Don: their is a few money mods available and personally I use barter shops as currency can change for each player, the typical cash system is gold lumps though...
https://github.com/tenplus1/money
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What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?
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rubenwardy - Member
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?
The majority of core developers are inactive. Currently it's mostly hmmmm, est31 and paramat working on the engine.
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?
PoignardAzur wrote:Dragonop wrote:There are lots of original subgames,
I think our definitions or "original" differ. Like, can you find me three finished (or at least, semi-finished and not abandoned) subgames that do not revolve around destroying nodes with tools you craft for resources you amass ?
First of all, I've been playing MC and MT since almost the begginig of both. So it is hard to see anything "original" in both of them, when those are based on other games (infiniminer, dwarf fortress) and have such a basic concept like, life itself.
Also, Minetest was intended to be 3D-voxel dungeon crawler at first, but C55 changed his mind and it become a "survival" voxel game. (I believe, it was a very long time ago that I heard this)
+
"Subgame releases"
+
"Old subgames"
I believe there are more (and more original) subgames at the WIP subgames page.
Dragonop wrote:and the "team" that is developing is not huge.
There's around ten core developers, right ? Most indie games are developed by two or three people.[/quote]
I see your point, but 9 people is not a huge team.
+
Spoiler
- PoignardAzur
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?
Dragonop wrote:First of all, I've been playing MC and MT since almost the begginig of both. So it is hard to see anything "original" in both of them, when those are based on other games (infiniminer, dwarf fortress) and have such a basic concept like, life itself.
[...]
+ "Subgame releases"
See, that's exactly what I mean. All of these games are basically "default minecraft experience (from a few years ago), except less polished and with a few twists". Where are the space exploration games ? The multiplayer FPS games ? The tower defense subgames ? The Earth-sized minesweepers ? The baking simulators ? Maybe they all exist, but if they do, they're really not advertised enough : there should be messages everywhere on the site with giant glowing letters </hyperbole> telling newcomers : "Look at the shiny diverse subgames we have ! There's a tetris subgame and a STR subgame and a subgame that helps you visualize 4D geometry, isn't that amazing ?", instead of a few threads promoting slightly altered minecraft clones.
Anyway, I was making the wrong point when talking about originality : "being original" is a vague, abstract concept nobody cares about. What those subgames lack is diversity. Look at vanilla, un-moded, painfully-hard-to-develop-on minecraft. Most of the maps that jump to your attention, the ones minecraft websites want you to see (especially mojang's blog) have nothing to do with finding food and making tools. You have tower-defense maps, maps re-creating old-school games with varying levels of accuracy (Sim-City maps, Snake maps, Bomberman maps, etc), maps recreating TF2, maps where you must shoot at zombies, maps where you have to punch creepers off an arena, adventure maps with stories and rpg elements, a map where you summon missile constructs made of pistons and tnt, and you ride them to explode your enemy's wall...
Anyway, my point is, all this diversity makes minecraft incredibly attractive, and an overall better experience. Since this thread is about making minetest better, I want to assert the best way to do so is to encourage variety in subgames, one way or another.
Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?
PoignardAzur wrote:All of these games are basically "default minecraft experience (from a few years ago), except less polished and with a few twists". Where are the space exploration games ? The multiplayer FPS games ? The tower defense subgames ? The Earth-sized minesweepers ? The baking simulators ?
I wholeheartedly agree, I meant something similar in the "Minetest or Minecraft2?" post.
Minetest could benefit a lot from more "diverse" gameplay.
I have the feeling this post is mostly the result of people getting bored with the current gameplay. Many posts here say that Minetest is missing this and that vs Minecraft... but I do not agree that this is actually important, neither do I think that having the mods be more "polished" would really change much the situation...
I think that a sandbox game like Minecraft will end up being boring very easily when you are playing in singleplayer. The only thing that might help you keep it alive is either you being involved in the development of some mod (or some building project of sorts), or participating in a multiplayer server where you have friends and then just use it to hang out with them. It doesn't really hold up as a singleplayer game by itself, because it's just a sandbox.
I don't think the solution would be simply adding a big monster like the dragon from Minecraft and stuff.. while this would be a fine addition to the survival aspect, after the novelty of having a dragon has passed it will just become part of the game, as if it was yet another mod that adds content and beating it would lose its charm after you have done it already once (or after you have used creative, fly, or whatever methods to go and check it out).
The dragon idea could be extended to make it be not just part of the game.. but a central goal with a certain path where you would actually go on an adventure to reach it.
For this a 3D dungeon crawler subgame would be nice.. one where death is a bigger punishment and the mapgen generates rooms with undestructible walls, traps and enemies, with something like the dragon guarding the amulet of Yendor in the deepest level. Getting closer to being a roguelike with a quest than a survival sandbox. There could be a lot of ideas we could borrow from traditional roguelikes in a subgame like this.
Or maybe subgames dedicated to boardgames. Having freedom in a 3D sandbox we could have all sorts of boardgame adaptations. The minesweeper example is one of them, but other boardgames could be adapted as well.
But of course, someone has to code it. Minetest direction currently gravitates around minetest_game, to the point that minetest_game is considered a "base" for other games (nobody considers "minimal" the base anymore?). IMHO, minetest_game it is already very similar to minecraft and I'm not sure if creating a modpack and modifying a bit the default mod could really be considered a different game. It would be a pity if all the potential of the engine was reduced to creating a "Minecraft 2".
If you have already played Minecraft before you played Minetest I doubt you will ever be able to have the same "experience", there's always gonna be a "feeling" that is missing: the feeling of experiencing something new for the very first time.
This is not to say Minetest is worse in any way.. and it would probably happen as well if you had first played Minetest and only later played Minecraft, though. The first time is always the most exciting.
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SegFault22 - Member
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?
Players should gain Experience Points that are relevant to the task from which they are gaining experience; there should be several (up to 4) experience meters for each player - one for farming-related experience (food crops, trees, other plants), one for hunting-related experience (killing violent monsters, and killing wild/fearful mobs for food), one for mining-related experience (mining ores, digging through lots of stone to get to ores, cooling lava with water and mining the resultant obsidian pumice and basalt), and another for traversing the environment ("acrobatics" giving players experience every time they receive fall damage or complete a difficult jump)
Higher experience levels should increase players' gains from related tasks, instead of being consumed for enchantments, tool repair and the like. The farming experience could increase farming drops at a slow rate; hunting experience could increase the player's accuracy with ranged weapons and decrease the chance that walking towards mobs (when outside their field of view) will alert them to the player's presence; mining experience could increase the player's gains from mining, either by providing more of the same ore for each drop, or by providing small amounts of rarer ores that occur rarely within the ore being mined; and the other experience could decrease the player's fall damage for small falls, or give an increasing chance to nullify damage from small falls (if the player is moving forward too - roll instead of "splat")
Otherwise, if a single type of experience is given, players will farm experience from easier methods, in order to increase their gains from unrelated tasks (such as farming lots of plants and trees, in order to have a spontaneous increase in hunting accuracy; or falling off of ledges a lot so that more drops are gained when mining ores). Using a single type of experience would cause it to be unreasonable to increase players' gains for specific tasks, and make the use of experience as a sort of "currency" to be exchanged for enchantments or similar (like minecraft) more appealing, which would defy logic even more than the player systematically falling off of ledges to increase gains from mining.
Other uses for the game engine, such as boardgames and the like, will be far less interesting than this if it is ever implemented - but there would still be plenty of room for those types of game modes, which would actually be quite interesting for when the players get bored from farming on a 256x1024-size farm to sell the produce for server money (or similar). It will also help development of ingame player-controlled mass-destruction weapons-systems, such as what will be seen on tech factions servers where large areas of the surface will be frequently carpet-bombed, nuked, chemical-bombed, EMP-bombed, antimatter-bombed and such, for the reason of destroying enemy factions' structures and warriors, or simply for clearing land when the other factions have taken over all or most of the plains areas and all that is left are mountainous jungles. The systems necessary to implement all of that will be very similar to the board-game controls, as most of the weapons instalments will be very far apart, and it would be nice for faction leaders to be able to give their warriors specific commands, without having to use /msg or speaking it in the global chat, which can be unsecure.
There would also have to be available anti-missile systems, which work in a short range, to protect stronger factions' bases when they are discovered and attacked by other large factions that have developed their own weapons of mass destruction - but the systems can only be operated by players, who have to be online to operate the weapons, just as players must be online in order to participate in board games and such.
That will result in the most awesome and complex form of "board game", but will probably only be possible in the far future when other board-game game modes have been developed enough to give a nice interface, APIs for global systems and interconnected devices, and most of the other stuff that runs the weapons systems. But before any of that can be possible, many new stuffs will have to be developed and tested, so it will probably be many years before we even see a factions power-level-based chunk-claim mod released, before factions servers can ever be created in the first place - and the board games will give people something fun to do while waiting for that all to be developed and released.
Higher experience levels should increase players' gains from related tasks, instead of being consumed for enchantments, tool repair and the like. The farming experience could increase farming drops at a slow rate; hunting experience could increase the player's accuracy with ranged weapons and decrease the chance that walking towards mobs (when outside their field of view) will alert them to the player's presence; mining experience could increase the player's gains from mining, either by providing more of the same ore for each drop, or by providing small amounts of rarer ores that occur rarely within the ore being mined; and the other experience could decrease the player's fall damage for small falls, or give an increasing chance to nullify damage from small falls (if the player is moving forward too - roll instead of "splat")
Otherwise, if a single type of experience is given, players will farm experience from easier methods, in order to increase their gains from unrelated tasks (such as farming lots of plants and trees, in order to have a spontaneous increase in hunting accuracy; or falling off of ledges a lot so that more drops are gained when mining ores). Using a single type of experience would cause it to be unreasonable to increase players' gains for specific tasks, and make the use of experience as a sort of "currency" to be exchanged for enchantments or similar (like minecraft) more appealing, which would defy logic even more than the player systematically falling off of ledges to increase gains from mining.
