How can the minetest community be made bigger?

[u19503]

We already have an amazing Community but it's not very big I would love to make it bigger and more popular but how, Any ideas?

[firefox]

construct an orbital satelite laser cannon and destroy minecraft :P

[u19503]

construct an orbital satelite laser cannon and destroy minecraft :P

XD

[TenPlus1]

Funny Minetest videos on youtube to draw in a crowd.

[u19503]

Funny Minetest videos on youtube to draw in a crowd.

ok

[pithy]

Fix bugs.

[Wuzzy]

Some spontanous ideas which came into my (maybe naive) mind:

- Reaching version 1.0.0 and proudly announce in as many channels as possible
- By posting Minetest to various online game or software databases like LGDB (VERY important IMO)
- Making sure Minetest runs fine on popular operating systems
- Make the Android build less shitty/buggy
- By telling friends
- Be a proud Minetest player (don't be ashamed of Minetest :D)
- LAN parties!
- By actually playing it with other people
- By making gameplay videos and posting them in large Internet communities
- By hosting one or more Minetest servers and telling people about it
- Just by mentioning Minetest in daily discussions (no matter if AFK or in Internet)
- By creating Minetest fanpages (lol) and linking to them
- Lower hurdles for complete newbies and improve usability
- By creating great subgames and repeating everything I just said about Minetest for these subgames
- By leaving a great first impression on the homepage

[TARD]

Pay that Swedish youtuber to act like he's having the best time marketing... i mean playing it.

[rubenwardy]

The UI for Minetest puts a lot of people off, I've found

[hajo]

The UI for Minetest puts a lot of people off, I've found

You mean the main-menu, or the ingame-controls ?

Is there a way to 'mod' the main menu, and have a parameter
to get the alternative menu come up ?

Ingame, there should be more help - and F1 should be the help-key.
And some pre-defined help-topics, that come up depending on the state of the user, eg.
* tool selected --> tools-page, explain what left/right-click do
* block/building stuff selected --> build/place-page
* pointing --> show page about that block
* inventory / chest / crafting --> explain moving stuff, link to crafting-guide
* furnace --> link to crafting-guide
* chat --> "/help"
* dark --> explain day/night, and torches
* general --> status of map (mapgen, server/multiplayer ...)
...
Also F1 while help is showing --> help-index

[rubenwardy]

The main menu, inventory, and other formspecs

[Wuzzy]

The UI for Minetest puts a lot of people off, I've found

You mean the main-menu, or the ingame-controls ?

Both. :P
See also my rant on MT's controls: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=9505&hilit=controls
I think the bigger problem are the controls. Personally, the main menu is acceptable to me, although it clearly can see improvements. It is not really pretty but it gets it job done.

Is there a way to 'mod' the main menu, and have a parameter
to get the alternative menu come up ?

No. The only thing which could be modified easily would be the inventory menu. Rubenwardy added the Simple Fast Inventory to allow mods to add new inventory pages, that would help with some stuff. But this only works for Minetest Game, of course.

Ingame, there should be more help (…)

I am working on this (as a modpack), see here:
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=15912&p=240152

[Joseph16]

The first thing that comes to mind is that minetest is extremely basic,without mods. Like no hunger, sprinting or any real survival challenges. Add mobs hunger and such and I think minetest as a comunity and game will grow a lot. I know there are mods for all of this but for a new user who is not a computer geek may have trouble installing mods. Also add music without lua errors.

[Nyarg]

Ohh. GOD, if you are and everywhere hear me !

1. Shadows !
2. Of cource Shadows !
3. Shadows - no exceptions )
4. Epic crossmaden caves with abandoned mines of cource.
5. One another realm like Hell in MC.
6. Base but not silly mobs.
7. LORE of resource behaviour (for example, mese pickaxe looks hmm hmm IMHO)

It's all is minimal standart of DEFAULT game now, so it's need to be when player first starting the game, no way abandone it because gamer's wish WANT.

[firefox]

1. Shadows !
2. Of cource Shadows !
3. Shadows - no exceptions )

that would require a complete re-writing of the lighting system :P

4. Epic crossmaden caves with abandoned mines of cource.

are dungeons not good enough?

5. One another realm like Hell in MC.

i heard that layered map generation (stacked realms) is in development ...

6. Base but not silly mobs.

TenPlus1's mobs redo

7. LORE of resource behaviour (for example, mese pickaxe looks hmm hmm IMHO)

what's wrong with mese tools? they are just yellow diamonds :P

The first thing that comes to mind is that minetest is extremely basic,without mods. Like no hunger, sprinting or any real survival challenges. Add mobs hunger and such and I think minetest as a comunity and game will grow a lot. I know there are mods for all of this but for a new user who is not a computer geek may have trouble installing mods.

It's all is minimal standart of DEFAULT game now, so it's need to be when player first starting the game, no way abandone it because gamer's wish WANT.

minetest is supposed to be a game platform, not a game by itself. so i guess it's fine to have a minimalistic game to use as base for additions or get started.
there is this "vote for games to be bundled with minetest" thread ever since i don't know when, but so far no games have been bundled with minetest :(

[ErrorNull]

If the first time player downloads minetest, does not know to install any mods or subgames, the player will receive a message on the main menu...

"THERE ARE NO MODS OR SUBGAMES CURRENTLY LOADED.
To provide a fuller game experience, please go here
[link] and install these mods!"

