Minecraft is the one game that has it all - explore, create, expand. The lego-building block like game has grown with huge interest thanks to its simplicity yet endless possibilities. Your limits are only your imagination!
Minecraft Vanilla
The Minecraft which we call Minecraft Vanilla, is the original unmodified version by the makers, Mojang (Owned now by Microsoft). The game is designed to be very open with barely any rules. It lets a player or players do whatever they want with "trust" being only method of control. And this is great for many!
Since the game was so open with no boundaries, some wanted to start customising the game for their own needs. Like adding protection from being grief'ed or creating new rules & features to the game to make it more personalised and fun.
Customising the game was not easy. It required talented developers to reverse engineer of game core itself. Something like that needs a well organised programming team who are willing to spare plenty of their free time.
That did in fact happen! Multiple groups were formed who made variety of solutions to edit the game what we know as Bukkit and Forge. In short, its a conversion/adapter for Minecraft that allows other programmers to easily and quickly create their own plugins/mods and share them for anyone to use.
Now, thanks to Bukkit and Forge, thousands of programmers have created these plugins/mods for others like you and me to use it in our own servers and best off all, ITS FREE!
There are so many community plugins and mods out there now that its broken a lot of records! This what makes Minecraft the biggest community backed game in the world. Mojang understands the value of this and allows the community to run their modifications with only minimal rules (See the Minecraft EULA)
So what are Plugins Vs Modifications?
Bukkit gives the ability to make and use PLUGINS as it expands over the original game.
Forge gives the ability to make and use MODs as it allows to both expand and modify over the original game.
"We like to call it a plugin if its for Bukkit. And a Mod if its for Forge."
Bukkit Vs Forge? - What's better?
Simply put, it depends on compatibility vs flexibility.
Bukkit does not require your client PCs to have anything special installed. Meaning a vanilla client will work. So it's very Compatible but a little less Flexible in making the game more customised.
Forge on the other hand is more Flexible. It allows programmers to do more, like adding new type of blocks! BUT, its not so Compatible because in most cases both clients and servers will need to install the mods to correctly work.
Both are quite different in the end and its up to you to decide how you want to your server to be.
With Forge:
Will you force all your players to first install the same mods on their clients before they can join? It can be technical sometimes.
If they don't have the right version or right mod installed, they won't be able to join.
With Bukkit:
Is it OK to let go of certain features so everyone can join using the original minecraft installation?
What are MODPACKS?
Modpacks is a whole bunch of forge mods which somebody packed in a group and gave it a name. The pack contains interesting mods so you don't have to look for all the mods yourself. Like, Tekkit B-Team, or FTB Unleashed, or CrackPack.. etc... These are all modpacks.
However, even modpacks are constantly being updated, and when they are, clients and servers need to update by removing the old mods and adding the new one.. AHH SO MUCH WORK!
Never fear, along came MODPACK LAUNCHERS. You may have heard of them: AtLauncher, Tekkit Launcher, Feed The Beast Launcher.
These are communities who have created a software which keeps your minecraft client synced with the correct mods of the modpack.
You must note: All modifications to Minecraft are done so by third parties. Mojang comments that they won't be responsible for any damage it may cause and care should be taken when using them.
This means you CAN use them but its not officially supported by Mojang. Launchers and Mods are made by other people - can you trust them?
