FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

MTCon/MeseCON

I've been pondering over the practicalities of a convention. It would be cool to meet up and talk about this project, share ideas, maybe make a few mods. The convention could be in a coffee shop / café - if there's less than 10 people, I doubt you'd need to book/pay. It would be a friendly meet up for a few hours to discuss Minetest and the future.

Maybe we could set up a stall at some sort of FOSSCon, and meet there.

Please post any ideas. There's only so much chatting you can do, and people are unlikely to travel for that. There won't be much commercial interest, so no stalls.

Potential ideas:

• Chat / social / cake
• Hackathon or buildathon. Would require a longer term venue. Work in teams
• insert your idea here

team bug squash

Simply, some important members don't live in U.K... Even some live in different continents, also for some people if is very hard to write in English, is even harder speak it (i am one of those. I've been improving, but i need a lot of work and practive)

Some people don't have time for it, for more that they could want some time to go, they don't have time...

If i could i go to that convention, in a cafe, or a humble house, it doesn't matter to me, i have time, but i can't pay a flying ticket to U.K, as well the amount for one ticket is ridicously where i live, some people have that issue too...

Can be a good idea a convention in different countries, but i don't know, a day where all the fans get in a house or center to talk with other fans using some buddy that be a translator if there is an issue with language...

Since many members have internet or at least go to an "internet cafe" (or how they'd download new mods and updates...) They can use chats, "skype", forums and different social network. An "online convention" can be the best choice.

A good idea for this of "online convention" can be like this:
-Chats, as well one exclusively to talk about something (mods, developing, mapgen, etc..)
-Streams, can be a "fat chance" for some youtubers playing Minetest to have more "viewers" and "followers"!
-Mod showcase, new features in the dev version to show!
-Different sections in different languages, so the language isn's something to worry about.
-"Team Speak" and "Skype" Groups, to talk in live about themes.

A virtual convention is a possibility. I choose the UK as I live there - I wouldn't want to or be able to fly to another country to go to a convention

rubenwardy wrote:A virtual convention is a possibility. I choose the UK as I live there - I wouldn't want to or be able to fly to another country to go to a convention

+1 For Virtual convention!

Come dressed as Sam.
Come dressed as nodes and sit on each other.
Come with a low-res tool and mine other attendees.

I live in Michigan, so I wouldn't be able to attend one in the UK...

If I could come though, I'd wear my proper in character clothes (that you see in my avatar)

I had often wondered about the possibility to meet fellow Minetesters in person. Sadly most of my recent travels to places a little more far away where not private. I have often traveled to Great-Britain in the past and might even do so for Minetest, providing I have time and I have the extra money at the time. I guess most players would love to meet but lack the possibilities. With minor age and funds probably being the main problems.

So getting organized locally and exploring the possibilities of some form of more intense online meeting are probably the best two options at the moment.

As a lot of the Minetest devs and modders (and some players of course) are quite interested and even active in open source stuff and projects such as FOSS in general or Linux, gaming, GIS or involved with education we should maximize the possibility to meet at such conventions and conferences some of us might be attending. Maybe an extra thread for announcing that some one is attending such a meeting and maybe even holding a lecture such as s-l-teichmann did might be a way to organize informal meetings.

Actually any major sports or cultural event may supply the chance of meeting fellow Minetesters. We would just need to know in time. For example I just happen to be in Berlin for a few days and on this weekend there is the "Lange Nacht der Museen" with a lot of government houses and institutions also opening to the public for a day. I presume quite a share of Minetest players roamed the city and may even have met without knowing about each others passion for the game. Maybe we can make more of such opportunities in the future.

A virtual convention would be the only thing I'd be able to attend, as I'm not going to travel oversees.

A hybrid convention could be a thing too, depending on where people live, a group could meet in person and live stream the event with Q & A sessions or whatever we'd plan upon. People could visit the stream to ask questions of other people and such. Of course this would require a bit more organization that just picking some location and time for people to meet, but still probably doable.

benrob0329 wrote:I live in Michigan, so I wouldn't be able to attend one in the UK...

