FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

Someone asked me this recently, and I had a hard time answering this.

My first thought is there's 30k blocks in all direction? -- but no... that's just a game feature...

What makes it so unique from MineCraft?...

What else, apart from game features, do you want to have "unique"?
The developers are unique, the textures are unique, all mod code too.

Would you like to continue in this topic instead? Starting a new MC vs MT comparison thread is not required IMO.

Krock wrote:What else, apart from game features, do you want to have "unique"?
The developers are unique, the textures are unique, all mod code too.

Would you like to continue in this topic instead? Starting a new MC vs MT comparison thread is not required IMO.

That thread began to get too technical on the engine and how coding works and so on...

I just wanted a simple list perhaps, to see what's unique.

But yeah I can see where this is going...

I think what makes Minetest unique is the ease of which you can write, add and run mods, and with each new feature added to the game it enriches each new mod released :)

TenPlus1 wrote:I think what makes Minetest unique is the ease of which you can write, add and run mods, and with each new feature added to the game it enriches each new mod released :)

Yeah, that's a good one!

Especially when you do not have to have mods downloaded and installed on your PC to join the server!

Subgames! and the ways to modify your Minetest... Starting from simple mods, to subgames, and changes to the game itself (Freeminer, Voxelands)...

What makes Minetest so unique IMHO it's the fact that is very customizable in every aspect...
You don't need "command blocks" or modify a ".jar" to test a mod... Minetest is free and all it's souce code, if you have the skill, you can make a game that be perfect for yourself! Unlike MineCraft where you have many stuff for default, and becomes boring, instead you install mods in a complicated way (somehow)... in Minetest you can do your own game, using mods of your preference and you can install them so easy!.
Even doing them is very easy too.

MineYoshi wrote:Subgames! and the ways to modify your Minetest... Starting from simple mods, to subgames, and changes to the game itself (Freeminer, Voxelands)...

What makes Minetest so unique IMHO it's the fact that is very customizable in every aspect...
You don't need "command blocks" or modify a ".jar" to test a mod... Minetest is free and all it's souce code, if you have the skill, you can make a game that be perfect for yourself! Unlike MineCraft where you have many stuff for default, and becomes boring, instead you install mods in a complicated way (somehow)... in Minetest you can do your own game, using mods of your preference and you can install them so easy!.
Even doing them is very easy too.

+1

Good one...

Now I see some big potential from MT community. We just have to work together more, that is :P

MykieDoesStuff wrote:

MineYoshi wrote:Subgames! and the ways to modify your Minetest... Starting from simple mods, to subgames, and changes to the game itself (Freeminer, Voxelands)...

What makes Minetest so unique IMHO it's the fact that is very customizable in every aspect...
You don't need "command blocks" or modify a ".jar" to test a mod... Minetest is free and all it's souce code, if you have the skill, you can make a game that be perfect for yourself! Unlike MineCraft where you have many stuff for default, and becomes boring, instead you install mods in a complicated way (somehow)... in Minetest you can do your own game, using mods of your preference and you can install them so easy!.
Even doing them is very easy too.

+1

Good one...

Now I see some big potential from MT community. We just have to work together more, that is :P

They have good talent, they only need the ideas... There are just too much good mods that even can be better than MineCraft ones... Example, great mapgen mods, space ones, etc...
I think that would be nice to have a Subgame with all the great mods to make a so good game, and that runs fast!

Minetest is easy to mod and customize and the developers do their best not to break mods during updates.

Also since Mintest and it's mods don't require installer files, you can put it on external drives with no problems.

LazerRay wrote:Also since Mintest and it's mods don't require installer files, you can put it on external drives with no problems.

Good point +100!
Also Minetest doesn't need Java, that means you can play Minetest in every computer without having to download packages :D
And without Java, Minetest is a lot faster.

Since there have been plenty of positive uniquenesses, I'll play devils advocate. (Minecraft Forge as opposed to plain Minecraft, since Forge is the main platform for modding)

• Client-side mods require recompilation (though someone is supposed to be working on client-side scripts, so hopefully this will change)
• The modding language is not statically-typed (with an expressive type system)
• The language's basic unit of data composition, tables, are expensive to allocate.
• Backwards-compatibility requires that it be possible to transition to a compatibility-breaking feature/tweak with a deprecation stage

Mod doing is very easy.
○There is an API, with functions to register nodes and different stuff.
○"Types" or Characteristics you can add to a node.
○Functions to make more complex mods.

I agree that modding is easy in Minetest, but the specific points you bring up are not unique.

