Minecraft is removing code obfuscation in Java Edition

Submitted ⁨⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨simple@piefed.social⁩ to ⁨games@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/article/removing-obfuscation-in-java-edition

Minecraft: Java Edition has been obfuscated since its release. This obfuscation meant that people couldn’t see our source code. Instead, everything was scrambled – and those who wanted to mod Java Edition had to try and piece together what every class and function in the code did.

Modding is at the heart of Java Edition – and obfuscation makes modding harder. We’re excited about this change to remove obfuscation, as it should make it quicker and easier for modders to create and improve mods. Now you won’t have to untangle tricky code or deal with unclear names. What’s more, de-bugging will become more straightforward, and crash logs will actually be readable!

surprisingly fantastic and consumer friendly move from mojang, good on them

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Comments

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ohshit604@sh.itjust.works ⁨23⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
Be nice if Minecraft was released on Steam so Linux users didn’t have to emulate an Android device just to play it.

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- nagaram@startrek.website ⁨9⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
  What are you talking about? When was the last time you tried this?
  
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- belsedar@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
  Are you talking about the Bedrock edition or something? Because there are plenty of Java edition launchers available that even perform better than the Windows version
  
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ZoteTheMighty@lemmy.zip ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
So, what’s the catch? Surely Microsoft and Mojang didn’t just suddenly become good?

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- Prove_your_argument@piefed.social ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  The monkeypaw says they will stop updates for the java edition or release a new version that doesn’t work on the java edition.
  
  They probably see how many sales are generated from the free work done by modders though. If someone wants to come along and do for free the thing you might have to actually pay designers, developers, artists and all the support staff for and they still need to pay you to play it, you’d be foolish not to encourage the exploitation of free labor.
  
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  - LiveLM@lemmy.zip ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Call me ignorant, if this happened and it brought a new golden era of modding (1.7.10) style golden era where everyone’s playing the same version I’d be maybe the happiest player ever.
    Modders backporting content wouldn’t be nothing new, hell, they even brought the mobs that didn’t make the cut from those stupid mob votes to life. Let modding become the new updates, fuck it.
    
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  - lepinkainen@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Young generations and mobile players are on bedrock
    
    Everyone else plays Java where you can easily self-host a server
    
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  - Saledovil@sh.itjust.works ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Or a Bethesda style creation club is coming.
    
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- atopi@piefed.blahaj.zone ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Havent they been making changes to help mod/datapack development?
  
  Modding is such a big part of the game, helping it would get more people playing the game
  
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  - SuperDuperKitten@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    They made “datapack” which is a way of playing with mods without having to use third-party mod loaders like Forge and Fabric but (don’t quote me on this as I’m not a mod developer) it’s not as powerful compare to the mod loaders.
    
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- wabafee@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I guess it’s just doesn’t make sense to obfuscate it when mods in general runs the Minecraft community in turn making more profit to Mojang/Microsoft. My other suspension is potential competition. There is this game called Vintage Story which kinda directly competes with Minecraft seems gaining ground and was built to be moddable from the start.
  
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- barryamelton@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Luanti eating on their turf.
  
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  - simple@piefed.social ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I doubt microsoft even knows what luanti is
    
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  - pipe01@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Lol no
    
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  - Electricd@lemmybefree.net ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Whats that?
    
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- Serinus@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I wonder how good AI is at deobfuscating code. It seems like the kind of thing it might be good at.
  
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  - Cethin@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    With how bad it is at writing it, I’m guessing similarly bad. It’ll do something, but odds are it introduces a ton of errors that you then have to track down. That’s the best case. Worst case, it just creates something totally different that looks similar to the input but doesn’t do the same thing.
    
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- RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I said basically the same thing and got downvoted for it.
  
  Hopefully the catch is nothing, but you can never be too sure.
  
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- kilgore_trout@feddit.it ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I would advance: trying to keep the brand alive against the hidden giant of Roblox.
  
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- ayyy@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  It’s a 20 year old game going into abandonware mode. This is the nicest way for them to do that.
  
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  - ArsonButCute@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    
    Its 16, not 20, the earliest version “Cave Game Tech Test” was in May 2009.
    
    They’re still actively pushing updates, a really big one is scheduled for the holiday season. Additional biomes and mini-bosses were added last year with structures hinting at development plans for a 4th dimension. The lighting engine is being actively redone.
    
    Minecraft is absolutely not gearing down into abandonware mode.
    
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PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
I have been playing re-console mod pack lately because I prefer 4J’s version of Minecraft the most.

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fin@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
They should officially support the mod loaders at this point

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- ameancow@lemmy.world ⁨53⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
  Playing minecraft without mods as an adult is like eating a plain potato, or like going to a party without inebriating substances.
  
