2023: The Good, The Bad... and The Fork (2024)

2023 was certainly an eventful year for the Forge community. 😅

Now that we’re entering 2024, it’s time we, the NeoForged team, do some retrospection on what’s happened in the past 6 months.

The Fork

Let’s begin with addressing the elephant in the room: who even are we?

NeoForge is a fork of the Minecraft Forge project. It was officially announced (ahead of schedule) on July 12, 2023, and nearly everyone from the original Forge team has joined NeoForged, with one obvious exception: LexManos.

There were many motivations and reasons which caused the fork; the most obvious ones were disagreements between the team (particularly the triage team) and the management. Some of the lesser reasons were the freedom to play around with and refactor much of the internal structure and surrounding infrastructure, from the modding API to the modloading system. These changes diverge drastically with Forge, which historically has held strict stances against changes to certain areas and against larger reworks in general, so starting with a “cleaner” slate was easier.

The Good

Our team has grown by 6 members, but we are still in search of more members such as maintainers of our repositories. (Interested? Apply by filling up our application form.)

Since the fork, we have worked on improving several areas of the codebase. For instance, we have rewritten our Gradle plugin and now provide support for Parchment by default.

And as a result, we have made various changes to the NeoForge API:

  • Our first refactors were suffered (in the good sense of the word) by EventBus (our fork of EventBus), improving its performance and internals, alongside some modder-facing benefits like preventing (accidentally) listening to abstract classes;
  • In 1.20.2, the first major overhaul landed: the registry system was significantly overhauled (#257), simplifying its internals and improving consistency with vanilla;
  • Since 1.20.2 we are shipping MixinExtras by default (#303) so that modders can write more compatible mixins;
  • Transitioning to 1.20.3, the Capabilities system has been reworked (#73) as our second major overhaul, splitting them into data attachments and API providers, and addressing some long-standing flaws of the old system (for example, the old system didn’t support Block capabilities. Yes, you can now use your favourite pipe mod to extract fluids from cauldrons);

1.20.4 was full of changes too:

  • A test framework (#291) was added, making the process of testing Neo features more straightforward, and integrating nicely with Mojang’s GameTest system, improving as such the long-term stability of the platform. This framework will be made available to mods in the future;
  • A way for mods to mark themselves as incompatible with other mods was also introduced (#397);
  • The chunk pre-generation command /neoforged generate (#364) was faced with various improvements, especially performance ones. (For those unaware, the command can be used by server owners to pre-generate chunks, so gameplay doesn’t cause worldgen between all players simultaneously.) We would like to thank Jasmine and Gegy for allowing us to use their mod as a basis for the new command;
  • We have set up a Crowdin project where you can submit translations for different languages (and request new languages to be translated to); and
  • Our third major overhaul: The Networking Refactor.

We have additionally made several performance improvements to ModLauncher and its sister projects, including work on reducing start-up times.

These changes are accompanied by some major infrastructure changes too:

  • We have also introduced a system for Publishing PRs to GitHub Packages that will make testing changes easier (for users and modders) before they’re merged properly into the version everyone uses.
  • Most (if not all, baring one exception) of our projects are now built with GitHub Actions.
  • We’re currently planning to overhaul our infrastructure to a new server setup in the somewhat-near future.

On the Discord server side, we relaxed our rules regarding coremods and older versions; you can now discuss and receive support for those freely. Additionally, discussion of other loaders is no longer banned—it’s encouraged even, as long as it is productive. After all, NeoForge doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and all APIs have their objective downsides and upsides.

Adoption

Even though it is too early to draw conclusions (as 1.20.1 is the de facto target for modpacks in the 1.20 lifecycle), we are seeing more and more mods using NeoForge starting with 1.20.4.

We are also happy to report that CurseForge, Modrinth, Prism and FTB have all added support for NeoForge in their launchers, which we’re grateful for!

Time for some stats - in classic Wrapped style

NeoForged has obviously not existed for a full year, but here are some stats on the 173 days since our public departure in 2023:

  • We have served an average of a terabyte’s (1000 gigabytes) worth of Maven artifacts every month, with 10 million requests just in December.
  • Over 200 PRs have been merged. That’s more than a PR per day!
  • Over 95 issues have been closed as completed. That’s one every two days!
The bad

The world, however, isn’t only pink and bright. We’ve made mistakes, and we own up to them.

We apologise for the sudden, disorganized and confusing rebranding of the Discord server. For reasons not worth going into (nor relevant in this post), we had to go public months before we anticipated, so we were caught off guard. It was a mess, and if we could turn back time and do it better, we would.

We also apologise for not providing the stable 1.20.1 environment we promised. After 1.20.2 was released, we neglected 1.20.1 and still are. Development efforts on 1.20.1 are better spent on Forge rather than NeoForge.

Documentation (or lack thereof) is something Forge has always had problems with, and we too suffer from a pressing lack of documentation all around the toolchain and the API too. We have made several changes in the past months, while letting our existing documentation slowly get outdated. In 2024, we’ll look at improving this sensitive yet important area of the project.

We had to find our pace one way or another, but in the end we’re sorry you all had to see us fight and argue. We hope to improve and learn from our mistakes in the year that comes.

So
 what’s next?

