What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by benrob0329 » Post

@shaalazin I understand what your saying, but I disagree. The fact that Minetest is built around being customized is what I like the most. You want mobs? Add Mobs_Redo. You want hunger? Add viewtopic.php?f=11&t=14182 or viewtopic.php?f=11&t=11336 .

EDIT: Most Minetest YouTube videos are very old, a lot has been added in recent vertions.

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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by shaalazin » Post

burli wrote:Well, first of all, Minetest is developed by voluntary in their spare time. They don't get payed. I could say: for all that Money Minecraft should be a lot further than that.
I agree, for all Minecraft is paid; they should be a lot further along than they are.

That was my other point I made. I realize Minetest is made by volunteers for free. That's the problem. Too many failed Free Software projects go nowhere because they are only made by volunteers in their free time.

The successful Free Software projects are the ones that get funding. Because they can afford to pay people to work on the software. Firefox, the Linux Kernel, so on all have major donors that facilitate software development.

This project itself, or maybe a single team of people as their own project, should run a kickstarter or go fund me or something and actually set goals, set a time frame, raise funds, hire people, and meet goals for the purpose of actually making games. If Minetest itself doesn't want to focus on making a game, and instead just focus on the engine, then someone else who knows how to should raise money and focus on the game.
burli wrote:Second: Minetest is a game engine and Minetest Game is only the minimum to have something to play. This is by intention. To make a real game is part of the community and there are a lot of so called subgames out there
Well, that's my entire point. This thread's title asks what Minetest is still missing over Minecraft.

Minetest is missing an entire game over Minecraft; because Minecraft has a very full and detailed game and Minetest, in your own words, "is only the minimum to have something to play."

A game itself is what Minetest is missing. An engine does not a game make. Just like a kernel does not an operating system make. Just like the DOOM engine wouldn't be anything if it didn't have a wad file, a game to play.

Minetest is like the DOOM engine without a wad file. Or, if the DOOM engine had a 1 level wad file to practice jumping and shooting in. There is no real game. The title of the thread is asking me to compare Minecraft and Minetest, as if two are finished pieces of software, and declare what Minecraft makes billions and why Minetest is basically unknown by comparison. The answer is easy. Because Minecraft is an engine and a game and Minetest is just an engine without a game.

The engine is great. Again, I don't knock that at all. Honestly, you guys have made an amazing engine. It blows away everything else I've seen in other GPL Voxel engines (in terms of variety of what you can do with it.) Yet, it's still missing a game. It's an engine without a game. That really won't go anywhere in the long run.

If Minetest is to become popular and go somewhere, it needs an actual game built on its engine that a lot of people will actually want to play. You've made a great proof of concept with the engine itself. If only the idea of creating a game for this engine could be sold to the Internet as a GPL respecting and easily modifiable, alternative to Minecraft on some crowd funding site. Then a real game, a complete package, could take shape and really go somewhere.

It's sad because there is really so much potential here. More potential here than with any of the other voxel engines. If people want to mod it and go off and do their own thing, that's cool too. But, there should be a comparable Vanilla game to Minecraft. Especially, as you have said, it's not like Minecraft itself is as far along as it could and should be either. Which means playing catch up should be even easier.

Minecraft is a simple game that is underdeveloped considered its time in development and massive funding. Taking something like Minetest or Voxelands to a point where it could dethrone Minecraft in terms of both mod-ability and content shouldn't be that big of a challenge. Yet, here we are.

If there was ever one popular video game, that is one of if not the best selling of all video games (depending on how you count things) it's Minecraft. Yet, it's so simple that people should be able to do a GPL knock off. If there was any one game where the Free Software community really had the opportunity to dethrone a billion dollar game the way Firefox dethroned IE in terms of usability; it was Minecraft. We're not talking AAA graphics. We're talking pixel-textured blocks.

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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by rubenwardy » Post

You underestimate how complicated Minecraft/Minetest is, simple gameplay does not mean simple to make. Especially when you have a generic modding API, more options means more complexity. Yes, not being an AAA game means we save on modeling, shader design and post effects, but it does not necessarily mean that we save on programming
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by TumeniNodes » Post

My thoughts are that an attempt to approach Cononical and Ubuntu for development backing would not be a bad idea. If they say yes, it's a huge gain. If they said no, it is not a failure nor a horrible thing, Minetest will simply go on as it has (which is truly not a bad thing).
Falling under the Ubuntu / Canonical wings would bring more devs, more experience, funding, etc., etc. It would also gain in popularity under these two names.
With the popularity Minetest carries in the GPL community as it is right now, I do not see it as impossible that Canonical / Ubuntu might agree that Minetest is worth adding to it's project list. So, just something to think on.

This is just my own opinion. And in the end, the decisions are for the creator of Minetest, and our awesome devs who have kept it rolling and advancing.
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by rubenwardy » Post

Libre games just don't get the same backing as libre software. Big companies won't feel the need to sponsor Minetest as much as they feel the need to sponsor say Linux or LibreOffice. So the only way to get money for Minetest to use for developers is through donations, bounties, crowd funding drives, merchandise, advertising, or selling the game. All with varying levels of effectiveness and moral value.
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by TumeniNodes » Post

rubenwardy wrote:Libre games just don't get the same backing as libre software. Big companies won't feel the need to sponsor Minetest as much as they feel the need to sponsor say Linux or LibreOffice. So the only way to get money for Minetest to use for developers is through donations, bounties, crowd funding drives, merchandise, advertising, or selling the game. All with varying levels of effectiveness and moral value.
Well..., we could always put a press-gang together :D
"Oh, so you're a software engineer???" ..... "BONK!" "Now you work for Minetest." :P

I do get what you're saying though.
And just for the record... I like Minetest the way it is. But my view is from purely the creative/building stance... not the gaming.
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by everamzah » Post

shaalazin: Minetest doesn't have dirt or nyan cats. It has a main menu. I highly doubt you'll find a 5 minute YouTube video demonstrating all of its features.

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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by TumeniNodes » Post

I would have added this to my above post as an edit. But I think this may get overlooked if done that way.

What is the purpose of a "game"? = to win.
But if a game has only one specific objective, and the player wins... well, "what now?"

They key is to keep the game "rolling"..., keep adding objectives.
If the main objective is merely to stay alive well..., people do this on a daily basis in real life... as a game objective this can grow boring.

If I were able to build a game, it might start off with following clues to find an object / treasure which, once won, is needed to reach the next objective... and so on. Each stage / objective needs to be a bit more challenging than the last.
But, keeping it rolling as a game with no literal "end" is what keeps players interested... as long as they know there is a next stage, or will soon be one will keep them waiting and anxious...
Creating a good game, is similar to creating a good movie franchise... it requires good writing, good creativity, some collaboration... Of course there can be unlimited "side" attractions (i.e.)community built- mods, texture packs, other subgames, etc...
In "game" mode with Minetest... there should be rewards for objectives such as gathering food, successfully building a shelter...., but then what? Exploration points, achievements.... Bells & whistles when these steps are achieved would add A LOT to the game play..., especially for the younger crowds
Anyway, I'm rambling as I always do...
But just to add, my daughter has Minecraft and she uses Minetest far more often, as do her friends now whom she has shown Minetest.

*edit:
I can see what shaalazin is saying, regarding "what is missing"
What is missing is... while there is a dev team, related to the engine itself. Minetest is missing...
A "game team" a small group of contributors who write the script/ideas for the game, then work with the engine team to figure out what can and what cannot happen.
A small graphics team (related to the game itself)
A small mod team (related to the game itself, as well)

And it is very apparent that this community has enough active members who may be able to fill these ranks, and produce something more "content" full to the vanilla game than Minecraft has.
Minecraft puts out the most absolute little required to maintain it's status. Little effort = big $profit$, simply because it just happened to hit that perfect, sweet-spot "right place, right time" scenario in life.
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by Robsoie » Post

I'm no developer, i'm only a player, i often play Minetest with my young nephew.