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slazer2au@lemmy.world ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I look forward to several critical CVE being discovered like log4j

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- rbos@lemmy.ca ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Unironically, me too. They’re there now, waiting to be discovered. We can find them now on our terms or be surprised by them later.
  
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- DanWolfstone@leminal.space ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Wasn’t log4j originally found by 2b2t players, then used maliciously and reported later on, then going onto get fixed by every major server framework like bukkit, paper, fabric, and more?
  
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  - sus@programming.dev ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    No, it was found in november 24 2021, publicly disclosed in december 9 2021, and only used by 2b2t players on december 10 2021.
    
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Magnum@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
They dstarted providing deobfuscation maps 6 years ago

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chunes@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Why not go open source? What are they so afraid of, given anyone can now see the source code by using a simple tool?

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- ytg@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Open source includes unlimited distribution. The game is still paid and they want to reserve distribution rights.
  
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  - derpgon@programming.dev ⁨25⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
    Open-source and source-available are used interchangeably. Releasing the source does not mean the license will allow any form of redistribution or recompilation.
    
    If you decompile the game yourself you can infinitely distribute the game as well. This is not an argument.
    
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- JackbyDev@programming.dev ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Do you mean source available or actually open source?
  
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  - chunes@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I mean releasing it under a license like GPL.
    
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Unattributed@feddit.online ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Not only do I think this will generate a fair number of CVE’s, I think there will be a lot of optimization of the code going on.

Look at what happened with OpenOffice a few years back – the Oracle buyout of Sun Microsystems forced the forking of OpenOffice to LibreOffice – during which the new Dev team took the time cleanup and refactor the code. This resulted in a suite that was about 10 percent smaller, and removed a bunch of redundant things (like multiple copies of icons).

I bet we see something similar with Minecraft – even if it can’t be an “authorized” version.

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- DaPorkchop_@lemmy.ml ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  This doesn’t really change too much for the modding scene, it just allows the deobfuscation step to be skipped when setting up a dev environment. Mojang has already been providing official deobfuscation mappings for years, and before that we had community-made ones which were already pretty great.
  
  There are already plenty of mods which drastically overhaul how major parts of the game work to get better performance, and there are some projects like Gregtech: New Horizons and CleanroomMC which have pretty much completely torn apart and rebuilt the game on older versions from before official deobfuscation mappings were even available.
  
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  - Unattributed@feddit.online ⁨30⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
    Right, but this means these efforts can be undertaken on the current release, and done without having to work around Mohjang’s obfuscation.
    
    Removing this kind of barrier is a major change. Less time will be spent on trying to understand code that has been obscured from view. It will be easier to ensure “correctness” in code that is optimizing the server (ie, that new code will not break internal dependencies). It will be easier to ensure compatibility between the official release and community based extensions.
    
    I understand that the modding community has been able to do a lot up to this point…(I play on an optimized modpack). But, I’m betting this will actually produce a larger jump in terms of the efficiency of all codebases - including Mohjangs. Just the reports that document issues (not CVE level issues) for Mohjang will lead to them improving the base code.
    
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DarkAri@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Nice I just got back into all the mods 10 last night

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oxysis@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Oh I see it’s that time of the year where Mojang gives the community a bone after stomping on them the rest of the year.

Anyways as someone who has worked on Java projects extensively since 2020, very little will actually change from this. The main problem of Mojang’s asinine version numbering will continue to be a problem for any modding, server, building and resource pack projects past 1.19.

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- Kelly@programming.dev ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  Mojang’s asinine version numbering
  
  They do what now?
  
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  - JustARegularNerd@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Previously, they had the versioning system 1.MAJOR.MINOR, where Major referred to a feature update, and minor referred to bug fixes or other non-breaking technical changes
    
    The first instance where they broke this was 1.16.2 by adding the Piglin Brute, but this was so minor that hardly anyone really cared, and hey, free feature with a minor update!
    
    Well, now they have update “drops” where the minor version means either what it used to, or it’s also a feature update, just not as big as a full update.
    
    From the wiki:
    
    1.20: Trails and Tales Update 1.20.3: Bats and Pots Drop 1.20.5: Armored Paws Drop 1.21: Tricky Trials Update 1.21.2: Bundles of Bravery Drop 1.21.4: The Garden Awakens Drop 1.21.5: Spring to Life Drop 1.21.6: Chase the Skies Drop 1.21.9: Copper Age Drop
    
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  - oxysis@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Mojang started adding in substantive resource pack changes in the patches for 1.19. Which made it more annoying for resource pack artists to support the update their since it required 2 separate versions of a pack to be made and maintained just to make sure it works properly. Let alone the annoyance of having to constantly deal with people complaining about it not working when it is an issue Mojang made.
    
