Description
It’s been a long time coming.
In the coming months, I'll be stepping down from my role in PocketMine-MP, and moving on from Minecraft.
I’ve been working on Minecraft-related projects in one form or another for almost 10 years now. I spent the last 8 of those years working on servers. However, I lost my passion for Minecraft many years ago. I haven’t actually played the game in years (these days I only launch it to test PocketMine changes). I’ve been here so long because of my personal circumstances and mental health issues, not because of interest or enjoyment in Minecraft.
However, my situation has significantly changed in recent years. This is primarily because of my job with Lifeboat Survival Games, which has empowered me to grow significantly. I cannot overstate how tremendously valuable the support of LBSG has been to me in the last few years. Nonetheless, I feel that it's time for me to move on.
My history with PocketMine-MP
I first got into PocketMine in 2016, at a time when I should have been focusing on studying, applying for university, etc. I was pouring effort into PocketMine to distract myself from the extreme pressure I was under, and from mental health issues. I’m ashamed to admit that I folded under the pressure, and found myself jobless and with nowhere to go in September 2016.
In the following 3 and a half years, I got stuck in a rut, because of crippling social anxiety and lack of money, amongst other things. I kept myself afloat financially by working for various server businesses. For the majority of this time, I struggled to make ends meet, but I felt unable to get into better work because of mental health issues. This went on until April 2020, when my money problems boiled over, and I was finally forced to make some major life changes.
I was hired by Lifeboat in April 2020 to help them migrate to PM4, implement support for new versions, and to do work on PocketMine-MP that they needed. This job has hugely benefited me, empowering me to work on improving my mental health and circumstances, while also providing me with low-stress work that I was already familiar with – PocketMine.
However, I've reached a point where I feel that working in the Minecraft space is no longer serving my best interests, and I'm ready to put it behind me.
What I've learned
I’ve learned valuable life skills, made some good friends, and learned a lot about community management – a role that I was spectacularly unfit for at the beginning – and I’d like to believe that I’m leaving this community better off than I found it.
I've also learned that coding isn't my passion. I had the most fun collaborating with friends in taking Minecraft apart to discover how it worked, and solving hard problems, not from coding PocketMine itself. I've enjoyed learning how things work my whole life, ever since I was a little kid taking clicky pens apart in school and putting them back together.
I used to idolize Mojang. However, I now know that Minecraft is developed by people that make mistakes like everyone else. I've learned not to judge people so harshly, and not to idealize people.
I know there are people in the community who idolize me, or look up to me as a role model. As I hope this wall of text makes clear, I'm just another guy that makes dumb mistakes like everyone else.
Future for PocketMine-MP
I'm not stepping down immediately. Nonetheless, the future of the project is uncertain.
I've invested a tremendous amount of effort into this project, at great personal cost. It's become the foundation stone upon which thousands of Minecraft servers have come to depend and trust. When I step down, I want to be sure that I'm leaving the project in good hands with people who respect the values that it's come to embody.
Maintaining and developing PocketMine-MP requires a significant level of commitment, responsibility and expertise. This is especially true considering that maintaining PocketMine-MP is a thankless task which doesn't pay the bills, unless you're fortunate enough to be sponsored by a business using it.
Because of this, I don't foresee anyone coming in to replace me in my role of benevolent dictator. If PocketMine-MP survives my departure, it will be because of a team effort.
@IvanCraft623, @ShockedPlot7560, @TobiasGrether, @dries-c and @TwistedAsylumMC have been granted access to various parts of the code in order to perform future maintenance for game updates. However, they are not being paid to do so, and the decision of how much effort to invest is entirely theirs.
Sadly, it's easy for me to foresee a future in which all the large servers maintain their own forks, and the smaller servers die off. I hope that this doesn't happen, but it won't be my problem to solve anymore.
Future of the black cat
I'm still figuring that part out right now.
I didn't choose Minecraft. I just stumbled into it because my life came apart at the seams, and I discovered that I could make a little money from doing stuff for Minecraft servers. For various reasons, this is the first time in my life that I've had a good opportunity to decide what I actually want to do, instead of being pulled along by the flow.
The only thing I know for sure is that I don't want to do gamedev or anything to do with Minecraft. Perhaps not even software development, although it's difficult to just throw away over a decade of experience (as well as becoming one of OpenUK's top 100 OSS influencers in the UK). I want to do something impactful in the real world.
Yes, I'm 26, and I still don't have a good idea what I want to do. If you're out there reading this and don't know what you want to do either, maybe this makes you feel better :)
Thank You
There are many people I owe my gratitude to, too many to count.
- @shoghicp - for creating the project that got me through the worst years of my life, and also providing PMMP with servers to host our infrastructure
- @rteder and @dishrex from Lifeboat - for the job that's empowered and liberated me in the last few years
- @Intyre - for guiding me during the early days of PMMP, helping me learn how to reverse-engineer Minecraft, and more
- @HBIDamian - for being a steady hand for the community before I knew how to do that
- @brandon15811 - for tirelessly maintaining PMMP's infrastructure through the years, behind the scenes
- @99leonchang - for hosting some of our infrastructure on a VPS pro bono
- @robske110 - an old friend I collaborated with on Minecraft development back in 2016
- ZedCee - an old friend who helped me to be less of a jerk in 2016
- Von from PigRaid - a good friend who gave me great advice, sponsored me in 2017-2018
- @NiclasOlofsson (gurun) - a great friend and collaborator with whom I had a lot of fun reverse-engineering the protocol in 2017-2019
- @SOF3 - a good friend and collaborator since the very beginning, who always had unique insights into problems whenever I was stuck on things
- Our Discord and Forums community moderators, past and present
- Donors and Patrons, past and present, who have helped to pay for PMMP's infrastructure and offset the cost of development
- Code contributors, for trying to help improve the project
- Server and plugin developers, for building cool stuff with PocketMine-MP and making me feel like I was doing something useful for the world
Summary
After a long run, it's time for me to move on. PocketMine-MP got me through one of the most difficult times of my life, which I'll always be thankful for. I've also learned a huge amount, made friends, and gained valuable experience.
Finally – There's probably many people in this community silently struggling with mental health issues, just like me. You're not alone, and you're not crazy. Talk to someone you trust, even if you don't know how to explain properly. People who genuinely care will help you get the support you need.