Minetest is boring (clickbait) A few thoughts about Minetest

[Linuxdirk]

Ah ... Wasn't there a giant fish or squid or something? I hardly remember.

[Red_King_Cyclops]

Just an example for content in Minecraft. I just walked around and suddenly I found an underwater structure. You can spend an hour or more just to explore this structure and try to find it's secrets.

Too bad that without additional mods there are any secrets. The giant caves look awesome, yes, but they're just bland. Except structure nothing happens in caves without mods.

I was talking about Minecraft Vanilla Demo Version. And there was a large structure in the Ocean. Not in a cave. Don't know if I will find it again

Are you referring to an ocean monument?

[burli]

Are you referring to an ocean monument?

No, it was more something like this, but not exactly this. I found this while searching the original place

2019-07-03_21.39.54.png (954.31 KiB) Viewed 881 times

It is exciting to discover such places and maybe you can find something valuable. I found an enchantment book of luck and other stuff

[Wuzzy]

@burli: In my defense, MineClone 2 is still in public alpha, so horrible bugs like these are expected. Please forgive me. :-)

[Red_King_Cyclops]

Are you referring to an ocean monument?

No, it was more something like this, but not exactly this. I found this while searching the original place

2019-07-03_21.39.54.png

It is exciting to discover such places and maybe you can find something valuable. I found an enchantment book of luck and other stuff

That's a sea ruin added in by 1.13.

[burli]

@burli: In my defense, MineClone 2 is still in public alpha, so horrible bugs like these are expected. Please forgive me. :-)

I know that, but other players may miss this hint. Mineclone is the most named game and at the top of ContentDB

The sad truth is that none of the games can be recommended as a default game for minetest.

[ShadMOrdre]

I agree with burli.

This isn't the fault of anyone. The devs, most especially. It's just the way it is. It's the nature of free open source software.

To say that there isn't a single consistent, coherent, quality game available for MT speaks to the OS nature of the project.

Wuzzy, No offense, but offering MCL2 as a default game exacerbates the issue. Folks are tired of MC. That is the complaint of the original post. This also means that MTG is no longer satisfying. MCL2 suffers the same issue. It's that the game play mechanics, the way the game is played, the way users interact with in world objects, the lack of any goal actually worth achieving more than once,... I think people are just burned out by it. They are all looking for something new.

What I get from burli's comments aren't harsh criticism of the devs, MT, MTG, or anything like that. What I do get, is a simple statement of the blandness of MTG. As it is the ONLY game shipped with MT, it is what EVERY new user will use to base their FIRST opinions of Minetest. This is critical. If I spent money on a game, and found that yeah, it works awesomely, but is utterly devoid of any depth of content, unless of course, I go search the web for mods, or DLC, or well, more content, well, I'd just be POd, and I'd want my money back. But this is OS, and well, you get what you get, when someone gets time and desire to get coding, to get you the latest greatest git release.

What is very important to note in this entire conversation, is that people are ready for the next step. Which means a departure from the existing ways of doing things.

However, nothing will continue to get done if we continue to do nothing to get things done.

Shad

[burli]

I don't think it's even possible with Minetest to create a game that is comparable to Minecraft in any way.

What you can do with Minetest are minigames like Parkour, Escape or Jump Games. What also works well are pure build maps.

But when it comes to a survival map you will reach the limits of Minetest.

I found a treasure map in a chest in Minecraft and could use it to find a treasure chest buried on a beach. I don't know if such a thing would even be possible in Minetest. But it was just fun and it offers variety in the game. You can just walk around and discover something new around the next corner.

[Linuxdirk]

As long as the majority of games is basically preconfigured "Minetest Game" with additional mods it is slightly irrelevant what game is shipped as default because they usually end up in "craft a pickaxe and get diamonds while fighting mobs". Minetest is a voxel engine but it massively lacks original and creative voxel games.

What you can do with Minetest are minigames like Parkour, Escape or Jump Games. What also works well are pure build maps.

