What is, what will, what sould be Minetest?

[MineYoshi]

.....and more kids getting beaten up by irate parents and moar countries banning Minetest for being "cancer".

I don't know, at least for "religious" people Minetest is ok... After all doesn't have "sorceries" and "Black Magic"...

[ABJ]

That's not what I was talking about.

[MineYoshi]

That's not what I was talking about.

I was a bit distracted when writing, sorry...

[SegFault22]

.....and more kids getting beaten up by irate parents and moar countries banning Minetest for being "cancer".

That's stupid, because we won't be doing anything illegal; Minecraft is not banned around the world for being "cancer", and kids still convince their parents to buy accounts, many of those kids going on to download lots of immersive mods and ending up playing the game for extended periods of time.

There's nothing wrong with the game being immersive enough that you feel like playing the game all day. If parents can't teach their children the self-control that they would use to know when it is time to stop playing the game (for a while and go do something else), that is their own stupid fault for having failed as parents, and can't result in Minetest being banned as much as it would result in Minecraft being banned.

If your point is that Minetest will be banned for it being misused, that's analogous saying we should ban food, because people who lack self-control abuse it and make themselves obese.

The only time any country ever considered banning Minecraft was back in 2015, and that was because some government agency of Turkey decided that the game was "too violent", "encouraging players to attack people and animals", which was all-around retarded and never went through.

It is inevitable that as time reaches closer to infinity, more mods will be created which raise the immersion factor of the game. This is true for any sandbox game which supports mods or would make sense to mod. There is nothing that you can do to stop it. It would only stop if the internet is killed and civilization destroyed with it, but that isn't likely and it would technically cause time to cease to exist, since time is a tool created to help a civilization gauge rate of change relatively, and only exists in the minds of those who use it - time will still have been approaching infinity "while it was existing"; and you can't un-create mods by any means, since they first are made to exist in the minds of their creators before being brought into the physical plane, as was the game.

I don't know, at least for "religious" people Minetest is ok... After all doesn't have "sorceries" and "Black Magic"...

They would only disapprove mods which add sorcery and magick, because they don't know that its existence is intimately tied into all (valid) religions. Believing in any religion, especially christianity or judaism, brings with it the belief in that religion's magick and its usage, even if you never know about it. For example, black magick is a significant feature of devil-worshiping, but that doesn't mean any person who practices black magick is also a devil-worshiper; several jews and christians have practiced black magick before, but not very many do because it is so damaging to one's magick power and can cause horrible side-effects, since the violent destructive energy has to pass through the magician doing a spell, just like how the positive constructive energy flows through the magician doing white magick.

Please make the distinction by calling it "magick", because people everywhere associate "magic" with card tricks, stage "magic" and other sleight-of-hand.

I would like mods which add sorcery/magick, but only if they are realistic. Most people don't realize that magick is not the same as "energy-manipulation", as the effects of a spell are almost never instantaneous, whereas the effects of energy-manipulation can be instantaneous, such as lighting a candle or extinguishing it "with your mind".

[ABJ]

Hmmmmmmmm
Any game that is immersive, or even not, but enjoyable to the child ends up being the mom's greatest enemy.
Too many people nowadays are freaking helicopters. And I think I'll end up as one, too, because I.....can't risk it.

[MineYoshi]

I don't know, at least for "religious" people Minetest is ok... After all doesn't have "sorceries" and "Black Magic"...

They would only disapprove mods which add sorcery and magick, because they don't know that its existence is intimately tied into all (valid) religions. Believing in any religion, especially christianity or judaism, brings with it the belief in that religion's magick and its usage, even if you never know about it. For example, black magick is a significant feature of devil-worshiping, but that doesn't mean any person who practices black magick is also a devil-worshiper; several jews and christians have practiced black magick before, but not very many do because it is so damaging to one's magick power and can cause horrible side-effects, since the violent destructive energy has to pass through the magician doing a spell, just like how the positive constructive energy flows through the magician doing white magick.

Please make the distinction by calling it "magick", because people everywhere associate "magic" with card tricks, stage "magic" and other sleight-of-hand.

I would like mods which add sorcery/magick, but only if they are realistic. Most people don't realize that magick is not the same as "energy-manipulation", as the effects of a spell are almost never instantaneous, whereas the effects of energy-manipulation can be instantaneous, such as lighting a candle or extinguishing it "with your mind".

Ok, you really need to learn more about the conception of "energies" we got (Christianity and some Jews), and that actually "Sorcery" is different to your concept, but that's another discussion and what we don't want is get too offtopic.




I think that what we need is more fun... Or an included subgame that features a better gameplay than "MineCraft", with things that you can't get so easy in that "Mojang" game...

