What's Minetest still missing over Minecraft?

[rubenwardy]

Those sorts of replies aren't useful.

The hunger mod is not in the way described.

I quite like the idea of a DayZ level of realism hunger mod.

[SegFault22]

There should be added a hunger and hydration system, but different than Minecraft's hunger system.

There's already a hunger/food mod existing.

A mod, yes, but it still lacks necessary qualities, had you read my post instead of skimming for keywords.
The current system has 20 points for hunger and nothing for hydration. The proposed system would have, say, 160 points for hunger, and the same for hydration, represented by a bar with no breaks in it. Hunger, Hydration and Health would interact a lot too - healing speed would be proportional to the hunger points, and negative if the player has hunger points below a certain point. Hydration would act the same way, but instead of providing healing capabilities, it only hurts the player if it gets below a certain level. When a player would eat something, it would take time for that to replenish their hunger-bar - the speed would be proportional to the current hydration level. Also, it would consume hydration points to replenish hunger points, which will require players to drink stuff while eating, just like meals in real life.
This would be better than in Minecraft. In Minecraft, the player waltzes around and loses hunger points, replenishing them often with bread or something. In the casual minecraft session, the player carries around a stack orso of a certain food item, having to eat often to keep the hunger points replenished. In real life, this would be like eating snacks every so often, and no real meals.
In the proposed system for Minetest, it would be possible to eat a lot of food (a "meal" of sorts), and that would suffice for a long while, with a few snacks between meals. In real life, this would be like eating a meal at a certain time of the day, then having a snack or two much later.
We shouldn't really be striving for realism - this isn't what Minetest, or games in general, are about. But this system, no matter how real it is, is far better than Minecraft.

Regarding other stuff about what Minetest is missing, the environment could use some attention. Currently, even Mapgen v7 won't suffice. Why, you may ask? First of all, the textures are dull. They need more contrast. The same goes for the sounds. Second, there needs to be more variety and awesomeness in the world.
In Minecraft, or any other game with trees and such, the trees are different. They have different height, leaf-block/leaved-part patterns, and such. A standard taiga biome in Minecraft has tons of trees, in relatively close proximity, with different leaf patterns and different heights. But in Minetest, all of the trees are relatively the same, with little variation in height or leaf-block-patterns. It would make Minetest much better if there were a few more types of trees, all of different colours and forms, and if all trees were to have more diverse leaf-block-patterns and heights, and are closer together. What we can do to make this different and better than Minecraft, is if forests would generate with bare clearings and "paths" of sorts, so that traveling through a forest is more interesting, and the trees can be more dense without limiting one's ability to move through the forest.

That's all I have for now.

[HeroOfTheWinds]

There should be added a hunger and hydration system, but different than Minecraft's hunger system.

There's already a hunger/food mod existing.

A mod, yes, but it still lacks necessary qualities, had you read my post instead of skimming for keywords.
The current system has 20 points for hunger and nothing for hydration. The proposed system would have, say, 160 points for hunger, and the same for hydration, represented by a bar with no breaks in it. Hunger, Hydration and Health would interact a lot too - healing speed would be proportional to the hunger points, and negative if the player has hunger points below a certain point. Hydration would act the same way, but instead of providing healing capabilities, it only hurts the player if it gets below a certain level. When a player would eat something, it would take time for that to replenish their hunger-bar - the speed would be proportional to the current hydration level. Also, it would consume hydration points to replenish hunger points, which will require players to drink stuff while eating, just like meals in real life.
This would be better than in Minecraft. In Minecraft, the player waltzes around and loses hunger points, replenishing them often with bread or something. In the casual minecraft session, the player carries around a stack orso of a certain food item, having to eat often to keep the hunger points replenished. In real life, this would be like eating snacks every so often, and no real meals.
In the proposed system for Minetest, it would be possible to eat a lot of food (a "meal" of sorts), and that would suffice for a long while, with a few snacks between meals. In real life, this would be like eating a meal at a certain time of the day, then having a snack or two much later.
We shouldn't really be striving for realism - this isn't what Minetest, or games in general, are about. But this system, no matter how real it is, is far better than Minecraft.

Regarding other stuff about what Minetest is missing, the environment could use some attention. Currently, even Mapgen v7 won't suffice. Why, you may ask? First of all, the textures are dull. They need more contrast. The same goes for the sounds. Second, there needs to be more variety and awesomeness in the world.
In Minecraft, or any other game with trees and such, the trees are different. They have different height, leaf-block/leaved-part patterns, and such. A standard taiga biome in Minecraft has tons of trees, in relatively close proximity, with different leaf patterns and different heights. But in Minetest, all of the trees are relatively the same, with little variation in height or leaf-block-patterns. It would make Minetest much better if there were a few more types of trees, all of different colours and forms, and if all trees were to have more diverse leaf-block-patterns and heights, and are closer together. What we can do to make this different and better than Minecraft, is if forests would generate with bare clearings and "paths" of sorts, so that traveling through a forest is more interesting, and the trees can be more dense without limiting one's ability to move through the forest.

