What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

[MirceaKitsune]

I play both Minecraft and Minetest since the birth of both projects, usually on multiplayer servers. At this day, most public Minetest servers have features that should make it as exciting as Minecraft. There are a lot of materials to mine, many tools to craft, different biomes... and with mods we can also have mobs including hostile ones! Normally, Minetest is able to offer the diversity and excitement Minecraft does, and I already visited some servers that do so.

Yet for some reason, I can't help but notice something I can't pin down to a specific fault. Even when a Minetest server has large cities, a lot of mods, many active players, or any feature you would expect... it simply doesn't feel as compelling as Minecraft. The environment feels more dull, and it gives the impression there isn't really anything to do. Obviously this isn't a critique... I'm simply confused what is missing, and how it can be improved most of all.

From a more personal perspective: Whenever I go on a crowded Minecraft server, I quickly start interacting with the environment as well as people. Getting materials, tools, building a house, going underground to mine, etc. I never really get bored... something palpable is almost always going on, and the environment feels very alive itself. Yet when I join a Minetest server, I don't feel like there is much to do; I can farm just like in MC, but don't really feel like bothering. There are hostile mobs, but I don't feel like there's any fun to fight them. There are beautiful cities with very nice houses, yet I don't feel like getting a house there. And the environment feels well... very static and dead. Usually I just parkour around spawn, look at what people are chatting, and eventually make a little house somewhere then get bored and leave.

What's missing really? I thought Minetest was less exciting because we had few materials and tools at first. Since Lua support that all changed... some servers have more things to craft and do than the average Minecraft server. Yet it still doesn't feel like there's much to feel like doing.

I'm tempted to think artistic reasons might be the problem. I do sometimes feel like the default textures aren't quite as good looking as MC's. At the same time, minetest_game has very few sound effects, and mobs never make any sounds at all. I did make a patch which adds new sound effects, but there's been no news on it since. Some things also seem a bit too simplified; I did propose 2 x 2 inventory crafting with a workbench for the 3 x 3 grid in another patch, but most developers believe we shouldn't add more to minetest_game so this is also on hold. Other than that, I'm thinking improvements to other things such as networking (reducing lag due to position updates) might also offer more immersion.

What are your thoughts on this? If anyone else gets the same impression as me, why do Minetest servers still feel more boring than Minecraft ones? What actually needs fixing and changing to truly become better?

[PilzAdam]

Yay! Yet another MC vs. MT comparison!

[GingerHunter797]

I feel EXACTLY like you do! But, I also like you cant seem to find why its so much more boring than Minecraft. I think I might agree with you in saying that it is the default textures. More artistic textures would make the game much more lively! I usually get the same feeling as Minecraft when Im playing over lan with someone who is in the same room. Also I think that more mods need to be integrated into the game. I say this because my step-brother and I love to play Minecraft and Minetest over lan but he always prefers MC because he doesnt like to mod the game. He always says it makes the game feel incomplete. Thats about all I have to say on this topic. :)

[Linxx]

Yay! Yet another MC vs. MT comparison!

can't be really avoided since both games are similar.Also I agree the game feels dull.

[Casimir]

What is missing are challenges. You don't get hungry - why would you farm? When mining is not dangerous because there are no mobs, then it is just work to do to get some ores. There are to many ores anyway. When there are no zombies at night, you don't need the small first-night-hut that will protect you. Why would you try to build a good looking table from a fence and a pressure plate when there is homedecor? And you won't go for a long journey because all places look almost the same anyway.
The main challenge in voxel sandbox games is to build something nice out of cubes of 1m*1m*1m size. With all the mods at hand it sometimes feels more like sims than like minecraft.

[Tom]

I think like you, Minetest has unique qualities compared to Minecraft:

• opensource,
• available on all the systems of the Creation,
• written in C++ with a powerful API in Lua for modding – I'm running the game on an Intel Pentium IV at 2.20 GHz with 256 Mb of RAM and a Nvidia Geforce MX 420 on Debian.

