Mods need better description

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MetaNomad
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Mods need better description

by MetaNomad » Post

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TL;DR : Modders, describe better your mod behaviour and use wisely the ContentDB interface !
Hello everybody,

I discovered Minetest 3 months ago, and the first thing I have to say is: WONDERFUL!
I loved everything, the project, the philosophy, the community ... except the many hours of sleep I lost :-)

I browsed the forum in search of some useful information for me, and I could see that there were some debates, sometimes lively, about the future of the project, etc ...
Like here, here or here

I am not a developer, modder or creator, but a simple player who got into Minetest a few months ago. And I had never played Minecraft, or any other Voxel Game before.

What I understand is that several people, who have been following the project for much longer than me, are concerned about the "branding" of the project (and this is positive)
I was able to raise several points that come up regularly, and I will give my opinion as a simple player.

- The Minetest website is not welcoming: Personally, I find it very good (well, when you've been used to the debian.org site for years, that's not shocking ;-))

- The name "Minetest" (see here): Sure enough it could be better, but I don't think it's a big deal. Now that it's known and established, I don't think changing it makes sense. Many "mainstream" games have pretty bad names to begin with, but their success has never stopped players from enjoying them, and in the long run, the name fills everyone's mind and no one pays attention to it. Super Mario Bros, Little Big Adventure, Grand Theft Auto, or even Minecraft, were , IMHO bad name choices at first, but they're good games, and who cares now?

- The boredom of MineTestGame: Yes, it is really too poor to be enjoyed, but as I understood the project is above all a game engine, on which different games can be created, I find it normal that MTG stay as basic as possible so that we can tune it by adding the some of the fantastic community mods. I have the impression that in this case the problem is not MTG itself, but its name that is misleading, and it would rather be him which could be renamed to "Minetest Basic" or "Minetest Raw" or something like that. In the kind that makes it clear that it is only a basic material to which we can add what we want.

- Several concerns about the organization of the development: I'm not a dev, so I cannot give my opinion on it, but as a player of an open source and free game, I understand perfectly that being done on a voluntary and free time basis, the entire life of core-devs cannot revolve exclusively around Minetest.


But still, as a new player, the main issue I've been dealing with was with Mods.
As I explained earlier, the fact of ending up with a base game to which you can add the mods you want as you wish, it's great, and that's what for me makes all the difference. That's the true strength of Minetest (and free software in general), compared to proprietary games where we always find ourselves more or less stuck in a specific gameplay.

But for it to be enjoyable, it must also be easy and intuitive to set up for any random player.

Of course, while browsing the forum, I realize that a lot of ground has been covered, since the days when mods were only available on the forum, and that each mod had to be manually installed (and updated). And on this aspect, the work that has been done with ContentDB and its integration into the software is absolutely phenomenal!

However, this whole aspect can be greatly improved, because when, after the discovery phase, I wanted to launch a new singleplayer world with the mods that could give me the perfect gameplay I wanted,I found a lot of problems that sometimes caused me really freaked out!
It took me TWO WEEKS just to choose the mods !!!

First, regarding ContentDB itself:

- Today there are an impressive number of mods (which is a very good thing itself), but when a new player arrives, he chooses MineTestGame, innocently clicks on "Find more mods", and ends up with 185 pages !! Each page with 5 mods, that means 925 possibilities !! It's enormous !

So my suggestions for that would be to create categories within ContentDB, which would allow having multiple "tabs". For me, the first thing to do would be to separate "stable" mods and WIPs. It's good to keep visibility for WIPs, because some are really great, but you absolutely have to separate them from really stable mods. A new player with no coding experience should have the possibility choose mods with just one click without wondering about issues, while leaving the possibility for more experienced and adventurous players to try more experimental features.

Another category that can be useful to start with is to separate mods dedicated to server administration, debugging, etc and mods dedicated to gameplay. A new player don't care about that , that or that, on the other hand, a server administrator will be happy to find them all in one place.
Also, mods that concern alternative games should be separated from others (I am thinking of NodeCore related mods for example).
For more categories, there are plenty of possibilities, it's up for debate.


Then, the other problem, which made me particularly annoyed, doesn't come from core-devs, but from a certain number of modders: it is the flagrant lack of information about their own mod!