○There is an API, with functions to register nodes and different stuff.

Minecraft (Forge) must obviously have an API for this too, since there are lots of mods that add new blocks.

○"Types" or Characteristics you can add to a node.

This sounds vague and doesn't point to any particular feature. In any case, there are lots of ways to define new block behavior in MC, and for individual blocks (not all blocks of the same type) too.

○Functions to make more complex mods.

This sounds vague, unless you mean Lua functions. MC Forge has Java classes and methods, and I would say that Java is more friendly to complexity than Lua is, just from having a fairly expressive static type system, as far as mainstream languages go. You can also apparently use Scala and its nicerities with Forge, since it's included in some mod dependencies. Once there's a reliable Purescript -> Lua compiler we could have something like that too, but I suspect that a naive implementation would result in slow code, due to lots of table allocations.

Nyan cats!

tomlukeywood wrote:Nyan cats!

\o/

Byakuren wrote:I agree that modding is easy in Minetest, but the specific points you bring up are not unique.

○There is an API, with functions to register nodes and different stuff.

Minecraft (Forge) must obviously have an API for this too, since there are lots of mods that add new blocks.

○"Types" or Characteristics you can add to a node.

This sounds vague and doesn't point to any particular feature. In any case, there are lots of ways to define new block behavior in MC, and for individual blocks (not all blocks of the same type) too.

○Functions to make more complex mods.

This sounds vague, unless you mean Lua functions. MC Forge has Java classes and methods, and I would say that Java is more friendly to complexity than Lua is, just from having a fairly expressive static type system, as far as mainstream languages go. You can also apparently use Scala and its nicerities with Forge, since it's included in some mod dependencies. Once there's a reliable Purescript -> Lua compiler we could have something like that too, but I suspect that a naive implementation would result in slow code, due to lots of table allocations.

If "Forge" doesn't exist, if you have the mods and MineCraft, but you don't have internet for downloading "Forge"... Then what you gonna do?
○Minetest doesn't depend in anything than in itself (in the API) for running mods!.
Checkmate :D

MineYoshi wrote:

Byakuren wrote:I agree that modding is easy in Minetest, but the specific points you bring up are not unique.

○There is an API, with functions to register nodes and different stuff.

Minecraft (Forge) must obviously have an API for this too, since there are lots of mods that add new blocks.

○"Types" or Characteristics you can add to a node.

This sounds vague and doesn't point to any particular feature. In any case, there are lots of ways to define new block behavior in MC, and for individual blocks (not all blocks of the same type) too.

○Functions to make more complex mods.

This sounds vague, unless you mean Lua functions. MC Forge has Java classes and methods, and I would say that Java is more friendly to complexity than Lua is, just from having a fairly expressive static type system, as far as mainstream languages go. You can also apparently use Scala and its nicerities with Forge, since it's included in some mod dependencies. Once there's a reliable Purescript -> Lua compiler we could have something like that too, but I suspect that a naive implementation would result in slow code, due to lots of table allocations.

If "Forge" doesn't exist, if you have the mods and MineCraft, but you don't have internet for downloading "Forge"... Then what you gonna do?
○Minetest doesn't depend in anything than in itself (in the API) for running mods!.
Checkmate :D

If you don't have the internet you can't download Minetest or its mods either. If you have Minecraft and its mods, you almost definitely already have Forge, because it's required to use those mods. And why would someone be able to download the mods and not Forge?

I think it doesn't matter in itself that Minecraft relies on Forge for a coherent mod API. It does result in more compatibility breakage (for good or bad), but that point has been mentioned already. If the Forge team was heavily focused on backwards compatibility then that point wouldn't exist, but Minecraft would still rely on Forge for the popular modding API. What is the benefit of not needing a third-party modding API? It isn't "not needing a download", because you would have had to download (or get some other way) the mods anyway.

The diffrence is that sometimes installing Forge becomes a bit uneasy to understand. Instead in Minetest you don't need anything that the game!
You don't need Java to run game and mods!
Also... I find Minetest more attractive because is open and it's in C++ (it's a lot faster and reliable), and as well if you know how-to, you can expand the API and make it more useful, more complex and easy to understand. You can make some changes to make everything be more faster and reliable.

MineYoshi wrote:The diffrence is that sometimes installing Forge becomes a bit uneasy to understand. Instead in Minetest you don't need anything that the game!

That's true, though people often use launchers for the purpose of making mod installation easier. With Minetest you still have to unpack stuff, or use a third-party package manager.

You don't need Java to run game and mods!