What is missing to Minetest is an atmosphere, an artistic quality.

As you pointed, the sounds are too few and mostly of poor quality. (No offense to their authors, I know how difficult it is to make quality sounds.)

The textures by default are bad too. Simply install a texture pack like:

• Last version of Cisoun's Texture Pack (10) (o/),
• or those: Dokucraft For Minetest and Sphax TestBDcraft.

And the overall artistic qualities of the game are seriously boosted.

Finally, as you said, I think mobs need to be more charismatic, more dangerous, betterly textured and with better sounds and – why not? – installed by default.

Also, maybe some good mods like those of Paramat, mesecon, carts, moretree, worldedit, etc. need to be featured on the website in articles or something.

To me, those mesures could put MT and MC on an equal footing from the artistic point of view.

P.-S. – MirceaKitsune, I have to say that I like very much every of your contributions to MT and to Xonotic. ;)

[onpon4]

Everyone is talking about features and presentation, but isn't it obvious what fundamental element is lacking? Players. The biggest Minetest servers might have 15 players on at once in the best case. How many players tend to be on the biggest Minecraft servers?

[Linxx]

Everyone is talking about features and presentation, but isn't it obvious what fundamental element is lacking? Players. The biggest Minetest servers might have 15 players on at once in the best case. How many players tend to be on the biggest Minecraft servers?

biggest i've seen is 200

[RavonTUS]

Greetings,

Back in the day, I played Ultima Online and ran a RunUO server. Playing UO on the EA servers was always fun, but playing on the "open source" servers, no matter how good they were, was a bit boring. I spent my time tweaking the server side because that was the fun part of running the back end - scripting, creating, modifying and improving my skills in something I was not familiar with but want to learn.

Same here, I don't know Lua, but I'm learning. My player base was thrilled when I added the u_skins mod. I didn't realize there was a "MINETEST_GAME" till just a few days ago, and now I can go figure that out too.

In my opinion, it comes down to real life. We have group of awesome authors, coders, artists, dreamers and contributors. MC has money, time and marketing. Open Source programs, in order to compete, need these three things. ubuntu would be an example of that. Mark Shuttleworth took a small linux distribution and poured money, time and marketing into it to make it what it is today.

In the end, as I tell my player base, "Be happy with what you have."

-RavonTUS

[Linxx]

i can't be happy when there can be many improvements atleast in the content area

[Jordach]

We're not missing anything, apart from the 12 year olds that need silver spoon feeding.

[ShadowNinja]

We're not missing anything, apart from the 12 year olds that need silver spoon feeding.

We're not missing those... Perhaps we don't have the same quantity of them though.

[tinoesroho]

It would be nice to get the Okkeri, the DM, and the rat back. I joined up in the dev 2012-0222-1 days, and that was a heckuva lot of fun.

Despite people flying around all over...

We built a skyscraper from cobble and leaves. I installed and played with a bunch of mods (morefurnace, morechest, teleport, nuke, nature, moreores,vessels, animatedtorches, zdoors, trapdoors, vombies).

Landgen was slower back then, but things ran faster. It was probably the lack of nodeboxes and 3d models.

Anyways, I'm not here to reminisce.

What we do need is a minetest_classic game mode based on minimal. Add in mobs, make animated torches optional, add the original carts (the automatic ones), call it a day. Maybe add Ambient Sounds. Remove obsidian, reinstate infinite liquids. Add the classic farming, maybe. Just wheat gets boring. Remove bones (**** bones). Add wieldview.

Mods like Mines and Pyramids are pretty cool. Nether doesn't really add anything to the game.

Somebody, bring back the good ol' days, but with the latest and greatest in minetest developments.

We don't need to become more like Minecraft. We need to become more like the Minetest we used to know.

[Casimir]

@tinoesroho
Nostalgia. Vanessa also made a server for this.

[rubenwardy]

I suggest renaming this topic to:

What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft and other clones?

