New, less moddable minetest game?

Would you appreciate a new less moddable, minetest story game?

Yes
21
35%
No
16
27%
I dont care
11
18%
Maybe
12
20%
 
Total votes: 60

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Hume2
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Re: New, less moddable minetest game?

by Hume2 » Post

That would remove all the constraints related with multiplayer mode.

By the way, there is one more constraint, maybe obvious: The story must be finishable in each world. (or at least in vast majority of worlds)
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Re: New, less moddable minetest game?

by Red_King_Cyclops » Post

Hume2 wrote:That would remove all the constraints related with multiplayer mode.

By the way, there is one more constraint, maybe obvious: The story must be finishable in each world. (or at least in vast majority of worlds)
I would not mind having an ending for the story.
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Re: New, less moddable minetest game?

by Eran » Post

Filling a big world with story is extremely hard. Stuff like multiplayer, the ability to destroy and build nodes everywhere and procedural generation make it even harder. I think constraining these features gets more necessary the more important and complex the story gets.

I also thought of using reality as a source of stories because coming up with interesting stuff is fairly hard. Wikipedia articles of historical persons might be a good source. Multiple short, small stories that are similar in a certain way might also work.
For example each one could be a day in the life of Florida Man since games making you do completely absurd things can be pretty fun.

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Re: New, less moddable minetest game?

by paramat » Post

We intend to add more games, especially a game that is actually a complete game, with gameplay, that is made to impress. MTG is not a game, it's a modding base.

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Re: New, less moddable minetest game?

by Wuzzy » Post

Minetest Game is not a game. How ironic! :D

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Re: New, less moddable minetest game?

by MineYoshi » Post

Wuzzy wrote:Minetest Game is not a game. How ironic! :D
Life is not like we expect it to be. Mine-test isn't actually a device for testing mines but ratherly a voxel game: that's even more ironic.

I'd say a good Minetest full game shouldn't have such a strict story but ratherly a well done gameplay: something well done and that's more about how you take it and like it to be. A Minetest game focused in Retro games that has dungeons and buildings based upon Retro games spawning naturally with lots of mobs and a pretty decent mapgen with lots of items to discover and steal could be a pretty decent and full game without even having a story as such.
Have a nice day! :D

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Re: New, less moddable minetest game?

by AiTechEye » Post

Filling a big world with story is extremely hard
To give minetest a story/adventure is not hard at all,

it could be, eg Sam's friend stuck/captured somewhere, maybe in another dimension, and to go to there, there could be generated a few places to go through, enemies/bosses to defeat, and dimantions (eg nether, floatland, cloudland...) to visit, or as missions

Bots to animate in specific positions/situations as game characters

Start simple, add more with the time, to a more complex game.

In a team this would be well made, and there are lots of experienced and creative people in this community.

i can do this in xaenvironment later, when enought things is made

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Re: New, less moddable minetest game?

by Hume2 » Post

MineYoshi wrote: I'd say a good Minetest full game shouldn't have such a strict story but ratherly a well done gameplay: something well done and that's more about how you take it and like it to be. A Minetest game focused in Retro games that has dungeons and buildings based upon Retro games spawning naturally with lots of mobs and a pretty decent mapgen with lots of items to discover and steal could be a pretty decent and full game without even having a story as such.
Good point here. A strict story isn't necesarily needed. Just take the gameplay, it is a story itself. You create the story just by playing the game. Isn't that enough? I think, it is a very nice feature that you can create your own story. So all you need is a beginning and a target. The rest is up to the players.

EDIT: After you finish the game, you can write down the story and read it to the others. So what you need to do is making these stories entertaining. And you won't do it by preparing a detailed story. You can do it by introducing nice and enjoyable elements.
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Re: New, less moddable minetest game?

by ShadMOrdre » Post

Honestly, are there ANY cross platform, singleplayer/multiplayer open world RPGs, RTSs, 3D shooter, CTF or other immersive style games available, anywhere? MT, engine not game, is getting better at making this possible.

MTG + 3darmor + bows + geomoria + settlements + mobs_redo/nssm is essentially the above. No story needed, none provided, and yet, a very basic platform for building any of the above genre style games.

