My Fears...

[Traxie21]

Not everyone can contribute. I wish I could, but my attampts of compiling have totally failed.

[prestidigitator]

Compressing chunks probably isn't realistic, but SIMPLIFYING them would be. Some kind of oct-tree based 3D "mipmapping" for LOD distance could cut down greatly on both memory and CPU requirements. "Chunk impostors". Heh.

[Inocudom]

What is the debug menu? How is it opened? If people know about it better, they might be able to assist with the RAM and CPU issues. Many of the new features and enhancements that were recently added are wonderful, but their RAM and CPU needs must be optimized.

[YoYoBuddy]

Hey traxie, did you notice I called you a "bad-ass"?

[Psychotic]

So if i make a post about this on the minecraft forum, would you guys be willing to back me up with examples on how minetest is different than minecraft?

[onpon4]

So if i make a post about this on the minecraft forum, would you guys be willing to back me up with examples on how minetest is different than minecraft?

Well, it's of course different. I've never played Minecraft and never will, but other than the base game being more minimal, I'm aware of these differences:

• All Minetest mods are server-side, while Minecraft has both server-side and client-side mods (my brother tells me that some client-side mods are considered "cheating" in Minecraft).
• Minetest is written in C++ instead of Java.
• Minetest is free software (where "free" refers to freedom, not price, though it is gratis as well).
• Minetest has MESE, MESE crystals, and MESE crystal fragments, which are used for MESE pickaxes and is also used by mods for other things.
• The fist looks like a potato in Minetest.

[Traxie21]

Has a powerful lua modding API

[Inocudom]

Never forget the much greater height allowances (though I don't think its a good idea to talk about this game in the Minecraft forums; you would be safer doing that in the PureZC forums.)

In the topic for PilzAdam's builds, it was revealed that diamond and gold were added to Minetest. I was thinking that diamond would make a good companion substance to mese and could even resemble it. However, diamond could retain its coloration scheme and strength. It could also be given a different name (I thought up the names CYAN and DMND) and be able to fuse with mese to create an even stronger substance.

[Sokomine]

MT runs faster and has a higher viewing range than MC at least on older computers. MC, on the other hand, does have more survival elements and is currently better suited for players who want to fight against mobs.

[Inocudom]

What is the debug menu? How is it opened? If people know about it better, they might be able to assist with the RAM and CPU issues. Many of the new features and enhancements that were recently added are wonderful, but their RAM and CPU needs must be optimized.

It may be a futile effort, but there must be a way to optimize the CPU and RAM needs of the current git version of Minetest.

[Michael Eh?]

I think what is missing is vision on what 'minetest' direction should go. Mods allow to build a game to a server admin liking.

However, if we aren't following minecraft path then what direction should we go?

That is the problem. Given the fact that Minecraft developed over time with things being added. back when I played there was no mobs in minecraft. Since then PvP minecraft has dangerously spilled over to creative servers, should we ditch the 'sandbox' part of Minetest?

Absorbing proven mods into the core game like 'wool' which proved it's worth. It's neutral BUT c55 ideal was to make base engine well that depended on mods to make each server 'personal touch'.

Without a core program, there can really be nothing. Without proper frame, no mod will be able fix it.

While the new MESE is cute it doesn't mean that MESE blocks are gone. It's has open up more mods like UFO.

True the current direction of minetest with cruel PKers like LandMine who seems to be determine to undermine the game Minetest on multiple servers. A program can't correct behavior. Those who run servers can. Maybe we can simply write LandMine out of the game by having 'log actions on conditions' like one I proposed PK notifier where attacks are announced and logged. Maybe having trigger like everytime someone uses lava or lava in bucket. This could be written as a mod then eventually included in core mods.

Still we need a direction to go from here. If not minecraft then what? Finding that direction might be hardest thing in minetest to find.

my 2 cents....

[Inocudom]

Minetest should still be a sandbox game. It can have similarities to Minecraft, but it should avoid being a clone of it.

[Neuromancer]

Minetest in recent months has started to lose things which made it stick out from the others. Since c55 left the project, PilzAdam has been making various minetest_game decisions which have either:

Pissed several people off

Or

Removed ancient artefacts such as mese blocks. Which leads to option 1.

If we keep going this way, Minetest is going to look like a huge steaming pile of shit Minecraft is.

@PilzAdam quit being blind!

-Jordach

There's a problem with criticism and negativity, it tends to demoralize the very people who are keeping the game alive. If there is too much criticism, they will eventually just give up and stop contributing all of their hard work. What Minetest needs to keep it alive is less criticism and negativity, and if someone has a better idea, then write some C++ code and make the game better. If someone wants the engine to be more efficient (or whatever enhancement), then by all means write the code to make it so and contribute it to the team. Otherwise silence is the best bet. That doesn't mean positive ideas shouldn't be shared.

Working together rather than creating a fork is also a better approach. I think there has been some decent progress over the last few months.

[Neuromancer]

' like one I proposed PK notifier where attacks are announced and logged. Maybe having trigger like everytime someone uses lava or lava in bucket. This could be written as a mod then eventually included in core mods.
.

