EQN Landmark: Weekend in Review Part 2 of 2

Crafted props aren't solid objects

Crafted Props

Buildings completed, it was time to start decorating the interiors. Decorative items, including furniture and lighting, are called props in Landmark. Completing this part of my claim will take some time. I haven’t unlocked the highest crafting stations myself. Sorry, I don’t want to grind that much in Alpha. I am relying on the efforts of others to see the higher tier items that are available on the various crafting stations. One thing to know before you get started is that the prop recipes are metal hungry demons. Yeppers, they need lots of metals, so off to grinding I shall go.

I spent a couple of sessions harvesting like a madwoman in T1 and T2 zones. When I got tired of digging, I switched to chopping wood. When I got bored of that I went back to digging. The sun rose, the sun set, I kept running around collecting. I visited houses along the way to see what other players were building. There’s some really cool stuff out there. Unfortunately, the slow travel is a bit of a deterrent for me to see structures way off in the distance, when what I really need is right here underground. I think a fast ticket back to the portal would make me more inclined to take the long run out to see other claims, knowing I can get a quick ride back to ground zero.

The Basics

Being Alpha, there aren’t many prop recipes available at the moment. I made use of the standard items – tables, chairs, doors, lighting, etc. for my most basic needs. I put things here and there across my various buildings, filling them out in parallel as appropriate items were at hand. This part is like any other MMO that supports crafting. You feed the station the supplies and it births an item.

One disappointing aspect that I hope is only temporary, is that the station-made props are not solid objects. I can walk right through them. This a huge issue when you want to place items of top of crafted props. It’s not always as easy as let it be placed on the floor then use the move tool to change the Y axis. Sometimes what you’ve placed it under doesn’t allow you to see the dang item which means you can't select/move it. *sigh* In those cases, I had to put a big voxel where I wanted the item to go, place it on that, remove the voxel and then adjust the placement of the decorative item. Not a game breaker but definitely not idea.

 

Alt left-click to mimic source

Custom Props

After utilizing the station crafted props I started working on making my own furniture and accessories. Having all of the build tools unlocked is a must before you start that journey. Paint is probably the only optional one but that helps with creating a variety of textures/colors in your template library.

I didn’t do anything too sophisticated as I’m just learning the tools but was able to make several items that look pretty nice. Each creation is now a template and I can re-use them on demand, as long as I have the necessary materials.

Tips

• Holding down the Ctrl key swaps temporarily swaps Add for delete.

• Ctrl + Z will undo your actions. I don’t know how many undo actions are saved but I think I've gone back as far as 10 without any issues. 

• Ctrl + Y will re-do your last undo

• Alt + left click while in Add voxel mode will detect the material you just clicked and switch to that as your pattern/source. This is especially helpful when you go back to working on a partial object and don’t remember exactly which flavor of wood you had selected OR want to make a new item match an existing one. 

 

 

Custom prop wall art and re-sized Sifter craft station

 

Curio cabinet custom prop

 

Custom fireplace using crafted Andiron prop

 

Bench made using curvy pillow props

 

Wardrobe Cabinet and potted plant

Bed and Dressing Screen

Fake plants - no plants on my claim

Bed, bench and wall art

 

Wish List of Build Tool Changes

I’m moderately satisfied with the outcome of my custom props. A few tweaks to the build tools, I could make them more sophisticated and have an easier time of it.

• Add voxel sphere shape should support the same 1 voxel minimum size as the square. There were countless times I needed a small sphere but couldn’t create one. 

• Template items should be recognizable as a grouped object to support scale, full rotating options, etc. Maybe there’s a way to do this that I couldn’t figure out. 

• Smoothing tool should support a finer/smaller voxel area to provide more granular detail. It works great if you’re building structures but not nearly as useful on smaller objects like props. I really struggled to smooth small objects. I'd love some tips if there's something I'm missing!

• Expose / add fabrics as source material. I’m thinking this will come since I see trees dropping fabric components. 

• Template UI needs lots of work which I'm sure is coming - abiliity to group, sort, filter and preview would be a good place to start.

Break Incoming

It's getting really busy at work. It's also time for changing over the season at my shop. Once I finish decorating the interior I’ll be taking a break from the alpha. I don’t want to burn out on Landmark before it launches. I do wonder what will keep me incentivized to continue once I’ve done a few claims. In Minecraft I tended to drift off after the building was done. I suppose the difference here will be an online community but even in EQ2 where I loved crafting and had a thriving business, even that got less entertaining after a time.

 

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Comments

[Das]

Very nice! is there any special combination of materials that will not mix with each other? I have tried placing a lot of gems and ores next to each other and no matter what they always seem to blend instead of giving me that nice distinct line between the two materials.

[Winged Nazgul]

Wow, awesome! I can't wait to see future creations as you get more comfortable with the tools and they add more stuff for you to play with.

[Alysianah aka Saylah]

Thanks! Gems next to each other seem to blend. You can prevent by using metal, stone or wood in between or around perimeter. I'm hoping the blending issues is not intended and will be fixed. I submitted as bug. I really dislike that crafted items aren't solid either so bugged that too.

[Alysianah aka Saylah]

Thanks. I just noticed the tools all say "inferior" perhaps the better control I think we need comes by upgrading the build tools which we haven't seen yet.