Item data issue

As you remember, we had, in the past, often the issue that new blocks being added to incoming minecraft versions and I used to create online Excel sheets for people to help me fill in the data.

Since 1.13, I had the hope that a new project that tries to get this data straight out of the minecraft files would solve this issue. While this project made it easier to get the current item names and their proper names, the other information given is often incomplete or plain wrong. For example, there is no data about which items are creative-only, the stack size is wrong for many items, and we have the issue that there are “items” and “blocks”, blocks become items when you mine them etc. While I have been submitting bug reports, the issues have not been fixed over the last months and we are close to being forced to go back to a manual system.

What are the consequences of this?

  • We cannot give out “random items” in the lottery since we would have to curate a massive list of items that should be available to make sure you don’t get something you should not.
  • Deposit withdrawals are a risk if you accidentally withdraw something in a quantity that does not fit into your inventory. This only affects stuff that stacks less than 64 items, but this still can be tricky since the rest just drops to the floor. You can only hope you’re not standing near lava.
  • Shop/deposit display might be broken

So here are the options:

  • We keep everything as it is and just live with it – no work, all the hassle
  • Someone who has the time and java knowledge gets involved in the above and helps fix it – this is the most sustainable way. No idea how complex.
  • We dump the current system and move to excel files again – some hours of work now, again for every version. I need to create the excel, ask & educate people how to use it and then convert the data for use in-game
  • We create a new system that let’s us crowdsource the information via a better interface. Changes would be live more or less immediately – lots of work now, then only small incremental stuff going forward. Ideally someone with PHP knowledge would help me here.

So this is just and FYI update. If you like to get involved, let me know.