Introducing Our New Name
blog.minetest.net
After more than a year of public and internal discussions, we're ready to announce our new name!
  • HipsterTenZero@dormi.zone
    188·
    16 days ago

    this is ok. minetest was an awful name.

    for those of you without the patience to read a blogpost, the new name’s actually a bit of wordplay.

    “Luanti” is a wordplay on the Finnish word luonti (“creation”) and the programming language Minetest Luanti employs for games and mods, Lua. The goal was to avoid yet another plain English word (good luck finding something unique…) and highlight the core principles of the project. The fusion of celeron55’s Finnish nationality and the platform’s focus on content creation resulted in the birth of “Luanti”.

    • comfy@lemmy.ml
      82·
      16 days ago

      IMO, the worst thing about “Minetest” is that it sounded like it was just a test creation, a prototype or experiment. It’s certainly well beyond that now. The announcement introduction mentions people associate it with being a Minecraft clone or alpha release, but even further, to me the name initially gave me the impression it was [still] someone’s small hobby project. ‘Luanti’ is much better.

      • comfy@lemmy.ml
        46·
        16 days ago

        On this note, another thing I appreciate is what they said about “Free” and “Libre”: those names are great for saying “This is a free/libre/open clone of [x]”, and that’s what I’ll think when I see it. Software like LibreOffice aims to support Microsoft Office documents, OpenRTC2 and OpenTTD are for people who want to see those games pretty-faithfully cloned, even if extended. Luanti is not OpenMinecraft.

  • hperrin@lemmy.world
    74·
    16 days ago

    Oh thank god. Minetest was the worst name, and the game is actually pretty cool. It definitely deserves a cool name, and Luanti sounds cool.

  • qaz@lemmy.worldEnglish
    701·
    16 days ago

    I don’t really like the new name yet, but it’s a lot better than Minetest so I really can’t complain.

  • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
    51·
    16 days ago

    I actually like the new name. It seems like when a community project renames it always is something even worse than the original name. This is a great name that doesn’t sound silly to say out loud.

    • Zikeji@programming.devEnglish
      181·
      16 days ago

      I’ve seen it a few times in passing and always assumed it was like, a tech demo or proof of concept.

      • 𝘋𝘪𝘳𝘬@lemmy.ml
        2·
        16 days ago

        It initially was that. Also the name wasn’t meant to stick around forever.

        But, out of a sudden, between updates, not even the new website URLs ready?

        I don’t follow Minetest development that closely anymore, but last time I checked there were no issues or pull requests on their GitHub, nor something official regarding a name change in the forums.

        This feels like there are just a bunch of people haphazardly deciding there is a new name now.

        • Norah - She/They@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
          3·
          16 days ago

          Here’s a post from May in the Minetest Luanti forums discussing the name change: https://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?p=425205#p425205

          I’m not going to search further to find the original discussion, but another user in this thread mentions seeing talk of this about a year ago. I agree that it’s not very professional for the new website to be in a less than functional state, but it feels like excitement or decision fatigue may be the culprit, not a rushed process. Then again, it’s an open source video game, not everything has to be “professional” all the time. Meanwhile, enjoy this meme from luanti.org:

          • 𝘋𝘪𝘳𝘬@lemmy.ml
            2·
            15 days ago

            I’m not going to search further to find the original discussion, but another user in this thread mentions seeing talk of this about a year ago.

            There were plenty of those threads and discussions happening during the past few years. This is a constant topic that came up in the forums and sometimes GitHub over and over again.

            • Norah - She/They@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
              2·
              15 days ago

              Yes, and in the last twelve months those discussions clearly accelerated, and that post made it clear the lead/original dev had made their mind up. Which very much negates you saying this was rushed.

    • ouch@lemmy.world
      17·
      16 days ago

      Just tell her that you told them your wife didn’t like the name so they changed it.

    • 𝘋𝘪𝘳𝘬@lemmy.ml
      6·
      16 days ago

      It IS a terrible name. But it also is an over one decade old brand.

      It will be hard to propagate the new name and have it as recognizable as “Minetest”.

      • IcyToes@sh.itjust.works
        3·
        16 days ago

        Those in open source circles will see through places like GamingOnLinux, Lemmy, Reddit and the official IRC/Discord. Those that don’t find out probably are no where near the open source gaming community so it won’t really matter.

