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Do you want to terrain or not?

NicTheFifth

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Think, you are joining mcme and learn of this wonderfull thing called Themed Builds (TB's), so you type the command and get teleported to an empty plot where you have to build annuminas. Do you waste half the week on building terrain, or do you say 'lets just build'?

That is probably something all artists have encountered and dozens of people encounter each week, but how can we change this? Should we have terrain added to the TB's or not?

I'll be perfectly honest, I think that this is something that should be reïntroduced into some of the TB's, as terrain, albeit basic, can add a lot to a build and can even help test a builder into seeying how he/she copes with terrain. This of course does not mean that everyone has to use the terrain.

To elaborate, terrain is something that has been left out of the TB's for a while now, yet the people that want to make a good TB, needs to have terrain. This brings the biggest issue with having no terrain, it takes more than half the time to only make the good terrain and what for? Do artists make terrain, no, do any of the builder ranks make terrain by hand, no.

That brings me to the next point, how do prospective artists learn to deal with terrain if they don't have terrain? This I think is something that all builders should be able to cope with, yet somehow people still make weird decisions concerning terrain. A few of these derps are, having a house on top of grass, not blending a building into the terrain or, the worst of all, flattening the terrain to build on it and afterwards leaving it flat around the build. Builders also can learn how to utilize terrain if there is terrain already present, which I think is positive.

Lastly I would like to discusses the con, since this is not just positive. One of these is for the lead builder that starts the themed builds, as the terrain does have to be made, and can't appear from nowhere. Although I cannot say for certain that this is a big issue, I have heard it is not pleasant to do.

Now you decide and discuss, should they be returned or not? Should people train terrain or drain terrain?
 
i think 9/10 times, we need to have terrain. maybe every few weeks we have a TB where you have to do your own terrain, but not every single build
 
I think the original idea was that to prove artist capabilities, you need to show every aspect of building, including the terrain. The thing is however, that artists hardly ever do terrain by hand on the main map. I agree that a lot of time is wasted doing terrain by hand, so I think it'd be better to include terrain in plots.
@QuantaCube I would be up to do some basic terrain for theme-builds with my WE badge, if you would be okay with that. As example of what I would do you can look at my Beorn's Hall terrain.
 
I definitely agree that with some builds, getting a pre-made piece of terrain is almost necessary.

Obviously, it saves time (always remember: real life, jobs, etc.; not everyone here is in their teens, with tons of free time ). If you really need to test a builder's terraforming skills, do just that, but don't make people spend the whole week just getting the full plot of terrain right by hand, when large-scale terraforming is in practice done with other tools, like WE.

Also, terrain both guides you and limits you in a good way. It makes you work within some bounds, and you can incorporate some random features into your build, so they suddenly make sense together, and don't look as artificial as they would if you designed both of them at the same time. When you can (and have to) build the whole terrain yourself, you're tempted to "cheat" and make a piece of terrain that just happens to suit perfectly to your needs, so you don't need to be clever with the buildings. That is okay for smaller-scale terraforming like adding a rock pillar, but a full-plot valley that curves exactly the way you need... that doesn't provide any external inspiration, and takes away most of the time, while not really helping you improve the important skills...

It doesn't have to be custom-made for the theme, it can be just a copy-pasted cube of an appropriate area of the main world -- for instance, for the current Dale, a cube of the Misty or Blue Mountains with a river would be great. (It doesn't need to go exactly according to the lore every time, such as having a precise bend in the river.)
 
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Making the terrain is not the hard part, the hard part is adding the terrain to the plots so that it will be generated with every plot. I still have very little idea as to how this system actually works, which is why I didn't put terrain in this week's themed build.
 
Personally. I find it hard to build in superflat terrain. It could be so nice if we had terrain on more TB's. What about having TB's about just terrain?
This week, I though "Dale" was, a "dale" and I got really excited. Because now I could show off my good eye for terrain and my realism when it comes to such. As well as practicing such skills (which really are usefull!) I begun plotting out some mountains, a river, a little island in the middle for a tree and a bridge across. I had it all in my head (and in some woolblocks on the gound), then a guy told me to check the TB post for this week and...yeah... That sucked.
It could be nice for some variation, not only to have builds, houses, cities. But also just things as open and free as "Waterfall". "Hill." or perhaps, "dale" (which I really would like to see in the future.)

I know I, as Commoner, could just do my terrain in Freebuild. But the Adventures can't and Im sure Im not the only one who has a lot of pictures and ideas when it comes to building terrain. It would be a good challenge for most too. Artists and alike.
 
Here's the link to the Theme Build Ideas suggestions thread: Themed Build Ideas
Feel free to suggest whatever you think would make a good theme build there and it will have a good chance of being picked as an option for a theme build poll in the future.
 

Thx Ryttyr, I will go ahead and spam it, don't worry.
What my point was though, was not that it's not a possiblity right now. It is, as you said yourself due to it being a pick be chance, but more to "include" it in the concept of TB. Right now when ppl think of TB, they think builds, landmarks of sorts because, in all of my time at MCME, there has never been a Terrain TB. Ppl dont even know it's an option I think.
 
I personly believe that there should be terrain TB's. Most of the inspiring artists and artists that do TB's have to make terrain by hand. Usually this leads to the build looking very unrealistic with derped terrain that is not blended and smooth. Plus, when you have a large TB to do, just with the buildings, the terrain that u have to do wastes much of the time that u have for the TB. Finally, if the no terrain TB's are going to stay, i would recommend that how to make terrain is added onto the up coming builder workshops.
 
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I once suggested a FFA Forest theme build and it was overwhelmingly popular in the polls and got quite a few nice results on the server as well so I think people would be interested in terrain plot builds. From recently having conducted a test on the theme build polls to see how popular FFAs really are I've come to the conclusion that the the more an option deviates from a 'regular theme build' the greater is it's chances of being picked. Though perhaps since my little test of having more FFA options in the polls just concluded people may or may not tend to somethings more familiar for a while, I don't know.
 
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