[MirceaKitsune]

Thanks for the quick replies. I agree with most comments... especially Casimir and Tom. Also, I will try those other texture packs too... thank you for mentioning them.

Everyone is talking about features and presentation, but isn't it obvious what fundamental element is lacking? Players. The biggest Minetest servers might have 15 players on at once in the best case. How many players tend to be on the biggest Minecraft servers?

I do disagree here though, although it would seem like it's the case. On Minecraft, I would often play on a server that had about 15 players online at once, and it was exciting. A few weeks ago however, I entered a Minetest server which had over 20 players! And I still didn't find anything to do while everything seemed boring. Of course, it would be nice if Minetest also had 100 players at once, but from my experience that's not a crucial element right now IMO.

Yay! Yet another MC vs. MT comparison!

I guess I'm doing that, but the purpose is trying to figure out what can be improved. If it's in a constructive way, and to become better than MC, I think such comparison is good.

[Linxx]

Thanks for the quick replies. I agree with most comments... especially Casimir and Tom. Also, I will try those other texture packs too... thank you for mentioning them.

Everyone is talking about features and presentation, but isn't it obvious what fundamental element is lacking? Players. The biggest Minetest servers might have 15 players on at once in the best case. How many players tend to be on the biggest Minecraft servers?

I do disagree here though, although it would seem like it's the case. On Minecraft, I would often play on a server that had about 15 players online at once, and it was exciting. A few weeks ago however, I entered a Minetest server which had over 20 players! And I still didn't find anything to do while everything seemed boring. Of course, it would be nice if Minetest also had 100 players at once, but from my experience that's not a crucial element right now IMO.

Yay! Yet another MC vs. MT comparison!

I guess I'm doing that, but the purpose is trying to figure out what can be improved. If it's in a constructive way, and to become better than MC, I think such comparison is good.

i still say the problem is the lack of content mixed with the textures :/

[Inocudom]

Thanks for the quick replies. I agree with most comments... especially Casimir and Tom. Also, I will try those other texture packs too... thank you for mentioning them.

Everyone is talking about features and presentation, but isn't it obvious what fundamental element is lacking? Players. The biggest Minetest servers might have 15 players on at once in the best case. How many players tend to be on the biggest Minecraft servers?

I do disagree here though, although it would seem like it's the case. On Minecraft, I would often play on a server that had about 15 players online at once, and it was exciting. A few weeks ago however, I entered a Minetest server which had over 20 players! And I still didn't find anything to do while everything seemed boring. Of course, it would be nice if Minetest also had 100 players at once, but from my experience that's not a crucial element right now IMO.

Yay! Yet another MC vs. MT comparison!

I guess I'm doing that, but the purpose is trying to figure out what can be improved. If it's in a constructive way, and to become better than MC, I think such comparison is good.

i still say the problem is the lack of content mixed with the textures :/

Hmm, it is true that Minetest does still feel a little lifeless. Maybe if things like colored light rays and positional ambience sounds were added to Minetest, the gaming experience would be improved. More sound effects (especially for the player models) would help too.

MirceaKitsune, if you still seek to add colored lightrays to Minetest, talk it over with RealBadAngel. He is your best chance.

[MirceaKitsune]

i still say the problem is the lack of content mixed with the textures :/

Depends which content. Materials, tools and biomes are numerous enough with the proper mods. What's missing IMO is a diversity of mobs (PA's SimpleMobs only offer a few and most servers only keep those), and perhaps more plants or unique items / nodes would be welcome. If anything's visibly missing however, I think it's more sound effects and perhaps particle effects in some cases.

IMO, the problem might be the quality of existing content. Which again is harder to pin down to a specific fault. Even if you're just walking on an empty landscape; In Minecraft it all feels more lively and like you're there, but Minetest has less immersion for some reason. I was hoping things like my colored fog would fix that more, but there's still something that makes the environment not feel as complete.

