10 replies to this topic

[)-( Marchland Malady )-(]

http://voxelands.com/

This is a free and open source game inspired by Minecraft, but should run much better on old computers. Creatures, circuits, decorations, and even farming are all part of the game itself. The game is actively being worked on by Darkrose and Menche, but more players would be appreciated. A few screenshots of this game can be found below:

 

The following topic in the forums of Minetest compares it to Minecraft:

https://forum.minete....php?f=3&t=9172

Give it a good read sometime, since Voxelands is a fork of Minetest.

Edited by Nolornbon, 16 November 2014 - 12:52 PM.

[ShadowTiger]

I'd be playing this a bit, because I love free stuff, but there's a bug where if you change the movement controls to the arrow keys, they go from Up to just U, Left to L, Down to just D, and so on. I'll probably wait until this bug is fixed.

Thanks for the reference though, definitely.

[Koh]

I wanna know why all these games are going for a carbon copy Minecraft look, when they can do something original instead, like Cube World.

[Maleboocado]

Nolornbon,

could you please tell us what's the main difference between Voxelands, Minetest and any other Minetest fork?

I think you made a topic about Minetest and its mods, but I never found any solid comparison between all projects + Minecraft.

Thanks.

[kurt91]

Nothing against these games, but something really bugs me about them. Ethics aside, if I wanted to play Minecraft for free, why would I decide to play these instead of just pirating a copy of Minecraft? (I only mention piracy because a simple "why not Minecraft" question would be answered by "it's free". I would like an alternate answer than cost.)

 

I've played a couple of the Minetest and Freeminer games that you've mentioned before, but they just felt like less-refined versions of Minecraft to be honest. All of the different features included, and the ones that they say they're working on are all features already implemented in Minecraft. I've seen enough people get upset at calling them just Minecraft clones, but to be completely fair, they don't seem to be doing much to try and go their own direction. It seems as though they're just staying barely separate enough to avoid lawsuits, like not including Creepers for example. 

 

Like Koh said, why is it that all of these games are just drawing features from Minecraft instead of other voxel games like Trove or Cube World. Hell, Cube World's pretty much dead as-is, and it looked like it would have been a ton of fun. I'd love a game with the village, quest system, and combat mechanics of Cube World alongside the build-anything focus of Minecraft. Honestly, if I had the know-how on how to program something like that, I'd probably try to do it. Stuff like weapon creation working similar to Gummi Ship building in Kingdom Hearts, tons of unique enemies instead of just four or five, it would be a lot more unique than just another version of Minecraft.

 

Still, I'm not trying to hate on these games, so I'm honestly asking. Maybe I didn't play long enough to see the differences. What do these games bring to the table that Minecraft doesn't, other than the fact that it's a free alternative?

[)-( Marchland Malady )-(]

Well, there are six major differences between Minecraft and Voxelands that I can think of:

• Voxelands is coded in C++, while Minecraft is coded in Javascript.
• Voxelands's worlds can be up to 60,000+ blocks from south to north, west to east, and bottom to top.
• Voxelands has a cold zone that goes from 60 blocks from the surface to 1024 blocks from the surface, and blocks that are above that zone are in the space zone. The cold zone requires protective clothing and the space zone requires a spacesuit.
• Voxelands has mapgenv5, which creates some pretty impressive scenery. Of particular interest is the caves that are generated by it. They are very different from the ones in Minecraft. On a side note, this mapgen also generates abandoned structures underground here and there.
• Voxelands, unlike Minecraft, has a protection system included within itself. Instead of having to install a mod or a hack, you can simply place protectors (borderstones) that protect an area of blocks around them.
• Voxelands is open source, which means that you guys can affect the future of the game, though all commits must be approved of by Darkrose in order to be included. If you wish to help with development, speak with her either in the game's forums or it's irc channel.

 

Wuzzy of the Minetest forums did a review of Voxelands once (which used to be called Minetest Classic.) You can find it below:

https://forum.minete...classic#p145343

 

ShadowTiger, I informed Darkrose of that glitch. Thank you for finding it. Upon testing Voxelands once again, I myself encountered that very same glitch.

 

Darkrose was once interviewed about Voxelands. You can find the resulting article below:

https://translate.go...nds/&edit-text=

Edited by Nolornbon, 14 November 2014 - 10:07 PM.

[kurt91]

Okay, I'll accept the cold/space zone setup as well as the underground structure generation and protection thing as unique ideas. The coding language doesn't seem like it makes much of a difference for the end user, the 60,000 map size seems like more of a limitation or something (not much of one, as I admit that is a lot of room, but a limitation nevertheless). Open-Source is nice, as it invites more creativity on features, although it still seems to mainly be following Minecraft as far as general concept goes.

 

It seems like if you're the kind of player who goes for massive and amazing structures, it's different enough in that you need to compensate for the height rules, but common survival play would be more like a stripped-down TerraFirmaCraft, without the copyrighted Minecraft enemies. Still, I could be wrong and misunderstanding it. I'll give it a shot and see for myself.

[)-( Marchland Malady )-(]

Okay, I'll accept the cold/space zone setup as well as the underground structure generation and protection thing as unique ideas. The coding language doesn't seem like it makes much of a difference for the end user, the 60,000 map size seems like more of a limitation or something (not much of one, as I admit that is a lot of room, but a limitation nevertheless). Open-Source is nice, as it invites more creativity on features, although it still seems to mainly be following Minecraft as far as general concept goes.

