BetterThanMinecon

BetterThanMinecon (BTM) is a semi-annual convention created and hosted by Asie. It was created July 3rd and 4th, 2015, based on a Twitter joke that was taken too seriously. The roughly 26 hours of preparation resulted in a mod pack, a server containing a convention center, a number of booths representing some of the features of a variety of mods, a talk room in which several panels were hosted, an IRC channel, and a Mumble server. BetterThanMinecon 2015, "the basement convention™", ran parallel to the real life Minecon, from 9am July 4th to 9pm July 5th. Video recordings of most of its panels can be found on its web page.

The BetterThanMinecon mod packs include developmental and often borderline unstable versions of mods featured at the convention, and as such its contents are not recommended for redistribution or use in other mod packs. One mod used in BetterThanMinecon 2015 was compiled mere minutes before the launch of the server, and during preparations for BTM16, the server was restarted multiple times to allow developers to publish new bug fixes.

The name was inspired by a combination of several modders being dissatisfied with the actual Minecon in past years, and a pun on the mod Better Than Wolves. Its unofficial name, "Bug Testing Marathon," comes from the large number of bugs that are identified during its preparation phase. These bugs range from minor (monsters in a demonstration booth trying to target players outside their range; Mumble Link not linking correctly on Linux clients) to "spectacular" (a player wearing Forestry Spectacles or an Apiarist's Hat causing all players to re-render a 5x5 chunk area every tick; DisplayLists memory leaking in the JVM, causing Minecraft to ignore -Xmx memory settings and continue to eat RAM until a client's computer crashed).

A second convention, BetterThanMinecon 2016, "Just Another Budget Minecon Attempt™" occurred January 2nd and 3rd, 2016. Unlike BTM 2015, the BTM 2016 convention was built in a skyblock world, with each mod constructing a booth for itself. This allowed for both more booths and much larger booths than BTM 15. The Mumble server was enhanced with Mumble Link and Positional Audio, causing players moving around the convention to hear only the conversations in their immediate area (rather than all chatter from the entire convention). Additionally, the single panel/presentation room was changed into two large talk halls, The Stage and White Dwarf, and the closing ceremony took place in The End. In this ceremony, Asie showcased an OpenComputers program that allowed a player to livestream their in-game camera footage to an Open Computers screen elsewhere on the same server.

A third convention, BTM16 2.0, is taking place on the 22nd-24th of July, 2016.