FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

Posted: **Sat Apr 20, 2013 19:23**

Bear with me, I'll try to make it clear.

The problem itself already has been discussed extensively in the forum.

What I want to do is to provide a solution.

At the moment there is one official repository, and one official release. And “the core developers” take care of the repo. The official release contains all of the official repo: minetest itself, commons, minetest_game, build and survival.
The idea is to have, beside the official release, a community chosen one. This gives independent developed minetest forks and games a platform for release.
It'll work like this:
There is a discussion, where everyone can take part, of what the release should include. Most likely it will be one fork of minetest and some popular game modes. When the community reaches a consensus then the release will be made. Just like the official release with downloads and so on.
As an example in one release you have the minetest fork A and the games B, C and D. In the next release its the fork E and the games B, C and F. So the releases don't show a linear progress. The parts the release consists of are chosen new for every release.

I lost interest in modding because of all the fighting. I just want minetest to be a good game.

Posted: **Sat Apr 20, 2013 19:39**

Casimir wrote:I lost interest in modding because of all the fighting. I just want minetest to be a good game.

Amen to that :p

Though i'd be more amenable to some sort of pre-release version, minetestx or minetest2, where contested or in-dev features are pulled, tested and perfected.

Posted: **Sat Apr 20, 2013 19:51**

Casimir wrote:When the community reaches a consensus then the release will be made.

Casimir wrote:community

Casimir wrote:reaches a consensus

Posted: **Sat Apr 20, 2013 20:05**

http://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?id=4547

Posted: **Sat Apr 20, 2013 20:36**

I'd rather made a list of ready-to use but unmerged features, added features that has been "banned" by core team and then open a discussion. What should we add - what shouldn't. It would be WRONG from the point of gif, but we can cherry-pick needed features and actually use them with the latest Minetest. We will have progression and won't wait core team to decide what is good.
If smth won't work - we always can remove that feature and add it later if it will be fixed.

Also, community never will reach a consensus, but we always can rely on majority. There will be discouraged ones, true. But that discouraged will pay more attention and after week or so we'll make another build, based on a new discussion/poll. In the end there will be a group of active players and developers who want to make his/her influence upon unofficial build and will participate in discussion almost every time, knowing his/her voice really can do something good.

Posted: **Sat Apr 20, 2013 20:42**

4aiman wrote:I'd rather made a list of ready-to use but unmerged features, added features that has been "banned" by core team and then open a discussion. What should we add - what shouldn't. It would be WRONG from the point of gif, but we can cherry-pick needed features and actually use them with the latest Minetest. We will have progression and won't wait core team to decide what is good.
If smth won't work - we always can remove that feature and add it later if it will be fixed.

Also, community never will reach a consensus, but we always can rely on majority. There will be discouraged ones, true. But that discouraged will pay more attention and after week or so we'll make another build, based on a new discussion/poll. In the end there will be a group of active players and developers who want to make his/her influence upon unofficial build and will participate in discussion almost every time, knowing his/her voice really can do something good.

So you basically want a "throw everything in" fork.

Posted: **Sat Apr 20, 2013 20:50**

PilzAdam wrote:So you basically want a "throw everything in" fork.

I wouldn't go that far :p

My two cents: The current atmosphere does feel a bit too averse to significant changes, and it does take a long time for epic features to get through. Some sort of playground to those ends might do much to quell some of the frustration while said features are discussed pending introduction to mainline. Besides, it would give a new base of testers for such features, those who are less likely to complain if they don't work perfectly.

Posted: **Sat Apr 20, 2013 21:05**

You seem to consider the "core team" to be some oddly distant thing. And because of that, you want to work around the core team. I consider this ridiculous and irresponsible.

The core team is just a bunch of more or less experienced members of the community who want to give their input and time to the development of the main Minetest distribution (or upstream, whatever one wants to call it).

The core team is not set in stone; it is set every day based on who designs, makes and does useful and dependable stuff for the common good of the project. We have *very little* flow of people out or in of it, and it is *not* at all what we want. We just have no way of making it different, except maybe this post that I am writing now.

If you see a problem in upstream Minetest, what you need to do is come on #minetest-dev and explain your thoughts, and explain what you would be ready to do about it. And then work out how or whether it will fit in with what others are doing or planning to do. Then do it. No amount of independent mods can replace a well thought-out main project. And nobody else than each of you is responsible for it.

EDIT: If you do not care to discuss with other people who work on upstream but want to directly make Minetest just like you personally wish to, then your only option is to make a fork, like previously mentioned. Or wait until development completely dies and take it on from there (isn't going to happen in a long time).

