Introducing Our New Name

[mark-wiemer]

Chiming in as a new contributor: I like the name. I had heard of Minetest a few years ago and tried dabbling with it, but I thought it was just a moddable game and not a separate game and engine. I'm even seeing lots of chatter here that Luanti is a game, but it's pretty clear to me that Luanti is an engine and a platform, not a game. VoxeLibre and others are games built with Luanti.

Many are struggling to pronounce it or think it looks like "anti Lua", I didn't get that vibe at all. I saw the name without context and thought "Oh, that's a nice name! Loo-ahn-tee" Maybe I'm pronouncing it wrong, but it's easy to discuss with my friends now, and it doesn't have the negative "anti" sound to me that others mentioned.

I don't think it matters whether developers or users understand the meaning behind the name. Do people really think about the meaning behind names like Microsoft, Nvidia, or Netflix anymore? Over time, the Luanti brand will become its own meaning, and in the short term, the Finnish references and Lua callout will be fun Easter eggs for those that care to learn.

I've just gotten Luanti compiled and running for the first time, and I'm eager to build a game with it :) thanks for all your hard work!

[EVILEDWARD]

Thanks for this! I have been hoping for a name change for literal years.

I don't remember my old login, so I created this one to stop by and let everyone know I support this decision.

I always loved this engine. But, I always thought the name made it sound like nothing more than a shoddy, off-brand minecraft clone. Kind of like off-brand cereal box names. Which was not at all indicative of what the engine is actually capable of. This was always made worse by the association with Minetest Game which drove people directly to a very simple game used as a base for mods.

I always thought this engine should stop hiding its light under a bushel. The very nature of that setup meant that the only people who were ever going to give this engine a chance and figure out what it was capable of either had to dig deeply past this very bad (misleading) first impression; or have someone who knows initiate them into the engine in a hand-holding process. Neither is a good thing for spreading popularity.

Mine = Just a minecraft clone. Test = Just a test. Nothing serious, professional, or special about it at all. Truly and deeply a horrible name. The only reason I kept pushing past that and Minetest game was because I had a drive to find the most capable Free Software alternative and replacement for minecraft and this engine was the best.

But I could easily imagine the 'regular person' booting up Minetest, dropping into Minetest Game, walking around endless open fields with basically nothing at all to do for 10 minutes or less, and then uninstalling and never looking back. I wouldn't blame them.

The new name is much better and the fact that the launcher pushes the Content DB Games Tab to the forefront will no doubt help people see what this engine truly has to offer. Which, to me, is the best voxel game engine out there.

[mark-wiemer]

Walking around for 10 minutes and then closing Minetest forever was exactly what I did about 2 or 3 years ago. Came back now as I have some more free time, but now I get to open Luanti :)

[grorp]

The actual renaming of the application is done now! We'll be able to release version 5.10.0 as Luanti.

https://github.com/minetest/minetest/co ... d8d33a39da

[Arion18]

I don't like the concept of a new name, but the name "Luanti" is good. EDIT: https://forum.luanti.org/viewtopic.php? ... 72#p439962

[rstcxk]

Hello i would like to report a critical error in luanti.org website. The links section has broken HTML

Code: Select all

<ul>
	<li><a href="https://www.minetest.net/">https://www.minetest.net/</a><a></a></li><a></a>
	<li><a></a><a href="https://blog.minetest.net/2024/10/13/Introducing-Our-New-Name/">https://blog.minetest.net/2024/10/13/Introducing-Our-New-Name/</a></li>
	<!--<li><a href="https://forum.luanti.org/">https://forum.luanti.org/<a></li>-->
</ul>

As you can clearly see. there is a lot of empty <a> tags that lead nowhere

Frankly, if i was your web dev teacher, i would have given you an F-- for this cardinal error

do better.

[LMD]

Hello i would like to report a critical error in luanti.org website. The links section has broken HTML

As you can clearly see. there is a lot of empty <a> tags that lead nowhere

Frankly, if i was your web dev teacher, i would have given you an F-- for this cardinal error

do better.

You are correct that there is a problem, but your assessment is unfortunately wrong. You probably viewed the website in your browser's developer tools after it had been parsed, which led you to this incorrect conclusion. HTML has special rules for how to deal with invalid HTML, and those are at play here. The underlying mistake is a much more minor typo. In popular browsers you should be able to view the raw sources via view-source:, alternatively download the site via curl or wget and view the sources in your terminal.

