FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

Hello!
A few seconds ago I had a really good idea, I guess.
What about adding a second world in the game?
I know, the idea is already known but
this second world could be a really second world like in the map chooser the only one change is that this second mapp is hidden in the map chooser and you can only go in this world by creating a portal.
So there could be a loading screen to load the second world and it wouldn't be so buggy like the nether mod?
This second world could be something like a heaven, or an other planet like the moon( at this moment the mapgen V7 looks like some kind of moon...) or the mars wich is build by desert stones?
I hope this is a goodidea for you and I hope this can be implemented in the game/engine!
Thanks for your answers!!!

It would be nice, only if the worlds are in separate "dimensions", because currently, making new realms is done by "stacking" them over the other realms and the overworld - this is a problem, when people build tall structures, as their skyscrappers would hit the bottom of a moon realm or something, and the loading of those solid blocks would cast shadows onto the world below.

There are 64000 nodes from bottom to top of the world. That's a lot of space. Skyscrapers in MT do not reach that heigh. At least if they're not built for the sole purpose of beeing incredibly high, pointless pillars of stone with nothing worth the trip up on top.

SegFault22 wrote:It would be nice, only if the worlds are in separate "dimensions", because currently, making new realms is done by "stacking" them over the other realms and the overworld - this is a problem, when people build tall structures, as their skyscrappers would hit the bottom of a moon realm or something, and the loading of those solid blocks would cast shadows onto the world below.

I already said,that there must be an other world... not in the same world! and whenyou go to the portal you come to a loadscreen an then you are in the second (in the menu hidden) world!
so skyscrapers wouldn't be a problem at all.
can this be possible? hopefully for singleplayer and perhaps also for multiplayer?
BTW.: Thanks for your meaning!

simple answer: no!

Not possible in the way you think of it.

All information of the map you start is stored in a single database file. The unique key used to store information is the position. So all information is always in relation to x=o,y=0,z=0. As that it is always somewhere fixed in space as seen from spawn however far away. There can only be one coordinates system for each world file as this is used as primary key for storing and accessing the information.

So you would need some workaround to create an illusion of what you have in mind.

One way could be to separate different "stacked levels" by some indestructible node, such as some undigable cloud or bedrock. There could allready be some mod that provides just that layering of the world with some special nodes sheets.

What probably comes closest to your wish would be to load a completely new world file from ingame and transferring the player to that.

One way would be to have multiple map database files in the mymap folder, each maybe with a different set of mods, changed physics and whatever. . . I really don't see this ever happening as this would probably need a pretty complete rewrite of the way the engine is working with the map database as of now.

Another way might be to simply open another mapfile in some other mymap folder in the worlds folder and transfer to that. So technically put the player in some limbo place, close the old map, open the new map and place the player there. I guess a mod could be written for that but if you recall how long it takes to manually change to a different world, I don't think this would be much fun. Besides this would not be some hidden secret other world but simply a normal second world within the worlds folder.

Yeah, but I think it would be good to be able to have a command that would close the current world and load a different world, whatever one is selected. For people who play on servers, it would also be able to close out the server you are on and then load up another server for you. The portal would just activate that command and viola instant portal to a new world. This way you could go from a fantasy world to a science fiction one with no trouble. I like the idea and think it should be implemented but every time anyone mentions anything like this it gets shot down as stupid/unneeded.

LionsDen said:

... The portal would just activate that command and viola instant portal to a new world. ...

maybe if you replace the words "instant portal" with "after some minutes, if your connection doesn't time out, you might get a portal" something like that could be possible.
The only way at the moment to load a map fast is to not define any nodes or textures or models of mobs or indeed any other media. As the minetest client does not know what node types are present in a map it has to load the media involved each time it opens a map. Look into your minetest cache to get an idea of the amount of media. Even if the media is allready downloaded it still has to load the stuff from the cache, which takes its time.
So if you want the portal to work near instant you'll have to convince the minetest engine to not dump the allready loaded media and trust you that the new map uses exactly the same media. To achieve that you would need two maps that use exactly the same mods and probably share some other configuration informaton as well. So much for the

... go from a fantasy world to a science fiction one with no trouble ...

idea, as anything you will need for the second map to work will have to be present in the first one allready.

I am not saying that such a feature could not be usefull in some way, in fact I would consider it an interesting option for some game designs but at the moment I fear that the minetest engine is simply not build that way to make such a feature easy nor are the worlds structured that way. Of course I would love to be proven wrong on this issue.

It may be part of the price one has to pay for having an openly modable game in random worlds, that can easily load maps of any flavours.

I don't mind if it takes time to load everything to form the new map. It doesn't have to be "instant" I was just using the word but not thinking instant if that makes sense. :) Personally, I play singleplayer so the loading of worlds from my hard drive is more what I'm looking for but I threw in the differing server for the people that like to play with others.

EDIT: typos

twoelk wrote:simple answer: no!

Not possible in the way you think of it.

All information of the map you start is stored in a single database file. The unique key used to store information is the position. So all information is always in relation to x=o,y=0,z=0. As that it is always somewhere fixed in space as seen from spawn however far away. There can only be one coordinates system for each world file as this is used as primary key for storing and accessing the information.

So you would need some workaround to create an illusion of what you have in mind.

One way could be to separate different "stacked levels" by some indestructible node, such as some undigable cloud or bedrock. There could allready be some mod that provides just that layering of the world with some special nodes sheets.

What probably comes closest to your wish would be to load a completely new world file from ingame and transferring the player to that.

One way would be to have multiple map database files in the mymap folder, each maybe with a different set of mods, changed physics and whatever. . . I really don't see this ever happening as this would probably need a pretty complete rewrite of the way the engine is working with the map database as of now.

Another way might be to simply open another mapfile in some other mymap folder in the worlds folder and transfer to that. So technically put the player in some limbo place, close the old map, open the new map and place the player there. I guess a mod could be written for that but if you recall how long it takes to manually change to a different world, I don't think this would be much fun. Besides this would not be some hidden secret other world but simply a normal second world within the worlds folder.

We could put the data for different dimensions in different folders, maybe, and load data only from the folder of the current dimension...

twoelk wrote:simple answer: no!

I would like it:

3 worlds in 1, this is my simple thought about this theme. There could be something like portals to go into the other dimension. Those dimension can have diffrent mapgens, but the same blocks avaliable. (else it would get part of too difficult to realize)

This remins me to the story of Fringe :)

BlauerEisRegen wrote:it wouldn't be so buggy like the nether mod?

A same-world 'nether' mod doesnt have to be buggy, especially now we have the 0.4.8 lua voxel manipulator.

A skylands would be interesting...

http://dev.bukkit.org/bukkit-plugins/skylandsplus/