FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

minetest.conf wrote:motd = Hello and welcome to my server!

The currenty implementation of MOTD (Message of the day) is quite poor and the message itself is often not anymore in the player's viewport when they connect to a server. My suggestion is to move it onto the sever connection/media loading screen, which would bring two benefits:

1. Everyone can see the MOTD
2.The loading screen is less monotone

I'm neither a core dev nor a C++ capable programmer, but I think this diagram should explain my idea to everyone:

- "Connecting to server"
- (New:) Server responds with message of the day
- "Media" etc.



The message could be read statically from minetest.conf (known motd setting) or created dynamically by a script.



I'm not sure how many engine changs this would require, but I think players would benefit from it.

theres a mod News that does something like this
https://github.com/Bremaweb/news

I like the idea of having a loading screen message.

But what happens if the game loads too quickly? (not likely). You will need a start button below the message when it has finished loading in order to allow the player to read the message. Although that is untidy, and I wouldn't like that.

rubenwardy wrote:I like the idea of having a loading screen message.

But what happens if the game loads too quickly? (not likely). You will need a start button below the message when it has finished loading in order to allow the player to read the message. Although that is untidy, and I wouldn't like that.

This is a possibility I didn't think about yet. Maybe the client can do a "minimum loading screen duration" when it receives a MOTD?

trainwrecktony wrote:theres a mod News that does something like this
https://github.com/Bremaweb/news

Yes, I know. But the loading screen would be a much more suitable place :)

I like the idea...

We can also add a small diaporama of screenshots under the text-zone / rules for present the world where we enter.

It entertains while awaiting loading.

jp wrote:I like the idea...

We can also add a small diaporama of screenshots under the text-zone / rules to present the world where we enter.

It entertains while awaiting loading.

Although the problem with images is -as usual- the increased loading time when the server does not have a remote_media setting...

webdesigner97 wrote:

jp wrote:We can also add a small diaporama of screenshots under the text-zone / rules to present the world where we enter.

It entertains while awaiting loading.

Although the problem with images is -as usual- the increased loading time when the server does not have a remote_media setting...

That's why it must externalize the loading of these pictures, not in the server ;)

Current version is better (but not the best) than the suggested one.
MOTD gets ignored pretty much and those "news"-mods mostly get some attraction.