What is, what will, what sould be Minetest?

[DcNdrew]

Hi!
I'm new here and I didn't play Minetest more than an hour. My problem with it is I don't know what does it want to be.
It looks like another Minecraft clone, but far less than Minecraft. Man, its name is "Mine" too. "Minetest" is good for a homework game, but if it wants to be something more, it should be more. Adding "Game" to the name is not a change. :D

If it's inspired by Minecraft, try to make something what Minecraft isn't, but still an own way, or at least fix its problems. Many games has crafting, building and so on, but not much has it's own taste.
Here are some good examples which have:
Factorio: What's new? You have to build a real system by playing to survive.
Starmade: What's new? Huge spaceships! And you can even play with your friends in the same ship.
Rimworld: Different personalities for the characters. Cruel or just hearthless (literally :D If you played, you may know) decisions for survival, or just for a few bucks.

Minetest is looks like Minecraft. Its basics work like Minecraft. What's new? You may know, but most of the people will never know.

What will it be? Stay a clone? Or would you do something with that?

Minecraft has some problems. Performance.... With some mods and the ticking system it becames a laggy stuff. If you want to build something what moves and you can move on too, it's a pain.
Minetest has the advantage in the knowledge of problems. It has the advantage it's still easy to change, compared to Minecraft.

I think if you start to learn about the Vulcan; try to make huge systems (those can be animals, envitoment etc.) operating flawless; more precision in loaded blocks/items/anything, and of course choose a more unique name, Minetest can come out from Minecraft's shadow, and can became a nice piece of sandbox games.

This is my opinion. But the question is still on. What's Minetest?

[burli]

Minetest is a game engine, not an actual game. You can create your own game by adding the mods you need for your game. And you can install preselected mod collections called subgames.

Minetest Game is just a minimal collection of mods, so for a better gameplay you have to install mods

[burli]

There are more differences between Minetest and Minecraft. In Minecraft you have a limited altitude of 256 nodes. And you can't dig down below 64 nodes.

In Minetest some interesting ores spawn below 64, diamonds already spawn below 128 and you can dig down to -30000 and build up to 30000

[Krock]

To answer your question: Minetest is not just yet another clone of Minecraft.
The targets of the two games are very similar. Allowing the players to create mods to make their own world with the items they want.
Playing a hour, hell, not even in five hours you could not check out all mods/subgames and texture packs that exist so far. Yesterday I spent some hours on a house built with jungle wood and normal wood. With some creativity you don't need more than that to build something nice. Because you can either do a serious survival game (including mobs and hunger) or realise your ideas directly in the creative mode. But it's not designed to build moving platforms or even spaceships yet (sadly). This is a huge piece of code that has to be written first. You may help the developers if you have C++ skills ;)

You will many discussions and answers in this topic, which is (as you will see) yet another MT <--> MC comparison.

EDIT: @burli: There's an edit button.

[Dopium]

I agree with everything burli and Krock said 100%, it's an engine to create your own game. Nothing says you need to create a game anything like minecraft or minetest_game, the choice is yours.

However, this discussion gets brought up an average 4 times a year from new players eg:viewtopic.php?f=3&t=15128. Many are well aware that some come to minetest looking for a minecraft clone only to be disappointed with the subgame "minetest_game". If anything gets changed there may be an additional subgame with more features to keep newbies happy right off the bat.

That been said, just like your wish list and requests is the reason why minetest still remains a game engine. Your notion kind of contradicts itself, space themes? survival? Personalities? Well i know both space and survival sub games have been created and are in the subgame sub-forum section and rolling developed.

IMO minetest is geared more towards enthusiasts, those who always wanted a game exactly the way they want. There is also the beauty of being proud of your own creation while developing your game over time.

As for the name i always thought "Voxel Game Engine" would be more suited however that would deter alot of would be uses thinking it's a tool without any subgames.

My two cents

[DcNdrew]

My questions is not pointed to compare MC to MT. They are based on why is MT looks like MC if it's not a clone? What is it then? Minecraft has mods too, and you can play what you can put together in MC too. So what's the difference? :)

[burli]

Minetest and Minecraft have the same basic idea. Digging and building blocks. So you can say, both are clones of Infiniminer.

The main differences between MT and MC are, MT is free and open source and MT is, as mentioned before, a game engine and not an actual game like MC. MC comes with a full game including a final end (batteries included).

