This is interesting: Minetest, an infiniminer/minecraft.clone

[ZarathustraDK]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoOukccgfG4

It seems to be pretty far along, already being in a playable state and all. So far it also has some interesting features:

- It's coded in C++ instead of java = better performance.
- Its world-height extends as far as its horizontal plane (Minecraft, for instance, only extends 128 blocks).
- It's Open Source, yay!

I just thought it deserved a mention, seeing that hasn't had one on the forums yet.

[vehemoth]

and there are already four forks of it. :popcorn:

[ZarathustraDK]

and there are already four forks of it. :popcorn:

The more the merrier :)

I think this is going to turn out great. The problem with open source games is that most games inherently are build around a vision or story of what it is supposed to be; that's something that doesn't lend itself well to open source because everyone and their grandma have their own vision of what some loosely started game is supposed to end up like, too many chefs and all that. The good games of that sort always end up being made by a tight-knit group that shares the same vision and style, a lot even being single-person-projects.

This OTOH is a sandbox-game in the purer/purest sense, it's all about incorporating ideas into it for no other reason than in order to grow it, this should fit community development like a glove.

I expect this to leave Minecraft in the dust development-wise, not that it's a race or anything.

[MasterNetra]

Yea the video probably doesn't quite do it justice as the latest stable build was made 7 days ago and that video was made back in February.

EDIT: Also if anyone uses a mac someone is doing Builds and such for Mac at https://github.com/toabi/minetest-mac

[Hwæt]

The graphics look a lot like the Noisecraft Texture Pack (http://www.planetminecraft.com/texture_pack/noise-craft/). Plagiarism isn't a great way to start a project. I honestly see this project as pointless. Notch has already stated that he's going to open source Minecraft once he makes his money from it and furthermore, it runs flawlessly on Linux already and in some cases, even faster than it does on Windows.

Clones are great and all (I'm using Linux, can't say they aren't!), but when the project is stated to be made open source in the future, there's no point.

[tgm4883]

The graphics look a lot like the Noisecraft Texture Pack (http://www.planetminecraft.com/texture_pack/noise-craft/). Plagiarism isn't a great way to start a project. I honestly see this project as pointless. Notch has already stated that he's going to open source Minecraft once he makes his money from it and furthermore, it runs flawlessly on Linux already and in some cases, even faster than it does on Windows.

Clones are great and all (I'm using Linux, can't say they aren't!), but when the project is stated to be made open source in the future, there's no point.

I agree with that to an extent, but saying you are going to open source it in the future and it being open source are two different things.

[ZarathustraDK]

The graphics look a lot like the Noisecraft Texture Pack (http://www.planetminecraft.com/texture_pack/noise-craft/). Plagiarism isn't a great way to start a project. I honestly see this project as pointless. Notch has already stated that he's going to open source Minecraft once he makes his money from it and furthermore, it runs flawlessly on Linux already and in some cases, even faster than it does on Windows.

Clones are great and all (I'm using Linux, can't say they aren't!), but when the project is stated to be made open source in the future, there's no point.

I'd disagree, Minecraft is written in java, Minetest is written C++.
That alone is reason enough to support Minetest. Minecraft, for instance, can't run in any playable state on a netbook, Minetest can. Open Source Minecraft all you want, that is not going to change.

[Hwæt]

I agree with that to an extent, but saying you are going to open source it in the future and it being open source are two different things.

True, and I understand your skepticism that it will be open source in the future, but if it really is, why waste the time cloning it?

[Hwæt]

I'd disagree, Minecraft is written in java, Minetest is written C++.
That alone is reason enough to support Minetest. Minecraft, for instance, can't run in any playable state on a netbook, Minetest can. Open Source Minecraft all you want, that is not going to change.

Well, keep in mind that Minecraft is also in beta stage and not fully finished. One of the drawbacks of releasing a game to the public in this stage is that they're going to see a lot of the early CPU problems/memory hemorrhages and think that it's always going to be that way. Minecraft may very well mature to be less resource intensive.

Yes, C++ is a much faster language, but it also has drawbacks itself, especially if you're programming it. Spaghetti code is a major problem for a lot of open source C++ projects. I would honestly prefer a game written in C.

