Remove level command

[Idlamn 297]

When auto-decay of dirt walls was proposed people said that in WO you need to work hard to get the terrain you want. But just how hard? Someone told me it would take a year to fix a terraced area.

 

Why is it that for terracing the landscape forever we have a level command so it's easier to do, while to un-terrace it is such hard work? I propose we get rid of level - it's an easy way to get flat raises hence the reason they are everywhere. You should only be able to raise dirt by dropping and then digging the excess. Or at least add an equivalent "un-level" action. We need a balance here.

 

Or even better, why not disable level command for steamy WO as a last minute change so they won't have a terraced server in 2 years. You can thank me later when the game will be so successful because of this 😉

Edited July 23, 2020 by Idlamn

[McGarnicle 1,463]

Getting terraced look is actually not that hard without the level command. In fact, I think the quickest method is still flat raising (dropping dirt and use the flatten command) or just flatten. 

[Tek 99]

Am I missing something? You can level up or level down... And removing level won't end anything as above says, lots of folks flat raise over level.

[Skatyna 437]

dude just doesnt know you can use "level" to actually remove dirt walls too. i guess some ppl learn something new every day

[Ekcin 2,414]

-1 Learn to use the commands.

[Idlamn 297]

7 hours ago, Skatyna said:

dude just doesnt know you can use "level" to actually remove dirt walls too. i guess some ppl learn something new every day

And what are you left with? A lower level flat?

I never tried flat rising. Maybe a different solution needs to be found for those flats.

 

People don't like the way servers look because of those raised flats and dirt walls. I had RL friends play with me on Serenity and they were like "what's that? is it a glitch or something?", "nah it's a dirt wall", "wha?". A friend was really disappointed when he started because I showed him the untouched woodlands near my place first (Wurm has very nice forrests), then we went back to civilization and there were all those flats.

 

At least if it's not possible to take them back to the natural organic look, make it hard to get them in the first place. But maybe removing level isn't the best solution.

Edited July 24, 2020 by Idlamn

[Platyna 521]

@Idlamn not everyone likes "natural organic looks", and considering the fact how many terraces and dirt walls there are, a considerable amount of people seems to like "inorganic" look. I don't like tall walls and big multi-storey buildings, and I am surrounded by them, should I suggest to developers to remove them too? It is like IRL, you will not always like what thy neighbour builds. It is a sandbox game, we are supposed to change the environment.

Edited July 24, 2020 by Platyna

[Idlamn 297]

18 minutes ago, Platyna said:

@Idlamn not everyone likes "natural organic looks", and considering the fact how many terraces and dirt walls there are, a considerable amount of people seems to like "inorganic" look. I don't like tall walls and big multi-storey buildings, and I am surrounded by them, should I suggest to developers to remove them too? It is like IRL, you will not always like what thy neighbour builds. It is a sandbox game, we are supposed to change the environment.

I would not go as far as to say that a considerable amount of people like the inorganic look just because you see those dirt structures all around.

Think of it this way: how many flats are in the game and how many players have ever been in the game - at least a number equal to the number of flats we can say like the "inorganic" look. Of course they can be more as other people will settle over. But at the same time the rest could be mostly against those dirt structures and simply tolerated them or settled elsewhere (where they didn't leave a dirt structure behind). I don't know what's the proportion of people that like or dislike dirt structures, I just wanted to point out that because there are flats it doesn't mean the majority or even a considerable amount of people like them. A lot of people complained both on Epic and on Freedom about this issue.

 

Yeah people can do whatever in a Sandbox. But why can't the tall building people build skyscrapers with 100 levels for example? There need to be some limits regarding the environment and I think this is one of them. At least a skyscraper would decay eventually when the player leaves, but the dirtie structures remain where there were once deeds, cluttering the landscape especially for new players but also for older players looking to make new settlements and such.

Not to mention they look very unrealistic. Maybe if they had to be reinforced with stone or something...🤔

[Platyna 521]

You can have up to 16-story buildings here, First story is 33 dirt, each one above the ground level is 30, it is easy to calculate that this exceeds greatly the digging slope limitations - by almost 40%. People will always complain, and a certain groups of people complain more than the other. Those complaining about terraforming in a sandbox game have the multiple options: Xanadu, Harmony, Epic, WU, private islands (dirt is nowadays dirt cheap) and other games that does not allow such huge modifications of environment - this is what makes Wurm unique. And yes, we (as there are more than me, which is visible if you enter our alliance lands) like to dig because it lasts. Terraces, especially with trees on them or well composed buildings, bridges and ramps are beautiful, trees all scattered and vast lands covered just by steppes, vines and decaying structures are not. I know many people will disagree with me and it is nothing bad, the difference is I never seen a terraformer placing requests such as: remove wild steppes and bushes growing in random patterns. 