Modding in MT is easier in MT because of the Lua scripting language.

Edit: (yes, I know there is an edit button) cloning means to create an identical copy, which MT is definitely not. Yes, it looks similar and has a similar gameplay, but it is not a clone

[KCoombes]

My questions is not pointed to compare MC to MT. They are based on why is MT looks like MC if it's not a clone? What is it then? Minecraft has mods too, and you can play what you can put together in MC too. So what's the difference? :)

In a nutshell? Price. Minetest, its mods, skins and texturepacks are all free and open source. Yes, some are based on Minecraft elements, to draw the user to them initially, but it is the free and open nature of Minetest that convinces some users to contribute their own spin on those elements, which is what I see Minetest's purpose as being.

[benrob0329]

Minetest was also first to have server side mods, as well as a scripting language (Minecraft now has Python based scripting)

[burli]

Minetest was also first to have server side mods, as well as a scripting language (Minecraft now has Python based scripting)

Python? Really? I like Python, but I don't think it is a good choice for that. Even with pypy it is terribly slow compared to LuaJIT.

They don't want to use Lua because someone could say, they copied Minetest, eh? ;-)

[Calinou]

Minetest was also first to have server side mods

I don't think that's entirely true - hMod (2010) and CraftBukkit (2011) could basically be considered server mods, even if they were pretty limited in adding new content to the game.

[benrob0329]

Minetest was also first to have server side mods

I don't think that's entirely true - hMod (2010) and CraftBukkit (2011) could basically be considered server mods, even if they were pretty limited in adding new content to the game.

But every Minetest mod is downloaded from the server, not just a few.

[Wuzzy]

I just added the entry “What is Minetest?” to the FAQ.
And it turns out the wiki page “Minetest” was mostly useless as well.
I have updated both now. :-)

To answer your questions:

What is Minetest?

http://wiki.minetest.net/Minetest (wiki page updated just for you … okay, not really, updated just for you and all other users in the Web :D)

What will, what should be Minetest?

An engine for voxel-based games. That's unlikely to change.

Probably you also meant to ask “What will, what should be Minetest Game?”. For this question, I fear there is no real answer. I have tried to get an answer out of the developers, but I never got a satisfying answer. Frankly, I fear nobody really knows where Minetest Game is heading, but that's just my opinion. Minetest Game at this current stage is mostly a sandbox with no goals attached. This is important to keep in mind. It's nice to try to build something creative in it, maybe try to dig deep, explore the surface or start farming, but there's really not much more to it.

IMO Minetest Game is not really the best subgame (if you don't understand this word, read the Minetest page I linked above) for Minetest to show it off. It has gradually improved over the years, but it still feels rather shallow and bare-bones.
If you want to try a okayish custom subgame, I would recommend Carbone NG. Keep in mind, this is also pretty much sandbox play.

Frankly, I currently can't recommend any subgame which I really enjoy, except the Hungry Games Plus maybe, which I could maybe maybe kinda sorta recommend, but I am probably biased because I helped developing. :D Some people argue that it has balancing issues, and I kinda agree with them. But at least it is more or less complete.

But IMO the community at large (that includes me) has not yet come up with one truly great subgame which is worth recommending to everyone right now, sorry. Most subgames we have are either too similar to Minetest Game, very unfinished, or I simply don't like their game design (but that's obviously just my opinion).

At the end of the day, Minetest, Minetest Game and community-driven subgames have one thing in common: They're (almost) all unfinished. Probably something between alpha and beta version. It will take a while until they're finished.

[MineYoshi]

I had this question too...
When you play Minetest more and more, and you get closer to community, you realized that Minetest is different...

Many people come searching a MineCraft clone for many reasons, they found Minetest and they think they're the same...

Simply, being sincerely and frankly, Minetest isn't the same, but since who see this game thinks is MineCraft, they think that this doesn't have anything to offer, I thought this too, I should admit it, when you get closer, you see how different is in really...

The mods and everything make this game a masterpiece, Minetest is likely a car, you have the motor, but you'll see what you can add, if you want performance, if you want good graphics, Minetest it's likely making a car, or making a computer, you have the motor, you have the Motherboard, but you decide what to add, if you know how to make something good, you will enjoy it!

About subgames, the subgames are great too, but find one you really like is what you should do, some people can find more nice and play-able a WIP Subgame, than a Big and complete one...

