mountains dont make the grade

Well it's been awhile since I've been on either SL or the forums (new job) so there were quite a few new surprises for me.

here I'll talk about just one.

the new 5.0 45% slope limit on raising land.

hmm what can I say...

crap crap crap crap crappity crap crap crap. Hell it's about enough to make me say "screw it I *definitly* got better things to do with my time".

This is asinine, moronic, annoying, and generally messed up. Congratzs. y'all have managed to turn very interesting land tools into .. well crappity crap.

As a point... I bought a 36x36 plot of land, added borders 2x2 along each side - bringing the total to 38x38 and I CANT RAISE IT ABOVE WATER!!!!

Have I said this is stupid??? Sorry let me clairify.. THIS IS STUPID!!!

I know people get cheesed off by huge mountains. But ya know what.. Land angles isnt the problem, it's what people put *ON* that land that's the problem. Someone throw up a giant mounitain in front of your view? Tough... I'd rather see that that some flashing, rotating, neon scripted peices of garbage that lags the entire server down. at least the land isnt making me slower.

Hey why not throw on some restrictions on what colors we can use.. or what types of primatives can be created at what heights.. Hell why not just give everyone a generic house, no options to be creative, and let them pick from a short list of premade avatars.

I am really enjoying my Second-SimsOnline experience.

(do I seem pissed? I am beyond pissed. I am disgusted with the whole friggin game. if I wanted more and more limitations put on my gaming experiences - I'd buy my software from the IRS - at least with THEM I can find loopholes).

I only partially agree with ya Jax. I think the 45% limit makes sense above water, but not below.

The 'what people put on it' deal is covered by the height tax, but raising the land at near 90% angles allows most anyone to avoid that tax.

However I don't think it makes sense below the water line. Or maybe it does if they don't want people making islands?


I havn't really played with it, but when I think about it, 45 deg may be a little slow of a slope. that means it takes a meter of land each side to raise it a meter. So a peak 10 meters up will take 20 meters of land (10 on each side). Since you need a square thats 5 * 5 land squares = 25. To make a 10m tall peak at the center. A 20 meter tall peak takes 40 meters per side, or 10 land squares. Again you need a square so 10*10 is 100 land squares, for a measly 20m tall peak, only at the center.

A 60 degree slope would be more reasonable I think, then you would only need half a meter of land each side to raise it 1 m.

Jax what I used to do would be buy the land next to mine to raise or lower it, then sell that piece off once I got it where I wanted to go. But to bring the bottom of the ocean floor up above sea level is 20 meters I think. Which takes (now) a -lot- of land.

yeah I know - and that much cash I dont have

as a side note Ama.

I have a building 200 meters straight up. the whole thing costs me a like 200 a week in taxes at the very most.

so the height thing.. rubbish. It doesnt really affect ya at all.

it's a bit more expensive - yes. but not runiously so.

And if all I wanted was something high up, I would stick with my 200 meter in the air home. but land's what I want - to make a landscape.

I understand in general the reasoning - but think they are attacking a symptom - not the problem. the problem is inconsiderate neighbors. Not how/what you can build.

and inconsiderate neighbors are going to exist no matter what restrictions they put in place. cant raise a mountain? no problem, just put up a flashing/rotating/colorshifting/smoke pouring/music playing monstrosity. What? you cant move because of the lag. well hell not my problem, talk to a Linden, this is legal. but your cliffside house - that's not..

lol I worked myself back into a huff bah

ps.. did I mention this is STUPID!!!???!!!!

at first i liked the angled land idea, while I was testing in alpha, but i knew it had its misgivings.

i think that land taxes should be affected by how high the land is, and then object height taxes should be based on how high it is above the land under it. my cutoff point would be, extra taxes on land after 30meters above water (or whatever the average height of land is nowadays) and then extra heigh taxes on an object once it's 20 meters above the land it's on

this is just my idea, if you want to agree go ahead, i doubt it'll change to be this way unless like everybody agreed. in which case, go ahead and post a petition with my ideas, i won't mind (just credit me lol)

as for the 45 degree angle, yeah, we don't need that underwater. above water, i think we could use a higher angle, maybe 60 or 65 degrees. 45 seems just a little too low to me.

and if it's some other reason why the angle is like this, then go ahead and add an "angular land" tax, i wouldn't mind it (haha did you see that? 5 A words in a row, wee).

