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Ok I had to look this up because last time I did MC modding was when I was in high school... It used to be obfuscated. Someone used to manually map those to hum

Ok I had to look this up because last time I did MC modding was when I was in high school... It used to be obfuscated. Someone used to manually map those to human-readable names (didn't know this back then and thought the names were somehow hidden in the bytecode). But recently MS has started deliberately shipping unobfuscated builds. So I'm getting the feeling they actually want JE to be moddable. Which makes sense because they're already successfully pushing Bedrock on a majority who don't care about modding, especially on locked down platforms, and the remaining JE players are a different segment. But that could change just as easily as their leadership changes. But also just realized, if this changed, rather than locking down JE, they'd probably just kill it and maaybe release Bedrock for Mac/Linux to keep those players. Possibly not.

TaLiTr 1mo ago
For anyone confused about timelines, they started releasing un-obfuscated builds in 2025. In 2019 they started releasing Obfuscation mappings. Before that it was all Minecraft wizards with excellent tooling.
petterroea 1mo ago
Sorry for the long wait, I wasn't ignoring you, just busy. Yes, symbols were obfuscated, but Java software with obfuscated symbols is trivial to reverse, at least compared to its native counterparts. My understanding is that the biggest change when releasing symbols was that the MCP team no longer had to manually update symbols for every update. Java also has great reflection features that make it a lot easier to make mods - you don't need to patch binaries like you do with native code. I think you are right in that Bedrock and JE players are different segments. I think the main goal of Bedrock is to target the casual market, maybe not by intention but by the fact that the community itself is mostly stuck on JE. I still think the long term wish is to get everyone over and kill Java, as Java inherently is less suited for the microtransaction model I am sure they want. Then again with the rise of LLM-based RE, I guess the largest hurdle for modding bedrock is somewhat lower now, as you can automate a lot of the skill-heavy but not difficult work required. > But also just realized, if this changed, rather than locking down JE, they'd probably just kill it and maaybe release Bedrock for Mac/Linux to keep those players. Possibly not. I think this is a good instinct.
- frollogaston 1mo ago
  No need to apologize. I agree the Java version is easier to reverse-engineer even if they tried to make it harder.

TaLiTr 1mo ago

For anyone confused about timelines, they started releasing un-obfuscated builds in 2025. In 2019 they started releasing Obfuscation mappings. Before that it was all Minecraft wizards with excellent tooling.

petterroea 1mo ago

Sorry for the long wait, I wasn't ignoring you, just busy. Yes, symbols were obfuscated, but Java software with obfuscated symbols is trivial to reverse, at least compared to its native counterparts. My understanding is that the biggest change when releasing symbols was that the MCP team no longer had to manually update symbols for every update. Java also has great reflection features that make it a lot easier to make mods - you don't need to patch binaries like you do with native code. I think you are right in that Bedrock and JE players are different segments. I think the main goal of Bedrock is to target the casual market, maybe not by intention but by the fact that the community itself is mostly stuck on JE. I still think the long term wish is to get everyone over and kill Java, as Java inherently is less suited for the microtransaction model I am sure they want. Then again with the rise of LLM-based RE, I guess the largest hurdle for modding bedrock is somewhat lower now, as you can automate a lot of the skill-heavy but not difficult work required. > But also just realized, if this changed, rather than locking down JE, they'd probably just kill it and maaybe release Bedrock for Mac/Linux to keep those players. Possibly not. I think this is a good instinct.

frollogaston 1mo ago
No need to apologize. I agree the Java version is easier to reverse-engineer even if they tried to make it harder.