[tgm4883]

True, and I understand your skepticism that it will be open source in the future, but if it really is, why waste the time cloning it?

You still are assuming that it will be open source in the future. "Cloning" it could get it open sourced earlier, and as a previous poster had suggested, possibly also be written in a better language.

[JDShu]

I'd disagree, Minecraft is written in java, Minetest is written C++.
That alone is reason enough to support Minetest. Minecraft, for instance, can't run in any playable state on a netbook, Minetest can. Open Source Minecraft all you want, that is not going to change.

The reason Minecraft is no good on a netbook is not because it's written in Java. It's because Notch's code itself is not well written. Case in point, the Bravo server is written in Python, and performance-wise it runs circles around the official server.

My opinion is that it's morally dubious to clone a game as mod and open source friendly as Minecraft at this time. When Notch open sources Minecraft, then I'm sure better written clients will appear.

[Hwæt]

You still are assuming that it will be open source in the future. "Cloning" it could get it open sourced earlier, and as a previous poster had suggested, possibly also be written in a better language.

Now that's just plain wrong. That would be cloning solely for the purpose of depriving the original author of revenue. Would you like it very much if someone did the same to undermine your business?


The reason Minecraft is no good on a netbook is not because it's written in Java. It's because Notch's code itself is not well written. Case in point, the Bravo server is written in Python, and performance-wise it runs circles around the official server.

My opinion is that it's morally dubious to clone a game as mod and open source friendly as Minecraft at this time. When Notch open sources Minecraft, then I'm sure better written clients will appear.

^+1

[tgm4883]

Now that's just plain wrong. That would be cloning solely for the purpose of depriving the original author of revenue. Would you like it very much if someone did the same to undermine your business?



^+1

Would I like it? Probably not. Is it wrong in any way? Absolutely not. (in the terms of OSS software)

[JDShu]

I took a look at the code.

Don't hold your breath :P

[ZarathustraDK]

I took a look at the code.

Don't hold your breath :P

What is it bad? (non-programmer here) :D

Still on the ethical issue, I don't think it should be forbidden or considered bad taste when somebody sets out to better the specs of something. I mean, the plans for this game appeals to me because it seeks to correct a lot of stuff that I presently find wrong with Minecraft, for instance that you are restrained to 128 vertical blocks.

So what would critics have? That I stay with Minecraft until (maybe) it's open sourced and those features (maybe) are introduced IF the engine can handle it?

Let's not copyright gameplay shall we? Notch did not patent the block, and he took the same gameplay from Infiniminer. There are only so many ways you can skin a six-sided block to make it look like dirt with grass on it.

[forrestcupp]

Is it wrong in any way? Absolutely not. (in the terms of OSS software)

But the difference is that Minecraft wasn't created inside the OSS philosophy, so you're pushing that philosophy on someone who didn't want that for their project. That is wrong. Unfortunately, if they cloned it in a clean room environment, there's not a darned thing that can be done about it.

[ZarathustraDK]

But the difference is that Minecraft wasn't created inside the OSS philosophy, so you're pushing that philosophy on someone who didn't want that for their project. That is wrong. Unfortunately, if they cloned it in a clean room environment, there's not a darned thing that can be done about it.

And you're saying it would be a good thing if there could be something done about it? :?

[forrestcupp]

And you're saying it would be a good thing if there could be something done about it? :?

I'm just saying that if I created commercial software to try to put food on my table, it would be pretty crappy if someone undermined that. ;)

(pun intended)

[JDShu]

I'm just saying that if I created commercial software to try to put food on my table, it would be pretty crappy if someone undermined that. ;)

(pun intended)

To add to that Mojang:

1. Is an indie developer. (I thought we liked supporting the little guy?)
2. Supports Linux.
3. Does not enforce DRM.
4. Has plans to put minecraft under an OSS License.

I mean, really, what more do you want a game company to do? Cloning Minecraft (read: let people play something like Minecraft for free), despite whatever technical drawbacks it has, just seems like crappy behaviour.

