Last played BTW in late 2017, seeking advice on converting friends to BTW

[MisterFister]

Howdy folks! The coronavirus pandemic has finally made it possible for me to return to BTW, and I'm excited that a handful of my friends are open to joining me on a new SMP. The last time I played was in very early 2018, just prior to the "Squid A Swimming" update, I think. I'm glad to learn that there've been a lot of rich and content-filled updates since then. Some brief questions here, if I may:

1) I'm excited to have a handful of offline friends who are amenable to trying out BTW with me on a new SMP with a new seed. I'm not sure how to articulate my concern on this, but does anybody have any advice on how to brief these players so that they'll know enough of what to expect that they won't be made to feel like they were unprepared for the vastly-steepened early game difficulty?

2) Overlapping with that above, I've been looking for recent YouTube LPs that might provide me with some primer for myself as to what to expect from the early game changes that I should probably understand. I plan to watch Vioki's episodes from Dec 2019, as the only other two that I've found from Lac and COmmenderFrost seem iffy on how recent they are. Basically, I'm preparing to host a crew of maybe 4 or 5 players including myself, and I'm going to be the only one with BTW-specific experience. My goal for myself is to be an effective tour guide and project leader for the first few hours of gameplay while we managed to carve a foothold in the overworld and arrange our first trip into the nether. Are there other YouTubers that might have content relevant to my situation?

3) If I hope to test out external mods like Craftguide or others, is there anything I need to worry about as to the mod install process? I.e., is it important to make BTW the first mod installed, or the last?

3-A) What other small quality-of-life mods would others here suggest I look into? I'm aware of BTWs likely incompatibility, so I'd bviously avoid cheat-type mods, but mods that might allow for large maps to display correctly, Craftguide, that sort of thing? Is there a list of BTW-compatible mods to browse from?

3-B) I loathe and despise the game launcher, for reasons that are not restricted to its clunky interface. Is there a way to bypass the launcher and *just* run BTW when I start the game?

3-C) I've also never hosted a server. I intend to search these forums for info related to how to begin and host a server, how to update the BTW mod over time, how to add whatever small mods I decide to curate, etc. Is it necessary to have a separate system hosting the server, or can it be live hosted from my primary gaming laptop as I play?

4)) Also, as I begin shopping for map seeds, my instinct has always been to find a spawn reasonably close to a junction between swamp, plains, and jungle biomes, so that it would be easier to construct mid-game mod towers to cover the fullest possible range of loot drops. Is there any new meta that would create a good reason to abandon that idea?

5) My SSP experience has always been to hunker down, preferably at spawn, with a goal to eventually have all agriculture and production housed in a sprawling underground complex. The first step has always been to procure the first pumpkin seed and the first chicken. Am I correct in interpreting the forum discussions I've been reading for the past week that essentially lead to the idea that we'll be hard-gated to nomadically hunting and roaming under a large stockpile of food is developed? I.e., what corners remain in any way cuttable to rushing to the first basic renewable food tech?

Edit: spelling / grammar

[dawnraider]

So a few things. Before getting to much into tips, I would recommend joining the discord if you're not a part of it. It's pretty active (more so than the forums). discord.gg/fhMK5kx

1) If they've ever played minecraft just make sure they get rid of everything they know. Treat it like a brutal survival game and not like minecraft, until you get to later tech.

2) Not entirely sure on that.

3) Probably best to install after but I'm not sure it makes a difference because craftguide checks for things at launch instead of at install.

3a) The Legacy Skin Fix by Gil is a must because it makes your skins work after Mojang changed the API making skins not work in 1.5.2. Alyx's mapping mods tweak how maps work and make them take up the whole item frame. The Deco Addon (shameless self-plug) mostly adds decorative elements but also a few mid to late game QoL improvements. Jorge's Addon also exists for some navigation purposes but I have no idea if it still works. As far as I know those are all the compatible addons. All of these can be found in the Addons and Texturepacks subforum.

3b) You can use MultiMC instead of the default launcher, or the legacy launcher (old Mojang official one). Don't know exactly how to set those up though.

4) Only real reason to avoid that is hunting opportunities. Both swamp and jungle biomes only spawn chickens and pigs, and jungles effectively block you from exploring that direction. Also with the early game being even harder now, jungle spiders are even bigger of a threat (food poisoning is a lot more punishing now than it used to be). So something to consider if you're going to play with a lot of people. I've never played multiplayer since before any HC changes (back in 2012) so I don't know how that affects things.

5) So I won't get into spoilers in this initial post, but most of it has stayed the same, except that keeping animals safe from mobs has gotten pushed back in the tech tree.

[MisterFister]

I request that this thread be deleted, please. Thank you to Dawnraider for the reply.

[FlowerChild]

I request that this thread be deleted, please. Thank you to Dawnraider for the reply.

Any particular reason to request a deletion? The info above may be useful to others.

[MisterFister]

Any particular reason to request a deletion? The info above may be useful to others.

Full honesty, I was feeling embarrassed. A fair portion of that embarrassment stemmed from online events and impressions that I carried in from outside the scope of BTW. Before your comment here, I was honestly questioning the value in leaving my post visible. I hereby retract my deletion request, and I thank you. :)

[FlowerChild]

I hereby retract my deletion request, and I thank you. :)

No worries man. All cool :)

[jorgebonafe]

Jorge's Addon also exists for some navigation purposes but I have no idea if it still works.

I missed this thread before... Just to confirm, yes, my addon still works, I just tested it in the newest version.