Yep. This is what can be done and there absolutely are some better ones, but lets be honest: in the end most games are more or less the same.

[texmex]

> But when it comes to a survival map you will reach the limits of Minetest.

I disagree. Or rather, of course you’ll reach engine limits (that’s always the case) but I’ve never seen a MT survival game really push the engine with an actually _designed_ game experience. There’s still so much that can be done. Is the engine easy to work with? Pretty easy. Is it barebones? Very. But that only means more systems need to be designed and authored by the game maker, not that it’s impossible.

[voxelproof]

The giant caves look awesome, yes, but they're just bland. Except structure nothing happens in caves without mods.

Unless you want to simply leave them without flying with damage enabled ;)

[v-rob]

Well, what I'm getting from this thread is that MTG is boring, and no other game is good enough to be the default game. Ok. Well, I don't think that there should be a single default game but multiple, since no one game will satisfy everyone.

But the problem with games is that they are big undertakings. I have a game that is in progress, and it's not getting anywhere because I honestly don't know where to start. It's too easy to get discouraged and stop at any time. Since 99% of MT games are managed by one person, there can be way too much to do.

But getting a team together is very hard. First off, you have to find people willing to work on a game with you. Second off, you have to agree on who will do what, what particular aspects of the game will be, etc. So, to get a team of people together, I think you have to have leadership, a clear plan for a game, and influence in the MT community. The only people I think have enough influence and leadership are the core developers.

So, I think if someone like sofar or rubenwardy had a plan for a game and tried to get a team together, especially if they requested specific people for help, a wonderful game could really happen.

[Red_King_Cyclops]

Well, what I'm getting from this thread is that MTG is boring, and no other game is good enough to be the default game. Ok. Well, I don't think that there should be a single default game but multiple, since no one game will satisfy everyone.

But the problem with games is that they are big undertakings. I have a game that is in progress, and it's not getting anywhere because I honestly don't know where to start. It's too easy to get discouraged and stop at any time. Since 99% of MT games are managed by one person, there can be way too much to do.

But getting a team together is very hard. First off, you have to find people willing to work on a game with you. Second off, you have to agree on who will do what, what particular aspects of the game will be, etc. So, to get a team of people together, I think you have to have leadership, a clear plan for a game, and influence in the MT community. The only people I think have enough influence and leadership are the core developers.

So, I think if someone like sofar or rubenwardy had a plan for a game and tried to get a team together, especially if they requested specific people for help, a wonderful game could really happen.

What about the users that have posted here, or at least people like the users? Most of them want to see a better game be made, so perhaps they could collaborate and work on something. Repositories permit collaboration, and suggestions for the game could be posted in a forum topic. Most of the people here wouldn't agree on the same thing, but that could motivate the developers of the game to create something for everyone.

Here is another discussion that relates to this one: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=22775

[ShadMOrdre]

Please see my post regarding this subject here.

Shad

[bhree]

I'm expecting to use MT on less pure gaming project so it may be boring for players. In my opinion, without story, MT in public server has a role as a place for social interaction, popular server will stay popular. There player can do or don’t do anything as they want while having conversation. I see different form of social media here. Some servers restrict dating which actually can make MT interesting with certain age restriction or moderated to a certain level of politeness. We even have chat mods that allow players to make private channels. A story has more impact on singleplayer which will eventually meet the end and further story expansion should be made again. There is still possibility even when we have a server with a good story and stuffs but without other players around it will be still boring. Being bored is basically a built in aspect of human.

And don’t forget that with investment like MC has, anything can be made.

[Yvanhoe]

Hi! I have been sucked into minetest for a few weeks, installing/writing/correcting mods on my server and really thinking about devoting more time to this community. Finally an open source project (more of an ecosystem of projects actually) where I can see myself sinking a lot of free time!

