Why isn't Minetest more popular?

[Chinchow]

I like the idea of T-Shirts.
Hmm... I think we should definitely need to invent a new minetest mascot. One that is appealing to people of all ages. Think about it: The green sprite guy is not very appealing, and a dungeon master may be too creepy for some people. I think we should start a new topic for artists to submit their art.
EDIT: The Minetest Icon is nice, but does not convey the idea of a fun game IMHO.

What about Robert the default 3d skin?

[Jordach]

ಠ__ಠ

You NAMED MY SKIN?

ಠ__ಠ

[InfinityProject]

ಠ__ಠ

You NAMED MY SKIN?

ಠ__ಠ

haha. And of all things, Robert?

[kaeza]

What about Robert the default 3d skin?

That seems like a good choice (I didn't know how the new 3D guy was named).
EDIT: Good choice...for now... *insert evil laughter here*

[Jordach]

What about Robert the default 3d skin?

That seems like a good choice (I didn't know how the new 3D guy was named).
EDIT: Good choice...for now... *insert evil laughter here*

3D Guy was never named.

I dislike Robert, that name caused me grief a year ago.

[Chinchow]

What about Robert the default 3d skin?

That seems like a good choice (I didn't know how the new 3D guy was named).
EDIT: Good choice...for now... *insert evil laughter here*

3D Guy was never named.

I dislike Robert, that name caused me grief a year ago.

Sorry but i could've sworn people just called him Robert what would you suggest?

[Ragnar]

maybe a cool japaneese name, Akanari Hanari

[Chinchow]

No it should be short and easy to remember

[2232]

I play this because its free, fun, and has lots of mods and skins and such =) But idk why this game isnt well known.....

[InfinityProject]

Jordach created the skin, Taoki added the model to minetest. It's up to them to make a name, if they even want to.

[Ragnar]

ok, Askl short for Askleptios

[Ragnar]

dont ask, how do i make there names up, i just do =)

[Chinchow]

Jordach created the skin, Taoki added the model to minetest. It's up to them to make a name, if they even want to.

Good point

[kaeza]

What about Robert the default 3d skin?

That seems like a good choice (I didn't know how the new 3D guy was named).
EDIT: Good choice...for now... *insert evil laughter here*

3D Guy was never named.

I dislike Robert, that name caused me grief a year ago.

Oh sorry, I didn't know.

[Casimir]

Why isn't Minetest more popular? (Why are people playing minecraft instead of minetest?)
1. The same reason people are using Apple. I don't know that reason, but it has to be the same.
2. For many people "open-source" is meaning nothing. It's just some "present program" like a prof of me refereed to open-source. People preferring open-source prefer minetest.
3. Minecraft was the first playable game this way, it had to compete to almost nothing. Minetest will always be compared to minecraft. 3.b. People stuck to things they know. 3.c. If you buy a game, you will play that instead of an free one, because you already paid money and you don't want this money to be wasted.
4. There are a lot of small things in the game you notice here and then that always remind you that Minetest is not "finished". For example when your inventory is full (fullinventory should be default, btw.)
5. (Most important IMO) Minetest is not very good documented. Somebody downloading it doesn't knows what is possible, what mods there are around. As I started playing it, it took me some time to discover all the things like keys, privileges, mods, texturepacks and so on (best example: using the mousewheel to craft ten times).
People just downloading the release, test that and don't see all the things there could. With all the things I changed and all the mods, the game I play is very different from the release version. And people don't see it.

[jmf]

I think it would be too minecraft-ish to put this 3d-figure on a t-shirt.
Everybody will think: "Oh, a minecraft t-shirt!", but when they see, that it
is mineTEST, they will say, that it is just stolen and nothing new.
Stuff like the dungeon master, that is unique and only in minetest
can make the people think: "Finally something different from this minecraft stuff. Got to test".
Also minetest is only in 0.4.4 now. Lots of bugs to fix, stuff to add and code to write.
The popularity will rise with the time.

[Chinchow]

I think it would be too minecraft-ish to put this 3d-figure on a t-shirt.
Everybody will think: "Oh, a minecraft t-shirt!", but when they see, that it
is mineTEST, they will say, that it is just stolen and nothing new.
Stuff like the dungeon master, that is unique and only in minetest
can make the people think: "Finally something different from this minecraft stuff. Got to test".
Also minetest is only in 0.4.4 now. Lots of bugs to fix, stuff to add and code to write.
The popularity will rise with the time.

