What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

[benrob0329]

I think that it's making a fun game of similar concepts, but having it be original. Making it use what MC did right, but not clinging to it, or running screening from it either.

Minetest needs to be its own game, not "just because MC can or did do it, we need to". We need to look at what MC did right, and wrong. As well as make our own game mechanics and blocks, tools, etc.

I play SurvivalCraft for example, and people write really long reviews on Google Play saying what they want (it's usually everything that's in MC, or some thing like MLP...)

The point it that people want MC, because "MC is the be all and end all of games, and you NEED to be free MC!"

But we need to show that we don't have to be MC to be a great game, nor do we need to be completely different from it.

[Linuxdirk]

It's not about being Minecraft. It's about having a modding API that actually let you mod the game.

[4aiman]

BTW, during me being registered here I've heard a lot of ppl saying MC is "lame".
Few had made it to name some certain aspects of MC, though.
But the situation is much worse when it comes to telling what is *not* "lame" in MC.

So, how about discussing precisely that to determine more or less exact "bounds" of where to go to surpass MC?


What precisely MC did right/wrong in your opinion?


PS: I have a little notice to make. Please, refrain from citing articles which said something was backward-reasoned in MC. That won't add anything new to the discussion. Tell your own thoughts on the matter.

[rubenwardy]

MC is well polished, has a nice gameplay, and looks good. It has real, good mobs. The recent versions don't crash very much and have good performance.

The only thing that MC lacks is the freedom, but seeing as you can still pretty much modify any part of the game, this isn't so much of an issue. You just can't make your own game out of it and redistribute it as a package.

Let's compare screenshots





As for the world, the block edges just look more defined, IMO, I don't know. Feel free to suggest reasons as to why I think it looks better.

As for the UI, there's no shitty watermark in the topleft. The hotbar in MC is more themed (which isn't so important, but adds to style). The hearts are aligned correctly in the MC screenshot.

I do agree with you that there is a lot of dogma etc about Minecraft in this community. (Dogma is probably the wrong word; prejudice is better)

[Furikawari]

Hello all,

Just a quick thought: having to install mods to have something that starts to be interesting is not a user-friendly approach. It bothers me as a developper (to have to install mods), so I can't imagine how many people stopped after trying a few minutes... For example, no mob is just not acceptable imo.

Ok it may look selfish but I want to emphasize again what I posted earlier. Frankly I dont care about the MC stfuff, I never played MC and will probably never do. It was just the first impression of a gamer (40y old if that matters) that is also a developper, and one that use to bring floppies home to install last version of slackware and spend hours to configuring and building his new kernel.

What u want is a game and what people want is a game, not a friggin tech demo that is barely playable (just hanging around and mining is not my definition of playable, sorry). It can be a MC clone, people dont care cause IT'S FREE. It's already good (technically) and it's free, who cares about MC now? Make it interesting to play for newcomers even if it is a f***ing clone.

Last word: my 4y old daughter always ask me to play this game. She wants to see the house I build and... the animals. Yeah, I had to install a mod for this. (and there's no cats, bring cats ffs)

[rubenwardy]

It seems that developers currently want a playground for other programmers, rather than an actual game.

See Voxus, Minetest sucks for content creators and game designers.

[benrob0329]

I personally like the look of the MT textures and style over all. Though a new lighting engine would be awesome.

As to what I think "sucks" in MC, I would have to say:

The undead
Magic
Enchanting
And I don't really get the End and Nether, it's cool but I prefer caverelms

But hey, I have strong religious views so my opinion is probably an average extreme.

[Linuxdirk]

Though a new lighting engine would be awesome.

Yes. Simply setting a different brightness to textures isn’t lighting :) Since this is a comparison thread: Minecraft overhauled the lighting Engline 2013. A sunrise/sunset in Minecraft just looks awesome. In Minetest you’ll see a more or less abrupt brightness change on nodes (it’s even worse when moving and new parts of the worlds are loaded).