Other uses for the game engine, such as boardgames and the like, will be far less interesting than this if it is ever implemented - but there would still be plenty of room for those types of game modes, which would actually be quite interesting for when the players get bored from farming on a 256x1024-size farm to sell the produce for server money (or similar). It will also help development of ingame player-controlled mass-destruction weapons-systems, such as what will be seen on tech factions servers where large areas of the surface will be frequently carpet-bombed, nuked, chemical-bombed, EMP-bombed, antimatter-bombed and such, for the reason of destroying enemy factions' structures and warriors, or simply for clearing land when the other factions have taken over all or most of the plains areas and all that is left are mountainous jungles. The systems necessary to implement all of that will be very similar to the board-game controls, as most of the weapons instalments will be very far apart, and it would be nice for faction leaders to be able to give their warriors specific commands, without having to use /msg or speaking it in the global chat, which can be unsecure.
There would also have to be available anti-missile systems, which work in a short range, to protect stronger factions' bases when they are discovered and attacked by other large factions that have developed their own weapons of mass destruction - but the systems can only be operated by players, who have to be online to operate the weapons, just as players must be online in order to participate in board games and such.
That will result in the most awesome and complex form of "board game", but will probably only be possible in the far future when other board-game game modes have been developed enough to give a nice interface, APIs for global systems and interconnected devices, and most of the other stuff that runs the weapons systems. But before any of that can be possible, many new stuffs will have to be developed and tested, so it will probably be many years before we even see a factions power-level-based chunk-claim mod released, before factions servers can ever be created in the first place - and the board games will give people something fun to do while waiting for that all to be developed and released.
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programmingchicken - Member
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?
That's it. We need to branch out, it doesn't matter if we make MC-like features (means they CAN BE ADDED), we need more games, they need to be different, Carbone and Dreambuilder are nice, but they are both survival games with the exact same goal: build. I don't hate survival, in fact I like it, but we need games and mods that add crazy things (Donald Trump does that, right!?!?) and attract all players. We need things that will stretch the limits of the world borders. WE NEED A NEW MODE OF CODING.
(and no, I will not whitespace)
:P Ferk and SegFault22, ya gotta do what you talk about.
Good ideas btw, I just made them more poofy and speech-like
TEDTALK lawl
(and no, I will not whitespace)
:P Ferk and SegFault22, ya gotta do what you talk about.
Good ideas btw, I just made them more poofy and speech-like
TEDTALK lawl
I'm bold. I'm sarcastic. I'm PChicken.
- 4aiman
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?
SegFault22 wrote:Players should gain Experience Points that are relevant to the task from which they are gaining experience;
Done in Magichet, developed out of "specialties" mod.
SegFault22 wrote:there should be several (up to 4) experience meters for each player
Done in Magichet: there are 6 "skills"
SegFault22 wrote: - one for farming-related experience (food crops, trees, other plants)
Magichet: planting, harvesting, fertilizing gives one "farmer" XP.
SegFault22 wrote:one for hunting-related experience (killing violent monsters, and killing wild/fearful mobs for food)
Magichet: killing any mob give one XP*the_amount_of_the_dropped_loot
SegFault22 wrote:one for mining-related experience (mining ores, digging through lots of stone to get to ores, cooling lava with water and mining the resultant obsidian pumice and basalt)
Magichet: any node that is dug with appropriate tool gives some XP to the one who collects the digged nodes.
The amount of XP is adjustable per node.
SegFault22 wrote:and another for traversing the environment ("acrobatics" giving players experience every time they receive fall damage or complete a difficult jump)
No, there's no such a thing in Magichet...
... but there are special XP for using shovel and axe as well as the "builder" job.
And prior to someone saying something, no, you can't do grinding XP by building, breaking and building again.
In Magichet one need to spend some XP to enchant tools with Antigravity buff. Then it would be possible to perform acrobatics. Yet that won't give one any XP. I mean, how are one going to code the "acrobatic trick" detection?
SegFault22 wrote:Higher experience levels should increase players' gains from related tasks, instead of being consumed for enchantments, tool repair and the like. The farming experience could increase farming drops at a slow rate; hunting experience could increase the player's accuracy with ranged weapons and decrease the chance that walking towards mobs (when outside their field of view) will alert them to the player's presence; mining experience could increase the player's gains from mining, either by providing more of the same ore for each drop, or by providing small amounts of rarer ores that occur rarely within the ore being mined; and the other experience could decrease the player's fall damage for small falls, or give an increasing chance to nullify damage from small falls (if the player is moving forward too - roll instead of "splat")
I can't agree with you here.
That doesn't make sense, as that will ruin the balance (which may be not perfect, but still).
One would be able to spend several days to "train", say, the "farmer" skill and then... would it be normal to give one additional crop item for a thousand XP?
What are you going to do with the upper limit of the buff?
And if there will be an upped limit, would it be fair to give, say, 30 additional crops to the one with 30000 XP and the one with 60000 XP?
What are you going to do when the variable which store the XP will exceed the upper limit (overflow?)
How fair is to let the one who has joined the server, say, a week ago, to be more powerful than the one who did it just now? There will be no way for our novice to exceed the "oldfag" unless that "oldfag" won't show on the server for at least week.
Spending XP helps to balance that.
Enchanting artificially lowers the amount of XP by letting ppl trade their XP for the buff they need.
Moreover, spending ANY kind of XP for enchantment brings even more balance - even some farmer will be able to gain a good armour and weapon to protect him/her self with a "sword", not a "plough".
SegFault22 wrote:Otherwise, if a single type of experience is given, players will farm experience from easier methods, in order to increase their gains from unrelated tasks (such as farming lots of plants and trees, in order to have a spontaneous increase in hunting accuracy; or falling off of ledges a lot so that more drops are gained when mining ores).
That's why enchanting should provide only basic set of enhancements.
The ones who nee more should use other ways.
Magichet will introduce the gem incrusting process that will power up tools with items gained from elemental mobs. The harder the mob slain - the better gem you'll gain.
Oh, that won't be free of charge too.
I don't want to go into the details, but those who would like to fight will be able to do that beyond enchantments.
SegFault22 wrote:... boardgames... currency...
Those are things for servers.
For example, singleplayer (or LAN) game won't necessarily demand any currency or fractions or mini-games or shops or missiles (what?)...
I do *not* deny those are needed, but only as a middle-to-huge server addons.
Regards!
- PoignardAzur
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?
4aiman wrote:Spending XP helps to balance that.
Enchanting artificially lowers the amount of XP by letting ppl trade their XP for the buff they need.
Moreover, spending ANY kind of XP for enchantment brings even more balance - even some farmer will be able to gain a good armour and weapon to protect him/her self with a "sword", not a "plough".
I strongly disagree. "Enchanting things with XP" is one of minecraft's weirdest features game-design-wise, and a clear sign of backwards reasoning : "Okay, now I have put this nice-looking XP bar to add some skinner-boxing to the game. So, what do I do with it ?" Reproducing it means basically ignoring alternative possibilities for both item-enhancing and player progression.
Also, blatant self-advertising is blatant.
- 4aiman
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?
PoignardAzur wrote:I strongly disagree. "Enchanting things with XP" is one of minecraft's weirdest features game-design-wise, and a clear sign of backwards reasoning : "Okay, now I have put this nice-looking XP bar to add some skinner-boxing to the game. So, what do I do with it ?"
So no real points against spending XP here, just a subjective remark.
PoignardAzur wrote:Reproducing it means basically ignoring alternative possibilities for both item-enhancing and player progression.
And why is that exactly?
MC-like enchantments are for newbs who doesn't understand the game or have migrated from MC.
Specialties-like "dedicated" upgrades via Summons and blacksmiths are for those who want to become the strongest, fastest, Scooterest.
PoignardAzur wrote:Also, blatant self-advertising is blatant.
I'll tell you this: create something like Magichet and then we'll talk ;)
Hating MC w/o good reasons won't help you in making a good game. ;)
Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?
4aiman wrote:That doesn't make sense, as that will ruin the balance (which may be not perfect, but still).
One would be able to spend several days to "train", say, the "farmer" skill and then... would it be normal to give one additional crop item for a thousand XP?
What are you going to do with the upper limit of the buff?
And if there will be an upped limit, would it be fair to give, say, 30 additional crops to the one with 30000 XP and the one with 60000 XP?
What are you going to do when the variable which store the XP will exceed the upper limit (overflow?)
How fair is to let the one who has joined the server, say, a week ago, to be more powerful than the one who did it just now? There will be no way for our novice to exceed the "oldfag" unless that "oldfag" won't show on the server for at least week.
Being able to spend the XP does not solve the problem by itself.. you could still simply not use any enchantments and continue gathering experience all the same if you wanted.
The only reason why you might want to spend XP for enchanting tools is if you reach a point where the value you get by having enchanted tools is higher than having a permanent boost given by your XP. This means it would be something that increases the unbalance, by giving new ways to become more powerful by means of enchantments.
Unless the experience system doesn't give any boost, like in minecraft. In that case it's not much different than collecting loot and materials to craft an enchantment.
However, in that case, why use an experience system? You might as well use some special items.. some magical stones, runes or some sort of special equipment that can only be found in the deepest levels of caves filled with enemies or dungeons, or maybe you need the smashed petals of some special glowing flower that only grows in the heart of some deep, dark forest full of dangers. It will give people a reason to go out of their cubicle and reward those who want to go and explore the rest of the minetest world, with all those fancy biomes.
Or if you want to reward those who spent a lot of time working on their farm, then just make a crazily expensive enchantment that requires an industrial amount of farming. Perhaps some crossbreeeding is needed to make higher quality crops and finally be able to mix your herbs to create some mystic ointments that grant magical properties to your tools.
