Why doesn't your server use Minecart Mania? A civil question and answer.

While I often live and breathe in the MM thread, I feel that at times it becomes an echo chamber. I don't really get to hear outside complaints from people who don't use my plugin. And since it's the non-users who I hope to convert (heh), I really would appreciate honest feedback.

Have no fear that I will take any comments offensively. Even if it's your personal opinion that my plugins are complete trash, I want to hear it. I can't possibly improve unless I hear the real issues.

If you answer the poll, I'd appreciate a short sentence or 2 about WHY you answered the way you did. Specific answers help me fix things much faster/better than generic complaints. Also, if the reason is "Other", let me know what.

PS. If you're fan of MM already, I'd appreciate it if you did NOT post here, I don't want a flame war, even if you feel the poster is dead wrong. I will have a poll specifically for fans/users up soon.

 

I just like the way regular carts are. I've been recommended it, but it just doesn't have a use in my server. Maybe one day I'll try it out. Would it make things like rail stations work better? I still remember the days in SP modding when AutoCart wouldn't update and you took the rains.

 

You were around during October and November? A true Alpha player. I salute you. I barely knew what I was doing then, heh.

If you are having issues with intersections, or storing/creating minecarts, it definitely will - but all the minecart plugins will do that much.

 

I put that I prefer the original system, but thats only 50% true. I simply am avoiding adding too much custom content until the game is finished and Notch stops adding new features.

 

Way too much lag. It's a bigger CPU hog than....Just about anything.

 

That's a fair assessment. I avoid a lot of mods for that very reason. Still finding things broken from Craftbook being gone.

Yeah - that was totally a problem until about 5 days ago. I finally buckled down and found the issue. If you have free time, I'd love to have you test the latest version. If it's still too slow though - it just means I've got more work to do. There's no excuse. :/

 

It is regularly causing bugs and crashes for us. Lately, we've had the problem of people falling through the world when they use a minecart. I don't know if this has been fixed in #860.

 

oooh apologies. didnt saw that. deleted my post

 

Here come my 2 pennies, for what it's worth.

I've got MineCart Mania installed on my server, neither I nor my users use it. To be honest, I was actually thinking about uninstalling the plug-in this afternoon. Now, I see this thread and I figured the uninstall can wait a little longer. It's not that by posting here, I'm hoping to get persuaded to suddenly start using MM, what I do hope is to give you the motivations from me which moved me to a point in which I thought MM would become obselete and thus deserved to be uninstalled.

1. Installing of the plug-in went smooth, the documentation is fantastic (my compliments) and as far as I can see, there are no real improvements to be made here. Everything shows itself and is well documented.

2. The configuration, I'm not going to hold anything back, nothing personal Afforess, but the configuration to me, is an absolute fail/disaster/catastrophe whatever you want to call it. I'm running all the major plugins for a server of 10+ persons. Installed about 100 plug-ins just to see if they add something to the game in a real production (public) server. Out of these 100 plug-ins there is one plug-in which is like alien code to me and that is MM. Configured 99 plug-ins, created MySQL tables, ran custom cmd scripts, tweaked my Java installations. I'm even experienced with running 5x 100+ euro dedicated Linux cluster servers. I'd consider myself as a friendly server-admin geek. With regards to MM, no luck. The xml configuration is something which I never truelly seem to be able to master. I even installed the GUI, my eyes were soar for the first 30 seconds and after that I gave up. It wouldn't load the config files, at least, a portion of them. Then I start to start digging in the .xml files with Dreamweaver to find and configure the plug-in to my liking. What I found was this: the structure of xml just obscures the config instead of letting you tweak it. What I'm trying to say is that e.g. I want to change the property of a red brick because it's used by another plug-in. So I start searching, the format of XML with all the <entry> </key> <testkey> arguments just obscures my vision. Give me a YAML file and the thing you need changed and I spot it within a sec. With XML and the way MM uses it as a config, I'm busy for 10+ minutes and then I think, screw it. I can do without MM anyway, I got boosters anyway ^.^

3. The ingame-usage is very clear, I think the well-documented wiki and the clear video instructions definitely help a lot! Again my compliments because these are features or rather, support things I have not seen with other plug-ins before!

