CU Updates #37 - Bedrock Edition Support, and Break Status

[haloman30 168]

Howdy, folks! This likely won't mean much to most of you - but for those of you who primarily play on the Bedrock Edition of Minecraft, listen up!

 

GeyserMC

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As of now, we are gonna be testing out a plugin called GeyserMC. What does it do, exactly? Why, it means that you can connect to the main MC server on Bedrock Edition. That's right, if your preferred version of Bedrock Edition MC supports custom servers (ie, Windows 10 or Mobile, not sure about Xbox/other platforms), you'll be able to hop on and play on the main MC server in its entirety - every minigame, rank, donation perk, you name it... mostly. We'll get to that.

 

We've done experiments with Bedrock Edition in the past, and they've usually not gone anywhere - as most all of them have involved using an entirely separate server specifically for Bedrock. Granted, Bedrock servers do have some pretty unique capabilities that aren't nearly as common (or in some cases, may not even be possible) on Java servers. However, those features usually tend to be pretty minor and, at the end of the day, we haven't really seen much justification for having an entirely separate Bedrock server that's just the same as the main server, but isolated to a separate platform.

 

With GeyserMC, we no longer have to make that decision. It acts as a middleman/proxy between our main MC server and Bedrock clients. What does this mean for you, the player? It means that starting right now, you'll be able to hop on MC - the same server that most everyone else plays on, with all its features - on any version of Bedrock that supports custom servers. Windows 10 and Mobile both do, though I'm not certain if other versions do. If the other Bedrock versions let you type in an IP address (and both your game client and the GeyserMC plugin are up-to-date), then you'll be able to hop right in.

 

Most things work as expected, not much to really talk about since, well, it's the main MC server. However, there are a few somewhat significant issues that will detract from the experience somewhat. Not enough to make it unplayable, but still ones worth mentioning.

 

The Issues

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GeyserMC is still undergoing development, and isn't actually advised to be used in production at this time. However, it's far enough along in development to be fairly playable. The current features that don't work correctly as of writing include (but are probably not limited to):

• Several inventories/GUI screens
  • Enchantment Table (as a proper GUI)
  • Beacon
  • Cartography Table
  • Stonecutter
  • Structure Block
  • Horse Inventory
  • Loom
  • Smithing Table
• Several entity flags
  • Invisible item frames used throughout the server instead display as regular item frames
  • Player heads don't work
  • Probably some other weird issues here and there

 

But currently... that's it. In terms of basic Minecraft functionality, that's not a long list. Compare that to something similar that I was following called DragonProxy, where all you could do was login and chat - no world, no chunks, nothing. We've certainly come a great distance since then.

 

Unfortunately, after some minor testing, there are a couple other things that are exclusive to CU that won't work on Bedrock. Not many, but again - still worth mentioning.

• Custom textures/models for Durite, Magic, and any other custom texture/item will not display - The vanilla texture of the real item is used instead. Bedrock Edition currently doesn't have any support for custom items, and technically neither does Java. The custom textures are made possible with Optifine - and since Bedrock isn't exactly moddable, there is no Optifine for Bedrock.
• Bedrock players are currently treated as cracked users - Due to how authentication works, Bedrock players are treated as cracked players on the server. There is a workaround for this, but doing so makes it mandatory to own Java edition. This is likely fine for many of you who probably have Java Edition already, but doing this could hamper our ability to gain any new players who play on Bedrock Edition exclusively. That being said, I'm also not entirely concerned with getting a bunch of Bedrock-only users on CU - so I've attached a poll to this topic and to the Discord announcement.
• There may still be some false anti-cheat detections - During my (brief) testing, the main trigger I saw continue to get flagged was for Speed, which I proceeded to increase the block limit of. It still notifies staff, so we're still able to see any potential hackers using it, but it should be much more forgiving for Bedrock players now. However, it's still possible that some checks occasionally get hit. If you get one that is easily reproduced, let one of our staff know so we can try and see if that can be fixed.

