What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

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

by SAMIAMNOT » Post

Don wrote:
SAMIAMNOT wrote:True but forst time users thinking "oh this is free Minecraft" will be dissapointed because Minetest Game is boring.
It would be great if Minetest was explained better in reviews and on the main site. Even a message when you first open Minetest would be good.
Yes I completely agree.
Don wrote:...Minetest is a great game but has room for improvement. It has a great community with awesome developers. The development has been strong with no sign of slowing down. There are some great improvements and much more being worked on. A lot of people care about the project and are working hard on making it work for everyone.
This is also true. No doubt Minetest_game's "deadness" will be fixed eventually. I just dont want to wait years, although I already have mods so theres nothing for me to worry about.
To Minetest _game's credit, it's not HORRIBLE. It just doesnt have a good variety of materials and there are no zombies as an incentive to build "that first hut". I was greatly dissapointed to find that there were no zombies when I was playing for the first time.
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by rubenwardy » Post

I'm have access to minetest.net, I've been working on this description for a while:
Minetest is a blocky game engine and a game, inspired by InfiniMiner, Minecraft and the like. Minetest is about freedom - we want you to customize the game, and make your own worlds. Because of this, mods are super easy to create and install. All the content in the game comes from mods, every block, tool and item.

Minetest comes with a basic foundation set of mods called 'Minetest Game', which you can then add on top of. We call these base sets of mods "subgames", and there are many others to choose from. If you'd rather just play a complete game, you can download a subgame which contains a good set of playable content.

Minetest is available natively for Windows, Linux, Android, OS X and Free/Open BSD, and is Free and Open Source Software, released under the LGPL 2.1 or later.
I'd like feedback. (Maybe better to do via PM, I don't know, don't want to hijack this thread.
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by SAMIAMNOT » Post

Thats nice. I really like that descriptor! Maybe you should change "blocky" to "voxel" and add some links to some popular games and mods. I hope this gets added to the site. That would be great.
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by whateveralias » Post

Minetest is horribly presented. It's appalling how bad, and it's pretty obvious too. Goes to show that we software developers might have technical prowess but can't run things that take soft skills for shit (I am assuming it's people on the development team making these decisions, I might be wrong.)

I see people throwing around the old "It's a game engine, not a full game! It's about freedom! People are just not using it right! They must use the mods!". This is all nice and dandy and pretty cool actually, but the entire thing is handled hilariously badly. Here is how 99% of people are introduced to Minetest:

1) They hear about it somewhere and get interested.
2) They Google it and find the official website, which they enter.
3) They see the "Download" link on the top of the page, and click it.
4) They download the game as it is presented to them, in the form of Minecraft_game (here is how it goes wrong).
5) They realize the game is boring as hell and quickly lose interest.

The first experience people have with the game is terrible because the most likely path they will take to install the game gets them to a naked, boring game. The freedom to mod is great but presenting people with the naked game and expecting them to do the leg work to turn it into an enjoyable thing is incredibly stupid. People won't spend time reading wikis and forums to make sure they are playing the game how it's "supposed to be played". They might get into the paradigm of modding and all that shit after they got a taste of a polished, fun game, not before. I'm sure you lose thousands of potential players because of this, and worse, probably a few potential contributors to the project as well.

In my opinion, the "Download" page should be re-designed in a way that encourages the users to download a full version of the game. The very first piece of text should be a very brief and to-the-point explanation of what Minetest actually is and why they should not download the vanilla version and present them with fun alternatives. Minetest_game should be at the bottom of the page, still easily available, but only to people specifically looking for it.

Game or game engine, call it whatever you want, it's ultimately a piece of software that's supposed to provide entertainment and you make sure that the most likely first experience of most users is not fun at all. This is just not smart.

People on open source projects tend to think they know it better though so I expect it to stay this way, which is pretty sad, I really like Minetest and would like to see it turn into something bigger, but it won't happen until people in charge realize that quality code and features are not everything you need.

