Greetings,

As some of you may have noticed, we are winding down development on the bleeding codebase by prepping to merge bleeding into master . API 5 marks a big milestone for Sponge as many API bits are now complete and the focus now is in making things work (and in the case of SpongeForge , work with mods). The following are important calendar dates starting with the release:

Upcoming Sponge Events (mark your calendars!):

October 15th, 2016

API 5 merged into master by 11:59 PM CST .

. State of Sponge XII

Summer Sponge Plugin Competition winner announcement

November 26th, 2016

ten.java 10-hr plugin competition (https://twitter.com/tenjava/status/769737637896810496).

December 17th, 2016

Tentative State of Sponge XIII. Subject to change.

This calendar isn’t complete. As we approach the end of 2016, we’ll announce other Sponge-related events for the holidays.

Now lets take a moment to talk about API 6. As many of you are aware, Minecraft 1.11 is on the horizon and we estimate to see the final bits in roughly 5-6 weeks from now. Unlike with API 5, the transition to API 6 will be far faster since the major rewrites to Sponge’s codebase have since been mostly completed (barring a bug or two and some cleanup). With that said, the biggest change on the horizon is addressing the situation with Cause and our events (something that a few of you have been quite vocal about).

@Deamon has kicked up a PR here: https://github.com/SpongePowered/SpongeAPI/pull/1370

Yes this will mean another API break…but this time it will most definitely be to your liking as we will make it a lot clearer on the usage of cause and context as well as prevent most API methods being decorated with a Cause parameter. This change is a massive paradigm shift for how developers use events in SpongeAPI and we want to make this the last major change we make to the event system for the foreseeable future. The gravity of it has prompted me to make API 6 entirely dedicated to this change. If nothing else hits the API, you are guaranteed this at the very least. If need be, we will make API 7 the Minecraft 1.11 bump.

Lastly, I want to take a moment to do a shoutout to our community as a large. I don’t think we say it enough but we are eternally grateful to all of the people who have came together to support us in making the Sponge project what we know and love today. Myself, @gabizou, @blood, and our staff would not here today if it wasn’t for your support. 2016 has been an amazing year for Sponge (our Minecon representation was phenomenal, special shoutout to @gravityfox and his significant other or literally manning our booth and giving us a much needed reprieve!) and the best is yet to come.

Questions, comments or concerns? Reply below!

PS: If you want to get your PR into API 5 (or make one for API 5) then DO NOT WAIT UNTIL THAT SATURDAY. Get it updated/submitted just as soon as you can!