If I could come though, I'd wear my proper in character clothes (that you see in my avatar)

eyyy
go michigan
(because I live there as well)

If I could come, I would bring a chicken.

EDIT: Virtual convention please

I also support the virtual convention thing, but it's just not the same.

As for physical, I'm used to missing out. I have yet to see a Pi Jam in my area (or on this continent, afaik)

wilkgr76 wrote:I also support the virtual convention thing, but it's just not the same.

As for physical, I'm used to missing out. I have yet to see a Pi Jam in my area (or on this continent, afaik)

And that, kids, is why you don't live in New Zealand.
(i don't even know if you do)

programmingchicken wrote:

wilkgr76 wrote:I also support the virtual convention thing, but it's just not the same.

As for physical, I'm used to missing out. I have yet to see a Pi Jam in my area (or on this continent, afaik)

And that, kids, is why you don't live in New Zealand.
(i don't even know if you do)

Australia, BOO-YAH!

:'(

Also bring some yellowish stones you got from killing a flying MESE monster. Be a real Minetest player!
---

The idea is cool and I would like to meet some of the people here (and some rather not). But the players are spread all over the world and flying to a nice café without any longer holiday plans in that country is not really efficient. Your wallet will hate you for that.

why uk?
central Europe is more reachable from many people

Because I'm in the UK - others are welcome to host their own

Krock wrote:Also bring some yellowish stones you got from killing a flying MESE monster. Be a real Minetest player!
---

The idea is cool and I would like to meet some of the people here (and some rather not). But the players are spread all over the world and flying to a nice café without any longer holiday plans in that country is not really efficient. Your wallet will hate you for that.

*parent's wallet

I live in Germany, and can't travel to the UK so easy, but I think the Idea is really cool! Im in the UK on a school trip next summer, so if the MeseCon is in this time I maybe can come.

rubenwardy wrote:Because I'm in the UK - others are welcome to host their own

maybe we continental europeans should indeed make use of the current ease to travel to england as long as it lasts. might get a lot more difficult in the near future when the british isles will begin to drift away from the rest of europe. :-D

twoelk wrote:

rubenwardy wrote:Because I'm in the UK - others are welcome to host their own

maybe we continental europeans should indeed make use of the current ease to travel to england as long as it lasts. might get a lot more difficult in the near future when the british isles will begin to drift away from the rest of europe. :-D

We should probably also have a MeseCon before the sun absorbs the Earth.

I think the idea of "virtual convention" is more reliable and as well useful for people that don't live in europe...
I live in South America, and i don't have any problem going thru Panama and center america, Mexico and then go to the U.S.A in a car... But hey, I'm poor (...) also, the amount of the toll for traveling is ridiculous, and even more the "papers" and "identifications" to justly do a travel... If i go in airplane, that can be easier, but i need more money...

You start to think to do something in the U.K... But I'm not in Europe, as well i think i'm talking for some people that lives here. A "stream" can be a good choice too :D

MineYoshi wrote:I think the idea of "virtual convention" is more reliable and as well useful for people that don't live in europe...
I live in South America, and i don't have any problem going thru Panama and center america, Mexico and then go to the U.S.A in a car... But hey, I'm poor (...) also, the amount of the toll for traveling is ridiculous, and even more the "papers" and "identifications" to justly do a travel... If i go in airplane, that can be easier, but i need more money...

You start to think to do something in the U.K... But I'm not in Europe, as well i think i'm talking for some people that lives here. A "stream" can be a good choice too :D

I sure as hell don't live in Europe, so maybe if we set up a server meeting or a discord or something

I could never go to one in the UK...Nor probably anyone in the United States for that matter, considering the costs nowadays to fly to England ($1000 from SFO airport to Heathrow). I would definitely do the virtual one.

I think the "virtual convention" is more good...

OK just a quick one from me

I live in the UK and would be most happy to attend a MT conf / MESECon.