Now, for the great reveal as to where celeron55 made a minuscule mistake resulting in this otherwise inexplicable mess - he missed a slash for a closing </a> (can you spot where?):

Code: Select all

For now, look here:
<ul>
	<li><a href="https://www.minetest.net/">https://www.minetest.net/<a></li>
	<li><a href="https://blog.minetest.net/2024/10/13/Introducing-Our-New-Name/">https://blog.minetest.net/2024/10/13/Introducing-Our-New-Name/</a></li>
	<!--<li><a href="https://forum.luanti.org/">https://forum.luanti.org/<a></li>-->
</ul>

I'm afraid I will have to deduct points for your incomplete and misleading assessment of the situation.

[Linuxdirk]

Instead of debugging a stupid cringy placeholder site, maybe just forward it to minetest.net for now.

[RasPiManiac]

I actually think the name 'Luanti' is kind of cool, people definitely will not confuse it with Minecraft anymore. But I built 5.10.0 and it's still Minetest. Maybe it's because it's not the stable version yet?

[Astrobe]

content.minetest.org has moved to content.luanti.org. Existing bookmarks are redirected to the new domain name, but password managers of browsers might see it as a different site and conclude that they don't have login/password for it; you'll have to enter and save again the login/password.

[Hordeking]

Dumb question: What's going to happen to the PPA for us linux folks?

[Linuxdirk]

Dumb question: What's going to happen to the PPA for us linux folks?

If done right, they will be renamed to luanti and have meta data set that the package provides the minetest packages, too (so dependencies are not broken).

I guess this will happen once 5.10 will be released in the final version.

[xynix]

LOL, I misread it as "Lunati" and was like, "Wait, that's one letter short of 'Lunatic...'"

Glad to see the game getting some branding! Long live Luanti!

[Fixer]

I was thinking forum was hacked...

[Arion18]

I was thinking forum was hacked...

Me too...

[Blockhead]

More name change lore on Matrix from ROller.

[celeron55]

Today I set up www.luanti.org and forum.luanti.org with redirects from www.minetest.net and forum.minetest.net, respectively. The usual caveats about browser sessions, cookies and password managers apply.

There's a lot that remains (the devil is in the details), but this does conclude the most prominent web stuff.

How does the new name feel by now? I'm certainly getting used to it. Opening Luanti to play the very polished VoxeLibre does not feel the same as opening Minetest to play Minetest Game does.

[RokeJulianLockhart]

TL;DR:
- Was a name change needed? No.
- Is the new name anything more appealing than Minetest? No.

Spoiler

Vas a rebrand needed?

In my opinion, not at all.

It has never been a real issue that someone, especially those new to a piece of software, asks if it is a clone of something else, especially when you talk about stuff as famous as Minecraft, and given that Minetest just looked(looks?) like it - not only by its name.

Then I’ve heard supporters calling the “we need more players/no one finds out about Minetest because of its name” argument. I say this here again: given it's not paid software, nor it shows ads, or monetize otherwise, why do we actually *need* more?

People replying to that like “I developed a mod but almost no one is using it” or “No one would spend their time and efforts in developing something that doesn’t have users”. So, first of all, the whole community we are now is considered “doesn’t have users”? And further, does it all boil down to a lack of self-accomplishment of developers, then? If this stands, then the rebrand could be justified. It is in my opinion a nonargument though: Minetest has a fair user base among players, modders, coredevs and server owners to not be considered a dead, or even dying FOSS project.

In addition to that - but this is a personal opinion - as an (ex, sigh!) server co-owner and, later on, owner it was never a problem to me to pay real money - not to speak about the time, which isn't something valuable just for core/mod devs - I/we dedicated to our servers for small communities of good players and people, rather than having to deal with the hordes of trolls and alike that is typical of Minec***t and other games having the “larger user base” you’re advocating for. I am sure some other admins would argue the same.

Other issues that would matter more than a lavish rebrand

But granted that we needed more players, why a name change, anyway? To whiners complaining that users were not staying in Minetest due to its name: do you really think that an engine with the feature and performance limitations it had until just months ago played no role in not being able to attract users from other games that are actively maintained by big techs?

Like, refusing to leave the 16-bit era because "Minetest always wanted and still wants to maintain compatibility with low-end hardware" (just a reminiscence of when we talked about the content ID, to say one). Or not having a content DB for kids to do actual things rather than be forced to play MTG on their mobile devices, once they installed this thing called “Minetest”. Or having such poor quality mods, like a mapgen one I came across years ago that, once installed, would ruin a world by placing blocks that crash the server on load -- me and my co-owner spent hours dealing with such issues because such poor quality mods were advertised indiscriminately through the official channels, even before the content db was a thing. I honestly don't think an average player should be expected to deal, or even be able to, with what we had to, if we want them to like, stay, and popularize Minetest.