 

It seems like if you're the kind of player who goes for massive and amazing structures, it's different enough in that you need to compensate for the height rules, but common survival play would be more like a stripped-down TerraFirmaCraft, without the copyrighted Minecraft enemies. Still, I could be wrong and misunderstanding it. I'll give it a shot and see for myself.

You can speak with Darkrose on the following irc channel:

http://webchat.freen...nels=#voxelands

She might be able to answer some of your questions, as might Menche and a few others. They spend much more time on Voxelands than I do. If you have any good ideas, they might be interested in those too.

 

Below, a post from the Voxelands forums is quoted. It talks about the future of this game (though most of these things are in it as of now.)

A general idea of what I imagine for the future of Voxelands:

3 game modes: creative, adventure, survival
Creative (Fully Implemented):

• An infinite inventory and a 'creative chest' from which all blocks and items can be taken

• No player damage

• No tool wear

• No crafting or smelting - everything is available from either inventory or the creative chest

• Only 'passive' Creatures

Adventure (Fully Implemented):

• Pretty much what most servers are now

• Full crafting and smelting - have to mine/farm/craft to get the blocks and items

• 'passive' and 'aggressive' Creatures - can be hunted for food/crafting supplies

• Player damage and tool wear is on

Survival (Partially Implemented):

• Like Adventure mode, but:

• 'destructive' Creatures that damage buildings and player

• Hunger  - player needs to eat to stay healthy

• Suffocation/Drowning - limited air supply when under water or inside a node

• Possibly some natural disasters - fire, earthquake, maybe tornado?

Get HTTP working right, then add some api url's:

• MOTD

• Number of players, and player names

• Uptime

• Game mode (as above)

• Also a server map (like what minetestmapper.py creates, but dynamically generated)

Once that's working, create api.voxelands.com:

• Servers will announce themselves when starting up (unless private mode enabled)

• API will query servers at a regular interval using the HTTP API

• A server list can then be created

• Players can then use the api to find what server someone is on, or were last on

• ???

And then once that's working, add an irc bot to freenode that interacts with the api.
Maybe at some point add irc <-> game chat
Also possibility of chat across servers?

Open to other ideas/suggestions as well

Edited by Nolornbon, 15 November 2014 - 11:46 AM.

[)-( Marchland Malady )-(]

http://forum.voxelan...opic.php?id=308

A new stable build of Voxelands was released today, and it has a new feature that is not in Minecraft. To quote the topic in the Voxelands forums linked to above:

The big thing for this release: a character creator and clothes.
You'll see this when you start 1411.00 for the first time, you can now change the look of your character (gender, height, width, skin colour, face, hair colour, hair style, clothing). There are several million possible combinations in the character creator, plus hundreds of more clothes items available in-game.

Not all clothing is the same:
Cotton is the most basic, it wears out quickest, and gives the least protection against cold, animal attack, or suffocation.
Canvas wears a little slower, and is slightly better against cold, but doesn't do much against an animal attack.
Fur wears even slower, gives the best protection against cold, and some armour effect against animal attack.
Leather wears the slowest, and protects moderately against cold and animal attack, and even a tiny boost against the vacuum of space.
Copper armour defends well against animal attack, but wears fairly quickly, and gives no protection against the cold.
Steel armour wears slowly, gives the best protection against animal attack, and mild protection against cold.
The space suit recipe has changed slightly, but it's still the only way to survive for any appreciable time in space, and the helmet is also still the only way to breath underwater when drowning is enabled.

Most materials can be made into shoes or boots; shoes are cheaper, but give slightly less protection than boots.

There's also some decorative things, like belts, ties, and a necklace.

Medallions though, give your clothes a durability boost; wear a medallion and your clothes will wear slower. So you can stay alive in space, in the coldzone, or against an animal attack for a little longer.

The size of your player doesn't affect the collision box; so making a short and thin player won't let you fit through small spaces. On the other hand, your height does affect your viewpoint in-game.

Anybody care to discuss this impressive new feature for Voxelands?

[kurt91]

Seems interesting, although I can already see issues with the height selector. I mean, you'd end up three blocks tall, be able to walk through two block tall gaps, and send your camera view inside that third block.

 

Clothing seems like an interesting setup, although the medallion system seems pointless. I mean, if they're clothing, it would make perfect sense to have to patch them up occasionally. Now if the medallions were like passive power-ups that would wear out over time, such as a medallion for faster movement speed or slightly stronger attacks, but the medallion would either wear out after an hour of continuous use or some sort of other drawback as a risk-reward system so you don't just make medallions instead of finding stronger equipment.

 

Anyways, I'm really glad that they're coming up with more of their own ideas that haven't been done before. To be honest, I know I said that I'd try this game out before, but I've been far too busy lately with home and college stuff to do so. This is actually pretty good timing, really.

[)-( Marchland Malady )-(]

I am sorry for saying that I would leave these forums recently. I need to learn not to give up so easily.

 

Well, I am back, so I might as well post a link to the thread discussing the newest stable build of Voxelands in case anybody is interested in it:

http://forum.voxelan...opic.php?id=347

An in-game master server list should come eventually.