Phew, it’s been a very busy week, we’ve been doing a heap of work across all aspects of Sponge, check it out below:

##General Update

As you may already know, our two initial releases of Sponge will be for Forge and later for Glowstone. We were hoping to release the Sponge for Forge version earlier, but recent events (Microsoft’s acquisition of Mojang, the departure of one of Forge’s lead developers, the great number of changes in MC 1.8) had delayed the progress of Forge significantly. The good news, however, is that it looks like Forge for Minecraft 1.8 may be ready in the near future, which means we’ll be able to start making plans to publish our first release very soon. We still plan on releasing the API this month.

Normally, the process for a modification of Mojang’s code involves three steps:

The first step involves undoing some of the work that Mojang does to make it difficult to create a moddable code base. This process is usually called “mapping” or “deobfuscation.” After this process, Mojang’s code looks like something readable, the modifications that were made in the prior version of MC must be re-applied which is not always as straightforward as you may think. Mojang makes changes to their code (entire paragraphs are removed or added, as an analogy). This step is called “re-applying patches.” After re-applying patches, the last part is to find and fix bugs. Trying to re-apply patches is a tiresome process because it involves hundreds of changes in hundreds of places.

Forge depends on the MCP project, which handles the first step - mapping. They finished a few weeks ago, and they do a very good job very quickly, and have been doing it consistently since 2010.

Right now, we’re waiting on Forge to finish the second step. As previously mentioned, the recent events have caused some delays. Minecraft 1.8 brought about many tweaks to how things are done in the code, and we’re pleased that they managed to get Forge out in such a timely manner.

Once we get the ball rolling with 1.8, we plan to look into what we can do to make sure that the 1.9 release of Sponge is much quicker, even if it involves relying less on Forge for the first few releases.

##Development

Sponge’s development is coming along nicely. We have chosen Zidane to lead the development team.

Developer applications are currently being examined by Zidane and Dark-Arcana. If you’re wondering about the result of your developer application, then be aware that they have many applications to review and are reaching out to those who had applied. If you have not received a response yet, please be patient.

As we accept individuals to help with development, we assign them to certain areas of the API, preferring to make those who are experienced with that type of API to be responsible for it. We will be publishing these assignments once we’ve figured it out.

Remember that if you are interested in helping out with development, you can follow and add code to our GitHub repository, or apply for a developer position.

##Changes in Sponge Staff

When we started Sponge, we gathered pretty much everyone around the community that we could find and stuffed them into one group. This made communication easy, but it made organizing our efforts a lot harder as some people who had joined early on weren’t able to commit enough free time. To help rectify this, we’ve been restructuring the Sponge team internally and contacting people individually to see who would be able to contribute at this time. However, this means that the core team and staff lists are a little smaller. Don’t worry - we’re still and always will be looking for more help when we need it. We understand that people have other commitments to attend to, and simply can’t devote all of their time on the Sponge Project.

##The new Sponge Team structure is as follows:

####Leaders - Project management and Team Leaders

@Blood - (Has a baby to look after)

@sk89q - All of the things (Praise be unto Him)

@Zidane - Dev Lead

@DarkArcana - Community Manager

@Owexz - Community Manager

@Lukegb - SysOps Lead

####Developers

@Mumfrey

@kitskub

@Kobata

@turt2live

@AbrarSyed

@me4502

@progwml6

@modwizcode

@zerot

@gratimax

@sibomots

####SysOps

@Lukegb

@armed_troop

@GenPage

####WebDev

@Antariano

####Moderators/Support

@Disconsented

@drtshock

@GenPage

@Grinch

@mbaxter

@me4502

@phroa

@TnT

####Contributors- Assisting with coding.

@Spacemaniac

@DDoS

@Sleaker

@zml

@Dockter

@ElgarL

@Aikar

####Advisors- Wonderfully helpful folks.

@md_5

@grum

SeargeDP

@stevemcgrath

cpw

LexManos

@bspkrs

@ThinkofDeath

@t00thpick1

##Website Refresh

We also have an excellent new homepage designed by @Antariano If you haven’t had a chance to view it yet, please visit http://spongepowered.org.