PC Spawn points on a new map - A question

[warmer]

Setting elevation of 0 will always place you at ground level.  Setting a higher elevation will place you at ground level unless there is something in that location.  If there is something there, you can specify an elevation that will place you on a specific floor (if it's a building), or if you leave it at 0 or an elevation too low or too high, you'll end up on the roof.

This is how I ended up on top of a tree in the wasteland. It was brutal. I step off and break my leg and hobble back to the forest. It was epic and tense!

 

[Riamus]

Sure. Until there is only x and z for parameters. Which one is in the middle? You re making an already unintuitive system even less understandable for serverowners.

Is there a situation where you would have elevation and only one coordinate (either x or y) in this game?  And even if it is, if a person wants to call elevation y or if they want to call it z won't change how they use it.  It's really no different than using "horizontal" and "vertical" or "east/west" and "north/south".  In the end, what term/letter you use doesn't matter as long as you know what you're talking about.  Now, if you are sharing info with someone else and you aren't clear what you're talking about, then it could make a difference.  If someone just tells you to set z to something or set y to something without context, it could be a problem.  But would that happen in this game?  You might tell someone to set YOffset, which is clear.  You might tell someone to set coordinates to 150,-2300 and that's also clear.  You might say to set elevation to something, which is clear.  You wouldn't tell someone to go to 1200,5 and mean the "5" to be elevation.  Without the other coordinate, it's a pointless and useless location.

The main reason it's unintuitive is that maps use x and y for coordinates.  But this game chooses to call elevation "YOffset", which means they use y for elevation.  Now, it is normal to use y for elevation in a 3D space, but more people know 2D coordinates than 3D coordinates.  That means most players will expect the coordinates to be x,y and use z for elevation.  For people who know 3D coordinates, they want to use y for elevation.  That's why it's confusing to people and I'm not really sure why they changed things when they originally came up with the 3D coordinate system.  It is like the person/people who set up the coordinate system decided that since it was 3D, they'd place a map on its edge so that the 2D "y" coordinate was pointing up and down and then built the coordinate system around that.  Not really a smart way to do it, imo.  But we're left with two coordinate systems that use a different letter for the same direction.  Because this game is a map and not aerial, it just makes more sense to use map coordinates.  That combined with more people being familiar with that system makes things more clear.  But you'll always have people who want to use the 3D coordinate system for naming the coordinates and elevation, so it will always be confusing if people aren't clear.  What that means is that if you're telling people 3 numbers for location, you let them know the middle number is elevation.  You don't say the middle number is y or z.  You can call them whatever letters you want to, but you just need to specify which number you're referring to for elevation.