I'll try a bunch of different texture packages and see how that feels. Although the textures only seem to be a small part of it. Even with the best TP's in the past, something still felt wrong.

MirceaKitsune, if you still seek to add colored lightrays to Minetest, talk it over with RealBadAngel. He is your best chance.

I'm still talking to RBA about adding dynamic light. That and post-processing shaders will be a huge and fantastic improvement! Colored lights should then become possible too.

[Calinou]

i still say the problem is the lack of content mixed with the textures :/

Depends which content. Materials, tools and biomes are numerous enough with the proper mods. What's missing IMO is a diversity of mobs (PA's SimpleMobs only offer a few and most servers only keep those), and perhaps more plants or unique items / nodes would be welcome. If anything's visibly missing however, I think it's more sound effects and perhaps particle effects in some cases.

IMO, the problem might be the quality of existing content. Which again is harder to pin down to a specific fault. Even if you're just walking on an empty landscape; In Minecraft it all feels more lively and like you're there, but Minetest has less immersion for some reason. I was hoping things like my colored fog would fix that more, but there's still something that makes the environment not feel as complete.

I'll try a bunch of different texture packages and see how that feels. Although the textures only seem to be a small part of it. Even with the best TP's in the past, something still felt wrong.

Give custom games like Minetest NeXt or Carbone a try? These improve the gameplay in general, have more stuff to play with by default and some of them replace the default textures.

Colored lights and such are very, very unlikely of being added to the engine in the master branch.

[Casimir]

I still say the problem is to much content. Go and play the 0.3.1 version of Minetest (or Nostalgia). You will find that the very lack of content will make you creative. A castle only build out of cobble and sand suddenly creates an atmosphere the current version of Minetest can not offer.

[PilzAdam]

I still say the problem is to much content. Go and play the 0.3.1 version of Minetest (or Nostalgia). You will find that the very lack of content will make you creative. A castle only build out of cobble and sand suddenly creates an atmosphere the current version of Minetest can not offer.

I got the perfect game for you: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3441

[MirceaKitsune]

I don't think too much content is a bad thing... quite the contrary! However, getting all that content too easily can be a problem. IMO games should be designed so players advance slowly, and have to mine and craft and explore a lot for the good stuff.

[Calinou]

I don't think too much content is a bad thing... quite the contrary! However, getting all that content too easily can be a problem. IMO games should be designed so players advance slowly, and have to mine and craft and explore a lot for the good stuff.

Skill should be valued, not play time.

[Linxx]

I don't think too much content is a bad thing... quite the contrary! However, getting all that content too easily can be a problem. IMO games should be designed so players advance slowly, and have to mine and craft and explore a lot for the good stuff.

Skill should be valued, not play time.

i think both should be valued equally

[MirceaKitsune]

Skill should be valued, not play time.

i think both should be valued equally

Agreed on both. But for both things, you need to work and progress in order to get the best items.

[LazyJ]

I'll toss in my two-cents (maybe even a plug-nickel's worth). ;)-


Minetest_Game Should Be More Polished

I remember my impressions from when I first started playing Minetest. At the time I didn't know anything about this kind of game, I didn't know mods existed, and since I installed it from Ubuntu's repositories, minetest_game was the only sub-game (I'm not counting "minimal") and I wasn't aware there were any other alternatives.

I had seen YouTube videos of Minecraft so that is what I was expecting when I installed Minetest. When I started playing Minetest, for the very first time, it was a bit of a disappointment. The bland graphics and lack of sound (environmental or otherwise) made getting immersed in the game impossible.

Much later I learned about mods and was able to "accessorise" minetest_game into something I could lose myself in.

Like it or not, minetest_game is what most players are exposed to when they first experience Minetest. Even if they never play in singleplayer mode, most Minetest servers out there use minetest_game.

"Polishing" minetest_game doesn't neccessarily mean bloating it with a bunch of hefty bells-and-whistles (though there are several "little" things that still could be added).

