What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

[whateveralias]

Well Don, I think we mostly agree on what Minetest should be even if it looks like we don't, but I strongly disagree with you on how it should be managed. First of all, I don't want it to be like Minecraft, because it already is like Minecraft. Let's not pretend it's a completely different beast: it's basically the same game. There's no need to obsessively avoid any specific characteristics of Minecraft at all cost. But this discussion is moot since I do agree with you that Minetest_game is fine as a barebone engine that gets modded into an actual game and as I understand that is your main concern.

But my main point is, if you want community growth you can't expect people to adapt to your way of doing things, you have to provide something that they find appealing ("the customer is always right" and all). Just like Steve Jobs telling customers they are "holding it wrong", telling potential players they are "playing it wrong" is incredibly arrogant and will drive people away. You can keep arguing that people should be "educated" about Minetest all you want, but at the end of the day, you either provide something they can enjoy out of the box with little effort or you will limit yourself to a small community of enthusiasts.

Besides, I do not agree at all that sponsoring a complete and polished subgame and encouraging people to download it reduces freedom. You don't have to get that one if you are an enthusiast (which I can see you clearly are). I think I understand your concerns, but in my opinion it's not something that needs to be feared all that much: it's possible to get the best of both worlds, it doesn't have to be two polar opposites where you either provide a fun game OR a highly flexible one.

edit 2: you know what? My last edit was really assholish, so I'm editing again to remove it. Sorry about that.
edit 3: I might have been unnecessarily rough when raising my concerns because apparently these issues are on celeron55's radar (it's mentioned on his 2014 roadmap.) Hopefully they get it right, crossing my fingers.

[Mathias]

Was I was debating against myself to choose between Minetest and the latter, the first thing would come to mind is the price. If, for example, Minecraft was free, that would be a different story.

[SAMIAMNOT]

I'm have access to minetest.net, I've been working on this description for a while:

Minetest is a blocky game engine and a game, inspired by InfiniMiner, Minecraft and the like. Minetest is about freedom - we want you to customize the game, and make your own worlds. Because of this, mods are super easy to create and install. All the content in the game comes from mods, every block, tool and item.

Minetest comes with a basic foundation set of mods called 'Minetest Game', which you can then add on top of. We call these base sets of mods "subgames", and there are many others to choose from. If you'd rather just play a complete game, you can download a subgame which contains a good set of playable content.

Minetest is available natively for Windows, Linux, Android, OS X and Free/Open BSD, and is Free and Open Source Software, released under the LGPL 2.1 or later.

I'd like feedback. (Maybe better to do via PM, I don't know, don't want to hijack this thread.

Actually, I have just found some Minetest tutorials that actually tell you to get mods and games (http://wiki.minetest.net/Getting_Started). Maybe you could add a link to the pge from the site or even copy and paste some content to create a seperate page on the site?
I would greatly appreciate it.

[prestidigitator]

...if you want community growth you can't expect people to adapt to your way of doing things, you have to provide something that they find appealing ("the customer is always right" and all).

Well, seeing as nobody is making any money from the players, they aren't exactly, "customers." It's a fair question to ask whether we really want explosive growth like Minecraft experienced. Is it better to experience moderate growth such as the game has, and be able to concentrate on making it high-quality and enjoyable for the existing user base, or is it better to get millions of users, weighing the game down with an unmanageable , "community" (in quotes because once it grows too big it's truly no longer a community).

[srifqi]

"community" (in quotes because once it grows too big it's truly no longer a community).

Nothing is too big for community. For example, MC forum, Pokécommunity, etc.

[Don]

@whateveralias- I understand what you are saying. When I say that minetest should not be like minecraft what I mean is that minecraft has many things that can not be removed because they are a part of the game. With minetest you can decide what you want by installing mods. Maybe if minetest had mods included with the game but could be easily disabled then I think that would be ok. When minetest is installed, if there was a set of mods that get put into the mods folder then people could enable/disable them easily.
I never saw your edit 1. I hope I have not said anything to make you upset. I am giving my opinion and mean no disrespect to you or anyone else. If I said anything that was rude then I am sorry.

[prestidigitator]

Nothing is too big for community. For example, MC forum, Pokécommunity, etc.

