electronics, etc.

It turns out it has been 1 year since the release of Minetest 0.3.1, and the development of 0.4 was started exactly one year before tomorrow. Cool. 8)

The beginning of Minetest 0.4

Here is how the website looked back then!

Minetest website, 2011

Windows package: minetest-0.4.3-win32.zip
Others: http://minetest.net/download.php

EDIT: I am not sure, but the automatic rendering range control doesn’t seem to work properly in this. If it seems so, report it in the comments and use the + and – keys or the R key to force it higher than it otherwise is.

Forum thread: http://minetest.net/forum/viewtopic.php?id=2953

This is mostly a bugfix release on top of 0.4.2-rc1.

0.4.1 -> 0.4.2-rc1:

• Wool (somewhat compatible and based on jordach’s original mod)
• Dyes (a simple mod which thoroughly defines how dyes and other mods should interact)
• New kind of creative inventory
• Increase node id field from 12 to 16 bits
• /mods command
• Fix a bug in zlib wrapper code
• Rollback support; disabled by default; enable with “enable_rollback_recording = true” and use /rollback and /rollback_check
• Some random bugfixes
• Lua API:
  • minetest.get_modnames()
  • Formspec menus
  • Detached inventories

0.4.2-c1 -> 0.4.3:

• Animated torches (obvious) and vessels (a few standard bottles) included (VanessaE)
• Fix crash when furnace is full
• Shift is now the default “climb down” key; can be toggled in key configuration menu
• A few small Lua API additions:
  • InventoryList width property for having different-sized crafting grids (0.4.2 fails with this) (thexyz)
  • Added new kind of node behavior to engine via groups: disable_jump, fall_damage_add_percent, bouncy
  • Add overridable function for changing node drop behaviour
  • Move remaining chat commands to Lua (matttpt)
• Smooth transition between deserts and grass (by some guy called Sergey Gilfanov)
• Fix and improve key configuration menu (frozon + me)
• Fix inventory behaviour in some cases of moving items
• Reorganize rendering code for a bit more performance (can be from +0% to +200% FPS, depending on how slow your GPU is at switching textures)
• Lots of other bugfixes

Version incompatibility
0.4.3 can connect to 0.4.2-rc1 servers if they have “strict_protocol_version_checking = false”; 0.4.2-rc1 cannot connect to 0.4.3 due to a stupid forward-compatibility breaking mistake (that hanged around in the code since October 2010). 0.4.2 release is skipped due to the incompatibility with 0.4.2-rc1.

Just throwing this mingw development build here. Beware and report the bugs. I think this is lacking sound because of a missing DLL file the name of which I don’t remember. If you have OpenAL globally installed, sound will work (and in some other cases too).
http://minetest.net/packages/nightly/minetest-0.4.2-rc1-d38b465-win32.zip

Refer to github for changes.

Also an experimental mobs mod which doesn’t do much now, which I have been fiddling around a few hours sometimes for… I guess during multiple months. This is NOT included in the 0.4.2-rc1 download.
http://c55.me/random/2012-07/mobs.tar.gz

An experimental mob cave / dungeon / vault / whatever in Minetest. See the chest? 8)

The stable Minetest is here, as some people probably have already noticed. I decided to, after a month of no features being added, stuff in a good bunch of bugfixes by me and others, and call the end result Minetest 0.4.1. (There was, in fact, a 0.4.0 too, but it had too many problems to be worth announcing 8)).

Stable?

“Stable” in here means “is in a known supportable state”. It:

1. does not contain all features we’d have wished for,
2. is not bug free

but

1. it works,
2. we are familiar with its rough edges and
3. all planned features can be easily added without losing compatibility to the current version.

Who made this?

Built upon the proven base of Minetest 0.3, Practically all of Minetest 0.4 has been designed and implemented by me and kahrl. In the winter of 2011-2012, huge efforts, for apparently no benefit, were taken to ensure the core design would be suitable for what it could become.

Thanks goes to the users and modders too, who daringly jumped into the ripped-apart game and sculpted it to their needs, and the occasional engine contributors.

Kahrl went missing three months ago – and is still missing. I predict we will not see him ever again, for whatever reason that could be. His clever mind will, however, be forever present in the gears of Minetest.

Get it!

Therefore, you can now find the 0.4.1 Windows package on the download page, and the appropriate branches and tags on github.

There currently does not exist a complete changelog since the latest of the 0.3 series. I’ll figure that out and post it in the near future. It will be LONG. as. hell.

What?

We want to see how Minetest performs as a mini-MMO platform. We set up a server solely for the purpose of stress-testing the latest version of the vanilla Minetest server.

We need as many players as we can get. We’re aiming to reach 100 during the next few days. Call all your friends and neighbors!

Updates:

UTC 19:30 Update: The server got roughly 15 simultaneous players during the initial two hours. The player number currently is roughly 7, and we are now seeing if the server will gain more less hasty users in a longer timespan.

Upcoming Tue 19th UTC 17:00: The “cram everybody in” minute!

How to join?

A Windows build of the very latest 0.4 (which works with this) can be found at:
http://minetest.net/packages/nightly/minetest-0.4.dev-20120606-c57e508-win32.zip

Linux users should read the readme and build a version from github.

Connect to minetest.ru:30001 (that is, address minetest.ru, port 30001)

Check out the chests at the spawn, build something and hang around. Check out the main site, the forum and the wiki too.

Less important stuff:

Stairs in Minetest!

You may be interested in the fact that the version this server uses now has stair and slab blocks included. It does not contain any additional mods though.

The server will be up for at least many hours from now, probably for a few days.

The collected data will be used for purposes of optimization and general knowledge.

The world might be transferred on a more persistent server if it gains lots of interesting buildings.