These are really good ideas that would move the game forward and should be easy to implement.

[DaN]

My, this forum really has grown since 0.2. :)
I'm Dan. I've been following (and playing) Minetest since 0.2 (hinted above). Just joined the forums outta urge.
Really like ideas in this discussion. Esp. the separate gamemodes and focus on optimizing the engine.
I'll be keeping eye on this thread (really interested in the way this will unravel). Might think of some ideas.

-D.H.

[xavier108]

Minetest in recent months has started to lose things which made it stick out from the others. Since c55 left the project, [...]

I damn agree with you.It is good to have new ore but replacung our precious mese and turning that damn diamond to the rarest ore really pissed me of next to lava being crap.But I got an idea how about adding this in the playing mod minecraft and minetest.Minecraft will be like minecraft while minetest will be minetest.Also I want the old mese back intstead this damn ore

[xavier108]

I don't mind the change for the renewable lava, lava isn't that much of an asset to me. But I concur with Jordach that if Minetest will have updates similar to Minecraft, then people will not be used to these changes and Minetest will not be that much as unique. And people from the Minecraft Forums will get even more pissed off because the changes of Minetest are similar to them. They'll just find a way of bringing Minetest down.

They are already finding a way to defeat us.I can't give the link but they're talking on how to defeat us.

[oxenfreedan]

Your right it should go back to being its own game and even add back old monsters and stuff from some of the most original versions! P.S. another fear minecraft has copyrite if the game would get to much like they're trash are whole game could get sued or shut down!

[jojoa1997]

There is one problem. As long as we dont use names for mobs in default specil to minecraft like creepers then it is fine. We never took any JAVA CODE SO WE ARE SAFE THERE. Also i think they are takiing ideas from us. I remember someone taliking about a horse mod and showing a model(it got real popular) and also how come they all of a sudden switched to texztures that are seperate files.

[fishyWET]

The problem with developing minetest_game is that its not possible to create a game that everyone is happy with. So we have two options:

1. We do it like we have done it the last few months (since I am here) and dont add any features. We only do some minor tweaks and bugfixes.
   The community will start to make mods that make a real game out of the boring minetest_game. The vanilla game will be unplayable because there are only a very few features and new users will mostly be disappointed and leave.
   
2. We actually start developing and add in features that make the gameplay more fun (like I have tried it the last few days). There will be some features that will not make everyone happy, but they are important for a challenging survival game.
   The problem is that the users have billions of oppinions and suggestion, and we wont be able to add them all in. We have to find a general direction in wich minetest_game should go and add in all the features that suit this direction and leave the rest out.
   The result will be a pretty nice vanilla game that is playable without mods. But if some users dont like the style of it, they can simply go to the forum and install mods or other games that have different goals.

minetest_game simply cant be a game that suits everyones needs, so in my opinion we just pick a direction (challenging survival gameplay with enough freedom to build) and add features that actually support this goal.
The other way would be the option number one from above, and in the long term this would be Minetests death.

PilzAdam, if we are copying Minecraft wouldn't that make Minetest's death come eariler?

[jojoa1997]

The problem with developing minetest_game is that its not possible to create a game that everyone is happy with. So we have two options:

1. We do it like we have done it the last few months (since I am here) and dont add any features. We only do some minor tweaks and bugfixes.
   The community will start to make mods that make a real game out of the boring minetest_game. The vanilla game will be unplayable because there are only a very few features and new users will mostly be disappointed and leave.
   
2. We actually start developing and add in features that make the gameplay more fun (like I have tried it the last few days). There will be some features that will not make everyone happy, but they are important for a challenging survival game.
   The problem is that the users have billions of oppinions and suggestion, and we wont be able to add them all in. We have to find a general direction in wich minetest_game should go and add in all the features that suit this direction and leave the rest out.
   The result will be a pretty nice vanilla game that is playable without mods. But if some users dont like the style of it, they can simply go to the forum and install mods or other games that have different goals.

minetest_game simply cant be a game that suits everyones needs, so in my opinion we just pick a direction (challenging survival gameplay with enough freedom to build) and add features that actually support this goal.
The other way would be the option number one from above, and in the long term this would be Minetests death.

PilzAdam, if we are copying Minecraft wouldn't that make Minetest's death come eariler?

not really minecraft has good features but we have major configurability so we can have both with the new survival and build games. The one thing we need to do is put every mod in common and reference it from the games

[CryAngel]

i wonder why some people so fear copying minecraft. well, 1:1 copy will be bad but anyway, minecraft have many good features, which come from users suggestions. in other words many things in minecraft - is actually what users want. avoiding some things just because they already implemented in minecraft will be avoiding user wishes then. im sure each thing or feature must be rated and some of them will not be accepted but only because they really bad and not because 'is looks like minecraft'. is my opinion.

[fishyWET]

i wonder why some people so fear copying minecraft. well, 1:1 copy will be bad but anyway, minecraft have many good features, which come from users suggestions. in other words many things in minecraft - is actually what users want. avoiding some things just because they already implemented in minecraft will be avoiding user wishes then. im sure each thing or feature must be rated and some of them will not be accepted but only because they really bad and not because 'is looks like minecraft'. is my opinion.