 

To make a long story short: big -1. 

Edited July 24, 2020 by Platyna

[Idlamn 297]

On 7/24/2020 at 1:05 PM, Platyna said:

You can have up to 16-story buildings here, First story is 33 dirt, each one above the ground level is 30, it is easy to calculate that this exceeds greatly the digging slope limitations - by almost 40%. People will always complain, and a certain groups of people complain more than the other.

Dirt wall limitation is way higher then 16*33. You can put another slope in the continuation of the first. And I saw this.

People complain for good reason about this - it clutters the landscape with abandoned dirt art, and most of this terraforming stuff looks very odd.

[Ame 99]

There was group that made abandoned places back to look wilderness. You can be one like that Idlamn. Go around and make abandoned places back to forests and natural lands. Players who quit wurm because they see dirt wall propably arent right players for wurm since they quit because of it. Got to think each deed as a painting. Someone created it in the way how the artist wanted it and viewer just got to appreciate that persons work.

[Antony 280]

You'd want to get rid of flatten then too because before we had level people just flat raised, which is basically the same thing.

[Platyna 521]

6 hours ago, Ame said:

There was group that made abandoned places back to look wilderness. You can be one like that Idlamn. Go around and make abandoned places back to forests and natural lands. Players who quit wurm because they see dirt wall propably arent right players for wurm since they quit because of it. Got to think each deed as a painting. Someone created it in the way how the artist wanted it and viewer just got to appreciate that persons work.

 

That's the best comment I ever read on these forums so far. 🙂 And I fully agree (and I am the pesky terraformer working hard on these 90 degree slopes, now I have to get rid of the 200+ slope rock "fence" dug  by server gods into my terrace wall [imagine attached]). 

 

Spoiler

 

Edited July 26, 2020 by Platyna

[Platyna 521]

6 hours ago, Idlamn said:

Dirt wall limitation is way higher then 16*33. You can put another slope in the continuation of the first. And I saw this.

People complain for good reason about this - it clutters the landscape with abandoned dirt art, and most of this terraforming stuff looks very odd.

 

Well if a deed disbands you are free to terraform it back to a neat "organic" slope.

[TheTrickster 2,284]

4 hours ago, Platyna said:

 

Well if a deed disbands you are free to terraform it back to a neat "organic" slope.

 

Not necessarily.  

 

 

[TheTrickster 2,284]

A "smooth" action should be available, that works on a corner by bringing opposing edges as close to the same slope as possible.  This way, like there is a semi-auto way of moving dirt to achieve zero slope there would also be a semi-auto way to achieve a natural-looking slope.

[Platyna 521]

9 hours ago, TheTrickster said:

A "smooth" action should be available, that works on a corner by bringing opposing edges as close to the same slope as possible.  This way, like there is a semi-auto way of moving dirt to achieve zero slope there would also be a semi-auto way to achieve a natural-looking slope.

 

I can assure you don't need any additional command to bring back more natural look, level and then flattening and dropping dirt here and there is absolutely sufficient. 

[TheTrickster 2,284]

2 hours ago, Platyna said:

 

I can assure you don't need any additional command to bring back more natural look, level and then flattening and dropping dirt here and there is absolutely sufficient. 

 

Then you don't need level or flatten either.  They perform exactly the same kind of function.  Why should it be easier to terraform in one "direction" but not the other?  That doesn't make sense.

[Cayce 235]

It would be bad to remove leveling, as this would mean we get rid of a QoL thing... much better to just add some more QoL to remove dirt walls and huge player made plateaus when they are gone! 

 

Depending on how high a dirt wall is, it can be pretty awful to dig it down, lots of climbing, falling down, not being able to get there with a cart, because the slope is too high... also if there is rock, you can't level something down, because it just tells you you hit rock in a corner and the other corner has to be dug down manually. How easy something is to get it back to a "natural" look really depends a lot on the area. It can be easy and it can be terrible. So I think a smooth option or something like that would be nice.

[McGarnicle 1,463]

 much better to just add some more QoL to remove dirt walls and huge player made plateaus when they are gone! 

 

Its already added...its called level

[Cayce 235]

21 hours ago, McGarnicle said:

 much better to just add some more QoL to remove dirt walls and huge player made plateaus when they are gone! 

 

Its already added...its called level

Just that you can't continue leveling if you hit dirt in one corner, even if the other corners all are still high dirt without rock.

[Hanel 18]

On 7/27/2020 at 4:53 AM, Cayce said:

It would be bad to remove leveling, as this would mean we get rid of a QoL thing... much better to just add some more QoL to remove dirt walls and huge player made plateaus when they are gone! 

 

You can move a whole mountain of dirt down a slope (smoothing) with flatten. Don't need anything else.