On a on-topic note, Microsoft requirement will realistically only push away a small amount of people. And those people likely were already turned off by the original buyout of Mojang by Microsoft.
Regardless, if Minetest really wants to capitalize off this to increase an active player-base as a game, the barrier to new players needs to be lowered. Thankfully the built-in "content shopping" is great, but the UI for the main menu still is a bit stale. I might throw some time into making some wireframes or mockups or something as to how I'd improve it, but I'll at least share what I think should be done to address this:
- Support a limited range of main menu sizes/aspect ratios. While it may be fun to make a window of size 400x200, very limited number of people will actually need or ever want a window that small. In the few cases of modding and splitting with an IDE/browser, maybe I could see that being useful. But I still think its less of a problem and gives a much needed consistency for users trying to make custom scenes for their games.
- Improve the wonky control profiles. Different ones could be added to mimic other games. Like I know I want to change my experience to match the FPS/shooter games as best I can, as I do prefer a similar control style between my games. Maybe not changing the default controls, but making a bundled set of preset profiles that can be selected in the controls menu? Or the ability to make your own profiles?
- Make an easy way to access fast, fly/noclip modes. It seems weird to have Creative mode enabled when I start a world, but not be able to fly or run. And typing `/grant singleplayer all` is one of the weirdest, unintuitive ways to do so.
I personally am more of a minimalist in terms of adding new nodes, and most times end up just sticking with the default game. But seeing small QoL mods like walking lights, timber mods, occasional minimal agriculture mods are always good to see, and think the easy access to those makes its easier for those new players to really get comfortable in the game.
Maybe I'll work on some of these issues and throw up a PR, but I'm of the opinion that C++ can burn, so we will see...
Anyway, that's enough from me. TLDR: There's some good, and some bad in Minetest. The game has improved a lot. I think there are someaesthetic/game experience aspects that could easily bring some much needed polish to Minetest as fully-fledged product.