[Ferk]

Adding "Game" to the name is not a change.

This was done to try and ease the confusion between the engine (Minetest) and the official subgame (Minetest Game).

It was a pity that the voting to change the subgame name resulted in that name... imho adding " Game" to the title of something that everybody knows it's a "game" already is not a real rename. And as proven by your reaction to it, it's not making it any more clear for new users.

About the difference with Minecraft and "Minetest Game" (cos I assume you are not comparing the engine, which is different enough). Minecraft is actually quite playable on its own, "Minetest Game" is more of a template for people to create other games or mods. The reason the devs resist to add any groundbreaking content or new mechanics is often because they prefer to leave it to the mods for them to add the content in whichever way they want, so people hosting Minetest servers can have the option to add one mod or the other. There's more freedom in what things can be changed. And of course it's all open source.

You can play Minecraft without mods.. but in Minetest if you haven't installed any mods or played in different subgames, you haven't really experienced it.

Btw, the Minetest client can play any subgame in any modded server automatically without the need for the user to download anything extra, all the modding is done server-side. In fact you won't find a server in the serverlist that is not modded.

[MineYoshi]

Mine has no mods...
But, well, you're right...

If you don't add mods or subgames to Minetest you didn't experienced it!

[ABJ]

Wuzzy is going around suggesting a new crafting system. Also, how about we simulate some real physics in Minetest?Needs discussion.
Also, I REALLY think we should change our name. I find it hard to believe that we've been going on this long with THIS alpha-testing name.

[maikerumine]

Minetest engine is fine.
Mine = Act of digging crafting placing and using.
Test = Sandbox engine to test your Sub games.

Yes, most subgames are of the mc type, however more can be done gamewise that hasn't before.

It is anybody's game to create, really.

[ABJ]

About physics. I firmly believe Minetest can be made to simulate realistic physics, if we will be imaginative. I already think I may see some ways. Let's discuss this too.

[MineYoshi]

About physics. I firmly believe Minetest can be made to simulate realistic physics, if we will be imaginative. I already think I may see some ways. Let's discuss this too.

Actual physics (with mobs) are kind of nice, but they need to be a bit better...

[ABJ]

Why the f**k did I say "realistic physics"????!??!?!?!?!?!!!!!!!!
I was actually things like structural support, thermal effects, physical effects, pressure, weight, the like.
I believe we can make the code and either convert whole minetest_game or make new clean game to simulate these.

[MineYoshi]

Why the f**k did I say "realistic physics"????!??!?!?!?!?!!!!!!!!
I was actually things like structural support, thermal effects, physical effects, pressure, weight, the like.
I believe we can make the code and either convert whole minetest_game or make new clean game to simulate these.

Well... IF you say Basic Physics then Minetest works very nice, the only thing to do can be do some changes in the engine as well!

[ABJ]

Actually, I've suddenly realized that implementing the most basic structural physics isn't that hard after all. I mean, who would build a genuine entire house out of most of the blocks available? We can make the coding, then we can apply it to some blocks such as wood, planks, steel/metal blocks, cobble/stone, obsidian, etc that people are commonly expected to build anything such as a roof out of.
By the way, I think I regret starting this discussion here. I doubt even if physics were made, it would be implemented by default - not too soon, where we want to keep support for all those mods, maybe as a mod now, and later implemented in a whole new version to cast away all the old mods compatibility. For now, I believe it is easy to do a quick one for minetest_game, easier than I projected earlier, but it will remain a mod, and we need to open a new thread for this. Mod delete all posts after mine please.

[SegFault22]

I made a post to some other topic, which seems like a lot of the content belongs here as it is relevant to the discussion, even though it is somewhat out of context. I don't want to re-type most of it into context, so I'll just link to here: API Expansion -> Immersion Explosion -> More Players

I believe that if the community is going to grow more and faster than it ever has, and more players are going to play the game for more time than ever before, and people in the community are going to feel that there is more reason and purpose to the game, it will be caused by this (outside from something highly unlikely, like Minecraft being totally destroyed and nobody being able to play it ever again)

tl;dr: Like the Cambrian explosion, except for Minetest. More immersion is better for everyone. More immersion means more fun, more players, and more challenges to overcome which give great rewards, thus more reason to actually play the game and more purpose for building those "ore storage buildings" (houses).

[ABJ]

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