I've been considering making a destructive world an option. What if you couldn't just dig to the diamonds. The nodes aren't diggable, in the the classic MC way. Instead, they are non-destructable by normal means. You must make devices to help you find the ore, and to actually remove stone to get to the ore, and to actually mine and process the ore. Not to simply drag out the time it takes to get the diamond, but to make getting the diamond irrelevant. In whatever game "scenario" you can imagine, what if to achieve the goal you actually have to achieve quests, and getting the diamonds is maybe not even part of the solution, if still a necessary part of the process.

Skyrim gets replayed because of the possible outcomes, not to the story, but to the players "character" development. This is an area where a game, or a mod, could really improve some options.

Awards and Sys4_Quests both make great inroads on this front, but are never more fully developed beyond supporting the default mod MTG. One would think game devs that include them in their games would at least flesh them out some, for the game at hand. Other games use custom built solutions to solve these issues, which are not then transferrable to other games, unlike the awards and sys4_quests mods, which can be stuffed into anything, almost.

Mod authors seem quite content to continue recreating the wheel for basic functionality, instead of working out a decent api standard. Some mod authors don't know that there is already code written, without much, much, much, much ........ reading here on the forums. And by then, they are either halfway into recreating wheels, halfway into frustration, or halfway into giving up.

A lot has been/is being said about how most games simply force players to grind through ever more excruciating steps to achieve the simple goal of MTG. Using MTG, MC thinking, and a refusal to see Outside the Box (pun intended) is what keeps this a constant conversation topic over the years.

The mod salad grows, but continues to depend on (again, pun intended) outdated ways of voxel world game development.

Not a less moddable game. Perhaps more community involvement in helping to make a better "base" game, as well as, a better base for making games. It's really up to those of us who aren't preoccupied with engine development to actually put our fingers to the keyboard to make stuff happen, in a collaborative, coherent, and civil manner.

Shad

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Re: New, less moddable minetest game?

by texmex » Post

Agreed.

I like your idea about a non-destructive world, or at least a world in which a mountain can’t be decimated within an our. It would make the landscape, tunnels and dungeons that more interesting to navigate.

I’ve come to think of the engine and the community as not so much interested in game creation primarily. Instead, other values are being upheld such as a kind of custodian relationship to the early freer spirit of Minecraft, free software principles and good old ”status quo hobbyism” (people get used to the ways of the community, the pace of development, find friends and become less interested in building games).

A somewhat technical explaination of why people always reinvent the wheel is because there isn’t a sort of package manager that sorts out mod dependencies automatically. Also, the community might be too small to depend on a bunch of mod maintainers to do their job (but we won’t know for sure unless it’s tried).

You arrive at the same conclusion as I regarding new original games getting made: it has to be social, cooperative and openly made. In my mind this demands a strong vision of what’s being made, supported by inspiring game lore, art style and development and cooperation policy.

The closest thing that has resembled this mode of game creation is with the now abandoned Farlands game. The game did had some vision of what was being made (though in very few words) and it did have a coherent art style thanks to a good pixel artist but that was about it. It lacked a strong public vision, public lore and policy of cooperation. All these factors I think contributes to the outcome of a project like this so building on those mistakes, it needs to be contemplated in a new project.

I’ve thought about development being completely open or not though. On the one hand, it might attract good contributors, great visionaries, artists etc, accellerating a project. On the other hand, since originality hardly is a virtue in the MT universe the juicy parts in a project might just be cannibalized before the game being released. What are your thoughts in this regard?

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Re: New, less moddable minetest game?

by ShadMOrdre » Post

Please see my post regarding this subject here.

Shad

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Re: New, less moddable minetest game?

by Red_King_Cyclops » Post

I came up with a detailed game idea here. It would be less moddable and have a story (kind of).
Currently working on new mods.

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Re: New, less moddable minetest game?

by Hume2 » Post

There wasn't any update for a long time. This video might be helpful in this thread: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22HoViH4vOU
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Re: New, less moddable minetest game?

by Wuzzy » Post

I don't care, really. But if you care about my thoughts, here's what I think Minetest Game does wrong:
  • Serious lack of depth: You run out of content too fast:
    • Underground is too dull / simplistic. Most of the underground is the same boring default stone and once you found diamonds, that's it
    • Too few farming plants
    • The biomes look nice, but exploring isn't really rewarding. There are not many items for which it makes sense to explore more, and many biome-specific plants have no use
  • Too many items/nodes without uses
  • As a consequence, no serious progress. Once you got diamond tools (easy), you have reached the end of the line.
  • Iron is overpowered (many crafts), other ores are underpowererd (few, specialisted crafts)
  • Environment feels dead and static. You are alone in the world
  • No real danger or challenge
  • Diamonds are not hard to get, you just need a lot of time of patience
  • Weird protection system that feels incomplete and inconsistent. A few select nodes are “ownable” but most aren't.
If you feel like forking Minetest Game, please do not repeat the same mistakes.

