Multiple Subgames discussion

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ThomasMonroe
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Multiple Subgames discussion

by ThomasMonroe » Post

I have seen this discussed elsewhere, but I can't seem to find where it was mentioned.
I was looking through celeron55's roadmap and came across this:
celeron55 wrote:Get a release out that contains multiple subgames

This is important as it pushes the best content to the average users.
The most interesting content is made by individual people, not a committee.
Subgames need to have descriptions that can be easily viewed in the menu so that new users can understand what the subgames are about.
I was hoping we could engage in civil discussion about adding base subgames to the package
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Re: Multiple Subgames discussion

by philipbenr » Post

I believe you want to look/post in the "subgame discussion" section for this...

viewforum.php?f=49

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Re: Multiple Subgames discussion

by ThomasMonroe » Post

oops XD thats where I thought I had posted it
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Re: Multiple Subgames discussion

by sorcerykid » Post

What subgames would be included, and who is expected to make those decisions?

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Re: Multiple Subgames discussion

by ThomasMonroe » Post

I believe a few of the most popular ones, such as LOTT, or CarboneNG
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Re: Multiple Subgames discussion

by Aerozoic » Post

SKYblock!
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Re: Multiple Subgames discussion

by ThomasMonroe » Post

Thats not a bad Idea
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Re: Multiple Subgames discussion

by Wuzzy » Post

This has been discussed before. Current status seems to be that the Minetest maintainers are currently not interested in including any additional subgame.

Ignoring this, here's my opinion:
Any official subgame should match some quality criteria:
- It must have reached a reasonable level of completion. Subgames at alpha stage or subgames that feel like they are in an alpha stage (because e.g. players often feel that something is lacking) are thus excluded
- Six Hour Test: The game should not run out of content before 6 hours of playing. Great subgames might be excempt from this rule
- No obvious and annoying, nor game-breaking bugs
- Absolutely no crashes or big red error messages
- No GUI clutter, no broken formspecs
- Has an up-to-date manual, in-game help or something similar if the game is not very obvious
- 100% free software (no exceptions!)
- Updates don't break maps or APIs frequently
- Must be downloadable

I don't think many subgames would currently pass these tests.

Potential candidates:
Rpgtest is a strong candidate.
VoxBox seems fine. It could be considered.
Carbone NG seems fine, but might be a bit old now. But it's reasonable stable. It barely passes the Six Hour Test, thanks to mobs.

Losers:
Pixture was once great and very strong candidate and an easy pass. But not it fails because the new crafting system is horribly inconvenient. I count this as “game-breaking bug”. Pixture is a great game otherwise. Pixture is the strongest loser.
Minetest Game feels incomplete and fails at the Six Hour Test. There's not much to do.
Inside the Box would pass with ease if it were downloadable. I'm looking forward to the first official release.
Farlands would probably pass if it weren't for tons of error messages right on spawn.
Labyrinthus fails for lack of help and too much GUI clutter and low quality GUI in general. The graphics could be better, too and there are no sounds.
Lord of the Test fails because potions are so buggy, they are breaking the game quite seriously.
MineClone 2 is currently too incomplete with lots of rough edges.
Minetest Saturn lacks documentation, making it hard to get started for this very unique subgame.
In The Legend of Minetest, Subrosia is extremely laggy.
The helicopter in SkyTest is breaking a lot. Mapgen is painfully slow.
Minetest Hades is too outdated now.
Hades Revisited is too incomplete and lacks help.
Wasteland has some texture and GUI bugs. There is not much to do after you found water and grew some saplings.
BFD is too buggy. The GUI is inconsistent (sprint icons).

I haven't looked at other subgames so far.

From my analysis, a lot of subgames have flaws which don't make them eligible as official subgames in my opinion. Some of the flaws in the above subgames are easy fixes. What most of the losing subgames are lacking is simply just some polish. Polishing seems to be greatly underestimated among subgame and mod authors.
The gameplay is more or less fine in most cases.

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Re: Multiple Subgames discussion

by Linuxdirk » Post

Wuzzy wrote:Subgames at alpha stage or subgames that feel like they are in an alpha stage (because e.g. players often feel that something is lacking) are thus excluded
That would be the end for “Minetest Game” then :D

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Re: Multiple Subgames discussion

by sofar » Post

Wuzzy wrote: Inside the Box would pass with ease if it were downloadable. I'm looking forward to the first official release.
Even when the code becomes available, the content is on the server, and without a way for people to contribute new content, there is zero motivation to make it available offline. So, aint gonna happen. It works because it's online, not despite.

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Re: Multiple Subgames discussion

by ThomasMonroe » Post

Wuzzy wrote:This has been discussed before. Current status seems to be that the Minetest maintainers are currently not interested in including any additional subgame.
Nevertheless this is a goal of celeron55's for the project.
and besides that, noone said that the MT maintainers had to maintain the subgames, we could assign that to the owners of the subgames.
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Re: Multiple Subgames discussion

by sofar » Post

ThomasMonroe wrote:
Wuzzy wrote:This has been discussed before. Current status seems to be that the Minetest maintainers are currently not interested in including any additional subgame.
Nevertheless this is a goal of celeron55's for the project.
and besides that, noone said that the MT maintainers had to maintain the subgames, we could assign that to the owners of the subgames.
I don't think Wuzzy's statement reflects the facts, either. I remember seeing a long line of general support for shipping more games in the default distribution of minetest.

I'm more thinking that Wuzzy's interpretation of events leads him to believe that the developers are not interested, after all, to this day no other subgame, besides minetest_game, is included in the default distributions of minetest.

relevant links:

https://github.com/minetest/minetest/issues/3949
https://github.com/minetest/minetest/issues/3778

Note: I'm doing a lot of "reading between the lines" here. Most of the negative comments aren't from core devs dismissing the idea, they are actually providing technical annotations or nuances (e.g. owners will continue to maintain their mods etc.). The only really negative comments are not from core devs, and seem to be from a few posters that are simply not interested in the concept, despite it being overwhelmingly positve towards players, and therefore somewhat narrow-minded viewpoints. And in the second issue thread, there is the technical arguments against including the particular subgame at the center of the discussion, but nothing against the idea of inclusion in general. That aside the one person who "my way or the high way" can't be reasonable

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Re: Multiple Subgames discussion

by jas » Post

The core issue is whether Minetest should come with a multitude of sub-games, more than which ones.

I've always maintained that Minetest should come with only one sub-game: minimal. The mod/game store/repo should be implemented and the user decides.

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Re: Multiple Subgames discussion

by rubenwardy » Post

I'd like to see more subgames bundled, but I don't see any of a sufficient quality. Wuzzy's analysis is accurate - Pixture still had breaking bugs when I last tried it. Also, we cannot officially endorse any subgames with trademarked or non-original content. This includes LOTT and MineClone2
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Re: Multiple Subgames discussion

by ThomasMonroe » Post

rubenwardy wrote:I'd like to see more subgames bundled, but I don't see any of a sufficient quality. Wuzzy's analysis is accurate - Pixture still had breaking bugs when I last tried it. Also, we cannot officially endorse any subgames with trademarked or non-original content. This includes LOTT and MineClone2
I agree

Caleb is working on a really neat subgame that I think would be awesome for MT
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