This is primarily to give you an insight in my mind, as a server admin and the motivation why I ''dislike'' MM. Configuring MM just gives me an headache just by thinking about it. Humans always weigh up the good and negative sides before making an action. So naturally I also think about the positive things about MM. Please do not feel personally attacked but I just can't find the use of MM. There is no clear description of something which is sooooooo unique that it creates an Apple effect: need to have it! need to have it!!! I mean, automated-farms -> lame. Creating normal farms is fun to do, letting a plug-in do all the work is counter-Minecraft-logics. The ''train stations'' I do find very useful however I have seen people complaining about lagg and FPS drops when building complicated constructions (when you interconnect a whole world). From a server admin point of view, I'd rather have a stabile server then to risk a fancy train system which possibly brings lags and a huge increase in RAM/CPU usage. To sum it up, the negative sides way more then the positive sides. I think part of the problem lies with me, not knowing the full potential of MM, that having said, I also haven't seen a lot of intricate examples or worlds in which I get this ''wow'' factor followed by the ''I haz to build this tooo!''. Also when I open up your thread, it says this as the opening statement.

I almost get the feeling as if I'm reading a Wikipedia article, my mind says: ''cool, we get advanced intersection control, sophisticated inventory management, admin controls and minecart dispensing. SO WHAT?'' My mind does not boggle with excitement, it does the opposite. I'm like, this Afforess really knows his stuff! Since my dream is to code Java/PHP/CSS and C#. I have deep-deep respect for you, I'm currently studying at the university so it's not that I can't realise this dream, I just have difficulty starting it up, like beginning to code without knowledge. Errrr... I'm drifting away, let's continue my 2-cent speech Ohh yes, your opening statement, the very factual information creates a certain feeling of maturity. The plugin feeling very mature and well-developed, but it does not create a warm feeling. It does not invite us in to use it, it does not show us what makes this plug-in truelly unique and why we should install it (or in my case, to keep it).

My apologies for any grammatical errors and/or sentences which do not run fluently. I'm not a native speaker, still I've managed to get an English education so I hope I sound near-native Also, it's getting late here in Europe and I don't have the energy to re-read this long post. This post is a spin-off of my thoughts and so I hope you find it useful. I hope others can find something in here, similar like me. (Not that I'm the only one thinking like this trolololol )

Again Afforess, my deep respect for you by creating this plug-in and taking all the effort to continuously improve it. I haven't seen a lot of people like you, who actually care about the products they deliver and constantly try to improve it. Even without a commercial interest! That deserves a húge compliment from the whole Bukkit community! To summarise in 2 words: You rock!

I hope you find this 2-cent-speech useful, any comments or feedback is always welcome. I can't code (although I hope to learn it asap), but I do try to help the plugin developers as much as possible.

Thanks again Afforess for all your work,

RaCooN

 

Yes - I need to stop testing ideas in release builds. I *think* that behavior's been fixed, but it emphasizes the need for a real testing/release schedule. Thanks for pointing it out. Definitely valid.

Okay, that's good news at least.

Definitely true. I hesitate to say YAML is "better", (I think you'd still have problems with the config, they'd just be different problems that your current ones. Perhaps I'm wrong though.)

So here's the million dollar question: Using the default config as an example - what do you want the config to look like?

I'm not taking anything here personally - I said that in the beginning of the OP. Anyway - Yes, CPU especially seems to have been a problem in the past - a problem I was unwilling to tackle until recently. I believe you'll find the latest copy has none of the previous lag issues.

With respect to RAM, MM will take up between 50-150MB of RAM. Depending on your server, that's a lot or a little. Using non of the addons can lower that to 15MB.

And with regards to the Wow-Factor, thanks for bringing that up. It's not something I think about much, but I realize it's a major part of the decision making process for choosing plugins.

Yes - I definitely try to use it's mature and long lifespan as a selling point - e.g, you know support will never suddenly end. I have trouble making videos with my older laptop, because I have to run FRAPS, MC, and the server all on the same machine, so I'm forced to rely on others. I'll see if I can find some impressive designs with minecart mania and put them in the top post.

I didn't notice any issues with your English. Better than a lot of American friends I know. And Thanks!

