RTB save file submissions -OR- make more public builds and designs

[Teneksi]

I've been convinced that the networking of ideas is the best way to innovate, and I believe a similar result could be seen in Blockland with the sharing of builds. Skilled and unskilled builders alike could reuse buildings, props and other components, lowering the time needed to throw together larger projects, and making the low-effort arrangements much more enjoyable to create and play. This would encourage the creation of many small, high quality builds designed to be shared.

I started the clan Public Domain in an attempt to do this, but the contributions cannot be easily added and sorted, and its expansion is heavily dependent on my free time, which has become scarce.

RTB has proven to be a great platform for the sharing of add-ons. New hosts have a plethora of vehicles and weapons to use, but only a few freely available builds to have fun with.

I suggest a new section to RTB that facilitates the submission, categorizing, requirement-linking, rating, sorting and download of public save files.


Obviously there are some potential problems with integrating this with RTB; the main thing I'm concerned about is the amount of protection and ego there is surrounding the great majority of builds in a building game where making an add-on that disables the save function in a server would get your key revoked.

this is the digital age. information wants to be free. so does builds. give saves for a better future.

[Ad Bot]

[Mold]

But they will require add-ons

[Teneksi]

But they will require add-ons

Sounds like a job for the "required add-ons" section of the submission form.

you have a point, though, especially for non-rtb bricks and color sets.

i'm fairly certain a majority would use parts available on RTB, but I suppose making sure everything required is confirmed could get messy.

we need a decent system for this type of thing though. my real suggestion lies in trying to get people to be more open with their designs, and more original with the things they want attributed to them.

[Crêpe]

Ephialtes promised this a while back, but has not yet implemented it

Saves should be free for users to get.
i stand by my opinion

[Ephialtes]

I really like this idea and I've put a lot of thought into how something like this could work, I'd love to discuss it further though and I'm really glad you've made a thread about it because this is a huge thing Blockland's missing.

There are two aspects to sharing saves which I'm interested in exploring - the first being what you've suggested which is the sharing of completed save files but then I'm also quite interested in a place for people to share "props" for builds which I'll explain a bit later on.

I've put a lot of work into a system for hosting save files on RTB already, there's a lot of backend code in place for it to work without taking up a load of space on my server which was a bit of a mission. At the moment it also works out what colorset you should download in order for the save to look correct, as well as what add-ons you'll need in terms of custom bricks, vehicles, lights or items etc. and lists them alongside the save file too.

Unlike the add-on submission system there'd obviously be no requirement for approval so we could actually have a true ranking system based on user ratings (which isn't exactly the case with the add-on system at the moment) to enable popular high quality builds to appear at the top. I'm also having a think about the idea of using tags for builds instead of categories since I feel it'd be far too hard to sort all of the builds people make in Blockland into 15 or 20 categories. People will definitely need more ways to categorize and describe their work.

As for the props, by this I mean small items people have made for decoration such as street lights, couches, kitchen appliances or any of that stuff which most people aren't necessarily good at making but would like to have to add the finishing touches to the house they've built. I'd probably put a limit on the size of props to be like 8x8x8 or 10x10x10 just to keep them reasonably sized, too. They'd function in much the same way as full save files except I think these could be categorized a bit easier into groups like furniture, machinery, city infrastructure etc.

The only issue I've got with props (and builds actually) is how to load them into the game. In an ideal situation you'd be able to hit the "load" button on the in-game save browser and it'd equip your player with a special brick which would be a square with the exact dimensions of the build you're trying to load to make it a bit easier to position and everything. Obviously that's not possible at the moment but I might pitch the idea to Badspot and see how keen he is on adding some kind of system to do that. If anyone else has got some ideas about how to place builds you're loading when you're not exactly sure about it's dimensions then definitely discuss them in this thread.

Anyway I think I've written enough to get a discussion started here.

Ephialtes promised this a while back, but has not yet implemented it

It's a big job to do it effectively and to do it right - I don't intend to rush it by any means. I've promised it and I'll deliver it like all the other features of RTB I've promised and delivered.

