[Idea] Interactive Terrain

[ShininShado]

Since agriculture was a main part of Feudal Japan, and one of the contributing factors to why there was so much warfare was the fact of limited farm land, I think it would be a good idea to have interactive terrain. For example, you could dig trenches for defense, irrigation, or storage. Most of the Feudal Lords that owned castles had moats, and that would be a way to impliment that in game. Have NPCs that could dig or move dirt from one location to another. Have been wondering how terracing would be handled since that was a part of agriculture during the time period, and this would solve that. From a programming standpoint, it'd be very difficult to impliment, but it'd be fun and there isn't one game out there with this feature.

[Skurai]

Yeah. I like that idea a lot. But like you said...it would be very hard to program. >.< Never the less. A good idea. ^_^

[Camjpn]

that would be very good, i love the idea of building up your defenses incase of a war, or maybe u could use it for economical purposes like a make a canal to the river of do some irrigation. but like you all said it would be really hard to program

[connick]

I've got a solution, but it depends largely on the manner in which the Devs make their maps. If they are constructing the landscape one vertex at a time then the possibility of mutable terrain is pretty much out the window. Otherwise, here's what I've got in mind:

Certain areas cannot be raised/lowered (i.e. bedrock, mountains, etc.) but on soft soil you can. Alterable terrain can be sectioned into square (or better yet, hexagonal) grids. Each grid space has an elevation value that can be altered in small increments (e.g. one wheelbarrow full). All that is needed is a relatively small 'tweening' procedure that can match up the edges of spaces. That is to say, if you have grid space A at +10 elevation and space B at -10 elevation the software will make a graded slope between the two. This eliminates the problem of having hexagonal plateaus. If you wanted to go a little further, you could make it so water would collect in low areas. The only problem with this idea might be updating server and client data. If the 'tweening' process is built into the client, all that is necessary is to send updated elevation values which would be quite small (two bytes per gridspace gives 100 levels of elevation which is more than necessary).

[ShininShado]

Really good call, the more I thought about it, the more I think having only certain areas accessable for this would be the way to go. Then it might actually fly. Your idea Connick seems feasable.

[Kuraku Hideaki]

Thats it! Time for me too look into some basic C++ technological terms and procedures so i can finally figure out what Connick says o_O never the less its a good idea!

[Galvorn]

While I really like this idea, I just dont think it wont fly. Not becuase it can't be done from a programming stand point. But because it will only take one jerk to write something in the ground the will be inappropriate.

This same thing happened early on in the shadowbane beta. Grass would wear away wherever lots of people walked all the time. Thus creating paths to common places, like good hunting spots or noobie areas. Anyways someone wrote something in the grass that was inappropriate by walking it each day repeatedly. So they yanked the code. I thought it was a great idea. Yet I can see the same thing happening here. Unless it's planned for ahead of time. Though nothing full proof comes to mind.

[ShininShado]

Hmmm, that's a valid point, but I was thinking more along the lines of just being able to dig trenches and ditches. Maybe make some irrigation type stuff, and move the dirt along to another spot. Wearing down of grass might be neat but wasn't along the lines I was thinking.

[Galvorn]

The grass thing was just an example. :D Just imagine the ditches as little blocks, then imagine some immature jerk making bad words from those blocks. Most likely right outside a popular town, or in thier plot of property right inside of town. Something that is easier to do with the english language.

[ShininShado]

Hmmm, that'd be odd, but possible I guess. I was just thinking of a how working with terraces was going to work, and couldn't figure many feasable methods of working that into the game outside of this.

[Lost Hope]

i'd love to see this come about.. I was really hoping for some way to landscape my land, to make it more defensible, but I was thinking more along the lines of a 3d map editing tool that only can edit the form of player property. Maybe that would be too difficult for a normal player to use, though.. so this is probably the better idea :D

[ShininShado]

:wall: Yes, good call there. Alot of possibilities here.

[connick]

a 3d map editing tool that only can edit the form of player property
It would likely be beyond the skills of your average gamers, but the glaring fault with this idea is completely unique models. Firstly, you would have players building outlandish 20th century buildings and whatnot. Even if you could somehow circumvent unacceptable construction you would still be left with the problem of loading the data for each building. 3D models take up hard disk space as well as bandwidth when being transferred. You'd spend half of your time just downloading individual buildings when you arrived in a well populated town. I'm standing by my idea of modular construction where everyone can use prefabricated pieces to build their own unique domain. Free reign on structure design is out of the question.

[ShininShado]

Errrm, I think by property he meant the actual real estate or land, not the structures. Since the landscape will be less detailed, I think it'd work a little better. :reporter: