Minetest on Steam

[rubenwardy]

I don't v want it to be more popular. I want it to be better.

[rubenwardy]

Personally think its a great idea, like has been said before larger community equals more everything

More close community?

More noobs.

Got to start somewhere, everyone is a "noob" when they first join/play something. New people spark new ideas, new servers, new mods, larger development team and most of all a popular community.

As for arguments, well just like any forum there is always people that will disagree. Even at the moment every new idea suggested is a 50-50 split debate. Some wear their opinions on their sleeve others casually debate, happens everywhere.

Some people in this community have been here for over a year, achieved 1000 posts, and yet still act like noobs-and immature children. They average 20 posts of cr*p a day.

You can start playing a game without behaving like a noob.

[aldobr]

Can someone CARE to PROVE that the game "is not ready" ?

This is a kind of mantra, is usually said to make someone appear wise, but i never see any substance on the argument, besides rote repetition.

If the game was ready, why would anyone need more coders ?

Makes no sense.

[onpon4]

Can someone CARE to PROVE that the game "is not ready" ?

I already did: it doesn't have mobs. We've already seen Minecraft players reject Minetest for this reason.

It doesn't matter that Minecraft isn't on Steam; everyone knows about it. Minecraft doesn't need Steam to attract an audience. It's not made harder to install by not being on Steam, either.

My brother is a Steam user, and when I asked him about the idea, he shot it down immediately. He expressed annoyance at Greenlight and the large amount of games appearing on Steam that feel "incomplete". Minetest is absolutely one of those games that would feel "incomplete" to an audience that is used to "complete" games. You can expect also that if people there download Minetest through Steam now and decide that it sucks, they won't try it again later; they'll have already determined that Minecraft is better.

It's plainly obvious that Minetest will gain nothing from being on Steam, and may even lose a large potential future audience from being on Steam prematurely.

[Excalibur Zero]

I think Minetest could do with more users, since the more users it has the more modders it will have.

However, I agree with some of the people in this thread that say that Minetest is not ready.

The way Minetest is now is geared towards people who can already code and understand how mods and other similar things work. If we want to have more constructive people playing and modding Minetest we need to make mods and coding tutorial much more easily available.

Right now we have a base minetest game (default) and a lot of mods which are used to add content to the game. Most new people don't realize this as most people are used to downloading a game which already includes all the content. So the new person downloads the base game (default) and believes that to be it. While that obviously doesn't describe all new users of Minetest, I'm sure it describes a good many of them. The best ways to stop this from happening would be to either offer a download of Minetest with a number of mods already installed (New Player Edition) in addition to the current offering of Minetest without mods. And/or have a clearly obvious message on the download page that talks about mods. These changes would allow Minetest to get more good users, even if we don't put Minetest on Steam, but if we do so it will make that change more effective in getting Minetest more users.

Currently there is also a notably high learning curve in learning to make Minetest mods. Most people don't know how to code in Lua, and even more don't know how to code using Minetest's api. It would be good if we had a lot more tutorials on modding. When I first found Minetest I didn't even know the Lua was a coding language (mostly because I didn't know many coding languages), so there was a very high learning curve in learning to make Minetest mods. The only real tutorials on modding that I could find showed how to make nodes, crafting recipes, and abms. Then there is also the development wiki, which is helpful, but it isn't always very clear on how to use certain parts of the api. If we have clearly available tutorials on modding more people will be able to learn how to make mods, and thus we will have more people making mods.

The main problem with Minetest is that it does not obviously convey important information to new users. New users have to do a bit of digging to find information that they need to be constructive users. If Minetest makes important information like mods and modding tutorials clearly obvious to the average new user, then Minetest will not only have more users, but it will also have a lot more constructive users, and thus more mods, and thus a better game.

[Enke]

Hey, something else I've thought about. Doesn't it cost $100 (USD) to put a game on Steam Greenlight?

[hoodedice]

Hey, something else I've thought about. Doesn't it cost $100 (USD) to put a game on Steam Greenlight?

SEE. FIRST. POST.

[aldobr]

I already did: it doesn't have mobs. We've already seen Minecraft players reject Minetest for this reason.

So the only thing that separates minetest from mainstream is having mobs ?

Nonsense. Like i said earlier, having more players (thus being more popular) gives you more people interested in developing the game, people that could very well make minetest HAVE MOBS.

It doesn't matter that Minecraft isn't on Steam; everyone knows about it. Minecraft doesn't need Steam to attract an audience. It's not made harder to install by not being on Steam, either.

