FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

So... its an exact ripoff of minecraft? And worse in every way? No sound, no monsters, crappy graphics, very few features, very few items, and the best material is an untextured block called mese?

I am amazed that mojang has not come after you guys for copyright infringement. The gameplay is identical, the items (except for mese) are identical, even the GUI is identical!

No offense, but there is no point in playing this when you could just go play minecraft with infinitely more content.

flamewolf393 wrote:No offense

I think you don't know the meaning of that phrase.

There is one important point you missed: Minetest needs way less ressources than Minecraft and runs on older hardware quite well. If for some reason you do not have an extra grapic card (e.g. notebook), this a huge advantage. Plus it can easily be extended with mods on the server side (no idea how that would be with Minecraft).

The game does have sound. I was quite amazed to hear footsteps and animals giving sound when I turned my speakers on (usually I keep them off). Monsters are a work in progress. They are quite interesting if you are interested in the development process. If you just want to play they may not be stable enough yet.

If there is no point for you to play Minetest and you're happy with Minecraft please continue playing that. It's a fine game as well (I think - it won't run on my hardware; even classic is very laggy...5 fps are no fun!).

There seem to be quite a number of games around with similar gameplay.

Sokomine wrote: Minetest needs way less ressources than Minecraft and runs on older hardware quite well.

Minecraft needs very little computer power. I run it on an 6 year old netbook with only 1.6 GB processor and 1 gb ram.

Sokomine wrote: Plus it can easily be extended with mods on the server side

Minecraft has thousands of mods both server and client side.

Sokomine wrote: The game does have sound.

That's odd. I have had 5 different people try it out on their computers and none of them can get sound.

Sokomine wrote: There seem to be quite a number of games around with similar gameplay.

There are a couple that are similar-ish... But this one is 99% identical. I still wonder about the legalities.

flamewolf393 wrote:That's odd. I have had 5 different people try it out on their computers and none of them can get sound.

You need to install OpenAl.

Minecraft = laggy, hard on windows computers, hard to mod, and has been out for several years.
Minetest = laggy, but better on windows, incredibly easy to mod, and has been out for about a year and a half.

Do the math. Minetest is newer, and is easier to add features to. Some day I believe Minetest will be ass good if not better than minecraft.

P.S. Minecraft is done by a whole team.
Minetest is done by one person.

@Sokomine: Actually Minecraft has only been around for three years.

@Flamewolf: Judging by your complaints, I have to wonder if you're running 0.3.x or a very earily 0.4 version, as all of the stuff you mentioned has more than adequately been covered long ago.

Mojang can't do anything about Minetest, because this game does not use any of Minecraft's code or images. Minecraft is Java, Minetest is written from the ground-up in C++ and uses textures designed and provided by a third party.

You can copyright an implementation, code, images, but you can't copyright an *idea*. Sorry, you just can't.

Secondly: sounds work just fine and mobs, graphics, etc can all be changed with external add-ons, all of which are freely available on these forums.

The items are identical because...well duh, what are you going to build a world and the constructions therein out of but dirt, stone, brick, glass etc. Content can be added via the dozens (hundreds?) of mods we have available now. In total, I'd say there are around 5000 new block types available via mods, and they generally all work together just fine.

The modding language and API of Minetest are freely available to anyone who wants to learn them. Compare that to Minecraft, where you have to use a third party tool just to *run* the modding language, and no API - you have to decompile Minecraft's code in order to write a mod.

Another point you missed: Minetest is free, open source software. No cost to download, play, get on servers, add content, etc. and no central site trying to control everything.

As for the texture for mese, perhaps you can suggest a better one. Otherwise, just install a better texture pack if you don't like it.

VanessaE wrote:You can copyright an implementation, code, images, but you can't copyright an *idea*. Sorry, you just can't.

... and that' s fine. Honestly, I' m sick of the copyright issues, mostly of US idea of "software patents" and that kind of things. That' s (not only) why I use open source software.

That goes for you, me and pretty much everyone else except the copyright trolls as well. :-)

Copyright has its uses, but sometimes it's just plain abused.

judging by what he's said, he tried 0.3.1 and hated it, i don't doubt that one bit, but the fact he included other things, clearly states this man is a troll

What Vanessa said. Also, what jordan4ibanez said.

Also, this:

If you have Minecraft and like it, go play it. If you don't own a copy and don't like Minetest, go play the crippleware web-version of Minecraft or the lousy, half-baked "creative" version. Of course, that's assuming your PC is new enough to do the heavy lifting.

If you don't own Minecraft, Minetest is a bloody good alternative, especially in it's latest iteration. Don't like a certain feature, or want extras? You can find a drop-in addon in the forums or code it yourself. It's easy, almost as easy as email (although I doubt some have mastered that). Also, if you want to see some new features added, tip the devs. Donate a couple of bucks - you probably drop that on fast food several times a day.

TL;DR:

Minetest is not Minecraft. If you want Minecraft, buy it.

flamewolf39 wrote:Minecraft needs very little computer power. I run it on an 6 year old netbook with only 1.6 GB processor and 1 gb ram.
(snip)
That's odd. I have had 5 different people try it out on their computers and none of them can get sound.

Yeah, but can you run it on a P3 with 256 MB of RAM? No? I thought so. Tain't the case with Minetest - it can run on some pretty old stuff.

