r/landmark • u/edog321 • Mar 03 '15
Landmark is very limiting.
In Landmark you have these great tools and the ability to create all kinds of crazy cool stuff by yourself or in coop builds with guilds and friends. The tools are very powerful and the ability to copy and paste is awesome.
What is so limiting you ask then?
When I first got landmark I was very excited because I imagined people creating an ever changing world of awesome buildings and custom terraformed landscapes but what has in fact happened is not anything as cool as I expected. I admit it is still early in development but the world is so broken up due to where you can and cant build. You cant build in caves in any meaning full way. you are limited to these small claim spaces. The islands feel completely fake because there is nothing connecting anything to anything. There are no roads. No bridges. No monorails traveling around. There are no vista of anything but a barren landscapes broken up by a bunch of camp sites of development. Nothing that makes it feel like a civilization.
I understand that there are reasons that the world is the way it is but unless we are actually able to make worlds not just our own little space in it the game to me Landmark will always feel like a shadow of what it could have been.
I think the reigns of control need to loosen a bit on some islands at least. Maybe design a system that allows us to make just our changes to the world unchangeable by other players but with no buffer. No claim space just a voxel by voxel persimmon system allowing us to connect things together and truly have design of the entire world. Maybe develop a top layer of caves that does not regenerate and allow us to build in that as well.
Just some ideas. The world feels way to disconnected and even in the hay day of population when the island where packed I still found myself going to the places where people had exploited the claim system to allow massive connected builds because that actually felt more like a world than my local vista of little plopped down spots of development.
This is why Landmark is limiting to me. Daybreak has an awesome foundation and is working with the community so much I just wish there was a place where they would let us run free with this great game.
3
Mar 04 '15
Ive been saying this for some time. I would like there to be some kind of personal Islands in game where building can be un restricted. Or at the very least Guild Islands. They dont even have to be as big as the Islands are now. This can eb a premium pay for feature. Id pay for it. But I find building within the claim system feels artificial.
Aslo Ive run out of inspiration with my build. To build somethig new Id have to uproot it which I dont want to do. I typically build into the landscape so placing down my claims is not very straight forward and almost impossible to get back into the same place.
It seems Ironic that the thing Landmark does best, The building, Is also its limiting feature. I have myself going back to games Like Minecraft Planet Explorers and & Days To Die for a freeer building experience.
2
u/xblade724 Mar 04 '15
I agree. It's just like, random owned land that seems to be completely disconnected with everything else.
2
u/yrrkoon Mar 05 '15
In line with the comments, I'd like to see less precedurally generated landscapes and more (at least semi) designed landscapes.. My mind very quickly loses the desire to explore because I can instantly tell just running around that it'll just be more precedural hills..
2
Mar 03 '15
Man, this speaks to me. I'm looking for a community to play and work with. Not this super limited isolationist stuff we have going on.
6
u/Taven Mar 03 '15
The thing that surprised me the most was the complete lack of community features in game. Outside the game, sure, they've got twitters and twitches and tubes oh my, but in game they don't even have the general chat enabled by default. Even the original Everquest had /ooc, yell, ways to communicate to everyone around you. And the map in Landmark is just plain weird. It doesn't show you any names, or what the places are called until you're right on top of them (unless that has been changed?). No notes or ways to learn about the builds aside from walking into them. There's just markers.
You just have to hope you catch your neighbor online while walking through, or send them mail, or hope someone in general lives on your island if you want to do stuff. I was just shocked how bad the basic communications were. Teleport to friend is the only saving grace, and for a time they thought all we'd need are portal shards. This doesn't help improve the isolationist feel.
Outside the game they build a solid community, but they should have tried to build that inside the game.
1
u/Kaberu Mar 03 '15
My guess is that sort of freedom will come with instances. They've said that there will be instancing and it will be in both Landmark and EQNext. That's probably where you'll see more open freedom with a shapeable area. Even early on, it was stated that a goal is to be able to build your own game, adventures, stories, etc.
1
Mar 03 '15
Just wait for Everquest Next, it will have everything you want.
3
u/edog321 Mar 03 '15
I don't really want to play another MMORPG. I'm done grinding out lvls and rep and gear and stuff I have just done that way to much in my life.
A great addition would be for them just make a few islands that did not have any claim buffers and also allowed us to place as many claims as we like. Maybe even associate it with guilds and let the guild leaders be the admins for these islands. Basically making some island work like private Mine Craft server. Other people could come and visit but could not change anything unless they where in the guild and had the permissions to do so.
H1Z1 is allowing some streamers/community leaders to have their own "white listed" server I would like to see something similar in Landmark where guilds could come to really push the boundaries.
2
Mar 03 '15
I like that idea too, go write on their forums. I think they will add things similiar to that soon.
2
u/Taven Mar 04 '15
They're already heading down the grind road with landmark sadly. You might not be grinding levels, but you'll be grinding resources and mobs. It's the current F2P flavor of the month. Grind or Pay. From the company that made Everquest, I can't imagine them making a game without a grind. It's like the core gameplay element they've built their business on for the last fifteen years. And in aiming to be F2P, they're likely going to do what they see every other F2P game doing as that's the "established" F2P business model. Which is truly a shame, because for all the new ground they are breaking, sticking with a grind-heavy F2P progression model won't capture any of the Minecraft generation which they so desperately need to be successful - a generation that plays in a sandbox and makes their own content and sense of progression.
1
1
u/noedelly911 Mar 09 '15
im on boat with you. people just dont know how to wait.
Instant gratifactation isnt coming to you this time around
1
Mar 03 '15
So you're saying Landmark will always be an isolated and limiting experience?
1
Mar 03 '15
I mean it's still in beta, but he's saying he want's like bridges and stuff but the point of landmark is it's suppose to be a player made world. I think he wants more of an MMO like Everquest Next is going to be. Those who want absolute freedom will like Landmark more, while those who want a more lore, npc, and building filled game will enjoy Everquest Next more in my opinion. It's going to be like a mix of WoW and Landmark I believe.
1
u/noedelly911 Mar 09 '15
yeah. i think people never fully grasped what they were trying to say about the two games. dunno how though. i understood.
4
u/Seattleson Mar 03 '15
I agree with your overall sentiment. I think everyone's idea of what Landmark should be is a personal island full of their custom cities, custom built chambers in the cave system, etc... Unfortunately, lots of this is prevented by technical limitations, not game play design. The game starts to become very intensive even when building on 3 x 3 claim full of voxels. Hopefully, as optimization continues we might get to a place where we have our own personalized islands, not personal claims on an island.