What confuses a noob (this month)

[avocamentum]

Big cheers to all the authors & mod owners out there.. this is a wonderful project for the world.

I am new to minetest and the other similar game out there (MC, I've only played the demo) but I am interested to learn more and help as I can. It is my impression from reading this forum, the wiki, and IRC logs that many people here have seen minetest change and develop. Many things are natural to you, but as a beginner I often felt lost. ... Soon, I will no longer be an absolute noob, instead I'll mature into "typical noob", which is an upgrade I look forward to.

Until then, many stumbling blocks are fresh on my mind. For benefit of the gurus, here is what an absolute beginner to minetest might get confused about:

• What is "minetest_game"? It's prominent at wikipedia. I haven't read the source yet, so I guess this is lingo or perhaps a depricated executable name. If this is an separate executable with many included mods then I haven't found it yet. ... It sounds like a tempting download where I don't have to wrangle with mod directory names..
• "Popular Mods" are all I need for a decent single player game, right? The top 10 mods listed at http://minetest.net/mods give the impression of playing nice together, but .. I guess this is a list based on simple forum metrics, such as total posts or reads? Not to put blame on any one mod, but I get many errors about mobf, and it seems like others might already be (partially) upstream? As a noob, it would be perhaps more helpful to see "recommended mods" or even "curated mod list for a fun creative game / survival game." Even more helpful might be "recommended download for singplayer survival" for first timers, with or without sandbox experience.
• Why can't I find "default" or "wool" or "fire"? Some mod forum topics are clear for clueless noobs like me, but others (maybe the older ones, see previous bullet) list things that are now part of the stable release. Often times only the "true dependencies" are linked, others are plain text. Yes, it is simple, but it isn't posted anywhere a noob will find quickly.
• More specific, less important: Improper Windows graphics setup might give no useful errors. I had troubles with a powerful Windows 7 laptop, the only feedback being a line number in main.cpp and "Assertation '0' failed", leading me here http://wiki.minetest.net/Troubleshootin ... d.E2.80.9D In my case, it was with 0.4.9 stable no mods, and I had no idea what my problem was, until the same package installed great on a different but similar machine.

Any votes for me to contribute to the wiki, before I get too wise? :)

If so, which items? Can you add another good one?

PS My aim is to help a end user enjoy minetest in the least time. This way, maybe more people will get hooked and decide to contribute. But if the broader aim is to filter out people quicker by keeping up a couple of early roadblocks, we can keep it the same.

/end first post

[Casimir]

What is "minetest_game"?

Lately Minetest has become an engine which allows to have several different game modes (also called "games"/"subgames"). Minetest_game is just the default one. In the next release there will be more. You can find them in the Games section of the forum.

"Popular Mods" are all I need for a decent single player game, right?

The list seems to be based on subjective observation of who ever wrote that list, but it is pretty accurate. Moreores and farming are already part of minetest_game.

Why can't I find "default" or "wool" or "fire"?

Subgames are mostly collections of mods. Minetest_game includes default, wool and fire. You don't need to install those as you already have them.

About the crash: In your minetest installation in the bin folder there is debug.txt. This give some more useful information.

[avocamentum]

@Casimir Thanks for the answers! ... But note, I was trying to say "These are the list of confusing things that a new user googling in to minetest.net." I've learned the answer to most of them, after searching.

I simply wanted to help make it easier for the next clueless noob. I think the main page or the wiki might not erase all noob question marks.

[Casimir]

I'm sorry that I misread your post. I added those questions to the FAQ.

[SAMIAMNOT]

Why does my completely contained furnace create a wildfire outside bug not light the log (wood) or Dirt with Grass.

[SAMIAMNOT]

Where is the fire Bezier mod? I cant find it no more
EDIT: found it. Its Brazier ;D

[Wuzzy]

What is "minetest_game"?

This is already taken of, I think:
http://wiki.minetest.net/Minetest_(game)

I even opened a forum topic about this:
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=9724

However, I think this subgame should get a “real” name. “minetest_game” is just the internal name, but this name is popular, because the official name of this subgame is “Minetest”. This is stupid, because the subgame and the game engine both have the same name. Maybe the default subgame should be renamed.

"Popular Mods" are all I need for a decent single player game, right?

Wrong. IMO what’s better for a newbie is to start with complete subgame, so they don’t have to bother about dependencies etc. The great benefit of subgames is that all that dependency hell already has been taken of. :)

Why can't I find "default" or "wool" or "fire"?

That’s actually a good question. I would suggest to improve the standards to include a thread into Mod Releases. Any mentioned mod which must explicitly come from a subgame should be clearly marked as such. This is important since some mods don’t come as standalone mods which can be found in these forums, but only as part of a subgame.
So instead saying “Dependendy: fire” it could be better to say: “Depencency: fire (from minetest_game)” or something like that.

Any votes for me to contribute to the wiki, before I get too wise? :)

Don’t be afraid to edit the wiki if you wish to. You would not be alone on the wiki, so mistakes can be corrected by others.


Edit: OK, I have edited all my threads in Mod Releases to explicitly mention minetest_game and linked to the thread, in case this is a dependency.

[SAMIAMNOT]

Which wiki is the official one: http://www.wiki.minetest.net or http://www.wiki.minetest.com

[rubenwardy]

http://wiki.minetest.net

don't use www., it's outdated and useless.

[uind_w]

When I was beginner, there was one question.
"How can I make charcoal by furnace?"

Of course, I already learned the answer.
"We can't make charcoal without some mods."

And I made very small mod.
It just add one recipe. default:tree -> default:coal.
...and some days after that, I found some "charcoal mod".
(Now I'm using "ethereal")

But, based on this experience, I make some another mod.
And Now, I enjoy playing Minetest game, and making some Mod. :)

[Sokomine]

But, based on this experience, I make some another mod.
And Now, I enjoy playing Minetest game, and making some Mod. :)

,-) That's right. New players may be confused and at first think it's about playing. But writing mods is far more fun :-)