Also, it isn't the dev's fault you didn't install something that comes as a standard part of every bloody PC game. Just google OpenAL.dll and you're set. We no longer include it in the redistributable because of legal concerns.

InfinityProject wrote:Minetest = laggy, but better on windows

Erm, what? On my computer it is perfect on linux and unplayable on windows. And windows has the latest nvidia driver and linux has nouveau.

Mine is a bit laggy but then again my computer is somewhat crappy. I typically get 30-50 fps but sometimes I experience a drop to 5-10.

tinoesroho wrote:Also, it isn't the dev's fault you didn't install something that comes as a standard part of every bloody PC game. Just google OpenAL.dll and you're set. We no longer include it in the redistributable because of legal concerns.

In the Windows build, it is still included as of 0.4.3 - and it is easy to install on Linux, just by typing one command.

Let me start of by saying I Love Minetest and thankyou very much to the developers :D .
I loved the idea of minecraft but think that the new high price point and excessive additions are ruining its appeal.

i found minetest through a " 18 games like minecraft" website and am now addicted , i spend hours a day adding to my 1 main world and never seem to get bored .
I only have 1 suggestion / request which is please bring back monsters/mobs as in minecraft i loved building houses to shelter from danger and having monsters that only come out at night really emphasized how important it was to get home before dark , the atmosphere created by trying to survive in a world that you can sculpt was fantastic in minecraft alpha so i'd love to see it in minetest

adamkool5 wrote:Let me start of by saying I Love Minetest and thankyou very much to the developers :D .
I loved the idea of minecraft but think that the new high price point and excessive additions are ruining its appeal.

i found minetest through a " 18 games like minecraft" website and am now addicted , i spend hours a day adding to my 1 main world and never seem to get bored .
I only have 1 suggestion / request which is please bring back monsters/mobs as in minecraft i loved building houses to shelter from danger and having monsters that only come out at night really emphasized how important it was to get home before dark , the atmosphere created by trying to survive in a world that you can sculpt was fantastic in minecraft alpha so i'd love to see it in minetest

Hello adamkool5. There actually is a mobs mod that has animals such as sheep, cow's, deer, and chicken it also has an intresting range of monsters such as zombie' creeper's (but the creeper is different from minecraft's) and many others. It is made by Sapier. There is also another simple mob's mod made by Pilzadam. It also feature's a few mob's. If you are intrested in checking these mod's out you should see the mod releases section of this forum you will find these mod's i have metioned to you there.

VanessaE wrote:You can copyright an implementation, code, images, but you can't copyright an *idea*. Sorry, you just can't.

Apple would beg to differ (Intellectual property).

VanessaE wrote:That goes for you, me and pretty much everyone else except the copyright trolls as well. :-)

Copyright has its uses, but sometimes it's just plain abused.

Thats quite the about-face, i waited quite a while to publish a mod based on a very old game from a bankrupt studio - but copying a successful commercial game like minecraft is so much more defensible lol but you're right, copyrights and legalese are abused, as well as selectively enforced. :-)

Apple and Samsung are arguing over overly-broad patents, not copyrights. As for about-face, minetest re-implements an *idea*, it does not use any of the original code or imagery, whereas what you are obviously referring to uses copyrighted imagery as directly as you were able to get. Bit of a difference there. :-)

Ideas can be patented. Software can also be patented in the US (but it's the only country that has software patents, IIRC).

AFAIK, voxel-type world implementations aren't patented (and, again, it would only remain valid in the US and Minetest-c55 is not from the US).

Mojang can't do anything about Minetest-c55 (I doubt he would want to anyway) because, like VanessaE said, none of his code or textures were used and that's what copyright restricts using.

There are also about 5 hundred (or more) voxel-type games that exist in the internet. Almost all of them are worse than minecraft. Also, let's not forget that every minecrafter's worst nightmare is a mob coming up behind them and making them respawn a good distance from their house. (or even worse, a creeper destroying said house.) Mojang also cant come after us for copyright infringement because the GUI is SIMILAR, but not IDENTICAL. Also none of the items that are in minecraft as well are here for the sake that minecraft has them, but rather because they exist in the real world (obviously excluding mese). Without any mods installed, yes, minecraft has more content. But you should try out some mods, because about 75% of the game's content comes from mods. Minetest also has a modding api, which minecraft is sorely lacking (however horrible the documentation on the minetest modding api is). I'd wager that minetest is already better than minecraft if only because it has the capability to be extended massively. (re: technic, mesecons, animals). If you want minecraft, go play it, obviously the game that will stand up to the test of time isnt good enough for you. However, minetest receives regular updates in both its mods and core engine. Minecraft, on the other hand, receives many updates, however these almost always have no backwards compatibility with mods. Also, updating the core engine also doesnt mean you have to reinstall all the mods, simply copy the mods into the newer version's folder (or even place the engine in the folder overtop of what you have). Anyway, i believe i've typed enough for one post. Good day.

GloopMaster wrote:There are also about 5 hundred (or more) voxel-type games that exist in the internet.

And let's not forget that MC was inspired by Infiniminer...

leo_rockway wrote:And let's not forget that MC was inspired by Infiniminer...

Interesting video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N__BhXhbSUs
It basically says Notch did some nasty things in ripping off Infiniminer. How about this, celeron will give back all his profits to Notch if Notch gives all his profits to the creator of Infiniminer, Zachary Barth.