Modding Your Wynn

Is Modding Safe?

By using 3rd party launcher, launching a 3rd party client wrapper, or loading a 3rd party client modifcation (listed in descending order of access although all occur in this guide), you are taking an inherent risk. You are trusting the 3rd party with access to execute code on your computer. While the amount of damage it can do varies, that risk remains.

Having said that, there are many checks in place to prevent that from happening. If you use open source software with large userbases, regardless of the 3rd party themselves, thousands of users have had time to run the application and look for abnormalities. Moreover, technical users have had a chance to look at the code themselves, further ensuring nothing suspicious is occuring. There is still a risk, but it is thoroughly mitigated.

Another mitigation of risk happens when one uses software that has been uploaded to large moderated platforms (such as modrinth and curseforge). In addition to the checks above, these platforms use automated and manual tools to review the submitted code as to make sure it isn’t doing anything it shouldn’t be doing. Again, there is still risk, but this mitigates it further.

Finally, one can install software created by 3rd parties they trust. Even if software has no users, is closed, and/or not on a moderated platform, if one trusts the software’s author, then one can trust the software. This is the rarest and least advisable form of mitigation, but it adds another layer in conjunction with the above (although some risk remains).

The resources suggested by this guide are open sourced, have a reasonable amount of users, and have been posted to moderated platforms. Or, in the case of launchers and wrappers, are open sourced and used by enough users for the safety concern to be almost completely mitigated in and of themselves. Or, in the case of launchy specifically, open source and released by a team closely connected to Wynn (although that connection remains unofficial; the lead developer for launchy and wynntils is the same as the lead developer for Wynn).

Why does this guide promote x over y?

Fabric v. Forge v. Others

Currently, within the modding system, fabric is the goto ecosystem for client side modification within server connected contexts. The vast majority of active development, within a Wynncraft context, occurs within the Fabric ecosystem.

This is not to say that there are not alternatives. Many current wynn mods are translated into the (neo)forge ecosystem, which technically remains an option. But this is a worse choice, in general, than just running things in/with fabric since that is the most tested ecosystem and where most active development occurs. The same goes for obscure and/or deprecated ecosystems such as liteloader.

Prism v. Modrinth v. CurseForge v. Others

CurseForge has quickly become a bloated proprietary ecosystem wherein the platform’s foremost priority is no longer its users. Modrinth arose as an alternative to that, although its focus primarily remains the curation and distribution of mods as opposed to launching them (although it has expanded into that vertical). Prism, meanwhile, has recived the vast majority of open source development over the past decade (in the form of its upstreams).

It is open source, it is performant, it is intuitive, and it has a very large userbase that results in both security and community support. It is also capable of loading mods and wrappers/apis from the entire ecosystem and is therefore a great starting point. Having said that, both modrinth and prism are valid choices notwithstanding.

Lunar’s support for wynncraft is very outdated and buggy, not to mention incompatible with several key aspects of functionality. For this reason, as with CurseForge, this guide’s authors do not recommend it be used in Wynncraft contexts.

Custom v. Optimized Family v. Skyward Family

This guide recommends the use of a performance modpack as the basis of installations of type two and three. This is opposes the common practice of dumping anything with the word “performance” into your mods folder and hoping for the best.

This opposition stems both from the frequency at which performance mods update and the frequent incompatibilities between various performance mods. Without spending time to debug your performance mods as to avoid cases wherein they fight with each other, the best option is to just let someone else do it, in the form of a modpack.

As for the specific choice of performance modpack, currently, the options are between two ecosystems: HyperSoop’s Optimised family of modpacks, and Devin’s Skyward family of modpacks. This article chooses the later family on account of it being open sourced, more communal, more focused, and more targeted.

Downloading Minecraft

Wynntils Launchy is a wrapper, meaning it is effectively an interface to simplify modding the Official Minecraft Launcher. If you already have the official launcher downloaded and installed, you can skip this step!

If you do not have the Mojang Launcher installed or are unsure, expand this!

Fetching The Exe

First things first, we need to fetch the Minecraft installer from this page!

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The first thing we will need is the Minecraft Launcher’s exe!
This can be found from this page of the Minecraft Website!

Once you have selected your installer, downloading it should give you a file to click.

It’s now time to install Minecraft!

If you see the text indicated with the blue arrow
Unfortunately, Microsoft requires your computer to be configured with a MS account.
We will be doing that in the next step!