That's all I have for now.

I personally am opposed to an hunger/thirst aspect of that level. At a certain point, too much realism takes away from the fun of things. I prefer not to have hunger because then I can keep more inventory space, and then I can focus on building and mining instead of spending what little time I have on foraging for food instead of accomplishing anything.

Regarding trees, have you looked into the moretrees mod? That would solve a lot of your dissatisfaction with the current set up.... although I would like pine trees to be included in the base game. ;)

[SegFault22]

I personally am opposed to an hunger/thirst aspect of that level. At a certain point, too much realism takes away from the fun of things. I prefer not to have hunger because then I can keep more inventory space, and then I can focus on building and mining instead of spending what little time I have on foraging for food instead of accomplishing anything.

Had you read my article, you would know that the proposed system would not require you to have any more than one inventory space taken up by an item or two, or none at all. I'm not explaining why, as I have already said that in my article. If you don't like the idea, and if it is implemented, you could simply play Singleplayer with it disabled, or go to a smaller, less popular server with people who also don't like the hunger/hydration idea.

Regarding trees, have you looked into the moretrees mod? That would solve a lot of your dissatisfaction with the current set up.... although I would like pine trees to be included in the base game. ;)

I have looked into mods for trees, but none of them are what I explained in my article. You would know that, had you not just skimmed for keywords. I am not proposing just the addition of more trees. I am proposing a change to the default generation of trees, to include more than one type of tree, more than one pattern and height for said types, denser forests, and clearings in said forests. The mods simply add more gigantic trees that generate lag, in small patches everywhere, rather than evenly distributed throughout a forest.

[jojoa1997]

I have read some of the comments and here is my view. Minetest lacks artistic quality not in the textures but in game itself. For me Minecraft is exploring and that is what I have always liked. Minetest is you see 3 biomes and you have seen them all, oh look a random underground structure with no different ones. I am not saying be like Minecraft but there is not enough features or things to do. There are very few 3rd teir crafting blocks in minetest. I mean come on, I can only build houses out of a handful of items. It is the games like dwarves which add many features to the game that are fun. Also mentioned previously was the challenge level. I die from falling only. Please don't say that is what mods are for. Please look at the [url=commit history]https://github.com/minetest/minetest_game/graphs/commit-activity[/url].

minetest_game is frozen; if you want improvements of that game, try minetest_next (aims for stability as in “not changing too much”) or Carbone (which is a bit less afraid of change, may change more often).

Those two look like good gamepacks. Hopefully soon i will have time to try them out. Also another thing about MT atm is the survival aspect to me is what seems missing the most.

[Wuzzy]

Honestly I don’t care about what Minetest is supposedly missing over Minecraft.

The question is simply not relevant to me. I don’t play Minecraft and probably won’t. But that’s not the reason I don’t care.

The question wheather any feature is desirable to Minetest should not depend on which features Minecraft or any other game has.

Just because Minecraft has some feature X, does not neccessarily mean that feature is desirable for Minetest. Minecraft is not perfect. It has some quirks, for example: Sluggishness, mod system through 3rd party hacks, a pretty limited height (not more than 500 blocks iirc). You probably do not want to have these things in Minetest. Sure Minecraft has good features. But does that even matter to Minetest? I think not. What matters to is is wheather Minetest is good on its own, not just compared to some other game.

We should ask ourselves “What’s Minetest still missing?”, no matter if it’s in Minecraft or not.

Just look for good ideas. It is not forbidden to steal** great ideas from Minecraft. But keep in mind, it is the ideas that matter, not where they came from. So if a great feature is in Minecraft and you want it in Minetest, too, then you should explain why that idea is actually great and how it benefits Minetest, like with any other suggestion. ;)

Having that said, I think Minetest currently lacks this, in no particular order:

• A generic tutorial which teaches the basics (controls, crafting, …) ((theoretically) valid for all subgames and mods). The concrete subgames may still have their own subgame-specific tutorials (if that’s neccessary). Yeah, Minetest is pretty confusing for those who are new to the genre. Without the wiki, I wouldn’t have figured out half the game. =)
• A pretty and clean and user-friendly default interface. The current interface is ugly, messy and user-unfriendly. It keeps getting better, but it has a long way to go. Actually, Minetest could steal the design from Freeminer here. :-)
• Playing around with the map generator is straight-forward (This is what I wish to be). I know some work has put into that lately, but there is always room to improve: Previews*, possibility to saving templates which you can save, load and share with others.
• Colored lights. (Has been attempted several times before, each attempt failed so far. =( ). Just because they would be nice to look at. =)
• Mob framework. (I mean, like, supported in the engine, accessible by Lua. Mob frameworks in Lua work, but are really slow.). They would bring more “life” to Minetest.

