Lets Discuss LAND TOOLS

There have been numerous threads on this issue from texturing to buying but what Im most interested in is the actual land tools. Raise land, lower land, flatten.. those.

Once upon a time we used to be able to adjust land at our whim. Then there was an outcry from residents that the random giant mountians and endless square plateaus ruined the look and feel of the landscape.

I searched for the original thread but Im apparently not coming up with the right keywords. If anyone knows where it is, please post it here.

Then "we" got what "we" asked for and there was another outcry
read thread here and this outcry keeps coming up. The 45 degree limits gave what some asked for yet caused a whole new set of problems.

So now what? Lets hash it out.

Land tools... love them? Hate them?
Does freedom ruin the landscape? Do restraints ruin creativity? Sound off here.

i hate the land tools. after the 45 degree limit killed something i was doing on a pre-existing cliff, i have not touched them. the flatten tool didn't even work for me either. i just hate them.

of course i would love to be able to change my land a bit. not much, just a little if possible.

what i think would work is if we were charged for how much we change the landscape. like if we were charged for the volume of the change we make. if i build a big tall hill it would cost a lot but if i'm just flattening land it wouldn't.

my 2 cents

The land tools are hands down the *worst* feature of SL. If they want to impose limits that's fine, but using "raise land" should never cause your land to sink below sea level. It seems that with the land tools the way they are now you're far more likely to turn your land into a hideous sink-hole than you are to make something pretty for the neighbors. If that behavior of the land tools is the result of limits that were intended to create more cohesive and neighbor-friendly landscapes I'd say it backfired big time.

My neighbors and I are going to have to use prims to create artificial land simply so we can walk between our houses without falling down a giant hole. There's no way to fix it with the land tools now. Any attempt to do so only makes it worse.

Much as I enjoy the ability to adjust the land to my liking, it's apparent to me that there should be some costs and/or constraints placed on land manipulation.

I've been experimenting with placing a culvert at the edge of my property bordering a neighbor's. It quickly becomes clear that the land tools' impacts are very powerful, perhaps too much so for no-cost effects. They can very quickly alter an area's appearance drastically. Much as I might enjoy seeing a house freely hanging over a newly-created cliff, it just looks wrong. Especially if someone does it to you...

I'd recommend a sort of zoning system where constraints are placed on an area, restricting the adding or removing of land material. I'd also suggest a multi-layered approach to land along the lines of the below:

COVER: Lawn, grass, turf, asphalt, mulch, gravel... freely changeable by the land owner, essentially by modifying the texture.
FILL: Dirt, stones, sand, clay... perhaps affecting the types and weights of structures build above. Alterable by the owner within certain limits and costs.
BEDROCK: Basic foundation for an area, setting the overall terrain "effect" for an area e.g. mountains, valleys, etc. Unalterable except by Linden waiver for special projects only.
CORE: The bottom of the simulation. No edits possible.

My 2.1 cents. /soapbox

=SV

and now a neighbor just flattened their land and messed mine up. *sigh*

did i mention that i hate the land tools?

I am not sure if this is even possible, but, I think there needs to be a way for SL to tell what the surrounding land is like.

The main problem with the land tools, IMO, is that when you change your land, it makes the landscape look choppy as a whole, because, the surrounding land is at a totally different height.

The 45 degree limit is stupid, because, it prevents people from doing what they want while at the same time it still allows for the the land to have sudden changes.

The land needs to have gradual incline, but, without limiting what people can do.

I also agree with having costs to changing the land. The problem is, if you revert it, will you get it back? How would it know what to revert it to? o.O

I think that the slope angle should be a number that the user can change, up to 85 degrees, and down to 0 degrees. I believe this would give the user much more flexibility in how their land would look, without causing huge cliff pillars and mountains.

Here's another idea. You know how objects that decay to public, and that if you go to edit them, you can see the name of the owner who had the item before it went public? What if we could get "last owner of this land" implimented, that way, if someone came along and created some sort of huge cliff, even with the 85 degree limit intact (which I'm sure is quite possible) they would either have to keep the land (showing others who did the dirty deed, and could negatively rate them) or sell the land (which, with this new feature, would still show who did the dirty deed).

What do you guys think?

I like this, but, I think it should show EVERY person that owned the land...same with objects.

Dave-

There's a small flaw in your logic:

I think tools would need to be seriously cleaned up before you could implement something like that.

Why? Well, an example: The raise land tool just doesn't work right or isn't documented well enough. I have had a couple occasions where I've tried raising land to get a small part of a plateau to be even with it's bretheren and watched as it collapses down into oblivion. I did this my first week out, then again, after almost 2 months last week in Stillman (yes, I'm the one who put the serious cleave in the mountain, by accident and, after a while when it became obviously I wasn't going to be able to correct it and was starting to radically expose someone's area that had been sheltered by it, I quit before I did even more damage.)