When it comes to "creative" mode i help him build whatever ideas he has, and i found that minetest_game is entirely sufficient from what i experienced, we had a lot of fun building things, some mods like boost_cart achieved to increase the level of enjoyement with various cart tracks all over our landscapes and around buildings.

Now along "creative" we have some non-creative worlds with the damage enabled and creative turned off, basically what's more known as "survival" mode, so it matters to find materials and craft usefull things for making more fun stuff and have some challenge.

Unfortunately i quickly saw the limitation of minetest_game : there's no threat to survival at all, there's no need to farm or collect food or water, it's basically creative mode without access to all the blocks and with the only damage being to fall from too high (or in magma i guess)
Basically for "survival" mode minetest_game is not good.

Fortunately that's where mods came great to tailor the lacking minetest_game into a more interesting "survival mode" :
- mobs for getting a threat and justifying building for protection and making some fun scare situation or collecting sheep wool
- dungeon loot to actually give an interest in going into those empty useless dungeons
- mods like ethereal that give more amazing biomes to make exploration more interesting o
- mods like nether or fun caves to increase what to explore

Maybe that's what is lacking from Minetest official releases : a Survival mode that is actually a survival mode, as minetest_game as a Creative mode is really good, but to get a decent survival mode you have to hunt for mods

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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by shaalazin » Post

TumeniNodes wrote: I can see what shaalazin is saying, regarding "what is missing"
What is missing is... while there is a dev team, related to the engine itself. Minetest is missing...
A "game team" a small group of contributors who write the script/ideas for the game, then work with the engine team to figure out what can and what cannot happen.
A small graphics team (related to the game itself)
A small mod team (related to the game itself, as well)

And it is very apparent that this community has enough active members who may be able to fill these ranks, and produce something more "content" full to the vanilla game than Minecraft has.
Minecraft puts out the most absolute little required to maintain it's status. Little effort = big $profit$, simply because it just happened to hit that perfect, sweet-spot "right place, right time" scenario in life.
What you outlined here is exactly what I think Minetest Game would benefit from. Someone to be appointed/voted in charge of art design. Some to be appointed/voted to be in charge of game ideas. Like you said, the talent is here. If the idea doesn't fit, the team could talk about it. If the team leader says no, nothing is stopping the other person from making their own independent mods. I don't want to stop independent modding. But what the engine is lacking is a content-filled vanilla game that inspired people to want to mod on top of it; which is what Minecraft has.

People want a game (one giant combined modpack that comes with the game) that gives them a vanilla experience. Lots of blocks. Lots of mobs. Lots of things to craft. People could always have the option of turning off the individual mod packs that provide these things. But basic stuff like this should be included, and be coordinated with the same level of quality in code and same art and sound design.

There should be a heart to the game, that others are inspired to mod further. Rather than an engine, dirt blocks, and everything else from armor to mobs is expected to come in piece mill by the community.

There is no reason the mods can't come from the community. But there should be a community driven effort to organize a vanilla heart to the game. Like you said, the talent is in the Free Software Community to do this. I think what is needed is an project structure organizational team, and perhaps some funding to hire people to do what the community doesn't tackle head on itself. Getting with Ubuntu could help. I see no ethical problems, so long as the license stays libre.

Maybe do a realistic kick starter each years with both goals and stretch goals. Year one could focus on mobs and more block types. Year two could focus on biome variety. Year three could focus on combat system/armor crafting. The more money you donate, the more types of shields, swords, and armor we can pay our artists to make for you. Year four could be more flora. More trees, more plants, a lot of stuff that can be farmed. All the new additions can come as mods that can be enable and disabled, at least as much as possible.

