Minecraft developers Mojang have announced that they're bringing four new members into the fold: the developers behind Minecraft server and modding simplification mod "bukkit" are officially joining the studio.

"The four, Warren Loo (@evilseph), Erik Broes (@_grum), Nathan Adams (@dinnerbone) and Nathan Gilbert (@tahgtahv), will work on improving both the server and the client to offer better official support for larger servers and server modifications," Mojang writes. "The plan is to build a fresh server API, and then extend it to support client-side modding (in one way or another)."

We're pretty sure that basically means creating, distributing and discovering mods is going to be a lot easier for Minecraft players in the future. That can only be a good thing. Why bukkit? "The reason is that we want more than just modding, and these guys have always had server admins in mind when developing their additions to the game," writes Mojang.

There's another developer that makes a habit of hiring the best modders from its fan communities: Valve. And it's worked out pretty well for them. Excited to dig into some Minecraft mods? Let us know in the comments or on Twitter.

[via RPS]