I am not saying the fact that using features from minecraft is bad, but now they are developing minetest like as if it is a total clone of minecraft, then wouldn't people just come to minetest because they want a free version of minecraft, it shouldn't be that, minetest should be something that's worthy on it's own.

[Psychotic]

Remember when Minetest was fun and unique, and wasnt turning into a Minecraft clone?

Pepperidge Farm remembers.

[Nebucad]

Minetest / Minecraft.

If Minecraft wouldn't be so famous/popular, well you can imagine....

Minecraft has a good mixture of building/ resurces farming and game entertainment It's build for massive.
easy rules with cute style exatcly what the facebook-social-game generation want it.

One the other side mine-test are amazing. Player created Mods which easily fit in his own game. this only happend to due of all Linux/Ubuntu users. losing those benefit, i would say this is a no go.

And right now we have the situation. I guess many player who are pissed of, because of all those changes are mostly Linux-user. They perfer a clean smal gamepackage. actually only the Gamebasics and nothing more. they're used to create they own Mods or Addons so they are saddified with basics.

Well i hope you got it where i want to go. You cant stay in the tradion of Linux and creating Programms for individual minoritys but if you want to create somthing big, you have to go for common stuffs and trends.

As a tribute to the roots, a nice clean basic, for all those passionated player should be offered.
this means, according to my opinion minetest would be by now finished. You got your Mods developed by independents and you got your basic stable game -> done!

honestly if minetest right now done it'll be for ever obscure. Amazing possibilities whitout publicity. the end of the story is, the game would die quiet.

With a lack of players, no new ideas comming up. no new mods would be developed as well. the great mods are basically done. right now only some extension and improvement are following. what happend than?

Minetest need a basic game development/ setup who suits the most player and this would be the entertainment section. this means minetest have to go in the way of minecraft but it doesn't have to be like minecraft!

The core packgage have to include some addons and nice stuff. definitely not like it is right now. that's to low, to plain to boring to play this game for a longer time and you need time to dig for resources or to build anything. It's time to think what should the basic game or the casuall part a player offer, instead of blaming why major change has be done.

[Michael Eh?]

Several things have changed.. like nyancat block being redundant. However, is minetest a minecraft clone? no.

I think that each individual server using LUA can make their own flavor of minetest. I was playing at coffee shop when a couple behind me said,

"I don't remember paved roads in minecraft."

I explained that it was 'mineTEST' and open modding of the game and where to get it and which servers to go and avoid.

I think what has changed is the direction C55 wanted was the platform be able to play on any machine. Sure it's more glossy product but far way from what MineCRAFT is.

I don't mind if some things from minecraft are picked up on but minetest is far from being just a clone.

I do what has changed the game is PvP, PKer (Player Killers), mean spirited players like LandMine, Dr_Internet, MDK (MurderDeathKill). Those who strive to destroy to community which players try to build. Sure there is some characters out there but then there is some gems of players and server admins. Otherwise, I would be building in local mode.

Minetest is what you make of it and make with it.

[Casimir]

Sure it's more glossy product [...]

So minetest already is a product? How sad.

[VanessaE]

"[...] like nyancat block being redundant."

How so?

[prestidigitator]

There is one problem. As long as we dont use names for mobs in default specil to minecraft like creepers then it is fine. We never took any JAVA CODE SO WE ARE SAFE THERE.

Actually no. Not in the slightest. 1.) Porting code to another language would be a form of copying (though I find it unlikely this has happened), and 2.) there are far more forms of copyright infringement and other IP theft than the simple copying of code. Just look at the mobile device/phone wars that have been going on. People get sued for emulating the same sort of little bounce at the end of scrolling, for example. It gets absolutely ridiculous often enough, but it's a fact of our modern world.

So no, I would not say that Minetest is safe at all in a legal sense. But while it is not necessarily safe theoretically, the combination of international location (of both games' developers and hosted sites), the fact that there is no (that I know of) incorporated business to target on the Minetest end, and the size/attitude of Minecraft's developers could (could!) all be factors that help it out. The most important thing to consider: is Minetest really a threat? How much practical, bottom line benefit would there be in going after it?

[IthegeekRS]

In addition to what I said above:
The community should start developing more game(mode)s. Single mods have to run with a game (wich is minetest_game by default) wich isnt good in all cases if minetest_game turns into a survival direction.
If more games would exist, the users could decide wich one is best for them and there wouldnt be that much discussions about what the default game should be.
For example, the technic mod is complex enough to be a whole game.

I'm satisfied in minetest. I have a laptop that was slow when I bought it. Now I downloaded:
Minetest,Terraria,Chrome,Audacity, Skype,Stecnyl,Greenfoot,JDK, Shall I go on? My point is Pilzadam is doing fine. However, Pilzadam, I'd gladly help you out by setting up a Minetest vote for features website and advertize both minetest.net and the vote website on my personal website. Yes, I'm that satisfied in Minetest. Oh, and I saw some people have @minetest.net emails, How do I get them?