But, the art team can coordinate to make sure that the graphics all look like they belong to a theme. You don't have to make Minecraft again. You can give the game its own feel. But, give the engine a game.

I'm not against the animal mod, I know was I kind of harsh on it. But it proves a point. What is the art style? Is it realistic? Is it blocky? Is it sci-fi? Is it mid evil? There should be a vanilla game that has a theme, an art style, and feature goals.

If people want to mod on top of that, or just take the Minetest engine and mod another way entirely. That's cool too.

But I think the reason Minetest isn't pushing Minecraft off its throne is because, like you said, Minecraft puts in minimum effort. It came in at the right place at the right time. When I tell a friend about Minecraft, then can download and install an actual game and play it with me.

We don't have to sift through a list of external mods that no central team of people are maintaining to work in tandem with the newer versions of the engine. Cobbling together pieces in hopes of getting something close to a working game. There should be a working game there, or a least the heart of one. Not just a couple blocks for the deb team to test the engine out with.

It looks like Voxelands is going this route. But, they chose to abandon ship and work on the old engine. I actually think that this is a bad idea. The new engine makes modding easier. That will allow for a content creation team to be able to implement a vanilla game easier. I have to say that I respect that Dark Rose chose to take an engine that was there and work on making a game around it. But, I have to say that it seems like an odd decision to leave the team, fork the engine, and then make content for the forked version of the obsolete engine that will be harder for people to create content for. It seems to me that making a content creation team on this message board that works with the engine devs would be the most direct way to create a vanilla game; rather than splitting off.

Also, again, allying with Ubuntu or crowd funding would be a great way to help pay some devs so that they can spend more time on the game side of things.

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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by shaalazin » Post

Robsoie wrote:Maybe that's what is lacking from Minetest official releases : a Survival mode that is actually a survival mode, as minetest_game as a Creative mode is really good, but to get a decent survival mode you have to hunt for mods
That was my experience with the game. I prefer survival, because it makes me have to hunt for resources and build small things first and then bigger things. Creative is fun building blocks. That's cool, but it was never my cup of tea. I always played Minecraft for survival.

When I got onto Minetest, I knew it was made by volunteers and didn't expect it to match Minecraft in terms of content. But, I did expect it to have content. What I realized, like you said, is you have to mod hunt. And, when I tried, half the mods I wanted to play with didn't open up or work in the newest version. So, now I have to mod hunt and version match just to get a decent survival mode running. That's a lot of work to put into the game for new players when Minecraft has this working the moment you run the game.

Minetest needs that too. I know as much content as Minecraft has doesn't plop down out of the sky overnight. But basic things like food and attacking mobs like Zombies should have been mod packs officially integrated into the vanilla game and maintained to keep working with the newest engine versions years ago; not something kinda maintained by someone as a fun side project.

The best mods we have need to all be brought up to date to work with the newest engine. Licenses have to be checked to make sure that they can legally be integrated into the vanilla project. Then, the art styles need to be agreed upon. If something works, keep it. If not, try to see if the original creator will modify the graphics to fit the agreed upon art style. If not, get a volunteer/hire someone who does know graphics to get in there and do the modification to the mod so that the mod going in to the vanilla game mod pack has an agreed upon graphic design.

These should be the first course of action of the vanilla project. Sift through the mod community, pick out the best mods, and work on getting a vanilla mod back base put together out of that. Then, start to expand off from that base.

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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by shaalazin » Post

shaalazin wrote:
Robsoie wrote:Maybe that's what is lacking from Minetest official releases : a Survival mode that is actually a survival mode, as minetest_game as a Creative mode is really good, but to get a decent survival mode you have to hunt for mods
That was my experience with the game. I prefer survival, because it makes me have to hunt for resources and build small things first and then bigger things. Creative is fun building blocks. That's cool, but it was never my cup of tea. I always played Minecraft for survival.