I disagree. A community is a group of people who interact with each other in meaningful ways. Millions of people use the U.S. highway system. Just because they use something in common, does that make them a community? Not IMO. The word loses its meaning when we water it down that way. Granted with "social networking" we do a lot of that watering down these days. I'm sorry, but someone who has 2000 Facebook "friends" does not have 2000 friends. In fact, there's actually a practical limit of about 100-200 people that you can have meaningful interactions with. A community can probably be an order of magnitude or two above that since not everyone has to exactly be intimate with everyone else, but calling a group of people that is millions large a community is a big stretch as far as I am concerned. They are a group of people who have a common interest. Nothing else.

[rubenwardy]

I'm have access to minetest.net, I've been working on this description for a while:

Minetest is a blocky game engine and a game, inspired by InfiniMiner, Minecraft and the like. Minetest is about freedom - we want you to customize the game, and make your own worlds. Because of this, mods are super easy to create and install. All the content in the game comes from mods, every block, tool and item.

Minetest comes with a basic foundation set of mods called 'Minetest Game', which you can then add on top of. We call these base sets of mods "subgames", and there are many others to choose from. If you'd rather just play a complete game, you can download a subgame which contains a good set of playable content.

Minetest is available natively for Windows, Linux, Android, OS X and Free/Open BSD, and is Free and Open Source Software, released under the LGPL 2.1 or later.

I'd like feedback. (Maybe better to do via PM, I don't know, don't want to hijack this thread.

Actually, I have just found some Minetest tutorials that actually tell you to get mods and games (http://wiki.minetest.net/Getting_Started). Maybe you could add a link to the pge from the site or even copy and paste some content to create a seperate page on the site?
I would greatly appreciate it.

I wrote the part of that page that mentioned mods, it's part of my attempts to rebrand Minetest (ie: make the websites and materials reflect the game engine like nature of Minetest.)

It's linked to from the download page.

"community" (in quotes because once it grows too big it's truly no longer a community).

Nothing is too big for community. For example, MC forum, Pokécommunity, etc.

The MC forum community is incredibly huge, it's impossible to read the topic titles of every new topic, let alone actually read them.

[jp]

A community is a group of people who interact with each other in meaningful ways. [...]

"Community", etymologically means a group of people that share things in common, have the same identity and the same interests.

People who contribute usefully here belongs de facto to the community; but the consumers and the random onlookers, not.

And yes, 2000 so-called friends on FB is basically like have $1M at Monopoly.

[technomancy]

Nothing is too big for community. For example, MC forum, Pokécommunity, etc.

I wonder if you realize that Notch was driven to sell Minecraft specifically because of the torrential floods of abuse and disparagement he received any time he made a change to the dynamics of the game?

I totally agree that explosive growth is harmful to community dynamics; you get a flood of people, many of whom are assholes, and the sudden influx of assholes is a lot more noticeable than the sudden influx of decent blokes.

But anyway, I don't know if the "meh"-ness of minetest_game is explicitly due to wanting to avoid explosive growth; this seems to be mostly conjecture at this point.

[srifqi]

I disagree. A community is a group of people who interact with each other in meaningful ways. ... A community can probably be an order of magnitude or two above that since not everyone has to exactly be intimate with everyone else, but calling a group of people that is millions large a community is a big stretch as far as I am concerned. They are a group of people who have a common interest. Nothing else.

I totally agree that explosive growth is harmful to community dynamics; you get a flood of people, many of whom are assholes, and the sudden influx of assholes is a lot more noticeable than the sudden influx of decent blokes.

The MC forum community is incredibly huge, it's impossible to read the topic titles of every new topic, let alone actually read them.

Okay, agreed. That's what I actually do at Pokécommunity, let alone actually read them. So, do you hope this community is getting bigger or not?

[SAMIAMNOT]

I hope it does. A dead Minetest_game may discourage a-holes, IMHO.

[SAMIAMNOT]

Hmmm...Looks like Celeron55 spoke out about the need to add more games...but didn't do anything about it.
http://c55.me/blog/?1491

[Rochambeau]

@whateveralias

I fully agree to everything you said in your two posts! You can't attract new player if you don't give them something to feel attracted to. Sadly, most of the decission-maker here disagree.

Minetest is like giving someone a plain white paper and some crayons and tell them "now you have the freedom to draw whatever you want." while next to that white paper there is a glossy picture book with interresting stories called Minecraft. What would you want to explore further?

I tried to lure some of my friends to minetest and even presented them links to some of my favourite mods. But they just installed the engine, came, saw and ... returned to minecraft immediately.

Why not include more games and mods to minetest? Disabling unwanted preinstalled mods/games is much more comfortable than looking for and researching new mods.

