Minecraft Forums

About one and a half years ago, back in 1.7.4 in the end of 2013, I stopped playing Minecraft properly (by 'properly' I mean stop playing as frequent as before, not following update news, being a part of the community etc) so I have still played it from now and then until now on popular servers such as Survival Games servers when I've been bored. This was not an abrupt change, but something that happened as time went by; friends became bored with the game and I found many other games on Steam and also got a bit bored with it. Me and my friends had a server (two actually, we moved on from the first after the Beta 1.8 update) and after we grew away from Minecraft I've always felt that I missed our digital community. Recently I read parts of the server logs due to boredom (fortunately everything is not deleted) and I realised how much fun I'd had in this game for countless of hours starting in Beta 1.5 when I bought Minecraft, especially on the private servers. I want to try and get into this game again and I've updated myself but some things are a bit unclear:

1. Bukkit went down, so what do people use nowadays? Is there a way to change plugins effectively, e.g. I want the homes and warps from my server to remain, is there some good way of doing this?
2. While speaking of my server, do you think it would be possible to lure my friends back into the game as well? Because I want to play on my server but it would be much more fun with my friends!
3. Microsoft bought Mojang, has there been any noticable changes in Minecraft?
4. Minecraft has only had one big update in the time I was gone? Did anything specific happen, because in the past it could have been five large updates in 1,5 years? From what I understand there's nothing really big which could matter, but I just want to be sure.
5. I might be wrong on this, but aren't most mods still in 1.7 soon a year after 1.8 was released? Is there any specific reason for this?

(BTW sorry for the long back story I just felt that I needed to write it)

1. Bukkit went down, so what do people use nowadays? Is there a way to change plugins effectively, e.g. I want the homes and warps from my server to remain, is there some good way of doing this?
2. While speaking of my server, do you think it would be possible to lure my friends back into the game as well? Because I want to play on my server but it would be much more fun with my friends! Probably, try finding a massive project to do, like building a giant castle, I find having some goals helps keep the game interesting. Definitely try getting them to play again, almost any game is improved when you play with friends
3. Microsoft bought Mojang, has there been any noticable changes in Minecraft? It's now available for Windows tablets and phones and has been demoed on Microsoft's HoloLens, but there haven't been any core changes to the game.
4. Minecraft has only had one big update in the time I was gone? Did anything specific happen, because in the past it could have been five large updates in 1,5 years? From what I understand there's nothing really big which could matter, but I just want to be sure.In terms of gameplay, 1.8 adds a lot of decorative blocks and a new structure, the Ocean Monument, however nothing super big has happened, many of 1.8's features are behind the scenes(e.g, stuff for adventure maps and resource packs that doesn't really affect the average player). A full list of 1.8 features can be found here. A 1.9 snapshot is set for release in two weeks or so, 1.9 looks to be quite big.
5. I might be wrong on this, but aren't most mods still in 1.7 soon a year after 1.8 was released? Is there any specific reason for this? 1.8 changed the rendering system a lot, some mods are unable to update because of this, some others aren't updating because it isn't worth the hassle and some are in the process of updating.