By "polishing" minetest_game I mean fixing and enhancing what is already there. Heavier, mod-rich, games and lighter, minimalistic games can be added by the player later when they are more familiar with Minetest. But that very first impression, that make-it-or-break-it moment, when the player loads Minetest and starts exploring, should be a rich and fulfilling experience.

• The default textures could be improved by making the colors richer and more constrasting. Yes, players can install several of the many diverse texture packs available but I'm thinking in terms of the first-time player. Someone like me, who started playing the game with no idea of its potential. Now that Minetest has a texture pack menu, perhaps packaging minetest_game with three versions of the default texture pack (one low-res, one medium, one high) is a solution.


• The environmental lighting is too static. The shadows, what little there are, don't move with the players nor with the light source (sun, torch, flame, etc). Light doesn't shimmer on the ripples in the water, no building blocks are shiny to contrast with all the dull ones. I think I read somewhere that this was due to the limitations of Irrlicht. Maybe Minetest has matured to the point where something other than Irrlicht should be used?


• The user interface, though functional, is flat and bland. It is as inviting and appealing as a cinder block. RealBadAngel's Unified Inventory mod really improves greatly upon this. Looking back through old screenshots, the earlier, dirt-like background seemed more fitting to a mining game. The darker color receded into the background allowing the focus to be on the menu. The current, light colored background of floating clouds is a bit too busy. Kind of like flashing, blinking ads along the edges of a web article that you are trying to read.
  
  Sprucing up the menus may not seem important so long as they are functional, but then, if the menus makes new players think Minetest hasn't been updated since the days of MSDOS or BlackBox, based on its looks alone, they may decide not to play the game, making all the "function" irrelevant.


• Sounds go a long way for auditory immersion. As things are currently, a coat closet has more auditory immersion than the default, minetest_game. Granted, Minetest has improved since the days of 0.3.0 but there is still a lot more improvement to be done. The Minetest community seems to have several members skilled in Photoshop/GIMP/Blender. Any audiophiles out there that could lend their equipment and expertise ?
  
  The environmental sounds of Neuromancer's "Ambience" mod helps but more auditory detail could be incorporated in the default minetest_game. The current batch of default sounds are recycled with varying "gain" levels. Perhaps more sounds could be added? Like the sound of a match being struck for placing torches, a more hammer-hitting-stone like sound for stone with pickaxe or axe but a more rining, metalic sound like when a spade is smacked, broad-side, against a stone.
  
  Perhaps there could be a notice in the "Settings" tab that there is no default, game music in Minetest (yet). If game music is ever made default, have it turned "on" as a default that can be toggled "off" in the "Settings" tab. (Of course finding background music that is royalty free and of good quality is one hurdle, licensing is another.)
  
  All the video games I was used to playing had background music. When I didn't hear any background music (or environmental sounds back then) in Minetest, I thought it was broken. "Good thing I didn't have to pay for this.", I thought to myself.
  
  Through experience I have since learned that background, "mood" music doesn't work well for a game like Minetest. Background music helps set the mood of the game scene. However, in Minetest, the game scene can vary greatly in purpose. It makes sense to play spooky music when underground in a cavern unless... that underground cavern is an artisan dwarven city. Spooky cavern music makes even less sense when the dwarven city has pubs, taverns, dance halls and brightly lit streets and buildings.
  
  I've since turned off the music in the "Ambience" mod, kept the environmental sounds, and listen to external news or music while playing Minetest. Sometimes I turn off all the news and music, put on my headphones and lose myself in playing Minetest and only hear the sounds in that world.


• There are gaps in the game-logic. If I can do this with stone why can't I do it with desert stone? If snow freezes dirt, why won't ice do the same? GingerHunter797 mentioned earlier in this thread that the game seems incomplete. These unfinished game steps, progression, cause and effect, etc. lend to the sense of being incomplete.
  
  There are things in the inventory that are useless and unobtainable without other mods. Rats, vessels, snow, dirt_with_snow, ice and (up until farming and flowers were added ) dyes and wool, for examples of things that make the game fell incomplete.


