FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

I thought of making an all-in-one solution to our age old problems of people not rtfm (reading the friendly manual) and asking us n00by questions. While these questions have declined over the year(s?) I still wanted to make a book that would be a very simple and basic guide to playing and using minetest at all. This could be a pre-requisite to using the wiki, and the wiki would be an extention of all that is in the book. This book would be possibly included in the official downloads.

As such, I have begun designing this book. The final book would be in .pdf format, legible, and certainly NOT in Comic Sans MS. The link below is only a crappy, incomplete WIP mockup of what I expect the final product to be like:

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B4h2is2S_RWUX2tCRWhfOWU4UU0&usp=drive_web

I need people to start writing (once I get the topics in order) for this manual. I want this manual to be possibly completed within the next two weeks - when I expect 0.4.10 to be released

Here is a manual of a well known game. We want to make something similar to this.

http://cdn4.steampowered.com/Manuals/2700/manual_english.pdf?t=1354900695

The solution to people not reading the manual is writing a manual? seems legit.

Well, if this manual was put into the official downloads, I don't see why they won't read that first

hoodedice wrote:Well, if this manual was put into the official downloads, I don't see why they won't read that first

Because nobody reads the manual anyway!

On a more serious note, most people don't bother themselves with manual and just want to play the game. So, maybe put in some code on the first couple of game startups pointing the user to a manual?

Enke wrote:

hoodedice wrote:Well, if this manual was put into the official downloads, I don't see why they won't read that first

Because nobody reads the manual anyway!

On a more serious note, most people don't bother themselves with manual and just want to play the game. So, maybe put in some code on the first couple of game startups pointing the user to a manual?

Though, to implement something like this without it being annoying to people grabbing newer builds whenever they come out, it would require a user common directory to be used. To put such in without being horribly wasteful about it, you need to put other things like mods, settings, and alternate games in there. Well, it would pretty much just be changing a small bit of code, but that would force versions which aren't compatible with things from other versions to load those anyways, in a game like this.

So, with what I've heard about the stubbornness of the [edit]more[/edit] dedicated developers for this game, it either has to be a moderate annoyance or not happen at all.

kinkinkijkin wrote:

Enke wrote:

hoodedice wrote:Well, if this manual was put into the official downloads, I don't see why they won't read that first

Because nobody reads the manual anyway!

On a more serious note, most people don't bother themselves with manual and just want to play the game. So, maybe put in some code on the first couple of game startups pointing the user to a manual?

Though, to implement something like this without it being annoying to people grabbing newer builds whenever they come out, it would require a user common directory to be used. To put such in without being horribly wasteful about it, you need to put other things like mods, settings, and alternate games in there. Well, it would pretty much just be changing a small bit of code, but that would force versions which aren't compatible with things from other versions to load those anyways, in a game like this.

So, with what I've heard about the stubbornness of the [edit]more[/edit] dedicated developers for this game, it either has to be a moderate annoyance or not happen at all.

Good point. What about a tab in the menu that says "Manual", and has a set of instructions in it? That way you don't have to search too far for a manual, and you don't have to worry about it if you don't want to.

Just put the manual in pdf in the parent directory. I bet 85% of those who download don't even know what the 'bin' folder stands for.

A more simplistic Quick Reference guide, in which large blocks of text should be avoided and more pics should be used, can become what we need.
No one likes to look at large chunks of text, and the wiki/manual should only serve as a reference in need,but not something one should get started with.

Having a manual is good. You can always say then RTFM! ;)

So what we need is a virus-type program that executes when Minetest is downloaded! Then the user is forced to read the manual!

:P

maybe the wiki-mod could be officially used as in game manual?
The manual could be some content (among possibly others) that can be dropped where the wiki-mod finds it. This of course would work best if the mod could switch between parallel wiki-content-databases.

On a somewhat larger scale how about a hook to some e-book format reader. EPUB seems to be the most widespread format besides PDF and TXT. There should be some opensource e-book library out there that could be used for a help system and manual. Rich-content files could be offered seperately and in multiple Languages so the basic minetest download is not cluttered with content one might not be interested in. A well known open format would also allow to create and read content with third party programs.

Enke wrote:

hoodedice wrote:Well, if this manual was put into the official downloads, I don't see why they won't read that first

Because nobody reads the manual anyway!

On a more serious note, most people don't bother themselves with manual and just want to play the game. So, maybe put in some code on the first couple of game startups pointing the user to a manual?

I dont know i'd like a manuale

Actually, stuff has moved to the wiki, and it is now more filled up and stuff. Instead of working on a manual alone, I now edit the wiki.

Thanks for bringing this topic back from the dead, have a link: http://wiki.minetest.net

thanks

So no "friendly" manual then? I've yet to see one anywhere, just the "effing" manual. :P

hoodedice wrote:Just put the manual in pdf in the parent directory. I bet 85% of those who download don't even know what the 'bin' folder stands for.

True I dont know what it "stands" for but I certainly looked inside of it for some kind of documentation explaining all the available keys...as well as all the other included folders.

I thought for sure it would be in the doc folder..but no you gotta go read the wiki if you wanna know anything besides WASD and space bar

I downloaded the wiki pages and compiled a little cliffnotes/help file, so it doesnt really matter to me
but I dont think you should abandon this idea, not everyone has a consistent internet connection

and people do read the manual...you guys just hear from the ones that dont so it seems like it. :)

ok ok, I get the deal. Cool. I'll first finish off the two page introduction sheet that twoelk requested, then get back to the actual manual.

BTW, bin stands for binary, because all the files inside of it are binary files

hoodedice wrote:ok ok, I get the deal. Cool. I'll first finish off the two page introduction sheet that twoelk requested, then get back to the actual manual.

BTW, bin stands for binary, because all the files inside of it are binary files

yeah I know its a unix thing
I looked it up

I'm officially restarting this thing - anyone willing to contribute may either contact me via forum PM or IRC or submit a pull request here https://github.com/rubenwardy/minetest-manual

I suggest using markdown to format, because you can then convert it to HTML or PDF or any format you choice (and is supported). Other languages than markdown are available.