New Worldmap

Pickslide · Post by **Pickslide** » 01 Apr 2005, 10:00

New world map! Suggestions and stuff if you have any.

Post by **ElvenProgrammer** » 01 Apr 2005, 12:17

Well this is my idea, I'd like it to be larger so we can add more details, and you shouldn't be able to see the horizon, the world is not a sphere but it's flat and limited, the water falls from it into the nowhere.
Animals in the sea should be colored and the lands need more shading.+I'd replace the fog with some spare clouds and that's all I think, it's a nice start. Maybe having the sea look more transparent could be cool. This is my favourite reference

HaLLanHype · Post by **HaLLanHype** » 01 Apr 2005, 13:10

Is it me or does the top one look like North America?

Nice artwork though

Kyokai · Post by **Kyokai** » 01 Apr 2005, 14:59

can you make it any more comparable to this one? I drew this map awhile ago and it has all the important landmarks already there. Since it's already pretty similar to yours (with the exception of a few smaller continents), it should be easy to modify to include a few more things. One a side note, I agree with Elven that putting the horizon on the world map looks odd. A top down view would be much more user friendly. I did really like your designs for the temples, I think we ought to save those and use them.

(the thread on this map is here.

Post by **Talaroc** » 01 Apr 2005, 17:39

the world is not a sphere but it's flat and limited, the water falls from it into the nowhere.

I'm hoping by this you don't mean we're giving hard edges to the world. Saying it's flat is one thing, but the world map has to be expandable.

And I still want to know how having the temples at the edges of the map isn't going to cause leveling problems.

In any case, the map artwork is fairly nice, although it could yes, use some shading.

Post by **ElvenProgrammer** » 01 Apr 2005, 18:31

Talaroc: it doesn't necessarily mean we can't expand the world. Just some stupid examples: we can add floating islands around the current world when they're discovered, there could be other dimension where the players could acces only by special warps and we can expand the world inward by adding underground kingdoms. Well I don't know if the temples has to be at the edges, but probably they should have symbolic placements.

I'd like every developer to join the developers meeting or the artists meeting so we can take a serious decision about it and start developing the world in a less-random way.

Post by **Talaroc** » 01 Apr 2005, 20:08

Well, certainly the temples have to be placed carefully, and symbolically. The problem with placing them at the edges of the world is that you run up against leveling issues; low-level players have to venture wide distances to gain their magic, so you either have to make special "n00bie corridors" (which is kind of doofy) for them to travel on, or you have to make the vast majority of the map low-level, which means higher level players have no fun. I would encourage, as an alternative, that the temples should be relatively close to one another, still placed symbolically and in a loose ring configuration, but one that only encompasses perhaps a third of the map, that third being the n00bie-friendly area, with progressively more difficult areas as one gets further away from the temple circle.

With regards to map expansion, I have no problem with discovering islands or underground areas (alternate dimensions seems a little sketchy to me, but I don't know). The thing I particularly want to see people being open to is the discovery of entirely new continents. This is a free MMO we're talking about; if we hit anywhere close to what we're aiming for, I wouldn't be at all surprised if TMW became highly popular in a very short amount of time, and we need to be prepared for that, which means lots and lots of new areas for players to explore.

Post by **Bjørn** » 01 Apr 2005, 23:12

Hmm I remember we had already decided the world would be a sphere, but just to make a single continent on it for now. Anyway I liked that idea, not so much the idea of a flat world.

I love the colored version above by Pickslide (more than the more professional looking version below). Sure it could be modified to be a bit more detailed, but I really like the perspective with it laid out on a sphere like that. The only problem with that is when we add a new continent, the picture will basically need to be redone. When it would be drawn in a more flat-like manner without horizon, another similar continent could be added at any time later. But then I dare asking how often do you think we'll add a new continent? And when we do, I bet we would actually end up redoing the world map image anyway.

Kyokai · Post by **Kyokai** » 01 Apr 2005, 23:31

Talaroc wrote:The problem with placing them at the edges of the world is that you run up against leveling issues; low-level players have to venture wide distances to gain their magic, so you either have to make special "n00bie corridors" (which is kind of doofy) for them to travel on, or you have to make the vast majority of the map low-level, which means higher level players have no fun.

That's true if you assume that players are going to learn a whole canon of different elemental spells quickly. I had hoped that players would have to travel for a bit, then train in the temples for a long time to master one element, and then move on. This prevents everyone, (even low level players) from having the same spells. It also promotes specialization, from the very starting levels.
Another idea would be to have links between each of the 8 temples and the temple of mana, where players could travel to these 9 focal points in the world instantly.

Post by **Talaroc** » 02 Apr 2005, 06:30

I assume that new mage-types are going to want to learn one or two schools at the basic level relatively quickly. Bear in mind, if the travel that they have to do entails fighting (which it does), newbies are going to have a much harder time of it.

then train in the temples for a long time to master one element

I don't much like this idea. Sure, a training aspect of it is a good thing, but most of the experience and training a player does for any skill, magic included, should be "in the field," so to speak. Obviously, they'd have to return to the temple to learn new spells, but making them hang around the temple for a long time doesn't seem terribly fun.

Kyokai · Post by **Kyokai** » 02 Apr 2005, 17:24

Talaroc wrote:
then train in the temples for a long time to master one element
I don't much like this idea. Sure, a training aspect of it is a good thing, but most of the experience and training a player does for any skill, magic included, should be "in the field," so to speak. Obviously, they'd have to return to the temple to learn new spells, but making them hang around the temple for a long time doesn't seem terribly fun.

Yeah, by "train in the temples", I meant doing field work and quests for the sages. One thing that does upset me in alot of games is that every mage has the same spells at the same levels. Especially with the flexible system we have now, why not let people specialize in one school (or get about half of the spells at least), before the spell tasks get alot harder and they need to move to a different school or train elsewhere?

Oh yeah, you still didn't answer my consideration of having warps between the temples. How would you feel about that?

Post by **Talaroc** » 02 Apr 2005, 17:48

I suppose temple warps work, although you might want to place a slight limiter on them to restrict people a bit, like, you can't warp from a given temple unless you've done x amount of training for that temple (where x is a relatively small amount).
Additionally, for this sort of system to work, players need to be allowed to choose the city of their "birth" from a list of all the major ones, so that they can start near the temple they want to go to first. I don't remember at present if we're already doing that or not, so I thought I'd mention it.

Kyokai · Post by **Kyokai** » 03 Apr 2005, 05:59

Talaroc wrote:Additionally, for this sort of system to work, players need to be allowed to choose the city of their "birth" from a list of all the major ones, so that they can start near the temple they want to go to first. I don't remember at present if we're already doing that or not, so I thought I'd mention it.

Hmm... good point. I would assume that you do choose your initial residence, but that you can change later on if you like to (maybe through some complex immigration quest? It would have to be a bit difficult in order to keep everyone from doing it too easily or often.)

For temple warps: I think about 3 spells in the element should be enough to grant the player access to the temple's warp points. Also, some cities should probably have transportation (a bus, caravan, train, or whatever) to get from one place to another, so that players can move about easily (travel time is also a big downside to some MMORPGs, besides, this could make up for the lack of mounts in our game by providing players with another form of quick transportation)