Lately I’ve noticed how often classic packs like Tekkit, FTB Ultimate, Unleashed, or Mindcrack get brought up as the “golden age” of modded Minecraft.
And it made me wonder were those packs objectively better designed… or do they feel special because they were our first experiences with modded Minecraft?
Early packs had simpler progression, fewer gated recipes, and a stronger sandbox feel. Modern packs, on the other hand, often focus on heavy cross-mod integration, long automation chains, and quest systems guiding every step.
Neither approach is necessarily worse just different design philosophies shaped by different eras.
So I’m genuinely curious:
Do you think the classics still hold up because of their design, or are we viewing them through nostalgia?
Which old pack do you think would still impress a brand-new player today?
by Belal_Ps
8 Comments
i think the classics hold up gr8 for many people, many people that play them today
100%. The modding options from today and back then are as wide as a distance between the Earth and the Moon. we have so many more options that it’s not even funny. a lot of it is just rose tinted glasses
only some older packs get talked about because they’re amazing and still hold up. most old packs are never mentioned because they just aren’t worth talking about.
it’s the same case with even some relatively modern versions, there are probably a quintillion 1.16 packs, but we only speak of awesome ones like CABIN, or FTB IBPDX, etc. etc.
im gonna say a mix of better and nostalgia
like i remember alot of modpacks had likes of extra utilities and thermal expansion
thermal expansion i feel like getting downgraded hugely for every minecraft versions
now the ender fluid is not even used for much in there compare to before as a example
also lost forge microblocks in 1.7.10 where those can be used for covers for cables for AE/thermal expansion extra utilities and so on
modern modded minecraft dont have those kind of mod compatility much more unless its Create+its addons
and 100% better on the basics: only 1x mod loader and not having this split with +2 modloaders(i dont care if the modloader is forge or fabric or neoforge the fact we have this split is annoying)
I think it’s also because those were people’s first. It was new and exciting. Packs after that might be better, but the novelty of experiencing something for the first time cannot be repeated.
Both reasons id say.
I genuinely think they’re (mostly) better made. Tekkit is still more fun to me than >90% of modern packs, and that means something.
Who remember AMCO