My brother is a Steam user, and when I asked him about the idea, he shot it down immediately. He expressed annoyance at Greenlight and the large amount of games appearing on Steam that feel "incomplete". Minetest is absolutely one of those games that would feel "incomplete" to an audience that is used to "complete" games. You can expect also that if people there download Minetest through Steam now and decide that it sucks, they won't try it again later; they'll have already determined that Minecraft is better.

Your brother using steam makes him an authority on the matter ?

You probably will answer : Are you an autorithy on steam or marketing whatever ?

So i will answer to you : No, but i am arguing on the same level than you, but you tried to construct an argument of authority out of the fact that your brother is a steam user, and i am solely showing that he is not.

It's plainly obvious that Minetest will gain nothing from being on Steam, and may even lose a large potential future audience from being on Steam prematurely.

Here you commit the old error of taking the steam community as a bunch of retards, this is done in order to someway present yourself as some kind of enlightened one (dont feel shame on this, this is pretty commom).

This means that minetest attained a cult status, something "not for the inferior masses". Saying that minetest is not read for the masses is the same thing as saying that the masses are no ready for minetest. You imply a certain inferiority on them, as if they were not rational enough or smart enough to understand that minetest is not a complete game. So you cast minetest on the role of being the "cult" brother of minecraft.

"Minecraft is for the masses, minetest is for the elite, who can understand"

Sorry pal, theres no such thing.

If minetest goes mainstream, this will attract all kinds of people, INCLUDING developers. Developing time is exponential. The more coders, the faster we can improve the game.

Unfortunately the first thing that must be excluded from the community is the elitist mentality, because i am myself a victim of that mentality, i know it pretty well.

[shaneroach]

@aldobr

I might be able to shed some light on this for you.

By and large, Minetest's presence on GitHub is intended to achieve what you appear to think would be achieved by putting it on Steam. GitHub, SourceForge and the like are platforms specifically intended to allow people interested in taking on coding projects to locate ones they are interested in working. I myself found Minetest using precisely this line of research. Sadly, I am not a coder... but I know enough about them to know where to look for stuff like this... usually... when I am lucky...

I really don't think anyone is trying to disrespect Steam or Steam players. I adore Steam and am going to put SteamOS on a second drive of my upcoming desktop rig. Steam does seem to have a core of gamers that sort of straddle the open source and closed source worlds, so there is some kernel of possibility to what you are thinking I suppose.

I think what you are running into though is some reticence on the part of current coders to unleash a flood of new users, the vast majority of which seem likely to them to be people who will be critical of Minetest for what they feel is the rather obvious reason that is is almost exactly like Minecraft except less functional. They do not want to deal with the torrent of negative insights, and they do not foresee it opening up the floodgates to interested coders that you seem to anticipate. And, having played free games on the interwebs since most of them were all text, I can vouch at least to some extent that the vast majority of people who show up to play such games, even back when the developers of such games often did indeed use the game as a tool to try to draw in new developers, do not end up being very devoted. Even in those days there tended to be some sort of minimum standard of performance you had to pass before they were willing to take you under their wing and introduce you to the ins and outs of the code.

Instead, they continue to work on it, keep the GitHub entry fairly well updated, and wait for a day where they feel the project might at least feel fun to play for a larger percentage of gamers so the anticipated swell of disappointed complainers doesn't bring on too much emotional stress.

Believe it or not, it IS stressful sometimes... this coding for free thing people sometimes do.

[aldobr]

Who the fuck cares about people being critics ?

If they dont like minetest, no one is forcing them to use.

In the other part of your argument you present a false dichotomy : Who is asking minetest to be removed from github or sourceforge ?

Is not a dichotomy, ie.: Minetest can be on github, sourceforge AND steam at the same time.

You must agree that most people dont search github or sourceforge for games (i do).

So you are alienating a huge population on the grounds of them being critics ?

You are giving your self a prediction power that is beyond belief. Let people sort out if they like minetest or not, stop pretending you care "not to hurt their feelings".

All i see on that kind of argument is an elitist attitude: "Lets keep minetest for the ones who can understand."

[shaneroach]

It's more the feelings of the folks you keep calling elitist I am concerned about.

Again, I don't think they are sneering down their noses at the masses, I think they simply do not want to take a step likely to result in they - the coders themselves - being blitzed by a mob of disappointed gamers.

Who cares?

Apparently the coders...?

[aldobr]

My argument was a polite way to tell that nobody cares if someone dislikes an opensource game, and that the true motivation is elitism*.

Got it now ?

OTH the reason might very well be that no one have thought about that before or that they simply dont want to spend a hundred bucks themselves.