Even if Minecraft does not have real colored light they managed to have light with different tints. Torches are a little orange, sunsets cause a reddish tint on anything and the moonlight give a little shift to blue colors.

In Minetest it’s just a plain lighter or darker brightness on the textures.

[Calinou]

In Minetest you’ll see a more or less abrupt brightness change on nodes (it’s even worse when moving and new parts of the worlds are loaded).

This happens only with shaders disabled. With shaders enabled, the day-night transition should be entirely smooth.

Lights are also (very slightly) colored in Minetest.

[benrob0329]

I think we should take this one thing at a time, e.g. the lighting engine, if we can get that done MT will look 10x better.

And the mobs API, once we get that done MT will have GOOD mobs.

Aaand better client side prediction, then there will be less lag.

If we get things done, and done right one at a time MT will improve in a much more orderly and complete fation.

[Casimir]

Looking at the screenshots just saw two things that make MC look good: The local shadows are much stronger, making the blocks look more defined and 3-dimensional (probably what rubenwardy refereed to). The fog looks more like real fog, they do it with a little bit more darker gray, where in MT it is plain white. Together with the textures it looks quite flat, bright and has little contrasts.

And yes; all the UI things in MT are horrible to make and define.

[Linuxdirk]

In Minetest you’ll see a more or less abrupt brightness change on nodes (it’s even worse when moving and new parts of the worlds are loaded).

This happens only with shaders disabled. With shaders enabled, the day-night transition should be entirely smooth.

Then it’s broken. (Maybe by design)

Lights are also (very slightly) colored in Minetest.

Ok, where? To me it all looks the same more or less bright.

[jp]

Lights are also (very slightly) colored in Minetest.

Ok, where? To me it all looks the same more or less bright.

https://github.com/minetest/minetest/bl ... #L129-L146

[SegFault22]

The "game" as a whole is partly the "engine code" which facilitates things being added to the game and making stuff work, and partly the "stuff code" which adds stuff into the game by using the engine code.

Minecraft has some useful API features which facilitate adding a lot of stuff to the game, but it isn't possible for users to add things to the game without changing the engine code. Mod loaders like Forge have come along which makes it a lot easier to change or add stuff - but changes have to be done to the game's engine code in the process of installing Forge code, in order for most of the features to work.

Minetest has a less-developed API for adding stuff to the game, but you can add stuff by creating more stuff-adding code or changing the existing code, rather than having to modify the engine code in order to be able to add or change more stuff than is included by default.
Minetest's APIs need more development - in order to give modders more advanced options for adding stuff to the game, make existing systems for adding stuff run smother and support more advanced stuff, and make some existing systems simpler to use for certain applications. For example, adding an explosion event/ranged damage API (for triggering an explosion at a position) would be very useful for creating logical explosive nodes (such as dynamite, nukes, etc.), which deal ranged damage to entities and nodes upon detonation, while also being able to cause other ranged status effects which may be possible. Also, code for adding lots of similar items in the subgames could be simplified very significantly, by making functions that speed up creating items made of similar material, or creating many similar items.
Then, it will start to be possible to add more full-featured mods, adding lots of advanced, complex stuff without having to do too much hackish Lua implementation - like each mod with Explosives adding its own explosion system, or mods adding lots of similar items and nodes by using many separate minetest.register_item() and minetest.register_node() function calls with a lot of unnecessary duplicate code (which makes the Lua files hundreds of lines long, in some cases). That will bring Minetest closer to being over Minecraft, but it wont be more better than Minecraft until many more mods adding new stuff are created and developed.

[Linuxdirk]

Lights are also (very slightly) colored in Minetest.

Ok, where? To me it all looks the same more or less bright.

https://github.com/minetest/minetest/bl ... #L129-L146

And can we see it within the game or does it only works when resource hogging shaders are enabled?

[4aiman]

Concerning lighting

I'd say that's the "supported devices" feature.
So far there is an official Android client which can't use shaders and some low-end PCs which can't do that either.
I doubt devs would render those unsupported, so all that stuff (coloured lights) should work w/o shaders too.