[azekill_DIABLO]

about the name, i think we could change the name. when i heard of minetest i saw in my mind a poor cheap copy of minecraft made for testing, so not finite. Would be better to rename the engine to idk: Voxel Sandbox Engine

[MineYoshi]

about the name, i think we could change the name. when i heard of minetest i saw in my mind a poor cheap copy of minecraft made for testing, so not finite. Would be better to rename the engine to idk: Voxel Sandbox Engine

-FreeMiner
-VoxeWorld
-BlockLands
-OpenMiner
-MineOpen
-TestCraft

Also, if as well this game as first was a test made by Celeron55 if i remember well.

[rubenwardy]

http://freeminer.org

[azekill_DIABLO]

.

[ErrorNull]

What 'should' be minetest? Meh. That's like asking 'what should be the purpose of life?'. it's whatever i want it to be. I do not require a special governing body to decide my life purpose, and i don't need an official stated purpose/goal for minetest either. i enjoy modding minetest to whatever i want it to be. that's what's awesome about minetest, you get an open source engine, and you customize everything else around it (minetest_game and mods) to your liking.

[azekill_DIABLO]

What 'should' be minetest? Meh. That's like asking 'what should be the purpose of life?'. it's whatever i want it to be. I do not require a special governing body to decide my life purpose, and i don't need an official stated purpose/goal for minetest either. i enjoy modding minetest to whatever i want it to be. that's what's awesome about minetest, you get an open source engine, and you customize everything else around it (minetest_game and mods) to your liking.

Aww this is true. Finally, this disscussion is a bit useless. We can all pull or push the minetest community in a direction or another. We don't need to have restrictive guidelines, funny names or objectives. We are an open source development community. We don't need freedom. We are Freedom.

[MineYoshi]

What 'should' be minetest? Meh. That's like asking 'what should be the purpose of life?'. it's whatever i want it to be. I do not require a special governing body to decide my life purpose, and i don't need an official stated purpose/goal for minetest either. i enjoy modding minetest to whatever i want it to be. that's what's awesome about minetest, you get an open source engine, and you customize everything else around it (minetest_game and mods) to your liking.

Aww this is true. Finally, this disscussion is a bit useless. We can all pull or push the minetest community in a direction or another. We don't need to have restrictive guidelines, funny names or objectives. We are an open source development community. We don't need freedom. We are Freedom.

And that's the point of this discussion?
Make a declaration?...
(Ok, nope, that's actually a promise)

[u34]

about the name, i think we could change the name. when i heard of minetest i saw in my mind a poor cheap copy of minecraft made for testing, so not finite. Would be better to rename the engine to idk: Voxel Sandbox Engine

-FreeMiner
-VoxeWorld
-BlockLands
-OpenMiner
-MineOpen
-TestCraft

Also, if as well this game as first was a test made by Celeron55 if i remember well.

the first owner for minecraft was notch....
the first owner for minetest was Celeron55...
but both are great developers...

[MineYoshi]

about the name, i think we could change the name. when i heard of minetest i saw in my mind a poor cheap copy of minecraft made for testing, so not finite. Would be better to rename the engine to idk: Voxel Sandbox Engine

-FreeMiner
-VoxeWorld
-BlockLands
-OpenMiner
-MineOpen
-TestCraft

Also, if as well this game as first was a test made by Celeron55 if i remember well.

the first owner for minecraft was notch....
the first owner for minetest was Celeron55...
but both are great developers...

You're right, but maybe the fact that the players from one game don't like the other ones, sometimes make that exist certain opinions about each developer...

[azekill_DIABLO]

I think both are great devs. But i always thinks this disscussion is pointless.

[MineYoshi]

I think both are great devs. But i always thinks this disscussion is pointless.

It's likely trying to compare two things that are good by theirselves...

[PureTryOut]

So, I'm just going to throw in my dime (is that how the saying goes?), if you guys don't mind.