I don't know if this is a big benefit since most machines you would play Minetest or Minecraft on would already have Java.

Also... I find Minetest more attractive because is open

I agree

and it's in C++ (it's a lot faster and reliable),

The engine itself might be faster, but the switching of control between C++ and Lua is a major source of lag in mods. Since Minecraft mods basically run in the same environment as the engine, there's no overhead from switching between mod code and engine code. Minecraft is pretty laggy for me, so I don't know how much this helps, but I would guess it gives better performance for mods that make lots of API calls.

and as well if you know how-to, you can expand the API and make it more useful, more complex and easy to understand. You can make some changes to make everything be more faster and reliable.

This is a real benefit. To improve Forge you would have to be a Forge dev, I think.

Byakuren wrote:

MineYoshi wrote:The diffrence is that sometimes installing Forge becomes a bit uneasy to understand. Instead in Minetest you don't need anything that the game!

That's true, though people often use launchers for the purpose of making mod installation easier. With Minetest you still have to unpack stuff, or use a third-party package manager.

But actually you only need to unpack the zip in the mods folder! That shouldn't be so hard!

Byakuren wrote:

MineYoshi wrote:You don't need Java to run game and mods!

I don't know if this is a big benefit since most machines you would play Minetest or Minecraft on would already have Java.

Windows doesn't have Java by Default, mostly people use Windows (Damn... I think it's because the software.) and that means they have to install, and being sincerely the first time i played MineCraft i didn't have any problem, but before formatting my Computer i had many troubles installing Java and in other computers too!

Byakuren wrote:

MineYoshi wrote:Also... I find Minetest more attractive because is open

I agree

Is Forge Free? And it's MineCraft? Actually not!

Byakuren]"[quote="MineYoshi wrote:and it's in C++ (it's a lot faster and reliable),

The engine itself might be faster, but the switching of control between C++ and Lua is a major source of lag in mods. Since Minecraft mods basically run in the same environment as the engine, there's no overhead from switching between mod code and engine code. Minecraft is pretty laggy for me, so I don't know how much this helps, but I would guess it gives better performance for mods that make lots of API calls.[/quote]
Actually, the reason of why the mods are not in C++, it's because the fact that LUA works better for registering entities, or as well nodes :D

Byakuren wrote:

MineYoshi wrote: and as well if you know how-to, you can expand the API and make it more useful, more complex and easy to understand. You can make some changes to make everything be more faster and reliable.

This is a real benefit. To improve Forge you would have to be a Forge dev, I think.

If you edit the source, i don't know, if you can improve it?
Anyways, you can't edit the engine of MineCraft, or at least share it without being sued...

MineYoshi wrote:But actually you only need to unpack the zip in the mods folder! That shouldn't be so hard!

Using a launcher is not so hard either.

MineYoshi wrote:Windows doesn't have Java by Default, mostly people use Windows (Damn... I think it's because the software.) and that means they have to install, and being sincerely the first time i played MineCraft i didn't have any problem, but before formatting my Computer i had many troubles installing Java and in other computers too!

I don't remember many troubles installing Java when I used Windows, but I guess that experience might be different for different people.

MineYoshi wrote:Is Forge Free? And it's MineCraft? Actually not!

I was agreeing that this is a good point of Minetest, not Minecraft.

MineYoshi wrote:Actually, the reason of why the mods are not in C++, it's because the fact that LUA works better for registering entities, or as well nodes :D

It's not in C++ so the mods will be platform-independent and won't require recompilation. To have C++ mods you would either have to compile mods when you installed them, or modders would have to compile their mods for different platforms beforehand, assuming we're using something like dynamic libraries. You have less of a problem with that in Java since it compiles to bytecode rather than machine code.

I don't see why it would be harder to register things in C++, either.

MineYoshi wrote:
If you edit the source, i don't know, if you can improve it?
Anyways, you can't edit the engine of MineCraft, or at least share it without being sued...

It's done by forge itself, and they don't get sued. I think Forge is even illegal, technically. Mojang (or now Microsoft) doesn't sue because it benefits Minecraft to have lots of mods. So legality would be another benefit Minetest over Minecraft, though it's not unique if you consider other moddable games with a real API.

MineYoshi wrote:Windows doesn't have Java by Default, mostly people use Windows (Damn... I think it's because the software.) and that means they have to install, and being sincerely the first time i played MineCraft i didn't have any problem, but before formatting my Computer i had many troubles installing Java and in other computers too!

Recent versions of Minecraft bundle Oracle Java, so it runs even if the user does not have Java installed on their system.