Should Wynn Update To 1.17?

nope wynntils and other mods would have to rework themselves too, and hypixil and other servers updates to versions completely with plug ins

 

If Wynn actually did update to 1.17, I'd like to see an Ocean rework, honestly. It's pretty lacking in terms of content and secrets, not to mention it's the last major region (Wynn, Gavel, SE, Corkus) to not have any discoveries. A Nether update, utilizing some of the new blocks, would be pretty nice as well.

 

Shame compatibility is such a huge problem, being able to update would open up so many opportunities. Maybe we could have an ocean that's actually as deep as an ocean is supposed to be.

 

Especially with the new 1.17 changes that increase world size

 

If it realistically could, then yes.

 

Unfortunately, I don't see Wynncraft upgrading to the latest versions anytime soon due to the extreme amount of work it could take. It already provides some cross-version compatibility and features from future versions, such as particles, sounds, and even some blocks.
Most importantly, upgrading versions isn't as simple as putting in the latest Server jar file and running it. There's a lot of steps to take, and some are much more tedious than others. I believe Wynncraft still runs on Minecraft 1.8 at its base, which means by 1.17, it will be 10 versions behind on Minecraft.

I won't harp on it too much, but here is the basic rundown of what they would have to do in order to upgrade:

1. Upgrade all Server Plugins. Assuming that most, if not all, of the code is based in 1.8, this would be somewhat tedious work. Regardless of whatever Server type they're running on (Ex. Spigot), many key changes have happened between 1.8 and 1.17, such as method/enum changes, method deprecations (Methods that are no longer supported and not recommended for safe use), or even entire method removals. They would need to rework the code to take into account these changes and find the new additions/changes that fix these.
2. Upgrade all Command Blocks. By far the most tedious process. Command block formats have changed drastically since 1.8, and the biggest overhaul to them was in 1.13. I believe last I heard, some drastic changes were made that prevents custom commands to be ran through command blocks, which I'm positive Wynncraft uses a ton. Luckily, there are APIs out there that work with this new Command system, but upgrading not only all command blocks but all existing commands would be incredibly difficult.
3. Upgrading the world. Possibly the most gamebreaking one. I believe 1.13 is the main crossover to this, as the way that internal Block/item data is stored and used was changed drastically. I believe it's safe to upgrade now for the most part, but this could still break the world in numerous ways.
4. Upgrading Item Data. Kind of complex if you don't know what I mean, but reiterating the previous point, block/item data was changed majorly. Items no longer use numerical IDs (ex. Stone having an id of 1), and they now just use enum names (ex. Stone is now the enum of STONE, and Andesite is the enum of ANDESITE). Upgrading this across all items in their database and in-game shops could take who knows how long. Perhaps they could write a program to do this massive upgrade for them however.

Besides having full access to new block types, new sounds, and new particles, it may be a safer bet just to stay on 1.8 until they find the time and manpower to do a full upgrade of the server to the latest version. For the time being however, the potential hazards it introduces outweighs the benefits of upgrading.

 

Thanks for breaking down the difficulties, Nova.

(that said, one benefit of upgrading to a recent version would be that tps-related bugs could be pretty much entirely removed, now that modern Fabric setups can compete with older Bukkit forks in speed while maintaining consistency)

 

I don't think spigot changed too much, but even a small change will affect thousands of lines of code, which from my experience have to be almost completely rewritten. The biggest change would be NMS stuff, which not only would have it's obfuscation map changed, but would also have a lot more changes than spigot since mojang doesn't take plugin makers into account when updating the game. Other than that the SQL and YAML stuff should stay the same.

The world upgrader mojang has built in works really well so this wouldn't be a problem. However, when downgrading it's reaction to strange blocks is usually to delete everything and start worldgen from scratch.