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Re: New, less moddable minetest game?

by paramat » Post

Wuzzy, all that is correct, but you are forgetting the obvious. MTgame is not meant to be a complete game, it is a basic sandbox meant to be modded.
So these are not things 'done wrong', they are just things not done.

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Re: New, less moddable minetest game?

by Linuxdirk » Post

paramat wrote:MTgame is not meant to be a complete game, it is a basic sandbox meant to be modded.
Then why is it called “Minetest Game” and not “Basic Sandbox” or “Modding Base”?

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Re: New, less moddable minetest game?

by paramat » Post

Well it is technically a game. Name changes are very difficult.

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Re: New, less moddable minetest game?

by Wuzzy » Post

Since Minetest Game is, by your own admission, not a complete game, then Minetest Game should at least lose all the undeserved free promotion it gets on the homepage, in forums, by being installed by default, etc. Currently, Minetest Game is not only promoted too strongly, the clueless reader also very quickly gets the impression that Minetest Game is meant as a game. This will automatically lead to a bad first impression, which is seriously damaging to Minetest. Players expect games, not game construction kits. Minetest Game should be advertised (if at all) to server operators instead.

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Re: New, less moddable minetest game?

by Hume2 » Post

Let me remind the purpose of this topic. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. There were discussions about minetest_game. It was discussed that minetest_game isn't actually a game and we should make an official-ish game which is actually a game. There were discussions about bundling this game with Minetest, whether it should replace minetest_game completely or it should be bundled together with minetest_game...

This thread was about that official-ish game, how it is going to be like, who is going to make it etc..., not about how it is going to be deployed. I personally like the idea of having such official-ish game but I thought that this discussion went to a sticking point, so I tried to bring it back to life.

on topic:
Wuzzy wrote:I don't care, really. But if you care about my thoughts, here's what I think Minetest Game does wrong:
  • Serious lack of depth: You run out of content too fast:
    • Underground is too dull / simplistic. Most of the underground is the same boring default stone and once you found diamonds, that's it
    • Too few farming plants
    • The biomes look nice, but exploring isn't really rewarding. There are not many items for which it makes sense to explore more, and many biome-specific plants have no use
  • Too many items/nodes without uses
  • As a consequence, no serious progress. Once you got diamond tools (easy), you have reached the end of the line.
  • Iron is overpowered (many crafts), other ores are underpowererd (few, specialisted crafts)
  • Environment feels dead and static. You are alone in the world
  • No real danger or challenge
  • Diamonds are not hard to get, you just need a lot of time of patience
  • Weird protection system that feels incomplete and inconsistent. A few select nodes are “ownable” but most aren't.
If you feel like forking Minetest Game, please do not repeat the same mistakes.
I completely agree here. I think, these useless items were created based on philosophy: X exists in real-life or minec****, so we need it too. Let's add X.
However, we should add stuff based on philosophy: A problem X need to be solved and Y is a potential solution. Let's add Y.
So basically, we shouldn't add stuff just because we have seen them elsewhere but to solve actual problems we are facing.
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Re: New, less moddable minetest game?

by texmex » Post

Agreed. The whole X so Y thing would require actual game design, which would be lovely to see and be a part of.

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Re: New, less moddable minetest game?

by paramat » Post

> then Minetest Game should at least lose all the undeserved free promotion it gets on the homepage, in forums, by being installed by default, etc

Nah i cannot see why. And it is deserved. It is (for now) the only officially developed game, with development and stability at the same high standards as the engine. Worked on by multiple engine core devs with their experience, so the code quality is very high and serves as good examples.
Generally it is more consistently maintained and reliable than any other game.
It is also a very good game for beginners, to get used to controls, exploration and mining techniques, building techniques.
So it should certainly be included as default, even if only for beginners.

All we need to do is make clear what MTGame actually is.