Posted: **Sat Apr 20, 2013 21:22**

Regardless, something needs to be done, independent developers should be given a platform for their releases.

Posted: **Sat Apr 20, 2013 21:25**

celeron55 wrote:You seem to consider the "core team" to be some oddly distant thing. And because of that, you want to work around the core team. I consider this ridiculous and irresponsible.

Considering what's happening with colored lights, you can't blame us for reaching that assessment. And I agree, forking to get the features we want is a disproportionate response, but that's where we are at the present time.

celeron55 wrote:The core team is just a bunch of more or less experienced members of the community who want to give their input and time to the development of the main Minetest distribution (or upstream, whatever one wants to call it).

The core team is not set in stone; it is set every day based on who designs, makes and does useful and dependable stuff for the common good of the project. We have *very little* flow of people out or in of it, and it is *not* at all what we want. We just have no way of making it different, except maybe this post that I am writing now.

I agree, it sucks we don't have more people on core dev, but judging from reactions from one particular member, we don't feel very welcomed either. What happened with prestidigitator is just one example of how we've cut ourselves off from whatever possible future contributions he might have made. I'd like to think, there could have been a better way to deal with the situation without completely turning the person off to development.

celeron55 wrote:If you see a problem in upstream Minetest, what you need to do is come on #minetest-dev and explain your thoughts, and explain what you would be ready to do about it. And then work out how or whether it will fit in with what others are doing or planning to do. Then do it. No amount of independent mods can replace a well thought-out main project. And nobody else than each of you is responsible for it.

I don't see how having the same discussion with the same outcome on either channel changes much. All the key people are on both channels, and I can't fathom how reactions coming from the same people would be different.

Posted: **Sat Apr 20, 2013 21:35**

Psychotic wrote:Regardless, something needs to be done, independent developers should be given a platform for their releases.

That is one of the functions of this forum.

Also, who are you even asking that from? Are you thinking somebody will just invent and personally give those "independent developers" some "platform" on some kind of a golden plate? No. If you want a release platform, you do it yourself, either independently (and... then moan again about your release platform requiring a release platform?), or in co-operation with other people who are working on upstream releases (= the core team).

Posted: **Sat Apr 20, 2013 21:48**

PilzAdam wrote:So you basically want a "throw everything in" fork.

If you think so, then you didn't understand a thing I was trying to say... or hadn't read well... Anyway, try again if you feel you want to get my point.

celeron55 wrote:You seem to consider the "core team" to be some oddly distant thing. And because of that, you want to work around the core team. I consider this ridiculous and irresponsible.

2 reasons:
Some of core devs ignore player's wishes and their inexperienced help.
Arrogance, which seem to prohibit to help less experienced but lets say "it's wrong" clauses.

Not distant? How many threads you read yourself? How many responses you've made?
Core team wants things to be "right" but the very same core team made weblate a minetest's translation base. And now we have many languages, but translations are lame. And what about dedicated translators? I and many others tried to translate via github and make a pull request. But all was closed and refused. Simple but expository example.

I can write more, but do I really need to? Read forums and see what end-users want. Without them there's no need in any developers.

Posted: **Sat Apr 20, 2013 21:56**

4aiman wrote:
PilzAdam wrote:So you basically want a "throw everything in" fork.

If you think so, then you didn't understand a thing I was trying to say... or hadn't read well... Anyway, try again if you feel you want to get my point.

Basically every poll in the forum about features will be answered with "yes", because people tend to throw things simply in.
Game development needs a direction. This cant be accomplished by letting more or less random people decide about what should go in.
If we dont simply throw everything in, like we currently do, we have to say "No" to many features. But this is not bad. Minetest is not a engine that should contain every feature that random people currently want. We need a general direction and only pick features that suit this goal.

Posted: **Sat Apr 20, 2013 22:08**

PilzAdam wrote:Basically every poll in the forum about features will be answered with "yes", because people tend to throw things simply in.
Game development needs a direction. This cant be accomplished by letting more or less random people decide about what should go in.
If we dont simply throw everything in, like we currently do, we have to say "No" to many features. But this is not bad. Minetest is not a engine that should contain every feature that random people currently want. We need a general direction and only pick features that suit this goal.

A lot of the features that did go through were also hotly contested, which might lead to the conclusion that it's only the features the devs personally agree with that get through. Im not one to complain, I along with alot of old-timers play our own games by now, im just pointing out how things can work both ways.

Choosing a direction is one thing, choosing who choses the direction, limits the scope further.

