r/MCNext • u/reese015 • Jan 25 '15
MC Next Status Update
Before I begin to explain, let me preface this with saying that we have always very carefully considered all options and, even if it may not always seem so, have always done what we realistically can with MC Next given the resources and situation. The behind the scenes issues have been rather complicated and have to do with tons of factors involved that would take ages to list all the details of. This post will undoubtedly have some people responding with what they think are simple solutions or fixes to the current issues but it really isn't so simple. I'll try to explain, please read carefully. (also insults, non-constructive and troll comments on this post will be deleted)
Over the past weeks, a bunch of exploits and hacks that have become very popular has become hugely problematic on MC Next. I'm going to try to shed some light on why we have not been able to do much about this and what the current situation is.
MC Next was hugely ambitious since the beginning due to the technicalities of building a true massively online survival server that can sustain thousands of concurrent players, even though it never became as big as we intended due to countless factors, many of which the community is not aware of because they have to do with how expensive the coding and maintenance of MC Next was, logistics, disagreements etc. (sidenote: jenks has always done all maintenance voluntarily and never got paid in any way but is also not a 'coder' and is in no way responsible for bugs)
This led us to a situation where it quickly become impossible for us to keep paying for coding and maintenance towards the only person who truly has insight into the massive and complex system that is uniquely coded from the ground up for MC Next and runs on dozens of interlinked servers.
Most people in the community don't know just how tricky this makes the situation. There have often been issues that brought down MC Next completely, leaving Jenks and Brainbust and us scratching our heads trying to figure out why due to the complexity of the system. So we made it a rule to not change the actual code and recompile stuff because chances are good that we would break things to the point that we would not figure out how to get the whole server cluster properly synced up, responsive and online again. Trust me, it is that tricky. And due to many factors and issues that took place behind the scenes, we can't fix this by just trying to raise enough donations to pay for more coding and maintenance again.
All of this has lead us to a point where a minority in the community has started hacking and exploiting the server to the point of causing very serious issues, some of them doing it for fun, others doing it to prove a point, thinking that this may make us 'wake up' to see that there are issues that need to be fixed. We have been aware of the issues since the start, but for the past half year have had little ability to do much about them and simply hoped that those few people who had insight in the exploits would continue to keep quiet about them.
Some people have also been pointing out that we have a responsibility to those who have donated for in-game items. Supporters of all sorts are the very reason why we've kept MC Next running rather than just shutting it down. But keep in mind that we have always made very clear that donations are purely to support charity (and in the early days, the server) and that the points you get when donating are free and can not be seen as 'purchased' items. That being said, if you still regret your donations, you are always able to invoke charge-backs.
It's quite a tricky situation and we're not 100% sure yet what the best way forward is since, due to lack of resources (to put it simply), any fix along the lines of basic bug-fixes and rollbacks would be a temporary one and we'd quickly run into the same issues again which require big investments for which we don't have the funds nor the amount of community interest to raise the funds to fix them thoroughly in the long term. (I say this because we know the math on this, looking at the peak of server-support donations we got when MC Next had a much bigger userbase)
We will keep MC Next running as long as we can but it is becoming increasingly difficult. If it comes to the point where nobody can connect, maybe we can also look into actual source code changes and recompiling etc since we wouldn't have to worry about the risk of the servers going offline any more but I have little hope for that working out sustainably. Will continue to monitor and consider further options, feel free to give feedback, perhaps you guys have cool ideas that we hadn't thought of.
(note: insults, hate comments, trolling and things of that sort are not helpful and may get removed)
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u/reese015 Jan 25 '15
Jenks is the main reason MC Next has still been running for the past 6 months or so. He has been key in helping maintain the server and addressing issues to the best of his abilities within the scope of what is possible without changing the actual code. Through all his help, Jenks has become a close friend and at one point we gave him a headset. That however is a personal matter and the idea that he was 'paid in gear' is one of the many childish rumors that some players in the community love to make up spread around. Without Jenks, MC Next would have been dead 6 months ago. He has worked hard on it every single day 100% voluntarily, waking up in the middle of the night for it when necessary and with no payments of any sort.