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Introducing Our New Name

blog.minetest.net

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Re: Introducing Our New Name

#61

Post by xinayder »

beeflet wrote: post #3

The new name isn't great (too many vowels in the same place, you couldn't spell it if you heard it) but at least it's original and doesn't sound like it's a knockoff test implementation of minecraft anymore. Minetest is kind of a unique experiment in how modular a voxel game can be with mods. It's pretty cool. You just visit another server and it downloads and sets up all of the server's mods. You have dependencies a…

> The new name isn't great (too many vowels in the same place, you couldn't spell it if you heard it)

That's only a problem for english. Finnish people (and I can say romance language speakers) would disagree.

Re: Introducing Our New Name

#63

Post by graemep »

xinayder wrote: post #61
beeflet wrote: post #3

The new name isn't great (too many vowels in the same place, you couldn't spell it if you heard it) but at least it's original and doesn't sound like it's a knockoff test implementation of minecraft anymore. Minetest is kind of a unique experiment in how modular a voxel game can be with mods. It's pretty cool. You just visit another server and it downloads and sets up all of the server's mods. You have dependencies a…

> The new name isn't great (too many vowels in the same place, you couldn't spell it if you heard it) That's only a problem for english. Finnish people (and I can say romance language speakers) would disagree.

I am an English speaker and disagree too. The spelling is fairly natural to me (probably how I would spell it if I heard it) and, in any case, English spelling is not exactly known for being obvious.

Re: Introducing Our New Name

#64

Post by thaumasiotes »

froggerexpert wrote: post #40

Great project, which has sorely been in need of a better name. "Luanti" works. Unique, pronounceable, alludes to Lua ties.

The "n" obscures the notional reference to "lua". "Lua" is two syllables, but "luan" is just one. The name makes me think 乱, not an element you'd want to include in the name of most projects.

Re: Introducing Our New Name

#65

Post by thiht »

freedomben wrote: post #49

I absolutely adore minetest and have an enormous amount of love and respect for the people who have built it into the phenomenal platform that it is. But damn, they are not great at naming things. I have long wished they would rename from minetest to something else, because as silly as it is, one of the biggest barriers of adoption I have run into is the name. When people hear the name, it is confusing and they think…

Lots of libre projects are terrible at naming things, I don't know why.

Doing the "use a word in some exotic language for some reason" is lazy and rarely great. Another example of that is "Forjego", they forked Gitea and went with some Esperanto word because... reasons.

Re: Introducing Our New Name

#66

Post by mschuster91 »

beeflet wrote: post #3

The new name isn't great (too many vowels in the same place, you couldn't spell it if you heard it) but at least it's original and doesn't sound like it's a knockoff test implementation of minecraft anymore. Minetest is kind of a unique experiment in how modular a voxel game can be with mods. It's pretty cool. You just visit another server and it downloads and sets up all of the server's mods. You have dependencies a…

> You just visit another server and it downloads and sets up all of the server's mods. You have dependencies and stuff so not every mod has to reinvent the wheel. Much better experience than minecraft modding.

Reminds me of Unreal Tournament 2004, that was pretty much the same experience.

Re: Introducing Our New Name

#67

Post by yellow_lead »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #64
froggerexpert wrote: post #40

Great project, which has sorely been in need of a better name. "Luanti" works. Unique, pronounceable, alludes to Lua ties.

The "n" obscures the notional reference to "lua". "Lua" is two syllables, but "luan" is just one. The name makes me think 乱, not an element you'd want to include in the name of most projects.

For non-chinese speakers 乱/亂 is pronounced luan4 in Chinese and means disordered.

Re: Introducing Our New Name

#68

Post by trinix912 »

thiht wrote: post #65
freedomben wrote: post #49

I absolutely adore minetest and have an enormous amount of love and respect for the people who have built it into the phenomenal platform that it is. But damn, they are not great at naming things. I have long wished they would rename from minetest to something else, because as silly as it is, one of the biggest barriers of adoption I have run into is the name. When people hear the name, it is confusing and they think…

Lots of libre projects are terrible at naming things, I don't know why. Doing the "use a word in some exotic language for some reason" is lazy and rarely great. Another example of that is "Forjego", they forked Gitea and went with some Esperanto word because... reasons.

It's actually Forgejo not Forjego, with this example further proving what a convoluted name it is, with the added bonus that there are at least two points where the pronunciation can vary widely (is the J as in Jack or as in Spanish Juan? Is the G as in Google or George?).

Re: Introducing Our New Name

#69

Post by idle_zealot »

tetris11 wrote: post #58
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I've been on a minetest kick lately and it's a great game, and I can understand not wanting to call it "minetest", but minetest is 2 english words mashed together and one of them is extremely relevant/descriptive of the game in question. I personally even think that it's fine that it sounds like minecraft, because it... is basically minecraft but proper FOSS; that's approximately the reason I like it. This new…

It's really weird to see it on HN as I've been diving into it hard this past week. Voxelibre is a fantastic standalone pack, and I'm trying out some of the others. I haven't ventured online but will at some point

I highly recommend Nodecore. Try to see how far you can get without looking anything up. For certain kinds of brains it's a uniquely satisfying experience.
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