Posted By ZeroCool at 05:10 AM - Tue Nov 26 2019
Posted By Lord_Greystoke at 02:03 AM - Mon Nov 25 2019
Oh, be still my beating heart- we got a top-down map with icons that look like they were coded by a 6th grader.
Not getting involved in insulting anyone's intelligence here but just thought I'd point out that the world maps have data generated for every 4m², so that's over 500 million data points for each map, ok maybe less for OCE.
Within each of those data points you have a ton of variables; altitude, minerals, flora, fauna, soil type and associated values, the list I'm sure goes on and on. It was no small feat to accomplish this.
Posted By Drudge at 10:35 PM - Mon Nov 25 2019
The part I never understood was whether the worlds created on the DSS maps now exist or not. By that I mean, can we move around on them, walk through the landscape, through the towns.
Unfortunately I think it's the latter, I'd imagine they could instance certain areas to show us around in the low poly client but I highly doubt the maps exist as whole even as a wireframe. Mostly I guess the heavy lifting is with the settlements and set pieces (important scenes linked to story).
Even accounting for the work we will do in Expo to build out there needs to be a starter. Also, there are now many more larger Capitols and Cities, more work here.
The starter settlements all need to be in place for the Beta's (conjecture) so that's a lot of work and I'm not sure how they can accomplish this without the cookie cutter effect.
Settlements need to look natural, they need to fit in to their surrounding. But with only 14% (looking at Selene) of settlements claimed that still leaves 1000's. Likely to reduce a little or a lot post Settlers. Curating 10 - 15,000 settlements (all four servers) by hand is not possible.
One idea I had was to allow settlement holders to place all the initial buildings for their settlement using something like the architecture tool.
I see the interface showing you maybe a 400 parcel plot (1280m x 1280m i.e. 20 parcels by 20 parcels) with the settlement centred, or the same thing but in the Prelyria client. Or both.
This idea could then be extended to a community event. Any settlements not claimed could be offered to players to build the initial settlement using a SBS created tool and rules set forth based on the professions and types of industry.
This could be another use for IP. Those with the highest IP are offered to build a random settlement but nothing near their own, doesn't even need to be on their server. They can of course decline and so a spot opens up for lower IP tiers.
Probably best to keep the actual location secret to avoid any foul play but the tool should ensure that you can't really bork it.
Sorry I kind of derailed a bit there.
Some threads need a bit of derailing when they start going down hill so thanks for bringing some good insight.
I'm think the DSS data could be used to generate a test region if they chose to, but probably still more work to be done before an entire world could really be generated.
I like your ideas for placement of initial buildings by settlement holders, assuming the interface to do can be created without too much difficulty.