How can the minetest community be made bigger?

[Kool]

Hello everyone,,
We already have an amazing Community but it's not very big I would love to make it bigger,,

Two things.

Put together a well rounded game, distributed with Minetest, which emulates the vanilla experience in the-game-that-shall-not-be-named.

Put together a well rounded game, which emulates the popular modpack-that-shall-not-be-named for the the-game-that-shall-not-be-named.

Does it have to be identical? No. But it does have to be a tad more compelling than what is presently available. I get that people can toss together different mods from the forums but what newbies really need is one or two well curated games which let them just play. They can learn about adding/removing mods later, after they've played, had fun, and then want to add more.

[u34]

How would you like to make the community bigger? any idears?

[Linuxdirk]

Maybe first familiarize yourself with the Minetest ecosystem. Then you would see that such a game already exists and that there were multiple endless discussions about this before.

[eyekay]

Minetest won't come with any game in the near future, once the new main menu redesign is done. And a bigger community isn't necessarily better imo

[Hume2]

I will tell you the main topics which have been discussed and the results of the discussions. Maybe these are not all.

• Too many PRs → Too few developers → Nobody is willing to help either.
• The code is mess → People agree but fixing it would be too much work.
• MTG is bad → We need a better game. → We need a concept first → A few people came up with a concept but these concept weren't much supported by other people and were too complex so they died a few days later.
• Irrlicht is obsolete → We need to switch to something else. → Too much work.

If you have any idea how to move from these points, you're welcome.

[Zughy]

Build something worth playing. It'll work like a magnet and fix what hume listed (well, there aren't too few developers. If even, too few ACTIVE developers)

[rendeko]

Lack of polish on the menus and in general is what steers people away from my experience. A solid main game that doesn't require installing many many mods for simple features people expect from MC (like beds) would do good too.

The thing Minetest has over MC is the modding API being much better and not Java.

[paramat]

Kool,

> We already have an amazing Community but it's not very big I would love to make it bigger

The forum has 15173 members, that is big enough.
Being 'very big' is unimportant and would very probably make it a less pleasant community.
Those used to the Minecraft community often tell us how nice our community is, probably because it is smaller.
The assumption that bigger or more popular is better is naive and has no rationality behind it, but some people start from this assumption, it is a conditioning from society.

All that matters is that the community does not get too small, and is large enough to be very active, provides plenty of mod/game content, and provides many good contributors. It does all those things.
As this is zero-cost open source software, the core developers are already overwhelmed by scrutiny, issues and contributions, a larger community would make that worse.

Hume2,

> Too many PRs → Too few developers → Nobody is willing to help either.

Not really. We have a good number of core developers, they just lack time. People are willing to help and do. We recently gained 2 new core developers.

> The code is mess → People agree but fixing it would be too much work.

We are fixing it and always have been, we never gave up on fixing it.

> MTG is bad → We need a better game. → We need a concept first → A few people came up with a concept but these concept weren't much supported by other people and were too complex so they died a few days later.

There was not one 'new official game concept', there were mulitple new official game concepts.
But we have now decided to not have an official or default game, and will probably ship MT with no games.
So it is up to everyone to create good new games, it is not the responsibility of MT Engine developers to do so.

> Irrlicht is obsolete → We need to switch to something else. → Too much work.

We never ruled out moving to something else.

[v-rob]

> The code is mess → People agree but fixing it would be too much work.

Actually, that's top priority for me at this point. Formspecs are awful and have awful code. The code needs to be fixed before formspecs can be improved much beyond what they are now, so that's what I'm spending my core dev time doing.

> Irrlicht is obsolete → We need to switch to something else. → Too much work.
If we refactor all major parts of the code (imagine if every core dev chose one part of the code and refactored it -- it's happening, just not all at once) then we can decouple Irrlicht in each part of the code. I think it's a good idea, and that's what I'm doing with formspec refactoring.

[rubenwardy]

Android is more popular than iOS, worldwide. iOS is only more popular in the US

[Hume2]

The point of my post was summarising the discussions for the OP to safe his time. Of course that each of these topic has a lot of more story which I didn't write about here. I'm not continuing in any of those threads now, I'm only explaining what was happening.

> Too many PRs → Too few developers → Nobody is willing to help either.

Not really. We have a good number of core developers, they just lack time. People are willing to help and do. We recently gained 2 new core developers.