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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by Don » Post

@whateveralias- I have heard that argument many times. You are basically saying that minetest needs to be like minecraft. You make a few good points but miss the freedom part of the game. Minetest can be many different things depending on what the player wants it to be.
I think that educating people about what minetest is about is worth much more then making minetest like minecraft. I have personally commented on different reviews of minetest to help educate people since many of the reviewers have been ignorant of what minetest is.

I do understand that many people do not want freedom. They want someone else to decide what the game should be like. That is the reason that sub games are being included. This keeps the integrity and values of minetest while at the same time giving players a few non vanilla games without downloading mods.

Also, many players go straight to the servers. They get to see many things that minetest can do thanks to the diversity of servers. Then when they try singleplayer they see that things are different. They go on the servers or forum and ask why. The people running the servers are usually really good people. They take the time to help new players and explain things. The community is not just the people on this forum but also the players on servers. The atmosphere has been very positive and pleasant. The players have seen this and they too are trying to be nice and helpful.

As far as minetest providing entertainment, minetest does it well if used they way it was meant to be used. It is like buying a cd player and complaining about it because they did not include cd's with it. You have to go get your own cd's. That is why education is so important. We need to teach people how to use minetest.
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by whateveralias » Post

Well Don, I think we mostly agree on what Minetest should be even if it looks like we don't, but I strongly disagree with you on how it should be managed. First of all, I don't want it to be like Minecraft, because it already is like Minecraft. Let's not pretend it's a completely different beast: it's basically the same game. There's no need to obsessively avoid any specific characteristics of Minecraft at all cost. But this discussion is moot since I do agree with you that Minetest_game is fine as a barebone engine that gets modded into an actual game and as I understand that is your main concern.

But my main point is, if you want community growth you can't expect people to adapt to your way of doing things, you have to provide something that they find appealing ("the customer is always right" and all). Just like Steve Jobs telling customers they are "holding it wrong", telling potential players they are "playing it wrong" is incredibly arrogant and will drive people away. You can keep arguing that people should be "educated" about Minetest all you want, but at the end of the day, you either provide something they can enjoy out of the box with little effort or you will limit yourself to a small community of enthusiasts.

Besides, I do not agree at all that sponsoring a complete and polished subgame and encouraging people to download it reduces freedom. You don't have to get that one if you are an enthusiast (which I can see you clearly are). I think I understand your concerns, but in my opinion it's not something that needs to be feared all that much: it's possible to get the best of both worlds, it doesn't have to be two polar opposites where you either provide a fun game OR a highly flexible one.

edit 2: you know what? My last edit was really assholish, so I'm editing again to remove it. Sorry about that.
edit 3: I might have been unnecessarily rough when raising my concerns because apparently these issues are on celeron55's radar (it's mentioned on his 2014 roadmap.) Hopefully they get it right, crossing my fingers.
Last edited by whateveralias on Thu Jun 04, 2015 23:58, edited 4 times in total.

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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by Mathias » Post

Was I was debating against myself to choose between Minetest and the latter, the first thing would come to mind is the price. If, for example, Minecraft was free, that would be a different story.

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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by SAMIAMNOT » Post

rubenwardy wrote:I'm have access to minetest.net, I've been working on this description for a while:
Minetest is a blocky game engine and a game, inspired by InfiniMiner, Minecraft and the like. Minetest is about freedom - we want you to customize the game, and make your own worlds. Because of this, mods are super easy to create and install. All the content in the game comes from mods, every block, tool and item.

Minetest comes with a basic foundation set of mods called 'Minetest Game', which you can then add on top of. We call these base sets of mods "subgames", and there are many others to choose from. If you'd rather just play a complete game, you can download a subgame which contains a good set of playable content.