[MrLoL²]

There should be also a "report" button, if people submit innapropriate builds.

[Crêpe]

There should be also a "report" button, if people submit innapropriate builds.

snake builds

It's a big job to do it effectively and to do it right - I don't intend to rush it by any means. I've promised it and I'll deliver it like all the other features of RTB I've promised and delivered.

i understand

[lordician]

snake builds

DAMNIT I WAS ABOUT TO SAY THAT!

I would love to see this happen and as for loading in the props, maybe something in the style of the dupricator or however it is called.
That add-on is like the duplicator but the feature that i want to refer to is the whole ghosting way of pre-displaying the selected bricks before placement.
In short, would it be a good idea to display the prop-build in ghost brick form like that one duplicator edit?
This way people could also see in what direction the prop is aiming.

Anyhow, good idea, especially with the build voting etc.

[Crêpe]

DAMNIT I WAS ABOUT TO SAY THAT!I would love to see this happen and as for loading in the props, maybe something in the style of the dupricator or however it is

heh

[Ephialtes]

There should be also a "report" button, if people submit innapropriate builds.

Yeah that makes sense. I'm more willing to have a larger team of moderators to handle the saves being submitted as I imagine the volume of submissions will be way higher and the trust I need in those moderators is a lot lower. But yeah we will need a way to flag things which are just inappropriate or really useless/bad.

I would love to see this happen and as for loading in the props, maybe something in the style of the dupricator or however it is called.
That add-on is like the duplicator but the feature that i want to refer to is the whole ghosting way of pre-displaying the selected bricks before placement.
In short, would it be a good idea to display the prop-build in ghost brick form like that one duplicator edit?
This way people could also see in what direction the prop is aiming.

Yeah I think you're right to be honest, I think the ghost brick thing could only be done for prop bricks as you might notice things get a little crazy when you try to move an entire building in ghost brick form in terms of lag and stuff. I may well borrow a few ideas from that add-on, it seems to be a step or two in the right direction for sure.

I can't lie, I'm quite excited about this. Builders are the most important part of Blockland and yet the only place they've got to showcase their work is a gallery forum whereas add-on makers have this entire system to show off what they've done. It'll be good to enable people to really show off what they can make in a way that preserves it for people who join the game a year or two down the line.

[Christopher P.]

The same could be done for builds but only the bottom bricks/baseplates

[-Jetz-]

I'd probably put a limit on the size of props to be like 8x8x8 or 10x10x10 just to keep them reasonably sized, too.

A volume cap, calculated from individual brick sizes, would probably be more appropriate, maybe with a much larger overall cap in dimensions. The lamp post in Beta City occupies a 5x5x20 space, but the biggest impact on its bounding box is the 1x1 wide pole supporting it.

[Ephialtes]

That's a very good point, but given I've just realised I can't work out the area of a build or the volume of the bricks within it without keeping a hefty database of brick volumes this might actually be best left up to the moderators to deal with.

[Sleven]

I have so many thoughts about this, but I find it hard to put em down in words.

First of all, there is a big difference between props and finished builds concerning loading. Prop loading could be done like the /loaddup command which gives you a ghostbrick at your feet. It's the most (as far as I know) convenient solution.. so you know exactly where you put down the furnish or whatever. However, complete builds is another story. These could be loaded like normal saves.

Regarding the separation of props and normal saves, now is the convenient time to bring back the drop down menu in the load bricks gui. It would be soooo lovely if you could separate your builds both automatically (as in props, dldable saves and maybe even default saves) and manually if you want more order in your personal saves.


About build submitting I think rules should be more strict than you think. There should be a specific moderation team for building, just as there are/will be for add-ons. Builds should be taken under consideration before they are made available. Ok, maybe the point of all this is to make "sharing builds" into a functional system.. but my hope is that there would be reasonable moderate/high standards so it all doesn't get flooded.

[Chrono]

I'd probably put a limit on the size of props to be like 8x8x8 or 10x10x10 just to keep them reasonably sized, too.

I'd like them bigger, just for trees.
One of the things I really can't build.