What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

[Evergreen]

I think what Minetest really needs is someone who develops the game and asks himself questions like:
- does mining really feels like fun?
- does building feels fun?
- does farming feels fun? etc.

I think there is a lot room for improvements. This project needs some gameplay-oriented developers who think like: ok this doesn't feel fun, so i tweak and improve this until I like it.

This is really what Minecraft does better. Mintest does not MISS anything. But the elements are not balanced and optimized from a gameplay-and-fun-oriented point of view. Please don't think too technical. Optimize the game that it FEELS good to play it.

In the earlier versions of Minecraft, Notch said something like: I'll add things to the game. If it does not feel fun, I will remove it.

(Sorry for my bad english)

Sadly, that is not the goal of the developers. It seems to me that the goal is to create an engine, not a game that is fun to play with lots of in-game items, features, and such.

[twoelk]

...Sadly, that is not the goal of the developers. It seems to me that the goal is to create an engine, not a game that is fun to play with lots of in-game items, features, and such.

and?

This should not stop brilliant game designers to build a well working game using the minetest engine.

Sure it is not a one click download a top game of every genre in a single file sollution. Maybe the homepage needs to be more clear on the possabilities and the work a player has to do by finding the game and/or map that fits best the game he has in mind.

[Evergreen]

...Sadly, that is not the goal of the developers. It seems to me that the goal is to create an engine, not a game that is fun to play with lots of in-game items, features, and such.

and?

This should not stop brilliant game designers to build a well working game using the minetest engine.

Sure it is not a one click download a top game of every genre in a single file sollution. Maybe the homepage needs to be more clear on the possabilities and the work a player has to do by finding the game and/or map that fits best the game he has in mind.

That is true. People really don't use minetest as an engine, but as a game. If a person who is new to minetest plays it, they are going to judge it by what comes by default. (which is why it is a good thing more games are being included in 0.4.10)

[bloodyax2000]

Honestly, I prefer minetest mining (caves and such) over minecrafts.

[srifqi]

Honestly, I prefer minetest mining (caves and such) over minecrafts.

I agree. Minetest has ~60000 blocks tall (Minecraft: 256 blocks tall)

[Zombie461]

Everyone is talking about features and presentation, but isn't it obvious what fundamental element is lacking? Players. The biggest Minetest servers might have 15 players on at once in the best case. How many players tend to be on the biggest Minecraft servers?

biggest i've seen is 200

bigget I have seen is 12k xD

[Kilarin]

People really don't use minetest as an engine, but as a game.

That's why the developers are going to package several games with the minetest download.

I think of it as separation of powers, just like in government. When the engine developers are concentrating on a certain "game", the engine can become limited toward that one goal. But with engine developers concentrating on improving the engine, and game developers concentrating on different visions for the game, the possibilities are wide open.

Of course, unlike government, engine developers and game developers can overlap with MineTest. :)

[Calinou]

People really don't use minetest as an engine, but as a game.

That's why the developers are going to package several games with the minetest download.

I think of it as separation of powers, just like in government. When the engine developers are concentrating on a certain "game", the engine can become limited toward that one goal. But with engine developers concentrating on improving the engine, and game developers concentrating on different visions for the game, the possibilities are wide open.

Of course, unlike government, engine developers and game developers can overlap with MineTest. :)

I believe it's a very good idea to delegate game development to other people than the core developers.

Not only it saves them time, but it also uses the full potential of people who have more gameplay experience and art skills than most core developers.


It's Minetest, not MineTest. Same goes for Minecraft.

[CaptainCanti]

Less capabilities, lazier development, and a less than decent community.

[Evergreen]

Less capabilities, lazier development, and a less than decent community.

You have obviously never tried to interact with the minecraft community. Also, lazier development? Are you serious?

[Kilarin]

It's Minetest, not MineTest. Same goes for Minecraft.

Just be glad I spelled it right! :)

[CaptainCanti]

Less capabilities, lazier development, and a less than decent community.

You have obviously never tried to interact with the minecraft community. Also, lazier development? Are you serious?

I'll grant you that I've never interacted with the minecraft community, but the minetest community is tight-assed in every sense of the word. No offense. And what I meant by lazier development is that the base minetest game has barely changed. Theres still no monsters, only one type of tree, ect.

[MirceaKitsune]

I'll grant you that I've never interacted with the minecraft community, but the minetest community is tight-assed in every sense of the word. No offense. And what I meant by lazier development is that the base minetest game has barely changed. Theres still no monsters, only one type of tree, ect.

That's what I have plans to change, when I get to creating my own game. But it might take a while.

As for the Minecraft community, I don't think either me or many people can say they've interacted with its entire community, given how large it is. But the people I've found on various Minecraft servers were always nice... though it depends on the server and its theme's fanbase too of course. Same can be said for Minetest... the players I interacted with on it were always cool.

[twoelk]

... the base minetest game has barely changed. Theres still no monsters, only one type of tree, ect.

indeed that is exactly the intention, or evil plan if you prefer. As you correctly say: "base". Everything else is up to the developers of so called "sub-games", some of which are more some of which are less feature rich.

[philipbenr]

@CaptainCanti:

As stated somewhere else, minetest_game is already dead (Not to be developed), so as stated above, you should try subgames. minetest_next is a good one to try. It will hopefully do some nicer thing with Minetest, and add things that minetest_game didn't have.

[MirceaKitsune]

I know I'm probably repeating myself in places. But like I said, the problem isn't simply "adding more things". It's adding more things in a well designed pattern, making sure the game has an artistic style that feels unified, that everything feels like it's there and part of the world while each mob / item relates to another. At the same time creating a "ladder" if you will, where players need to mine / kill to get everything of importance and there's actual progress.

