Post the release of Jewels and the Bazaar, where currently E2 players can trade jewels, the E2 test site indicates that Holo buildings could be coming shoon. (i.e. in under 3 days)
E2.News tested this feature on the stage-2 site drawing up some Holo buildings on the map. We liked the simplicity of the interface but maybe it won't be a bad idea for E2 to release a demo before it goes live. Here is our crude effort to draw up a neighborhood using the Holo building interface on the test site.
The editor allows to draw up polygons of various sizes and shapes, allows to specify the height of the structure, and even permits free movement and rotation of the laid out structure on the map. You can clone a structure or even lay one structure on top of the other by specifying the elevation. If the buildings are not touching the ground or the surface below i.e. they are in the air, or if they are mashing into each other - they will show up in red color indicating there is an error in your design. Once you finish an error-free design you can proceed to save your layout as a blueprint and even use it elsewhere by cloning it.
One thing we didn't like was that the shape resolution is limited to 1 tile and not at a sub-tile level, which prevents interesting shapes at a smaller resolution. Ideally, we would have loved to see higher granularity which would have allowed complex aesthetic designs for plots of any size. For example, the current test site editor doesn't allow for circular or curved shapes unless the layout size is large enough.
Its interesting to note that the stage-2 site suggests there will be a cost to build the Holo buildings. As per the info on the test site its E$1 per 100 sq. meter of footprint.
Fair disclaimer - all of the above is just from the test site as of now, and there can be further changes and updates as this feature gets deployed on the main site.
Overall we like where this is going, however, we hope that the release of the Holo buildings will be accompanied by a detailed release note especially covering how these initial Holo buildings will evolve. Importantly, if there will be a build cost it would be valuable to know how players can plan better so that their builds have utility down the line and prevent wastage of resources. All-in-all this looks very exciting as Earth2 speeds towards future phases and we can't wait to see more of it!
Find the Holo-Building area here: https://stage2-app.earth2.io/#holo-buildings-editor
Desktop and Laptop only, you must be logged in.