Hello there! I was asking what is gonna be with whole island after 6 months of interactions with forest, to be precise, how you gonna keep island biomes "clean". What you gonna do when all people bring forest soil from north to south and plant vast forests, then deserts not gonna be deserts anymore and whole idea of various regions will vanish just by normal acting of people. So am bringing you some ideas to keep every region/biome unique:
1. Code the game in that way that there is no possibility to drop Forest Soil over Sand, but that is possible to drop Sand over Forest Soil - Deserts gonna remain deserts and will force people that live there to find different items to trade for wood, or eventually create new type of wood that will grow in desert; palms, date palms as fruit (apples and nuts on north)
2. Add new type of soil, simply duplicate current Forest Soil and make 2 or 3 new, for example; Forest Soil is main resource for every tree in-game, separate it in 3 Soils, Softwood Forest Soil, Hardwood Forest Soil and Steppe Forest Soil. In Softwood Forest Soil is only allowed to plant pines, spruces and junipers; in Hardwood Forest Soil only oaks, maples, birches etc; in Steppes Forest Soil palms, date palms, some kind of bushes, baobab... change color in texture, name and select trees that are compatible with each type of soil
3. Allow players to bring Forest Soil to desert, but every time when they remove trunk from chopped tree decrease altitude of tile by 0,1; trunk will disappear as usual, but players will get in inventory Fertile Soil with quality of tree, or lower quality. Also you probably ask how will Forest Soil "reappear" on other place that was taken from; simply once in week areas that are not covered by claims get +0,1 altitude "revitalization"..
4. Weather...hot and dry areas have less rain and not allowing forests to grow... type of trees that are growing in plains need rain, sun; trees on north NEEDS WINTER (SNOW) TO GROW...in that way pines gonna remain on north and will give players something to trade with; if someone brings Palm tree to north, with 1 touch of snow it would be destroyed/ withered.
Maybe this ideas sound complicate, but they implement everything that you already have in-game, you just need to simply separate current groups of soils, trees. As player i want to see diversity for each biome, so that every biome has its own place in island ; Steppes are plains with lot of Wild Horses which means that players from steppes will trade horses for other goods. Check this conversation between 2 players, one from north, one from steppes:
Steppe: Hello mate, i have horses to trade, do you have some softwood boards, or billets?
North: I have, but also i need horses, as you know there are no Wild Horses on north. How many boards/billets you want for Stallion and Horse?
Steppe: 100 Billets and 20 Boards, no matter what quality. Sounds good?
The point here is to give people biome advantages in region that they selected...
People from deserts will offer good quality of gold, gems, rings, amulets... but plains can offer em plants, wood, crops....
ONLY BALANCE MATTERS
P.S- If you have some suggestions feel free to comment, i would like to give an idea for better mmo world, so that game remains unique, clean, that to give some meaning of every section of it, but ofc with less work on it.