I'm not saying that an experience system is a bad idea, though. It just seems a bit strange to me and counter intuitive to use experience as fuel for enchantments. I don't think there are any games that do that other than minecraft. I would rather give a different name to that value other than "experience" if it's only used for enchantments.
I don't know.. call it "vitae" or something, since it comes out from mobs after they die and from the living planet when you mine it. Or "entropy", since you are changing the world from its natural state.
I think the whole point of the experience system in Minecraft is that you lose your experience when you die (even if you manage to get some of it back if you go to your death place, you only recover a small part of it and basically have to start from scratch). It's a way to actually give a higher penalty for death and reward those players who are able to go though hell and back as real survivors.
- 4aiman
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?
Being able to spend XP doesn't solve the problem only if there's no reason to spend it.
I can't see why XP alone should present someone some special abilities.
That's not much more reasonable than using XP for enchanting.
After all, there's no much difference between automatically gaining farmer's buff and gaining that buff because you've got enchanted tool.
However, enchanting helps to share.
If one would use runes/whatever, then those might be shared too.
Actually, originally Magichet used ectoplasm as a fuel for enchantment table.
XP were only a fallback option.
You know what ppl were asking for?
They asked to switch to XP, because dying and collecting ghostly block was too much for them.
I had nothing against, since that is original and highly mystical.
After all one loses some experience and that gets converted to buffs.
It's like giving away one's leg to gain a cyber-implant one.
It's all up to one's imagination and I don't think that anyone should praise a reason more than the power of imagination.
But I didn't want to not to use ectoplasm.
So, I did something very similar to what you're just proposed: I've made ectoplasm to be 3x more effective than XP.
That means one will need 3x more XP to enchant a tool.
Add to the above mentioned things the fact those only meant to provide the "basic level" of enhancing (I've mentioned that before) and - voila - I'm happy, MC players happy, my friends are happy, some ppl against and do not play my game... That's their choice to make.
The second thing is, I can't see why a farmer need to do extra work (compared to that of a warrior) to gain a basic-cool-sword. That's just unfair. There can be different approaches, though. I think that a "conversion" from a farmer to warrior should be as quick as it could be.
The closest system I've seen is used in Mana. There one is able to reset his level to 1 and re-distribute all his/her growing points differently. That costs money, though.
But I don't want to introduce leveling system with different traits.
I'd rather use smth FFVIII-like, where weapons should be upgraded in order to build up stats.
Spending XP for enchanting is counter-intuitive?
1.....................
Intuition is something we use in real life.
One doesn't use a sword or an armour daily.
One doesn't fight monsters daily.
Thus, using something real in game isn't necessary.
2.....................
Intuition can be described as the ability of a head to feel with one's ass.
Thus, intuition is something counter-intuitive itself.
Can one explain what intuition is and how it works?
I doubt that.
The same thing happens to XP while enchanting - it happens, yet there's no reason for it to happen.
Smth like quantum physics.
Lastly, changing the name won't make XP a whole different thing. Just look how many MC mods for other sandbox games (not only MT-powered) and you'll see that by changing a texture one can't turn that game to MC.
Similarly, one can't turn XP into mana by plainly renaming XP.
As for the "entropy" - I'm planning to add 4 supernatural entities to the Magichet, one of which is called "The Entity of Entropy" ;)
I'm not saying enchanting should be a part of the default game.
I have my own game to develop like I want it, so I don't really care.
But the topic here is similarity and the process of making the choice of what to port to MT.
So I'm just discussing the thing I've already ported or am planning to port over.
I really like the answers posted here, however different from my point of view those are.
Well, until the repetition of somewhere-read article arises yet again.
Yep. that article about ow lame MC was/is/will be.
I mean, ideas are not going to implement themselves and once implemented many of them don't seem to work as expected.
So, however lame MC may seem to the one who hates it, there are millions of those who liked it.
Imprinting syndrome included.
I can't see why XP alone should present someone some special abilities.
That's not much more reasonable than using XP for enchanting.
After all, there's no much difference between automatically gaining farmer's buff and gaining that buff because you've got enchanted tool.
However, enchanting helps to share.
If one would use runes/whatever, then those might be shared too.
Actually, originally Magichet used ectoplasm as a fuel for enchantment table.
XP were only a fallback option.
You know what ppl were asking for?
They asked to switch to XP, because dying and collecting ghostly block was too much for them.
I had nothing against, since that is original and highly mystical.
After all one loses some experience and that gets converted to buffs.
It's like giving away one's leg to gain a cyber-implant one.
It's all up to one's imagination and I don't think that anyone should praise a reason more than the power of imagination.
But I didn't want to not to use ectoplasm.
So, I did something very similar to what you're just proposed: I've made ectoplasm to be 3x more effective than XP.
That means one will need 3x more XP to enchant a tool.
Add to the above mentioned things the fact those only meant to provide the "basic level" of enhancing (I've mentioned that before) and - voila - I'm happy, MC players happy, my friends are happy, some ppl against and do not play my game... That's their choice to make.
The second thing is, I can't see why a farmer need to do extra work (compared to that of a warrior) to gain a basic-cool-sword. That's just unfair. There can be different approaches, though. I think that a "conversion" from a farmer to warrior should be as quick as it could be.
The closest system I've seen is used in Mana. There one is able to reset his level to 1 and re-distribute all his/her growing points differently. That costs money, though.
But I don't want to introduce leveling system with different traits.
I'd rather use smth FFVIII-like, where weapons should be upgraded in order to build up stats.
Spending XP for enchanting is counter-intuitive?
1.....................
Intuition is something we use in real life.
One doesn't use a sword or an armour daily.
One doesn't fight monsters daily.
Thus, using something real in game isn't necessary.
2.....................
Intuition can be described as the ability of a head to feel with one's ass.
Thus, intuition is something counter-intuitive itself.
Can one explain what intuition is and how it works?
I doubt that.
The same thing happens to XP while enchanting - it happens, yet there's no reason for it to happen.
Smth like quantum physics.
Lastly, changing the name won't make XP a whole different thing. Just look how many MC mods for other sandbox games (not only MT-powered) and you'll see that by changing a texture one can't turn that game to MC.
Similarly, one can't turn XP into mana by plainly renaming XP.
As for the "entropy" - I'm planning to add 4 supernatural entities to the Magichet, one of which is called "The Entity of Entropy" ;)
I'm not saying enchanting should be a part of the default game.
I have my own game to develop like I want it, so I don't really care.
But the topic here is similarity and the process of making the choice of what to port to MT.
So I'm just discussing the thing I've already ported or am planning to port over.
I really like the answers posted here, however different from my point of view those are.
Well, until the repetition of somewhere-read article arises yet again.
Yep. that article about ow lame MC was/is/will be.
I mean, ideas are not going to implement themselves and once implemented many of them don't seem to work as expected.
So, however lame MC may seem to the one who hates it, there are millions of those who liked it.
Imprinting syndrome included.
Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?
4aiman wrote:Being able to spend XP doesn't solve the problem only if there's no reason to spend it.
I can't see why XP alone should present someone some special abilities.
That's not much more reasonable than using XP for enchanting.
Well the difference was that in normal experience systems the gain is not linear but asymptotic. This means there's a point where getting more experience doesn't help much and all the high level people are in the same conditions.
This was just an answer to your argument about "balance". What I was saying is that enchanting does not fix the balance problem you were talking about. Because as you just said, it's not much more reasonable than a linear XP model (where there's no limit).
4aiman wrote:You know what ppl were asking for?
They asked to switch to XP, because dying and collecting ghostly block was too much for them.
Imho, as players many people prefer to have it easy. This is a natural reaction because the role of the player is actually to fight to get those top tier enchantments so they will get frustrated when they realize it's not that easy.
I doubt many people will ever ask you to make the enchantments more expensive, to make things more rare, or harder to find.
But imho, the point of a game is to actually offer a challenge. What's the point of adding a goal if we have to make it easy for it to be archived? It would again turn into a sandbox.
The second thing is, I can't see why a farmer need to do extra work (compared to that of a warrior) to gain a basic-cool-sword. That's just unfair. There can be different approaches, though. I think that a "conversion" from a farmer to warrior should be as quick as it could be.
I'm not sure if I understand what you mean. You can balance out the farming vs the exploring.. I'd say it's probably easier to farm at home than to search for something that is very rare (see minecraft dungeons.. they are hard to find specially in multiplayer servers where other people will have already taken all there is to take from all nearby dungeons). The warrior being easier to level up is imho just a consequence of depending on an experience system for enchanting and getting exp from mobs that are easy to find just by hanging around at night. That's one of the reasons why I think warriors should primarily be explorers in search for rare items, not simply fighters. Maybe there could be some special, rarer mobs with good drops.. but killing common mobs should not be very rewarding, imho.
What I think is that farming should be more exciting than what it currently is. Just getting experience out of it is a more boring way to progress. I still like the idea of the herbalist that ends up being able to craft magical oilments... perhaps the farmer could become sort of an alchemist that would infuse their weapons with powerful effects while the warrior would become an explorer that manages to find reliques to reforge or inscribe their weapons with special qualities.
This way you add variety to the game in a more interesting way than a static number that increases in the same way for warrior and farmer and has the same results.
Plus, with enough dedication you could become at the same time warrior and alchemist, and have weapons inscribed with rare runes that at the same time can be impregnated with oilments. Maybe you get bored of exploring and decide to farm or bored of farming and go to explore. The fact that you get a different experience and a difference reward would motivate most players to do both.
In a multiplayer server, people could specialize and trade runes and herbs.
I'd rather use smth FFVIII-like, where weapons should be upgraded in order to build up stats.
I agree with that, this actually is more on par also with the crafting nature of Minetest, and it also means that a world full of players with overpowered equipment would still be approachable by a newcomer if he just makes some friends and manages to get some equipment out of them as a welcoming present.
It also means that a veteran just needs to strip himself from his equipment and be in the same conditions as someone who just joined the world.
