Topic: Why are there worlds in the editor and WL?
Astuur
Topic Opener
Joined: 2009-02-28, 10:08
Posts: 733  One Elder of Players Location: Frankfurt / Germany |
Posted at: 2010-04-20, 10:23
This is a very basic question, but I'm too curious not to ask. Why are there "worlds" in WL? Would it not be more gratifying to have the choice of all terrain types, all bobs etc. in one world? Is it just, because Settlers did it that way, or are there some technical limits behind this decision? Or do you want keep map makes from placing polar bears in the desert? Being no programmer, I apologize for all my suggestions that imply undue workload and for other misjudgements due to lack of expertise or relevant skills. 
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ixprefect
Joined: 2009-02-27, 14:28
Posts: 367  Tribe Member |
Posted at: 2010-04-20, 12:10
I'm pretty sure that it was done this way originally to be able to load maps from S2 in a clean way. If I recall correctly we also have some limits on the number of terrain types, but it should be possible to raise these quite easily.
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SirVer
Joined: 2009-02-19, 15:18
Posts: 1440 One Elder of Players Location: Germany - Munich |
Posted at: 2010-04-20, 15:06
There is currently a limit of 16 terrain types so that 4 bits were enough to fully address them. This was originally to make sure that fields do not need so many bytes in memory - you know, back in the days were 256 MB of Ram was spacious. Memory is still the limiting factor actually, but I think we could easily up this value to more. Note that all maps would need conversion as well or map loading would need evil backwards compatibility hacks.
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Astuur
Topic Opener
Joined: 2009-02-28, 10:08
Posts: 733 One Elder of Players Location: Frankfurt / Germany |
Posted at: 2010-04-20, 19:35
Okay - I see. Thanks for explaining. It would make the maps look more attractive, I think. Well, you decide. Actually I stumbled across this question when I looked at the tree-related conf files and how each species spreads. And I thought: Hmm, if those tree have their favorite terrain type - why do not wheat, wine, blackroot and all the other crops behave similarly? So that a player could harvest more, if he has built his farms on very fertile terrain type. But then of course the worlds do get in the way. Just wanted to give you my line of thoughts ... Being no programmer, I apologize for all my suggestions that imply undue workload and for other misjudgements due to lack of expertise or relevant skills.
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ixprefect
Joined: 2009-02-27, 14:28
Posts: 367 Tribe Member |
Posted at: 2010-04-20, 19:40
Well, your line of thoughts makes a lot of sense As SirVer said, getting rid of worlds would be rather tricky though... Addendum: If we wanted to ultimately get rid of worlds, I suppose a logical plan would be to first make it possible to load terrain and bobs from all worlds. That way is probably the easiest to keep compatibility. Edited: 2010-04-20, 19:43
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Astuur
Topic Opener
Joined: 2009-02-28, 10:08
Posts: 733 One Elder of Players Location: Frankfurt / Germany |
Posted at: 2010-05-30, 18:57
If ever a plan emerges to change something about the number of terrain types, worlds etc. in WL Water shipabel and Water unshipable: The latter would forbid both big ships and rowing boats) (this may help with the design of seafare - see here a possible conversion program for existing maps could then convert water to "water unshipable" and allow those maps to keep on working as designed. Cliffs: as an alternative coastline. This would supply an easy and credible way for mapmakers to disallow access to certain regions of the land by vessels. Coral reefs: Could restrict access to islands, provide a safe lagoon (fishing from rowing boats?) and could generally be used as guidelines and natural borders Rivers and streams: currently the best you can do is a fjord-like waterway, with no indication of current and not very convincing graphically. Perhaps it would even be possible to let the water find its way automatically according to terrain height and then edit the banks. High, steep and spiky mountains. Should be an alternative for snow and lava, but would add a totally new look to maps. For the cliffs, mountains, and maybe river banks it might be necessary to restrict the smoothing of heights and to allow for more abrupt changes in the height grid. I don't know if this would be possible. Being no programmer, I apologize for all my suggestions that imply undue workload and for other misjudgements due to lack of expertise or relevant skills.
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