The way I see it, we have two mediums for measuring contributions, github and ohloh. But, we only have one medium for gauging what the users want, the forums (the only thing with polls), and that's already ignored on the presumption that users don't really know what they want. What does that leave? Random people are players, and there's no guessing what they might accomplish with either the API or the engine, given the chance.

Posted: **Sat Apr 20, 2013 22:10**

celeron55 wrote:
Psychotic wrote:Regardless, something needs to be done, independent developers should be given a platform for their releases.

That is one of the functions of this forum.

Also, who are you even asking that from? Are you thinking somebody will just invent and personally give those "independent developers" some "platform" on some kind of a golden plate? No. If you want a release platform, you do it yourself, either independently (and... then moan again about your release platform requiring a release platform?), or in co-operation with other people who are working on upstream releases (= the core team).

I never expected it just to be magically invented man. Chill out.

Posted: **Sat Apr 20, 2013 22:14**

mauvebic wrote:
PilzAdam wrote:Basically every poll in the forum about features will be answered with "yes", because people tend to throw things simply in.
Game development needs a direction. This cant be accomplished by letting more or less random people decide about what should go in.
If we dont simply throw everything in, like we currently do, we have to say "No" to many features. But this is not bad. Minetest is not a engine that should contain every feature that random people currently want. We need a general direction and only pick features that suit this goal.

A lot of the features that did go through were also hotly contested, which might lead to the conclusion that it's only the features the devs personally agree with that get through. Im not one to complain, I along with alot of old-timers play our own games by now, im just pointing out how things can work both ways.

Choosing a direction is one thing, choosing who choses the direction, limits the scope further.

The way I see it, we have two mediums for measuring contributions, github and ohloh. But, we only have one medium for gauging what the users want, the forums (the only thing with polls), and that's already ignored on the presumption that users don't really know what they want. What does that leave? Random people are players, and there's no guessing what they might accomplish with either the API or the engine, given the chance.

FYI ohloh just counts the commits on git.

And the general direction is already defined: create a MC like game.

Posted: **Sat Apr 20, 2013 22:17**

PilzAdam wrote:FYI ohloh just counts the commits on git.

And the general direction is already defined: create a MC like game.

MC has colored lights.

Posted: **Sat Apr 20, 2013 22:18**

Honestly, I'm tired of coming onto the forums/IRC/etc and seeing this argument happening. In my (humble and probably unimportant) opinion, we need a method to dynamically load a set of C++-side mods that can make powerful changes outside the API. These would need to be installed client-side if need be, but would have a good amount of access to the environment by way of the proper access levels being given to the instances of server, client, etc objects. We install these if we want changes that can't happen in Lua. This is relatively similar to how Minecraft works with mods acting at the engine level.

PilzAdam wrote:And the general direction is already defined: create a MC like game.

Posted: **Sat Apr 20, 2013 22:20**

mauvebic wrote:judging from reactions from one particular member, we don't feel very welcomed either.

You are talking about hmmmm. Why can't you just say it aloud? Being secretive helps nothing in here. Also, I think hmmmm is a reasonable person, and always agrees to well-explained and well thought out things. But regardless of that, he is not the only member of the team, and if someone insists on going to provoke hmmmm and getting provoked themselves, that is not my problem. Do you even have any other examples of this? And how can you prove that any of these would have been better for the project if having been accepted as-is?

Personally I would like to have had prestidigitator's stuff, but it apparently quite much overlaps with what hmmmm has been working on for a long time, and I personally know very well how hard and unproductive it is to try to incorporate some random stuff from somebody else to something you have designed from the ground up. Thus, I will not blame anyone in here.

In addition to that, you are basically sawing the branch on which you are sitting, if you unconditionally blame hmmmm for everything. That is not wise at all. Good thing hmmmm is emotionally tough enough to stand all this crap...

And I must mention I don't like the word "team". What I mean by "team" is just "the people who do upstream stuff".

So anyway, I don't understand why I even bother trying to get people understand or do anything, but in case somebody is less of a professional insult-getter: In upstream development, at this exact moment, I would like to see somebody to help PilzAdam in the long term to decide on and develop the game content stuff, and for example somebody to design and implement more advanced positioning in the Lua HUD interface.

Do good stuff, but discuss about it beforehand on #minetest-dev. Such good stuff will be accepted.

And if you have lost all your hope to the core team, why are you even trying? You are just wasting your time and you know it. Go to hell and die. Or make a fork.

My view overally on this is that people are just lazy to communicate properly and try to blame others for it. Me more or less included, but at least I admit it.

