MCClient?

[gushromp]

Has there ever been discussion/thoughs/ideas on reimplementing the MC client in C/C++?
The main reason (aside from probable performance improvements) to reimplement the client is modding capabilities.

A thought I've had with this is taking the resources directly from an existing MC installation, would that avoid breaking the EULA?

[xoft]

I have no idea if that would break the EULA, it will most likely be a copyright infringement (unless we limited it to be only a multiplayer client, and even then it's a shady area) and it's so much work that it's highly unlikely to be attempted. There are a few projects that tried to clone minecraft, most of them are not doing too well. One notable exception is MineTest, for some reason it seems to survive Using MineTest as the basis for a client is a much more viable way than creating something from scratch.

Ref.: http://minetest.net/

[xoft]

I seem to remember someone trying to get MCS talking to MineTest, but they probably didn't succeed because I haven't heard from them since. I think the main reason for failure would be that MineTest doesn't have its set of blocks compatible with vanilla MineCraft, or rather, it's way too much customizable; MCS is too strictly bound to vanilla.

[bearbin]

IANAL, but I think it would be legally possible, as long as you didn't call it Minecraft, or use any of the default textures or sounds.

[gushromp]

There are a few projects that tried to clone minecraft, most of them are not doing too well. One notable exception is MineTest, for some reason it seems to survive Using MineTest as the basis for a client is a much more viable way than creating something from scratch.

I agree, but what I had in mind was making the client compatible with Anvil and vanilla networking protocol. I guess it could be possible through forking and heavily modifying Minetest.

IANAL, but I think it would be legally possible, as long as you didn't call it Minecraft, or use any of the default textures or sounds.

I've seen at least a dozen projects which completely cloned an original game and use the game's own data file(s) for pulling resources. Projects like EDuke32, old OpenTTD.

OpenRCT2 even used an ASM-to-C decompiler to reverse engineer Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 (which was fully written in assembly o_O) into a portable C/SDL type codebase.

So either those types of clones are legal, or the developers of the original games simply didn't care about the clones.

Either way if it were still Mojang, I'd surely be giving it a go, but I highly doubt that Microsoft would be very supportive of such a project

[worktycho]

OpenTTD at least never distributed the game datafiles, but provided a script to copy the files from the game cd, preventing copyright issues. This is one of the main reasons they have moved almost entirely over to set of datafiles they created themselves, which are not based on the originals.

[bearbin]

Yeah, you can make your game compatible with the datafiles, but you can't actually distribute them yourself, just allow people to extract them from legitimate copies of the game.

[xoft]

I'm not sure if even using the *idea* of a game is strictly legal.

[worktycho]

That is an extreamly complicated legal grey area. There aren't any laws which specifically answer the question, and there isn't much case law either. Its one of those things where it will almost certanly depend on who is arguing the case and who makes the decision.