Add a "New version" notification or dialog #4345

New Issue

kneekoo · 2024-05-30T20:44:13+02:00

kneekoo commented

2024-05-30 20:44:13 +02:00

Feature

Display a formspec when joining a world after updating the game, informing the players about the significant changes that can impact their gameplay.

Why

When a new release brings a significant change, it's important to inform the players about it. For instance, changing the eating mechanic made a few people report that eating no longer worked. And that's with players who were already in our chats. I would imagine that some were not on Discord/Matrix and struggled a bit until they figured it out.

Details

I'm not sure how keeping track of the versions can be done easier. I think we can tell when the player starts a new world, so when this happens we can save the current game version in the world storage in a variable called last_played_version.

Whether we would display the "New version" dialog on world creation is debatable, so I'll leave this for later. On future player joins we would have the ability to compare the current version against the saved one, and we can show a formspec titled "Welcome to version X" and inform about the important changes.

I am worried, though, that this formspec can interfere with the player's ability to react to a dangerous situation. If you have ideas about how to do this safely, or if we're supposed to worry about this, share your thoughts.

I have in mind two types of information that would be useful in this dialog:

plain text describing an important change;
information followed by options allowing the player to specify how a feature should work for them

For the second case, I can give you an example about the item dropping feature that I proposed a while ago in #2193. Here's how this type of information could show up in the dialog:

Dropping items is done by default with Q for a full stack, and Shift-Q for a single item. We introduced a game setting called itemdrop_behaviour where you can invert this default, so you can drop a single item by default.

You can change this setting below if you want, or at any time later in the game settings from your Minetest client.
Preferred drop behaviour: [dropdown v]

The dropdown could be automated with a function generating it by calling it with the setting's name. Or if it's too much work, even mentioning it in the dialog would be useful.

Since the dialog can be closed by mistake, or if the player has to avoid immediate danger, we could also have a chat command to bring it up at any time. I'm not sure what name this command should have, so here's a list of ideas:

/newver
/changes
/updated

### Feature Display a formspec when joining a world after updating the game, informing the players about the significant changes that can impact their gameplay. ### Why When a new release brings a significant change, it's important to inform the players about it. For instance, changing the eating mechanic made a few people report that eating no longer worked. And that's with players who were already in our chats. I would imagine that some were not on Discord/Matrix and struggled a bit until they figured it out. ### Details I'm not sure how keeping track of the versions can be done easier. I think we can tell when the player starts a new world, so when this happens we can save the current game version in the world storage in a variable called `last_played_version`. Whether we would display the "New version" dialog on world creation is debatable, so I'll leave this for later. On future player joins we would have the ability to compare the current version against the saved one, and we can show a formspec titled "Welcome to version X" and inform about the important changes. I am worried, though, that this formspec can interfere with the player's ability to react to a dangerous situation. If you have ideas about how to do this safely, or if we're supposed to worry about this, share your thoughts. I have in mind two types of information that would be useful in this dialog: 1. plain text describing an important change; 2. information followed by options allowing the player to specify how a feature should work for them For the second case, I can give you an example about the item dropping feature that I proposed a while ago in #2193. Here's how this type of information could show up in the dialog: > Dropping items is done by default with Q for a full stack, and Shift-Q for a single item. We introduced a game setting called `itemdrop_behaviour` where you can invert this default, so you can drop a single item by default. > > You can change this setting below if you want, or at any time later in the game settings from your Minetest client. > Preferred drop behaviour: [dropdown v] The dropdown could be automated with a function generating it by calling it with the setting's name. Or if it's too much work, even mentioning it in the dialog would be useful. --- Since the dialog can be closed by mistake, or if the player has to avoid immediate danger, we could also have a chat command to bring it up at any time. I'm not sure what name this command should have, so here's a list of ideas: - `/newver` - `/changes` - `/updated`

kneekoo added the

feature request

needs discussion

labels 2024-05-30 20:44:13 +02:00

kneekoo referenced this issue

2024-05-30 21:12:27 +02:00

Improve the controls #2193

kneekoo referenced this issue

2024-06-01 00:23:23 +02:00

Eating is broken on Android #4351

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