FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

See also: https://github.com/minetest/minetest_game/issues/1493

If we make any changes to minetest how plants/trees grow with respect to light levels, we have several choices.

Irregardless of what was previously possible or not in minetest_game, we want to make sure that in the future, it does what we expect it to do in the future, and is consistent.

Poll will close 2017-01-10. Results will be summarized in the minetest_game issue.

My choice is 4 if this does not have a big performance penalty on server. If it does I will choose 5 or 1 (but without second torch).

Update: TBH I had no problems with finding MESE and since we have easier recipe I will be totally fine with current farming system without introducing weird stuff.

Fixerol wrote:My choice is 4 if this does not have a big performance penalty on server. If it does I will choose 4 or 1.

Light checks are almost free, and since plants are nodetimer based now, this is very cheap (no new timers needed, basically, one extra lookup at sapling plant time).

> 3 - Allow saplings to grow irregardless of light. Restores something which was possible much earlier (0.4.13 and before).

To be clear, saplings, cactus and papyrus were all missing light checks before a year ago, this has now been fixed.
Throughout the history of MTGame all other plants have required light level 14 (more than a torch) to grow, and if the plants missing light checks had been given light checks in the past they would have been given the requirement of 14 to be consistent with other plants.

Essentially the chosen past behaviour was that plants required level 14 (more than a torch) to grow, as is reasonable.

I recommend option 1.

Please can another option be added? Which is my preferred compromise solution:

6 - Add a setting to MTGame 'plant_growth_required_light' set to the current 13 (light source brighter than torch required) as default. Those who want the old bug behaviour can set it to 12 (growable by torch) and it would be applied to all plants, flowers, grass, crops.

sofar commented 24 minutes ago

I don't think that option needs to be added: The discussion is about the functional working of minetest. If we do 4 or 5 or even 2, we will likely add a configurable option that would allow a light level to be set, effectively allowing people to slide their own servers back to option 1 if they set it to 13.

paramat commented 18 minutes ago

My suggestion is about the functional working of Minetest. Without my suggestion as an option many will vote differently. Refusing a poll option is unfair bias that undermines the poll, and will result in me taking less notice of the result.

paramat commented 4 minutes ago

> If we do 4 or 5 or even 2, we will likely add a configurable option that would allow a light level to be set,

This hasn't been made clear, people are more likely to choose a non-1 option if they don't know that a setting may also be added. With a setting option 1 then accomodates those wanting the old behaviour.
This will result in me and others taking no notice of the outcome.

Note that people can not change their vote, so this poll is now invalid and should be restarted.
EDIT: I was wrong, see below.

If you have an election, everyone who wants to stand should be allowed to stand, no one person can decide who is allowed to stand.
As one of the primary people involved in this discussion i obviously should be allowed to have an option of my choosing as part of this.
Mostly though i suggest a poll isn't necessary, the result tends to depend on who saw the thread and who bothered to vote.

paramat wrote:Note that people can not change their vote, so this poll is now invalid and should be restarted.

I was able to change my vote, and I registered the poll to allow voters to change their votes.

Ah i see, you select a different option and click 'submit vote', great.

paramat wrote:This hasn't been made clear, people are more likely to choose a non-1 option if they don't know that a setting may also be added. With a setting option 1 then accomodates those wanting the old behaviour.
This will result in me and others taking no notice of the outcome.

We, generally speaking, in minetest_game, make (1) default game mechanics and then (2) sometimes provide tunables for those features to better suit multiplayer environments.

The poll is especially valid since we can't have a good discussion about tunables until we determine the default game behavior. Once we know what default behavior we would like to see (collectively, including players) we can discuss in a smaller circle with server operators and mod writers to come up with a good solution that would make that smaller interest group happy.

So, the poll is still valid information.

Then please can you make that clear in your first post and in the options themselves?
Please add to 1 that a setting for the required light level will be added, then that counts as my choice of option.
Then please ask people to re-assess their vote, the problem being some may have voted and may not now return to see the new information.
If you don't address settings in these options people will vote differently.

paramat wrote:Then please can you make that clear in your first post and in the options themselves?
Please add to 1 that a setting for the required light level will be added, then that counts as my choice of option.
Then please ask people to re-assess their vote, the problem being some may have voted and may not now return to see the new information. So this poll is still of not much significance and is still somewhat invalid.
If you don't address settings in these options people will vote differently.

people who mod or run a server should vote, and comment, on the github issue instead. This poll was intended to reach *players*, so I don't want to necessarily bother them with technical details and info about config options, but rather get an honest answer as to "which one would you like best, if you had to choose one without any config options".

We can revisit the discussion about tunables and which *technical* solution will be best (including of course said tunables) once we have a better idea what people prefer for a base, unconfigurable game mechanic.

Also, if this poll doesn't get over 30 or so votes, I'm not thinking it has reached active players enough, and we should consider most votes to be biased devs/modders/server ops anyway, and keep that in mind.

Players know how to use settings, leaving that out of the options alters the votes.

What a bad poll. There's at least another option I can think of: Only let saplings/crops grow in full sunlight, making underground farming impossible. How could you miss this very obvious answer? (It's essentially the “no” to the thread title question.)

I may not take this option, however. I just say that it's there.

PS: If this poll is invalid anyway, just open a new thread. ;-)

All options in this poll are unsuitable as a solution.

Those (in the minority) who want the old sapling behaviour want to grow saplings, cactus and papyrus by torchlight and have them grow at normal speed.
For consistency all other plants should have the same light requirement.
The current behaviour, which has been the behaviour or intended behaviour throughout MTG's history should be preserved as the default.
None of the options do all of this.
My suggested compromise (which is being refused inclusion in this poll) is to have a simple setting 'plant_growth_light_level' set to 13 (current behaviour) by default, which applies to all plants. This keeps everyone happy while also being very simple.

This discussion is ridiculous, because growing with torches is ridiculous.

As far as I understand it was never intended that someone can grow underground with torches. It was just a bug that is fixed now.

End of story

I removed the mention of mods influencing behavior, since that is more than likely already going to be a requirement.

Can you add option: "Do not grow anything underground" ?

If you allow to grow anything underground, it will encourage players to stay underground.
There are not so many reasons to go on surface. Only wood and farms.

But decision about "whether you allow underground farming or deny it" is up to server owners.
Default minetest game have no farming at all. I don't understand why the matter is discussed by devs of engine.

Xudo wrote:But decision about "whether you allow underground farming or deny it" is up to server owners.
Default minetest game have no farming at all.

It does - farming is in MTG, as well as saplings, grass, cactus, and papyrus.
This poll is about default behaviour - mods and maybe settings will be able to customise it

Xudo wrote:I don't understand why the matter is discussed by devs of engine.

It's being discussed by devs generally - both MTG devs like paramat, sofar, and me, and devs that aren't MTG devs like hmmmm, Zeno. There's no engine devs as such - all core devs have voting rights on the engine, and only core devs which are MTG devs have voting rights on the game. Please note that even if you don't have voting rights you can still have an opinion, and shouldn't be ignored

Fixerol wrote:Can you add option: "Do not grow anything underground" ?

At least mushrooms should grow well underground.

hajo wrote:At least mushrooms should grow well underground.

iirc, mushrooms grow in the dark anyway (not the light)

A poll like this isn't relevant in fact.

Though, I agree with Paramat : just creating an option making easy to modify sapling/crop behaviour (with explanation in the Wiki) and that's all.

And then we just have to choose a default behaviour, knowing that everyone can change it in less than 10 sec.

In this way, option 1 is my default behaviour : torch light isn't sufficient but why not mese/powerful electric light ? It's realistic and logical

I'm surprised the 4th option got so much support.

It's both impractical and unrealistic. Plantlife will grow too slowly so people will end up having to use mese lamps anyway if they actually want to farm efficiently, and yet it will still grow in places where you might not want it to grow and where it would be very weird to see plantlife. Even if it takes 2 weeks of actual time for it to grow in the dark, it will still grow in high uptime servers so you will still find weird places where plantlife would make no sense otherwise.

I'd rather see special underground farmable flora for variability and to make underground areas more interesting. But if that's too hard to implement, at least having to place a special fictional source of light like option 1 suggests adds some interesting aspect to building underground forests, adds some cost for doing it and kind of makes some more sense.

Ferk wrote:I'm surprised the 4th option got so much support.

It's both impractical and unrealistic. Plantlife will grow too slowly so people will end up having to use mese lamps anyway if they actually want to farm efficiently, and yet it will still grow in places where you might not want it to grow and where it would be very weird to see plantlife. Even if it takes 2 weeks of actual time for it to grow in the dark, it will still grow in high uptime servers so you will still find weird places where plantlife would make no sense otherwise.

I'd rather see special underground farmable flora for variability and to make underground areas more interesting. But if that's too hard to implement, at least having to place a special fictional source of light like option 1 suggests adds some interesting aspect to building underground forests, adds some cost for doing it and kind of makes some more sense.

+1

Also, Option 1 is easier to understand. (KISS method)

+1 for kissin' option 1 :P

Ferk wrote:I'm surprised the 4th option got so much support.

It's both impractical and unrealistic. Plantlife will grow too slowly so people will end up having to use mese lamps anyway if they actually want to farm efficiently, and yet it will still grow in places where you might not want it to grow and where it would be very weird to see plantlife. Even if it takes 2 weeks of actual time for it to grow in the dark, it will still grow in high uptime servers so you will still find weird places where plantlife would make no sense otherwise.

Nice to know I'm not the only one who can see this.

This issue started due to those who liked the behaviour before a year ago where saplings had no light check and grew at normal speed at any light level. Although option 4 is popular in this poll (and the one on Github) it does not satisfy those people because saplings will grow much slower in torchlight.
In both polls option 1 is also popular.

If as i suggest we have a simple 'required light' setting for all plants this keeps option 1 voters happy plus those who like the old behaviour, it may also be popular to those who like option 4, it's also simpler.

Sorry for my previous frustration, i'm feeling calmer now and will of course take notice of the poll results.
I still feel my suggestion should have been included, and was refused inclusion for questionable reasons. So all i can do is ask those who like my suggestion to mention their support here in the comments, as some of you have already done.

Although MTGame is only loosely based on reality the requirements for plant growth are fairly realistic, you need fertile (or damp) soil, nearby water in some cases (papyrus), and light. Allowing plants to grow by torchlight is very unrealistic, plants require a special kind of light to grow and if they don't get it they don't grow at all. This has also been the intentional design of the game (apart from the missing light checks) for the last 4 years.

I ask that the MTGame devs realise these points and use their own good judgement to avoid option 4 as the default. The default should continue to be what MTGame has done for 4 years, option 1, then add a setting or parameters for alternative behaviour.

Option 4 is a compromise that doesn't really satisfy either viewpoints in the argument, it's only being seen as good because it's halfway between, it would be a big mistake to make it the default. Better to have options to switch between the popular current behaviour and the requested old behaviour, with current behaviour as default.

As I see it, there are only one or two people who are suddenly unhappy about a change that was made a year ago. One thing that is really clear from the github poll is the nobody actually wants the old behaviour. I really can't understand the support for option 4, it seems a little ironic that those who are complaining of changed game mechanics are the ones trying to change them completely.