  • Sunny' 🌻@slrpnk.net
    27·
    16 days ago

    This is good news! Anyone here played it recently? How far has the game come in terms of content compared to Minecraft or Vintage Story?

    • down daemon@lemmy.mlEnglish
      33·
      16 days ago

      it’s just a framework, it depends on the mods you use. you can use mineclone2 if you want all the features of minecraft

      • walderan@sh.itjust.works
        14·
        16 days ago

        Btw, mineclone2 also rebranded as Voxelibre, months ago, and for the same reasons. Voxelibre now actively moves away from copying Minecraft exactly.
        If you want the closest copy (and my personal recommendation) check out Mineclonia.

    • MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml
      9·
      16 days ago

      Mobs kinda suck, because the engine has no native mob API.

      There are great mapgens who take advantage of the 1000’s of blocks world height.

      • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
        1·
        15 days ago

        You can use the mod lib from contentdb. Also it is worth pointing out that they are moving towards a subgame focus not a mod focus. The original game has been discontinued and isn’t preinstalled. You install a game like Asuna to get gameplay and content.

        Of course you can still use Minetest game as a base for mods. I do that for simple worlds.

  • Ephera@lemmy.ml
    20·
    16 days ago

    Man, I saw them initiating discussions around the name like a year ago. I did not expect anything to actually come from that after all this time. But yeah, glad that it did.

    Now we just need a better default font. 🙃

  • daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    8·
    15 days ago

    I like the meme.

    I just wish they would merge the “truly infinite worlds” branch. The horizontal limits are to tight for this kind of game.

    • Rogue@feddit.uk
      4·
      15 days ago

      Anything is better than minetest which sounded like a hastily written debugging mod for Minecraft

  • sparky@lemmy.federate.cc@lemmy.federate.cc
    42·
    16 days ago

    Did they ever fix the game having a maximum map size of like 10.000 by 10.000? That limitation always seemed to put it at a disadvantage compared to Minecraft, for larger communities

    • mintyogi@lemmy.zipEnglish
      13·
      16 days ago

      Currently, the world dimensions are larger than that (according to the wiki):

      “Minetest’s world is a huge cube with a side length of ca. 60000 blocks. Each dimension (X, Y and Z) ranges from −30912 to 30927.”

        • Ephera@lemmy.ml
          23·
          16 days ago

          I find the increased world height much more important. Luanti can generate actual mountains, and caves where you’ll want to bring ladders for your descent.
          It was the first time, I felt like it made sense to build minecarts and intermediate mining bases, because the ores reach far deeper.

          • Mike1576218@lemmy.ml
            4·
            16 days ago

            I played some minetest and then looked at Minecraft. Is minecraft really limited to -64 +256??? I read it a couple of times but still can’t believe it. Ho can a game with °mine° in its name be so limited? More like Buildcraft Imo.

            • Ephera@lemmy.ml
              12·
              16 days ago

              I believe, they increased it a little while ago, so it’s actually -64 to +320 now.

              But yeah, I don’t think anyone’s actually happy about the limited world height. It’s so limited, because of the way Minecraft works on a technical level. It loads the map in chunks, which are just massive pillars, reaching from the bottom of the world all the way to the sky, across the whole 384 blocks.

              As a result, if they increase the world height, they increase how many blocks have to be loaded at once, which increases the lag.
              Luanti doesn’t have this problem, because it uses cubic chunks instead.

        • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
          51·
          16 days ago

          It is basically infinite. I would be very surprised if you could reach the end. Having a pregenerated map also makes the game a lot lighter. (At the cost of longer world creation)

          • Faresh@lemmy.mlEnglish
            1·
            15 days ago

            Yeah I also never reached the end, though I imagine if playing multiplayer, with enough players and time, that then at some point there won’t be any untouched land.

        • mintyogi@lemmy.zipEnglish
          3·
          16 days ago

          Yeah, I hear that. Although, I’ve travelled many thousands of blocks in Minecraft worlds, I’ve never travelled tens of thousands, so the limits in Luanti work for me. The increased world depth in Luanti seems more beneficial to me. YMMV