    There is also Mojang’s censorship of their community that began in the 1.19 patch versions which allowed Mojang to just ban anyone for saying something they didn’t like. Servers largely just disable it since it’s a headache to deal with and it doesn’t benefit them at all, only Mojang.
    
    Then in 1.20 and 1.21 Mojang began adding content in the patches so it makes it a nightmare to support the patch versions since they now function differently than they used to. Which only makes it harder for servers to update and makes the experience of joining servers more frustrating. So plenty of servers on those updates just blacklist certain versions just to make sure things are able to function.
    
    Oh and at some point Mojang added censorship to player skins. And it can be triggered by just mass reporting any individual skin for any reason.
    
    Basically Mojang made a fuck ton of problems where none needed to be or used to be.
    
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- Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Fuckin right?
  
  ALSO can Mojang get my goshfuckin ALPHA account back that Microsoft deleted because I wasn’t paying attention to their bullshit during COVID and now it’s gone forever even if I make a Microsoft account which I will never do and now I have to pay money to Microsoft (which I will also never do and have never done)?
  
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  - mcmodknower@programming.dev ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Go join mc: consequences edition discord.gg/mojanglawsuit (Website link in case you don’t wanna use discord: lawsuit.gg)
    
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Justifier@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Image

This paired with the bedrock gdk release is some hella good vibes

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leburb@sopuli.xyz ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I like to think that Luanti caused this.

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- Nicopf@feddit.org ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Started experimenting with modding Luanti just last week. Was realy suprised how accesable and easy it is, even for an idiot with no experience like me!
  
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gnu@lemmy.zip ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Can’t say I saw that coming, particularly after Microsoft bought them. Nice to have a surprise be pleasant once in a while.

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- explodicle@sh.itjust.works ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  The most profitable decision for MS is to leave the golden goose alone.
  
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RedStrider@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Absolute cowards. Won’t even release the comments.

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- RedStrider@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Image
  
  “No” - Bartosz Boq 2025
  
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Godnroc@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Every Minecraft update just makes me hum “Where’s the modding API” again.

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- atomic2354@lemmy.world ⁨34⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
  It’s datapacks
  
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Treczoks@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Obfuscation got more and more useless, as there was a serious pressure that AFAIK even tools popped up to specifically de-obfuscate Minecraft.

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- ricdeh@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Not only tools, Mojang themselves eventually provided obfuscation maps.
  
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- JackbyDev@programming.dev ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  They’ve had something for quite a while now that made it so names weren’t changed between releases so stuff would work better. I don’t remember what it’s called. Like it used to be that a new version meant figuring out everything again.
  
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Armok_the_bunny@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Is that going to kill the need for the various modloaders?

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- Warl0k3@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  As I understand it no, the modloaders will still handle things like file management and conflicts. Individual mods could implement solutions for that, but it makes more sense to centralize that effort around the modloaders.
  
  What this will do is make it much less tedious to develop the mods in the first place.
  
  (I may be wrong and the role of modloaders may have changed in the six years since I was last active in the modding scene without my knowing it)
  
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- Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Modloaders also mainly exist due to the onerous terms of any mojang/minecraft API for java edition that would exist - Forge/Fabric/etc… are designed to rip open the game and then stitch it back together with the desired goodies. Anything official would probably still have strings that would bind the modders, so modders won’t embrace the system wholeheartedly (similar to how datapacks can’t replace mods).
  
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NotSteve_@piefed.ca ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I'm not super familiar with Java, but does this mean Java edition is basically source available, or is it still compiled Java bytecode but with proper variable names?

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- AkatsukiLevi@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  The latter
  
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- Matty_r@programming.dev ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  You can use tools like FernFlower to help turn that bytecode into actual Java.
  
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  - addie@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Indeed - most Java IDEs have FernFlower built in, so it’s dead easy.
    
    Decompiled Java is surprisingly close to the original, especially compared to eg. decompiled C++; good luck with that. You get all the class, function and variable names back on the original line numbers.
    
    What you do not get back is any comments. So you can see what and how, but not why. Admittedly, most comments are kind of useless and do not explain ‘why’ very well, but for weird-but-critical code they can be essential.
    
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neeeerrrdd@lemmy.world ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Would the people developing mod loaders need to rewrite their source code to fit this new deobfuscated minecraft?

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- simple@piefed.social ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  from what I understand mod loaders will need to remove the part where they deobfuscate code then translate mods. this update will break modloaders for a while but in the end it should simplify the process and make modding easier.
  
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  - msokiovt@lemmy.today ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Well… my producer and I will certainly be playing versions before 1.22 then…
    
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