Or, I'll say it again and again, not having an official iOS client (Apple's market share is about 50% on tablets! https://gs.statcounter.com/vendor-marke ... /worldwide) also didn’t matter in having tons of players who, at best, ended up in the jaws of a well-known fork that (rightfully, after all) advertises its own servers/server list/client? To be honest, I’ve had to explain way more times to players I've met in servers, that they weren’t playing MultiC**ft but Minetest, than having to explain to them that Minetest isn't a clone of something else. The most popular answer was like: “There is no such Minetest thing in the app store - this is MultiC**ft and you’re wrong”.

All of the above are issues that have had way more impact on users' choices than the name itself, but were all downplayed when argued about.

Then, on the choice of the new name...

Really? A few observations, expressed ad absurdum, in the hope of getting to my point more directly.

• You claim that Minetest was targeting only dev/skilled users. Sure this is not true with a name that have its scripting language, Lua, in it.
• Luanti comes from Finnish luonti. Great, I like it! All Finnish people and we the community (but remember - we are targeting new users, those who didn't even consider Minetest enough to read its website, just because it was called Minetest) will get that it's a wordplay between "creation" and something else they may have never heard about - unless they are coders, but again we don't want to target coders, on the contrary!
• Instead, those who know Finnish and know what Lua is, will surely be given the immediate idea that they're looking at a Voxel game that employs Lua; in other words, the wordplay could and would never suggest a more superficial meaning, like this is "something to create in Lua" - wait what, this is a new Lua IDE?! In more other words, the new name didn't loose anything in terms of referencing what it actually is about.
• The new name also wants to make clear the game uses "Lua", but happens that to a few English readers, Luanti will sound like "Lua-anti". I'll let you figure out what this means. :-)

So, at best, and without intent to be disrespectful, your choice has been rushed and superficial at best. Luanti is meaningless, shallow, and just void. It could equally apply to Minetest, a ship tracker app, an enterprise software suite, a movie, ...

It carries nothing about what this software is all about, not (of course) the history behind it.

Final thoughts

«[...] free from the ghost of its past [...]». Ah, identity and historical memory... Such undervalued principles nowadays, uh!? I guess, the widespread lack of common sense would make it pointless to cite here what great thinkers said about where this lack of historical memory leads to. Sigh.

I've also been presented with the argument that games like R*blox have got their fame because they didn't have "test" in their names. True that. But it is also true, as someone else pointed out, that the cited case (valid as an example) also has "blox" in it, which does recall what the game is about. We had "Mine" to do that job, and the argument that "test" had a negative meaning in that it made Minetest perceived as a personal test project or a place to test our own mods is flawed and biased by those who actually used Minetest that way, for a still plausible perception by an average user could as well as be that it's a Voxel-like game (Mine) where one can be more creative (test) with their game mechanics.

In any case, even if it was called "MyPersonalMinec**ftCloneTestProject", this name had on its shoulders a decade of history, a well-formed and fair community and user base, and plenty of room for huge improvements without needing a rebrand, which could also be argued to be just smoke and mirrors enacted to avoid dealing with the real issues that affect Mintetest, and harness it against going anywhere quickly enough.

Those issues have been left there and made untouchable (until very recently, but only for some of them) by the same group of folks leading this community, which way too many times I saw being forced by them into wrong directions, either because of lack of a clear vision, or lack of a neutral standpoint, while seeing more and more people in dissent, often having a point, being mistreated, ignored or even silenced, to the point that so many great and relevant contributors silently quit Minetest. I think I've had enough of this.

The confusion and inconveniences incident to a rebrand far outweigh its perceived value. Minetest is a well-regarded and mature sample of free software, and does not need to prove its mettle by symbolic actions. Moreover, the new name is almost the poster child of design by committee.

To all of you who took their time to read until here, thank you kindly :-)

Edit, because I forgot to say this: there is nothing wrong with rebrands, but least they usually come with some turning point changes in the software that justify them.

Even when that happens, though, widely known/accepted products usually never completely drop their roots. See how many things like: "XYZ 2.0", "XYZ ][", et cetera happened in the past.

On the contrary, you even imposed this objectively massive revolution without of any meaningful update, and I didn't fully grasp from the blog post if this is promising something in the future (which may also never come) or if it is entirely referring to the past evolution. This action took place almost in concomitance with the release of 5.9.1 which, unless I'm mistaken, was all about bugfixes, reverts of broken new features introduced by 5.9.0, and minor improvements invisible to the average user.

This is just as ridiculous as it sounds, sorry.

Why do you believe that the name rebrand should be accompanied by technical modifications? I'm unfamiliar with any obvious correlation. Examples of similar occurrences are Riot's rebrand to Element, and Google's myriad brand name replacements. They certainly tend to be asynchronous.

[naaktsmurf]

I don't like it. I prefer something more like Luablock or Lunatuna or Luaworld or Luaterra or Luavoxel

But I guess it's better than Minetest.

Change is hard.

Lunatuna or Lunaterra would've been really cool. You could add tuna as a mob and even into the logo to signify it as a real update. It also is just more fun to say and it still feels like the word Luanti.. it's a game after all, the name should imply smth from within the game not what happens before or outside of it. In fact i think there should still come a new update mob, preferably something to do with creation, maybe something alchemy themed? Honestly, i think the name change needed to happen but also that the picked name is way too stiff. I hope you decide to not reverse the name change but that you pick a better name to change to. It's fine either way just my two cents

The fact that the new name isn't a two word thing feels a little weird to me personally but i'll get used to it . Luanti shortened as LT instead of MT still makes a lot of sense. LunaTuna would've been actually epic though

Hope this will make the servers a bit fuller

[Wuzzy]

The first official Luanti release is out (under the new name)! But the rename of related sites is still ongoing. The progress is tracked here:

https://github.com/minetest/minetest/issues/15322

I hope the renaming efforts will be continue because it's not complete yet. Please don't drop the ball just because the release is out now. Because nothing is worse than a half-complete rename that the application is stuck in for years.

I've worked hard on updating a lot of pages on both wikis (Minetest Wiki, Minetest Developer Wiki) and I'm happy to report that most pages had their text updated. I used the search to get all the relevant pages, so English is mostly complete now. It's possible I overlooked a few pages but I consider my work here done.

The most glaring missing puzzle piece now are the wiki names themselves ("Minetest Wiki") as well as the main page texts. Which is outside of my power to influence.

In the coming months, I plan to slowly update the texts in my mods and games as well. The Tutorial will be the most urgent one.

Two of my dev tools have already been renamed. For example, MiBPoV is now LiBPoV.

[CaptainInfested]

I use PC client as well as Android client from F-Droid store and I found out about the name change when the Android version was updated on the F-Droid store. I first found out that the new name is derived from a Finnish word here, and I created an account to comment on this name change. First, I don't know Finnish and my first association of the name "Luanti" was that it sounds Chinese (which I also don't know) - Luan Ti. For me as a user, this carries all the implications of cheap, mass-produced, bad-quality Chinese merchandise (like ripoffs of "Adidas" named "Aidibao", "Panasonic" named "Abasonic" etc), in other words it is a change for the worse. IMHO something in English and/or Latin, catchier and more recognizable would be better than "Luanti". That said, the name change is IMHO low priority.

I realize that Minetest/Luanti is just an engine, and not all of the following is part of its domain, but for me as a player of Minecraft since beta until the acquisition from Microsoft (when I refused to register a Microsoft account and convert my Mojang account containing my paid copy of Minecraft to the new Microsoft account just to be able to play Minecraft), just some of the more critical areas to improve are roughly:

• Engine/game backwards compatibility and increased control of games/mods - games/mods should have the latest version of "Luanti" they work on listed, and games/mods which don't work on the latest version should be unable to be installed/downloaded or should, alternatively, even be removed from public listings altogether until they are updated. There should be a "flag out-of-date" button/link like the one present on AUR.
• Centralized, hosted skins database - including import of Minecraft skins.
• Redstone
• Minecarts
• Better mob AI
• (Better) converters for Minecraft worlds

Again, I am aware that some of those should be directed at authors of "games" such as "VoxeLibre" and related, so I am doing that now if they are reading this.

[Blockhead]

Since the wiki is still needs the rebrand applied, I thought I would help a little by fitting the new menu header logotype into the wiki logo, right where the old logotype was (in fact, it was/is the old-old logotype, the menu header was updated but the wiki never was). Hope you find this useful to save time, c55.

Update: The wiki was replaced with the docs project.

[Desour]

Since the wiki is still needs the rebrand applied, I thought I would help a little by fitting the new menu header logotype into the wiki logo, right where the old logotype was (in fact, it was/is the old-old logotype, the menu header was updated but the wiki never was). Hope you find this useful to save time, c55.

It's hard to read on white background. Needs thicker text shadows.

[Zughy]

The fastest and safest approach is to just remove the "Minetest/Luanti" text and only keep "Wiki", since the logo already speaks for itself (and we won't change it, at least not in the foreseeable future)

[Astrobe]

Who sends a cease-and-desist email to the Minetest Game project to stop them from abusing Luanti's logo (no, opening an issue is not as fun ;-).