* (Maybe not on the part of the core developers, they are yet to tell if they want it or not.

[shaneroach]

What I hear you saying is that you think the community here is elitist because some have voiced the opinion that they fear what they perceive is likely to be a massive influx of disappointed gamers.

What I am saying is that it seems to me more likely that they just don't want to risk the potential heartache.

Possibly you could select a term that puts that hesitation into terms as negative as "elitist", I don't know, but the longer you work at it to make folks here seem like bad people, the more you sort of bear out the fear that tons of other players, also disappointed by what they see in the Minetest game and community, will likewise be confrontational and judgmental, which leads to more stress and less fun for the current crop of players and devs.

You are therefore, in fact , (and perhaps all unwittingly), something of a case in point as to why some would prefer not to unleash Minecraft onto Steam.

[aldobr]

You assume, preemptively, that people will dislike the game.

There you have, implicitly, the idea that the ones who like the game right now have some kind of subjective advantage that allows them to like the game while the masses cannot.

Thats prejudice.

A massive amount of players could very well like the game despite your predictions.

[shaneroach]

I'm not saying it is a true assumption that tons of unappreciative people would be the end result of putting it up on Steam. I just question your assumption that it is an underlying elitism that provokes the assumption. I think it is more akin to fear of the unknown, and some level of prior experience at work making folks leery.

[aldobr]

Sorry, you dont buy me with that skewed rhetoric.

Fear is the major basis of prejudice (the other being economic interest, but in this case this doesnt apply).

So you are basically saying the same thing with other words.

[shaneroach]

Ok....

Clearly, you are correct. Anyone who disagrees with you from this point onward is a prejudiced, hateful, elitist pig.

Did my best. Communication - who can figure it?

[aldobr]

Oh please, dont take that all that personally.

Everyone is subject to some kind of prejudice, we are humans.

What's wrong is to plainly ignore it even when someone else points it out so clearly.

[rubenwardy]

Remember that steam is a DRM platform. Do you want minetest to be on that?

[shaneroach]

The guys at Valve allow folks to play free games through Steam. The free games can pay for themselves by buying fun little gadgets that have little if any affect on gameplay. I adore Team Fortress (2? 3?) for that. Their work on SteamOS also indicates to me that they are amenable to the open source game model as long as someone can come up with a way to make it profitable.

In that sense I am totally on board with Minetest being on Steam. I just tend to share the concern that it is not yet developed to the point where it will be particularly welcome by people trying it out.

Call me elitist. Call me realist. Call me whatever you want. I don't relish the idea of a ton of conversations resembling the one I just got myself into.

[hoodedice]

Such discussion. Much wow.

In any case, I don't see Minetest on steam anytime within this year. Our attempting that, I fear, will see celeron getting a copyright letter from Notch. Which they might win, because they have the money needed for a legal battle. Again, the game isn't friggin ready yet.

tl;dr: NO.

[aldobr]

Copyright ? How ?

[Dopium]

The game isn't ready yet? It will never be ready.... In the past 10 years i have never played a game that doesn't undergo a tonne of patches and updates. It is not the 1990's anymore and even in those days some titles had revisions.

What i am saying is with the large content of modern day games they will always be incomplete only to be eventually discontinued. So many late retail 2000 era games i have bought that were never "completed". Modern day software would never be released if devs always waited until they had a complete product, it is not possible. Hell Minecraft was first released in Alpha stage with a fraction of the features it has now. They even charged you for an Alpha product and i highly doubt Minecrafts development would be as far as it is now if left in the shadows.

Entities seem to be the only feature that is said to be not ready, other then that in my eyes the default game is fairly solid. If the buggy entity system was improved then what will be the next anchor? I am sure someone would come up with another reason not to push towards steam.

The world will still turn, the forum will still be here, the same groups of people will still be here. Steam would just get the Mintest name out there. I find it hard to believe anything like this would ruin the project and even harder why anyone would want to keep it in the dark. If some are disappointed, well they would never had known about the game before so whats the difference? Really just sit back and look at it, what is there too loose other then $100? My two cents anyway

[Linxx]

IMO this game is not ready yet for the steam community this game still lacks some direction it's a building game but that alone wont attract people,there needs to be a bit more.

[shaneroach]

I wish people were as passionate about donating money to the folks already working on the project. Development would continue more quickly if all the coders could quit their day jobs....



I dunno guys.... comparisons to how Minecraft got its start seem to miss that when Minecraft came out, it wasn't competing with... well... Minecraft.

I need to unsubscribe from this thread! lol