Like I said, if you think my ideas are best, create a post using the guidelines i've given and peitition the lindens

Just an idea. Maybe they should get rid of the slope limitation and just charge money for how much you want to change the landscape. I mean shouldn't it cost some money for you to create your own island?

ok I like that idea Rand.

The 'flatten land' tool shouldn't cost anything, and there should be a small amount of raise/lower that can be done for free.

It also shouldn't be too expensive. But I don't even know what units to use for an example.

As for units I think measuring the change in volume would be the best way to go. I agree it shouldn't be too expensive. If volume is used though, a big change in landsape would be relatively very expensive compared to a very small change.

while I appreciate that land was in some cases being raised to "ugly" I also am disliking the 45 angle. I own a big chunk of land on an existing mountian. When I tried to make some minor changes I was deeply dismayed when the whole (mountian) wall fell and I had to rebuild it. It looks a LOT less natural now and Im unable to add juts & terraces for plants and trees. Somehow we need a compromise so we can still dig & build as if it were real land.

If figured it this way...if I get walled up by other players (intentionally or not), or even just if a nice part of my view gets blocked, I'll go higher. Then they'll go higher. Eventually we all max, then we'll have issue with the height restriction. If everything is a mountain, there are no more mountains.

Same with the water. If I can buy land and vertically boost it, so can you. And those guys over there too. So we all go vertical and make islands...and the water dissappears. Then, my island is higher than your island. So up we go again.

Over the course of 3 years with 1-2k players or whatever will fit on a server, large portions of the landscape could become an ugly morasse of maxed islands and mountains seperated by deep vertical chasms. I'm not sure anybody would like that.

Last night I was flattening out some terrian and I am fairly certain that I made slopes at greater than 45 degrees. Basicly there was a steep hill and I wanted to flatten one side at the bottom. I did so and at the hill side edge it slopes up at a high angle to meet with the higher terrain. I will check it tonight to make certain.

Seems you can "dig" a hole and create inner steep angles. Building (or altering existing BE CAREFUL) hills & mountains the angle is a strict 45 degrees.

Has this change been put to existing land or is it just for new construction?
I don't like it. It is just a limit on peoples creativity. Charging a fee to change land hight sounds like a good compromise though.

ALL LAND, be careful I really messed up my lot and cant reverse it.

If you buy land, esp near a sim edge (no sim on the other side) and want to alter it, think ahead. When I did this in the .5 beta the land at the sim edge was high, I tried to raise it a little and it plumeted! Reason seems to be because it wasnt at a 45 degrees to begin with so the system made up for it and really messed up my plans. On the other sim I knew it was temporary so it wasnt that bid of a deal but on the "live" sims I'd have been very bummed. I didnt really think it through when I did play with my live lot and now Im sorry I touched it. I had to try to repair my mistakes with ivy covered prims & I'm still not all that pleased with it.

So I guess I can't make any changes to what I've already made since most of it is almost at 90 degrees.

I think this is fantastic. In fact, I would prefer if you couldn’t raise the land at all. I agree 100% with what Tcoz says, if everyone can build 100 meter mountains, then soon that’s all we will have! No water, just really high land with a few really deep valleys. For the most part, with exception of a few notable exceptions, the existing 4x4, 100m mountains we have now, were made by people who have no concern about their neighbors and have never been back. The ones that stay find out that most people don’t care for their “creations” and do something about it.

Have I said this is fantastic??? Sorry, let me clarify.. THIS IS SUPER FANTASTIC!!!

No more 100meter volcanoes outside my back door!! YIPPEE (sorry Jax, it WAS ugly). I see terra forming as an experiment that failed. The Lindens realized it, and changed it.

My plea to all of you, leave the land alone and build within the boundaries and constraints we have.


-TK

Tracey,
While I do agree with you in theory it doesnt always work out. Im trying to build a rather large structure in Shipley and while I may be the exception (who knows), I was using the land options to keep it more pleasant for the neighbors by hiding nearly all of it within a mountain (that already existed).

Seems the problem now is how to give us the freedom of our imagination without disrupting neighbors & other players. Some sort of compromise would be nice.

I wanted to add trees to my area by creating natural looking juts & terraces but now Im stuck with an ugly all too perfect slope.

