FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

I have discovered c55 a few weeks ago. Here is what I think of the gameplay. (Latest dev build)

The gameplay mimics minecraft but is not as far as it. Still it is quite enjoyable. A few notable things, that might be easy to fix:

• Wood and especially sticks are too cheap to craft. What about 1 Log => 3 Planks, 1 Plank => 2 sticks?
• It feels strange that you can't craft planks out of jungle wood. Also why do they drop normal sapplings?
• Food is too little of a problem. (especially apples). A better food system could help here. Maybe if food regenerates players we could vary in both the regenerate speed and the amount to regenerate.
• Mods make the game better. Why aren't some of them added in the main gameplay? If I want to play a game, I don't want to browse for mods.
• What am I supposed to do with all those leaves? Maybe give less of them, or require a special tool.

I also believe that the game has a lot of potential. One danger is to try to mimic minecraft too much. (Good ideas can also be taken from games like Terraria.)

That is why I think helping this project is worth my time.

1) Noooo, that's a nice receipt!
2) Agree about planks. Sapling are being dropped by leaves, and all the trees have the same leaves.
4) I think even the default mod should be removed from the main repository. There can be 100500 variants of the default mod, it's freedom.
5) Use mods with leaf decay capabilities :)

Wood is rare in some places, and junglewood is not meant to craft planks.
Leaves can be used as an ecologic smelting fuel. :)

You could use the leaves as a fuel in the furnace ^_^ or like neko259 said get the leaf decay mod.
With regards to there not being more mods in the default game this is because the modding system is still being worked on and celeron55 has stated that his current goals are to get the main game working like an engine then he will look at the default gameplay once he knows which direction he wants to take it.

Calinou wrote:Wood is rare in some places, and junglewood is not meant to craft planks.

Maybe a compromise. Out of one junglewood you can craft 1 plank. (The wood is rotten). In this way, the game makes more sence, but crafting planks out of junglewood is still not efficient. I think that planks are too essential to deny them in some places, without a damn good reason. (Making them rare is perfectly accepatble.)
Also note, if you want to make wood in some biomes extra rare, it could be disallowed to grow certain plants in certain area's. (it makes perfect sense that you can't grow trees in a deserd).

neko259 wrote:I think even the default mod should be removed from the main repository. There can be 100500 variants of the default mod, it's freedom.

As a starting player I don't want to look through all the mods and find the ones that I should play with. I want to press install and start playing. I agree that advanced players want to change the gameplay. I think the best compromise is to have some default installed mods, which you can turn on and off.

neko259 wrote:Use mods with leaf decay capabilities

That will help. Should be default IMHO.

dannydark wrote:celeron55 has stated that his current goals are to get the main game working like an engine then he will look at the default gameplay once he knows which direction he wants to take it.

I can inmagine that. He probably wants less to worry about. However I think that it is time to re-balance things. Shall I continue to make balance / gameplay suggestions, or will they be negated anyway?

Starting player would join the server, and admins would think about mods and textures. Making everything default is windows-way.

@wokste Keep the balance / gameplay suggestions coming because at the end of the day the more ideas there are for this game the quicker it will evolve. That and you might mention something which is a great idea which no one else had thought about or had overlooked. ^_^

neko259 wrote:Starting player would join the server, and admins would think about mods and textures. Making everything default is windows-way.

lol what? how is adding some mods to the default line-up the "windows-way" lol that doesn't even make sense, I agree when setting up servers admins would customise it with mods a textures, but what about players who just want to play locally (i.e. single player).

For example I run several Minecraft servers all have mods installed on them to make the gameplay more interesting, however, when I play single player Minecraft I play without mods as I don't feel it needs any due to having a decent "default" gameplay.

The server mods are mainly just adding more social type features and other things which normally require there to be more than one player for them to actually be useful or fun.

neko259 wrote:Starting player would join the server, and admins would think about mods and textures. Making everything default is windows-way.

I can't even believe you've dared to go that way...

Do you believe everybody should play on a server? And is every window$ user automatically stupid and/or lazy?

