The reason why I put ‘inspired’ in quotes, is I’m pissed off at myself for not being happy with the current design of the deed (and it hasn’t even fucking been a month since I moved!), and then the constant back and forth fights with my emotions happen. And this is when I “hire a 3rd party” (aka Saint) in hopes of ending the stalemate of giving myself ideas.
With the snow finally gone (happened in the afternoon as expected), I immediately went right to Exo to check out ‘that cool place I saw’. Used the East exit as I had (and still do as I type this) a gale from the South). Turns out it was actually on the East side of the server (instead of the West). After many server transfers, I finally reoriented myself to be on the South side of the server, and then followed the coastline, and this was all during nighttime. Closing in on the NE coast, I feel I went too far North and pull up the Deli community map (and also going over my old blog posts of exploring Deli on horseback). Sure enough, I did. The deed I’m aiming for is called ‘Ixtlan’. With Sol rising, I finally reached this beautiful, spaced out (yet small) deed. It has not changed since I first saw it on horseback. The purpose of this visit is to just see how this place differs from mine, and to get some ideas on how to improve my deed’s layout.
And from my overall observations, it’s clear to me that this place has no need for a boat dock area (as the boats of this deed are pretty much parked on the sides of this creek thing). Also, unlike me, the person didn’t put their token in the middle of a basin (which again was inspired by Green Dog’s layout. More on this a bit later).
The person’s “house” is… uh…does this person even live here? It’s an empty 2×3 with a few crates. Wow. That’s sad.
The roads are what I had expected, a few tiles away from the creek (allowing for trees to grow). If they were grown naturally or not, I don’t know. Checked out the ‘infamous’ Boathouse (aka the Diner back home). Of course, one less door on the front.
I was able to enter it, and only saw a few more crates.
Seeing a recurring theme to the structure-naming here.. as in, the ‘Boathouse’ is the only thing that’s named. Everything else is “
I visited the upper level on the South side of the deed, and saw the owner’s animal pens. No cart storage nearby. No carts nor wagons. No bison. And the horse pen reminded me of OR’s past (before I gave my horses proper stalls). It’s also the person’s..farm. Well, I think it’s a farm. Every crop is growing Wheat. Perhaps the person loves making bread as their choice of food?
Also, the person has a pen that only has cows. No bulls. No chickens. No pigs.. just cows. One ingenious thing I noticed is the person is using trees to keep the grass from being packed. Nice! Speaking of pens, he has another one next to the shoreline for more horses. Can’t have enough animal pens, I guess.
I’ll be frank– this place feels more like a starter town than an actual deed. I mean..come ON! How can you not have a place to store carts?! Does this person..even -live- here as I said before? Is this place nothing but a ‘showcase deed’ (like something out of ‘Homearama’)? If so, I feel like I got kicked out by security when a troll shows up from nowhere. With no horse, I don’t dare to charge head first into battle against someone that can easily knock me senseless with that club. Attempting to dodge and outrun it nearly caused me to fuck up, but I was able to recover a few times before the first blow was struck on my squishy head.
As much as I want to say “ok, I got what I want, I want to copy everything over to my place”..I can’t do that, and that’s frustrating. Fuck my morals sometimes.
Clearly, the biggest problem back home is that boat dock area. I thought it was going to be a good idea, but now it’s no longer the case. I need to come up with a better idea, and I’ll try to think of one the best I can (which usually means I’ll give up trying to think of one and harass the hell out of Saint to do it for me. 😛 )
The other problem is the Diner (stated in my three week post). I can’t just turn this into the same purpose as the one here, as that is completely copying the idea without doing any additions. I could just simply get rid of it, then scale down the Grinding Floor and turn it into the ‘DTH Smithing/Diner’ building. That will definitely solve the issue with fuel (but I’ll lose that cool little shack idea). Gotta think of something.
Anyway, now it’s off to Green Dog (as I stated before, it’s where I got the idea of having the token the way I have it. Though I had to go as it was close to dinner.
Coming back later on (having to wait offline staring at WurmClock for Sol to rise again), I was faced with a small dilemma knowing that GD can only be entered (and exited) via boat through the North side of the server, and an alternate idea was to snag a horse and then ride it down there. Eventually I decided to go with just sailing down (as I would have less mobs to deal with when on water, and it’s a more direct route).
Halfway there, I decided to visit the spot that inspired me of the Grinding Floor idea (which I’m still not really a fan of, as I feel it’s taking way too much empty space for its size). The undeeded ‘deed’ is still there. The only difference from three months is some of the roof tiles have decayed. Shockingly, all of the walls are still intact (probably have high QL). The Smithy is still as I remember it. Quite nice. Then it was off to GD.
Made it there, and to the center. It seems I..pictured the center differently than I thought. The token isn’t sitting on a single tile, but in a 3×3 area connected by two stone bridges (and two stone buildings on its North and South sides). Unfortunately (possibly without expanding the deed size) I cannot do anything about this. It’s not possible to relocate a token (unless you disband and re-deed). I’m not doing this unless I’m absolutely SURE I know where I’m going to put it.
Ran around GD, desperately trying to get more “please make my deed look ‘cool’!” ideas. Sol’s on its downward ark and I’m getting bored. Time to go back home, and think of what I’m going to do (if anything) with the deed. Went back up North through the canals. But instead of continuing to go all the way, I stopped a few places in the canal to check out these unique underground structures (that I never did before). One had a pretty sizable cave system, having multiple wings and levels. The other, ended with a NOPE of a troll showing up as I was about to turn the corner.
Finally I was in the Northern sea, and got back home with no problems. So now, it’s time to think. As said before, I cannot completely hand-copy that person’s deed (as that’s wrong). Plus, it would be impossible with the amount of dirt I would need to raise the terrain in places (to simulate the higher points of the person’s deed.
No, I need my own ideas. I need to get in DP and really play around in it. The option to expand the deed in all directions (but East) is still on the table, but I’m sure it’s going to cost up to 5s to do so (and I won’t be able to get it back if that’s -not- what I wanted to do). It won’t be as expensive of a gamble as before, but I got to know if I really want it.
I also discovered if I wanted to put in the effort, I could build my own guard tower to the NW side of the deed (anywhere on or past the backroad, which would be out of range of the one to the ESE).