Spending XP for enchanting is counter-intuitive? [...] it happens, yet there's no reason for it to happen. Smth like quantum physics.
By this logic you could craft potatoes out of oranges. But I guess it's actually ok as long as it actually provides some gameplay advantage since this is after all a game and not a reality-simulator.
What advantage (or differences) does XP have over items? is it that when you die you don't lose your XP? Wouldn't that kind of defeat the point of a survival game? We already have the bones block, and it can even be used to collect your things even if you die in lava... you kind of have to be very careless to lose your equipment, so there's very little penalty on death. Having an intrinsic value that cannot be lost even on death is not really improving the situation, neither does it make it much different from keeping items (except that it removes the adventure of trying to recover your lost stuff).
But the topic here is similarity and the process of making the choice of what to port to MT.
So I'm just discussing the thing I've already ported or am planning to port over.
You are right that some sort of progression and character development is an interesting path to make a subgame that brings some goals. The players would look forward to becoming some sort of god with crazy abilities or crafting the ultimate equipment.
It would more interesting (adding more replayability) if the enchantments were kind of customizable and limited in scope, in a way that there isn't a specific combination of enchantments that is better than everything else.. mixing this and that to obtain a particular property or a combination of properties, so you could design a particular tool the way you want it, provided you are committed enough to gather what you need. As if there existed a "skill tree" of properties that you can level up for your tools, giving different results depending on the distribution you choose and making trade-offs (like.. you can't make a sword that burns with fire and that freezes at the same time).
But yeah.. maybe this is just overcomplicating things.
And like you said, one thing is talking, another thing is developing it and a completely different thing is obtaining the results you expect after it's done.
- 4aiman
- Member
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?
Ferk wrote:Well the difference was that in normal experience systems the gain is not linear but asymptotic.
Not always. See the "Shining" series ;)
Ferk wrote:This means there's a point where getting more experience doesn't help much and all the high level people are in the same conditions.
I don't think that's a good idea.
Higher level players shouldn't be able to slay everyone and bring fear to newbs.
I'd like to pro-act in this case.
Ferk wrote:What I was saying is that enchanting does not fix the balance problem you were talking about. Because as you just said, it's not much more reasonable than a linear XP model (where there's no limit).
I think we're in agreement here, but telling about the same things in a different manner.
Ferk wrote:Imho, as players many people prefer to have it easy. This is a natural reaction because the role of the player is actually to fight to get those top tier enchantments so they will get frustrated when they realize it's not that easy.
Agreed. What I have in mind is expanding that system to make it possible to really develop one's character.
Something of a GregTech mod comes to my mind. That's the addon which makes higher-tier electrical devices be harder to get while not leaving those who use basic devices devoid of them.
There's a game called Puzzle Quest (actually, there are 3 of them) which does precisely that - lure a player into casual game with RPG-like talks :)
Ferk wrote:I doubt many people will ever ask you to make the enchantments more expensive, to make things more rare, or harder to find.
Also true. If something is hard to find - it should bring more loot/items/XP/happiness/whatever.
But I think it's a good thing to lure a player into a game where things seem familiar an easy.
Ferk wrote:But imho, the point of a game is to actually offer a challenge. What's the point of adding a goal if we have to make it easy for it to be archived? It would again turn into a sandbox.
Like I said, challenge should be optional.
Sandbox is what MT is.
Is is possible to make tactics or RPG game within the engine, but the fact one can remodel nearly everything inside a sandbox is cool enough in a nutshell.
Those who want to se not a sanbox game in MT should probably switch to other moddable games.
Ferk wrote:I'm not sure if I understand what you mean. You can balance out the farming vs the exploring.. I'd say it's probably easier to farm at home than to search for something that is very rare (see minecraft dungeons.. they are hard to find specially in multiplayer servers where other people will have already taken all there is to take from all nearby dungeons).
The thing is, it is a good thing to have all jobs relatively equal AND introduce a way to quickly switch one's job.
Ferk wrote:The warrior being easier to level up is imho just a consequence of depending on an experience system for enchanting and getting exp from mobs that are easy to find just by hanging around at night.
Enchanting is not all about atk+.
There are chants to make one's life easier while "parkouring" or digging underwater or collecting crops...
Several chants work for more than one "job". "Treasurer" chant is that way - helps both miners, diggers and farmers.
Ferk wrote:That's one of the reasons why I think warriors should primarily be explorers in search for rare items, not simply fighters.
But it would be silly to *not* reward ones who have killed vicious monsters.
Ferk wrote:Maybe there could be some special, rarer mobs with good drops.. but killing common mobs should not be very rewarding, imho.
I'd rather say, killing *ordinary* mobs should be less rewarding than mining some *rare* ore.
But in the case of, say, coal, I can't see why mining a coal should be more rewarding than killing a sheep.
The whole thing of *settings* is a long story and it can't be easy to balance out those. But imho it's nice to have multiple things to balance.
Ferk wrote:What I think is that farming should be more exciting than what it currently is. Just getting experience out of it is a more boring way to progress. I still like the idea of the herbalist that ends up being able to craft magical oilments...
And that what brewing is for in MC :)
It is impossible to brew all the potions if one is only a miner or a farmer.
Different "skills" are needed to gain all the ingredients.
So, again, this is the matter of balancing rather that features of a game.
Ferk wrote:perhaps the farmer could become sort of an alchemist that would infuse their weapons with powerful effects while the warrior would become an explorer that manages to find reliques to reforge or inscribe their weapons with special qualities.
I'd like to see that.
I've chosen a different approach - more MC and Terraria-like.
Ferk wrote:This way you add variety to the game in a more interesting way than a static number that increases in the same way for warrior and farmer and has the same results.
The results are the same only for those who don't like to go further and exploit the system.
I generally talking about the Magichet and it's in-dev version unavailable to everyone yet.
But I really like to highlight the fact XP in Magichet are not just "plain numbers with no meaning".
Ferk wrote:The fact that you get a different experience and a difference reward would motivate most players to do both.
And that's what Magichet does :)
Ferk wrote:In a multiplayer server, people could specialize and trade runes and herbs.
I've ectoplasm and will have magic gems.
Also, why not trade enchanted weapons?
Ferk wrote:I agree with that, this actually is more on par also with the crafting nature of Minetest, and it also means that a world full of players with overpowered equipment would still be approachable by a newcomer if he just makes some friends and manages to get some equipment out of them as a welcoming present.
It also means that a veteran just needs to strip himself from his equipment and be in the same conditions as someone who just joined the world.
Exactly :)
Ferk wrote:By this logic you could craft potatoes out of oranges.
I guess I could, by combining it with a "lower philosopher stone's shard" :)
Ferk wrote:is it that when you die you don't lose your XP? Wouldn't that kind of defeat the point of a survival game?
Currently one doesn't loose XP upon death in Magichet. But that is a planned behaviour.
However, if one will remember Titan Quest or Sacred -like games, he will realize that the LVL of his protaginist slightly drops. More deaths = more XP loss.
By losing XP upon death we force player to spend XP while the chance is still there.
The form of storing may differ: ectoplasm, enchanted tools, enchanted books etc.
Thus I don't think losing XP undermines survival.
In survival one must survive, not benefit from the amount of time he has spent in a world.
Ferk wrote:We already have the bones block, and it can even be used to collect your things even if you die in lava... you kind of have to be very careless to lose your equipment, so there's very little penalty on death. Having an intrinsic value that cannot be lost even on death is not really improving the situation, neither does it make it much different from keeping items (except that it removes the adventure of trying to recover your lost stuff).
That's why ppl *do* lose items upon death.
Actually, they can chose either their want their items to be dropped in a place of death, or should those be stored in a "ghost" inventory to be reclaimed later in the process of reincarnating.
Ferk wrote: The players would look forward to becoming some sort of god with crazy abilities or crafting the ultimate equipment.
This is the reason of adding gems and summons (terraria_guide-like things).
Player with crazy abilities will be forced to perform crazy actions :)
Ferk wrote:It would more interesting (adding more replayability) if the enchantments were kind of customizable and limited in scope, in a way that there isn't a specific combination of enchantments that is better than everything else.. mixing this and that to obtain a particular property or a combination of properties, so you could design a particular tool the way you want it, provided you are committed enough to gather what you need. As if there existed a "skill tree" of properties that you can level up for your tools, giving different results depending on the distribution you choose and making trade-offs (like.. you can't make a sword that burns with fire and that freezes at the same time).
That's something specialtied mod does.
The access to improving tools that way was hidden due to changes being applied, but I think once I'll integrate villages back into the game, there will be things like anvils and blacksmiths.
Say, blacksmiths will be able to create more powerful tools/items but that would cost additional XP and/or money/items.
Ferk wrote:But yeah.. maybe this is just overcomplicating things.
And like you said, one thing is talking, another thing is developing it and a completely different thing is obtaining the results you expect after it's done.
I don't think it is.
Talks like this help us realize what can and what can't be done.
I'm glad I was able to hear your opinion.
I'm sure it'll help me one day ;)
Thank you.
Regards!
- PoignardAzur
- Member
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?
Getting back to the problem of subgames being mostly minecraft clones, I think one of the main reason this problem exists is the structure of the game itself.
Minetest basically takes the Valve approach to making an engine : what the developers want is hard-coded in, with a few tools and options to personalize them. For instance, the code that deals with the physics and rendering of the player only allow him to be a walking entity, with a first-person POV, an inventory bar and a floating hand/item on the left. Which is perfect for making minecraft clones, but not so much for making third-person platform games, strategy games or driving games.
A good way to get more diversity in subgames (and therefore a more attractive game on the whole) would be to implement a way for modders to control the player's camera, and the HUD, to encourage implementing different gameplays.
Minetest basically takes the Valve approach to making an engine : what the developers want is hard-coded in, with a few tools and options to personalize them. For instance, the code that deals with the physics and rendering of the player only allow him to be a walking entity, with a first-person POV, an inventory bar and a floating hand/item on the left. Which is perfect for making minecraft clones, but not so much for making third-person platform games, strategy games or driving games.
