There is something about writing personal articles in a 60FPS rust-based IDE that makes you want to write. Regardless, I am back home and i have decided to write the second entry in my blog.
This will mainly be about my experiences with the modding community in general, their effects on my work, and what other modders can learn from me.
So, around 2022, When i was still relatively young, I had gotten my hands on my first actual computer. It was a 2016 MacBook pro my dad had once used, and it was my first introduction to serious computing. Sure, I had used my uncle's laptop numerous times before, but this was the first time i'd have something of my own.
I won't say it was very good. In fact, that hot, overheating piece of metal could probably barely run Roblox or TLauncher, and it didn't last very long. However, soon after that, My dad had acquired a Mac Studio for his personal work. Hungry for more computer use, I had decided to use his computer while he was away. And so, i began (seriously) playing modded MC and using computers.
I began with generic modpacks like Better Minecraft and AllTheMods, which were a cool introduction to what modded minecraft had in store. I vividly remember playing with Refined Storage, slowly learning AE2, learning how Mystical Agriculture worked, and then slowly but surely becoming a tech mod player.
After that, in around 2023, i joined a create SMP server called Yggdrasil (or so i remember) where i had a decent bit of fun with Create.
Being raised on SSundee and watching all his modding videos made me want to try a modpack called InsaneCraft, which was the same one SSundee had played all those years ago. And holy shit, it was cool. I remember spending hours trying to figure out how to get one of those broken ass injections.. Good times, really.
The server itself was somewhat of a flop, but the next season used HBM's Nuclear Tech Mod, the Alcater edition no less. which funnily enough i suggested. It was my first introduction to NTM, and i have to say, back then it was not nearly as good as it is today. However, it was something, and i gained a taste for larger mods over small mods on modern versions.
Hence, i became a 1.12.2 modder.
The Yggdrasil server was very fun. I remember setting up the old NTM missiles, seeing my base being griefed, learning how Advanced Rocketry worked, and more.. One of the best ways to play mods is completely blind after all, and with your friends.
On that server, i met a guy named Frosteco, or Jewishisfat (I assume he himself was jewish?) who was quite nice and decided to join my team on the server.
Now, when the Yggdrasil server ended, I'd become one of its server admins; However, the owner and hoster of the server (whose name shall remain anonymous), was unable to pay for the server costs for a while. In that downtime, i discovered GregTech; that too through GT Beyond, a modpack that isn't even that popular nowadays, but the first result on the CF search bar.
I was fascinated by the extreme scale of gregtech, even more so than NTM or any other mod I'd played before. And by that point, I'd played through most of them, as i'd completed multiple runs of Enigmatica 2 on my own. (Great modpack by the way, taught me how nearly every single 1.12.2 mod works)
So me and Frosteco began work on Yggdrasil Templar, a GT x NTM x RPG modpack. I'm not going to lie, it was horrible. You had to do so many bullshit E2E style recipes, by killing AoA bosses and then crafting circuit boards using their statues. The design and recipes were really poor, the gating was loose, the quests were horrible; But it was a start. For around 4-5 months we worked on it tirelessly, me contributing mostly quests and frost doing literally everything else (like recipes and configs)
This culminated in the Yggdrasil Templar server, which finally was revived because the original server host was able to pay again. However, this led to immense conflict between me and the original owner. How? Well..
Frosteco had left mid-development, which forced me to work on maintaining the pack alone. This was an immense burden for me at the time, as I knew next to nothing about recipes or crafttweaker (or anything, really) which led me to cry out for help on r/feedthebeast. Luckily, i found a guy, who was presumably in college at the time. However, he ended up being a massive fucking prick. How? Well, without contributing much (if at all) he convinced the server owner to kick me out of the team, like a literal coup. He banned me from the server afterwards, and i was egged on for a looong time because of the guy. They copied the modpack and posted it on CF, which i quickly struck down (and succeeded in) because they even stole my logo. It was wild.
Regardless, I was now completely alone, and had to start from scratch. Then the idea of GT Quantum dawned on me. Using the knowledge I'd gained over time, i slowly began to learn scripting and questing and all the juice needed for modpacks to work. It took a hell of a long time, like 3 years, but in that time i learned a lot. I learned Java for my first mod, i learned HTML for websites (like this one here!) and i learned game design, optimization, and more. GT Quantum had custom multiblocks and some seriously cool progression in earlygame, which took me a long, LONG time to make. However just breaking the barrier into a mod created a flood of possibilities.
Hence, i started my journey as a modder, and slowly founded QuantumStudios. It was a large studio for mod development that i had planned, but it fell apart due to me being burned out and having exams, plus staying up late, and my health deteriorating.
My coding skill also decreased sharply during this time due to AI assistance, which i relied on too much at that time; I had an existential crisis, whether people would target me for this or not? Are the mods really all that good? I already saw so many people enraged at other AI users, so i was in a dilemma. I myself didn't like it too much.
So, i took a month off. In this time, i worked on my first actual game, Ergographia, which taught me a lot about game design and CS in general. I began to learn properly again, and AI became less and less important for me. The one month was truly a blessing, if i am being honest; it let me leave all my old commitments and get back to what i want to do.
I've spent too much time pandering on modern version discords for attention and validation for my packs and mods; I hate having to do that, having to put a billboard up and wait for people to smile at my work. So, I would make them look!
Hence, i left my principles of being on 1.12.2 and programming "popular mods" and went to my roots, or NTM. NTM is the one mod i still find fun even after so many years, where Mekanism and Thermal and Create have dried up. NTM has great game design, and i enjoy earlygame to lategame even to this day.
For games, I am on a bit of a hiatus. I have a cool idea planned, but with both my responsibilities toward my new NTM fork, and my academic responsibilities, i shall not be working on it too much. But you never know.
I hope you enjoyed reading the story of my "career" as a modder, i doubt it is fully complete or lists all the intracies buried in my memory. However, i think it's a decently interesting read.
One piece of advice i'd like to give to modpack makers and modders is to not care about validation when developing your pack. Develop first, get validated later. This also forces you to get into the deep end of modding, and fast. For modern packdevs, using KubeJS-like tools is fine until the day you need to do something deeper, and that is where i suggest you go into modding directly. It will take around a week to get used to it but the payoff is truly immense, you gain so much ability and expression and unlock so many possibilities compared to fiddling with GrS or KJS or CT. Go for it.