UPDATE: Progress on Blog Pack 1.7.10, News

           Hey, guys. I'm writing here to inform you guys of a few updates. I've been progressing through college nicely and it's getting close to midterms. October is also my birthday month, so I'm excited (slightly) about that. Those of you who have seen my baseball tweets might know about the Orioles in the Championship round. Yes, I'm super excited about that. As a young fan I never saw their success in the 80's, so it's thrilling to see them as far as they are.

          More importantly, I've been working on my winter blog pack and I have more or less found a concrete mod list. Now, this is very much a work-in-progress and I have not tested a lot of the mods. The next phase is preliminary testing, removing and adding mods as needed.

Here is the mod list as I have it so far:

1. Minecraft Forge v1208. This is a downgrade from what I had, which was 1217 and 1219. I ran into several issues with the pack, which resulted in a move from MultiMC to an ATLauncher instance.
2. bspkrsCore, required for two mods
3. Baubles, required for Thaumcraft and two other mods
4. CodeChickenCore, required for NEI and EnderStorage
5. CoFH Core, required for Thermal Expansion and MineFactory Reloaded
6. Enchiridion. I do not know what this is for. If anyone can inform me from this mod list, please do so.
7. Mantle, required for Tinker's Construct
8. MetallurgyCore, required for Metallurgy 4
9. Mobius Core, required for Waila and Jabba
10. Thermal Foundation, required for Thermal Expansion
    
    UTILITIES
11. ArmorStatusHUD
12. Damage Indicators
13. Dynamic Lights, required for Shadow World
14. FastCraft. This is a recent add and I have not tested a world with it. I am hoping this will provide a remedy for my computer's weak specs.
15. Inventory Tweaks
16. NEI
17. NEI Plugins Unofficial
18. NEI Addons
19. OpenEye
20. Opis, which includes MapWriter
21. StatusEffectHUD
22. TiC Plugins
23. Waila
24. Waila Harvestability
25. Wawla
    
    DIMENSIONS, RPG, MOBS, WORLDGEN
26. Biomes O' Plenty
27. AbyssalCraft
28. Atum: Journey into the Sands
29. Hardcore Ender Expansion. As a warning, this mod requires Java 7. If you have anything lower, the game will crash. You will have to take this out if you do not have Java 7.
30. Lycanite's Mobs
31. Shadow World
32. Shadow World/Dynamic Lights Plugin
33. Special Mobs
34. The Mists of RioV
35. The Erebus. This was updated very recently to 1.7.10 and thus is in a beta state. I am glad to be able to have it in the pack.
36. Twilight Forest
37. Utility Mobs
38. Gravestone
39. Roguelike Dungeons
40. Ruins
    
    MAGIC
41. Ars Magica 2. This was finally updated to 1.7.10 last week and I am glad to be able to test with it.
42. Blood Magic
43. Botania
44. Forbidden Magic
45. Thaumcraft
46. Thaumic Tinkerer
47. Warp Book
48. Witchery
49. Xth'uoth, dimension addon for ThaumcrafT
    
    TECH
    
50. EnderIO
51. Ender Storage
52. ExtraTIC
53. Extra Utilities
54. Hopper Ducts
55. Metallurgy 4
56. MineFactory Reloaded
57. Random Things
58. Redstone Paste
59. Thermal Expansion
60. Tinkers' Construct
    
    WEAPONS AND RESOURCES
61. Magical Crops
62. Pam's HarvestCraft
63. Adventurer's Amulets
64. Alchemical Bling
65. Artifacts
66. Legend Gear 2. This is an early beta and thus will have some bugs. Nonetheless, I am happy to test with it.
67. More Swords
68. The Pun Mod
69. QuiverBow
    
    STORAGE, DECORATION, MISCELLANEOUS
70. Backpacks Mod by Eydamos/MightyPork
71. BetterStorage
72. BiblioCraft
73. Jabba
74. Storage Drawers
75. Carpenter's Blocks
76. Chisel (Pokefenn's fork for 1.7.10)
77. DecoCraft
78. MrCrayfish's Furniture Mod
79. ObsidiPlates
80. Gany's Nether
81. Gany's End
82. Gany's Surface
83. Lost Books
84. Lucky Blocks

•  Battle Towers was left out because it was crashing on my system. I can try to ship the pack to my other computer and see if the crashes are resolved.
• Xeno's Reliquary will be included pending an update. It is currently in alpha/beta and is very unstable.
• Chocolate Quest will be included if it reaches a stable condition.
• Doomlike Dungeons will not be in this pack due to Roguelike Dungeons having more polish and similar features.
• TooMuchLoot will be included, but I do not currently have the time to edit it.
• DungeonPack will not be in the pack. Ruins will take its place, being much more configurable.
• The Forestry set will not be included because it will significantly extend the time it takes for completion. I intend for this pack to be a quick, but exciting, pack I can play in 6 weeks.

           This is an exploration pack with a small variety of other mods to keep it exciting. I look forward to seeing what this pack offers.

          Over the next 4 weeks I will be taking one extra class, which means I will not have as much time to test. Any free time I have will most likely go to watching videos or researching for projects. However, I will try my best to test and tweak the pack. I will update on my Twitter for minor news and post here or on FTB for major news.

One more thing: this pack will not be public at the moment. I may consider it after the pack is playable, but no promises. All motions for permission will be made AFTER the pack is playable.

Well, that's all for now. Take care, everyone!