Minecraft on a different engine with mod support

[PrimalReign]

I know there has been alot of discussion about this over the years and two major cons -if not the only ones- are the time it would take to port Minecraft to an engine like UE or Unity and the loss of all of the mods that have so far been created for Java MC. The incompatibility for all the mods is always a given in those discussions and I was thinking that if you hypothetically created the whole game with all of its features in a different engine would there really be no way at all to code the game in a way so it is able to interpret the mods originally created for Java MC? What even would the barrier be if you neglected the massive amount of time and effort it would take?

[Jurrunio]

Modders will probably appreciate a game that uses more cores and is more efficient in the first place. What they need is an official mod API that makes porting mods already made easier.

[PrimalReign]

10 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

Modders will probably appreciate a game that uses more cores and is more efficient in the first place. What they need is an official mod API that makes porting mods already made easier.

And such a mod API is possible to create now also taking into consideration in a relatively doable amount of time and effort? 

[Sauron]

11 hours ago, PrimalReign said:

in a relatively doable amount of time and effort?

For how many people with what level of expertise? If you get a dozen professional developers on it full time you can probably get the port and the API done in a few weeks.

[Guest]

If you spent enough time, you can do anything you want. 

 

Minecraft isn't made with an engine. It’s written directly in Java. 

All problems are limitations of the developers, the language itself, or the computer it runs on. 

[straight_stewie]

With Microsoft now owning Minecraft, is this even a viable option anymore?

[Eigenvektor]

On 3/23/2020 at 1:47 AM, PrimalReign said:

The incompatibility for all the mods is always a given in those discussions and I was thinking that if you hypothetically created the whole game with all of its features in a different engine would there really be no way at all to code the game in a way so it is able to interpret the mods originally created for Java MC?

That would depend on how mods interact with the original. If that's done strictly through a language independent API, it should be possible to create a compatible API. If mods replace files or interact with the code more directly, then you'll have a hard time, because the mods can't do that with another engine that isn't binary compatible.

 

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What even would the barrier be if you neglected the massive amount of time and effort it would take?

Microsoft owns the Minecraft brand now. Which means they would probably smite you with a law or two if you create a straight up clone of their property.