I originally found Minetest when looking for a good FOSS alternative to Minecraft. Minecraft is awesome and all, but it lacks stuff like a proper modding API, cubic chunks (or at least chunks bigger than 256 high), and well, it's owned by Microsoft... The gameplay it offers without mods however, is solid.
When I found this game, it seemed like a good FOSS alternative, and with a promising Lua modding API taken in mind from the beginning, I became excited. However that quickly faded after only 5-10 minutes of playing. Some steps should be taken to make this game/engine/whatever more user-friendly, to eventually make it more popular. A few points:

• The main menu is straight up ugly and confusing
  Seriously, just look at it from a computer illiterate perspective. Then, look to Minecraft.
  I realize UI designing is hard, even more so for a developer which prefers to look at code, but something has to be done about it... I would first of all remove the "server" option from the menu. If people want to host servers, they can just do it the hard way and use it from the CLI or something. If they want to play on LAN, add an option for it once in a singleplayer world instead. Combine "singleplayer" and "client" into 1 tab. In that tab add a button for singleplayer. Once clicked, it shows a list of worlds and the options to delete them, or create new ones. Add a second button to that tab for multiplayer. Once clicked, it shows a list of servers. A filter to switch between the normal server list, lan servers and favorites would be good. I would get rid of the tab system myself entirely to be honest, it doesn't make sense in a main menu for a game.
  Move the option to play creative to a per world setting instead. Most players will play a world either creative or not, and not constantly switch between them. Setting this per world with maybe a "cheat" option of some sorts ingame would be better. Also, just assume "enable damage" on if "creative mode" is disabled. Nobody wants creative with damage anyway.
  
  Add a button to the "texturepacks" menu instead of having a seperate tab. Although this is not as important, it just makes more sense to have it under settings in my opinion. Opinions may differ however.
  
  The ingame "escape-button" UI is ugly, and too technical
  The average user doesn't want to see stuff like "build type", "run in place", static_sharedir" and others. A Minetest version number is nice, but should be shown in the form of: "Version: 0.4.14".
  Displaying default controls is good, but should be moved to the "change keys" menu. Even better, don't show the default controls at all, just give an option to reset back to default controls by clicking a button. Keep the main escape menu to buttons only.
  
  Remove the "Exit to OS" option, and only keep "Exit to menu". If people want, they can close the game by either closing the window using the tools their OS provides, or by a button on the main menu.
  
  Lastly, add a window to change graphics from in-game. Having to quit back to the main menu is annoying, especially when you're playing on a server. The same goes for texturepacks.
  
  The base game "Minetest game" is too... plain
  Seriously, there are not even mobs. I know the base game is meant to be plain, so the user can extend it for their needs themselves, but if you want to become popular in the mainstream, the base game has to exciting. Add mobs, add achievements, just anything to do. What's the point of having swords but no mobs to use them on. Start with the simple mobs Minecraft offers: zombies, skeletons, maybe a creeper. Then move on to some animals: sheep, pigs, cows, chickens. Give the default world some live.
  Most Minecraft players play without mods; either because they have no clue how to install them since they don't know much about computers, or they are just not interested: the base game might be fun enough for them. I realize for a lot of people, and even more so the Minetest community, finding and installing mods is part of the fun, but it should be an option; not a requirement.
  
  The "screwdriver" item seems too modern. Why can't people just replace the blocks they placed wrong? Games like this by default are supposed to be sort of in the middle ages. I know minecarts, redstone and others might not fit in that category either, but the screwdriver feels way more out of place.
  
  Add a sprinting option by either holding control or pressing W twice in rapid succession. I know there is a "fast" mode, but you have to grant yourself rights for it (see my next point) and feels more like cheating.
  
  Jumping movement feels... jerky. Falling down seems to slow, which straight up feels weird. And if you're standing against a block, why can you not make a full jump to get on a block higher? Right now the jump is cut-off and you're placed on the next block. This again, feels weird. The bobbing is good though.
  
  Lastly, the name should probably be renamed. "Minetest game" doesn't say much to a non-technical user, why not make it "Default" instead?
  
  Add the hunger mod (https://github.com/BlockMen/hunger), weather (viewtopic.php?t=5245), nether (viewtopic.php?t=5790), creatures mob engine (viewtopic.php?t=8638), proper item pickup (viewtopic.php?t=2656).
  
  Why do you have to grant yourself rights in a singleplayer world?
  If I want to fly, I would've turned on "creative mode". Why can I even turn it on when playing survival, and why do I have to grant myself permission to do that? I'm admin over my own world; as long as I'm in creative, I shouldn't have to get rights for that. Same goes for fast mode and all other permission stuff. In multiplayer this sort of makes sense, but even then it should probably be bound to the gamemode instead. Players can then have rights to switch between creative and survival.

Maybe you guys want this game to be entirely different, which in my personal opinion would be a shame. However I think that if you want this game to gain traction, become popular and also gain interest from more developers, steps such as these should be taken. I would love to hear your responses.

[azekill_DIABLO]

I agree with most of what you said. I felt the same with this game. The only thing that took me back into minetest is that i love programmation. Als please add a working modstore. It doesn't show mods.