I meant that there were too few developers having enough time. In one thread, it was revealed that the core team is willing to accept volunteers. Two people were offered joining the core team but they refused it. I'm glad that you found someone. Reference: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=24629

> The code is mess → People agree but fixing it would be too much work.

We are fixing it and always have been, we never gave up on fixing it.

In one thread, a few problems (missing documentation, mess in headers) were stated but fixing them was rejected for lack of time. It's good that you are fixing at least some of the issues. Reference: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=24629

> MTG is bad → We need a better game. → We need a concept first → A few people came up with a concept but these concept weren't much supported by other people and were too complex so they died a few days later.

There was not one 'new official game concept', there were mulitple new official game concepts.
But we have now decided to not have an official or default game, and will probably ship MT with no games.
So it is up to everyone to create good new games, it is not the responsibility of MT Engine developers to do so.

I know that this is a bit outdated because MTG won't be shipped with Minetest anymore. I included it in case the OP wanted to create a glorious game which would be supported nearly as much as MTG was.

> Irrlicht is obsolete → We need to switch to something else. → Too much work.

We never ruled out moving to something else.

The "we" was meant to be the Minetest community, not the core team.

[runs]

Those used to the Minecraft community often tell us how nice our community is, probably because it is smaller.

It makes me laugh, Mary-Louise. I'm going to bite my tongue...:-/

[JackGruff]

Not really. We have a good number of core developers, they just lack time

That means you have too few developers.

[Hume2]

I'm wondering who are the two new developers. It's certainly not anyone active on this forum because I would definitely know about it before. Any idea?

[Linuxdirk]

I'm wondering who are the two new developers. It's certainly not anyone active on this forum

I know 3 developers that interact with the community here in the forums in a noticeable amount.

[Zughy]

I'm wondering who are the two new developers. It's certainly not anyone active on this forum because I would definitely know about it before. Any idea?

V-rob and Pyrollo

[Hume2]

It's strange that I haven't noticed that. Thanks for information.

[v-rob]

Neither me or pyrollo are part of the core developer group on the forums yet. I should probably poke celeron55 about that or something.

[Jastiv]

I think the best way to grow the minetest community would be to have people get paid to work on it full time (both core and also some mods. There are a few different models we could use. We could use the co-op model, so it would would something like credit unions, organic food co-ops or preschool co-ops. I like the idea that people could be members and vote on things like what mods to get, so say, I could pay a yearly membership and vote on something like the wings mod, and whatever gets the most votes would be implemented for sure. Most the they money should go to paying the core developers to fix up the engine so it is nice and easier to make mods.

Another option would be sell minetest server hosting made easy. I don't know about you guys, but even hosting minetest over LAN is a challenge, just having two computers in the same household playing on it is hard, let alone if you wanted more people. (I keep getting crashes, like I can log into the server for a few minutes, and then it sucks. I swear Wograld has better networking and I don't know anything about network, just whatever we forked from crossfire, people should look at Wograld code to see how it is done cause it has got to be better than Minetest (wait, its done in Java and C so it probably doesn't apply, but oh well, and also it still probably needs to be updated for ipv6)

Another idea for making the minetest test community bigger is to create more videos. I see a lot of really silly things on youtube, maybe we could do silly things like minetest in real life or don't play minetest at 3am, or other stuff like that.

I don't think you will actually care what I think, I just love minetest but I seriously wish it were better, at least I don't need to be logged into the internet to play it, or have to worry that it will ever stop supporting GNU/Linux.

Well maybe the first question should be would people like to get paid to work on it full time, and what kind of incentive package would we need to make that happen?

[duane]

The forum has 15173 members, that is big enough.

Ok, I know I shouldn't nit-pick, but this is a terrible argument. I'll bet you a doughnut that 80% of those 15K don't even play minetest anymore. Even some people who still post don't actually play the game except to look at the occasional new wrinkle they spot in a forum post. (Guess who I'm referring to.) : )

We could use the co-op model, so it would would something like credit unions, organic food co-ops or preschool co-ops.

I doubt that would work, because I'm guessing that minetest appeals to a younger average age, with less spending money than, for example, godot users.

Another idea for making the minetest test community bigger is to create more videos. I see a lot of really silly things on youtube, maybe we could do silly things like minetest in real life or don't play minetest at 3am, or other stuff like that.

If you want a bigger community, publicity is the way to go. Just don't expect that to lead to a better community -- it might or it might not.

It makes me laugh, Mary-Louise. I'm going to bite my tongue...:-/

So cynical, at such a young age -- it makes me sad. ; p

[freshreplicant]

Minetest can certainly grow and I am confident it will still.