Another example while i'm at it:
Linux first became more (more or less) popular, when Canonical made an userfriendly and easy to install distro for the masses.
Minecraft is like Windows. Minetest is Linux ... in the early nineties.

[SAMIAMNOT]

Very true! What's keeping the devs from adding quality content?

EDIT : Oh, and there's another thing Minetest is missing. VR support. ;)

[The-Operator219]

To me, the multiplayer is bland.
It lacks the fun factor that minecraft has.
I'll join a server, amass a fortune and build my castle, then get bored and start over.
Maybe I'm just easily bored is all.

[SAMIAMNOT]

Mhltiplayer is NOT bland. You must not have been to many servers.
Unless you mean being attacked by giant spiders is bland.

[The-Operator219]

My problem with that is that they will never load.
Or in the case of just test, it's stupidly unmonitored.
Also I respect the open source thing, but add SOMETHING to do without mods.

[SAMIAMNOT]

That alwys happens. But that's not the whole experience.
As for your comment on mods...I agree. We shouldn't HAVE to get mods in order to have quality gameplay.

And they thought EA didn't listen to their community....

[The-Operator219]

Honestly, I never do singleplayer.

[SAMIAMNOT]

Neither do I ;) I have friends that play Minecraft and that's all they play too. It's always more fun to play with others.

[maikerumine]

My problem with that is that they will never load.
Or in the case of just test, it's stupidly unmonitored.
Also I respect the open source thing, but add SOMETHING to do without mods.

And this adds to the extreme survival aspect we all come to love. :-)

Admittedly, at first it is annoying.

[lisacvuk]

Try making Minetest with stronger colours, it will make it more realistic...

[The-Operator219]

Agreed, the textures match a public restroom's.

[Calinou]

Try making Minetest with stronger colours, it will make it more realistic...

Didn't you hear that? Real is brown.

[lisacvuk]

I found this texture pack called "Minecraft Enchanced" and it is converted to minetest... Anyways, it uses mostly the same colours as minecraft. So, I took some screenshots in wonderland area on Craig's server...




[img=http://s11.postimg.org/ioe4qrv7z/screenshot_20150629_040337.jpg]

[trev]

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.

I agree. What is needed is something that makes Minetest stand out. Minetest can be fun even as something different. Having the engine/mod architecture doesn't mean that Minetest has to be more complex or commerial-like on the player level. I used to play 0.3.1 on Ubuntu and that was some of the most fun I've ever had with video games. We can keep Minetest open while preserving its differences and quirks. What we're losing is individuality as an open source project. Minetest needs to be less generic. It's not too late.

[trev]

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.

I love how this shines light on an obvious issue that I feel has been left unaddressed. Minetest needs adventure. A while ago, I read in New Scientist that video games are enjoyable because they stimulate a sense of accomplishment. When a day closes in Minecraft, I feel pride for being alive and having iron in my inventory. When a day closes in Minetest, I think, Argh.. do /time 7000; /set time_speed 0. Minecraft is always different, always evolving. That is what Minetest is missing.

[trev]

Ok. I know I'm posting a lot, but I have too many ideas. Minetest is a great project. Despite room for improvement, I care about Minetest more than I care about Minecraft. Minetest is an open source project. Everyone can code in LUA to make a dream voxel world. Freedom has power in this way. Minecraft is only a proprietary cash cow now. It started as an individual project, but now that it is commercialized, I find it disgusting. Minetest has always been free. The community has done a great job of maintaining this. Minetest gets better with each release. Open source software is developed under a different pattern than proprietary software. As open source software, it will take time to perfect Minetest. Quote README.txt: "Don't expect it to work as well as a finished game will." As a community, we can make Minetest even better. We must wait for ideas to be perfected. Minetest development is not a paying job for modders like it is for equivalent development of Minecraft. With more time, we will see many things turn Minetest into an amazing engine that powers many servers. I hope for rare biomes to be added, mobs with more complex AIs, and hunger to be added to most survival games. With each release, the sense of adventure that one feels playing the game grows. Before too long, Minetest will catch up and be the world's best free and open source sandbox!

[Sokomine]

When a day closes in Minetest, I think, Argh.. do /time 7000; /set time_speed 0.

:-) Exactly. Though that is not necessarily a bad sign. It really depends on what you're doing. Hint: Take a look at BrandonReese's AdventureTest test server. Even day is dangerous there. So far, it seems as if the mobs have won against the villagers...But there are other situations. When actually building something, night is a decorative element. Have all the light sources be placed in such a way that it looks good at night? Yes? Well, then we may as well progress to day in order to continue with the project :-)