 

I just have no use for it ^^ I've had a look at it and it looks like fun, but it's a lot to install for something that I won't really use, so that's pretty much why.

 

Well, it will work with no configuration out of the box - it's when you want to play around with control blocks, you've got to be familiar with XML. What would make it easier to use? I could provide multiple formats of support for config (e.g both YAML and XML).

 

Again: I have little use for it and now that booster tracks are added, I see no reason to use MM. I also agree the configuration is horrible and unconventional.

 

The default Minetrack boosters suck, and I have to wire all of them. I like being lazy and that's why I use your plugin.

 

Okay.

I'm really not looking for responses for people already using it.

 

This really would not fit in with a Griefing allowed PvP server

 

Definitely not. I agree, not all plugins are suited for all servers, and trying to find a square into a round hole is silly.

That's not what I am aiming for. I want to improve in areas I can fix. I know that 100% adoption is impossible.

 

The only reason I have you mod installed is because it's a dependency for one of my other mods (not sure which, Multiplay auto adds dependency

2 Reasons I don't "Use" it are

1. As stated before, The xml config looks like something out of coding hell.
2. I personally have no use for it.

If you were to make the config simpler instead of the xml clusterf***, I might be more inclined to find a purpose for it.

Just my $0.02
Great mod nonetheless though. Keep up the good work.

 

We don't use it on our server because:

1. We like to play with the newest Minecraft update and since our server is split up in different sectors (FreeBuild, Underwater world, ...) we really need a rail network which works even without bukkit.

2. Minecart Mania is too powerful! It's like cheating.

 

I haven't installed it simply because, as stated before, I haven't really been able to justify a "use" for it. It's very well built and documented, but minecart tracks aren't very popular on the server I run...

 

I have it installed on my server, but not many people use it (mainly because they are 11 year old kids and don't know how to look up a wiki on how to do it). My biggest issue with it from a server-owner point of view is that the XML config system is terrible. When you moved over to it, it took me a good 20 minutes to even comprehend it. It is WAY too confusing. XML as a config system just does not work for me. To be quite honest, YAML is much easier for people to read and understand. It may not be the best, but in the case of Bukkit and Minecraft, it is what everyone is used to using and is definitely better than XML as a config system.

 

I have to agree with everyone, the XML is terrible, just because of all the <>. While it's still easy to configure for someone that knows how to read those, it would still be easier to use yaml

I had it installed on my old server but currently our map is made out of small domes that you can only reach through portals and they are so small that you would not need a minecart system

 

I clicked other, because I had no clue what Minecart Mania was. I am not huge into plugins, I just started my first server and am being overwhelmed trying to get this thing up with plugins and stuff, so the chances of me adding too many more addons than what was already requested is pretty minimal.

 

I haven't used the newest versions so take my opinion with a grain of salt. I won't mince words, each time I've tried to use Minecart Mania, I've had performance issues on my server. Maybe my server just isn't good enough for it, or maybe its just too demanding.

I love the mod, but the performance issues are the reason why I don't use it.

I'll test out a new version sometime to see how it runs.

 

I'm sensing a common theme here - the configuration. That's actually good news. 1 larger issue is easier to tackle than 10 different small ones. I'll make sure that my next release includes dual configuration, YAML and XML, whichever the server host prefers to use.

Yes - this has been a problem for a while. I only recently (less than a week ago) fixed it.

 

At the moment we are fine with the vanilla minecart system. How ever, we tested MM before, and it was funny and well documented (i wish all plugins was like that).

 

Reason I don't use MM is because when I installed it, it broke the normal booster tracks. I did try replacing the tracks, replacing torches, reinstalling, googling... I am kinda busy so I had no time so find out what is the problem. Maybe it was some old build with problems back then?

 

I have MM installed, but haven't really used it since... 1.2? (Been updated to the current version of MM of course)
I allow my users to create their own Stargates, and they don't really want to take the time to use a rail system when they could just port there in an instance.
And XML config is a bitch. My server admin keeps updating MM cause he thinks he'll find a use, but.. I don't even have it configured yet. It's all default.

 

Not a bug, a feature. I think Notch had boosters backwards, so I swapped them around. Redstone = brake, no redstone = boost. It all can be changed via the config.