As for other games, I haven't tried minetest_next yet. I have however tried a few other games a few months ago, namely Freeminer Carbone and Nodetopia which are most popular. I'm not sure what changed since then, nor want to discourage their ideas... but I personally didn't find what I was looking for in either of them. The textures seemed lower quality than our current defaults, no obvious extra features and elements, etc. The only good thing that really stood out is that there were mobs by default, whereas Nodetopia also had an armor system which is an awaited addition.

[kaeza]

Please people, don't feed this troll.

[Achilles]

At the moment I am agreeing with MirceaKitsune. The minetest game just doesn't seem to contain the quality that minecraft has... The servers don't seem to be anywhere near as good; They not only lack decent players but they should have some more interesting mods and sounds. I have hardly seen a server that has any mobs other than the ones provided by PilzAdam: the hostile mobs hardly provide a challenge, for starters most just leave you be and allow you to kill them providing no obvious challenge other than boring one to death.

In addition the sounds that we all find so appeasing in other games are rare In minetest, those that are apparent are not of a very good quality. I understand that it is extremely difficult to make extremely good sounds but surely there should be some sounds of a higher quality and others that are more frequent... There seem to be many mobs that have turned mute with Cows not being able to Moo and sheep not making a single noise even when killed.

Minetest would be a lot better with a variety of good quality sounds as well as textures, as others have previously stated...

To those who disagree with m opinion, well this is just an opinion or a bit of constructive criticism..

[rubenwardy]

I think that Minetest needs more optimising before it is ready to go on steam. More polish.

Polish is:
Game play balance
Crashes are rare, and glitches are small.
Immersion (ambient sounds, game play, low lag, little bugs).
See celeron55's comment on game play - every thing should make sense with everything else, indirectly

[Dragonop]

I think that MT needs good looking textures, dont buggy mobs, and sounds for all the stuff; then we can talk about comparisons.

[PeterKabin]

crafting like in the minecraft:pocket edition.

[foreverip]

I think it is because in minetest, there isn't a point to farm or build or anything. In minecraft, people often set bosses as the goal to defeat. In minetest, there aren't any big goals, especially in the non-modded versions. There isn't a point to mining if all you can use is a hoe and a pickaxe. Also, the game doesn't prove enough of a challenge for most.
I think the biggest point though, is because everyone compares it to minecraft. Since you think that minecraft is a better game, it will make minetest seem more dull.

[Evergreen]

I think it is because in minetest, there isn't a point to farm or build or anything. In minecraft, people often set bosses as the goal to defeat. In minetest, there aren't any big goals, especially in the non-modded versions. There isn't a point to mining if all you can use is a hoe and a pickaxe. Also, the game doesn't prove enough of a challenge for most.
I think the biggest point though, is because everyone compares it to minecraft. Since you think that minecraft is a better game, it will make minetest seem more dull.

If you want goals, start making some (sub)games which add goals.

[Calinou]

IIn minecraft, people often set bosses as the goal to defeat.

I don't believe this to be true, at least in multiplayer, where the Ender Dragon can only be beat once without resetting the End. I've never seen someone who really wanted to beat it that hard, it's seen as a luxury, secondary goal.

The point of mining, digging… is to acquire resources to make better tools or to build.

You can give stuff for doing something (like coins in Carbone), that adds some incentive to play, but the items have to be useful in some way to really make it fun.

[HeroOfTheWinds]

One thing I have noticed that MC has is a somewhat more.... "together" mapgen? The biomes often correspond to the terrain, and there are a few terrain features that MC has and MT doesn't. (Waterfalls, anyone?) That being said, paramat's mapgens (especially watershed and riverdev) do have a variety of things that are better than MC's mapgen. And I myself am hoping to make a mapgen that incorporates some of those features... "Hope" being the keyword. :P

That being said, MC didn't have gigantic underground realms (barring the Nether) or floating islands, so.... Currently it's a draw, in my humble opinion.

[leeminer]

Probably popularity. Check out how many downloads Minecraft has. Its 16.5 mil approximately. How many downloads or active users are there in minetest?

I could be wrong maybe minetest has more, you would thing since it is free.

[bitsflashing]

People see Minecraft as more of the "original" and don't feel interested in trying Minetest cause it's based off Minecraft. (Another Minecraft clone)

[Inocudom]

It is an absolute fact that the masses worship (worship) commercial success. That is why they flock to Minecraft, GoAnimate, Roblox, Steam, Windows, Fringe, Apple, and other commercial successes, instead of open source alternatives. It goes without saying that the corporations of this planet know this fact very well, as mankind is the most studied species on this planet. Very sad truths that are written here, very sad truths.

[leeminer]

It is an absolute fact that the masses worship (worship) commercial success. That is why they flock to Minecraft, GoAnimate, Roblox, Steam, Windows, Fringe, Apple, and other commercial successes, instead of open source alternatives. It goes without saying that the corporations of this planet know this fact very well, as mankind is the most studied species on this planet. Very sad truths that are written here, very sad truths.

You may be right in most cases. Marketing, ease of use, popularity. However, what lures me to open source is freedom, it is free but also I can customize. I can create. This is a huge reason I am learning to program and mod. However 99 percent of the population doesn't want to code or tweak or do anything but press a button.

[Jordach]

It is an absolute fact that the masses worship (worship) commercial success. That is why they flock to Minecraft, GoAnimate, Roblox, Steam, Windows, Fringe, Apple, and other commercial successes, instead of open source alternatives. It goes without saying that the corporations of this planet know this fact very well, as mankind is the most studied species on this planet. Very sad truths that are written here, very sad truths.

Try and find an alternative that doesn't suck. Steam is just good because it's good at what it does and has good on sale prices.