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Minecraft Study Group

Oct 30, 202111 min read

Minecraft Becomes a Web of Voxels PDF.

  • 2021-09-08 Slides by Kenmotsu Nakajima in “Technologies Supporting Online Games
  • Nishio agrees with this interpretation, adding that
    • Minecraft in the first place.
      • In a 3D virtual space
      • We can collaborate.
      • platform
    • Cannot be ignored when considering the virtualization of physical offices
    • Good features: low cost for users to improve the place
      • Just as kintone has enabled “any employee can create and improve business applications
      • Virtual offices on Minecraft can be created and improved by any employee.

Minecraft’s ecosystem as of 2021

  • I’ll explain this first.

  • vanilla

    • An official original release (common noun).

  • MOD (MOD server/MOD client)

    • Some were created early on and are still under development (e.g., Forge).
    • Modified server and client
      • nishio.iconHow can you do that without documentation or source code?
    • Mojang hired mod authors and developed an API to facilitate mod creation
    • Need to match mod versions on client and server

  • Two important elements arose after this

    • SpigotMC
      • 2012
        • A community of mod authors & users advocating free/open source
        • More than 300,000 members
      • Knowledge sharing is now taking place.
    • Now available in vanilla client
      • image

  • Why is it now available to vanilla clients?

    • Resource Pack” feature added to vanilla
      • Additional model and texture changes can be made to create a new look and feel without modifying the client-side program
    • Accumulation of know-how to create additional function GUI with vanilla clients (see below)

  • Available in vanilla clients, i.e.

    • Without using different software (MOD clients) for each server,
    • Serviced by a single software (vanilla client)

  • This is the Web’s

    • Without using different software for each server,
    • Services are available through a single software (Internet browser)

  • So the same situation was created as

  • Comparing to Web technology

    • Common Gateway Interface (CGI) is invented,
    • Run the program on the server side.
    • Dynamic behavior changes are now possible instead of static content delivery
    • This is what happened in Minecraft with the development of the plugin API
    • (To put a finer point on it, it runs in the same process as the server, rather than launching a separate process, so the situation is about the same as after mod_perl was born.)
    • Server-side implementation can be replaced as long as the API is followed.

  • So “Minecraft becomes a web of voxels.”

    • Technically, it’s already in that state.
    • Whether or not Minecraft becomes the de facto standard is the same as the browser market share battle.
      • Different layers of technology
    • What company owns Minecraft now?
      • September 17, 2014 ASCII.jp: Minecraft acquisition is Microsoft’s ‘defensive move’

      • It also seems that Microsoft wanted the ecosystem that Minecraft would create.

      • Minecraft is not just a game, but can also be considered a cloud-based digital entertainment platform. The future potential of Minecraft may have been highly evaluated because of its aspects that go beyond the realm of a simple game, such as being not only a game itself, but also killer content for live-action videos and modification content through mods (modification data, an abbreviation for modification).

Minecraft Extensibility

  • Create additional functionality GUI with vanilla client

    • image
      • This is an in-game guide to a big-name industrialization plugin called Slimefun
      • It is actually a hack using the UI of a chest (a tool to store items)
        • The real chest is like this
          • image
      • Guide detail screen
        • image
        • The UI of the chest and the hover text of the items explain what materials a nuclear power plant can be made from and what fuel it requires
    • Another example
      • image
      • This is EconomyShopGUI, a plugin that introduces buying and selling of currency and items, which is also a chest
    • Plugin hooks into what is displayed in each slot and which slot is clicked
    • This is reminiscent of the “table layout” that used to be done on the web.
      • Hack to use the table tag for tabular layouts by removing all the rules and making it not look like a table, since HTML did not have the functionality to allow flexible layouts at that time.

  • Plug-in development

    • Spigot carefully explains how to make one from scratch.
    • Nishio never built from scratch, but modifying existing plug-ins was easy.
      • Clone source code from Github
      • Install Maven
      • Fix source code
      • build
      • Put it in the server plugin folder and restart the server
    • Slimefun’s Programmable Android has been
      • image
      • It was just a matter of repeating and executing a specified sequence of instructions.
        • image
      • Enabled Python to run w
        • image

  • protocol

    • Already analyzed.

    • The chest hack I mentioned earlier would

    • RCON

      • Protocol for executing administrative commands
      • Can throw packets from another process to execute in-game commands
      • https://wiki.vg/RCON
      • Some commands are provided by vanilla, others are added by plug-ins
        • Examples of vanilla commands:.
          • Places a specific block on a rectangle at specified coordinates
          • /fill <x> <y> <z> <x> <y> <z> <block>
          • https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Commands/fill
          • In the Java version, the destroy option performs itemization equivalent to mining with a pickaxe.
      • There is already a small program that throws RCON packets, so it is easy to control the server by throwing packets with cron.

  • Bot Development

function find_grown_nether_wart() {
  return bot.findBlock({
    point: bot.entity.position,
    maxDistance: SEARCH_RADIUS,
    matching: (block) => {
      return (
        block &&
        block.type === mcData.blocksByName.nether_wart.id &&
        block.metadata === 3
      );
    },
  });
}

js

const toHarvest = find_grown_nether_wart();
if (toHarvest) {
  const { x, y, z } = toHarvest.position;
  const goal = new GoalNearXZ(x, z, 1);
  if (!goal.isEnd(bot.entity.position)) {
    log(`move to harvest: ${[x, y, z]}`);
    await bot.pathfinder.goto(goal);
  }
  log("harvest");
  await bot.dig(toHarvest);
  log("done");
}

  • Building Export

    • Server file format is also known so it can be read or generated programmatically
    • Even vanilla actually implements reading and writing to files.
      • Using “Structural Blocks”
      • image

  • What Nishio hasn’t tried yet

    • It should be possible to copy a part of a world and paste it into another world
    • It seems that the Java version and the Bedrock version (the version that runs on Switch, etc.) can be connected to the same server.
      • https://github.com/GeyserMC/Geyser
      • However, the Switch version does not have the ability to connect by specifying an IP address.