Posted: **Sat Apr 20, 2013 22:27**

rarkenin wrote:C++-side mods that can make powerful changes outside the API. These would need to be installed client-side if need be, but would have a good amount of access to the environment by way of the proper access levels being given to the instances of server, client, etc objects. We install these if we want changes that can't happen in Lua. This is relatively similar to how Minecraft works with mods acting at the engine level.

The general idea about this is that we shouldn't need this because MT is an open source project. Maintaining many APIs is a pain, and compiling C++ modules for all supported platforms simply sucks.

Posted: **Sat Apr 20, 2013 22:35**

celeron55 wrote:
mauvebic wrote:judging from reactions from one particular member, we don't feel very welcomed either.

You are talking about hmmmm. Why can't you just say it aloud? Being secretive helps nothing in here. Also, I think hmmmm is a reasonable person, and always agrees to well-explained and well thought out things. But regardless of that, he is not the only member of the team, and if someone insists on going to provoke hmmmm and getting provoked themselves, that is not my problem. Do you even have any other examples of this? And how can you prove that any of these would have been better for the project if having been accepted as-is?

Personally I would like to have had prestidigitator's stuff, but it apparently quite much overlaps with what hmmmm has been working on for a long time, and I personally know very well how hard and unproductive it is to try to incorporate some random stuff from somebody else to something you have designed from the ground up. Thus, I will not blame anyone in here.

In addition to that, you are basically sawing the branch on which you are sitting, if you unconditionally blame hmmmm for everything. That is not wise at all. Good thing hmmmm is emotionally tough enough to stand all this crap...

And I must mention I don't like the word "team". What I mean by "team" is just "the people who do upstream stuff".

So anyway, I don't understand why I even bother trying to get people understand or do anything, but in case somebody is less of a professional insult-getter: In upstream development, at this exact moment, I would like to see somebody to help PilzAdam in the long term to decide on and develop the game content stuff, and for example somebody to design and implement more advanced positioning in the Lua HUD interface.

Do good stuff, but discuss about it beforehand on #minetest-dev. Such good stuff will be accepted.

And if you have lost all your hope to the core team, why are you even trying? You are just wasting your time and you know it. Go to hell and die. Or make a fork.

My view overally on this is that people are just lazy to communicate properly and try to blame others for it. Me more or less included, but at least I admit it.

People arent lazy. Its someone who is biased and wont see good ideas when they come along and make the person feel bad, and then said person wont contribute anymore. Which is why i say hmm can go jump off a cliff for all i care.

Posted: **Sat Apr 20, 2013 22:36**

celeron55 wrote:The general idea about this is that we shouldn't need this because MT is an open source project. Maintaining many APIs is a pain, and compiling C++ modules for all supported platforms simply sucks.

What disappoints me is how we can't communicate our intent. People with features, people with time and skill, and people with commit access seem to be trying to achieve different things. With this, let people add to the engine what they want(without having forks diverge on the features that ARE included), and let the bad changes decrease in popularity.

Posted: **Sat Apr 20, 2013 22:46**

celeron55 wrote:You are talking about hmmmm. Why can't you just say it aloud? Being secretive helps nothing in here. Also, I think hmmmm is a reasonable person, and always agrees to well-explained and well thought out things. But regardless of that, he is not the only member of the team, and if someone insists on going to provoke hmmmm and getting provoked themselves, that is not my problem. Do you even have any other examples of this? And how can you prove that any of these would have been better for the project if having been accepted as-is?

Personally I would like to have had prestidigitator's stuff, but it apparently quite much overlaps with what hmmmm has been working on for a long time, and I personally know very well how hard and unproductive it is to try to incorporate some random stuff from somebody else to something you have designed from the ground up. Thus, I will not blame anyone in here.

In addition to that, you are basically sawing the branch on which you are sitting, if you unconditionally blame hmmmm for everything. That is not wise at all. Good thing hmmmm is emotionally tough enough to stand all this crap...

If you want me to be honest I will be - I think hmmm can be an ass at times. He's an excellent programmer and great at talking to machines, but he sucks just as much at talking to people who don't think just like him. The question you should be asking is why he elicits such a response.

celeron55 wrote:And I must mention I don't like the word "team". What I mean by "team" is just "the people who do upstream stuff.

So anyway, I don't understand why I even bother trying to get people understand or do anything, but in case somebody is less of a professional insult-getter: In upstream development, at this exact moment, I would like to see somebody to help PilzAdam in the long term to decide on and develop the game content stuff

All the changes to the default game won't make the engine more interesting, what we are asking for is new features with which to write new mods.

celeron55 wrote:and for example somebody to design and implement more advanced positioning in the Lua HUD interface.