If you do not see the red text, you’re all set!
Agree to the terms (red arrow), install (green arrow), and skip the next step!

Attaching a Microsoft Account to Windows

Microsoft only lets their official launcher active on computers with an added MS Account¹.

If you ended the previous step with red “Before installing this version …” error text, you will need to do this step. If not, you are free to skip this step!

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Opening the Microsoft Store (available through your start menu) will ask for a MS account.
This can be any account and does not need to match your minecraft account.

Once you are done with that, close the windows store, re-open the minecraft launcher, and click launch.

Installing Minecraft

Now that you’ve managed to click the “Install” button on the launcher, it’s mostly just a matter of waiting! Note that you will probably be asked to provide user account control during this step.

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Chances are the launcher will install a bunch of runtime environments and whatnot.
This can take a while.

At some point, the launcher will probably give you a user account control dialog.
This is safe to accept.

Authenticating Minecraft

So… we’ve installed Minecraft, but that isn’t enough for Microsoft. Time for more authentication! After you click “Let’s Go”, it will ask you to sign in a few times before it actually launches.

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First things first, we need to click the “Let’s Go” button!

At some point, the launcher will probably ask you to sign in to an xbox account.²
This does not need to be the MS account associated with your Minecraft account.

At this point, the launcher will probably spend a few mins downloading more assets.

Finally, you will be asked to sign in one last time.
This time, it is the account you will be playing on (i.e. your minecraft account)!

You’re Done!

The Minecraft launcher has now been installed… too bad we won’t be using it! The last step for this part is to close your launcher and start with the launchy instructions below.

When you see this screen, you are done!
Close this window and move on to Launchy

Downloading Launchy

Now that we have Minecraft, it’s time to modify it for Wynn. Compared to setting up Minecraft itself, this part is much easier!

For instructions on how to install launchy, expand this!

Fetching Launchy

First, we need to download and run the Launchy installer.
Because launchy is Wynn-specific, it isn’t used by that many people.
Your OS will probably complain about this fact. This is normal.

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First things first, we need to visit Launchy’s web page

From there, we will need to click the latest release.

There will be several files within the latest release.
We want to choose our installer.

Then we just need to wait for it to download and run the file.

One problem with Launchy is that there aren’t that many people who use it.
Its frequent releases compound this problem. We trust launchy on account of its open source and the significant overlaps between Wynn’s dev team and Wynntils’.

But although we do, your operating system probably won’t.
If you get this alert, you will need to click “More Info”.

Click “Run Anyways”

Around this point, you will probably get prompted with windows User Account Control.
This is safe to accept.

You’re done! Launchy will now install the needed files and put a shortcut on your desktop.

Configuring Launchy

Now that we have the wrapper installed, it’s time to set up our Wynncraft instance! Compared to the last steps, this part is fairly straight foward!

Click the Launchy icon on your desktop and follow its instructions, closing it when you are done!

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At the end of the previous step, a shortcut will have appeared on your desktop: now is the time to click it!

You will be greeted you with a welcome screen reminder stating that, as a wrapper, Launchy only works if you already have the official launcher installed.

We’ve already done that! Feel free to click “ok”

You will be asked if you want to import any settings form the launcher you just installed

If you just installed the MC launcher via the earlier steps of this guide, importing won’t do much. Otherwise, it is probably worthwhile.

When you are done importing, click the Install button!

Launchy will give you a menu offering several different categories of mods chosen by the Wynntils team. These are just general mods that are popular within the community and that work well with wynntils.

Select the mod categories you would like to use.
Then click the install button in the bottom left

And just like that, you are done! A new Wynncraft-related profile has been added to your instance of the official launcher!

Close Launchy.

Launching Wynncraft

In the previous steps, we used a wrapper to make a new Wynncraft instance in the Vanilla launcher. It’s time to play that instance!

Simply open your vanilla launcher and open your new “Wynncraft” instance!

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Open the official Minecraft launcher!

On windows, this can probably be found via your start menu!

Click on the Java Edition tab!

Under the Java Edition tab, click on the installations sub-tab!

Find the new Wynncraft instance and click on it!
It should have a Wynn logo

Hovering over the wynn instance, find and click the green play button!

Mojang will prevent you a nag message reminding you that this client is modified.

Acknowledge the disclaimer and click play!
You’re done!