 

The real downside to these issues is that they're largely out of our control. The issues that remain have to do with GeyserMC itself, or are simply limitations that are unavoidable due to the differences between Java and Bedrock editions of Minecraft. Even so, what I've listed is pretty much it - and while some of them do certainly detract from the experience, you're still able to have fun and enjoy the server in almost its full capacity - which is pretty incredible when you consider how different the two editions of the game are on a technical level. Plus, it means that for people who aren't home and want to play on CU, people who have weaker computers that might struggle with Java but can handle Bedrock, and maybe even at some point players on consoles - they can join in on whatever things are going on with our MC server without having to be a second-class citizen on an entirely isolated server from the rest of us.

 

And hey, that's pretty cool.

 

Hey, what about that break of yours?

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I'll wrap things up with a status update on my break. As some of you may (or may not) have noticed, I've technically been taking a break for a couple weeks now. Unfortunately, I'm not officially coming out of that break just yet.

 

Originally, I took the break due to some of the recurring drama, as well as stress from what felt like a constant piling on of bugs. But I'll be honest - at this point, neither of those are much of a factor anymore. The vast majority of the bugs that exist currently aren't game-breaking. All the gamemodes work to basically their fullest extent, and there's plenty of stuff for players to do. Along with that, pretty much every source of anxiety from back when I started the break has been tied up and resolved. At the moment, there's two main reasons I'm still on my break.

 

• Focusing on finding employment - If I'm unable to find a job soon, then bills won't be able to be paid anymore. That obviously cannot happen. There isn't much use in me working on the server now if I risk being unable to cover the bills in a month... or worse.
• Focusing on Elaztek Studios and the Blamite Game Engine - As some of you are now aware of, Chaotic United isn't my only project. The other primary project I focus on is Elaztek Studios - something I have much higher ambitions for than CU. Whereas Chaotic United is more of a hobby project of sorts, a community I tend to and care for during free time, Elaztek is something I hope to someday turn into my career. I don't really see CU as ever being something I do as a job - and to be honest, I like it better that way. Elaztek, however, is something that has the eventual end goal of being my own independent game development studio. The first step in that plan? Build a game engine from the ground up - Blamite. Over the past few months, I've neglected Elaztek and Blamite entirely - and that's something I really need to stop doing if I ever want Elaztek to succeed. As such, I'm going to continue spending a bit of time working on Blamite, or other things for Elaztek in general. I can't say for how long as of yet - but what I do know is that when I shift my focus back to CU, I've got a lot of stuff planned.

 

The good news is that I definitely won't be withdrawing from the community, which is why for some of you - you may not have even noticed I ever took a break at all. I've been just as active in Discord as before - and that won't be changing.

 

Well, I'd say that wraps it up pretty well. Put a bow on it and send it out! Remember to vote in the poll in regards to Bedrock Edition authentication! Otherwise, see you boys and girls in the next one.

[haloman30 168]

Update

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I've decided against having the poll, because upon further consideration, having cracked support on Bedrock doesn't really help anyone.

 

By keeping it, we lock away the potential for our existing players to utilize it as a means of cross-play between devices/platforms. In terms of bringing in new Bedrock players, very few - if any - are likely to stick around if they have to do /login and /register commands - especially when Bedrock doesn't even really have cracked outside of Pocket Edition/mobile devices. As part of that too, there aren't many cracked Bedrock players to be brought in, anyways.

 

So, should you opt to join the server on Bedrock, you'll be prompted for your Java Edition credentials. These credentials never get to us, they go straight to Mojang to authenticate your session and that's it. If you happen to be worried about it - the plugin used to do so (GeyserMC) is open source, so feel free to dig into it if you like.

 

If you happen to feel really strongly that we should in fact maintain cracked support for Bedrock clients, feel free to try and make a case on Discord or reply to this topic. If there's a really good reason I haven't thought of, I am willing to potentially re-open the poll. Otherwise, don't worry about that poll anymore. :^)