We don’t have a lot of plans for 2024, but some of the more pressing matters include:

  • With all refactors taken care of, a stable 1.20.4 release can be expected within the first two weeks of 2024, if not sooner;
  • A rework of FML—a beast of complexity that we are trying to simplify—has been due for a long while. You can follow the progress and provide your ideas in the FML Clean-up Discord thread;
  • We are collaborating with Mumfrey to hopefully get Mixin out of its 2-year-long stagnation. If that doesn’t pan out, we will be open to alternative;
  • We are working on improving the caching of NeoGradle, to reduce build times;
  • 1.21 is expected to unify the tag namespace between NeoForge and Fabric through TelepathicGrunt’s efforts via the unification PR;
  • As we’ve already mentioned: docs, docs, and more docs!
  • Some potential changes to the transfer (IItemHandler, IFluidHandler, IEnergyStorage) capabilities are also being discussed in the Transfer rework thread;
  • Replacing JavaScript coremods with Java-based coremods is also on the table, at the Coremod changes thread.

As always, we appreciate your input, and we’d be grateful if you would provide us with feedback or ideas in our Discord server or in a GitHub Discussion.

Now, for the fun part you were all waiting for: the thanking!

NeoForge wouldn’t have been possible without the team members that left Forge with us, for which we thank them.

We thank all of our contributors to our many projects during the last 6 months, and we wholeheartedly thank YOU for your support - our achievements are thanks to the community feedback and the people who give us the chance to make errors and bounce back, only to grow stronger and stronger.

Happy 2024, everyone, and as always, happy porting! 🎉

2023: The Good, The Bad... and The Fork (2024)

FAQs

Is NeoForge better than Forge? â€ș

To summarise, Forge is better at ensuring that many mods work well together. For large modpacks, it's likely the safer and smoother option.

What is NeoForge? â€ș

NeoForge is a free, open-source, community-oriented modding API for Minecraft. Version. Support.

What are the advantages of NeoForge? â€ș

Technical Advantages:

Low Resource Consumption: Ensures minimal CPU and RAM usage, tailored for systems with limited resources. Improved Performance: Enhances chunk loading and reduces lag spikes through advanced optimization techniques.

Are forge and NeoForge compatible? â€ș

NeoForge can currently run all Forge mods. NeoForge mods can commonly be found from Modrinth and CurseForge.

What is better than forge? â€ș

While sharing some performance issues exclusive to Forge, NeoForged is still significantly more stable and has less impact on performance.

Is neo forge replacing forge? â€ș

NeoForge is a fork of the Minecraft Forge project. It was officially announced (ahead of schedule) on July 12, 2023, and nearly everyone from the original Forge team has joined NeoForged, with one obvious exception: LexManos.

Why did NeoForge split? â€ș

Desire for Simplification: Neoforge emerged from a desire to simplify the modding framework, reduce technical debt, and streamline the development process. The split aimed to create a more agile and efficient platform.

What are the requirements for NeoForge? â€ș

Prerequisites​

An installation of the Java 21 Development Kit (JDK) and 64-bit Java Virtual Machine (JVM). NeoForge recommends and officially supports the Microsoft builds of OpenJDK, but any other JDK should work as well.

Is Fabric more optimized than forge? â€ș

Minecraft Forge / Fabric Server Hosting

For example, large scale modpacks will perform better with Forge. On the other hand, if you want players to experience a more vanilla-like server with optimized performance, consider Fabric. It's important to note that modpacks exist for both of these APIs.

Is quilt or Fabric better? â€ș

Fabric is ideal for those prioritizing quick updates and the latest versions. Quilt appeals to experimental players contributing to the modding community. Minecraft's modding community offers diversity. Embrace Forge's legacy, Fabric's simplicity, or Quilt's practical appeal.

Do forge mods work with Fabric? â€ș

The Forgified Fabric API (FFAPI) is a direct port of Fabric API to Minecraft Forge, regularly kept up to date with the upstream repository. It is designed to make cross platform mod development easier by allowing developers to use Fabric API as a common library to interact with the game's code on both platforms.

How to make a NeoForge server? â€ș

Start the server.
  1. How to Install NeoForge on a Minecraft Server (Manual)
  2. Download NeoForge.
  3. Launch the NeoForge Installer and select Install Server.
  4. Change the install location to a folder on the desktop.
  5. Click OK.
  6. Once finished, navigate to the folder on the desktop.
  7. Select all files.

Does SpongeForge work with Forge? â€ș

SpongeForge integrates Minecraft Forge so you can also run Minecraft Forge mods. In fact, it's more like Sponge itself is a Forge mod that then loads Sponge plugins, but this is a technical detail. Users who do not want to use Minecraft Forge can consider SpongeVanilla.

Does the version of Forge matter? â€ș

Note: There is a distinction between recommended and latest versions of Forge. The recommended versions of Forge are very stable, while the latest versions may have problems. Therefore it makes sense to download the recommended version. After the download you install the modloader Forge on your computer.

Should I use forge or NeoForge on Reddit? â€ș

Neoforge has way more community/mod support and will generally replace Forge moving forward. If you are looking at 1.20. 4, you almost certainly want NeoForge (https://neoforged.net/).

What's better than a Refining Forge ark? â€ș

The Industrial Forge is much faster than the Refining Forge, smelting 40 Metal to produce 20 Metal Ingots in 20 secs, refining 60 Oil and 100 Hide to produce 100 Gasoline in 30 secs, or burning 1 Wood to produce 1 Charcoal in 1 sec at the same time. The Industrial Forge cannot be placed on a Platform Saddle.

Is there anything better than Heroforge? â€ș

Below are the best Hero Forge alternatives that you can give a try.
  • Eldritch Foundry. Eldritch Factory is known for its 3D character creation and modeling capacities. ...
  • Hero Mini Maker. ...
  • Desktop Hero. ...
  • Thingiverse. ...
  • Anvl.co. ...
  • Creature Caster. ...
  • Cults. ...
  • MyMiniFactory.
Apr 16, 2024

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