A good way to get more diversity in subgames (and therefore a more attractive game on the whole) would be to implement a way for modders to control the player's camera, and the HUD, to encourage implementing different gameplays.
- 4aiman
- Member
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?
Dude, I'm impressed with all the misinformation you believe in.
It's good to read different articles but it is *your mind* that should judge and filter the knowledge those give to you.
I don't want to look hostile, but you seem to have got the wrong info on many things related to MT.
First of all, no single Minecraft clone for MT (or it's derivatives) engine exists. Only a kid below 12 won't notice all the differences.
Secondary, I still don't think that accusing Minecraft for it's popularity with MT modders will do any good for anyone.
Besides, there's no "structure" demands for MT subgames - one can put all his files into one single folder should he want that be done. Search for the "Empty game" subgame to be filled in further.
Valve has nothing to do with Minetest.
There's no way to not hardcode at least something.
There are, and there will always be hidden private methods and properties that should not be changeable outside the class those belong to.
What MT did was a great API to extend and change almost everything.
Yet, people continue to demand more control over the engine.
But that's only natural...
Should we demand something from Irrlicht devs too? That would be also a natural thing to do :)
Minetest allows to use 3rd person view and to set camera position (which enables one to create a platformer with a side-view).
Inbuilt HUDs can be hidden and replaced with almost any kind of HUDs, including speed-o-meters or Sacred/Diablo -like HUDs and physics can be overrode on a player basis (hack-and-slashes, racing games).
Strategies are perfectly possible. See FFT (A, A2) and the "Shining Force" branch of the "Shining" series.
MT's grid is perfect for TRPG and RTS genres.
You really should dig some more about the MT engine capabilities and the API it provides.
It's good to read different articles but it is *your mind* that should judge and filter the knowledge those give to you.
I don't want to look hostile, but you seem to have got the wrong info on many things related to MT.
PoignardAzur wrote:Getting back to the problem of subgames being mostly minecraft clones, I think one of the main reason this problem exists is the structure of the game itself.
First of all, no single Minecraft clone for MT (or it's derivatives) engine exists. Only a kid below 12 won't notice all the differences.
Secondary, I still don't think that accusing Minecraft for it's popularity with MT modders will do any good for anyone.
Besides, there's no "structure" demands for MT subgames - one can put all his files into one single folder should he want that be done. Search for the "Empty game" subgame to be filled in further.
PoignardAzur wrote:Minetest basically takes the Valve approach to making an engine : what the developers want is hard-coded in, with a few tools and options to personalize them.
Valve has nothing to do with Minetest.
There's no way to not hardcode at least something.
There are, and there will always be hidden private methods and properties that should not be changeable outside the class those belong to.
What MT did was a great API to extend and change almost everything.
Yet, people continue to demand more control over the engine.
But that's only natural...
Should we demand something from Irrlicht devs too? That would be also a natural thing to do :)
PoignardAzur wrote:For instance, the code that deals with the physics and rendering of the player only allow him to be a walking entity, with a first-person POV, an inventory bar and a floating hand/item on the left. Which is perfect for making minecraft clones, but not so much for making third-person platform games, strategy games or driving games.
Minetest allows to use 3rd person view and to set camera position (which enables one to create a platformer with a side-view).
Inbuilt HUDs can be hidden and replaced with almost any kind of HUDs, including speed-o-meters or Sacred/Diablo -like HUDs and physics can be overrode on a player basis (hack-and-slashes, racing games).
Strategies are perfectly possible. See FFT (A, A2) and the "Shining Force" branch of the "Shining" series.
MT's grid is perfect for TRPG and RTS genres.
PoignardAzur wrote:A good way to get more diversity in subgames (and therefore a more attractive game on the whole) would be to implement a way for modders to control the player's camera, and the HUD, to encourage implementing different gameplays.
You really should dig some more about the MT engine capabilities and the API it provides.
-
ArguablySane - Member
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?
4aiman, the Minetest lua API certainly doesn't allow you to change "almost anything". PoignardAzur has a point. Even fairly basic capabilities such as client-side scripting are still missing and there are a whole plethora of things which Minecraft mods can change but Minetest ones can't. Out of all of the popular Minecraft mods which I have played with, only about half, at most, could be fully reproduced in Minetest.
The worst thing we can do is pretend that Minetest is superior to Minecraft in every way. It is only by acknowledging its flaws that we can make Minetest better. The devs should be exceedingly proud of what they have accomplished and I'd never demand that they do anything, but the whole purpose of this thread is to discuss the ways Minetest could be improved.
The worst thing we can do is pretend that Minetest is superior to Minecraft in every way. It is only by acknowledging its flaws that we can make Minetest better. The devs should be exceedingly proud of what they have accomplished and I'd never demand that they do anything, but the whole purpose of this thread is to discuss the ways Minetest could be improved.
The above post and any ideas expressed therein are released to the public domain under a Creative Commons CC0 license.
Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?
Uhm.. I want to apologise for the extremely long posts :P
There are different ways to pro-act. Adding increasingly powerful equipment does not help that situation.
How having a sword that kills in 1 hit and an armor that makes you invincible gonna prevent bullying vs having an XP system?
Actually, having an XP and levelling system would make it easier to protect newcomers because you have more information on the power level of each player, so you can do things like give protection to low level people or set a maximum level difference so that low level players are untouchable by high level ones.
I'm not saying that such a system would be the perfect solution (maybe an artificial limitation would break the immersion), nor am I saying that equipment-based levelling has other advantages (I already mentioned some of them). What I'm saying is that the argument "XP is bad because it worsens balance" loses credibility when you are adding other ways for veterans to get overpowered instead.
XP as a method for instrinsic character growth is just a different contribution to the gameplay with it's own way of working.
IMHO, intrinsic advantages for the players with high XP (with an asymptotic limit) and crafting of magic equipment could perfectly be 2 independent separate mods or mechanics.
When I said "sandbox" I meant it as opposed to "open world RPG game". For me they are different things.
Most people classify games like GTA as "sandbox" but I don't think that's accurate. In GTA you follow a set of rules and you have a clear mission and a story, there's action gameplay, what you do has consequences that can make the game progress. You can ignore the story and start doing silly stuff, use mods and so, but that's only because they give you freedom to do it, not because the game is about that. I'd say GTA is more of a hybrid. GTA is not the first game where you have that kind of freedom, just the most popular one (I had a commodore amiga as a kid, and Hunter was awesome).
To me, there's a clear difference between games like GTA, Skyrim, Assasins Creed, Far Cry 2, Saints Row 2... and games like Goat Simulator, Garris Mod, Terraria, Overgrowth.. I would even dare to put things like "Open Alchemist, "Tabletop Simulator" or several puzzle games in the sandbox category, even though they couldn't be considered neither "open world" nor "RPG".
In a completely pure sandbox there is no objective. And I think Minetest is pretty much just a bare pure sandbox that you could use to make an open world action game (among other kind of games as well) if you had the means.
The thing is right now most mods feel like they are just adding more elements to the sandbox for you to experiment with.
People end up getting bored, even with a whole ecosystem of mods, because in the end, when they learn that they can turn creative mode with the click of a checkbox they just start adding mods and experimenting with them as a sandbox, without really getting immersed in a challenge they have to beat.
This is good for those who are happy with just building. Using the dreambuilder game and creating your own mansions and stuff. I do not think there's anything missing in Minetest for those people. But it's not enough for those who prefer games to be more of a challengue.
Imho, we are still lacking in that field and your mod and adventure test are steps in the right direction. I think Minetest should ship right out of the box with something similar to that (as additional mode), once there's something stable to ship.
By the way, why did you need to fork the engine?
Maybe in the end there are actually things lacking in the flexibility of the engine? did you fill a pull request for it to be merged into the official client or are your changes specifically hardcoded for Magichet?
That's awesome. But I never implied that the explorer "runes" should be all about atk+. I mean, most of those things can be useful for both an explorer and a farmer all the same. Explorers need to eat too, so they would actually have to do some sort of farming anyway at some point, so why wouldn't the "runes" found during exploration be able to affect farming treats as well? And if they don't like them they could always try and trade them to the farmers (or NPCs?) for food.
Other ideas for runes can also be taken from the roguelike genre. Like playing with hunger.. what about a rune that gives a tool a chance to automatically cook/smelt anything it kills/break (so you get nice meat out of all your kills, or ingots out of your mining).
alchemists do not necessarily need to be different effects, but it could have different mechanics.
Packing the effect on a bottle could make it be temporary. And while that *might* be a disadvantage, you have the advantage of being able to apply the chemicals to a wider variety of things (maybe drink it, maybe throw it against some something, maybe give the effect to a tool which would wear away after a number of uses)
Actually there are a lot of factors going on in there.
You have to consider that sheeps respawn and they could, in theory, be bred (actually since we don't have an official mob api I don't know about that anymore...). But ores are generated once during mapgen and they do not show up again after they are mined.
I'm not sure I understand why did you add a distinction between ordinary and common. If sheeps were extremely rare, it would make sense to reward more those who kill them (it's not just about how hard it is to mod a sheep, but how hard it might be to catch one). If they are fairly common, it's not sure if they should be rewarded at all to begin with. The same as a digger shouldn't be rewarded for mining a lot of stone.
This means the balance will change radically from playing singleplayer and playing multiplayer. You will spawn in a world where most people would have already mined the shit out of the all the easily accessible areas and you will have to find a place to mine that hasn't been mined yet. Luckily Minetest is big enough for everyone... but this also means you have to get further away from (0,0,0).
I still think it would be better and easier to rebalance if exploring and farming were completely different things. You wouldn't need to care for balance that much when there's different value to one vs the other.
