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!
  • corsicanguppy@lemmy.caEnglish
    0·
    13 hours ago

    It’s nice to see open-source things copying what dot-coms do when they’re bored.

    Wait. No it’s not. It’s actually worrying.

    I worked for a company named essentially “The Portland Office”, and it had that name for 30 years; because, honestly, who cares about a name? The product should stand out.

    • hitwright@lemmy.world
      0·
      12 hours ago

      Even if you can objectively see the name as just a name, many people sadly can’t. It is really difficult to recommend others to join, just because they come with the idea that it’s a minecraft clone and since it’s not a clone it feels janky.

      I’m glad they dropped the name for something new.

  • Sunny' 🌻@slrpnk.net
    0·
    13 hours 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?

    • MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml
      0·
      10 hours 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.

    • down daemon@lemmy.mlEnglish
      0·
      11 hours 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
        0·
        5 hours 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.

  • qaz@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    13 hours ago

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

  • Ephera@lemmy.ml
    0·
    15 hours 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. 🙃

  • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
    0·
    17 hours 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.

  • TriflingToad@lemmy.world
    0·
    18 hours ago

    hope they improve upon it, the old (when the banning was implemented) version of minetest was horrible. I’ll be trying it soon :)

    • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
      0·
      17 hours ago

      It has come a long way. These days it doesn’t even come with a game preinstalled. You can play VoxeLibre, Asuna, and so much more. Plus the original Minetest game is still installable. Also there are quite a lot of mods and other content available.

      The only gripes I really have is the security and UI design. Neither are that bad but they could be better.

        • Mike1576218@lemmy.ml
          0·
          12 hours ago

          Online play is 100% unencrypted or authenticated. Client executes lua code sent by the server. I hope the code is kinda sandboxed but wouldnt put my hopes up there.

          • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
            0·
            12 hours ago

            Also there isn’t necessarily a clean environment between mods. This means one mod could modify another mod.

          • orgrinrt@lemmy.world
            0·
            12 hours ago

            As far as I’m aware, most of the “dangerous” lua api (io/network etc) is blocked and only available to mods during the startup phase, and not otherwise during runtime.

            But I’m sure there are workarounds. For one, I’ve written mods with rust for it, and you can require and then call any dynamic library through lua, with all of the io and networking you’d want, as long as it is brought in during the init phase. And the mods that do access the “dangerous” api, have to be explicitly given rights to do so (but again, by the server, not the clients) in the config before it works.

            It’s not that bad for the most cases, as long as you trust the server. If playing single player, you personally control which mods get the secure environment access, so at that point it’s entirely your own fault, if you get exploited.

            • Mike1576218@lemmy.ml
              0·
              5 hours ago

              I hope they can build on some work from the lua devs. Isolating stuff like that is not always easy. But given lua is used extensively for embedded scripting, there is a good chance they can.

    • ouch@lemmy.world
      0·
      7 hours ago

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

    • 𝘋𝘪𝘳𝘬@lemmy.ml
      0·
      8 hours 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
        0·
        6 hours 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.

    • Zikeji@programming.devEnglish
      0·
      15 hours 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
        0·
        5 hours 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
          0·
          3 hours 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
            0·
            1 hour 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
              0·
              1 hour 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.