Turbine Games Q&A/Landscape/Q-34

Original Link (now dead) - http://www.turbinegames.com/qa/view_questions.html?id=2807

Are boats feasible?

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Asked:	2000.11.22
Name:	Jacob Banebridge
Question Title:	Are boats feasible?
Category:	Landscape
Question:	I'm not talking moving boats, or anything that is actual travel in game, I just talking stationary boats, maybe at the end of a dock of somesort. SO, my question is... Are you holding off on this until we can get to all the islands, or is it possible to add them in? (Storyline wise it wouldnt' make sense I know, not to be able to get to islands if we have boats. Then again, it doesn't make much sense that people can't slap together a few pieces of wood, or even just cut down a log and sail out to some of them. :) ) *cough* *cough* Please, ignore that last question, I typed it out, and hit enter on accident...*cough* *cough*

Answered:	2000.11.22
Name:	Stormwaltz
Answer:	Enterable instantiations over water are troublesome, but not impossible. You wouldn't be able to have the boat's structure extend beneath the surface of the water - if someone went down there, the server would crash. As well, you may have noticed around the wrecked Shadow Spire and the bridges that water does not sort correctly in a landblock cell containing an instantion. You suddenly appear to pop out of the water. That's only cosmetic, but annoying. The main reasons for not modeling a boat, though, are that it would be as time consuming to create as a building, and players would be annoyed that they weren't able to actually use it. If we have the time for a complex model, it would be less controversial to make a new building.