I just wanted to point out something that I think is relevant to that discussion: commercial games like minecraft need paying customers to survive. Open source projects like minetest must appeal to developers first to survive. It is a counter-intuitive feature of OSS projects: they need to be inviting to devs first, and then users. Users money is not the fuel to development there, devs sole motivation and benevolence are. A clean API documentation is more important than a tutorial and in that respect MT is having its priorities straight.

About the boringness, I must admit that I got sucked into the game thanks to mapgen v6. At one point though I thought it was unrealistic and boring and now find mapgenv7 far more beautiful and interesting but would have I started with it? Not sure. Maybe rename v6 and v7 "easy" and "hard" or "fun" vs "realistic"?

But as a dev what sucked me in was playing on a server. After a bit of mining in solo, I logged into a server and was like "Oh there are protection runes? And I can change clothes? And armor? Was that a car???". Maybe having an official demo server with as many mature mods as possible installed can be a nice introduction for new players as well as a compatibility test bench.

I join the choir of people here that think that Minetest goal is not to be a game but to be a game framework. The skills involved are actually pretty different. Game design and game dev are not the same. A very good dev who knows how to optimize databases request for 3d games is not necessarily skilled in designing an engaging RPG. Continue to lure in gamedevs and at one point someone will make a nice game and offer users to download their own packaged version of minetest.

[Mantar]

It's the nature of free open source software.

I'm not so sure about that. It seems like the problem isn't that it's open source, it's that very few people around here have a clear, defined vision of what this game is supposed to be. That's a problem with most non-commercial game projects. (And even some commercial ones, look at Hytale. Usually in commercial dev somebody has to pitch an idea to investors, though, so it's less common for it to be "what if we made a game that was kinda like x, huh?")
Minetest's core concept seems to be "Iunno, make your own Minecraft type thing, I guess?" which isn't exactly compelling.

[runs]

kidscode is the example that a Minetest related project can be sucessful.

:-)

[Yvanhoe]

kidscode is the example that a Minetest related project can be sucessful.

Is that minetest or minecraft? Is the code open? That's really close to what I'd like to do for my kids!

[runs]

kidscode is the example that a Minetest related project can be sucessful.

Is that minetest or minecraft? Is the code open? That's really close to what I'd like to do for my kids!

It is for schools. The engine, a modified and incompatible Minetest, is open source.

There is a demo. But you have to paid to complete access to its worlds and tasks.

[TumeniNodes]

kidscode is the example that a Minetest related project can be sucessful.

Is that minetest or minecraft? Is the code open? That's really close to what I'd like to do for my kids!

It is for schools. The engine, a modified and incompatible Minetest, is open source.

There is a demo. But you have to paid to complete access to its worlds and tasks.

But they also provide full support, and there is nothing wrong, nor illegal about what they are doing.
Actually, I think it's a wonderful project.

[Yvanhoe]

Indeed, they seem to have some public repos, I can't find their programmable bot on it though but I did not look very deep. I'll check again.

https://github.com/EvidenceBKidscode

But they also provide full support, and there is nothing wrong, nor illegal about what they are doing.
Actually, I think it's a wonderful project.

It is 100% legal but I think it kinds of defeats the spirit of open source if you run a software as a service business and do not share some code just because you are not selling the binaries.

If people want to avoid that, I recommend taking a look at the Affero GPL license (https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html) which plugs the SaS loophole.

[jp]

I can't find their programmable bot on it though but I did not look very deep. I'll check again.

The programmable bot (the "kidsbot") is proprietary and closed-source.

[texmex]

I can't find their programmable bot on it though but I did not look very deep. I'll check again.

The programmable bot (the "kidsbot") is proprietary and closed-source.

Yup, source code encoded too:

[ShadMOrdre]

I seem to recall a couple of years ago, someone posted code that wrote a lua file to binary, instead of text, as a way to encode the file. Everyone complained, but I'm wondering if someone used the same code, or idea behind it, to simply open the file as binary, and either write straight to text, or deserialize to text.