* = a 2D preview would suffice, there are already tools for creating 2D maps (I don’t know how usable they would be, however).
** = Of course I mean the word “steal” jokingly. Actually, I mean “copy”.

[Calinou]

a pretty limited height (not more than 500 blocks iirc).

256 blocks, sea level is at 62, there's bedrock at layer 5 and below.

We should ask ourselves “What’s Minetest still missing?”, no matter if it’s in Minecraft or not.

Just look for good ideas. It is not forbidden to steal** great ideas from Minecraft. But keep in mind, it is the ideas that matter, not where they came from. So if a great feature is in Minecraft and you want it in Minetest, too, then you should explain why that idea is actually great and how it benefits Minetest, like with any other suggestion. ;)

This is exactly what I do in Carbone. :P

I wouldn't use the word “steal”: it's just a matter of helping yourself, if you find an idea in Minecraft nice. Implementing stuff found in Minecraft then balancing it can turn out to be fun.

* A generic tutorial which teaches the basics (controls, crafting, …) ((theoretically) valid for all subgames and mods). The concrete subgames may still have their own subgame-specific tutorials (if that’s neccessary). Yeah, Minetest is pretty confusing for those who are new to the genre. Without the wiki, I wouldn’t have figured out half the game. =)

Having an introduction formspec show the first time you play somewhere, customisable by the server owner, would be a nice addition. By default, it would probably tell you a few basics about the game, which is better than nothing.

* A pretty and clean and user-friendly default interface. The current interface is ugly, messy and user-unfriendly. It keeps getting better, but it has a long way to go. Actually, Minetest could steal the design from Freeminer here. :-)

There could be tooltips in the menu and more complete item descriptions when hovering an item. The game could also have a larger font size by default.

* Colored lights. (Has been attempted several times before, each attempt failed so far. =( ). Just because they would be nice to look at. =)

This would increase the cost of lighting calculations by at least 3 times (if not done with a complete lighting overhaul, which is likely to break gameplay).

* Mob framework. (I mean, like, supported in the engine, accessible by Lua. Mob frameworks in Lua work, but are really slow.). They would bring more “life” to Minetest.

Try an optimized Simple Mobs (such as the one found in Carbone), it's probably not so slow. Quite a lot of rats spawn sometimes (near trees and in caves mostly), so it makes your world lively. :P

If you want it to be faster, tweak the server settings, like reducing the active object range.

Don't forget that if you port something done in Lua to C++ code, you have to cover the most use cases you can, to not restrict modders. Unlike Lua, C++ is not as flexible (since it's run client-side and has to be compiled) so you can't randomly add things in C++, since other players won't be able to benefit from it unless they get and use your client.

[Wuzzy]

* Colored lights. (Has been attempted several times before, each attempt failed so far. =( ). Just because they would be nice to look at. =)

This would increase the cost of lighting calculations by at least 3 times (if not done with a complete lighting overhaul, which is likely to break gameplay).

Good point. Sadly. :-(

[twoelk]

. . .
There could be tooltips in the menu and more complete item descriptions when hovering an item.
. . .

hooray for more "tooltips / infotext" everywhere! Make it possible by default in every formspec!

. . .

* Mob framework. (I mean, like, supported in the engine, accessible by Lua. Mob frameworks in Lua work, but are really slow.). They would bring more “life” to Minetest.

Try an optimized Simple Mobs (such as the one found in Carbone), it's probably not so slow. Quite a lot of rats spawn sometimes (near trees and in caves mostly), so it makes your world lively. :P

If you want it to be faster, tweak the server settings, like reducing the active object range.

Don't forget that if you port something done in Lua to C++ code, you have to cover the most use cases you can, to not restrict modders. Unlike Lua, C++ is not as flexible (since it's run client-side and has to be compiled) so you can't randomly add things in C++, since other players won't be able to benefit from it unless they get and use your client.

Maybe we should start by describing what such an "I can move anything" mobs/npc-api should provide. Should pathfinding be in the engine or do mobs differ so much that it must be left to be done in Lua? What should be the minimum the engine-side-mobs-api should provide? What variables should there be?