[MineYoshi]

• The main menu is straight up ugly and confusing
  Seriously, just look at it from a computer illiterate perspective. Then, look to Minecraft.
  I realize UI designing is hard, even more so for a developer which prefers to look at code, but something has to be done about it... I would first of all remove the "server" option from the menu. If people want to host servers, they can just do it the hard way and use it from the CLI or something. If they want to play on LAN, add an option for it once in a singleplayer world instead. Combine "singleplayer" and "client" into 1 tab. In that tab add a button for singleplayer. Once clicked, it shows a list of worlds and the options to delete them, or create new ones. Add a second button to that tab for multiplayer. Once clicked, it shows a list of servers. A filter to switch between the normal server list, lan servers and favorites would be good. I would get rid of the tab system myself entirely to be honest, it doesn't make sense in a main menu for a game.
  Move the option to play creative to a per world setting instead. Most players will play a world either creative or not, and not constantly switch between them. Setting this per world with maybe a "cheat" option of some sorts ingame would be better. Also, just assume "enable damage" on if "creative mode" is disabled. Nobody wants creative with damage anyway.
  
  Add a button to the "texturepacks" menu instead of having a seperate tab. Although this is not as important, it just makes more sense to have it under settings in my opinion. Opinions may differ however.

Ya' know you can do an easily menu for the game... Actually being made in LUA, so it's easy! Also, as well you can add the menus from forks, likely Freeminer...

The ingame "escape-button" UI is ugly, and too technical
The average user doesn't want to see stuff like "build type", "run in place", static_sharedir" and others. A Minetest version number is nice, but should be shown in the form of: "Version: 0.4.14".
Displaying default controls is good, but should be moved to the "change keys" menu. Even better, don't show the default controls at all, just give an option to reset back to default controls by clicking a button. Keep the main escape menu to buttons only.

Remove the "Exit to OS" option, and only keep "Exit to menu". If people want, they can close the game by either closing the window using the tools their OS provides, or by a button on the main menu.

Lastly, add a window to change graphics from in-game. Having to quit back to the main menu is annoying, especially when you're playing on a server. The same goes for texturepacks.

I don't see the issue, if it's for the "Super-Ultra-Special Hard to Understand texts", then i don't know what's the problem, afterall you can ignore them!
For "Exit to OS", it becomes useful, because the mouse can keep inside the frickin' window (it happened) and if you need to close the game, you justly can't...

The base game "Minetest game" is too... plain
Seriously, there are not even mobs. I know the base game is meant to be plain, so the user can extend it for their needs themselves, but if you want to become popular in the mainstream, the base game has to exciting. Add mobs, add achievements, just anything to do. What's the point of having swords but no mobs to use them on. Start with the simple mobs Minecraft offers: zombies, skeletons, maybe a creeper. Then move on to some animals: sheep, pigs, cows, chickens. Give the default world some live.
Most Minecraft players play without mods; either because they have no clue how to install them since they don't know much about computers, or they are just not interested: the base game might be fun enough for them. I realize for a lot of people, and even more so the Minetest community, finding and installing mods is part of the fun, but it should be an option; not a requirement.

The "screwdriver" item seems too modern. Why can't people just replace the blocks they placed wrong? Games like this by default are supposed to be sort of in the middle ages. I know minecarts, redstone and others might not fit in that category either, but the screwdriver feels way more out of place.

Add a sprinting option by either holding control or pressing W twice in rapid succession. I know there is a "fast" mode, but you have to grant yourself rights for it (see my next point) and feels more like cheating.

Jumping movement feels... jerky. Falling down seems to slow, which straight up feels weird. And if you're standing against a block, why can you not make a full jump to get on a block higher? Right now the jump is cut-off and you're placed on the next block. This again, feels weird. The bobbing is good though.

Lastly, the name should probably be renamed. "Minetest game" doesn't say much to a non-technical user, why not make it "Default" instead?

Add the hunger mod (https://github.com/BlockMen/hunger), weather (viewtopic.php?t=5245), nether (viewtopic.php?t=5790), creatures mob engine (viewtopic.php?t=8638), proper item pickup (viewtopic.php?t=2656).

Minetest isn't a commercial game, and it's subgame ain't too.. Also Minetest is for installing mods and test Subgames... The "Default" justly was made for giving regular gameplay, not super-ultra fun...

Why do you have to grant yourself rights in a singleplayer world?
If I want to fly, I would've turned on "creative mode". Why can I even turn it on when playing survival, and why do I have to grant myself permission to do that? I'm admin over my own world; as long as I'm in creative, I shouldn't have to get rights for that. Same goes for fast mode and all other permission stuff. In multiplayer this sort of makes sense, but even then it should probably be bound to the gamemode instead. Players can then have rights to switch between creative and survival.
[/list]

Well.. I don't know what then... Fly in survival becomes useful, and more when you want to build a house without cheating with creative inventory... Also, in MineCraft you can fly in survival with commands too... Looks like you never used command blocks before...