I mean.. if runes become something easy to get, then people might start looking forward to getting alchemist stuff, and the same way happens the other way around: if alchemist stuff becomes easier to get than runes, then going for runes would start getting more exciting.
If you get exactly the same from farming as you get from exploring, why would you want to go explore?
I don't think brewing in Minecraft is comparable. Nor do I think they added brewing to make farmers go out and explore.
Most of the applications of potions in Minecraft have little use for a farmer anyway, so the only point for him to go out to craft a potion would be to want to go out in the first place.
I think it would actually be more of a motivation for a farmer to go out if he could make potions from his home that would help him go out in an adventure and then be able to get something different out of that adventure.
That's actually perfectly reasonable and fine.
Even if different, it's still an approach that would bring more variety and interesting mechanics than most other mods, imho.
What's the difference between the ectoplasm and the gems?
I'll see and give your game a try on the weekend.
About the enchanted weapons, in my idea runes/herbs were the only thing needed to "enchant" (inscribe/oil), other than maybe some special crafting table or something (which probably wouldn't be that hard to craft), that's why I didn't include the enchanted weapons themselves but if there was an XP system like in adventuretest where the quality of the crafted tool depends of the ability of the craftsmith, then it would make sense as well.
My point was precisely that *not* losing XP undermines survival.
In a survival where death has little penalty, having to survive becomes irrelevant. So basically it stops being a survival.
That removes even more penalty.
And the fact that there's a chance that you might lose the items is what makes items better as a source of enchantments/improvements over XP that doesn't get lost.
Thank you as well.. sometimes discussing about games, planning and thinking in game design can be as enjoyable as actually playing the game :)
That's probably a good point for minetest.. perhaps you could say that its flexible design and the gameplay tweaking from mods is just part of the sandbox game :P
Higher level players shouldn't be able to slay everyone and bring fear to newbs.
I'd like to pro-act in this case.
There are different ways to pro-act. Adding increasingly powerful equipment does not help that situation.
How having a sword that kills in 1 hit and an armor that makes you invincible gonna prevent bullying vs having an XP system?
Actually, having an XP and levelling system would make it easier to protect newcomers because you have more information on the power level of each player, so you can do things like give protection to low level people or set a maximum level difference so that low level players are untouchable by high level ones.
I'm not saying that such a system would be the perfect solution (maybe an artificial limitation would break the immersion), nor am I saying that equipment-based levelling has other advantages (I already mentioned some of them). What I'm saying is that the argument "XP is bad because it worsens balance" loses credibility when you are adding other ways for veterans to get overpowered instead.
XP as a method for instrinsic character growth is just a different contribution to the gameplay with it's own way of working.
IMHO, intrinsic advantages for the players with high XP (with an asymptotic limit) and crafting of magic equipment could perfectly be 2 independent separate mods or mechanics.
Like I said, challenge should be optional.
Sandbox is what MT is.
Is is possible to make tactics or RPG game within the engine, but the fact one can remodel nearly everything inside a sandbox is cool enough in a nutshell.
When I said "sandbox" I meant it as opposed to "open world RPG game". For me they are different things.
Most people classify games like GTA as "sandbox" but I don't think that's accurate. In GTA you follow a set of rules and you have a clear mission and a story, there's action gameplay, what you do has consequences that can make the game progress. You can ignore the story and start doing silly stuff, use mods and so, but that's only because they give you freedom to do it, not because the game is about that. I'd say GTA is more of a hybrid. GTA is not the first game where you have that kind of freedom, just the most popular one (I had a commodore amiga as a kid, and Hunter was awesome).
To me, there's a clear difference between games like GTA, Skyrim, Assasins Creed, Far Cry 2, Saints Row 2... and games like Goat Simulator, Garris Mod, Terraria, Overgrowth.. I would even dare to put things like "Open Alchemist, "Tabletop Simulator" or several puzzle games in the sandbox category, even though they couldn't be considered neither "open world" nor "RPG".
In a completely pure sandbox there is no objective. And I think Minetest is pretty much just a bare pure sandbox that you could use to make an open world action game (among other kind of games as well) if you had the means.
The thing is right now most mods feel like they are just adding more elements to the sandbox for you to experiment with.
People end up getting bored, even with a whole ecosystem of mods, because in the end, when they learn that they can turn creative mode with the click of a checkbox they just start adding mods and experimenting with them as a sandbox, without really getting immersed in a challenge they have to beat.
This is good for those who are happy with just building. Using the dreambuilder game and creating your own mansions and stuff. I do not think there's anything missing in Minetest for those people. But it's not enough for those who prefer games to be more of a challengue.
Imho, we are still lacking in that field and your mod and adventure test are steps in the right direction. I think Minetest should ship right out of the box with something similar to that (as additional mode), once there's something stable to ship.
By the way, why did you need to fork the engine?
Maybe in the end there are actually things lacking in the flexibility of the engine? did you fill a pull request for it to be merged into the official client or are your changes specifically hardcoded for Magichet?
Enchanting is not all about atk+.
There are chants to make one's life easier while "parkouring" or digging underwater or collecting crops...
Several chants work for more than one "job". "Treasurer" chant is that way - helps both miners, diggers and farmers.
That's awesome. But I never implied that the explorer "runes" should be all about atk+. I mean, most of those things can be useful for both an explorer and a farmer all the same. Explorers need to eat too, so they would actually have to do some sort of farming anyway at some point, so why wouldn't the "runes" found during exploration be able to affect farming treats as well? And if they don't like them they could always try and trade them to the farmers (or NPCs?) for food.
Other ideas for runes can also be taken from the roguelike genre. Like playing with hunger.. what about a rune that gives a tool a chance to automatically cook/smelt anything it kills/break (so you get nice meat out of all your kills, or ingots out of your mining).
alchemists do not necessarily need to be different effects, but it could have different mechanics.
Packing the effect on a bottle could make it be temporary. And while that *might* be a disadvantage, you have the advantage of being able to apply the chemicals to a wider variety of things (maybe drink it, maybe throw it against some something, maybe give the effect to a tool which would wear away after a number of uses)
I'd rather say, killing *ordinary* mobs should be less rewarding than mining some *rare* ore.
But in the case of, say, coal, I can't see why mining a coal should be more rewarding than killing a sheep.
Actually there are a lot of factors going on in there.
You have to consider that sheeps respawn and they could, in theory, be bred (actually since we don't have an official mob api I don't know about that anymore...). But ores are generated once during mapgen and they do not show up again after they are mined.
I'm not sure I understand why did you add a distinction between ordinary and common. If sheeps were extremely rare, it would make sense to reward more those who kill them (it's not just about how hard it is to mod a sheep, but how hard it might be to catch one). If they are fairly common, it's not sure if they should be rewarded at all to begin with. The same as a digger shouldn't be rewarded for mining a lot of stone.
This means the balance will change radically from playing singleplayer and playing multiplayer. You will spawn in a world where most people would have already mined the shit out of the all the easily accessible areas and you will have to find a place to mine that hasn't been mined yet. Luckily Minetest is big enough for everyone... but this also means you have to get further away from (0,0,0).
I still think it would be better and easier to rebalance if exploring and farming were completely different things. You wouldn't need to care for balance that much when there's different value to one vs the other.
I mean.. if runes become something easy to get, then people might start looking forward to getting alchemist stuff, and the same way happens the other way around: if alchemist stuff becomes easier to get than runes, then going for runes would start getting more exciting.
If you get exactly the same from farming as you get from exploring, why would you want to go explore?
And that what brewing is for in MC :)
It is impossible to brew all the potions if one is only a miner or a farmer.
Different "skills" are needed to gain all the ingredients.
So, again, this is the matter of balancing rather that features of a game.
I don't think brewing in Minecraft is comparable. Nor do I think they added brewing to make farmers go out and explore.
Most of the applications of potions in Minecraft have little use for a farmer anyway, so the only point for him to go out to craft a potion would be to want to go out in the first place.
I think it would actually be more of a motivation for a farmer to go out if he could make potions from his home that would help him go out in an adventure and then be able to get something different out of that adventure.
I've chosen a different approach - more MC and Terraria-like.
That's actually perfectly reasonable and fine.
Even if different, it's still an approach that would bring more variety and interesting mechanics than most other mods, imho.
Ferk wrote:In a multiplayer server, people could specialize and trade runes and herbs.
I've ectoplasm and will have magic gems.
Also, why not trade enchanted weapons?
What's the difference between the ectoplasm and the gems?
I'll see and give your game a try on the weekend.
About the enchanted weapons, in my idea runes/herbs were the only thing needed to "enchant" (inscribe/oil), other than maybe some special crafting table or something (which probably wouldn't be that hard to craft), that's why I didn't include the enchanted weapons themselves but if there was an XP system like in adventuretest where the quality of the crafted tool depends of the ability of the craftsmith, then it would make sense as well.
Thus I don't think losing XP undermines survival.
In survival one must survive, not benefit from the amount of time he has spent in a world.
My point was precisely that *not* losing XP undermines survival.
In a survival where death has little penalty, having to survive becomes irrelevant. So basically it stops being a survival.
That's why ppl *do* lose items upon death.
Actually, they can chose either their want their items to be dropped in a place of death, or should those be stored in a "ghost" inventory to be reclaimed later in the process of reincarnating.
That removes even more penalty.
And the fact that there's a chance that you might lose the items is what makes items better as a source of enchantments/improvements over XP that doesn't get lost.
Talks like this help us realize what can and what can't be done.
I'm glad I was able to hear your opinion.
Thank you as well.. sometimes discussing about games, planning and thinking in game design can be as enjoyable as actually playing the game :)
That's probably a good point for minetest.. perhaps you could say that its flexible design and the gameplay tweaking from mods is just part of the sandbox game :P
Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?
4aiman wrote:Minetest allows to use 3rd person view and to set camera position (which enables one to create a platformer with a side-view).
I'm not sure how much of the camera control is actually exposed to the API.