When I got onto Minetest, I knew it was made by volunteers and didn't expect it to match Minecraft in terms of content. But, I did expect it to have content. What I realized, like you said, is you have to mod hunt. And, when I tried, half the mods I wanted to play with didn't open up or work in the newest version. So, now I have to mod hunt and version match just to get a decent survival mode running. That's a lot of work to put into the game for new players when Minecraft has this working the moment you run the game.

Minetest needs that too. I know as much content as Minecraft has doesn't plop down out of the sky overnight. But basic things like food and attacking mobs like Zombies should have been mod packs officially integrated into the vanilla game and maintained to keep working with the newest engine versions years ago; not something kinda maintained by someone as a fun side project.

The best mods we have need to all be brought up to date to work with the newest engine. Licenses have to be checked to make sure that they can legally be integrated into the vanilla project. Then, the art styles need to be agreed upon. If something works, keep it. If not, try to see if the original creator will modify the graphics to fit the agreed upon art style. If not, get a volunteer/hire someone who does know graphics to get in there and do the modification to the mod so that the mod going in to the vanilla game mod pack has an agreed upon graphic design.

This should be the first course of action of the vanilla project. Sift through the mod community, pick out the best mods, and work on getting a vanilla mod pack base put together out of that. Then, start to expand off from that base.
Last edited by shaalazin on Mon Jul 11, 2016 20:58, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by burli » Post

Robsoie wrote: Maybe that's what is lacking from Minetest official releases : a Survival mode that is actually a survival mode, as minetest_game as a Creative mode is really good, but to get a decent survival mode you have to hunt for mods
That's why I'm working on a new mob mod.

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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by rubenwardy » Post

shaalazin wrote:And, when I tried, half the mods I wanted to play with didn't open up or work in the newest version. So, now I have to mod hunt and version match just to get a decent survival mode running.
Please may you list the mods?
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by TumeniNodes » Post

But, it is not the job of the engine development team to do all of this, they have more than enough workload as it is.
This is where "community" comes into play. This is a really great way for community to step up and repay them (in some way) for all of their hard work, long hours, etc..
Would be for some to start talking about this, and hopefully a small team could be put together of individuals who are experienced with putting a "game" together..., and then to contact the engine dev team to figure out where best to begin.
In the short time I have been here, I see quite a few very talented pixel artists, and mod'ers, as well as some who could be valuable to the specific Minetest_Game.
In short, it is only something which has the ability to become reality "if" there were enough individuals to act upon the idea.
Do not misunderstand..., as far as I know..., the "Minetest_Game" was created solely as an example... of what the engine was capable of, as well as to test the engine... the engine is the main focus here (which is stated from the beginning), and welcomes people to mod and create their own games from it. Though most seem to be stuck on the example product, and keeping to the namesake. Not an insult, purely an observation.
I think shaalazin, this is where you may be a little confused?
And, I honestly do not believe the focus among many here, is to "de-throne" Minecraft.., or even to be it's identical, long lost twin either.
Minecraft has the power of basically now, unlimited funds to pump into development, which also returns 10x back from as little effort as possible. So, when one compares the two on those terms alone..., vanilla Minecraft to vanilla Minetest..., not really that much of a difference, aside from the fact I feel Minetest is far more visually appealing and does not look like a blast from 1980's Atari user interface. When I saw what I shelled out $30 for for my kid, and then looked at Minetest..., I felt.... like I was kinda scammed, or cheated.
"If" a couple of teams were to get together, to combine their efforts toward Minetest_Game, solely..., I honestly think it would literally blow MC a stunning blow.
But, if it ever were, that Minetest..., a "free, opensource" game began to chip into MC profits..., there would likely be trouble to follow. MS lawyers would begin to examine, and nitpick every single aspect to see what they could spin as theft, infringment, etc... So whatever would come from such focused effort would have to concentrate also on originality.
Minetest is not meant to be "Minecraft"...
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by rubenwardy » Post

I brought up the idea of splitting Minetest Game in two, and creating a better vanilla game, in the development channgel: http://irc.minetest.ru/minetest-dev/201 ... #i_4648012