It would be cool to look at funding models, to see if perhaps we can support core devs better and shore up their willpower and investment in the project (or even add more core devs). You won't get funding if you don't ask. At the very least, funding infrastructure should be set up that spreads out donations across the team, rather than having everyone have their own little donation system set up.

Showcasing and publicising the practical/educational/research potential of Minetest might also bring in a more mature audience that would be interested in donating to Minetest. There's some very interesting, conceptual stuff being done with the engine that might benefit from a bit more publicity and exposure. This kind of stuff:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=25040

Minetest benefits from being in the sweet spot on the Venn diagram of people technically capable enough to do stuff like that in it and the group of people to which a FOSS voxel game appeals to.

But let's not underestimate it from a 'Game' or community perspective either: I've recently been dipping in and out of other FOSS games and their communities and have seen some very interesting, noteworthy projects that are really suffering from lack of developers and community investment. Returning to Minetest now makes this community feel super vibrant, creative and active.

This may be a prickly issue, but maybe too much of the community 'buzz' for FOSS games takes place on proprietary closed source software like Discord. I'm as guilty as anyone of that, because I want to get involved and will have to go where the network effect takes me, but that aspect of it might still be worth keeping in mind. Even if you're very cynical about FOSS, and your being here on the forum of a FOSS game is coincidental, it would be cool if those with certain convictions about tech don't pop their head into IRC and think the project is 'dead', when really on the other side there's tons going on on Discord or somewhere. You don't need to be a 'purist' or 'free software extremist' to hold that view. It's just a practical reality.

[Zughy]

It would be cool to look at funding models, to see if perhaps we can support core devs better and shore up their willpower and investment in the project (or even add more core devs). You won't get funding if you don't ask. At the very least, funding infrastructure should be set up that spreads out donations across the team, rather than having everyone have their own little donation system set up.

I agree with you, but not happening: https://github.com/minetest/minetest/issues/10116

Showcasing and publicising the practical/educational/research potential of Minetest might also bring in a more mature audience that would be interesting in donating to Minetest.

Agree pt.2 And let's not forget about the collaboration Minetest has with CERN (!!!)

This may be a prickly issue, but maybe too much of the community 'buzz' for FOSS games takes place on proprietary closed source software like Discord.

I've discovered today there is an unofficial Element channel too. I myself prefer that than IRC (also, the work they're doing with the Matrix protocol is huge). It's +minetest:tchncs.de, I invite any core dev to consider it

[Jastiv]

I was thinking about the fact minetest appeals to a younger audience. If you have kids, I'm sure you realize how much they influence spending. Think about how you decide to spend money when you buy gifts or other things for kids. (such your own children or other children in your family.) I'm sure a lot of children are disappointed this year because so many parties and fun trips have been canceled. They are stuck at home with mom &/or dad who are busy online going to work meetings and not playing with them (because they now had to bring work home.) I just think a minetest community thing where you get to vote on mods or even fully fund mod development and/or bug fixes would be really good. I was reading an article about how rich people don't have as many places to spend money anymore, what with parties and trips being canceled, well customized free software games with the source code is an obvious place to spend it.

I'm going to quote an article from torrent freak that summarizes it pretty well. “

You can be rich and buy all the games you want but you can never buy true ownership anymore. Everything is rented licenses that can be taken from you at any given point in time. How can you enjoy something if you know there is even a slight chance of its license expiring 20 years from now? Or do people just like to be slaves?”

https://torrentfreak.com/games-cracker- ... ks-200926/

[cuthbertdoublebarrel]

A cursed minetest main game that will make the darkside of minecraft look like a stroll in the park. . we then build an army to grief the minecraft servers and leave signs that "minetest woz here" and a challenge to fight in our world .
But i think the core devs are more interested in promoting quirky puzzle games and making minetest a universal game engine with no actual main directive other than to distance themselves from the orginal purpose of the engines creation. things appear very unsettled for the future of minetest .

[cuthbertdoublebarrel]

Another idea for making the minetest test community bigger is to create more videos. I see a lot of really silly things on youtube, maybe we could do silly things like minetest in real life or don't play minetest at 3am, or other stuff like that.

there is no Philza in a hardcore single player survival challange to root for .
there is no Fitmc to delve into the history of minetest.
There is now no main minetest game for future streamers to get involved in . there will never be the depth of gameplay that attracts such people if minetest becomes a collection of unrelated subgames.