I'm with Tracey on this. The power to raise mountains and islands has been used to the verge of abuse in some cases. I think we have to try to do something to encourage moderate and considerate use of these tools. If the 45 degree angle restriction is problematic, then lets try adding a cost to terraforming.

Sorry tracey gotta go 180 degrees with your opinion.

See here's the problem.. building mountains isnt bad. Building mountains and disrupting your neighbors is.

Big difference.

There is no difference between a big mountain and a big tower with flashing lights, scrolling textures, and annoying sounds (anyone remember trying to hunt down that Linden who had that sound playing that was so annoying?)

what it comes down to is community - something that is still in the formation stages in SL. The Lindens even mentioned that in other posts and inworld. That eventually it would be nice to see citizen controlled governments, where we set the standards for our communities, not run to them with every lil problem (As examples, Lindenburg and the Group-Sims).

If the community says "No mountains" or "This is what we are looking at doing, those interested come join us" or "Sorry Mike, but that screaming BoBo the Clown statue doesnt fit with the ancient Chinese setting we are trying to create", then that's all well and good.

But if you go to a sim that has no community, make a nice plot, clean it up, get it exactly right, and then somebody comes along and builds the Spank-o-rama funhouse right next door, you have no right to blame them. Because you never bothered to form a community and regulate what is and isnt there. Same is true for how land is raised/lowered.

What you say? But there is no community? Well gee. The lindens have been mentioning that they would like to see communities for a long while - so not having one isnt an excuse.

I have a nice tomb that I was working on. Till people put up pain in the ass buildings right outside my door. That really pissed me off (sorry Billie, Phay - not personal - just making a point, I'm not pissed any longer). Then I realized, I had no right to be pissed off.

A) I didnt buy the land, they did - so I didnt have a right to say how they used it.
B) I didnt go around to everyone else in Hawthorn and say "hey we need to set up a community and set guidelines on what can and cant be built around here" I was too busy building and doing my own thing.

So who's fault is it? Mine.

Dont like giant mountains? Well then buy up all the surrounding land or set up a community to regulate it.

DONT take decent tools and cripple them because people are too self involved to notice that there is a problem only when the problem is banging on your front door.


As a side note - crippled raise land tools. Say good bye to ever having something like the Governer's mansion, The deadlands near the old west theme sim, the rocky crags of the highlands, the sweeping pensula, the ..... well you get the idea.

45 degrees is a mountain *only* if you live in Oklahoma. HEY Lindens! Your in California right? Get a clue!! look at the mountains around you and then *Dare* tell me they are only 45 degrees of slope. I've climbed them! I know better.

You want realistic? Then just flatten all the land, pave it, put in streets, and let us rent out apartment flats. THATS realistic.

<45 degrees is a mountain *only* if you live in Oklahoma. HEY Lindens! Your in California right? Get a clue!! look at the mountains around you and then *Dare* tell me they are only 45 degrees of slope. I've climbed them! I know better. >

Anyone ever climb Half Dome in Yosemite??...now, there's a mountain....lol.

But I have to agree with Jax...give us our land tools back, perhaps with some *reasonable* restriction on max height or depth....the land modding is really of the major tools that we've had to make interesting builds...and it's a shame to see it limited to such a severe degree. Even if the max slope was increased to 60%, that would be a help...

J

heh, in ND, a 20 degree slope is a mountain. No kidding, if your ever out here, check out turtle mountain state park.

BBC (lives in the flatest flood plain on earth)

West central italian coastline is nothing but rock/mountains seeming to rise straight up from the waterline...simply beautiful if you've ever seen it.

The cliffs of Dover...nuff said

When I bought my small plot I looked at my neighbors yards and tried as close as possible to balance my land with theirs...no sudden cliffs on bob A's n side and bob B's s side, be considerate...simple

If I buy land near no one or on waterline and wanna make 90 degree cliffs....well, why not???

How hard would it be to make the limits neighbor based...if you are the first to buy land within a certain range, do as you please...if anyone buys land after that next to the mountain/plain, well then limits come into play.

Funny I dug down to the water. I didn't build a mountain. Assuming everyone wants to live on a mountain is wrong.

Tracy, Tcoz, thank you.

If you don't like this game, then no one is forcing you to stay.

Uh, whoa where'd that come from?

Yeah, what's that about?