Minecraft looks good even on minimal settings.
What I can't get is "why C++ code loses to the Java one"?

For example, adding an explosion event/ranged damage API (for triggering an explosion at a position) would be very useful for creating logical explosive nodes (such as dynamite, nukes, etc.)

A perfect copy of Minecraft explosions is doable in Lua right now.
There's nothing "hackish" in using Lua instead of C++ (or else we'd be forced to acknowledge that *any* Lua mod is hackish ;).
That includes blast resist and exposure-based damage calculation for entities.
If I did that using the description from the official wiki, then there are many others who also can.
The only thing you'd miss would be throwing back a player.
But that's a whole another story of where MT sucks.
(Now there IS a REALLY hacky workaround, but it's way too glitchy when playing on a laggy server.)

[Furikawari]

Because AFAIK Minecraft is built directly on top of OpenGL. And please, it's 2015, the debate C++ vs Java is really old dated now (and it's really a feature user dont give a sh** about - and in fact it's what makes Minetest LESS moddable)...

[4aiman]

The only one debating here about "C++ vs Java" is you ;)

My point is if that can be done in Java (MC uses LWJGL to be precise), then why not do that in C++?
I doubt Irrlicht can't provide us with everything needed for OGL.

The tricky part would be to make that work for different renderers (DX, OGL/ES/ES2, SW, BV)

[Furikawari]

Maybe unlike you I read a big part of this thread ;)

And yes, obviously Irrlicht must have some limitations that you won't have when using OpenGL directly (LWJGL is just a wrapper around OpenGL, not a full engine).

[rubenwardy]

resource hogging shaders are enabled?

I imagine that you use a integrated graphics card, or a simulated one - shaders take processing away from the CPU and into the GPU, so should make the game faster. However this may not be the case in Minetest, there may be implementation issues. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[jp]

And can we see it within the game or does it only works when resource hogging shaders are enabled?

That's a shader file, so only when shaders are enabled.

[4aiman]

Maybe I know better what I've read and what I haven't :)
But you're right, once this thread turned into YAMHW (yet another Minecraft holy war) I've left it and re-entered just a couple of days ago.

I still think that Irrlicht's behaviour here is strange. (It's not like I'm able to "fix" that or anything.)
IMHO, it would be so much easier if we had a single GL instead of the variety Irrlicht supply us with.
At least then there would have been a reason to use some patches for Irrlicht.

[Linuxdirk]

I imagine that you use a integrated graphics card, or a simulated one

Nope, just an older one.

And can we see it within the game or does it only works when resource hogging shaders are enabled?

That's a shader file, so only when shaders are enabled.

So I have to wait until my new computer arrives … :( Hopefully this week!

[ArguablySane]

A perfect copy of Minecraft explosions is doable in Lua right now.

Not quite. When someone lights a block of TNT in minecraft, this information is sent to the client which can then start counting down. When the timer reaches zero, there's no apparent delay because the client can make a pretty good guess of what's going to happen. The client renders an explosion effect and throws objects away from the blast almost instantly. When the next update from the server arrives, only very minor corrections will need to be made to player/entity positions and velocities, so the player won't notice.

In minetest everything is done server side. When the TNT explodes there's a slight delay between the server simulating the explosion and the client finding out about it. Depending on your ping to the server, this could become very noticeable. Also, as you say, there's no good way to simulate knock-back of the player, and I'm not aware of any way to do things like shake the screen either.

[AccidentallyRhine]

Hello all,

Just a quick thought: having to install mods to have something that starts to be interesting is not a user-friendly approach. It bothers me as a developper (to have to install mods), so I can't imagine how many people stopped after trying a few minutes... For example, no mob is just not acceptable imo.

+1

There needs to be a complete feature set which is consistent across all users by default. Why must those who want to run a vanilla game or server suffer through finding all the right mods? And let's be honest here, most mods (for any game, not just Minetest) are amature, inconsistent and at risk of falling out of being updated.