What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

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MirceaKitsune
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by MirceaKitsune » Post

Inocudom wrote:This is a sad fate for Mojang to face, even though they clearly have their flaws. Hopefully, open-source games will not share that fate.
Minetest is GPL, meaning it can't be close-sourced. Some people are apparently trying to sell closed copies for Android illegally, but that's as far as the danger goes for Minetest.

Other voxel engines which aren't licensed under GPL however, could decide to go close-source at some point. But even if that happens, the communities of those engines would fork from the last available source code... so that wouldn't totally kill the project either.

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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by spamyak » Post

I'd like to elaborate on my earlier comments.

I still say the UI is really, really off in this game. Minecraft had a fairly nice UI before even indev. But this game, I don't know.

What's with this overlap?
Image

The number of things wrong with this picture (my modified faithful texture pack) is insane. Bad scaling, overlapping hearts, hearts not aligned in any sensible way, and the fact had to remove the sections in between the blocks because they're not far enough apart.
Image

Or how about the weird UI stretching it does?
Image vs Image

The fact that texture packs do not edit the font, the buttons, or the item backgrounds is kind of frustrating as well.

Also as a former Minecraft server owner, the multiplayer drives me insane. There is no player list. There are no colors in chat. There is no scrolling in chat. In fact, the chat is sort of pushed off to the side with a small font like a second-class citizen. That is so backwards, where chat in Minecraft takes a front seat to the rest of the game because it is a large and important part of every server.

Let's use a server I used to frequent as an example.

Image
What is the very first thing you see in this picture? The chat. It is large. It is readable. It contains important information. It looks nice. Take note of the well-positioned, texturable UI elements. Take note of the clickable links and the chat colors.

Image
This is a player list. When you press [TAB] you can see who is online, some useful information for talking to people on the server with the aforementioned chat.

Image
This is a popular Minetest server. There is no player list. The chat is small and hard to read. It contains no important information for the most part, that is all in the MOTD box which is also small and hard to read. There are no colors or formatting. There are no clickable links. The UI elements are, in fact, looking slightly nicer thanks to a mod, but the main problems still remain.

I can't even begin to set up the server the way I would a Minecraft server without multiple worlds, customizable and large colored chat (actually important), block logging and rollback plugins, and a good selection of other plugins. Of course, some of that comes with the maturity of the game and community.

I really hate to shit all over this game. I love the idea, I love the moddability. I have nothing against the devs of this game, in fact I am amazed that someone is in fact able to make a game this cool open source. 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.

I think what this game really needs is an art guy. Some better textures, better lightmaps, music, and overall better UI would make the game infinitely more enjoyable.

Sorry for the long-winded rant post. I didn't mean to come off as an asshole, I just wanted to point some things out that I would totally fix myself I knew how to code well.

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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by Sokomine » Post

spamyak wrote: Or how about the weird UI stretching it does?
You're right, that is a problem. Especially regarding formspecs. Has annoyed me several times as well.
spamyak wrote: The fact that texture packs do not edit the font, the buttons, or the item backgrounds is kind of frustrating as well.
Lately, there was support added for textureable background in quite a lot of menus (chests etc). That may not be much, but perhaps it's at least the direction you'd like it to go?
spamyak wrote: Also as a former Minecraft server owner, the multiplayer drives me insane. There is no player list.
You can get a player list when typing "/status" in the chat. It will show you the line you get upon connection - with all names in one or two lines. There was a patch out there that allowed to call up that list when pressing TAB (afaik written by sfan5), and there is a mod somewhere that gives a nice player list as a formspec, though I don't remember the name of that mod.
spamyak wrote: There are no colors in chat.
There is a mod out there that tries to create a chat like you want it to be. It's called kmchat.
spamyak wrote: There is no scrolling in chat. In fact, the chat is sort of pushed off to the side with a small font like a second-class citizen.
Press F10. Then you'll get a chat window where you can scroll around. It's not colored and not larger than before, but at least scrolling is possible. The font size can be changed for the entire game, i.e.:

Code: Select all

font_path = fonts/liberationsans.ttf
font_size = 18
mono_font_path = fonts/liberationmono.ttf
mono_font_size = 18
spamyak wrote: That is so backwards, where chat in Minecraft takes a front seat to the rest of the game because it is a large and important part of every server.
You're right. At least there's no need to type "<" or ">" after 60 chars or so as it was in MC classic. But a better chat would definitely be good.
spamyak wrote: I can't even begin to set up the server the way I would a Minecraft server without multiple worlds,
Multiple worlds are not possible, but you can stack worlds on each other. There's a lot of space up and down!
spamyak wrote: customizable and large colored chat (actually important),
Most things are customizable. Might just be a bit more work :-)
spamyak wrote: block logging and rollback plugins,
You can increase the log level, although changes done by players ought to be logged automaticly anyway. As for rollback, the relevant commands are

Code: Select all

/help rollback_check
(Yes, a very few commands even come with help texts :-) (Most don't.))
spamyak wrote: I think what this game really needs is an art guy. Some better textures, better lightmaps, music, and overall better UI would make the game infinitely more enjoyable.
Better art would certainly be welcome. There don't seem to be too many of these guys around.
spamyak wrote: Sorry for the long-winded rant post. I didn't mean to come off as an asshole, I just wanted to point some things out that I would totally fix myself I knew how to code well.
The points you mentioned seem justified. Perhaps my hints will help you a bit, although that won't be enough to recreate the feeling you're accustomed to. Most things can be changed with either mods or patches to the engine/client. It might be a lot of work.
A list of my mods can be found here.

