What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

[george]

Hey spamyak!

You sound like a huge asshole, and I appreciate it. We need more assholes like you. I think that because we love open source, we sometimes go into protective-apologist-mode and try to excuse or ignore every way in which our projects suck, instead of humbly acknowledging that we do suck at some things, and working hard to fix them. I agree with almost all the points you made.

I only disagree on one point:

it crushes me to see that the closest replacement [for minecraft] isn't making any faster progress than it was before

This might actually not be the case. It seems to me like we are at an interesting point right now, especially with new people coming in. My partner and I are the admins of the server featured in your screenshot, Liberty Land. We've only been online for a little over a month, but we've both been working literally full time on this project. As a result, we've instantly become, demonstrably, one of the most active servers. But being the best is not enough. We want to push minetest forward, we have some goals for the future, and we have some plans for getting there. Part of these plans is identifying and documenting what is horribly wrong with our server and minetest itself, and fixing it.

This is where rude haters like you come in. Even if all the issues you've addressed have been documented or are being actively worked on, it's still a reality-check.

So, thnx.
and
welcome to minetest

EDIT:

Here's a hint of what our issue-tracking looks like right now. If we were a company, we'd be hiring.

[hoodedice]

Hey spamyak!

You sound like a huge asshole, and I appreciate it. We need more assholes like you. I think that because we love open source, we sometimes go into protective-apologist-mode and try to excuse or ignore every way in which our projects suck, instead of humbly acknowledging that we do suck at some things, and working hard to fix them. I agree with almost all the points you made.

I only disagree on one point:

it crushes me to see that the closest replacement [for minecraft] isn't making any faster progress than it was before

This might actually not be the case. It seems to me like we are at an interesting point right now, especially with new people coming in. My partner and I are the admins of the server featured in your screenshot, Liberty Land. We've only been online for a little over a month, but we've both been working literally full time on this project. As a result, we've instantly become, demonstrably, one of the most active servers. But being the best is not enough. We want to push minetest forward, we have some goals for the future, and we have some plans for getting there. Part of these plans is identifying and documenting what is horribly wrong with our server and minetest itself, and fixing it.

This is where rude haters like you come in. Even if all the issues you've addressed have been documented or are being actively worked on, it's still a reality-check.

So, thnx.
and
welcome to minetest

EDIT:

Here's a hint of what our issue-tracking looks like right now. If we were a company, we'd be hiring.

Why are you taking your development separate from core? This will only result in wasted development resources. If you have the capability of contributing to core, then please do - endless forking will only hamper development.

Donat's in there, eh? Nice to see him hanging around MT development =)

[Achilles]

I'd like to see a sort of Minecraft UI for Minetest. That would make Minetest look a lot better, the inventory menu especially looks very unpolished.

The 'Inventory Menu' in the Minetest game is not one of the main features that seem to make Minetest a bit lacking compared to Minecraft. The main ones, which have been touched on by many, are the sound effects and textures for the mobs and blocks in the Minetest Game. These are no-where near as good as the Minecraft ones and therefore make the game seem less inviting as Minecraft....

Also the 'HUD' and 'Inventory Menu' can be changed by a large number of different mods, some of which are similar to Minecraft's...

The inventory menu is very laggy.

This is a developing game, If you want a new inventory, maybe you should suggest it for the next update?

[george]

Why are you taking your development separate from core? [...] If you have the capability of contributing to core, then please do

Donat is working right now on tidying up all our patches in proper commits so we can open pull requests on github.
Apart from that, I'm not sure exactly what you were referring to.

[hoodedice]

I thought you forked the project. Sorry for misunderstanding

[george]

I thought you forked the project. Sorry for misunderstanding

No problem :)

[Azvael]

Really I think Minetest is a great name. Yeah people might get the wrong impression but it seems like people read too much into title names.

This.

