The Experimental "Vanilla-Minus" Modpack

Musketeer is a modpack designed around small multiplayer communities, living in a single shared world, and defying conventions of what Vanilla Minecraft play looks like in 2023.

The modpack's name comes from the Three Musketeers' "One for all, and all for one", as in "One world, for all players".

Musketeer...

Removes the Nether and the End (Several chosen features from the two dimensions have been dotted across the overworld or are acquireable through new recipes and methods)
Disables Coordinates (reduced debug info game rule is enabled by default)
Disables Iron Golem Farms
Removes Shulker Boxes and Elytra
Redesigns the Mending enchantment
Removes the ability to infinitely cure Villagers to reach infinite discounts
Nerfs low-effort automatic cactus XP farms
Disables Ice Roads
Disables piston dupes for TNT and Sand

But at the same time, Musketeer also...

Adds a wide variety of new content that matches the more down to earth approach to the game
Encourages intuitive automation that doesn't rely on age-old exploits or redstone quirks the average player wouldn't understand
Buffs Minecarts and Horses to encourage using them to traverse your world and connect with friends
Makes villagers lower their prices if properly lodged and not in a trading hall, to encourage building nice structures
Ties Ancient Cities to game progression in a more involved manner than Vanilla
Tweaks mob griefing to still be present but not as destructive
Among other smaller tweaks you can find dotted ingame

But why?

Mainly because modern Minecraft feels like a solved game. Once you know the popular strategies, you either use them every world or you have to exercise personal restraint to not do so as a self-imposed challenge. Plus, if you're playing on a server, you can't guarantee other players will exercise that restraint. This pack is niche and experimental by design - it was born from my love for the Minecraft midgame, and my general distaste for the sheer resource wealth of the modern endgame distracting from more down to earth playstyle I enjoy.

The core thought behind Musketeer is, "What if we had a modpack where the midgame was the endgame?" The "One World" concept came from a desire to create the right conditions for nice communities to form in medium-sized servers like those I remember from years past.

If you like Minecraft, but feel like it's lost its luster, isn't fun anymore, or feels too metagamed - consider stepping back from the tried and true, and try out Musketeer.

Beta Info

This pack is released in a Public Beta with no full release date planned. My current life situation prevents me from polishing it to the same extent that Bliss and Crucial 2 are. I ultimately made the decision to release it as is after some testing to ensure it actually works - mainly to see if the concept is actually fun and interesting to play with, and because it would significantly bother me to leave this unfinished and private for months on end without anyone being able to enjoy it.

Unfortunately, this comes with the caveat that I can only offer minimum support for the pack. The pack is comparatively tiny regarding mod count, so this might be perfectly fine. However, I do want to make it perfectly clear that I will not be able to provide consistent updates for this.

With that said, some members of the Violet Moon server have tested out the pack and enjoyed it greatly, despite some minor jank, I think all the gameplay-critical issues have been sorted out, so it should be more than playable. Therefore, it's released as-is, because I know a bunch of people that keep up with my work were very interested in playing it.

I hope this doesn't massively put you off from trying out the pack, and that you still enjoy the unique experience I worked hard to create :)

Credits

Thank you to everyone who has helped me get this to a working state, in no particular order, including but not limited to:

Emi for putting up with my constant bickering for new features
Bobisnotaperson and Artemis System for providing textures for the pack
Refresh Studios for the banger logo
Ellpeck and GameGuru for testing the alpha and giving great feedback . Yungnickyoung for early consultation on the pack's pitch
Avalira for help with designing the title screen and tutorial
WireSegal and Noobulus for help with developing for-purpose experimental modules in Quark
Chorb for technical consultation
Julinya, Zemmy, Kamefrede, Alwinfy, Hoshino, and everyone else who's kept me sane through trying times while making this