Luckily, looking at the code, the developer seems to be just as inexperienced as me in software engineering, and I foresee problems when he tries to scale it up.

[ZarathustraDK]

I'm just saying that if I created commercial software to try to put food on my table, it would be pretty crappy if someone undermined that. ;)

(pun intended)

Let's just say that Notch has probably got plenty of food on his table by now, what with the pre-orders and his deal with Microsoft.

[Personal opinion]I find myself thinking about this much like I think about music: why do people feel entitled to obscene amounts of income when they produce something once and then ship it off to the cloning machine charging for each copy? Why can't musical artists make their living performing live? Why can't programmers make their living by coding programs continuously? Why the "let's plant a money-tree"-way of thinking? Why not work your *** off 7/16 like the rest of us? Sure, in a world like that a lot of artists may go bankrupt because of a lack of demand/skill, but that's life, no? I too get fired if I don't perform adequately and to my employers expectation. If I was genuinely worried and prioritized food on the table as an absolute parameter of success for my life, then I probably wouldn't be strumming a guitar nor coding a computer-program that falls into the category of "fundamentally unnecessary luxury" ie. a game.

Get paid for the amount of work one does, if artists and devs can copy their work, then by FSM so can I. [/Personal opinion]

[JDShu]

Let's just say that Notch has probably got plenty of food on his table by now, what with the pre-orders and his deal with Microsoft.

[Personal opinion]I find myself thinking about this much like I think about music: why do people feel entitled to obscene amounts of income when they produce something once and then ship it off to the cloning machine charging for each copy? Why can't musical artists make their living performing live? Why can't programmers make their living by coding programs continuously? Why the "let's plant a money-tree"-way of thinking? Why not work your *** off 7/16 like the rest of us? Sure, in a world like that a lot of artists may go bankrupt because of a lack of demand/skill, but that's life, no? I too get fired if I don't perform adequately and to my employers expectation. If I was genuinely worried and prioritized food on the table as an absolute parameter of success for my life, then I probably wouldn't be strumming a guitar nor coding a computer-program that falls into the category of "fundamentally unnecessary luxury" ie. a game.

Get paid for the amount of work one does, if artists and devs can copy their work, then by FSM so can I. [/Personal opinion]

My first observation is unless you're farming for food, any job you're doing is arguably a "fundamentally unnecessary luxury".

My second observation is you're not taking risk into account. Going into music, art, or starting up a company (games especially) is risky. The starving artist stereotype is real. Something like 1 in 11 startup companies succeed. Most aspirng athletes fail at some level. Thus the draw of going into these industries is the huge reward you get if you win in the "tournament".

An easy way to think about it: how about you quit your job and start a games company/start a band/become an artist? If there's so much money there, you'd be stupid to not do it.

[tgm4883]

But the difference is that Minecraft wasn't created inside the OSS philosophy, so you're pushing that philosophy on someone who didn't want that for their project. That is wrong. Unfortunately, if they cloned it in a clean room environment, there's not a darned thing that can be done about it.

You are starting to play a dangerous game now. First you talk about a specific game, whats next? A certain genre (only one type of racing game? only one FPS?), then categories of software (Bye buy Open/Libre Office)?


To add to that Mojang:

1. Is an indie developer. (I thought we liked supporting the little guy?)
2. Supports Linux.
3. Does not enforce DRM.
4. Has plans to put minecraft under an OSS License.

I mean, really, what more do you want a game company to do? Cloning Minecraft (read: let people play something like Minecraft for free), despite whatever technical drawbacks it has, just seems like crappy behaviour.

Luckily, looking at the code, the developer seems to be just as inexperienced as me in software engineering, and I foresee problems when he tries to scale it up.

No, we like supporting open source software. The "little guy" could still be a prick that everybody hates.


I'm not saying that I am for this type of thing. I'm just saying that it seems a little hypocritical to hate on it.

[ZarathustraDK]

My first observation is unless you're farming for food, any job you're doing is arguably a "fundamentally unnecessary luxury".

That's a bit of a straw man. I think we can both agree that there's a difference between doing things that contribute to society and doing things that, comparably, makes other people waste time that could be spent contributing towards their society. I'm not saying games is a complete waste of time, it counts toward quality of life and some basic language and computerskills. But hold games up next to a social worker, a fireman or pretty much any other occupation, and there's no comparison.