Like object building, I think there needs to be some serious controls put in.

1. An undo function. Yes, it will probably be fore only your last land mod, but, when you seriously alter landscape accidently, you should be able to restart or clean up the accident.

2. As with the avatar clothing, I'd like to see a preview window for what I'm about to implement before I click "Ok." As I recall Sim City 2K had this feature, but, since it's been more than 5 years since I played the game, I could be wrong about that.

3. In the "Land modify" control box I suggested in #2, I'd also like to see coordinates, much as I do with objects. If I can select coordinates in a box, pinpoint one section and suggest "flatten to this hieght." Or just know it's height so I can try and flatten everything to those coordinates or, at least do some precision movement of the areas I'm trying to modify. This hsould give the added benefit of possibly, if you are really talented and patient, (and they implement much more minute land control) of being able to create something like Mt Rushmore, without having to add to the object count within the sim.

4. I know its been suggested several times, but I'll add it to my list: Land texturing. Once again, even if a custom texture itself counts as an object, by adding land texturing in, you'll cut down on object count in the Sim. An example: If, by better land controls, the new medieval theme group, can build the majority of their Kingdom walls using the land, and can add mossy rocks (or shining stones, or gold etc) as the texture for it, even if you've just got the basic shape of the castle and only have to add two posts to attach a gate to, on a one acre space, you've dropped from 1616 linked objects (and thats just for a continuous linked 1 prim per 10 meter wall along a 1 acre square area) to 20 (figure 1 for custom texture 2 for posts and 17 for the gate (that's assuming a fancy, linked chain gate with moving parts. You could easily do it in 3.)

5. And this is hard one because of the physics involved in SL: Implement changes to your land only. As it was mentioned earlier, right now, if you make changes to your land, you could be messing someone else up worse. The problem is, unlike people who construct buildings that may block the view from someone's land without consulting with their neighbors, theres a lot of people who may not fully comprehend the minute changes they are making on their land may effect their direct neighbors.

6. "link/unlink land." I'd like to be able to add (and subtract) newly purchased parcels of land to my existing ones. An example (and this could be ignorance on my part): I see an L shaped piece of land I want to buy. Right now, I have to buy it in two sections. That's fine. But I'd like to be able to link the land together, so, if I decide sell it I don't have to keep selecting the various parcels and selling them off peice by piece. The converse of this would be: I buy a large chunk of land in a new sim. My next door neighbor really wants a 8x4 square of it to complete their dream building. However, since I bought the chunk as a 24x12 parcel, right now (and once again, my ignorance may be showing) I have to release all my land a rebuy parts of it to give them access to that chunk.

This would also coulld be considered a security measure as there may come a time when some unscrupolous person convinces someone to "give up" a small portion of their land and, when they release the entire parcel, they grab it all up and refuse to give it back. Eventually LL will have to step up, probably ban the land thief, and release the land back to the person at a set time so someone else doesnt grab the parcel. However, by that time, the original agressor wqill have deleted the persons work etc.

Anyway, those are some of my thoughts and suggestions.

I agree with a lot of the idea mentioned here. I think there should be a way to undo land edits, a wayt o preview them, a way to texture land (since my land is very dead looking after os many edits), showing coordinates, and I love the idea of being able to link land.

I don't however agree (or maybe understand) with paying for land edits ... well at least not with the tools the way they are. If I had to pay for all of the edits I had to do just to make the land in front of my house flat ... I'd be broke!

I agree the tools need work ... but I am getting the hang of them ... after all the edits I had to do to get my front yard as flat as it is

A solution to the undo and cost (if we want cost), would be to have SL store the current state of your land when you enter land edit mode. Then when you change back to a different tool, or move the character, you get a simple dialog box that asks "Do you want to keep the land changes you made?". If you say no, it goes back to the way it was before you selected the land edit tool. Here you could also calculate the cost of the land changes, by comparing the before and after land.

Danny

I agree with everyone here.
The land tools are the single most useless aspect of SL. They simply do not work right.
And, as mentioned, once you start changing the land, it gets totally screwed up, and there seems to be no way to get it back to the way it was before you started.
Total nightmare.
I stopped trying to modify land altogether.

Needed:
Tools should do what their name implies.
An "undo" option.

Sincerely,
Ethereal

The land tools used to be a terrific ingame asset. Maybe use of these tools as they were originally could be something that was earned or even given to a select few who hired out as "landscapers".

As they are now, the tools are all but useless. I hardly ever use them myself for fear they will do more harm than good. I also agree that "undo" must be incorporated.