Air and Glass
Landmark players will be happy to know that new features are now up for people to use. For those who like having new toys for decoration, glass is now available as a craftable prop for use with your homes.
The Sony Online Entertainment team showed off the three sizes of the glass available: 1x1, 2x1, and 3x2. These can also be scaled so that players can craft massive or small props.
The other addition to the game has been the introduction of an additional tweak, called pasting without air.
Pasting without air is an addition to the tweaks that can be toggled on or off. When it is toggled on, you treat items like they have this one important aspect of physics: two items cannot exist on the same space.
In Landmark’s case, this means that if a new item interlaps with an item while Paste Air is toggled, you remove the old item that was there.
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When Paste Air is toggled off, you can basically meld things together. This bypasses some of the existing techniques in-game and is a time-saver when making inlays or other specialized custom objects like picture frames: just flip an L-shape and then past the two together without air.
The stream also noted that the new tweak may cause issues with some advanced builds currently, but these will be resolved as early as the next upcoming patch.
On Upkeep
My friends Syl and Rowan have two different blog posts on the subject of maintaining and paying for a house’s upkeep.
Syl writes about a disturbing happening in Landmark where the claim being used for a build disappeared despite a day left on the claim. Rowan mused about how upkeep can sometimes seem manipulative by forcing players (or substitute upkeep payers) to go into a game when they don’t feel like it just to pay upkeep.
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While the process of upkeep – especially in a game where paying upkeep is an important sidestep to the process of play – is necessary, I’ve always been a fan of options. I’m hoping Landmark can, in its case, build upon its claim system so as to not require people to constantly check on their claims or be afraid of their claims disappearing.
Syl recommended a sort of out-of-game reminder system for it. In my case, I’m inclined to agree with an out-of-game reminder, along with maybe some kind of in-game currency discount for longer-term upkeep payments. That sort of flexibility seems like a small reward for people who want to build in Landmark or any other game, allowing them to focus on the fun rather than maintenance aspects of building their dream landscape virtually.
According to this week’s Landmark Live stream, we might see some indication of Upgrading – part of the Crafting 2.0 system improvements – in next week’s show. We may also see the Showcase interface that’ll let people view and find out more about the claims available in the world and rate other people’s creations. In the meantime, sit tight and keep building better. Cheers!
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Victor Barreiro Jr. / Victor Barreiro Jr. maintains the Everquest Next/Landmark column (and formerly the Devil’s Advocate column) for MMORPG.com. He also writes for news website Rappler as a technology reporter. You can find more of his writings on Games and Geekery and on Twitter at @vbarreirojr.
Links to more MMORPG.com coverage:
- Last Week’s Column: All Access revisions and a Landmark Update
- A Touch of Free-to-Play Hubris
- Player Studio to launch on or before May 1