Given that this project is open-source, being developed for free by a bunch of people who are doing this in their free time, they can call it whatever they want. They can call it "Happy Fun Dig Time", and I'd still play it.

[Rain]

They can call it "Happy Fun Dig Time", and I'd still play it.

I really like that name!

[Azvael]

That said, I'm fucking done with Minecraft after this Microsoft and EULA bullshit and it crushes me to see that the closest replacement isn't making any faster progress than it was before. You'd think I'm not the only one that's leaving that camp, but maybe not.

You're not the only one.

I agree with some of your points, and I share your feelings about the UI. However, I disagree that MT isn't making any faster progress than it was before. That's simply untrue.

I played it back in 2013 for about six months before I had to take a break. I'm playing it again now. This game has come a long way since then. They've fixed a lot of bugs, improved performance, and added a lot of new features. Their development has been steady at the very least, but it seems to me development has actually accelerated in the past year.

The core game is playable, more so with the mods and textures. While MT lacks many of the features MC has, it's still competitive in terms of gameplay enjoyment.

I try not to compare MC vs MT too much. I look at where MT is in comparasoin to MC during it's development process. When you consider this, then think about the fact that MT is almost as good as MC, that's pretty amazing. MC has a solid workforce of developers supported by a mulit-million dollar company, while MT is just a small, open-source project, yet MT is almost as good at MC.

Wow, you know? Just wow.

[SAMIAMNOT]

The inventory menu is very laggy.

Yes. And this is annoying as hell!

+308
How can I request this for the next version of Minetest?

[jojoa1997]

Really I think Minetest is a great name. Yeah people might get the wrong impression but it seems like people read too much into title names.

This.

Given that this project is open-source, being developed for free by a bunch of people who are doing this in their free time, they can call it whatever they want. They can call it "Happy Fun Dig Time", and I'd still play it.

No they cant because all the mods that were made would be ruined. I cant imagine how many mintest.somethings I would have to rewrite.

They can call it "Happy Fun Dig Time", and I'd still play it.

I really like that name!

Also I didn't write that name Azvael did ;)

The inventory menu is very laggy.

Yes. And this is annoying as hell!

+308
How can I request this for the next version of Minetest?

It will come eventually. Really it is whenever the devs change the version but you can always use the builds that others make if you use windows or build it yourself on linux.

[SAMIAMNOT]

Wait, other people forked a version with a usable invwntory???
*jumping up and down*

[rubenwardy]

Jojoa1997, they wouldn't just delete the Minetest namespace in Lua. That would be stupid.

Also, they have renamed Minetest.* to core.* recently, with Minetest being a copy of core. Although they haven't declared this officially. I think that is what they have done. Correct me if I am wrong.

[jojoa1997]

Jojoa1997, they wouldn't just delete the Minetest namespace in Lua. That would be stupid.

Also, they have renamed Minetest.* to core.* recently, with Minetest being a copy of core. Although they haven't declared this officially. I think that is what they have done. Correct me if I am wrong.

actually they only renamed stuff that would be used in builtin. I saw and not everything was renamed so I think it is only the core of the core that had minetest.* renamed to core.*. Those are just what I saw though. Also the name change idea has already been discussed before. I think a better name than Minetest could not be found.

[rubenwardy]

core.register_node works in a mod.

[rubenwardy]

Here we are: https://github.com/minetest/minetest/bl ... it.lua#L12

You can see clearly that minetest is a copy of core.

All core functions are now core. It's the internal namespace, not name of the engine

My point is that it is perfectly possible to change the name of minetest.* and leave minetest as an alias for compatibility. They have already done it, although they still want people to use minetest.* in their mods.

[Evergreen]

Wait, other people forked a version with a usable invwntory???
*jumping up and down*

No, jojoa just said that if you just suggest it, it might get thrown in later. Also, it would be extremely difficult to remove the lag from the inventory.

[MirceaKitsune]

No, jojoa just said that if you just suggest it, it might get thrown in later. Also, it would be extremely difficult to remove the lag from the inventory.

