It really does feel like Minecraft is the Doom/Quake/Half-Life of this generation.
I'd almost thought that modding had disappeared due to the complexity involved in AAA games but nice to see it alive and well in Minecraft.
I'd almost thought that modding had disappeared due to the complexity involved in AAA games but nice to see it alive and well in Minecraft.
Some examples (Not Japanese):
ComputerCraft: adds programmable computers in Lua. With in game applications; programmable robots called turtles.
Botania and Thaumcraft are two magical mods with stunning visuals.
Buildcraft and AE2 are logistics-oriented mods.
All in all, vanilla Minecraft is definitely unplayable once you try it with mods.
Edit: Probably worth mentioning that Mojang hired the guy who created the modding API. (See SquareWheel's comment below for correction/details)
Edit: Just finished reading the article (I check the comments first). They mentioned the Redstone logic. Probably worth mentioning as well that a 16-year-old built a scientific calculator using Redstone. https://youtu.be/wgJfVRhotlQ
I mean... I'm biased, because I'm one of the (non-core) devs, but it's a reasonably accurate DC electrical simulator, in Minecraft! What's not to love?
Forge's early contributors have mostly moved on from the modding scene, but the current maintainers are cpw and LexManos. They've worked with Mojang on a few issues, such as the block model format, but haven't been hired by them.
Additionally, I'm not sure if you meant it this way, but the mods you mentioned aren't by Japanese developers. There is a significant modding scene in Japan, but there's little overlap with the more common mods such as you listed above. Some notable mods from that community are StarMiner[1], RealTrainMod[2], and Helicopter Mod[3].
[1] http://forum.minecraftuser.jp/viewtopic.php?t=17975
[2] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0yAsWJZxkLFrogH1Rfa8EA/vid...
[3] http://forum.minecraftuser.jp/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=14837
The mods I mentioned aren't indeed by Japanese developers but I can now see how my wording is wrong. I meant to say that the Japanese modding community is also active and doing wonders. Thank you.
... and yet somehow it WORKS, and probably provides kids with a better introduction to having to hack with computer technology than anything most kids have had to deal with since having to edit HIMEM in your autoexec.bat to get a soundblaster to work with Doom was a thing.
IMO, the real shift is you don't need to mod an existing game to make significantly different games. Further, AAA games are simply huge now so it's hard for a small group to change everything.