What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

[M.Tester]

But that is also the problem with MineTest.
I had a lot of concernes/problems installing mods:
- Changing the name of the upzipped directory.
- Placing the directory in the correct place.

True MT has a too complex UI and doesn't utilize the mod store enough. Should be a much simpler process.

Do your kids play vanilla MineCraft or do they also use mods there?

My kids play MC on PS4 and the usability and the graphics are a lot nicer than MT.
Again, no critics, just a observasion.
Everything looks and feels the same.

So, I can only give my opinion, make a taskgroup per biome and make it all work together, make it look as if it belongs together.

[Linuxdirk]

Everything looks and feels the same.

Like Minetest worlds :( That’s another thing that Minetest is missing over Minecraft: Actually distinguishable biomes and varying world generation. In general it just looks the same wherever you go and whatever seed you use :(

[SneakySNGamer]

I think it needs more ores and mobs IN THE GAME.

[Fox]

Just more stuff to help modders. Better included structures for things like mobs and projectiles, for instance. I'm sure that's all stuff that's been brought up and likely in the plans somewhere already though. Can only work on so much at a time, I know.

I can also see the merit in making adding mods easier than it already is for those more technologically challenged. More documentation, especially along the lines of helping such folk (with starting to mod included), would also be good.

I have to say though, I can't praise Minetest enough for how easy it is to mod in comparison to Minecraft as it is. None of all that third party outside setup confusion. I don't care so much about how the base game is in comparison to Minecraft as much as the features available to modders being there so they can implement their own individual ideas more easily. And being able to play on lower-end hardware (including Chromebooks running different Linux distros), which seems to be pretty good so far. :)

Keep up the good work, devs! Same to the community's individual work, too.

[Sokomine]

My personal experience is that minecraft is more kid-friendly. Minetest is way too complicated for my 7 year old. Even after we showed him how to add mods, he adds way too many mods for the computer to handle and complains about minetest being laggy, lol. He just isn't old enough to handle the extra abilities of minetest. So he prefers to play minecraft on the consoles and begs for minecraft on the pc (which is not likely for us to get). Get the kids involved, and the parents will follow I think out of curiosity of what their kids are doing and the desire to spend time with their kids.

Perhaps an extra game for kids might help? After all, games are usually sets of mods which work together well. For small children, mobs are certainly very important. There are also mods which add very nice colorful blocks. Beautiful scenery (=rich plantlife) and blocks from the cirular saw might be less important. In general, a not too large set of diffrent blocks in cheerful colors might be best. Small children also tend to get bored easily and want to be entertained by the game, so mobs are really extremly important. A story might help, but that won't last too long. Achievements could also be useful.

[LNJ]

Everyone is talking about features and presentation, but isn't it obvious what fundamental element is lacking? Players. The biggest Minetest servers might have 15 players on at once in the best case. How many players tend to be on the biggest Minecraft servers?

biggest i've seen is 200

GommeHD.net has 15.000
Okay it's not one computer.

[Linxx]

Everyone is talking about features and presentation, but isn't it obvious what fundamental element is lacking? Players. The biggest Minetest servers might have 15 players on at once in the best case. How many players tend to be on the biggest Minecraft servers?

biggest i've seen is 200

GommeHD.net has 15.000
Okay it's not one computer.

Wow never seen that many people o.o

[MirceaKitsune]

GommeHD.net has 15.000
Okay it's not one computer.
http://i.imgur.com/dpf1Bzr.png

... 15000 people online at once on a Minecraft server? That's... wow. Minetest will sadly never have that I imagine :/

That said, I'm pretty surprised Minecraft can possibly handle such a thing. Not only because it's written in Java, but because I really can't think of any 3D multiplayer engine that can. None of the Quake engines could probably do this for instance... of course no FPS games could have those many players on a server to begin with.

[Linuxdirk]

GommeHD.net has 15.000

I wonder if the whole Minetest player community would be that many users :D

Minetest is awesome and so much better than Minecraft in many aspects but let’s be honest: Minetest still is a game for a very narrow target group.

But back to the topic: The screenshot shows what Minetest is missing over Minecraft: A sophisticated and easy to use user interface for managing different multiplayer servers.

[TriBlade9]

GommeHD.net has 15.000
Okay it's not one computer.
http://i.imgur.com/dpf1Bzr.png

... 15000 people online at once on a Minecraft server? That's... wow. Minetest will sadly never have that I imagine :/

That said, I'm pretty surprised Minecraft can possibly handle such a thing. Not only because it's written in Java, but because I really can't think of any 3D multiplayer engine that can. None of the Quake engines could probably do this for instance... of course no FPS games could have those many players on a server to begin with.

That's because it's not a single server. It's a network of servers linked using Spigot and Bungeecord. There are multiple hub servers, a master server which proxies requests to hub servers, which then proxy requests to specific game/minigame/whatever servers, while reporting the player count back to the master.
There are times when the player may have been reported as being on more than one server due to switching, so the player count is normally a little exaggerated.

[Don]

GommeHD.net has 15.000
Okay it's not one computer.
http://i.imgur.com/dpf1Bzr.png

... 15000 people online at once on a Minecraft server? That's... wow. Minetest will sadly never have that I imagine :/

That said, I'm pretty surprised Minecraft can possibly handle such a thing. Not only because it's written in Java, but because I really can't think of any 3D multiplayer engine that can. None of the Quake engines could probably do this for instance... of course no FPS games could have those many players on a server to begin with.

That's because it's not a single server. It's a network of servers linked using Spigot and Bungeecord. There are multiple hub servers, a master server which proxies requests to hub servers, which then proxy requests to specific game/minigame/whatever servers, while reporting the player count back to the master.
There are times when the player may have been reported as being on more than one server due to switching, so the player count is normally a little exaggerated.