• When playing in survival-mode there should be bad guys and monsters to keep you on your toes. Minetest doesn't operate off of game levels or points so defeating the bad guys and monsters needs more incentive. It's been suggested before that monsters should drop valuable items when destroyed (why not have mechanical menaces too, like combination locks and traps to filled chests?).
  
  The worlds seem dead because there are no creatures milling about on the surface, flying in the air, swimming in the seas, or burrowing underground.
  
  Minetest creates worlds with generating and evolving environments, so why not have critters too? (I know part of the answer is due to the increased amount of computing power such things would require.)


• I prefer to play in creative-mode. The Minetest world is my art studio to create in. It would be great if minetest_game, the engine itself, or a default set of utility programs provided tools for easily manipulting the landscape and environment. Drop in a mountain here, draw a river there, that large, rectagular, mapgen glitch... yeah, fix that by smooothing it, sloping it and grading it to look like normal terrain.


• An in-game user manual that pops up like a formspec menu would be helpful to newcomers and Minetest veterans alike. List the basic crafting recipes, what keys do what action and where to get more info on Minetest.
  
  Also in-game help windows dedicated to each mod that is installed displaying the mod's name, author, download and forum links (for future updates and commentary), along with descriptions for each of the mod's items (What kind of things does this block do or what to do other blocks do to it?). This would be really helpful to have for complex mods like "Technic" and "Mesecons".
  
  The "/help all" command fills chat with everything from every mod making it very difficult to know which command goes with which mod and, at best, only provides very sparce info about commands and nothing about mods or items.

Lack of Players

Opinions of a grumpy, old man:

Sometimes I think people complain about a lack of players because the in-game chat is quiet or they are looking for someone to entertain/babysit them.

There are times when a server seems quiet and empty as players try to avoid and ignore another player because that other player has a history of being offensive, obnoxious, annoying, or any combination thereof.

Then there are times when players are more focused on mining, harvesting, building and are less interested in being someones babysitter-playmate at the moment.

Another aspect is the quality of the players versus the quantity of players. I'd rather play on a server that has few players but who are more self-reliant than one that is overrun by hyper-active kids with short attention spans expecting everyone to pay attention to them at all times and expecting others to do everything for them. I think Jordach and ShadowNinja may have been hinting at similar thoughts earlier in this thread.

Is Minetest boring because players are unable to do anything by themselves? That's not a problem of Minetest's; that's a personal problem of the players'.

Is Minetest boring because player's expect instant gratification? If players want an insta-matic epic castle with a press of a button then they should go watch YouTube videos. They don't even have to make any effort; someone else does all the work for them in fast-forward time-lapse.

Minetest requires planning and prepartation (and study if you are learning build-styles), even in creative-mode. Actually building an epic castle, with all it's ineteresting details and features, requires studying pics, reading some history, watching vidoes (of Minecraft and of real-life stuff), going out in the real-world to study real buildings and structures, building parts and pieces of sections, in-game, in a separate location to workout design-build problems, and it will take you a lot of time.

What about the landscape around the castle? I rarely see any builds were the players did anything to make the surrounding landscape look interesting, appealing, and an integral part of the build.

If all you do is build 5x3x5 cobble shacks on the first flat areas you find, then, yeah, Minetest probably does get boring.


A less grumpy and more pragmatic perspective:

Minecraft has been marketed much more successfully for a much longer time so it is much more well known. There are going to be more players on a Minecraft server because more people know about Minecraft than Minetest.

Minecraft set the pace, set the trend, and set the standards of what players expect when they first play Minetest. The technical differences only matter to the geeks and gurus. The game experience is what is important to the rest of us and in that reguard, Minecraft has delivered where MInetest is still trying to catch-up.



Ok, Those Were the Gripes. Now, What's Minecraft Still Missing Over Minetest?

• The long established point - Minetest is free.
  
  I started playing Minetest (and stuck with it) because I didn't want to spend money on a type of game I'd never heard of before. I understood first-person-shooters, simulators, platforms and role-playing games but what in the world is a sandbox game? The sandboxes I remember from when I was a kid were frequented by cats... I didn't want to play in those. :0)


• Because of mods like VanessaE's HomeDecor and Calinou's MoreBlocks, Minetest has options Minecraft does not.


• Minetest mods are much easier to make.
  
  I've watched YouTube videos of Minecraft and listen to the YouTubers complain about not having a block for this or that and I think to myself, "Well, why don't you Minecraft people make a mod to have that block?" Does Mojang have restrictions on what mods are authorized to be installed? Are new mods only allowed to be created with Mojang's blessing? If not, why aren't these Minecrafters making the simple blocks they are pining for?
  
  I don't know much about coding but at least with Minetest's Lua mods some of the stuff is simple enough even for me to figure out.

Minetest Needs to be Minetest, not a Minecraft Knock-off

So long as players keep wanting to make Minetest just like Minecraft, Minetest will continue to be a MInecraft knock-off.

Yes, Minecraft and Minetest share the same game idea, and, yes, they will have similar things as a result. However, if Minetest is to stand apart from Minecraft, Minetest will have to be different in significant ways that are easilily recongized by the average Minetest player.

Being different means Minetest may never have some of things, or do some of the things, that Minecraft does. It also means having things and doing things Minecraft doesn't.

Minetest shouldn't be shackeled to Minecraft's game model. Look for ideas and things that Minecraft wouldn't do because "it's just not the Minecraft-way" and then do them. Provided of course that they are good, honorable, and legal things. ;)-

These different ideas and features don't have to be big things either. Little things often add subtley that makes all the difference.

Ok, enough rambling out of me.

My thanks to those who have sat through and read yet another "LazyJ wall-o-text". ;)-

(LazyJ gets off his soap box to go brew another French Press.)

[twoelk]

I have added your text to my favorites just as the "Observation about people on public servers" text ;-)

What about the landscape around the castle? I rarely see any builds were the players did anything to make the surrounding landscape look interesting, appealing, and an integral part of the build.

ha! That is what good landscaping is about, making it so that visitors don't notice it is handcrafted. My experience though is that overly epic landscape attracts other players who might have different ideas about what is good looking and landscaping in popular places such as spawn is futile as players seeking for a place to build will build over any carefully designed scenery. I guess this is just as in real life.

(visit VanessaE's Creative/Survival/Minetest-mostlyvanilla servers to see examples)


As for most of your points fixing that would need experts willing to spend time on corporate design issues and a good manuall. Those people are indeed rare. Feel free to add to the Wiki. Maybe some of the tutorials there can be used to create an ingame manuall - someday - in the future

[MirceaKitsune]

I'd prefer to not get started on minetest_game. IMO, this game has failed, and I don't agree with the direction it's going and will be staying in. For this reason, I have less expectations for anything good being achieved with it.

The problem is the developers don't seem to want it to be an actual game. But rather a game offering a few basic tools and materials, and relying on mods to add anything of interest. For some servers this works out a bit, and the idea itself wouldn't be a bad one. But no one can really polish the game itself as a whole due to this. You rely on each admin finding and using the proper mods... some of which aren't quite the best at this stage.

I am planning on changing this, and making a game different from everything Minetest has been used with so far. But it will be a long while. Still hoping for something more exciting to happen till then.

[twoelk]

...
The problem is the developers don't seem to want it to be an actual game. But rather a game offering a few basic tools and materials, and relying on mods to add anything of interest.
...

This is (semi-officially) not considered a problem but a feature!

...
I am planning on changing this, and making a game different from everything Minetest has been used with so far.
...

cool

...
But it will be a long while.
...

nooooooooooooooo, hurry up

...
Still hoping for something more exciting to happen till then.
...

" come on now everybody, just stand up and do something exiting "
(= an extremelly difficult task in my opinion)