LazyJ wrote:The default textures could be improved by making the colors richer and more constrasting. Yes, players can install several of the many diverse texture packs available but I'm thinking in terms of the first-time player. Someone like me, who started playing the game with no idea of its potential. Now that Minetest has a texture pack menu, perhaps packaging minetest_game with three versions of the default texture pack (one low-res, one medium, one high) is a solution.
Most of the current textures are saturated enough and have balanced colors.
LazyJ wrote:The environmental lighting is too static. The shadows, what little there are, don't move with the players nor with the light source (sun, torch, flame, etc). Light doesn't shimmer on the ripples in the water, no building blocks are shiny to contrast with all the dull ones. I think I read somewhere that this was due to the limitations of Irrlicht. Maybe Minetest has matured to the point where something other than Irrlicht should be used?
This is easier to say than to do.
LazyJ wrote:The user interface, though functional, is flat and bland. It is as inviting and appealing as a cinder block.
RealBadAngel's Unified Inventory mod really improves greatly upon this. Looking back through old screenshots, the earlier, dirt-like background seemed more fitting to a mining game. The darker color receded into the background allowing the focus to be on the menu. The current, light colored background of floating clouds is a bit too busy. Kind of like flashing, blinking ads along the edges of a web article that you are trying to read.
A prettier, larger font (by default) would help a lot. If you disable clouds, all you get is a single-colored brown background.
LazyJ wrote:Sounds go a long way for auditory immersion. As things are currently, a coat closet has more auditory immersion than the default, minetest_game. Granted, Minetest has improved since the days of 0.3.0 but there is still a lot more improvement to be done. The Minetest community seems to have several members skilled in Photoshop/GIMP/Blender. Any audiophiles out there that could lend their equipment and expertise ?
I agree on this, especially for footstep sounds. Carbone has a few other improved sounds, such as throwing or damage sounds.
LazyJ wrote:The environmental sounds of
Neuromancer's "Ambience" mod helps but more auditory detail could be incorporated in the default minetest_game. The current batch of default sounds are recycled with varying "gain" levels. Perhaps more sounds could be added? Like the sound of a match being struck for placing torches, a more hammer-hitting-stone like sound for stone with pickaxe or axe but a more rining, metalic sound like when a spade is smacked, broad-side, against a stone.
If this is added, there
must be a way to disable this.
LazyJ wrote:All the video games I was used to playing had background music. When I didn't hear any background music (or environmental sounds back then) in Minetest, I thought it was broken. "Good thing I didn't have to pay for this.", I thought to myself.
Minecraft's background music takes several seconds, or even minutes to play – the first time I started it, I thought there was no music.
LazyJ wrote:There are gaps in the game-logic. If I can do this with stone why can't I do it with desert stone? If snow freezes dirt, why won't ice do the same? GingerHunter797
mentioned earlier in this thread that the game seems incomplete. These unfinished game steps, progression, cause and effect, etc. lend to the sense of being incomplete.
I find minetest_game (and its forks) to be fairly idiot-proof, actually; probably more than Minecraft.
LazyJ wrote:There are things in the inventory that are useless and unobtainable without other mods. Rats, vessels, snow, dirt_with_snow, ice and (up until farming and flowers were added ) dyes and wool, for examples of things that make the game fell incomplete.
In minetest_game, rats are legacy items. Some games reimplement them. In Carbone, the way they are implemented is very similar to 0.3.1.
LazyJ wrote:When playing in survival-mode there should be bad guys and monsters to keep you on your toes. Minetest doesn't operate off of game levels or points so defeating the bad guys and monsters needs more incentive. It's been suggested before that monsters should drop valuable items when destroyed (why not have mechanical menaces too, like combination locks and traps to filled chests?).
Your post reminded me to tweak mob drops in Carbone, thanks. ;)
LazyJ wrote:An in-game user manual that pops up like a formspec menu would be helpful to newcomers and Minetest veterans alike. List the basic crafting recipes, what keys do what action and where to get more info on Minetest.
I agree, it is technically possible.
LazyJ wrote:The "/help all" command fills chat with everything from every mod making it very difficult to know which command goes with which mod and, at best, only provides very sparce info about commands and nothing about mods or items.
Open the chat console after opening it. It'd be nice if there was a message that told you to open your chat console – including the key to open it – when you type /help all.
LazyJ wrote:Sometimes I think people complain about a lack of players because the in-game chat is quiet or they are looking for someone to entertain/babysit them.
There are many servers with a nice amount of players. An excessive amount is never funny – it's harder to get resources and to “integrate” into the server.
LazyJ wrote:Another aspect is the quality of the players versus the quantity of players. I'd rather play on a server that has few players but who are more self-reliant than one that is overrun by hyper-active kids with short attention spans expecting everyone to pay attention to them at all times and expecting others to do everything for them. I think
Jordach and
ShadowNinja may have been hinting at similar thoughts earlier in this thread.
Start a server? Partcipate in an effort of creating a server with mature players?
LazyJ wrote:Minecraft set the pace, set the trend, and set the standards of what players expect when they first play Minetest. The technical differences only matter to the geeks and gurus. The game experience is what is important to the rest of us and in that reguard, Minecraft has delivered where MInetest is still trying to catch-up.
I don't think so. Minecraft is fairly unbalanced, has annoying gameplay — hunger, mobs sometimes too common, crafting table... – and back when I played Minecraft, I frequently felt “lonely” on servers, of any size. It's a matter of playing with friends or not.
LazyJ wrote:The long established point - Minetest is free.
Free as in beer and free as in freedom. More important than just a “free”.
LazyJ wrote:Minetest Needs to be Minetest, not a Minecraft Knock-off
Carbone doesn't follow Minecraft's gameplay or anything else. To it, it's like Minecraft didn't exist.