The story of XMCL
The night we never got to play
I still remember one evening in high school.
A friend and I wanted to play a modpack together. At the time, there were few launchers that made installing mods easy. I used Windows, my friend used a Mac, and I had barely played Minecraft on macOS. Installing Forge alone produced problem after problem.
I helped him troubleshoot remotely. Versions, files, Java, Forge—anything could go wrong. Three hours passed. By the time the game was finally installed, the whole evening was almost gone.
But we still did not get to play.
The virtual LAN software we used would not connect, and the connection was unstable when it did. After spending the entire evening troubleshooting, my friend had lost all enthusiasm and gave up.
That night, I quietly made myself a promise: one day I would build a launcher. It would not only make modpacks easier to install; it would also solve the problem of playing them with friends.
At university, that idea became XMCL
I started building XMCL in earnest after entering university.
Over time, XMCL gained many features for mods and modpacks: dependency installation, version management, support for different loaders, organized instances, and problem diagnosis. They were not added to make a feature list longer. They were added because I remembered being the person who only wanted to play a modpack with a friend and could not get everything working.
I needed those tools, and I believed other players did too.
Most launchers do not consider multiplayer connectivity part of their job. XMCL added multiplayer features because I had already learned how painful that gap could be. Launching the game is only the first step. If a friend can never join, the session has not really started.
Built for people who want to make it work
XMCL has always aimed to serve the super users who love modpacks, care about how their game works, and want to share it with friends.
They do not necessarily want to become experts in Java, networking, or server administration. They simply want:
- the modpack to install and launch correctly;
- a way forward when crashes, dependency conflicts, or configuration problems appear;
- friends to join the same world reliably;
- a straightforward server option when the world needs to stay online.
Whether you choose peer multiplayer or rent an always-available server, the goal is the same: spend less time fighting tools and networks, and more time actually playing together.
AI assistance exists to support that goal. It is not another standalone product to understand. It is a tool for resolving modpack, crash, and server-configuration problems. That is why both Together and server plans include a fixed amount of AI assistance.
Why XMCL is introducing paid services
Relay traffic, a global network, AI assistance, and continuously running servers all have real costs and require ongoing maintenance.
XMCL is introducing paid services not to change who it was built for, but to sustain the quality of those services: reliable multiplayer when direct connections fail, useful help when a modpack breaks, and a dependable option when a group needs a server.
Years later, XMCL is still trying to accomplish what we could not on that high-school night:
less troubleshooting, and an earlier arrival in the same world with your friends.