[My Opinion] Pros and cons of Minetest

[Silwncer]

I'm playing Minetest for some time and i would like to give my opinion on Minetest overall.

Pros:

• Free

• Cross platform

• Very good community

• Has a lot of mods

• Has a survival and multiplayer mode

Cons:

• Terrible textures and animations

• Performance and rendering needs to be improved a lot

• Text on signs is too tiny to read

• We need built-in mobs (zombies,sheeps,skeletons (sort of), and other Minecraft mobs

• Weather by built-in

• Better farming abilities

• Better player animation movements and player textures overall

• Better tools and items texturing (and overall of game)

Note: I'm NOT trolling or bashing game in ANY way, i just would like to see these things in new build and improvements as well

[rubenwardy]

We get the idea, you want weather ;P.
Thank you for your feedback, anyway.

[Silwncer]

Glad to be part of community and help :)

[lightonflux]

We get the idea, you want weather ;P.
Thank you for your feedback, anyway.

If there was some generic way in the engine for different types of weather condition that games and mods could modify. Like falling particle with attributes like speed and sway so games you define rain, ash fall, snow and more. As well as fog with configurable colours and densities.

[Krock]

I don't like to have built-in stuff, better rename "built-in" to "minetest_game".
It would be great if you could help the developers to reach all your targets.

[stormchaser3000]

I'm playing Minetest for some time and i would like to give my opinion on Minetest overall.

Pros:

• Free

• Cross platform

• Very good community

• Has a lot of mods

• Has a survival and multiplayer mode

Cons:

• Terrible textures and animations

• Performance and rendering needs to be improved a lot

• Text on signs is too tiny to read

• We need built-in mobs (zombies,sheeps,skeletons (sort of), and other Minecraft mobs

• Weather by built-in

• Better farming abilities

• Better player animation movements and player textures overall

• Better tools and items texturing (and overall of game)

Note: I'm NOT trolling or bashing game in ANY way, i just would like to see these things in new build and improvements as well

no offense but if we get built in mobs again. i would probably leave the minetest community. i hate zombies and skeletons. but i do like the idea of weather. that would probably need a few extra lua api fuctions to be built int. but that shouldn't bt too hard.

[Dragonop]

stormchaser3000: I get your point, and undead is not really something good to add. But having the sprite mobs (rat and dm) again might be nice.

[benrob0329]

The devs are working on a lot of stuff, like:

A C++ mobs API

Textures are constantly improving

Better Client prediction and less lag

Text on signs? I think that's something to talk to talk to VennessaE about, I'm pretty sure she wrote signs_lib

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=11253&hilit=player+animation

[BrandonReese]

The devs are working on a lot of stuff, like:

A C++ mobs API

Are you sure about this one?

[benrob0329]

https://github.com/minetest/minetest/issues/2291

[stormchaser3000]

a c++ mob api would be nice. ubt only if there are no built in mobs.

[benrob0329]

@stormchaser3000 I agree with you that the undead mobs are not good, but I think that the devs need to decide what MT game is. I wouldn't mind having animals in default, as well as the Orkki and DM.

[Silwncer]

Text on signs is too small to see or read. Are developers working on animation and textures ?

[rubenwardy]

a c++ mob api would be nice. ubt only if there are no built in mobs.

They wouldn't be builtin, they'd be in subgames and mods. I'd like to see mobs in Minetest game, however no zombies: I want realistic animals with a few legacy monsters, such as DM and Orreki (or however you spell it).

The Minetest world is blank without these. Minetest Game should be a game.

https://github.com/minetest/minetest/issues/2291

None of the devs have said they're working on a mob API. Just because there's an issue doesn't mean it's being worked on, it just means that somebody has requested that feature.

[Don]

I would like to see mobs in minetest game but be able to disable them.

[Ferk]

https://github.com/minetest/minetest/issues/2291

That's just a discussion. It doesn't look like anybody is working on it currently.

Also, are we sure that the reason the mobs are slow is that they are not coded in C++?

I have a feeling lua would be just as fast (aprox.) if it used proper client prediction. Probably it would be better if the mobs behavior were contained in scripts that are sent to the clients as resources, just like textures and sounds do already. Then the clients could do better prediction.

Actually.. I didn't notice any problems in mobs_redo when playing singleplayer even if I spawn a huge amount of mobs. Only multiplayer is troublesome, even when there's barely a handful of people online and only few mobs.

[ArguablySane]

Also, are we sure that the reason the mobs are slow is that they are not coded in C++?

The lua mods are compiled to machine code using luaJIT anyway, so there should only be a relatively small difference in speed between them and native C++.
Unless someone's decided to call an inefficient path-finding algorithm for every mob at every server tick, I'd be surprised if the execution speed was the bottleneck causing lag. It would be easy to test - just look at how the CPU load on the server scales with the number of mobs. If it increases as mobs are added and doesn't reach 100%, then the code execution time isn't what is causing lag.

