea behind the launcher is to support official mods and community-made additions to the launcher. This way, you can rely on the core support and add anything you like without permission or approval.

When I describe core mods, these are the client’s closed-source elements—things we don’t necessarily want anyone and everyone to have access to. These will be the functionality that communities rely on; therefore, we don’t want just anyone to have access to them. At its essence, these are:

This is the client’s verification level, authenticating the Minecraft account and verifying that the player is indeed running the mods they say they are.

Screenshots are how staff players can force screenshots of other players. This protocol needs to be kept secure to prevent bad actors from using our client to gain insight into how the launcher server communicates with the client.

We’ve only scraped the surface of an effective anti-cheat, but I believe that improving the detection of cheaters should be a focus for our core devs moving forward.

These mods developed by community developers provide essential features for the specific gamemodes that communities play. We’ll make available an open-source code for game modes that are important to the players and developers. We’ll support the distribution of these mods and code management to avoid the distribution of harmful code. Trusted developers can also work on community mods to support games they’re loyal to.

We recognise that communities need to force certain mods or disallow certain mods. Bundles will be a launcher feature that allows CVC, MSCL, etc., to create bundles that automatically activate or disallow the activation of mods required or banned within their respective competitive tournaments. Bundles will be widely available, but official bundles will have verification methods so staff can make sure players are using the expected bundle.

• MCCL.gg—Podcrash Ltd. owns this domain, but it is being transferred to my holding. It costs approximately $80/yr.
• Authentication / Screenshot Hardware—To operate the core mods, the client needs to call back to a server. This prevents players from having a p2p connection, avoiding the leak of IPs. The hardware will be owned and operated by me, with only Noid and me having access to prevent even trusted developers from having the potential to access secure data. It costs approximately $360/yr.

To begin with, I believe it’s vital for MCCLgg to regain the trust and support of players for a project like this. Therefore, I propose that I cover the costs until we think this trust has been earned, and at that point, we can look to open a Patreon or other funding source. There should be a layer of transparency that will account for incoming and outgoings, and we’ll use the extra to support leagues in offering prize pools and offer core and community developers some financial compensation for their work.

It is not the intention of MCCLgg to create or run servers. We’re exclusively focused on supporting Minecraft competitive gameplay through the development of the launcher and core mods. However, Podcrash has spent thousands of dollars building gamemodes and plugins that are in various states of usability. As part of this community shift, I am also transferring all of the plugins, backend game management systems, and anything related to Minecraft server gamemodes that were previously developed for Invicta to MCCLgg, bringing them into community ownership. These have copy-left licenses allowing anyone to fork, grow and continue to build upon our work whilst also protecting the code to ensure that anyone from the community can use the current code or future forks.

We’re therefore applying the GNU General Public License v3.0 to all related work. This will continue to allow developers to work on their own server while keeping all iterations of the code open source, as this license also doesn’t allow forks to change the work’s license.

Yes. Kind of? This code can be used for commercial purposes, aka making a server that sells stuff while using it, and you will not owe any money to MCCL. However, it will not allow you to own the base code, which means restrictive and community-unfriendly programs such as the Mineplex Developer Program will not be allowed to use it.

All source code is now available on GitHub.

I firmly believe in the community’s ability to choose its direction. Anyone should be allowed to make a Squad Assault server because competition in server offerings is good for the community. The more servers, the more reason to continue developing and pushing for better features. As part of this open-source code, we’ll continue to monitor and maintain its use and ensure that any developer that forks continues to abide by the license. MCCLgg is prepared to take legal action against companies or individuals who believe they can ignore the open-source element of the GPL-3 License. 

We’re taking this aggressive stance to ensure that people who try to exploit the hard work of community developers with restrictive ownership requirements will face serious consequences. Equally, we want the community developers and projects that we support to know that they have the backing of a large organisation with deep financial backing should any bad actor try to steal or claim ownership to their work.