Maybe you guys want this game to be entirely different, which in my personal opinion would be a shame. However I think that if you want this game to gain traction, become popular and also gain interest from more developers, steps such as these should be taken. I would love to hear your responses.

I don't know why so much thing with "popularity"... Don't cha' know that MineCraft is full of "Trolls" because it's "Popularity"?...
Also, "If you want it, you make it"... This is Open Source, so if you want to do any change in your game you can do it with all the freedom!

[PureTryOut]

Ya' know you can do an easily menu for the game... Actually being made in LUA, so it's easy! Also, as well you can add the menus from forks, likely Freeminer...

See, that's the usual dev response from FOSS projects, and it's quite a problem. Just because I have some critics/discussion points, doesn't mean I can fix them myself. Sure I know a little bit of Lua, but that doesn't mean I could take up a rather big project like that. If I could I would love too though. I will look into it.

I don't see the issue, if it's for the "Super-Ultra-Special Hard to Understand texts", then i don't know what's the problem, afterall you can ignore them!

They're not hard to understand, they are just only useful for devs. Sure we can ignore them, but if you want a game like this to be accessible for everyone, it's better to hide such things by default. The interface has to be clean, and having such texts there doesn't really help.

For "Exit to OS", it becomes useful, because the mouse can keep inside the frickin' window (it happened) and if you need to close the game, you justly can't...

Honestly that suggestion was subjective, and I can understand if I'm the only one that would like it that way. ;)

Minetest isn't a commercial game, and it's subgame ain't too.. Also Minetest is for installing mods and test Subgames... The "Default" justly was made for giving regular gameplay, not super-ultra fun...

Why would it not being a commercial game make a different? Should a non commercial game just not be fun?
I realize what the point of Minetest is, but having a solid, fun base game wouldn't get rid of that. People would still be able to make new subgames, and add or remove mods. Nothing really changes.
Again, I'm looking from a "person who knows nothing about computers" perspective. For these kind of people a game has to be fun from the get go. Being able to extend/change it is just a bonus. I'm just not sure if this is your target market, but it would be a shame if it wasn't. I believe Minetest can provide a perfect, FOSS, playing experience for them.

Well.. I don't know what then... Fly in survival becomes useful, and more when you want to build a house without cheating with creative inventory... Also, in MineCraft you can fly in survival with commands too... Looks like you never used command blocks before...

Well I didn't say you should disable flying in survival outright. Just set it to be enabled in creative by default, and disabled (by default) in survival. If people want to fly, they can still change it ingame, or even switch gamemodes.

I don't know why so much thing with "popularity"... Don't cha' know that MineCraft is full of "Trolls" because it's "Popularity"?...

Popularity means more potential developers. More potential developers mean quicker updates, changes, new mods, etc.
Sure more popularity will cause "trolls" and "kids" too come as well, but they're not that hard to keep out of the dev forums. I'm assuming Minetest has a IRC channel or Matrix room, most dev talk can just go there, regular users will stay out of there anyway. And in the forums, you have moderators for that. Maybe you need more sure, but it's doable. You could even limit posting in the dev forums to people with a certain rank or something like that.

Also, "If you want it, you make it"... This is Open Source, so if you want to do any change in your game you can do it with all the freedom!

Again, the usual FOSS dev response. Just because I have some critic/points to change, doesn't mean I can do it myself. I would love to change everything myself, but I just can't. I don't have the knowledge and the time. I'm willing to help out where I can, sure, but my critics shouldn't be dismissed just because "he doesn't offer us a PR".


It's just that a lot of people love Minecraft, but are looking for a solid FOSS, not owned by Microsoft alternative. Either because they just prefer/want to run FOSS (like me), they don't trust Microsoft, or any other reason. With the modding and extensibility Minetest offers, this is the only really good alternative in my eyes. I know some other projects exists, but they either only aim to replicate an early version of Minecraft, have the same problems as Minecraft, or other issues. Minetest doesn't seem to have those issues, except for not trying to be more user-friendly.

[azekill_DIABLO]

However, minetest is an engine, not a game.

[PureTryOut]

That I understand, but that doesn't immediately mean you shouldn't provide a fun, good experience out of the box... People will still be able to extend and improve it how they want it, why would changing some stuff around prevent that?

[MineYoshi]

Well... You can still try to do a fork bit by bit!

[ABJ]

I have a great idea. Let's shut down Minetest.