[TG-MyinaWD]

Don't judge on there ways?
E.g. regarding myself I'm Transgender.
Then again not everyone has the same POV of others. People may very.

[u19503]

Pay that Swedish youtuber to act like he's having the best time marketing... i mean playing it.

that can work thers Only One Problem I don't have money for it XD

[u19503]

The UI for Minetest puts a lot of people off, I've found

i completely agree (Maybe you should make an issue on GitHub you have More chance to get The idea approved than me)

[u19503]

The first thing that comes to mind is that minetest is extremely basic,without mods. Like no hunger, sprinting or any real survival challenges. Add mobs hunger and such and I think minetest as a comunity and game will grow a lot. I know there are mods for all of this but for a new user who is not a computer geek may have trouble installing mods. Also add music without lua errors.

Completely agree with this but I can't program :\ I can help with Art and models btw

[TARD]

Yeah but seriously. Download with mods option is great idea I think. It's got to have goals for people who like strategy, Decor for those who rp, skins. Keep it lite so that kid riding a camel in somolia can play on a 10 year old blackberry or dialup, but fun enough that he makes all F- because he stayed up until 3 am.

[Wuzzy]

Maybe the biggest road blocks which hinder Minetest gaining more popularity is, frankly, Minetest Game.
Or more precisely: For it being the default (and only) subgame being distributed with Minetest.

It leaves a “meh” first impression, it's just too incomplete. It's OK for a sandbox, but there simply isn't much to do.
And development progress on it is very slow. Every change needs approval. And any proposed big changes ALWAYS trigger very long and tiresome discussions. Big changes are usually met with huge resistance; you can basically kiss good-bye to stuff like Mesecons. Minetest Game releases only appear together with Minetest releases, which means it does not happen often. Other subgames have a faster release cycle.
But worst of all, Minetest Game completely lacks any direction.
Many other subgames often adopt Minetest features way earlier than Minetest Game does. For instance, Carbone has connected glass WAY earlier than Minetest Game.
Basically, Minetest Game only becomes more or less acceptable after it is heavily modded. Many mods for Minetest Game actually only exist because their authors felt something was lacking in Minetest Game.

For this use case (modding), I have to admit that Minetest Game is actually pretty good and provides a pretty strong API. But I think installing mods is something for power users. Yes, modding is totally a core feature of Minetest, but NEW users have a reasonable expectation to get a full game without mods. The pure unmodded Minetest Game is too incomplete and pale. New users certainly just want to play before even thinking of installing mods (even IF they are power users otherwise).

IMO Minetest Game doesn't deserve all that free attention for being the default game. I think other subgames like Pixture or Lord of the Test deserve more attention.
The problem is, Mintest Game still absolutely dominates, simply because it happens to be the default, not because it is that good. What's especially sad is that still many people are eqating Minetest Game with Minetest. Sure, Minetest Game is improving slowly over time, but it has still a LONG journey ahead.


I think a good “default” (or “starter”) subgame should:
- Show off Minetest well
- Leave a good first impression
- Be relatively easy to pick up (no “gotchas”)
- Be complete and self-contained. The player should not feel that something is lacking
- Maybe make players even want to check out other subgames

I think Pixture might be a VERY good candidate for a new “starter” subgame. Maybe not replacing Minetest Game entirely, but simply distributed along with Minetest.

Or we completely have to rethink how subgames are distributed and/or advertised. I already posted two great subgames in the LGDB.

But no matter what default game we choose, it should not be Minetest Game. What I think is especially important is that Minetest Game needs to be dethroned. It must stop being the king which de facto dominates everything else. Other subgames, the good subgames should be given a chance, too. They should not be hidden in the dark parts of the forums.

We had the subgame voting thread for years now, but no new subgame was ever included. Only Minetest NeXt made it into the default, but this was just a merge into Minetest Game and basically was just a collection of relatively mundane changes.

So maybe, just maybe, including 1 new subgame into Minetest or even completely replacing Minetest Game as the default might help.

[linushsao]

Multi-language supported in chat,for other Chinese-tradition language users.

[u19503]

Multi-language supported in chat,for other Chinese-tradition language users.

I don't speak Chinese Myself but I can see this being really useful for people who do

[BirgitLachner]

Maybe the biggest road blocks which hinder Minetest gaining more popularity is, frankly, Minetest Game.
Or more precisely: For it being the default (and only) subgame being distributed with Minetest.

It leaves a “meh” first impression, it's just too incomplete. It's OK for a sandbox, but there simply isn't much to do.
And development progress on it is very slow. Every change needs approval. And any proposed big changes ALWAYS trigger very long and tiresome discussions. Big changes are usually met with huge resistance; you can basically kiss good-bye to stuff like Mesecons. Minetest Game releases only appear together with Minetest releases, which means it does not happen often. Other subgames have a faster release cycle.

...

I fully agree ... I do remember that I tested Minetest a longer time ago it was so boring.

Thinks that really do specially young kids think that Minetest ist better than Minecraft is in case of my son homedecor. He found so many crazy thinks I'd never found in Minecraft before.

But of cause others are more puristic and don't like the not blocky things. My husband is looking for a cart-system that make nice sounds ... he does not want the "advanced trains" mod but more technical possibilities ... a good sound.

The problem is, the interests are different. What about adding a set of pepared maps or subgames for different interests. May be it could be installed additionally to minetest and add the needed mods at once.

Another possibility to realize the possibilities of Minetest is to go to the open servers. May be the Tabs need some information about what can be done there.