Imagine, you are a new player, you launch Minetest, you go to the Content tab to enhance the basic MTG a little, and you find yourself in front of 925 possibilities! Ok, you start to browse the different pages, what is the first information you have available to make your choice?
- The name of the mod : ok, it's better if it's explicit, but some fantasies are understandable. On the other hand, it is confusing to end up with mods with very similar names. When you fork, please give it a different name!
One of the best examples is the "Hoppers" mod ... You have the choice between Hopper and Hopper ... Once you've installed 30+ mods, try to remember which one you installed ... Good Luck!

- Fortunately, ContentDB leaves the possibility for modders to add a short description, and it is generally well used.
But obviously, describing everything a mod can do in one line is impossible, leading the player to click on the icon that redirects to the mod's ContentDB page to learn more about it (see how well ContentDB is designed !) ...
And here is the drama !

There are modders who know how to use this page very well, like here and here, these are examples to follow.
For particularly complex and extensive mods, like Mesecons or Techpack , the page contains a link which redirects to the specific Wiki of the mod. No problem with that.

But for most of them, it's a disaster! Let's say for example that I have just arrived on Minetest, and I want hunter gameplay, so in the mod list I type "bow", which considerably reduces the 925 possibilities, letting me to choose between:
- Far bows (by runs)
- Bows (by AITechEye)
- Bows (by TenPlus1)
- X Bows (by SaKeL)
Ok, what says the little description?
- It adds three weapons: Wooden Bow, Mese Bow and Flaming Bow
- A easy bow mod with arrows
- Adds bows and arrows to game. Fork of the mod by AiTechEye (Ok, so I know it's a fork, good point)
- Bow and arrows
Ok, fair enough, I click then on the link to the ContentDB page for each one:
- https://content.minetest.net/packages/runs/farbows/
- https://content.minetest.net/packages/AiTechEye/bows/
- https://content.minetest.net/packages/TenPlus1/bows/
- https://content.minetest.net/packages/SaKeL/x_bows/
Sooo, one of them have a good description about how it works, one other have at least a little description, and 2 have no description at all! How a new player is suppose to make a choice from that?
Once again, ContentDB is well designed, and it provides a direct link to the mod topic on the forum ... So our new player now has 8 tabs open in his browser, and he still doesn't know how to use each mod. .
8 tabs? Ah, but no, there is one that has no link to the forum!
Ok, so I only have three options left, as I have no way of differentiating the TenPlus1 fork from the original AiTechEye ...
Okay, now I know they have different features, but I would like to know the recipes to make my choice, so ... let's see ... (5 min later) Ah, found it!

So, it took me a 15 min, 7 browser tabs and scrolling through a forum thread, reading technical details that I do not understand, decoding a recipe written in ASCII Art to make my choice.

Ok there were 925 mods, left 921 ... repeat the process.
Do you see the problem?


The main errors are:

- No description, or too brief
- No link to the forum, or dead link
- No link to the forum, although there is however a thread if you look for it manually
- Description and instruction that uses complex English ... remember that we are thousands of non-native English speakers, and we use English because we have to, but it's much better if we don't need to look in the dictionary to understand how to use a mod. So keep it simple, use basic words and avoid complex sentences. Thanks for us!
- No clear information on recipes or how to use the mod

Fortunately, there is a wonderful community member who records videos on Youtube, and he has helped me many many times to figure out a mod without having to install it, or just figure out how to use it when it was not possible to find information otherwise. Thank you very very much Nathan.S !!!

But a simple player should not have to seek this kind of information on an external resource. So, lazy modders, at least put a link to Nathan.S Mod Review in the description if he did one !

And one of the most frustrating : ... and events to discover!
If these events are not described in the description to keep the suspense, ok, that's cool, but we should be able to know the exhaustive list of everything that can be done with this mod WITHOUT having to look at the code or to scroll dozens of posts on the dedicated forum thread !

