Minetest - Education Version

[christoferlevich]

So its been about 12 weeks of students playing Minetest and I can tell you its an absolute blast. There is a waiting list of students to get into the world, and we will soon be opening up a server so they can access the game while at home. They have built a town where they have taken ownership of land and built homes and businesses.

We have incorporated Google Classroom to force students to engage in digital curriculum educational standards (skills such as using two screens at once, using pull down menus, drag and drop, etc) for large in-game cash rewards which they use to buy vehicles from the vehicle mod. Some students who are savvy enough have started to craft vehicles on their own, creating a market for retail competition. While this has worked well, it's not really adding much to the in-game experience. Still, it leverages enough educational value that it can be shown to motivate students to work at things they would otherwise ignore at the elementary level.

There are a few things we are looking to implement. For example, I am trying to figure out how to work a karma bar that will affect how npc's, animals and monsters react to players. Those who never kill would be vegetarian farmers that npc's and animals respond well to but monsters see as weaker victims which they attack first whereas a meat eater might have a more difficult time with npc's and animals, monsters are more likely to run from them because they are viewed as warriors. I guess we are talking about a Karma bar of sorts that is adjusted by player actions.

I also need to find or develop a GUI for administering games where a teacher can run a game without getting into chat commands and the 'text window' provided natively. I find most teachers get intimidated and turned off by that. I suppose its a matter of frosting on the cake, but my goal is to get something started that everyone can work with in our district.

Any suggestions about mods that I might use to achieve these goals would be greatly appreciated.

[hajo]

I am trying to figure out how to work a karma bar
that will affect how npc's, animals and monsters react to players.

There are some mods that keep track of XP, for killing, digging, etc.
Maybe you can use that as base for your needs.

[christoferlevich]

Here's another issue I need to deal with. I NEED to remove or replace swords and I don't want to mess with anything in the 'game' itself. I am certain I can override the swords, but the code I am finding simply seems to modify a characteristic of an item. Would anyone know how I could remove or replace swords without messing with the default game?

[sofar]

Here's another issue I need to deal with. I NEED to remove or replace swords and I don't want to mess with anything in the 'game' itself. I am certain I can override the swords, but the code I am finding simply seems to modify a characteristic of an item. Would anyone know how I could remove or replace swords without messing with the default game?

I don't think that's actually possible. The only trick I can think of is to use `minetest.override_item` and re-define the swords as something innocuous like the apple, but I haven't tested whether that actually works.

[Sokomine]

I don't think that's actually possible. The only trick I can think of is to use `minetest.override_item` and re-define the swords as something innocuous like the apple, but I haven't tested whether that actually works.

Maybe he doesn't have to go as far as an apple. There are a lot of applications for sharp tools like knives in RL without thinking about swords (i.e. cut your bread into slices). Swords also seem to function as tools for harvesting, so perhaps replacing them with sickles for harvesting wheat, leaves and so on might be a good idea. dryplants has a texture for such a tool. As long as PvP isn't enabled and no mobs roam around, there's no other use for swords anyway.

[TheReaperKing]

What if you just comment the swords out?

[Sokomine]

What if you just comment the swords out?

That would be the easiest solution. It would have to be taken care of each time the relevant files in MTG change.

[sofar]

What if you just comment the swords out?

Well, they explicitly said they didn't want to modify the code. And commenting means editing the code.

[TheReaperKing]

Find/Replace helps a lot. I do something similar so that the weapons do no damage.
Find fleshy =
Replace with fleshy =-

Negative values do no damage so (I think actually might heal?) quick fast fix :)

[christoferlevich]

The reason I don't want to mess with the original code is it would aafect any and all games run through the application, right? For instance, if I meddled with the default sword - the resulting item would appear in all games played on it if 'swords' were pulled up. Still, I might have to go that route to satisfy the issues turning up. Thanks for the suggestions. Ill let you know if I can get it worked out and how,

[TheReaperKing]

It would only affect the gamemode in which you changed it. So for example you could have one gamemode for survival, one for the minetest_game, a sword removed gamemode which is a copy of minetest_game without the swords, etc.

[sofar]

The reason I don't want to mess with the original code is it would aafect any and all games run through the application, right? For instance, if I meddled with the default sword - the resulting item would appear in all games played on it if 'swords' were pulled up. Still, I might have to go that route to satisfy the issues turning up. Thanks for the suggestions. Ill let you know if I can get it worked out and how,

If you want your changes to affect a specific world only, then you can create `worldmods` that modify items or behavior in that world specifically.

e.g. if your world is in ~/.minetest/worlds/kiddos, you can create a file called ~/.minetest/worlds/kiddos/worldmods/override/init.lua , and in that file you can do item overrides. Remember to put in a `depends.txt` with the name of the mod that you're overriding. E.g. add `default` if you are changing items from the default mod.

Doc hints:

https://github.com/minetest/minetest/bl ... .txt#L2058

https://github.com/minetest/minetest/bl ... .txt#L3760

[christoferlevich]

So this might not be the 'right' thread to ask this, I do have a question about old and weird pc's and it is MT Education related...
I am bringing the Minetest game to an after school club after 20+ weeks of testing in the first school and have a lab of old white (intel core duo) imacs (flatscreen models). Most have a gig of ram and all run at 2ghz. I am upgrading to 2 gigs this week, but the imacs are running win 7 through Boot Camp (Apple won't allow the units to upgrade past 10.5.8) which is ok - but the graphics are screwy. No opengl so no shaders. Anyone have a suggestion on settings that work best?