I would love it if minetest could switch servers in game. That would require a user database that the servers would have to connect to. Maybe one day.

[Linuxdirk]

It's a network of [linked servers]. There are multiple hub servers, a master server which proxies requests to hub servers, which then proxy requests to specific game/minigame/whatever servers, while reporting the player count back to the master.

You just pointed out another thing that Minetest is still missing over Minecraft.

[philipbenr]

Yes, and I for one, would really enjoy this sort of idea. (I think I posted something like this early on)

[jojoa1997]

where items can briefly appear to disappear or be duplicated while transferring them to/from an inventory.

This isn’t only limited to playing on servers (actually the local game is a server, too … but you know what I mean). Even when playing in singleplayer moving items around is EXTREMELY laggy. On my machine it takes up to 3 seconds.

+1
This issue is confusing even for me. When you tell the computer to do something, it should do it as expected. At the very least, put an hourglass animation so you know it is "thinking".

I might be wrong, but I am pretty sure that what minetest does in singleplayer is create a server on your computer and then the client connects to that. The lag would be caused by the time it takes for signals to be sent. I have had it where playing on a server (on the same router) was faster than singleplayer because all the calculations were not done by my computer.

[Calinou]

I might be wrong, but I am pretty sure that what minetest does in singleplayer is create a server on your computer and then the client connects to that. The lag would be caused by the time it takes for signals to be sent. I have had it where playing on a server (on the same router) was faster than singleplayer because all the calculations were not done by my computer.

Sending signals is very quick (1-25 ms depending on your PC), it's definitely not a problem. Minecraft also uses a local server system.

[Linuxdirk]

Sending signals is very quick (1-25 ms depending on your PC), it's definitely not a problem. Minecraft also uses a local server system.

Then why is inventory management so horribly slow in Minetest that there is a delay up to three seconds even in single player?

[Joz]

Then why is inventory management so horribly slow in Minetest that there is a delay up to three seconds even in single player?

Have you tried to tune the minetest.conf or another map backend?
I set up a (private) server on hardware which is as good as smartphones and it runs pleasantly smooth with mobs and there are no inventory lags.

[Gael de Sailly]

Everything looks and feels the same.

Like Minetest worlds :( That’s another thing that Minetest is missing over Minecraft: Actually distinguishable biomes and varying world generation. In general it just looks the same wherever you go and whatever seed you use :(

I agree. Mapgen v6 is disappointing, boring. v5 was slightly better.
But the mapgen has an enormous potential. I'm working on a mapgen which aims to be as various as possible.

I don't like to compare MT and MC. The 2 projects should separate themselves. Even if they are both in cubes, we can create something very different. Imitating Minecraft simply shows a lack of imagination.

In fact, Minetest is not really a game, but a game engine, for which we can make various subgames.
This topic is particulary interesting : viewtopic.php?f=3&t=10885.

[Casimir]

I agree. Mapgen v6 is disappointing, boring.

v6 is awesome, if you have the right settings. What is boring are the default settings.

[Gael de Sailly]

v6 is awesome, if you have the right settings. What is boring are the default settings.

1. I've tried to tweak the settings. Yes, it can be better than default ones. But I simply don't like v6. Everybody has his opinions...
2. We aren't all nerds. Numerous users don't know how to change noiseparams, and don't want to change code lines in minetest.conf. That's why the mapgen should be good itself, and for people who desire to change mapgen we can work on a GUI with simple text fields, checkboxes and buttons like "Mountains size : 20~200", "Enable jungles", "Slopes : 0.2~5 (1 is default)", etc.
3. There's a problem at the chunk junction at y = 47, you see ugly cleavages. I'm sure it's because of this problem than terrain don't go up to 40 nodes in default settings, and that's really boring.

[Don]

v6 is awesome, if you have the right settings. What is boring are the default settings.

1. I've tried to tweak the settings. Yes, it can be better than default ones. But I simply don't like v6. Everybody has his opinions...
2. We aren't all nerds. Numerous users don't know how to change noiseparams, and don't want to change code lines in minetest.conf. That's why the mapgen should be good itself, and for people who desire to change mapgen we can work on a GUI with simple text fields, checkboxes and buttons like "Mountains size : 20~200", "Enable jungles", "Slopes : 0.2~5 (1 is default)", etc.
3. There's a problem at the chunk junction at y = 47, you see ugly cleavages. I'm sure it's because of this problem than terrain don't go up to 40 nodes in default settings, and that's really boring.

I agree that we are not all nerds. Regular users should not have to touch the code. It should be done in a GUI like you say or have the code set to the best possible way to start with. Most kids and many adults wouldn't know how to change anything in minetest.conf.

[Linuxdirk]

I don't like to compare MT and MC. The 2 projects should separate themselves. Even if they are both in cubes, we can create something very different.

Creating something different is the point here. Something different like different biomes that actually look unique and different would be a nice thing to start with. :) (I with I could help with coding)

[davedevils]

I Love minecraft ...

But i love minetest for make all other mod !

I have begin to look if make minecraft in minetest is possible :
viewtopic.php?f=50&t=11467

[Rochambeau]

I agree. Mapgen v6 is disappointing, boring.

v6 is awesome, if you have the right settings. What is boring are the default settings.

Could you please share your settings with us? I'm still looking for the best minetest mapgen.

[philipbenr]

mgv6_spflags = jungles, mudflow
mgv6_np_terrain_base = -4, 30, (750, 750, 750), 82341, 6, 0.65
mgv6_np_terrain_higher = 10, 64, (750, 750, 750), 85039, 8, 0.6
mgv6_freq_desert = 0.65
mgv6_freq_beach = 0.25
mgv6_np_steepness = 0.70, 0.2, (60, 60, 60), -932, 5, 0.8

These would be the settings I use.