My second observation is you're not taking risk into account. Going into music, art, or starting up a company (games especially) is risky.

Yes, it is risky. You can fail and loose everything. Somebody can come along and 1up your art with something better. You can enjoy the limelight of your success until it fades into obscurity in the shadows of greater implementations of the same idea. There is no medal if you fail. That's how a lot of things used to work until patents and copyright arrived, let's not loose that same competition for glory in regards to gameplay. All Notch has to do is stay ahead and make the better game (which it, without a doubt, currently is).

[JDShu]

That's a bit of a straw man. I think we can both agree that there's a difference between doing things that contribute to society and doing things that, comparably, makes other people waste time that could be spent contributing towards their society. I'm not saying games is a complete waste of time, it counts toward quality of life and some basic language and computerskills. But hold games up next to a social worker, a fireman or pretty much any other occupation, and there's no comparison.


I think this is more arguable than you think, but it may get into things not allowed by the UF rules, so I'm not going to go into any more detail.



Yes, it is risky. You can fail and loose everything. Somebody can come along and 1up your art with something better. You can enjoy the limelight of your success until it fades into obscurity in the shadows of greater implementations of the same idea. There is no medal if you fail. That's how a lot of things used to work until patents and copyright arrived, let's not loose that same competition for glory in regards to gameplay. All Notch has to do is stay ahead and make the better game (which it, without a doubt, currently is).

My point being that if you lower the reward of winning, you have lowered the incentive to engage in those activities.

[ZarathustraDK]

My point being that if you lower the reward of winning, you have lowered the incentive to engage in those activities.

I hear that argument all the time, you can't participate in copyright-/patent-related discussions without this argument being put forth.

Question is: is that really the case? In this world we have yet to have a reform regarding those things, it seems like it's all a one-way street, more control, more ways to pimp your 1's and 0's without letting other people truly own them.

The market works on a supply and demand-basis, if there is a demand for it, then somebody will try to cash in on it, patents or not. OTOH patents/copyright creates an artificially pumped supply and, even worse, creates fertile ground for establishing monopolies, I'm pretty sure that I don't need to list examples of that.

Will there be less games? Probably, but I, as a consumer, would exchange that any day for the freedom to pursue ideas of my own, regardless where the inspiration came from.

[forrestcupp]

I hear that argument all the time, you can't participate in copyright-/patent-related discussions without this argument being put forth.

Question is: is that really the case?Usually it is the case. People are not willing to make high risk investments (including their time) if there is not much chance of a payoff. There will always be freelancers, like you, and hobbyists who just have a passion for doing something, and they're going to do it anyway. There's nothing wrong with that at all. But when people are talking about their livelihood, they're usually not going to take a high risk in a low payoff situation.

[MasterNetra]

Usually it is the case. People are not willing to make high risk investments (including their time) if there is not much chance of a payoff. There will always be freelancers, like you, and hobbyists who just have a passion for doing something, and they're going to do it anyway. There's nothing wrong with that at all. But when people are talking about their livelihood, they're usually not going to take a high risk in a low payoff situation.

This of course is true for as long as we utilize some kind of monetary system, but back to the game which this thread is suppose to be about.


To add to that Mojang:

1. Is an indie developer. (I thought we liked supporting the little guy?)
2. Supports Linux.
3. Does not enforce DRM.
4. Has plans to put minecraft under an OSS License.

I mean, really, what more do you want a game company to do? Cloning Minecraft (read: let people play something like Minecraft for free), despite whatever technical drawbacks it has, just seems like crappy behaviour.

Luckily, looking at the code, the developer seems to be just as inexperienced as me in software engineering, and I foresee problems when he tries to scale it up.

The person who originally start this might be "inexperienced" however he isn't the only one working on it if you had bothered to check things out. And atm he isn't working on it its been handed temporaly over to a delta development branch. Unlike Minecraft which is ONLY being worked on by a single individual. Minetest is open source and being worked on by multiple people. And while its not completed yet, it will most certainly will overtake Minecraft in development in due time simply because there is more then one person working on it.