Minetest is available natively for Windows, Linux, Android, OS X and Free/Open BSD, and is Free and Open Source Software, released under the LGPL 2.1 or later.
I'd like feedback. (Maybe better to do via PM, I don't know, don't want to hijack this thread.
Actually, I have just found some Minetest tutorials that actually tell you to get mods and games (http://wiki.minetest.net/Getting_Started). Maybe you could add a link to the pge from the site or even copy and paste some content to create a seperate page on the site?
I would greatly appreciate it.
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by prestidigitator » Post

whateveralias wrote:...if you want community growth you can't expect people to adapt to your way of doing things, you have to provide something that they find appealing ("the customer is always right" and all).
Well, seeing as nobody is making any money from the players, they aren't exactly, "customers." It's a fair question to ask whether we really want explosive growth like Minecraft experienced. Is it better to experience moderate growth such as the game has, and be able to concentrate on making it high-quality and enjoyable for the existing user base, or is it better to get millions of users, weighing the game down with an unmanageable , "community" (in quotes because once it grows too big it's truly no longer a community).

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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by srifqi » Post

prestidigitator wrote:"community" (in quotes because once it grows too big it's truly no longer a community).
Nothing is too big for community. For example, MC forum, Pokécommunity, etc.
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by Don » Post

@whateveralias- I understand what you are saying. When I say that minetest should not be like minecraft what I mean is that minecraft has many things that can not be removed because they are a part of the game. With minetest you can decide what you want by installing mods. Maybe if minetest had mods included with the game but could be easily disabled then I think that would be ok. When minetest is installed, if there was a set of mods that get put into the mods folder then people could enable/disable them easily.
I never saw your edit 1. I hope I have not said anything to make you upset. I am giving my opinion and mean no disrespect to you or anyone else. If I said anything that was rude then I am sorry.
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by prestidigitator » Post

srifqi wrote:Nothing is too big for community. For example, MC forum, Pokécommunity, etc.
I disagree. A community is a group of people who interact with each other in meaningful ways. Millions of people use the U.S. highway system. Just because they use something in common, does that make them a community? Not IMO. The word loses its meaning when we water it down that way. Granted with "social networking" we do a lot of that watering down these days. I'm sorry, but someone who has 2000 Facebook "friends" does not have 2000 friends. In fact, there's actually a practical limit of about 100-200 people that you can have meaningful interactions with. A community can probably be an order of magnitude or two above that since not everyone has to exactly be intimate with everyone else, but calling a group of people that is millions large a community is a big stretch as far as I am concerned. They are a group of people who have a common interest. Nothing else.

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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by rubenwardy » Post

SAMIAMNOT wrote:
rubenwardy wrote:I'm have access to minetest.net, I've been working on this description for a while:
Minetest is a blocky game engine and a game, inspired by InfiniMiner, Minecraft and the like. Minetest is about freedom - we want you to customize the game, and make your own worlds. Because of this, mods are super easy to create and install. All the content in the game comes from mods, every block, tool and item.

Minetest comes with a basic foundation set of mods called 'Minetest Game', which you can then add on top of. We call these base sets of mods "subgames", and there are many others to choose from. If you'd rather just play a complete game, you can download a subgame which contains a good set of playable content.

Minetest is available natively for Windows, Linux, Android, OS X and Free/Open BSD, and is Free and Open Source Software, released under the LGPL 2.1 or later.
I'd like feedback. (Maybe better to do via PM, I don't know, don't want to hijack this thread.
Actually, I have just found some Minetest tutorials that actually tell you to get mods and games (http://wiki.minetest.net/Getting_Started). Maybe you could add a link to the pge from the site or even copy and paste some content to create a seperate page on the site?
I would greatly appreciate it.
I wrote the part of that page that mentioned mods, it's part of my attempts to rebrand Minetest (ie: make the websites and materials reflect the game engine like nature of Minetest.)

It's linked to from the download page.
srifqi wrote:
prestidigitator wrote:"community" (in quotes because once it grows too big it's truly no longer a community).
Nothing is too big for community. For example, MC forum, Pokécommunity, etc.
The MC forum community is incredibly huge, it's impossible to read the topic titles of every new topic, let alone actually read them.
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by jp » Post

prestigitator wrote:A community is a group of people who interact with each other in meaningful ways. [...]
"Community", etymologically means a group of people that share things in common, have the same identity and the same interests.