There's actually an issue open in github about this: https://github.com/minetest/minetest/issues/3070
I doubt you would be able to make an RTS or similar in minetest currently, without forking the engine.
Though probably the problem is not really that much the camera control, but the "mouse cursor" being able to operate detached from the camera without being in a inventory/menu.
But I would be ok with having a tower defense kind of thing with First Person view, specially if your character can fly, you can just have a top view if you position yourself properly, and you can change the range of your clicks. Maybe you won't be able to control the units directly but perhaps you can just give basic orders of set up areas... something like Globulation 2 would probably be perfectly doable in Minetest (provided the mobs are stable and fast).
I think it would be cool to have a non-traditional RTS and control it from a First-Person View.. it would feel more immersive. If you want to make a more traditional RTS then there are more appropriate open source engines for it (See https://springrts.com/).
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rubenwardy - Member
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?
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Last edited by rubenwardy on Fri Sep 04, 2015 16:03, edited 1 time in total.
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benrob0329 - Member
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?
@rubenwardy I have found 4aiman to be non argumentative at times, so I wouldn't accuse someone of such a thing (though who doesn't like a good argument once in a while?)
On topic, I think that both 4aiman and Ferk have good points. The MT engine does need some work, but I think that all and all its pretty useful right now for more than just MC clones.
However, I do have to say that we need more subgames that are...original. Most of them are sandboxes and such, which is nice, but what about UFO Racing? That looked quite promising, but was never released...
I think that games like it should be bundled with MT, not just a bunch of sandboxes.
On topic, I think that both 4aiman and Ferk have good points. The MT engine does need some work, but I think that all and all its pretty useful right now for more than just MC clones.
However, I do have to say that we need more subgames that are...original. Most of them are sandboxes and such, which is nice, but what about UFO Racing? That looked quite promising, but was never released...
I think that games like it should be bundled with MT, not just a bunch of sandboxes.
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SegFault22 - Member
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?
These kids being disrespectful by dissecting others' posts in part instead of discussing it as whole, deserves them a swift ban from these forums. You know that the message is not complete without the rest of the context, and by doing that you stray too far away from the original meaning of the message, to the point of claiming that others have stated what they have not. It is also very off-topic because we are not here to discuss details about what should or should not be done with APIs added to the engine, except for attempts to prevent Minetest from becoming a Minecraft ripoff, which would happen if the community concedes/falls into submission and uses mods that make experience/knowledge exchangeable for anything (by subtracting points and giving something else).
This topic is not a place to advertise your mods (just because players may not use them as frequently as you want), that is off-topic because this is about what minetest is still missing "over" minecraft (what minetest needs in order to surpass minecraft, and not become "just another Minecraft ripoff" in the eyes of the whole world). It would only be okay if your mod is specifically for adding an API, that is used by other modders to add stuff that helps Minetest become better than Minecraft - which your mod is not and probably will never be, unless you separate your APIs from all the stuff additions, which will be very difficult because its all mashed up together as one mod with a set of stuff to add.
Experience points should never be used as a form of currency exchangeable for anything by reducing the experience level for stuff. If anything, doing magickal enchantments should give you more experience, instead of making the player "more stupid/less knowledgeable" because they chose to do a very advanced magickal ritual. That is simply contrary to basic sense and logic, and thus too much like Minecraft to ever be used by the community.
As I said before, experience points should increase players' efficiency at doing related tasks, such as adding more gains from the activity or making it easier. Of course, the rate of efficiency/gains increasing for gained experience should model a curve that reaches closer to a very high cap/limit, but never really reaches it. That way, it doesn't take much experience to start experiencing slightly higher gains, but it takes even more for the same amount of gain on top of what has already been gained. That works around the problems that come with an infinite cap on gains from higher experience - such as getting a full inventory of items from breaking one crop block because you are level 99,999,999,999,999,999 in farming experience. Modders would have control over what the unreachable cap/limit is set at, because they would use APIs (that are/should be part of the engine) to implement the addition.
Regardless of what modders chose to implement with APIs in the engine, the engine still needs more additions (in terms of more APIs) so that we can add stuff like experience points without having to create a hackish Lua implementation for everything along the way.
Changes still need to be made to the engine for full support of features such as player-based stats, status effects, support for independent dimensions/realms, support for unique items and tools that do not need a separate item-id for each variation that may exist, and the like. Currently, the only ways to implement that are hackish and do not use any part of the minetest API that is directed at such features/additions - there is not any player stats or status effect API, for example - and "stacked realms" is probably the best example of how there is not any support for independent dimensions, outside of the hackish implementation by using different space in the same array of nodes as the other "realms".
There is still a lot that has to be done before Minetest will surpass Minecraft, in terms of what systems can be created with the existing APIs. Any attempt at making board games (or even the suggested DEFCON-style WMD-war stuff) will always end up being a hackish implementation that has a lot of limitations, runs slow, and requires most of the needed systems to be custom made with the Lua API. Minetest should not have ICBMs, EMP weapons, Chemical/Biological bombs, a checkerboard with player-controllable pawns (and such) by default, but stuff like an Explosions API, Status Effect API, player stats API, wireless communication API, fluid API, EM field API and such could be written into the engine, so that support is added for whatever modders can make using those systems (or would need those systems in order to make).
Currently, modders would have to create their own hackish Lua-based implementation for systems like that, which can be conflicting with other similar systems and only usable if their mod with it is installed. For example, a darkage-themed medieval server would have to depend on a nukes mod or something just to have an API to add mining explosives, throwable explosives and the like - or if a fluid API is needed to implement dynamic boiling oil to be transferred through fluid channels (to be poured outside of strongholds and stop invaders), they would have to depend on a tech mod that was the first to add a Lua-based Fluid API (for their ore washing machine to be able to use water or other solvents in amounts less or more than a whole bucket at a time, for their fluid transmission pipes, for their fusion reactor to be able to work with fluid fuel instead of having to use fuel containers, etc.), which is really not preferable for a medieval server.
Once these aforementioned APIs are created as part of the engine, it will be simpler to implement any form of player-based experience points, magic points, food/metabolism/hydration points, status effects, environment-changing explosive devices, toxic chemical release, biological (virus/bacteria/fungus/parasites) release, heat-modifying thermobaric/endothermic release, EM-field changing radioactivity, radio communication systems, radio communications jamming, microwave weapons, infrared/ultraviolet sensing, X-Ray weapons, longitudinal EM-wave interference weapons, sound/sonics based music players, player/mob sensor devices, active denial systems, resonance weapons, and so much more. Examples of the use of those APIs could be included in the minetest_game's "experimental" mod, which is where the experimental TNT device and its Lua-based (laggy) explosion system are added. But regardless, none of the WMDs should be included in Minetest by default; that would be very bad for all players.
Regarding new players being killed off quickly by more skilled, advanced players - it is the responsibility of server owners to include features in their spawn world which are designed to allow new players to hide from others while building up their resources and abilities. Players can always live in a bunker far underground and away from the more advanced players. If players want to make a pretty house and stuff outside on the surface, they should go to a peaceful server that doesn't have the surface carpet-bombed regularly by elite warmongering players trying to kill off the enemy factions' armies (note how that is spelled without an extra R after the first letter; it makes a massive difference and you should know that)
This topic is not a place to advertise your mods (just because players may not use them as frequently as you want), that is off-topic because this is about what minetest is still missing "over" minecraft (what minetest needs in order to surpass minecraft, and not become "just another Minecraft ripoff" in the eyes of the whole world). It would only be okay if your mod is specifically for adding an API, that is used by other modders to add stuff that helps Minetest become better than Minecraft - which your mod is not and probably will never be, unless you separate your APIs from all the stuff additions, which will be very difficult because its all mashed up together as one mod with a set of stuff to add.
Experience points should never be used as a form of currency exchangeable for anything by reducing the experience level for stuff. If anything, doing magickal enchantments should give you more experience, instead of making the player "more stupid/less knowledgeable" because they chose to do a very advanced magickal ritual. That is simply contrary to basic sense and logic, and thus too much like Minecraft to ever be used by the community.
As I said before, experience points should increase players' efficiency at doing related tasks, such as adding more gains from the activity or making it easier. Of course, the rate of efficiency/gains increasing for gained experience should model a curve that reaches closer to a very high cap/limit, but never really reaches it. That way, it doesn't take much experience to start experiencing slightly higher gains, but it takes even more for the same amount of gain on top of what has already been gained. That works around the problems that come with an infinite cap on gains from higher experience - such as getting a full inventory of items from breaking one crop block because you are level 99,999,999,999,999,999 in farming experience. Modders would have control over what the unreachable cap/limit is set at, because they would use APIs (that are/should be part of the engine) to implement the addition.
Regardless of what modders chose to implement with APIs in the engine, the engine still needs more additions (in terms of more APIs) so that we can add stuff like experience points without having to create a hackish Lua implementation for everything along the way.
Changes still need to be made to the engine for full support of features such as player-based stats, status effects, support for independent dimensions/realms, support for unique items and tools that do not need a separate item-id for each variation that may exist, and the like. Currently, the only ways to implement that are hackish and do not use any part of the minetest API that is directed at such features/additions - there is not any player stats or status effect API, for example - and "stacked realms" is probably the best example of how there is not any support for independent dimensions, outside of the hackish implementation by using different space in the same array of nodes as the other "realms".
There is still a lot that has to be done before Minetest will surpass Minecraft, in terms of what systems can be created with the existing APIs. Any attempt at making board games (or even the suggested DEFCON-style WMD-war stuff) will always end up being a hackish implementation that has a lot of limitations, runs slow, and requires most of the needed systems to be custom made with the Lua API. Minetest should not have ICBMs, EMP weapons, Chemical/Biological bombs, a checkerboard with player-controllable pawns (and such) by default, but stuff like an Explosions API, Status Effect API, player stats API, wireless communication API, fluid API, EM field API and such could be written into the engine, so that support is added for whatever modders can make using those systems (or would need those systems in order to make).