1 game to be a base for modding, called Minetest Foundation or Minetest Base
1 game to rule them all. To have real, good gameplay

Paramat, currently the most active MTG dev approves
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by TumeniNodes » Post

rubenwardy wrote:I brought up the idea of splitting Minetest Game in two, and creating a better vanilla game, in the development channgel: http://irc.minetest.ru/minetest-dev/201 ... #i_4648012

1 game to be a base for modding, called Minetest Foundation or Minetest Base
1 game to rule them all. To have real, good gameplay

Paramat, currently the most active MTG dev approves
Sounds great... but, just a matter of enough people getting together to work on it..., and then how long their interest or availability holds up..
What would be nice to see, is maybe a couple of members who are working on their own subgames, to try working together towards your idea and, not "setting their subgames aside" but rather collaborating toward a more productive goal.
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by shaalazin » Post

I could maybe try to help. I don't know anything about programming, but I do some graphic editing with GIMP from time to time. Maybe I could help with graphics on some level. I don't know.

I've never been able to learn programming. How hard is it to learn?

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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by Sokomine » Post

cy wrote: Less ugly, useless junk. Mostly this is a server admin choice thing, but there are a lot of useless, ugly mods, some enabled by default. Poison ivy. Dryplants. Ferns. Molehills. Woodsoils. Young trees. (gee is this all in the plantlife modpack?) Some are downright infuriating, like "trunks" that make running past a tree impossible, and how "bamboo" can't be easily
I can agree with most of what you wrote in other parts (i.e. turning movement and animation over to the client for making it look more smoothly), but this here I can't agree with. These mods make the landscape beautiful! It's great to walk through a world that's not empty but has nature crawling all around. I love the mods you just discarded. And, by the way, they're not part of mtg either.
cy wrote: Technic. Minetest lost a ton of appeal for me when technic crashed and burned. We need more automated stuff, more chain reactions and time savers. People say if you don't want a challenge then go on a creative server, but there's something amazing about simulating that stuff and seeing your work proceed logically, instead of picking out the thing you want on a random menu.
If technic is installed, people tend to invest a lot in building up technic chains close to spawn so that they'll stay loaded and provide the player with the fruits of his/her work. Unfortionately, that's all very expensive for the server to do, and players will eventually experience lags. I was thinking about combining multiple machines into one that could stay loaded and would require less frequent and less complex updates/environment changes, but I didn't get around to that yet. You might also want to take a look at rnd's machines as those are designed to be far more server-friendly.
shaalazin wrote: But, right now, this is an engine; and nowhere near close to a game; with or without the many mods.
I'm not sure if what you consider to be a "game" is even a desirable goal for MT as a whole. People tend to have diffrent views on what they like and expect from it. Where MT is great in particular is that it's a sandbox in more than one way: You can build structures in it, you can build your own mods and thus change the world, and you can even design your own game. It's more like a canvas on which you can paint. Nobody's there to tell you that you have to do this-and-that now. You're free to do what you like.
shaalazin wrote: 1: Game should have graphics and sounds all made by a dedicated team of people. That way they all share the same style. Or, at the very least, there should be some sort of content guidelines imposed on mods; if you're going to depend on modders to build the game aspect for you.
Textures that fit together are a valid point. But then, there aren't that many artists around. Maybe developing a texture pack that encompasses all the mods that ought to be included in what you call a game could help here.
shaalazin wrote: There is absolutely no reason why you shouldn't have just as many or more mobs, blocks, block types, horses, biomes, and everything else as Minecraft does by now.
There's a vast amount of mods out there. Larger servers tend to have thousands of blocks in many shapes. But, again: You have to pick yourshelf that what you like to play with. Or join a server where the server owner made a choice as to which mods ought to make up his/her world.
shaalazin wrote: If Minetest is to become popular and go somewhere, it needs an actual game built on its engine that a lot of people will actually want to play. You've made a great proof of concept with the engine itself. If only the idea of creating a game for this engine could be sold to the Internet as a GPL respecting and easily modifiable, alternative to Minecraft on some crowd funding site. Then a real game, a complete package, could take shape and really go somewhere.
Hm, so perhaps focussing on putting up a game based on survival might be something helping a lot of players. We don't need to take builders by the hand - they're creative people and don't need a story telling them what to do next. They will need some tools (unified_inventory, screwdriver, my replacer mod, WorldEdit, ..) to work with, but that's it. Surivival, on the other hand, really needs extended food source mods (more farming), hostile mobs, drowning, hunger, achievement system, armour, skills...come to think of it, AdventureTest gets pretty close to that, although it's not easy to survive there.
Robsoie wrote: Maybe that's what is lacking from Minetest official releases : a Survival mode that is actually a survival mode, as minetest_game as a Creative mode is really good, but to get a decent survival mode you have to hunt for mods
I think you're right at that. Something pre-packed, easy-to-grab for those that want a survival experience and some guidance as to what to do next.
shaalazin wrote: And, when I tried, half the mods I wanted to play with didn't open up or work in the newest version.
That's very odd. Most mods ought to work with the current engine. Which ones did you try?
rubenwardy wrote: 1 game to be a base for modding, called Minetest Foundation or Minetest Base
1 game to rule them all. To have real, good gameplay
Sounds like a plan! There really ought to be an easy-to-grab version of MT which is more focussed on survival and has some mods integrated so that new, inexperienced players don't have to hunt the forum for mods.
shaalazin wrote: I could maybe try to help. I don't know anything about programming, but I do some graphic editing with GIMP from time to time. Maybe I could help with graphics on some level. I don't know.

