What is Terasology - TheShubham99/Terasology GitHub Wiki

Background for the project.

History and motivation

Back in early 2011 our founder Benjamin "begla" Glatzel wanted to research procedural terrain generation and efficient rendering techniques in Java using LWJGL, curious if he could create a Minecraft-like demo by himself. He succeeded, like quite a few others have over the years.

The project went quiet for a few months with an occasional person checking it out until in September 2011 Anton "small-jeeper" Kireev and Rasmus "Cervator" Praestholm connected with Begla around the same time. A pitch for an actual game was made, focused on the benefits of open source and some under-served areas of Minecraft such as creature management. A forum was created and our journey began!

Work began and improvements were made, with some goals outlined in the below section. Other contributors trickled in and we got the project infrastructure set up better. Then in July 2012 Youtube personality Gronkh did a Let's Test video that eventually crossed a million hits, melted all our servers and put us on the map. At least in Germany - lots of German players and contributors. Similar traffic spikes later have likewise gotten us, new players and contributors, always curious to see which country is next.

We picked up the pieces (seriously, our old web host couldn't even repair our account and we had to migrate elsewhere!), picked up a bunch of new contributors, and got more serious yet about putting together a great project for people to work on. And here we are!

As of early 2016, we are finally emerging from the shadows of stealth-development, calling our engine stable enough to release a v1.0.0 for building gameplay on, and considering our project overall alpha-ready. Over the years we've focused heavily on architecture and extensibility, with fairly little content developed. Hopefully, that's about to change with a formal release and maturity upgrade :-)

Goals at a glance

These goals were what we originally settled on to help set apart Terasology from the flood of Minecraft-inspired games that followed its smash success. A good amount of commercial successes have followed, but seemingly Terasology stands alone as a mature open source project in Java, with Minetest the one other option in C++ and Lua.

Our horizons have broadened since, not in a small way thanks to the sheer amount of contributors with different ideas and skills. Rather than retaining the original focus, we have for better and worse ended up with a series of gameplay templates, akin to modpacks in the Minecraft world. Some still aim to set us apart while others were made by MC modders that grew weary of obfuscated code and wanted a more open experience with familiar content.

Most importantly the final bullet below has remained true and the source of our greatest experiences: our community. Be it helping a kid in Brazil figure out how to play without knowing English or fulfilling the life dream of an elder gentleman to participate in game development we have met many great people and look forward to meeting many more!

  • Minion management akin to Dwarf Fortress or Dungeon Keeper - creatures that will have needs that take up space to provide that then in return provide you with various benefits. This helps fill out the world.
  • The simple visual appeal of 3D in a voxel world like Minecraft - not too focused on providing hi-res splendor, as that inevitably leads to the high-cost race towards photorealism. At the same time, if we can jam in some fancy effects on top of that, like reflective water, so be it! :-)
  • A deeper tech tree to climb, achievable mostly solo but heavily aided by minions or other players
  • Crafting more focused on realistic workshops improving quality and quantity based on upgrades, specific minions, etc
  • A more vivid world that's alive and changes over time, even without direct manipulation by the player
  • Autonomous NPC societies that grow on their own and can both be the source of minions as well as valuable trading partners. Or be your greatest enemy...
  • Various kinds of blueprinting to allow the reproduction of specific objects, tradeable with other players. Also, similar systems to designate areas as special in some fashion, like enclosing workshop areas or defining defences
  • Portals to centre societies around and allow easy travel (but not the transfer of goods) between settled areas
  • Meaningful (and meaningless!) statistics about your world
  • Realistic simulations of world elements like liquid flow, structural support, natural growth, and the dangers of delving deep
  • And maybe most importantly: Build a community around an open source project that will be able to achieve all this and more - making Terasology more than just a game

Behind the name

Why "Terasology" ?

Like many other starting games, Begla started out with a quick name, "Blockmania" in this case, when the goal was just making a cool voxel engine. After our team grew and we set serious goals we needed a serious name that was unique and memorable. During an everyday ranting session between organizer Cervator and wordsmith Stuthulhu "Anthropology" came up as a goal for the game, but for creatures (Anthropology is specific to humans). Stuthulhu came up with "Teras" and other fancy Latin/Greek terms and it more or less just lined up with -ology perfectly

An astute fan came up with some more details on the name after the fact:

On minor correction is that the word Terasology is coming from the greek word (τερατολογία) which the combination of the two greek words teras (τέρας) and logos (λόγος). In english the combination of Teras + Logos should be Teratology not Terasology. Because (Τέρας + λόγος = Τερατολογία)

Teratology does exist as a term (see Wikipedia), but we're taking a little artistic liberty with the correct formation of the word to make it our own and arrive at unique territory :D