The new name isn't great (too many vowels in the same place, you couldn't spell it if you heard it) but at least it's original and doesn't sound like it's a knockoff test implementation of minecraft anymore.
Minetest is kind of a unique experiment in how modular a voxel game can be with mods. It's pretty cool. You just visit another server and it downloads and sets up all of the server's mods. You have dependencies and stuff so not every mod has to reinvent the wheel. Much better experience than minecraft modding.
Minetest should lean into this and make the core gamemode more different than minecraft. Change up the artstyle, and make the physics feel better.
The barrier to having better physics is that better physics requires more complicated netcode.
It is also a long-standing precedent in Minetest that the default game is just a minimal skeleton. "Change the artstyle" is a misguided suggestion because there are very few assets that are part of Minetest and not a 3rd party minetest mod.
> You just visit another server and it downloads and sets up all of the server's mods.
That's how mods work in Minecraft bedrock
More and more of Minecraft is moving into data packs, which is pretty neat. So many things that required .jar java mods are now first-class citizens for customisation, automatically ‘downloaded’ when you connect to a server. Pretty neat.
Minecraft Bedrock Edition is Microsoft's freemium children's game where you buy "mods" and "skins" using minecoins and you can visit a number of pre-approved pay-to-win servers or pay Microsoft to host a "server" for you and like 8 other people as long as you obey the microsoft guidelines and drink enough verification cans.
You might be confusing it with a beloved viral indie PC game called Minecraft (2011) which is no longer for sale.
Neither of them is free and they're both still for sale https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/store/minecraft-deluxe-colle...
Comments like this are embarrassing to see on HN. Seems more in place in the comments of YouTube or Reddit.
Bedrock is ostensibly the same game as Minecraft Java, but cross platform. It has mtx, but they’re oddly enough not promoted that much in the UI so you never see them.
Console makers seem pretty against games connecting to third-party game servers, so Bedrock on PS/Xbox can’t connect to arbitrary servers, but on iOS/Android/Windows it can.
Correction: Bedrock is not freemium. There's also nothing wrong with Bedrock. It allows for cross-platform play. The minecoins/purchases are available in the menus, but they're never pushed in-game. The experience is very similar to Java.
Also, Java and Bedrock both have Realms (the managed "server" option you referred to).
Minecraft Bedrock isn't free is it? Not when I looked at getting it for my kids it wasn't.
> or pay Microsoft to host a "server" for you and like 8 other people as long as you obey the microsoft guidelines and drink enough verification cans.
Or you can just run your own dedicated bedrock edition server, no need to pay anyone.
There's a big catch here: creating mods for Bedrock is difficult. And, Mojang is taking steps that make it difficult for modders to create stuff for Bedrock. [1]
There's no match for the modding capabilities that Java edition gives you.
[1]: https://feedback.minecraft.net/hc/en-us/community/posts/2309...
> You might be confusing it
I doubt it. Datapacks did originate in Bedrock, though Minecraft Java does have them now.
Downloading Forge/Fabric mods automatically has never been supported as far as I know - good thing tool, it would be a security nightmare.
You get the Java and bedrock version when you buy Minecraft for the PC.
We all know Minecraft Bedrock edition, the children's game where I can actually play with my nieces and nephews confined to iPads and xboxes.
It is also beloved by many, but i'm sure those folks count as subhuman to you.
You mean you are presented with fifteen purchase dialogs the moment you enter a server?
> We decided to avoid using “free” or “libre” in the name ... Projects like Blender, Krita, or Godot are awesome, and they don’t need to convince you about their libre nature by putting it in their names.
so... we decided to add the name of the programming language we use instead?
It seems like a pretty reasonable choice when thinking about Luanti as a game engine instead of a game. If someone is choosing a game engine to write a game in, one of their most significant considerations is likely to be what programming languages are supported.
6 months ago you’d have to tell your friends to join you on Mineclone2, a Minetest game, which was like telling people to switch to Doodle Chrome on Microsaft Wandows Beta. Any new name is so much better.
Great, but I wish they invested their nomenclature resources into design and ease of access.
https://bloxd.io/ is currently reaping kids who can't afford official Minecraft. (Browser based, free, ad driven)
But then again, MineTest is a bunch of volunteers playing around with a tool, so you can't exactly force anybody to do anything.
Name is awful but game itself looks awesome. Can any speak to how “good” it is, especially server play?
Pretty much everything in Minetest is a 3rd party mod coded in Lua. It is viable, but you are limited by the netcode and the quality / integration of 3rd party mods.
I find it hard to take seriously much debate on naming things. Whatever name you choose is going to upset some people and please others; in the end, all you need is something fairly unique. You quickly forget any intrinsic meaning and it becomes transparent. ‘YouTube’ is a pretty amateurish sounding name and yet it stuck, and here we are now. When was the last time you even stopped and pondered its etymology?
The name of any successful entity quickly becomes synonymous with that entity. It’s a fallacy to think you can imbue the entity with meaning by picking its name very carefully.
If you think I’m underestimating the importance of a name, just imagine the reaction if you’d suggested naming a computer company ‘Apple’ in the 1970s.
“…as in, the fruit?!”
I agree but I always thought YouTube was a great name for what it was. It was me choosing what was on (no pesky programming) and us making videos.
It’s very different now but “you”, as in me, was very central to my idea of what YouTube was. And the TV was a CRT. It was the tube. And as per GWB it was a series of tubes it came through (facetious).
Apple is snappy and easy to remember, and they literally had to fight the Beatles for it.
When was this published? hard to keep up anymore
> We decided to avoid using “free” or “libre” in the name ... Projects like ... Godot are awesome, they don’t need to convince you about their libre nature by putting it in their names.
This article was published today, October 13th, 2024.
The main website lists lots of games that are built on Minetest / Luanti. [1] Does anyone have opinions on which of them are the most fun to play?
IDK a lot of the games feel really lame but there is this one CTF server that was fun. I might be too old for this stuff but I think it could be the next roblox if you could get it running inside of a webpage with WebGL.
Just scrolling through the list I found some interesting ones that really think outside the box (no pun intended), like this one that generates 3D-printable models.
I haven't played much myself, but VoxeLibre (and Mineclonia) are pretty good Minecraft replicas.
My only complaint is mobile controls. Desktop is decent but the mobile version (off F-droid) leaves much to be desired.
"Luanti"—a nice name!
Why would you choose a new name that you don't have the .com for?
How about voxelmod.com or something else that is a) relevant and b) the .com domain is available.
luanti.com — only $188.75/mo. for 36 months!
Yeah, this name sucks. It will endlessly be misread as "Luna-ti" and assigned astrological connotations, it sounds like a pharmaceutical, and it tells you nothing about the platform.
Lua does mean Luna, just in a slightly different language.