Concerning terrain plots

[ryttyr]

Terrain plots were introduced to increase the number of ways Adventurers and Commoners can help out on the buildserver without increasing the work load for Foremen and Designers too much.

Then why is all terrain plots private so that you have to ask the Foreman or Designer to assign plots to you in order to build? This means that the Foreman or Designer in charge of the plots have to be on the server to assign people plots. This kinda negates both reasons as to why there is terrain plots in the first place, to increase the things people can do to help on the server without increasing the work load of the Designers and Foremen.

I can see why you wouldn't want unrestricted access for everyone to claim plots, you would just end up with Adventures claiming but never finishing their plots or worse... But why not only restrict Adventures from freely claiming plots and let Commoner+ or at least Artist+ claim plots whenever they feel like helping with terrain? That way you'd be fairly safe to assume that the plots will be completed and the Foreman or Designer doesn't even have to come on the server.

Also, speaking of terrain plots. Why not have plots for grassing and adding foliage as well? There's quite vast stretches of smooth green, featureless hills in Belfalas right now so why not make plots for people to fill that emptyness with flowers, grass and bushes following a simple guide/example?

 

[Eriol_Eandur]

Well, terrain smoothing is not that easy to do. I had not the best experiences with terrain plots when I set up the Belfalas terrain plotbuild. Thus I decided to make it private to make sure the people understand what to do when they get a plot. I had absolutely no idea how great it would turn out with @Daddlio leading it.

I now see it like you @ryttyr, it should be more public. I need to make a guide at the forum for that though, will try to find time for that.

Access for Commoners+ or Artist+ is a great idea, but needs some work on the plugin. Put it on my list.

Vegetation plotbuilds could be a thing too, but they require a decision about a vegetation style first.

 

[Daddlio]

I think if we want terrainplots to be public (which in itself is a good idea!) we need a really indepth guide for it.
The reason why i dont give plot out like nothing is just because it still costs me a lot of time to introduce adventurers (even some artists) to the topic of smoothing.
Then after they didnt finish satisfactory/not at all it costs me even more time to finish the plots before accepting them.

Just like Eriol stated, its not easy at all. Even if u might think so at first.

So thats the one point against public plots. We will get a lot of messed up plots cause we cant supervise the first few minutes which pretty much is essential for the plot to turn out good.
Imho even a indepth smoothing-guide cant guarantee good results, cause u know how lazy people are... And if they wanna build they dont wanna read a long guide on something "trivial" as terrain.

Maybe a mix-solution is best, like whenever there is easy terrain we set up many small plots and make them public, but for harder terrain we keep bigger plots and assign them.
Or maybe there is a way to invite certain people to a plotbuild, so they freely can take any plot they like.
That way we could be supervising the first time someone smooths terrain, but after that add them to the list of players the plots are "public" to.


On vegetation: I thought that would happen in jobs after bassic terrain (smoothing, rivers, roads) is done. And yes, ofc they have to decide on a style first