FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

Posted: **Thu Nov 28, 2013 18:15**

A certain group of developers being dissatisfied with the decisions other community members were making has decided to fork Minetest and work on it as they find appropriate.

You can find this project, called Freeminer, here.

Changelog: https://github.com/freeminer/freeminer/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md

Nightly builds: http://build.freeminer.org/

Posted: **Thu Nov 28, 2013 18:22**

What are your goals for it?

Posted: **Thu Nov 28, 2013 19:01**

PilzAdam wrote:What are your goals for it?

It aims to make the game fun while trading off some bits of perfectionism.

Posted: **Thu Nov 28, 2013 19:04**

Ehm nice project... just there aren't masses of players which are searching lots of servers and a >better< game than the good minetest.

In short: Let's see what happens :)

Posted: **Thu Nov 28, 2013 19:34**

This fork is compatible with minetest servers

Posted: **Thu Nov 28, 2013 20:24**

Cool. :)

Posted: **Thu Nov 28, 2013 20:42**

This is a nice project.

Posted: **Thu Nov 28, 2013 21:01**

For one, I like the name Freeminer better than Minetest. For two, things like vbo and lower server lag are great things to have.

This fork of Minetest will need a couple of dedicated build makers (one for 32-bit, and one for 64-bit.)

Posted: **Fri Nov 29, 2013 04:06**

Huh... It'll be interesting to see where this goes. Maybe one day it will surpass Minetest, as sometimes a fork will become better and more popular than the original. Who knows?

Also, who's working on it?

Posted: **Fri Nov 29, 2013 05:47**

The website is awesome though. I always wanted that website for Minetest. Meh, at least some related project adopted it.

There is still a lot of 'branding' left over from Minetest. Look at the console pic in the left side of the screen. If they want to fork out, I guess they should rework the branding. Or maybe they want to stay connected with Minetest?

Posted: **Fri Nov 29, 2013 08:38**

Minetest + Branding? What?

Posted: **Fri Nov 29, 2013 09:46**

So what is the structural difference to the Minetest development? Are you doing something different or is it just "Minetest without the people we don't like"?
I'm curious what this will become.

Posted: **Fri Nov 29, 2013 10:01**

rubenwardy wrote:Minetest + Branding? What?

The Minetest(tm) stone logo, the dirt-with-grass background, the cloud animated background, the 'Tree, Cactus, Ore, Cave, and Lake' logo, and the Minetest(tm) ASCII art (In the console debugger) are trademarks of Pertu Ahola aka Celeron-55 aka C-55(c)(R) and used with permission. Minetest c-55 is licenced under the LGPL 2. All Rights Reserved. Minetest 2010 - 2013.

The console debugger is a part of the Microsoft(c)(R) Command Prompt(tm) and used with permission. All rights belong to Microsoft(c)(R). Microsoft 1975-2013

Posted: **Fri Nov 29, 2013 10:36**

Casimir wrote:So what is the structural difference to the Minetest development? Are you doing something different or is it just "Minetest without the people we don't like"?

OP wrote:being dissatisfied with the decisions other community members were making

I rather get the impression they want to take a different direction. That means more features will be tried and tested, and with fewer debates over design at MT, development should pick up for both projects.

Posted: **Fri Nov 29, 2013 10:38**

He actually trademarked them? Seriously?

I dont think that is true.

The logo was made by someone else who owns the cc-by-sa-nc license.

It is an opensource project, so I dont think he would trademark the name, or logo, or screen.

The clouds was made by someone else, and are not really trademarkable.

Posted: **Fri Nov 29, 2013 10:50**

rubenwardy wrote:It is an opensource project, so I dont think he would trademark the name, or logo, or screen.

A fairly large amount of open source projects use non-free art or trademarks, such as Firefox and Thunderbird.

Posted: **Fri Nov 29, 2013 11:26**

mauvebic wrote:I rather get the impression they want to take a different direction. That means more features will be tried and tested, and with fewer debates over design at MT, development should pick up for both projects.

But what I mean is, a good intention is worth nothing if it is not backed by changes in the structure. Observed from the outside it is just someone else deciding.
I hope that it will be easier to contribute to Freeminer than to Minetest.

Posted: **Fri Nov 29, 2013 11:39**

hoodedice wrote:
rubenwardy wrote:Minetest + Branding? What?

The Minetest(tm) stone logo, the dirt-with-grass background, the cloud animated background, the 'Tree, Cactus, Ore, Cave, and Lake' logo, and the Minetest(tm) ASCII art (In the console debugger) are trademarks of Pertu Ahola aka Celeron-55 aka C-55(c)(R) and used with permission. Minetest c-55 is licenced under the LGPL 2. All Rights Reserved. Minetest 2010 - 2013.

The console debugger is a part of the Microsoft(c)(R) Command Prompt(tm) and used with permission. All rights belong to Microsoft(c)(R). Microsoft 1975-2013

The Minetest stone logo is CC-BY 3.0 BlockMen :P

But in general: README.txt helps a lot ;)
https://github.com/minetest/minetest/blob/master/README.txt#L262

Posted: **Fri Nov 29, 2013 11:55**

Casimir wrote:But what I mean is, a good intention is worth nothing if it is not backed by changes in the structure. Observed from the outside it is just someone else deciding.
I hope that it will be easier to contribute to Freeminer than to Minetest.

I think the point of forking is to let other people decide, otherwise most projects would elect their leads.
As for changes, there's a changelog here.

Posted: **Fri Nov 29, 2013 13:37**

Best case scenario is that this could spur some new ideas and improvements for both sides.

Best of luck to you guys. I'll keep an eye on it.

Posted: **Fri Nov 29, 2013 14:25**

hoodedice wrote:
rubenwardy wrote:Minetest + Branding? What?

The Minetest(tm) stone logo, the dirt-with-grass background, the cloud animated background, the 'Tree, Cactus, Ore, Cave, and Lake' logo, and the Minetest(tm) ASCII art (In the console debugger) are trademarks of Pertu Ahola aka Celeron-55 aka C-55(c)(R) and used with permission. Minetest c-55 is licenced under the LGPL 2. All Rights Reserved. Minetest 2010 - 2013.

The console debugger is a part of the Microsoft(c)(R) Command Prompt(tm) and used with permission. All rights belong to Microsoft(c)(R). Microsoft 1975-2013

lol, its funny how nobody here gets the joke.

EDIT: Shouldnt this thread be in "Minetest related projects"?

Posted: **Fri Nov 29, 2013 16:52**

I spoke with xyz on the Freeminer forums, he said that they will definitely change the name of the launcher, and the icon. It was also stated that he is working on the main menu.

And I suppose it should be in "Minetest related projects"

Posted: **Fri Nov 29, 2013 19:00**

Enke wrote:I spoke with xyz on the Freeminer forums, he said that they will definitely change the name of the launcher, and the icon. It was also stated that he is working on the main menu.

And I suppose it should be in "Minetest related projects"

Ok, thanks for infos.

Posted: **Fri Nov 29, 2013 19:55**

So like... Are there any different features in it that Minetest doesnt have?

I downloaded it and the application is still titled Minetest! HAHA!

Well, I tried it out. I looks and plays exactly like Minetest... But hopefully in the next few weeks or months it will start to differentiate(not sure if I used that word right) from Minetest.

P.S. I saw a picture of what the Main menu is supposed to look like, and I like it a lot better that the Minetest main menu; it looks more modern.

Posted: **Fri Nov 29, 2013 19:59**

Quoting xyz:
[spoiler]Engine changes

99% lag-free; optimized server can handle 50-100-... players; no problems with laggy mods even on slow hardware
Much faster on client (VBO, can eat memory), increased view and send range (PilzAdam)
Directional fog + horizon colors based on sun & moon positions (MirceaKitsune #799 #772)
Adjustable dynamic weather and liquids (it's possible to define number of liquid levels in node)
Weather defined water or ice on map generation. (freezed oceans if low temperature) and dirt_with_snow instead of dirt_with_grass when too cold.
Weather defined tree and flowers growing
Cave trees in huge caves (indev mapgen)
Optimized falling (much less mid-air stuck, limited max falling speed, more air control at high-speed falling)
Fixed and optimized headless client (you can run 30-50 bots on one PC)
Hell (very hot at -30500), everything melting and burning
Slippery (Zeg9 #817)
Improved (re)spawn (don't spawn in stone) (sweetbomber #744)
Diagonal Rail (khonkhortisan #528)
Increase the amount of particles that breaking a node generates (ShadowNinja #943)
Player list, viewable by holding TAB key (sfan5 #958)
Improved math mapgen: more (10+)generators from http://mandelbulber.com/, all params are adjustable
(minetest merge) sqlite rollback
And some small bugfixes and improvements.

API changes

New node groups: freeze, melt, hot, cold (define temperatures); learn how to use them here
New node group: slippery
minetest.register_abm({…, action(…, neighbor)}) — the action function has a new parameter called neighbor which will contain a node that was matched as a neighbor
minetest.register_abm({…, neighbors_range = 4}) — maximum radius to search for a neighbor in (for example, melting snow in 4×4 area around torch)
minetest.get_surface (sapier #640)

Game changes

dirt, sand and gravel will fall off the edges (try to build something ;)
Furnaces burn items even when they are unloaded (Novatux #200)
Moonflower (MirceaKitsune #175)[/spoiler]

Posted: **Fri Nov 29, 2013 21:23**

Hybrid Dog wrote:
Claire wrote:P.S. I saw a picture of what the Main menu is supposed to look like, and I like it a lot better that the Minetest main menu; it looks more modern.
May you show me a screenshot?

May you learn to read and click links?

http://forum.freeminer.org/threads/differentiate-between-freeminer-and-minetest.6/

Jk, no sirius intended

Posted: **Fri Nov 29, 2013 21:55**

dirt, sand and gravel will fall off the edges (try to build something ;)
)

why this?

Posted: **Sat Nov 30, 2013 01:23**

All in all nice package, main differences people will notice is the weather mod added to game, more grass and a moonflower. However i found snow and ice biomes right next to desert's(does not really make sense). I mean walking along found a glacier then a desert yet the other side of desert there is another glacier?

Personally i think biomes and weather types should be allocated to the position of z axis within map generation. Depending on z axis position of the player it will generate nodes to represent the climate of earth like.

E.g. If player position is 0,0,0 it should be hot with mainly jungle merging into desert's surrounding, no snow and little rain much like countries near the equator. Yet if a player is around 0,0,20000 / 0,0,-20000 or whatever it should be snowy and rainy more frequent. Anything past these points to the top/bottom of map should be ice caps and of course a gradual blend through out biomes.

Just what i think will make adventuring more interesting as player/map position then matters if you want a particular climate.

Posted: **Sat Nov 30, 2013 03:18**

Dopium wrote:All in all nice package, main differences people will notice is the weather mod added to game, more grass and a moonflower. However i found snow and ice biomes right next to desert's(does not really make sense). I mean walking along found a glacier then a desert yet the other side of desert there is another glacier?

Personally i think biomes and weather types should be allocated to the position of z axis within map generation. Depending on z axis position of the player it will generate nodes to represent the climate of earth like.

E.g. If player position is 0,0,0 it should be hot with mainly jungle merging into desert's surrounding, no snow and little rain much like countries near the equator. Yet if a player is around 0,0,20000 / 0,0,-20000 or whatever it should be snowy and rainy more frequent. Anything past these points to the top/bottom of map should be ice caps and of course a gradual blend through out biomes.

Just what i think will make adventuring more interesting as player/map position then matters if you want a particular climate.

The main problem with this idea is tihat gameplay, at least mapgen-wise would become too predictale. However, making adjacent biomes not be polar opposites is a good idea.

Posted: **Sat Nov 30, 2013 08:00**

also i have preformance issues with the particles specaially with digging and weather effects