OK but at least a 3d dungeon master for looks if thats what you want

[kaeza]

5. (Most important IMO) Minetest is not very good documented. Somebody downloading it doesn't knows what is possible, what mods there are around. As I started playing it, it took me some time to discover all the things like keys, privileges, mods, texturepacks and so on.
People just downloading the release, test that and don't see all the things there could. With all the things I changed and all the mods, the game I play is very different from the release version. And people don't see it.

I agree on that. Unfortunately, the core dev team rejected my idea to reformat and expand the documentation, so I won't waste my time.

I think it would be too minecraft-ish to put this 3d-figure on a t-shirt.

I also agree on that. Most people that know Minecraft will just say that the mascot would be an MC ripoff. We need some original creature. The DM also looks too much like that Red Monster from Looney Tunes IMHO.

[Casimir]

Unfortunately, the core dev team rejected my idea to reformat and expand the documentation, so I won't waste my time.

Fortunately minetest is open-source. You can edit the wiki or make videos or something else. Minecraft players can always say "the developers haven't done this or that", we don't have that excuse ;) .

[Ragnar]

stop with the mascot stuff, in a week or so, i will give you some sample shirts and stuff -.-

[Jakssoul]

The ideas of advertising are fantastic, and somebody really should get working on some of them. Does Minetest have a Facebook page? I know a lot of people connect using Facebook..

[jmf]

There are some sites where you can sell shirts for your project like this one:
http://www.getdigital.de/index/partnermotive/lng/en
Buying all t-shirts and selling them ourselves would be really complicated.
It would need time and time=money. Why waste time if this site does everything for us?
Jakssoul: Yeah, a facebook site would be a player magnet, but it has to be maintained.
Somebody has to do all this stuff.

[Ragnar]

i just said, dont worry about the shirts, im making them soon, maybe tommorow...

[Jakssoul]

I'd consider doing the Facebook page if I got the "OK" from somebody like celeron55 or VanessaE (Or any other high-standing community member)

[Ragnar]

there are some minetest pages already, not sure if any official ones tho...

[jmf]

Ragnar: Where do you want to sell these shirts?
I won't drive to you just to buy a 10-Euro-shirt.
And I won't register on e-bay or some other dubious online shop.
Internet services like this:
http://www.getdigital.de/index/partnermotive/lng/en
make it more easier AND they even print it for you.

[Jakssoul]

I think purchasing lots of customized Minetest USB Flash drives would be genius!
Then, installing XUBUNTU via LIVEUSBLINUX, using a casper persistent file, getting Minetest installed on it, and selling them!

Quote from jmf:
"Play minetest EVERYWHERE... With the new MINETEST FLASHDRIVE!!! Plug it in, select it in BIOS menu and there you go"

[Ragnar]

i use SpreadShirt...

[Neuromancer]

If you want an application to have mass appeal, you have to realize that the masses have little to no understanding of how to work their computers. Even just unzipping something puts them into a tizzy.

So if you want the millions out there who play minecraft to play minetest, you have to do what segfault did, and create an installer. Then you need to add a tab for mods and a tab for textures.

Create a default place to store mods and textures (github would be my suggestion) and then create a mod installer that uses the zip download to automatically install and uninstall mods. Mods that are approved by celeron and the moderators could submit their github.zip URL and these could be added to the game and automatically be downloaded and installed if the user checks the checkbox next to them. The same for textures. I'd also propose a different folder structure for textures:
\textures\doku
\textures\misa
etc.

That way the user could click on the texture tab and pick a texture to use via radio button.

Make minetest that easy to use and everyone and their brother would use it.

Do not overestimate the users of any app.

[Calinou]

I think purchasing lots of customized Minetest USB Flash drives would be genius!
Then, installing XUBUNTU via LIVEUSBLINUX, using a casper persistent file, getting Minetest installed on it, and selling them!

Quote from jmf:
"Play minetest EVERYWHERE... With the new MINETEST FLASHDRIVE!!! Plug it in, select it in BIOS menu and there you go"

If you do that, players will be forced to use the open source drivers which are much slower (unless you're on Intel GPUs, where the official driver is open source, but Intel GPUs are quite slow). Also, selecting something in the BIOS menu is too hard for like 80% of the people out there.