People who contribute usefully here belongs de facto to the community; but the consumers and the random onlookers, not.

And yes, 2000 so-called friends on FB is basically like have $1M at Monopoly.

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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by technomancy » Post

srifqi wrote:Nothing is too big for community. For example, MC forum, Pokécommunity, etc.
I wonder if you realize that Notch was driven to sell Minecraft specifically because of the torrential floods of abuse and disparagement he received any time he made a change to the dynamics of the game?

I totally agree that explosive growth is harmful to community dynamics; you get a flood of people, many of whom are assholes, and the sudden influx of assholes is a lot more noticeable than the sudden influx of decent blokes.

But anyway, I don't know if the "meh"-ness of minetest_game is explicitly due to wanting to avoid explosive growth; this seems to be mostly conjecture at this point.

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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by srifqi » Post

prestidigitator wrote:I disagree. A community is a group of people who interact with each other in meaningful ways. ... A community can probably be an order of magnitude or two above that since not everyone has to exactly be intimate with everyone else, but calling a group of people that is millions large a community is a big stretch as far as I am concerned. They are a group of people who have a common interest. Nothing else.
technomancy wrote:I totally agree that explosive growth is harmful to community dynamics; you get a flood of people, many of whom are assholes, and the sudden influx of assholes is a lot more noticeable than the sudden influx of decent blokes.
rubenwardy wrote:The MC forum community is incredibly huge, it's impossible to read the topic titles of every new topic, let alone actually read them.
Okay, agreed. That's what I actually do at Pokécommunity, let alone actually read them. So, do you hope this community is getting bigger or not?
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by SAMIAMNOT » Post

I hope it does. A dead Minetest_game may discourage a-holes, IMHO.
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by SAMIAMNOT » Post

Hmmm...Looks like Celeron55 spoke out about the need to add more games...but didn't do anything about it.
http://c55.me/blog/?1491
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by Rochambeau » Post

@whateveralias

I fully agree to everything you said in your two posts! You can't attract new player if you don't give them something to feel attracted to. Sadly, most of the decission-maker here disagree.

Minetest is like giving someone a plain white paper and some crayons and tell them "now you have the freedom to draw whatever you want." while next to that white paper there is a glossy picture book with interresting stories called Minecraft. What would you want to explore further?

I tried to lure some of my friends to minetest and even presented them links to some of my favourite mods. But they just installed the engine, came, saw and ... returned to minecraft immediately.

Why not include more games and mods to minetest? Disabling unwanted preinstalled mods/games is much more comfortable than looking for and researching new mods.

Another example while i'm at it:
Linux first became more (more or less) popular, when Canonical made an userfriendly and easy to install distro for the masses.
Minecraft is like Windows. Minetest is Linux ... in the early nineties.

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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by SAMIAMNOT » Post

Very true! What's keeping the devs from adding quality content?

EDIT : Oh, and there's another thing Minetest is missing. VR support. ;)
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by The-Operator219 » Post

To me, the multiplayer is bland.
It lacks the fun factor that minecraft has.
I'll join a server, amass a fortune and build my castle, then get bored and start over.
Maybe I'm just easily bored is all.
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by SAMIAMNOT » Post

Mhltiplayer is NOT bland. You must not have been to many servers.
Unless you mean being attacked by giant spiders is bland.
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by The-Operator219 » Post

My problem with that is that they will never load.
Or in the case of just test, it's stupidly unmonitored.
Also I respect the open source thing, but add SOMETHING to do without mods.
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by SAMIAMNOT » Post

That alwys happens. But that's not the whole experience.
As for your comment on mods...I agree. We shouldn't HAVE to get mods in order to have quality gameplay.

And they thought EA didn't listen to their community....
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

by The-Operator219 » Post

Honestly, I never do singleplayer.
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