TenPlus1 makes great mods, but it's also a specialist in missing information, like for example the must-have mod Ethereal-NG ... How can we have an exhaustive list of all the Biomes that this mod provides? Not in the description, not on the thread, nor in the readme! Look at the code? A random player is not supposed to read the entire lua_api.txt to get this kind of info. Install the mod and try it out? Dude, there are 925 mods!
Yes TenPlus1, that's exactly what I'm talking about :-)

Finally, the modders must understand that the interface of a repo (GitHub, Notabug, etc ...) is an interface made FOR DEVELOPERS, the information contained in the Readme is intended for developers (and those who are curious). But an average gamer should never need to access it to find information about your mod's gameplay.
Otherwise, Minetest will remain an obscure developer game, made by developers for developers :-)

Hope this report will help to have a more coherent ContentDB where average Minetest players can find the mods they are looking for (and modders too :-D)
Last edited by MetaNomad on Tue Apr 13, 2021 01:04, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Mods need better description

by Festus1965 » Post

MetaNomad wrote:
Tue Apr 13, 2021 00:57

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TL;DR : Modders, describe better your mod behaviour and use wisely the ContentDB interface !
Hello everybody,
...
So my suggestions for that would be to create categories within ContentDB, which would allow having multiple "tabs".
Yes, I understand you since long time ...
like this direction ?

Code: Select all

Index minetest modgroups
as animals, api, armor, benchmark, biome, blocks, build, chat, coding, engine, envoirenment, farming, fonts, food, games, hunger, library, mapgen, modpacks, mobs, monster, movement, nps, orientation, protect, pvp, religion, skins, teleport, tools, weapon, weather..
Human has no future (climate change)
If urgend, you find me in Roblox (as CNXThomas)

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Re: Mods need better description

by wsor4035 » Post

"Another category that can be useful to start with is to separate mods dedicated to server administration, debugging, etc and mods dedicated to gameplay. "

go to content, click mods, at the top you will see options to filter by tag
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Re: Mods need better description

by MetaNomad » Post

wsor4035 wrote:
Tue Apr 13, 2021 01:17
go to content, click mods, at the top you will see options to filter by tag
I mean, in the "Browse Online Content" in the Content tab of the software itself, not the website (where it's not possible to install a mod in one click)

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Re: Mods need better description

by wsor4035 » Post

well yeah, im saying it exists, it just needs to be used by the client
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Re: Mods need better description

by rubenwardy » Post

MetaNomad wrote:
Tue Apr 13, 2021 00:57
So my suggestions for that would be to create categories within ContentDB, which would allow having multiple "tabs".
ContentDB's website does have much more information than is available in the ingame menu - including categories/tags, reviews, and longer descriptions. The ingame menu does link to the website for each package, but doesn't allow filtering by each of these.

The main problem is that the system we use for UIs - formspecs - makes it hard to do very complicated UIs and also have them work on all platforms. We'd need a new UI framework to do this, which is planned. Another alternative would be to use smart links to install mods from the CDB website (obviously, with a confirmation box)

MetaNomad wrote:
Tue Apr 13, 2021 00:57
But for most of them, it's a disaster! Let's say for example that I have just arrived on Minetest, and I want hunter gameplay, so in the mod list I type "bow", which considerably reduces the 925 possibilities, letting me to choose between

(long content is snipped)
It's a bit late in the day for me to reply to this, but I will say that there are three ways to fix this:
- prompting modders more to fill out the long description. For example, telling them the sorts of things that should be there
- above, but required rather than suggested
- editors copying/maintaining the pages to ensure docs are there. This isn't too feasible
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Re: Mods need better description

by MetaNomad » Post

rubenwardy wrote:
Tue Apr 13, 2021 02:25
Another alternative would be to use smart links to install mods from the CDB website (obviously, with a confirmation box)
Yes, you got my point : focus on the easiest solutions to implement.
That would be a very good way to do it, until a better solution exists
rubenwardy wrote:
Tue Apr 13, 2021 02:25
We'd need a new UI framework to do this, which is planned.

And about
rubenwardy wrote:
Tue Apr 13, 2021 02:25
It's a bit late in the day for me to reply to this, but I will say that there are three ways to fix this:
- prompting modders more to fill out the long description. For example, telling them the sorts of things that should be there
- above, but required rather than suggested
- editors copying/maintaining the pages to ensure docs are there. This isn't too feasible
Well, I'm not a huge fan of strict requirements, especially in FOSS projects, but it's ok if it's a strong recommendation.

Can be done by adding some "branding guidelines" to modders listing all information that should be given in the description and readme (in lua_api.txt and/or contentDB interface), and why not, provide a generic model or example of what is a good mod description and readme.
The purpose of my thread was to give my feeling about what information I missed, but it's just my opinion and can be discussed.

To encourage even more the modders to follow those guidelines, it can be mixed with my "WIP/stable" separation suggestion, and allow only well described mods to the stable category...if bad description, still a WIP. But this may requires a "contentDB human moderator".

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