I've never been able to learn programming. How hard is it to learn?
Not hard for some of us. But: We do have some very impressive and useful mods already. People who know how to program do turn their ideas into mods. Why don't you focuss on that other part you've been focussing on in this thread already? That part about making graphics and design look more like it fits together? It's an important point to you - and you said you know a bit of graphics. Sounds like a volunteer to me :-)
A list of my mods can be found here.

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

by Dopium » Post

The idea for two sub-games included as default is good idea, so long as a vanilla minetest_game remains im happy. Would be a great way to expand the community and not shy away newbies as they will have a more complete game experience without having to do a thing.

I showed an old friend who used to play Minecraft all the time my sub-game thats loosely based around Minecraft but with alot of extra features and things to do, instantly they were converted! The response was "why doesn't Minecraft have all that cool stuff?". I believe we have just as much if not more however it takes the user to build their own sub-game rather then pre-packaged like Minecraft vanilla.

So yes i agree, some dont know how or too lazy or lack of understanding about mods in general. It wouldn't be a bad idea to start them off with a more complete sub-game included.

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

by DcNdrew » Post

TLDR; if there was already.
What's missing? Handling archives.
Now I'm installing a subgame. 31MB. I started to unpack it 15 minutes ago, and the Midnight Commander says it's still 30 minutes. :D

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

by DcNdrew » Post

Unpacked! :D
Doesn't work! :D
Neither in ~/.minetest/games, neither in /usr/share/minetest/games .
Now try git.

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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by rubenwardy » Post

That's a long time to unpack 30MB.


Check that you've installed it correctly: ~/.minetest/games/<subgamename>/game.conf should exist
where <subgamename> is only lower case letters (a-z) and numbers and underscores.
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DcNdrew
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by DcNdrew » Post

It is. :) But git worked.

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

by burli » Post

I played the Minecraft demo a little bit. From the mapgen side Minetest needs three things

1. More trees. Minetest has only 5 or 6 different trees, Minecraft has around 20
2. More decoration for biomes. Some biomes look too similar
3. Minetest needs more control over the terrain. Minetest just throws a few noises in a map chunk but has no idea how the terrain looks like. Minecraft always knows if there is a plain, a river, a hill or a mountain

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