I don't play any game online. Online games, to me, are just new forms to reap people of their money and time without putting that much effort into the product. Most online games, if boiled down to basics, are simple and highly repetitive, although full of eye candy. Without the attrition between players, those games become extremely boring and mechanic. Also, I tend to get easily aggravated with trolls and such kind of players whose sole objective is to ruin the fun for others. Because of this, I play solo and in my own machine. The farther I will go is LAN gaming.

And I'm a Debian GNU/Linux user and I also like to have a good, decent, ready to play product, without having to get my hands dirty to get somewhere.

Personally speaking, I agree with C55 position and decision of making Minetest a complete game and not a game engine. And although I understand the decision to open the game to mod implementation, leaving to the players the work/bother/freedom of developing their own content to add to the game, I would be much happier to see C55 close the mod API until the game reached a more "complete" status and instead turned to the community to see what kind of content is needed/desired in the game.

As it is now, all mods I read about add content to the game in its own particular style: animals, farming, doors, blocks, ores, tools and so on and so on and so on... The ideas behind these mods are mostly good or even excellent but they lack coherence between each other; if, by some event, they were to be merged into the main game, I don't even dare to imagine the amount of work it would take to harmonize all the content.

Instead of putting their effort into making new stuff, without sharing a thought, if the modders in the Minetest community bonded to make one mod at a time, developing it with the goal to propose it to be merged into the main game, C55 and Minetest would greatly benefit because there would be a big "team" backing up. What there is presently is a constant stream of "I want this." I want that" "I've made this" "I have this idea." "Why is this not made?".

Mods exist to trim edges and further deepen an experience. They are not meant to make it or replace it.

qyron wrote:C55 and Minetest would greatly benefit because there would a big "team" backing up.

Wow, that is said in a good way.

I think that we as a comunity need to make one github repository (with all the great content from different mods). I do not think c55 should do this because he is already quite busy with the engine, and balancing / merging takes a lot of time as well.
Who will take on the (big) responsibility of merging everything?

A repository for all custom content would be a good start but, to become a reality and and a good one, it needs to be carefully planned and put together. Mods must be separated by categories and inside each category rated by popularity and level of completeness, at least.

Its a good idea and would take a big load off the shoulders of c55 and it would serve as a good tool to measure how wanted a given kind of content is.

edit

also, a centralized repository would make the risk of malicious mods surfacing minimal

For each mod I should rate it for:
Populatity, Balance, Graphical Completeness, Technical Completeness

neko259 wrote:Starting player would join the server, and admins would think about mods and textures. Making everything default is windows-way.

I do not want Minetest to become Arch Minetest. Default content must be included, else new people will just _flee_ Minetest.

wokste wrote:

Calinou wrote:Wood is rare in some places, and junglewood is not meant to craft planks.

Maybe a compromise. Out of one junglewood you can craft 1 plank. (The wood is rotten). In this way, the game makes more sence, but crafting planks out of junglewood is still not efficient. I think that planks are too essential to deny them in some places, without a damn good reason. (Making them rare is perfectly accepatble.)

or you could have jungle wood make a special plank, maybe dark wood planks?

brutus wrote:

wokste wrote:

Calinou wrote:Wood is rare in some places, and junglewood is not meant to craft planks.

Maybe a compromise. Out of one junglewood you can craft 1 plank. (The wood is rotten). In this way, the game makes more sence, but crafting planks out of junglewood is still not efficient. I think that planks are too essential to deny them in some places, without a damn good reason. (Making them rare is perfectly accepatble.)

or you could have jungle wood make a special plank, maybe dark wood planks?

YES! +1

brutus wrote:

wokste wrote:

Calinou wrote:Wood is rare in some places, and junglewood is not meant to craft planks.

Maybe a compromise. Out of one junglewood you can craft 1 plank. (The wood is rotten). In this way, the game makes more sence, but crafting planks out of junglewood is still not efficient. I think that planks are too essential to deny them in some places, without a damn good reason. (Making them rare is perfectly accepatble.)

or you could have jungle wood make a special plank, maybe dark wood planks?

YES! +1