The same way yaw interpolation client-side (for players and mobs) was so difficult to do that everyone who tried to failed? Because I'm sorry, but I don't see how something this simple is so difficult.

But yes. Laggy meta inventory (eg: chests) is in my opinion THE worst issue Minetest currently has. Followed by bad player / mob networking, which leads to ugly entity movement.

[Evergreen]

No, jojoa just said that if you just suggest it, it might get thrown in later. Also, it would be extremely difficult to remove the lag from the inventory.

The same way yaw interpolation client-side (for players and mobs) was so difficult to do that everyone who tried to failed? Because I'm sorry, but I don't see how something this simple is so difficult.

But yes. Laggy meta inventory (eg: chests) is in my opinion THE worst issue Minetest currently has. Followed by bad player / mob networking, which leads to ugly entity movement.

I do agree, it is a major issue that needs to be fixed, along side other networking issues. (entities)

[Achilles]

The inventory menu is very laggy.

Yes. And this is annoying as hell!

+308
How can I request this for the next version of Minetest?

Suggest it to one of the Devs and give a convincing argument for it... I think

[Sokomine]

Suggest it to one of the Devs and give a convincing argument for it... I think

In general that's the right approach. I'm not sure if it will help much in this case. Inventory changes have to be confirmed by the server in order to avoid cheating. There are however chests that can be a bit faster. Just compare the normal, unlocked chest with the locked one in minetest_game. The "feature" that hides the content of chests from non-owners feels very laggy as in that case the formspec menu has to be sent by the server instead of beeing done by the client.

Perhaps my new chesttools mod might also be of help in this case. It has some buttons that may speed things up a bit.

[Achilles]

Suggest it to one of the Devs and give a convincing argument for it... I think

In general that's the right approach. I'm not sure if it will help much in this case. Inventory changes have to be confirmed by the server in order to avoid cheating. There are however chests that can be a bit faster. Just compare the normal, unlocked chest with the locked one in minetest_game. The "feature" that hides the content of chests from non-owners feels very laggy as in that case the formspec menu has to be sent by the server instead of beeing done by the client.

Perhaps my new chesttools mod might also be of help in this case. It has some buttons that may speed things up a bit.

Hmmm, I don't have a very fast laptop... So I will try this out, Thanks

[greydmiyu]

Inventory changes have to be confirmed by the server in order to avoid cheating.

Yes, but that doesn't mean the display of the change needs to wait on confirmation.

[MirceaKitsune]

Inventory changes have to be confirmed by the server in order to avoid cheating.

Yes, but that doesn't mean the display of the change needs to wait on confirmation.

This. My suggestion was to have the client instantly draw the changes as you move an inventory item, then update once the server sends its response (currently only this happens). This would however mean that moving an item to a forbidden slot would seem successful for a second until the server confirms that movement didn't happen... so the formspec rendering system would need to know which slots are allowed client-side too. Something like this shouldn't be too hard though.

[SAMIAMNOT]

Weeeeell...I did find complete documentation of entity names for default and built in mods for Minetest on the wiki. We can use the itemstrings for the /giveme feature, which is much faster than hunting for stuff, even with no lag.
In minimal I gave myself 5000 cobble with it ;) But I gave up because can't find doors in minimal.
BTW is there documentation on Minimal entities?

[rubenwardy]

Don't use minimal.

[kaeza]

To expand on rubenwardy's response, "Minimal" game is meant as the minimal set of mods to get a somewhat working game for testing purposes. It's meant for development (both core devs, and modders which want fast startup for testing mods); It's not in any way meant to be "played".

[SAMIAMNOT]

Ooooh. So THATs why there are no doors and I can stack 5000 cobble.

[srifqi]

/giveme command is builtin. So, it works on any game.

[Wuzzy]

Minetest is missing 2,500,000,000 bucks! xD