[Superkoop]

Now that's just plain wrong. That would be cloning solely for the purpose of depriving the original author of revenue. Would you like it very much if someone did the same to undermine your business?

This is called competition in business, and is what essentially forces businesses to do a better job and beat out the competition. If we only allowed one business to sell a specific item, then consumers end up vendor-locked, and possibly (probably) resulting in an inferior and over-priced product.

I'm all for businesses "cloning" each other, and trying to one-up the other by offering something that the other doesn't or at a better price. My family runs a fruit and vegetable farm, other people grow these items, and they are all available at the two grocery stores in town. So is it wrong that my family grows a better product than the other venues? Of course not! It's all about producing something better than the other business to try and make money.

What does this all mean for the end user? A better product sold for a reasonable price.
Sure, it's tough for the people producing when another business comes in and starts offering a product similar to yours. It means you need to work harder to offer a better product than the competition.
Unless you want a monopoly, competition is necessary in business.

[DangerOnTheRanger]

This is called competition in business, and is what essentially forces businesses to do a better job and beat out the competition. If we only allowed one business to sell a specific item, then consumers end up vendor-locked, and possibly (probably) resulting in an inferior and over-priced product.

I'm all for businesses "cloning" each other, and trying to one-up the other by offering something that the other doesn't or at a better price. My family runs a fruit and vegetable farm, other people grow these items, and they are all available at the two grocery stores in town. So is it wrong that my family grows a better product than the other venues? Of course not! It's all about producing something better than the other business to try and make money.

What does this all mean for the end user? A better product sold for a reasonable price.
Sure, it's tough for the people producing when another business comes in and starts offering a product similar to yours. It means you need to work harder to offer a better product than the competition.
Unless you want a monopoly, competition is necessary in business.

You're completely right. Notch better step up his game (pun intended) to keep up with Minetest.

I think Minetest is a great idea. I was attracted to Minecraft, but chose not to try it because it was proprietary. Now, I have another option, one I'll be test-driving very soon.

[DangerOnTheRanger]

This may be a double post, but has anyone running Lucid been able to start this game? I tried the Maverick package Minetest supplies, but that didn't work, and I can't install libjpeg8-dev (which is required to build Minetest from source). Anyone have any ideas?

[Dustin2128]

Huh, it's slow not because of java but because Notch's code is sloppy? I understand poorly written code, but it makes my desktop sound like I'm living next to the airport. My suggestion is that he should be forced to rewrite minecraft in assembly until it's so clean, the client can run a humongous redstone computer so fast that's more powerful than the computer running the game, and thus make it possible to code sloppily again, outside of the meta-client. :D

[ZarathustraDK]

My suggestion is that he should be forced to rewrite minecraft in assembly until it's so clean, the client can run a humongous redstone computer so fast that's more powerful than the computer running the game, and thus make it possible to code sloppily again, outside of the meta-client. :D

http://cbswxrk.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/xzibit-wtf.jpg

[AndThenWhat]

This may be a double post, but has anyone running Lucid been able to start this game? I tried the Maverick package Minetest supplies, but that didn't work, and I can't install libjpeg8-dev (which is required to build Minetest from source). Anyone have any ideas?

Yeah I got it running easily on Lucid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQE74ECLYrw

Download the libjpeg8 deb and install for your process architecture here:

http://packages.debian.org/sid/libjpeg8

and then try to install the minetest maverick deb again

[BrokenKingpin]

The graphics look a lot like the Noisecraft Texture Pack (http://www.planetminecraft.com/texture_pack/noise-craft/). Plagiarism isn't a great way to start a project. I honestly see this project as pointless. Notch has already stated that he's going to open source Minecraft once he makes his money from it and furthermore, it runs flawlessly on Linux already and in some cases, even faster than it does on Windows.

Clones are great and all (I'm using Linux, can't say they aren't!), but when the project is stated to be made open source in the future, there's no point.
I am not a huge minecraft player, but if you have followed the game at it there are tons of complaints for performance issues. Building a similar game from the ground up in C++ could resolve these issues.