For those who work in FOSS outside of Minetest, there are several conventions, most of which are outisde of [name your country], and yet people manage to make it. For those who can't, indeed, they just set up ther own conference :)

I attended FOSSDEM last year in Belgium. A little bit of a trek, but not insurmountable.

If we were to do a physical meetup:

* for devs, I would suggest starting out by having a stall at one of the established open source cons with more of a developer perspective - show how modding is much easier, discuss C++ and engines and libraries... the really under-the-hood geekiness.

* For the players and fans, I'd suggest actually getting a booth at a comiccon or a games con (as opposed to FOSS/dev) to raise profile and have fun. Much more dressing up possibilities there! This one would be solely for the joy of Minetest, maybe set up with a local server and a few user stations with a carefully crafter subgame with some of the more widely used/best mods and prepped (demos of mesecons, pipeworks, realms, nether, mobs, etc etc - or maybe on different server instances).

+++
For either of those, you can build a team of people to get a stall and do it. I notice a lot of Easter EUropean players on my servers so they're possibly a significant group in and of themselves - are there any games/comic/FOSS cons in Eastern Europe they can band together on?

I think some of the core devs are francophones so probably would have an inclination towards Belgium/France....

America would probably want 3 conferences for its own self - and maybe that's be great! There are lots of comicons there, and the games industry has a heavy focus in the USA, so raising the profile on that side would be a great idea!

LATAM also has a good share of players... again, a separate dev con there probably, not sure if there's any games cons there much?

rubenwardy obviously has a preference to cover UK, as do I, though I would not be averse to wandering back to FOSDEM to meet the MT crowd :D

* Finally a virtual meetup.... personally I would not really attend that. It's impersonal, one-conversation/one-track only, and prone to being at times I can't make, and I can much less justify taking time off work for a conf call than I can for a convention.

In summary.... MESECon at ALL the Cons! :-P

+++
Just a short one.... yeah....

Afterthought:

from the virtual perspective, maybe hosting a few virtual meetups, say once a month, could be interesting, and doing ones for different timezones.... anybody can attend any of them, but specifying separate events and start times for different time zones allows people to choose one, and attend at the same time as other people instead of haphazardly...? personally I'm more likely to attend the USA ones for example, since I would only really have time in the evening/at night....

taikedz wrote:Afterthought:

from the virtual perspective, maybe hosting a few virtual meetups, say once a month, could be interesting, and doing ones for different timezones.... anybody can attend any of them, but specifying separate events and start times for different time zones allows people to choose one, and attend at the same time as other people instead of haphazardly...? personally I'm more likely to attend the USA ones for example, since I would only really have time in the evening/at night....

Hehe...

I can be sure many people from LATAM that actually likes Minetest, and don't judge it as a "cheap-MC", justly aren't the enough. I can be sure that i never seen any FOSS con in Colombia... As well due to "culture", generally the computers are only used as "entertaiment" and "social-life", i don't know about anybody closely where i live that be a Minetest-Fan...

The governs always looks like they'd like to be under "EE.UU Firms"... That's why in the schools there are so many "License Missing" software...

I would like more to do a "virtual convention", or at least have it with the "MeseCon" at the same time..

I think about the fact that maybe is more possible a convention in Brazil for South America, as well there is more people there lovin' open source, but since they (Brazilians) only speak Brazilian Portuguese looks kinda hard...

I'd prefer to attend one near or in Southern California.

Byakuren wrote:I'd prefer to attend one near or in Southern California.

About U.S.A... Where do you want to do the MeseCon?

EDIT - discuss a virtual meetup alternative in another thread

Maybe this can be started out online - and then moved to physical locations if there is enough interest?

As for the virtual platform.... I know some people here are likely to want to use Open Source Free Software, so Skype is out of the running.

Palava.tv is open source, I don't know how well it scales, but it requires no client to be installed https://palava.tv

Otherwise I could donate a server for a Mumble room, but that'll require everyone to be using the Mumble client, and would be audio only.

Tox (qTox?) or Ring.cx are another possibility, but again requires a client to be installed.

Any other suggestions?

(should I even create a new poll on a new thread.....?)