I think some people are getting too hung up on the word 'game' implying a complete gameplay experience (whatever that is), and taking it too seriously. It is named that because it is technically a game.
For people who are happy to do some basic exploration, mining, crafting and building, MTGame is a complete game. I played it for a while like that at first, with no added mods.
What qualifies as a 'complete game' is rather subjective.

Interestingly, as time has gone on and MTGame has greatly improved, the more people have complained about it. Perhaps because people take it more seriously now.

I agree MT needs to include more games, and have a least 1 impressive 'complete experience' one.

> Too many items/nodes without uses

I disagree with this common complaint. Decoration for a biome is a 'use' and enough of a justification. For example the kelp in the seas really improves the underwater experience.
Also of course, being a modding base, a world needs a basic variety of ores and resources to be used by mods.

> I think, these useless items were created based on philosophy: X exists in real-life or minec****, so we need it too. Let's add X.

Nodes are added if they make biomes look good and roughly realistic, nothing wrong with that. And they are not 'useless', a satisfying biome environment is a use, a goldblock for building with (and nothing else) is a use.
Nothing is added to MTGame unless it is justified and beneficial in some way, that is obvious from development.

> So basically, we shouldn't add stuff just because we have seen them elsewhere but to solve actual problems we are facing.

I disagree, even for a 'complete game'. The number of items that can be part of problem solving is limited. If you then reject any item that just makes the world look good then your world will not look good.

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Re: New, less moddable minetest game?

by Linuxdirk » Post

paramat wrote:I think some people are getting too hung up on the word 'game' implying a complete gameplay experience
Because this is what everyday users and casual players do. If they see something named “game” they simply expect a game. If you name a barebones modding base a game then you WILL upset/disappoint people.
paramat wrote:It is named that because it is technically a game.
Then please start calling cucumbers berries and strawberries nuts because botanically they are.

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Re: New, less moddable minetest game?

by Wuzzy » Post

Oops, this thread derailed quickly, and I'm also guilty of this.

The topic is about how a fork of Minetest Game could look like, not about how to change Minetest Game itself.

But still:
It is also a very good game for beginners, to get used to controls, exploration and mining techniques, building techniques.
There is no crafting guide, therefore very BAD for beginners. A fork definitely MUST have a crafting guide or something similar.
Interestingly, as time has gone on and MTGame has greatly improved, the more people have complained about it. Perhaps because people take it more seriously now.
That's a really weird and twisted logic. Remember the free promotion that MTG gets, so obviously a lot of people talk about it.
> Too many items/nodes without uses
My problem is not that the “semi-useless” items/nodes exist, but more like that a lot of potential is just wasted. A fork definitely needs to look at balancing of uses and look into how to balance it more out for more interesting gameplay. In MTG, it's tilted too strongly on iron (for example).
Generally it is more consistently maintained and reliable than any other game.
Maintenence is not unique to MTG. Also, it's easy especially since it's so minimalist. Minetest dev has been very conservative, so there is usually no breakage. And in case of breakage, a fix is usually easy.
so the code quality is very high and serves as good examples.
I don't think default should be taken by anyone as a good example. Considering that MTG wants to be the “modding base”, this is especially damning. Any new game/fork should kill the default mod with fire.

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Re: New, less moddable minetest game?

by Hume2 » Post

paramat wrote: > Too many items/nodes without uses

I disagree with this common complaint. Decoration for a biome is a 'use' and enough of a justification. For example the kelp in the seas really improves the underwater experience.
Also of course, being a modding base, a world needs a basic variety of ores and resources to be used by mods.
I disagree here unless minetest_game is supposed to be a screen saver. As useless, I mean that there is no reason to collect or craft these items. Of course that everything can be used as decoration but what if you don't like that thing as a decoration? There are also items which do have another usage but you don't have to use them more than once, like crafting beds from wool. Some of these items can be used as fuel, yes, but why do you need to collect them for fuel if you have enough coal?
Please, note that this thread isn't about improving minetest_game. I'm talking about this here just to point out what needs to be done differently in an actual game.
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Re: New, less moddable minetest game?

by runs » Post

MTG is cool. Do imagine the same implementation in 20 separated mods from several developers? A HELL.

I.e. vessels are useless, yes, but they are the base for potions for example. Who wants to implement a bottle in each game? Me not.

Certain parts of the code could be improved to be more of an API.

PS: Minecraft has not story, well to kill the dragon hahaha.

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