Currently, modders would have to create their own hackish Lua-based implementation for systems like that, which can be conflicting with other similar systems and only usable if their mod with it is installed. For example, a darkage-themed medieval server would have to depend on a nukes mod or something just to have an API to add mining explosives, throwable explosives and the like - or if a fluid API is needed to implement dynamic boiling oil to be transferred through fluid channels (to be poured outside of strongholds and stop invaders), they would have to depend on a tech mod that was the first to add a Lua-based Fluid API (for their ore washing machine to be able to use water or other solvents in amounts less or more than a whole bucket at a time, for their fluid transmission pipes, for their fusion reactor to be able to work with fluid fuel instead of having to use fuel containers, etc.), which is really not preferable for a medieval server.
Once these aforementioned APIs are created as part of the engine, it will be simpler to implement any form of player-based experience points, magic points, food/metabolism/hydration points, status effects, environment-changing explosive devices, toxic chemical release, biological (virus/bacteria/fungus/parasites) release, heat-modifying thermobaric/endothermic release, EM-field changing radioactivity, radio communication systems, radio communications jamming, microwave weapons, infrared/ultraviolet sensing, X-Ray weapons, longitudinal EM-wave interference weapons, sound/sonics based music players, player/mob sensor devices, active denial systems, resonance weapons, and so much more. Examples of the use of those APIs could be included in the minetest_game's "experimental" mod, which is where the experimental TNT device and its Lua-based (laggy) explosion system are added. But regardless, none of the WMDs should be included in Minetest by default; that would be very bad for all players.
Regarding new players being killed off quickly by more skilled, advanced players - it is the responsibility of server owners to include features in their spawn world which are designed to allow new players to hide from others while building up their resources and abilities. Players can always live in a bunker far underground and away from the more advanced players. If players want to make a pretty house and stuff outside on the surface, they should go to a peaceful server that doesn't have the surface carpet-bombed regularly by elite warmongering players trying to kill off the enemy factions' armies (note how that is spelled without an extra R after the first letter; it makes a massive difference and you should know that)
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ArguablySane - Member
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?
SegFault22, I agree with a lot of what you've said, but I would caution against adding too many APIs to the core engine. The advantage of APIs, as you pointed out, is that they standardise the interface so lots of mods can use it, but the disadvantage is that they force things to work in a certain way. A good example of this is the forms API - it's horrible. If someone wants to do something that the core devs didn't think of, then they're stuck using a laggy server-side lua implementation, or in the case of the forms API they just can't do it.
The reason lua implementations of things like mobs and explosions currently suck is because the lua code has no access to the client. Compiled lua is extremely fast, but there can be no client-side prediction of events. When you hit a mob, the client has to wait for the server to respond before it can update the mob's appearance or position. When you light a block of TNT the client has to wait for the server to tell it what just happened. That doesn't work for something like an explosion where the round-trip time to the server is likely to be longer than the explosion animation itself.
The solution to all of those problems is to allow lua code to run on the client. The APIs which should be added are low-level ones which provide a direct interface to the rendering engine, client-server communication, sound system, etc. Without client-side lua, no number of electromagnetism APIs or explosion APIs could make Minetest as good a modding platform as Minecraft (with Forge). Modders will always think of something the devs haven't, and they need to be able to do that without waiting for an API to be agreed upon and implemented.
There is one server-side API which would be very useful though, and that's a dimensions API. As you point out, the current implementation of "dimensions" is extremely hackish and there's no workaround with lua.
The reason lua implementations of things like mobs and explosions currently suck is because the lua code has no access to the client. Compiled lua is extremely fast, but there can be no client-side prediction of events. When you hit a mob, the client has to wait for the server to respond before it can update the mob's appearance or position. When you light a block of TNT the client has to wait for the server to tell it what just happened. That doesn't work for something like an explosion where the round-trip time to the server is likely to be longer than the explosion animation itself.
The solution to all of those problems is to allow lua code to run on the client. The APIs which should be added are low-level ones which provide a direct interface to the rendering engine, client-server communication, sound system, etc. Without client-side lua, no number of electromagnetism APIs or explosion APIs could make Minetest as good a modding platform as Minecraft (with Forge). Modders will always think of something the devs haven't, and they need to be able to do that without waiting for an API to be agreed upon and implemented.
There is one server-side API which would be very useful though, and that's a dimensions API. As you point out, the current implementation of "dimensions" is extremely hackish and there's no workaround with lua.
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rubenwardy - Member
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?
Don't worry, client side is coming soon(tm).
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?
rubenwardy wrote:Don't worry, client side is coming soon(tm).
+1!
Many of my mods are now a part of Minetest-mods. A place where you know they are maintained!
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ArguablySane - Member
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?
rubenwardy wrote:Don't worry, client side is coming soon(tm).
This makes me exceedingly happy.
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benrob0329 - Member
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?
SegFault22 wrote:These kids being disrespectful by dissecting others' posts in part instead of discussing it as whole, deserves them a swift ban from these forums. You know that the message is not complete without the rest of the context, and by doing that you stray too far away from the original meaning of the message, to the point of claiming that others have stated what they have not. It is also very off-topic because we are not here to discuss details about what should or should not be done with APIs added to the engine, except for attempts to prevent Minetest from becoming a Minecraft ripoff, which would happen if the community concedes/falls into submission and uses mods that make experience/knowledge exchangeable for anything (by subtracting points and giving something else).
I disagree, I think that it splits the post up quite nicely and makes it clearer as to what someone is talking about. Obviously the person should read the whole post rather than just a few quotes.
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programmingchicken - Member
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?
benrob0329 wrote:SegFault22 wrote:These kids being disrespectful by dissecting others' posts in part instead of discussing it as whole, deserves them a swift ban from these forums. You know that the message is not complete without the rest of the context, and by doing that you stray too far away from the original meaning of the message, to the point of claiming that others have stated what they have not. It is also very off-topic because we are not here to discuss details about what should or should not be done with APIs added to the engine, except for attempts to prevent Minetest from becoming a Minecraft ripoff, which would happen if the community concedes/falls into submission and uses mods that make experience/knowledge exchangeable for anything (by subtracting points and giving something else).
I disagree, I think that it splits the post up quite nicely and makes it clearer as to what someone is talking about. Obviously the person should read the whole post rather than just a few quotes.
+1
Screw u segfault lolnope sorry
I'm bold. I'm sarcastic. I'm PChicken.
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Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?
4aiman : My information comes from reading the code source (in the master branch of the github repository). It's either accurate or, at worst, recently outdated.
As for the Valve comparison, Minetest is similar to Valve games in that you can do basically everything with the tools they've given you, but the more you want to diverge from the exact game they built their tools for, the harder it is to work (especially for the map editor). Minecraft has the same problem : you can make thousands of different variations of armored skeletons in your map easily, but if you wan a giant cyclops spitting acid at you ? It'll take you hours.
ArguablySane : I agree so much. I see a lot of people going "minetest is so superior to minecraft in every conceivable metric, I why do people still play minecraft ?", and all I can think is "Guys, I can have fun in minecraft by just jumping around and punching blocks in an empty superflat map. Minetest has an horrible sound design, mediocre ergonomics, and the inventory system manages to lag in singleplayer."
Minetest has the potential to be incredible. But potential doesn't justify playing a game. Right now, minetest is worse than minecraft in almost every way, with the biggest advantage (being easy to mod) considerably diminished because most subgames are minecraft clones with a different hunger system designed by modders with no experience as game designers.
rubenwardy : It's kinda rude to use the third-person to describe someone who posted earlier in a discussion. A bit like ignoring someone right next to you and saying insulting things about them.
Ferk : There are engines better adapted to making RTS games, but Minetest is the best free engine for making voxel games. The voxel format is, actually pretty adapted for strategy games, and, ideally, you could use Minetest to make a RTS using assets and features of other mods.
Plus, a good voxel engine would be great for making "All Orcs must die"-style games, where you walk around on the map, building and moving defenses.
SegFault : the thread was created four years ago. Everything that had to be said about the sacred importance of not being too much like minecraft has been said. Several times. Being a bit off-topic isn't dramatic.
As for the Valve comparison, Minetest is similar to Valve games in that you can do basically everything with the tools they've given you, but the more you want to diverge from the exact game they built their tools for, the harder it is to work (especially for the map editor). Minecraft has the same problem : you can make thousands of different variations of armored skeletons in your map easily, but if you wan a giant cyclops spitting acid at you ? It'll take you hours.
ArguablySane : I agree so much. I see a lot of people going "minetest is so superior to minecraft in every conceivable metric, I why do people still play minecraft ?", and all I can think is "Guys, I can have fun in minecraft by just jumping around and punching blocks in an empty superflat map. Minetest has an horrible sound design, mediocre ergonomics, and the inventory system manages to lag in singleplayer."
Minetest has the potential to be incredible. But potential doesn't justify playing a game. Right now, minetest is worse than minecraft in almost every way, with the biggest advantage (being easy to mod) considerably diminished because most subgames are minecraft clones with a different hunger system designed by modders with no experience as game designers.
rubenwardy : It's kinda rude to use the third-person to describe someone who posted earlier in a discussion. A bit like ignoring someone right next to you and saying insulting things about them.
Ferk : There are engines better adapted to making RTS games, but Minetest is the best free engine for making voxel games. The voxel format is, actually pretty adapted for strategy games, and, ideally, you could use Minetest to make a RTS using assets and features of other mods.
Plus, a good voxel engine would be great for making "All Orcs must die"-style games, where you walk around on the map, building and moving defenses.
SegFault : the thread was created four years ago. Everything that had to be said about the sacred importance of not being too much like minecraft has been said. Several times. Being a bit off-topic isn't dramatic.
Re: What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?
Interesting comments are happening here, I will have to log out so I can see the other half of the story! ;-)
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