[Clouds]

Once again, all I see in this list is he wants a minecraft clone.........

[benrob0329]

@Clouds Not completely, but some things are being worked on.

@rubenwardy I agree, MT Game should be a game, but before features get added PLEASE have a community discussion.

[Silwncer]

Once again, all I see in this list is he wants a minecraft clone.........

Technically yes. If you want to be "alternative" to Minecraft then you need similar stuff. I'm sorry but i will purchase Minecraft and support development. No wonder this community is bad ....

[Dragonop]

We don't want to be an alternative to Minecraft, from where did you got that?

[Gael de Sailly]

You want MT to be MC ? So play Minecraft !
Minetest is not Minecraft. I would prefer a Minetest that is different, even if it's not as good as MC, than an exact clone. The day when MC and MT would be identical, I'll take a thimble and play Minecraft if the result is even.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

We need to improve the default games. minetest_game should remain basic, but I think adding other subgames by default is important : the problem is that new players generally don't even know the existance of mods and subgames. You just have to look some comments : players leave MT immediately because that's "too poor". They don't know what they miss.

Think about the diversity of the subgames that we can create : why are they always placed on Earth, with the same dirt, the same sand, the same plants ? And why has the player always the same role : to survive, or to build ? I'm sure we could imagine something else.

An idea out of many : a game like Sim Earth, even very simplified, could be feasible in Minetest.

[Silwncer]

And i will play Minecraft. Shredding MT folder right now .

[Ferk]

the problem is that new players generally don't even know the existance of mods and subgames.

It would be so nice, discoverable and convenient if we had an interface in the main menu that allowed to browse, download and upgrade all the mods and their dependencies.

Or at least have it for the prepackaged "subgames" with nice descriptions and some screenshot.

Make this window the first thing a new user sees when he opens for the first time the singleplayer tab in minetest and don't bundle minetest_game (nor minimal) by default so that he has to actively download a game that he likes before being able to play it (I guess whenever there's no game downloaded we could show this window automatically or replace the singleplayer interface with just a button that says "You have no games downloaded! browse the list of games and pick your choice").

This way the users won't be as exposed to the "base development" version of the game (minetest_game) and won't get confused when they see it's not a full game. Inside the game browser, this could be further clarified in the description of minetest_game and people will find less confusion between minetest_game and minetest engine.

[TenPlus1]

+1 Ferk... That would be a great feature to have and would allow players to explore everything Minetest has to offer from mods, games, textures etc.

[AnxiousInfusion]

no offense but if we get built in mobs again. i would probably leave the minetest community. i hate zombies and skeletons.

I'd like to see mobs in Minetest game, however no zombies:

@stormchaser3000 I agree with you that the undead mobs are not good, but I think that the devs need to decide what MT game is.

stormchaser3000: I get your point, and undead is not really something good to add.

a c++ mob api would be nice. ubt only if there are no built in mobs.

There is a solution to all your problems:

I would like to see mobs in minetest game but be able to disable them.

(Emphasis mine) Why is the Minetest community so hell-bent on preventing even an option for those of us who do want vanilla mobs?

[benrob0329]

I do want vanilla mobs, just not undead ones.

[AnxiousInfusion]

@benrob I recall in an older thread you mentioned that you would be against anything supernatural-based from being included because of your personal religious beliefs. That is far from a legitimate reason to try and influence the development of a game. If, hypothetically, both passive and hostile mobs were to be added, we would need to be able to disable undead/hostile mobs independently. No need to take away such a feature for everybody else.

What if my personal beliefs were pacifist? Should we then remove swords from Minetest?

[benrob0329]

I'm not against anything supernatural, just things that the bible speaks against, and the undead is more of a personal religions opinion based off of that (and the fact that they are included in <strong>everything</strong>). These are just my personal beliefs and pet peves, so they should not be taken as something set in stone.

But I'm not trying to talk down to anyone or start an off topic flame war so I am not going to continue the argument. (You can just take me as a religions gamer/geek who likes to give his $0.02)

I think that having the classic mobs (DM and Orkki) as the supernatural mobs would be good.
But like I have said in the past the devs need to decide what MT Game really is, and get it to be that.

[AnxiousInfusion]

Sorry, I'm in a debate mood tonight. I was on the war path because reading through these posts makes me wonder if I'm the only idiot who even wants mobs. http://www.quickmeme.com/img/58/58b60830d26ef5b1f63fd4edb732fe5c220cba41465f207836d5bf861c5ece40.jpg

But like I have said in the past the devs need to decide what MT Game really is, and get it to be that.

Agree completely. I only lurk the forums and the dev IRC to monitor Minetest development because I'm waiting in the wings to devote time and resources to a potentially promising game if ever development gets its stuffs in order and finds a concrete direction.