Minecraft backwards compatibility?

[emugod]

By which I mean, connection to minecraft servers, loading of minecraft maps. To get this a lot of new features would be needed, mostly what is being discussed in viewtopic.php?f=5&t=9183, far larger world size and variable height limit (minecrafts real blocks are 60m x 255 x 60m).

Beyond those basic features to approach compatibility, I'm sure it would still be an immense project. I know there are plenty of custom minecraft clients, and I know C++ and Java interaction can be done to some degree, but maybe not enough for this project. There is also a legal question; afaik all the custom minecraft clients are technically verboten, and only unofficially tolerated by Mojang and server admins (in fact iirc many servers do block/ban custom clients, as a general anti-cheating measure). A truly standalone offering would maybe be just the thing to end this policy.

If all of that could be overcome, though, I think this would be the best way to get a huge boost in player base

[TenPlus1]

Personally I'd rather Minetest have it's own servers away from minecraft and never the two shall meet... You would need a LOT of compatibility layers built in to be even close to connecting to a minecraft server with the program and mods and it's not worth the effort I'd say...

[Sokomine]

I'm afraid connecting with one client to the server of the other type will be quite difficult as both voxel worlds are only similar in some parts and may do the internals quite diffrently, expecting diffrent packets of communication and information.

Beeing able to do the opposite - join a Minetest server with a Minecraft client - might be intresting for some players and even attract new players, but they'd expect Minecraft, and Minetest is diffrent, so there's not much to gain for anyone as people would expect something other than what they'd get.

Maps can be converted to a degree.

[Krock]

I like the title:

Backwards compatible to Minecraft

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There should be no direct compatibility between the Java and C++ game.

[rubenwardy]

Note: it would just be how the sockets communicate. You could probably create a proxy to connect to mc servers. Mt clients connect to a proxy server, and the proxy server connects to a Mc server. The proxy server converts mc to mt. The proxy server is the only new piece of software; the client is unchanged.

Issues:
Documentation on the mc protocol
Mc central authentication

Mods won't be a problem, the proxy can deal with that.

[Drac]

Issues:
Documentation on the mc protocol
Mc central authentication

Mods won't be a problem, the proxy can deal with that.

fThe first result for minecraft protocol on google is :
http://wiki.vg/Protocol

And for the central authentification, it can be disabled in the minecraft server properties ^^

[Calinou]

Implementing Minecraft's network protocol is very likely to get you in trouble (see Manic Digger in 2010).

However, implementing the map format (making a converter) should be fine. I'd encourage that instead.