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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by jojoa1997 » Post

A topic for
What's Minecraft still missing over Minetest?
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by hoodedice » Post

spamyak wrote:I'd like to elaborate on my earlier comments.

I still say the UI is really, really off in this game. Minecraft had a fairly nice UI before even indev. But this game, I don't know.

What's with this overlap?
Image

The number of things wrong with this picture (my modified faithful texture pack) is insane. Bad scaling, overlapping hearts, hearts not aligned in any sensible way, and the fact had to remove the sections in between the blocks because they're not far enough apart.
Image
I think https://github.com/minetest/minetest/bl ... i.txt#L540 might be the fix to that problem. You might need to define certain offsets in the mod thing for your HUD.

I've been away from minetest for a bit, so my modding skills are a bit rusty again, so I can't help you there. But if you pop into an IRC and ask around, I guess someone there might help you out
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7:42 PM - Bauglio: so fudge the stable build
7:43 PM - Bauglio: get the staple build

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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by SAMIAMNOT » Post

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.
I test mines.

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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by Achilles » Post

SAMIAMNOT wrote: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...
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by SAMIAMNOT » Post

Achilles wrote:
SAMIAMNOT wrote: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.
I test mines.

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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by diadem » Post

As someone who was using Minecraft since Alpha and just tried Minetest for the first time a couple days ago the answer is a bit more subtle.

It was easy to download mods to make the game mostly "feel" to have the same features, but once I entered a couple worlds there was an obvious isue.

The first thing I noticed was the Biomes. They just don't look and feel as vibrant as Minecraft's biomes. The procedural world generation needs some tweaks.

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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by lstep » Post

SAMIAMNOT wrote: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.
About unpolishness, even before getting to the menu, there is the title of the engine itself : MineTEST. First when I heard about the project, I tought it was just a small experiment (like the python version of minecraft) because of the name. Was it a "test" for something?

Maybe changing the name would be adding some more seriousness to the project?

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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by Rain » Post

SAMIAMNOT wrote: The inventory menu is very laggy.
Yes. And this is annoying as hell!

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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by onpon4 » Post

lstep wrote:About unpolishness, even before getting to the menu, there is the title of the engine itself : MineTEST. First when I heard about the project, I tought it was just a small experiment (like the python version of minecraft) because of the name. Was it a "test" for something?

Maybe changing the name would be adding some more seriousness to the project?
I'm in complete agreement with this, and I've said this before. I ignored Minetest the first time I heard of it for exactly the same reason. The only reason I even thought to try it at all was some FSF post called it a Minecraft replacement.

I think the idea of the name "Minetest" was in the belief that "test" means "challenge", which is technically true, but it's not the meaning I tend to think of, especially in the context of software.

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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by Rain » Post

lstep wrote: About unpolishness, even before getting to the menu, there is the title of the engine itself : MineTEST. First when I heard about the project, I tought it was just a small experiment (like the python version of minecraft) because of the name. Was it a "test" for something?

Maybe changing the name would be adding some more seriousness to the project?
I think you are right. Sounds like the developer wanted to try if he could make a simple minecraft clone and he needed a name because the IDE asked for one.

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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by jojoa1997 » Post

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.
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by rubenwardy » Post

The brand and game of Minetest needs to become more testy and science-y. I am not sure how. Any suggestions?
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by george » Post

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:
spamyak wrote: 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.
Image

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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by hoodedice » Post

george wrote: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:
spamyak wrote: 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.
Image

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 =)
Last edited by hoodedice on Thu Sep 18, 2014 18:44, edited 1 time in total.
7:42 PM - Bauglio: I think if you go to staples you could steal firmware from a fax machine that would run better than win10 does on any platform
7:42 PM - Bauglio: so fudge the stable build
7:43 PM - Bauglio: get the staple build

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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by Achilles » Post

SAMIAMNOT wrote:
Achilles wrote:
SAMIAMNOT wrote: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?

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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by george » Post

hoodedice wrote: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.

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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by hoodedice » Post

I thought you forked the project. Sorry for misunderstanding
7:42 PM - Bauglio: I think if you go to staples you could steal firmware from a fax machine that would run better than win10 does on any platform
7:42 PM - Bauglio: so fudge the stable build
7:43 PM - Bauglio: get the staple build

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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by george » Post

hoodedice wrote:I thought you forked the project. Sorry for misunderstanding
No problem :)

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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by Azvael » Post

jojoa1997 wrote: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.

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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by Rain » Post

Azvael wrote:
jojoa1997 wrote:They can call it "Happy Fun Dig Time", and I'd still play it.
I really like that name!

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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by Azvael » Post

spamyak wrote: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.

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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by SAMIAMNOT » Post

Rain wrote:
SAMIAMNOT wrote: 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?
I test mines.

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