Hmmm designed it, he can fix it. Just like we are being asked to implement our own colored lighting.

celeron55 wrote:Do good stuff, but discuss about it beforehand on #minetest-dev. Such good stuff will be accepted.

And if you have lost all your hope to the core team, why are you even trying? You are just wasting your time and you know it. Go to hell and die. Or make a fork.

Isn't that the point of this thread?

celeron55 wrote:My view overally on this is that people are just lazy to communicate properly and try to blame others for it. Me more or less included, but at least I admit it.

Preaching to the wrong crowd here. Yeah we have some members who can be immature and impatient, I just want to see this game evolve.

Posted: **Sat Apr 20, 2013 22:47**

4aiman wrote:
celeron55 wrote:You seem to consider the "core team" to be some oddly distant thing. And because of that, you want to work around the core team. I consider this ridiculous and irresponsible.

2 reasons:
Some of core devs ignore player's wishes and their inexperienced help.

The way I think of this problem is that the core developers don't play the game much. I think the core team would need some active players from the playerbase who are somewhat good at programming and game design. The current ecosystem is too likely to just turn them into independent modders, not benefiting MT nearly as much as they could.

4aiman wrote:Arrogance, which seem to prohibit to help less experienced but lets say "it's wrong" clauses.

There are for example so many pull requests compared to the population of the upstream developers who are capable of judging them that they simply can't handle them properly while actually getting something done that they want to. Handling pull requests isn't enjoyable at all. Most of them contain issues that the contributor could have done right if they just thought a tiny bit longer.

4aiman wrote:Not distant? How many threads you read yourself? How many responses you've made?

If you don't happen to know, I have been mostly out from MT's development for months now. And will be in the future too. This is because I'm simply bored to the whole first person block building genre as a whole. I try to come in and consult stuff when needed, and try to solve the worst disputes. So taking me as an example is simply not a reasonable example at all. Also, initially MT was my personal project and I had my completely own ideas and plans, and didn't want any help, so that isn't applicable either.

Posted: **Sat Apr 20, 2013 22:58**

mauvebic wrote:Hmmm designed it, he can fix it. Just like we are being asked to implement our own colored lighting.

Stop being an unknowledgeable ass. Hmmmm just reworked it better from what some guy initially made. Some guy who actually bothered to contribute useful stuff.

Posted: **Sat Apr 20, 2013 22:58**

mauvebic wrote:
celeron55 wrote:and for example somebody to design and implement more advanced positioning in the Lua HUD interface.

Hmmm designed it, he can fix it.

Hmmmm had not designed it on his own. His work is based on a pull request from Metology.

Posted: **Sat Apr 20, 2013 23:00**

celeron55 wrote:
mauvebic wrote:Hmmm designed it, he can fix it. Just like we are being asked to implement our own colored lighting.

Stop being an unknowledgeable ass. Hmmmm just reworked it better from what some guy initially made.

I'm not denying the work that was put into it, i saw the commit. But if we are expected to develop the features we want, why do you expect us to fix the features you guys put into it?

Posted: **Sat Apr 20, 2013 23:02**

mauvebic wrote:
celeron55 wrote:
mauvebic wrote:Hmmm designed it, he can fix it. Just like we are being asked to implement our own colored lighting.

Stop being an unknowledgeable ass. Hmmmm just reworked it better from what some guy initially made.

I'm not denying the work that was put into it, i saw the commit. But if we are expected to develop the features we want, why do you expect us to fix the features you guys put into it?

To fix / improve the HUD API feedback from modders is needed.

Posted: **Sat Apr 20, 2013 23:04**

mauvebic wrote:why do you expect us to fix the features you guys put into it?

It's more about extending than fixing. Implementing the missing sutff in it is not a small thing to do.

Posted: **Sat Apr 20, 2013 23:07**

PilzAdam wrote:
mauvebic wrote:
celeron55 wrote:
Stop being an unknowledgeable ass. Hmmmm just reworked it better from what some guy initially made.

I'm not denying the work that was put into it, i saw the commit. But if we are expected to develop the features we want, why do you expect us to fix the features you guys put into it?

To fix / improve the HUD API feedback from modders is needed.

To be perfectly honest, I didn't ask for hud, and have no mod ideas in mind for it. Nor does it make my worlds more interesting, since i F1 + F2 before taking screenshots. That doesn't mean I have to knock it, since i know many modders do want that feature, but i don't see why I should drop what I want.

FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

Community chosen release.

Community chosen release.