I used to play the old mac version of minetest on these, but that was 2-3 years ago. Things are pretty choppy as of yesterday afternoon. LOL.

The club starts on May 24th, so I am desperate. :)

[dawgdoc]

So this might not be the 'right' thread to ask this, I do have a question about old and weird pc's and it is MT Education related...

I am bring the Minetest game to an after school club after 20+ weeks of testing in the first school and have a lab of old white (intel core duo) imacs (flatscreen models). Most have a gig of ram and all run at 2ghz. I am upgrading to 2 gigs this week, but the imacs are running win 7 through Boot Camp (Apple won't allow the units to upgrade past 10.5.8) which is ok - but the graphics are screwy. No opengl so no shaders. Anyone have a suggestion on settings that work best?

I used to play the old mac version of minetest on these, but that was 2-3 years ago. Things are pretty choppy as of yesterday afternoon. LOL.

The club starts on May 24th, so I am desperate. :)

Would it be possible to multi-boot a Linux distro in addition to Win 7 using Boot Camp? If so that should get you some opengl support. (I doubt you would want to get rid of a licensed version of Win 7)

[christoferlevich]

So this might not be the 'right' thread to ask this, I do have a question about old and weird pc's and it is MT Education related...

I am bring the Minetest game to an after school club after 20+ weeks of testing in the first school and have a lab of old white (intel core duo) imacs (flatscreen models). Most have a gig of ram and all run at 2ghz. I am upgrading to 2 gigs this week, but the imacs are running win 7 through Boot Camp (Apple won't allow the units to upgrade past 10.5.8) which is ok - but the graphics are screwy. No opengl so no shaders. Anyone have a suggestion on settings that work best?

I used to play the old mac version of minetest on these, but that was 2-3 years ago. Things are pretty choppy as of yesterday afternoon. LOL.

The club starts on May 24th, so I am desperate. :)

Would it be possible to multi-boot a Linux distro in addition to Win 7 using Boot Camp? If so that should get you some opengl support. (I doubt you would want to get rid of a licensed version of Win 7)

That's a good idea! I will.try it Monday. I remember doing that yrs ago for another program. It should work. I will trash win 7 if I can as the lab doesn't need it per say. Everything they do is web based.

[TheReaperKing]

I personally use Lubuntu with my students. Before the computers had Windows 7 and they were moving very slowly and in bad shape but after I put Lubuntu on everything was flying!!

[christoferlevich]

I personally use Lubuntu with my students. Before the computers had Windows 7 and they were moving very slowly and in bad shape but after I put Lubuntu on everything was flying!!

Yep, I am slowly switching them over and getting better results.

[minetestcr]

I guess this IS the Minetest Education community? I am currently ramping up a Minetest "mess" to start using in our Elementary Schools. Learning is easy and a lot of fun in the minetest community, even if it seems a little less than busy. I call it a mess because whatever we want to call the project I am working on, its definitely evolving.

I started with a model of the new school our district just built, and we are incorporating mods from others, and mods we've hacked (for lack of a better word).

Hello christoferlevich.

I have been out of the forum for a while, I just found your posts.

Great to see other teachers using Minetest. Last year I introduced minetest to my students and it has been a complete success from day one (viewtopic.php?f=3&t=11222&hilit=education).
I hda to pause the project for the first half of this year, but I'm getting back to it.
This forum is great support, I posted many questions about some of the things you are asking, and the community helped greatly to solve each one of them. If you check my posts, I'm sure you'll find helpful information there. Keep up the good work, and please tell us how it goes.

[BirgitLachner]

Look at that: https://github.com/zeuner/edutest
... did not tested it yet, but it will offer some functionally to manage pupils like in MinecraftEDU

[christoferlevich]

Look at that: https://github.com/zeuner/edutest
... did not tested it yet, but it will offer some functionally to manage pupils like in MinecraftEDU

Id love to try it but I can't find the mods listed as dependencies...

[dawgdoc]

Look at that: https://github.com/zeuner/edutest
... did not tested it yet, but it will offer some functionally to manage pupils like in MinecraftEDU

Id love to try it but I can't find the mods listed as dependencies...

It looks like only two of the dependencies are hard dependencies. They can be found here:
Unified inventory
edutest-chatcommands

[christoferlevich]

yes - the I always use UI - but couldnt find the chat commands or freeze(?) but thank you for the link!

[dawgdoc]

yes - the I always use UI - but couldnt find the chat commands or freeze(?) but thank you for the link!

Freeze

[BirgitLachner]

Okay, it doesn't work for me yet, too. I'll try that!

[christoferlevich]

Okay, it doesn't work for me yet, too. I'll try that!

Its working. Its a dark button in Unified Inv. EDU is barely readable but its there! I am messing around with it solo, but I will have a server test soon!
Update Its only seeing the 'me' - as in the admin - doesn't see other players... not sure why.