Why are a lot of servers empty?

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Andrey01
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Why are a lot of servers empty?

by Andrey01 » Post

Near 70 % of all servers are quite empty ones or they have a few players every day. Why so? How should owners increase the players number and what do they need to do for it?

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Re: Why are a lot of servers empty?

by Krock » Post

Invade schools and replace their Minecraft education system with Minetest.
That's one possibility.

During the workdays/schooldays it's logical that people have other things to do than playing games. This looks different in the weekends, where people have much free time to meet and play on a server.
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Re: Why are a lot of servers empty?

by CWz » Post

A more likely cause would be over saturation of servers vs total players playing the game. there too many server and far to little players to play on them all, due to players flocking to more active servers.

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Re: Why are a lot of servers empty?

by Linuxdirk » Post

Setting up a server is easy. Getting people to play there is not easy. Plus: Tiny MT user base.

According to the public servers list there are currently (as in: right now wwhile I write this text) 351 players online who can chose from 193 active public servers. On even distribution that are ~2 players per server. Currently the top three (or four) active servers have 28, 24 (times 2, because there are currently two servers that have 24 players), and 15 players.

When evenly distributing the other players to the 189 other servers there is ~1 player (~1.4) per server.

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Re: Why are a lot of servers empty?

by jas » Post

There's a couple of servers that require 0.5.0-dev clients, like five of them. Okay, that's not a lot, but...

(This should be a good thread.)

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Re: Why are a lot of servers empty?

by Andrey01 » Post

It would be nice if servers would enroll near 100/200 players in one server someday. Or maybe even more.

BTW, just test has already had over 100 players somewhen.

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Re: Why are a lot of servers empty?

by Linuxdirk » Post

Andrey01 wrote:It would be nice if servers would enroll near 100/200 players in one server someday. Or maybe even more.
Minecraft has some servers that have more concurrent players players than all active Minetest servers combined have slots … We need better netcode for that – and the player base :)

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Re: Why are a lot of servers empty?

by BBmine » Post

Linuxdirk wrote:We need better netcode for that
That's why I need to get my servers up.
Linuxdirk wrote:– and the player base :)
That too. I am telling my RL friends about Minetest. Two have joined Minetest, another is thinking about it, another wants to but can't (Don't ask me why, it's not for you to know :P), and another already plays MT (Before I even met him he was playing :DDDDDDD).

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Re: Why are a lot of servers empty?

by Andrey01 » Post

Linuxdirk wrote:
Andrey01 wrote:It would be nice if servers would enroll near 100/200 players in one server someday. Or maybe even more.
Minecraft has some servers that have more concurrent players players than all active Minetest servers combined have slots … We need better netcode for that – and the player base :)
Actually Minecraft has about 5000/7000 players in one server! It means Minetest is so impopular unlike that game, probably we never can increase the players number as in MC :(

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Re: Why are a lot of servers empty?

by jas » Post

I do not personally bring up the subject of Minetest without also mentioning Free Software. I suspect if one is interested in the latter, they'll at least appreciate the former.

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Re: Why are a lot of servers empty?

by Linuxdirk » Post

Andrey01 wrote:probably we never can increase the players number as in MC :(
No, we never ever will. MT and MC are not comparable.

From the beginning on MT had better marketing, better netcode, better graphics (even if they just were developer graphics cobbled together by Notch himself in alpha and early beta), and looked more polished. Plus: Minecraft is an actual game unlike Minetest Game which is only an incomplete reference implementation of the Minetest engine.

If all of the things above change MT could gain a lot of players because they would basically get a free version of Minecraft. And if MT had a full-featured modding API I guess even modders would come.

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Re: Why are a lot of servers empty?

by hajo » Post

Linuxdirk wrote:MT and MC are not comparable.
Minecraft is an actual game unlike Minetest Game
So, what is really missing? Just some mobs? Some more mods?
What is the problem on deciding on them?
.. full-featured modding API
Same question - what is missing?

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Re: Why are a lot of servers empty?

by Linuxdirk » Post

hajo wrote:So, what is really missing? Just some mobs? Some more mods?
Something to do in the world and a goal are missing. There is nothing that rewards the player with something. There is nothing in the world that challenges the player. All that is is mining and building. No enemies, no friendly creatures, nothing. Just rather boring plains, some hills, some jungles, and some caves (to be honest, v7 worlds are great, but MT should be more than a voxel graphics wallpaper generator). Below ~-1000 nodes the underground is repeating down to the bottom layer. Above ~200 nodes there is nothing except air nodes.

Yes, there are mods for the underground, for the sky, for mobs, for rewards, for goals, etc. But Minetest Game is the first thing new players see, and this "game" is utterly boring.
hajo wrote:What is the problem on deciding on them?
The devs don't care enough for regular everyday players.
hajo wrote:
.. full-featured modding API
Same question - what is missing?
There are so much small details missing. Hard to mention some particular things without implying those are the main disadvantages. But just compare the MT modding API with the internal API of Minecraft (respectively all the functions of it that are exposed to the user space via resource packs or command blocks).