Of course this is not addressing the problems that happen if I generate a thousand rats at spawn or build a mall with several traders all serving customers at the same time. Those are design issues the devs will still have to think about in their multithreaded minds.

[Mcc457]

I'm not sure if anyone has said this, but it seems to me Minetest is lacking a theme. Mine craft has a kind of mystery to it. Your placed in an odd world where you must survive using physical force, or using magic to enhance your abilities. You are left to wonder why you are here, the only human, in world of monsters and magic

Minetest doesn't have a theme. Playing the game vanilla puts you in a world, you don't have to survive, you can just recycle your environment into whatever you want to create. After that, the World is pretty much the same all around.

Maybe if a more scientific direction was taken, where you have to use chemistry and physics to manipulate your environment. For example you could combine the feces from animals and dead plant matter to quickly grow you plants. Or you could make gears from mined up steel and rubber from jungle trees to make a bicycle to help move you through the environment. A scientific theme could propel creativity and experimentation, thus making the game more interesting.

[rubenwardy]

I'm not sure if anyone has said this, but it seems to me Minetest is lacking a theme. Mine craft has a kind of mystery to it. Your placed in an odd world where you must survive using physical force, or using magic to enhance your abilities. You are left to wonder why you are here, the only human, in world of monsters and magic

Minetest doesn't have a theme. Playing the game vanilla puts you in a world, you don't have to survive, you can just recycle your environment into whatever you want to create. After that, the World is pretty much the same all around.

Maybe if a more scientific direction was taken, where you have to use chemistry and physics to manipulate your environment. For example you could combine the feces from animals and dead plant matter to quickly grow you plants. Or you could make gears from mined up steel and rubber from jungle trees to make a bicycle to help move you through the environment. A scientific theme could propel creativity and experimentation, thus making the game more interesting.

I love that idea.

[Evergreen]

I'm not sure if anyone has said this, but it seems to me Minetest is lacking a theme. Mine craft has a kind of mystery to it. Your placed in an odd world where you must survive using physical force, or using magic to enhance your abilities. You are left to wonder why you are here, the only human, in world of monsters and magic

Minetest doesn't have a theme. Playing the game vanilla puts you in a world, you don't have to survive, you can just recycle your environment into whatever you want to create. After that, the World is pretty much the same all around.

Maybe if a more scientific direction was taken, where you have to use chemistry and physics to manipulate your environment. For example you could combine the feces from animals and dead plant matter to quickly grow you plants. Or you could make gears from mined up steel and rubber from jungle trees to make a bicycle to help move you through the environment. A scientific theme could propel creativity and experimentation, thus making the game more interesting.

I love that idea.

+1

[philipbenr]

I think that the idea of not having a theme at all will attract more people. I think that an adventure theme is for the game makers, not for the actual game itself. If you want, go make a game that imitates MC's adventure idea. I like default, but that bundled up with other games would be nice...

[Jordach]

Maybe if a more scientific direction was taken, where you have to use chemistry and physics to manipulate your environment. For example you could combine the feces from animals and dead plant matter to quickly grow you plants. Or you could make gears from mined up steel and rubber from jungle trees to make a bicycle to help move you through the environment. A scientific theme could propel creativity and experimentation, thus making the game more interesting.

See this;

Currently working on machinist mobs where mobs may drop parts of themselves so you can construct mechanical versions that attack mobs rather than do the opposite (they'll attack hostiles only).

[Mcc457]

I think that the idea of not having a theme at all will attract more people. I think that an adventure theme is for the game makers, not for the actual game itself. If you want, go make a game that imitates MC's adventure idea. I like default, but that bundled up with other games would be nice...

Well, Minetest_game doesn't have a theme. Minetest_game is the first thing new comers see. It should draw them in.

[Inocudom]

Celeron55 posted this image in the Post Your Screenshots thread. It must mean something about Minetest's future.

[MirceaKitsune]

http://i.imgur.com/gbGdbwJ.png

Celeron55 posted this image in the Post Your Screenshots thread. It must mean something about Minetest's future.

It means the end. Erm... not the end of Minetest's future! I mean that screenshot looks like The End.

[PilzAdam]

Celeron55 posted this image in the Post Your Screenshots thread. It must mean something about Minetest's future.

The signs! They are everywhere!
Soilnar!

[Jordach]

Celeron55 posted this image in the Post Your Screenshots thread. It must mean something about Minetest's future.

The signs! They are everywhere!
Soilnar!

Even I've played Soilnar, and it's the best game ever!

[rubenwardy]

It is a nice game.