      • On Minecraft Bedrock Edition, players on Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PS4 are limited to playing on ‘Featured Servers’ approved by Mojang/Microsoft. https://github.com/Pugmatt/BedrockConnect

      • BedrockConnect Solution
        • Server administrator sets up a DNS server
        • People who play on Switch will have to tweak their network settings to use that DNS server.
        • nishio.iconThat’s
 not a way I’d recommend to anyone for a minute

      • Added: Connect to Minecraft Java server from Switch.
        • I was able to connect, but it was slow.

Virtualization of physical offices

  • A lot of people have moved to remote areas assuming they don’t come to work in the after-corona.
    • Physical offices became less usable as a place for employee collaboration.
  • Many people think about creating a virtual place.
    • Related services are myriad, but a few examples will be discussed
    • Oculus Room
      • Well-built model
      • Voice presentation utilizing device features
      • But customization is only a small option provided by the app
    • VRChat
      • Both worlds and avatars are overwhelmingly customizable.
      • But if you try to create a world?
        • First, install Unity.”
        • Many people drop out here.
      • Creating your own avatar is even more difficult than modeling, such as making sure the joints do not break down during animation.
        • Most people choose from what is available.
        • No sense of “being myself.”
    • Minecraft
      • The world is composed of a combination of larger boxes.
        • Human-sized buildings are relatively easy to build by stacking blocks.
        • Anyone can make small tweaks, such as decorating with flowers.
      • Avatar is also a combination of square boxes
        • Paint is also coarse pixelated.
        • Easy to make by coloring in the browser.
        • Example: https://minecraft.novaskin.me/#
          • image
          • It looks like a complex shape that doesn’t look like just a square box painted with color.
            • In fact, there’s one more layer to each body part, and it’s used well for clothing and hair.
        • I made one too.
          • I don’t have a particular idea of what I want to do, so I tried on clothes that I would normally wear. w
          • image
          • This is basically without layers, only the pupils of the eyes are layered and placed in a non-pixel-like position.
  • Not being able to customize it doesn’t give it a “feel of our own”.
  • Outsourcing customization is expensive, and even if the financial cost is solved, it is a burden to translate requests into language.
  • This is the same approach as the popular “employees create their own business systems using kintone” approach.
    • Business systems that cannot be customized cannot be fixed even if dissatisfied.
    • If you don’t like it and outsource the system, it’s expensive, and modifications are also expensive, so in the end you can’t fix it even if you are dissatisfied with it.
  • Shortfalls in the current Minecraft
    • No voice chat
      • We need voice chat with only those who have entered a certain distance or only those in the same room.
      • Technically, it should be possible to control the Discord audio channel from a plugin

    • Let’s have a party where all employees can get together on the micra!
      • This is a technical challenge, although it is easy to anticipate that the idea of
      • Limited to 20 simultaneous connections by default
      • It is easy to loosen the limit with options, but not easy to test how many people the server can withstand

Support for IT club activities

  • If you already have a clear idea of what you want to do, then support it.

  • People who do not have a clear idea of what they want to do.

    • While games are an incentive, we don’t want them to just end up playing games.

  • That’s where Micra comes in.

    • It is better to build an automated device than to have a human being repeat a simple task.

      • In fact, in an unexplored junior server full of players who can think programmatically

      • image
      • image

    • It’s better for a human to learn commands than to repeat simple tasks.

    • Add plug-ins to add useful tools, commands, and new game features

      • To do that, you basically need to read the English documentation on Spigot and Github.

    • Plug-ins are open source

      • If you don’t understand something from the documentation, you need to read the source code.
      • Or put an issue on Github.
      • Or consult with us in English on our Discord channel.

    • If you’re not happy with the plugin’s functionality, you need to tweak the implementation.

    • and creates an incentive for a seamless modern programming experience from the game.

  • In China, they fight with tank robots that eject gel bullets.

    • image
    • Writing a program that compensates for manual control and creating an incentive to “learn programming to get stronger and win”.
      • Learn to win” is the catchphrase.
        • image
      • To win, there will be an incentive to learn image recognition, etc.
    • But this approach would be difficult to adopt in Japan because of the strong allergic reaction to anything that reminds them of weapons.
    • Peaceful incentives are needed.

  • cost

    • Server costs are a bottleneck for Minecraft multiplayer.
    • Roughly this kind of cost with Conoha VPS
      • image
      • I’m not sure this time, so I’m trying the middle one for now for 3 months.
        • 40,000 a year would be a heavy burden for elementary, middle, and high school students.
        • (I thought it would be convenient to have it installed as a template, but it was a vanilla server and I had to stop and re-install it on the first day of the program.)
    • If Cybozu were to provide this?
      • Looks good with lower SLAs than business system infrastructure.
    • How to avoid simply playing?
      • The same scheme as Cybozu’s club support for employees could be used.
      • In other words, instead of providing funding, they ask for a report in a shared forum.
      • I want you to experience being on the side of disseminating technical information.
      • On the other hand, many teacher-parents have negative feelings about posting on the public Internet.
      • For example, how about using kintone as a closed social networking service?

  • Online Collaboration

This page is auto-translated from /nishio/Minecraftć‹‰ćŒ·äŒš using DeepL. If you looks something interesting but the auto-translated English is not good enough to understand it, feel free to let me know at @nishio_en. I’m very happy to spread my thought to non-Japanese readers.

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