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Re: Why are a lot of servers empty?

by rubenwardy » Post

hajo wrote:What is the problem on deciding on them?
Technical issues, such as bad animations, inflexible APIs, performance, and stability. It will be out next big focus after CSM. Certain developers are already working on their proposed APIs.

I'd take whatever Linux Dirk says with a pinch of salt, he likes complaining and has the tendency to make stuff up
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Re: Why are a lot of servers empty?

by Linuxdirk » Post

rubenwardy wrote:I'd take whatever Linux Dirk says with a pinch of salt, he likes complaining and has the tendency to make stuff up
Like a lot of devs simply do not care what the real world is into. There is always a 50/50 chance that an issue or a pull request is ignored simply because none of the devs cares.

Oh, and btw. prove me wrong on my statements about Minetest Game and the incomplete API compared to the API functions exposed to user space in Minecraft. Or on my calculations regarding the currently active players according to the public servers list.

It is the truth. I don't tell lies. I just comment what I see. I don't add sugar to it, yes. But adding sugar to facts is not the way I can discuss things.

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Re: Why are a lot of servers empty?

by sorcerykid » Post

Another factor to consider: The majority of core devs do not administer a server and therefore have no particular incentive to address the needs and wants of server operators. As a server operator myself, I tend to focus on fixing critical bugs first and foremost. There are several open issues on GitHub that I already addressed in my fork of the engine as far back as January. Heck there is one "fix" in the official branch that took three separate pull requests, and it still isn't properly resolved. But a certain core dev insists that they can't be wrong. So yeah.

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Re: Why are a lot of servers empty?

by hajo » Post

Linuxdirk wrote:
hajo wrote:So, what is really missing? Just some mobs? Some more mods?
a goal are missing. There is nothing that rewards .. challenges the player. ..
Yes, there are mods for the underground, for the sky, for mobs, for rewards, for goals, etc.
But Minetest Game is the first thing new players see, and this "game" is utterly boring.
hajo wrote:.. full-featured modding API .. - what is missing?
just compare the MT modding API with the internal API of Minecraft
I haven't played MC, so its hard to compare.
Or to say what is missing, because I haven't been missing (much).
I'm aware that there are lots of things to improve/polish in MT.

I agree that there is no 'story' behind Minetest Game,
and having such a thing would be good.

Also, there should be several games / worlds included in the default download.

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Re: Why are a lot of servers empty?

by You » Post

Andrey01 wrote:
Linuxdirk wrote:
Andrey01 wrote:It would be nice if servers would enroll near 100/200 players in one server someday. Or maybe even more.
Minecraft has some servers that have more concurrent players players than all active Minetest servers combined have slots … We need better netcode for that – and the player base :)
Actually Minecraft has about 5000/7000 players in one server! It means Minetest is so impopular unlike that game, probably we never can increase the players number as in MC :(
Minecraft has servers with over 40k ppl online in any time of day.
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Re: Why are a lot of servers empty?

by Linuxdirk » Post

hajo wrote:Also, there should be several games / worlds included in the default download.
Or none.

I remember when MT had a built-in mod store. This should be re-implemented and done for games, too. So people will get a list of games to choose from. Games should be ratable (5 star rating as usual on most websites) and ranked by rating. Same with mods.

Currently Minetest is marketed as game and will disappoint people because it is not a game. If it will be marketed as launcher for various moddable voxel-based games it would be much better because that is what MT is.

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Re: Why are a lot of servers empty?

by BBmine » Post

sorcerykid wrote:Another factor to consider: The majority of core devs do not administer a server and therefore have no particular incentive to address the needs and wants of server operators.
Yes! Changes that make 0.4.16 incompatable with 0.5.0 work just fine with singleplayer, but NOT with multiplayer. This is one reason why I'm thinking of holding off for a while on getting my servers back up.

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Re: Why are a lot of servers empty?

by Calinou » Post

Linuxdirk wrote:
hajo wrote:Games should be ratable (5 star rating as usual on most websites) and ranked by rating. Same with mods.
I'm not sure if that's a good idea… :)

Image

These days, websites tend to prefer upvote/downvote systems, as these are harder to exploit. Based on these votes, a Wilson score can also be displayed.

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Re: Why are a lot of servers empty?

by Linuxdirk » Post

Calinou wrote:I'm not sure if that's a good idea… :)
Same with upvotes/downvotes. People tend to use those as a tool to express their opinion instead of rating the quality.

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Re: Why are a lot of servers empty?

by Gael de Sailly » Post

Too many servers, too few people, and because people are more likely to join servers with already more people, the popular servers are always the same, and not necessarily the best ones.
Just realize how bored we would be if the world was perfect.

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Re: Why are a lot of servers empty?

by hajo » Post

Gael de Sailly wrote:Too many servers, too few people,
Too few servers that run the mods/games I want to play with.
( See sig, and trains :)

Also, that quote "Games should be ratable..." was not from me.

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Re: Why are a lot of servers empty?

by Fixer » Post

It is like this everywhere, not just minetest.

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