Could have an 'alientest'

[Johnyknowhow]

One thing I cannot stand about MT, is all the lag. In MC even when servers lag, you still get instant responses to items in your inventory. You don't have to wait 15 seconds for that iron to go into the furnace, or wait a minute since the signs you placed are still not editable. Frustrates me so much, I explode, and I have to build a house every monday. (just kidding)
Its still very frustrating to have to wait ages for stuff to happen, and have players "teleporting" around instead of walking.
Also I think there needs to be a better entity system, you know that time when you hit a mob, and keep hitting it, yet, it only took damage the first time? eg, *hit* -damage- *hit* *hit* *hit* *hit* *hit* *hit* -damage- *hit*... Very frustrating.

[Johnyknowhow]

Erm, I just realized this topic was 4 pages long, and not 1. Oops.

[Johnyknowhow]

Oh nevermind, I was going to post something about mcmmo until I realized calinou already talked about it.

[Evergreen]

One thing I cannot stand about MT, is all the lag. In MC even when servers lag, you still get instant responses to items in your inventory. You don't have to wait 15 seconds for that iron to go into the furnace, or wait a minute since the signs you placed are still not editable. Frustrates me so much, I explode, and I have to build a house every monday. (just kidding)
Its still very frustrating to have to wait ages for stuff to happen, and have players "teleporting" around instead of walking.
Also I think there needs to be a better entity system, you know that time when you hit a mob, and keep hitting it, yet, it only took damage the first time? eg, *hit* -damage- *hit* *hit* *hit* *hit* *hit* *hit* -damage- *hit*... Very frustrating.

The reason is that the movement of items in the inventory is handled server side. That means if the server is lagging, it makes it that way in the inventory too. It's more secure.

[Johnyknowhow]

One thing I cannot stand about MT, is all the lag. In MC even when servers lag, you still get instant responses to items in your inventory. You don't have to wait 15 seconds for that iron to go into the furnace, or wait a minute since the signs you placed are still not editable. Frustrates me so much, I explode, and I have to build a house every monday. (just kidding)
Its still very frustrating to have to wait ages for stuff to happen, and have players "teleporting" around instead of walking.
Also I think there needs to be a better entity system, you know that time when you hit a mob, and keep hitting it, yet, it only took damage the first time? eg, *hit* -damage- *hit* *hit* *hit* *hit* *hit* *hit* -damage- *hit*... Very frustrating.

The reason is that the movement of items in the inventory is handled server side. That means if the server is lagging, it makes it that way in the inventory too. It's more secure.

Even though its more secure, its more laggy, and its scaring players away. And there must be a better way to handle it.

[GingerHunter797]

Celeron55 posted this image in the Post Your Screenshots thread. It must mean something about Minetest's future.

Is this gonna be in the next version?

[Calinou]

One thing I cannot stand about MT, is all the lag. In MC even when servers lag, you still get instant responses to items in your inventory. You don't have to wait 15 seconds for that iron to go into the furnace, or wait a minute since the signs you placed are still not editable. Frustrates me so much, I explode, and I have to build a house every monday. (just kidding)

The inventory itself is predicted, but not containers. Anyway, you should play on less laggy servers. 15 seconds is not playable at all. ;)

Minecraft also lacks chat prediction. The game feels much more responsive with it. :)

Also I think there needs to be a better entity system, you know that time when you hit a mob, and keep hitting it, yet, it only took damage the first time? eg, *hit* -damage- *hit* *hit* *hit* *hit* *hit* *hit* -damage- *hit*... Very frustrating.

You are not supposed to spam mouse clicks. Wait some time, ideally the full punch interval (0.9 to 1.4 seconds depending on the tool used in the default game). Debug mode (F5) lets you see entity health. Also, there's no point in hugging the mob while attackng them, you can be up to 4 blocks away and still attack it.

The reason is that the movement of items in the inventory is handled server side. That means if the server is lagging, it makes it that way in the inventory too. It's more secure.

More secure? Prediction has nothing to do with cheaty-ness.
Minecraft, before Beta 1.0 (2010-12-20) had client-side inventories, which means players could get any item they wanted. This was never possible in Minetest. ;)

[Johnyknowhow]

In singleplayer I still get that laggy response. I'ts just not the same as MC.

[Calinou]

In singleplayer I still get that laggy response. I'ts just not the same as MC.

It should not – provided your PC is fast enough. Here, Minetest feels less laggy than Minecraft (when I played it).

[Wuzzy]

Here, Minetest feels less laggy than Minecraft (when I played it).

For me, too! (Yes, I admit! I tried MC once a while ago but it was simply unplayable.)
Maybe Johnyknowhow meant Minetest is still not as much laggy as Minecraft, so more lag should be added as a feature. xD