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Hello, I know there are some people here who like to play Minecraft. I thought I'd let you know there is a better alternative to it. Microsoft owns Minecraft and they are pulling some real soykaf. I personally think Minecraft lacks a lot of content, the game feels very barebones and yet they don't add a whole lot. Instead they focus on things such as the "realms" and soykaf such as this: https://minecraft.net/en-us/marketplace/ They now focus a lot more on their rebuild of the engine they call the "Windows 10 Edition" and could start to neglect other versions of the game that don't run on consoles and Windows. And of course there is the old problem that it's proprietary software and you never know what Microsoft could be doing with it. Minetest is like Minecraft, but it's FOSS and not owned by a big corporation. The game has been in development since 2011 and is pretty mature I'd say. Minetest doesn't entirely attempt to directly recreate minecraft, but it uses the same concept. In some ways the gameplay elements in Minetest feel more sophisticated and it's a bit more about experimenting so that it sometimes reminds me of Garry's Mod. Minetest is designed in such a way it gives the player way way more power over everything they do. The way the mods work here is a bit different from most other games because you actually are not supposed to really play without them. The base game is barebones on purpose so they player can decide what content they want to play with. Installing mods is simple, you find them in the official forum and are usually hosted on github. You download a release and unzip it to a folder called 'mods' in your game directory. It uses an API so it's modular. https://forum.minetest.net/viewforum.php?f=11 Here are some things that Minetest does better than Minecraft: -Modding API that is very very easy to use, it requires minimal programming knowledge so even children can create new mods. -Better performance, lower system requirements and because it's FOSS you can run it on any architecture if you manage to compile it. -There is way more content than in minecraft thanks to the modular mod design. You can build things such as nuclear reactors, functional multiplayer shops with currency and functional train stations. -Upon joining a server the player automatically downloads all the content (mods, game modes,..) the server uses without requiring the player to take action. -It's FOSS. The user is in control. -Built in shader support -You can create entire subgames. This means a server admin can run, say, a hunger games mod that is easier to implement and more powerful than if he were to mod it into the standard survival game. -Better world generation. Here are some things that Minecraft does better than Minetest: -Prettier aesthetics/sprites and better animations -The game feels "smoother" and it "flows" better. The game also has it's own redstone variant called mesecons. Here for example is the crafting list for mesecons items: http://mesecons.net/items.html and here is the crafting list for another mod seen by many as essential, the technic mod: http://technic.kosyak.info/ This is the crafting list for another popular mod, the home decor set: https://daconcepts.com/vanessa/hobbies/minetest/homedecor-crafting-guide/homedecor-craft-guide.html As you can tell by these lists, there are a fuarrrkton of items! In case you dislike some or a lot, you can simply disable the mods either partially or entirely in the main menu. You can also of course modify them and then load the modified version onto your server so everyone who joins has all the cool features you added. If you want to try the game right now I recommend you manually compile the newest version from git, as the version provided by most distributions is outdated. You could then join a multiplayer server to get an idea what you can do with all the game elements and how they tie together to a different kind of game depending on what you enable. The server "Wildes Land" for example is very survival-ish if that's your thing. Here are build instructions: http://dev.minetest.net/Compiling_Minetest

I forgot to mention one thing. If you have a low end computer and the performance is bad, then set the view distance to the value 20. You can find this option in the advanced settings. With this setting any computer made after 2003 can run it for sure.

Isnt freeminer supposed to be a better a fork? I dont know, i only tried it twice on my android phone, but i have no idea what this game is about.

>Upon joining a server the player automatically downloads all the content (mods, game modes,..) the server uses without requiring the player to take action. This sounds really insecure. Do they make an effort to make it safe or do you just have to trust whoever is running the server?

Minetest also comes with a world height that is for all intents and purposes infinite, so you can dig as deep as you want or build as high as you want. Someone even made a mod where you can go into space by flying very high. https://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?t=14497 >>61 Since version 0.4.12 (june 2015) the base game engine always comes with a security feature enabled. Here you can read more about it when it was announced: https://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?t=12471 Code that runs on blocks from mods such as mesecons is sandboxed. Almost all the code in mods comes from uncompiled lua. >>60 I've not tried the forks yet.

Is this one good? http://terasology.org/ When I tried minecraft itself years ago, I found it to be very grindy. Are these forks less so? OP's post is encouraging though. I may try minetest soon.

>>58 Sounds dope and FOSS af, can't wait to give it a try later today or tomorrow maybe we can all play together some time.

>>59 The + and - keys can also change the view distance while playing. You can use r to flip it between limited and unlimited view distance. >>66 I'm usually on one of either "JT2 @test@", or "just test" servers. If you find me I'll help out with some sticks. They're both stone worlds and dirt needs to be crafted so growing trees and getting sticks is a pain in the butt for new players.

>>58 I Prefer Technical Minecraft.

>>60 >Unlike Minetest it aims to make the game fun while trading off some bits of perfectionism. I've not played it, but that's part of it's description. I suppose it's more 'arcadey'? Maybe it has less resource collection and is easier or something.

>>58 Just played Minetest for a bit and looked at all it had to offer. I don't know when you last played Minecraft but it's far more fleshed out than this, it also has a much larger and more mature modding scene. Minetest is extremely bare-bones compared to Minecraft. Even the level generation is vastly inferior in Minetest. Not to mention items. Also >Minetest doesn't entirely attempt to directly recreate minecraft It directly copies almost everything. It's more like a snapshot of Minecraft as it was ~3.5 years ago, than it's own distinct game. While games like Survival Craft and Terasology take the concept but are distinctly their own things. I don't really play Minecraft much anymore and pretty much only for socialising/community purposes when I do. I do like Minetest being FOSS though. So I hope it keeps improving and gets popular.

>>184 Did they fix the level generation after compeltely ruining it and the rest of the game at beta 1.8?

>>184 this is totally accurate

Minetest is fuarrrking amazing.

>>184 You are doing it completely wrong. You are not supposed to play without mods. The base game is stripped down on purpose. Read the OP again. Join a multiplayer server or make your own mod collection. Minecraft doesn't even have furniture.

>>58 Last time I played I was having trouble installing mods. This was awhile back though. Ill try it again. Also It'd be neat to have a lain minetest server

The new version of minecraft is likely not coming to mac and linux since they avoid that topic a lot. Instead they released it on xbox, windows, switch, playstation, ios, android and virtual reality stuff. All those platform have cross online multiplayer and guess what: the new version of minecraft is not multiplayer compatible with the java version that runs everywhere. Say goodbye to playing minecraft online on linux