What's your ideal map-size?

[Dakirennis 959]

Anthos. Nice distance between the nations without the need for fast travels.

[Man of Respect 5471]

I honestly don't think much about how big the map is or how small the map is, if there are fast travels or not, or if the wilds are beautiful as ****. To me, to be completely honest, all that really matters is how much lore all of these elements contain, and I find Axios completely horrendous on that thing. I honestly couldn't give any less than two f*cks about how that tree looks better than a vanilla tree, but rather, how much of that tree can be used for decent, new, unique and interesting roleplay.

 

We see that **** ton stupid amount of elven ruins all around, but it's impossible to know its lore specially because it lacks any general lore. Maybe a hermit lived on that elven ruin and you can find his studies of a plant that then becomes avaiable to the player? Or not, it doesn't even needs to have a reward, it only needs a good experience or thing that you can get to know about it. Axios is 100% devoid of that thing except for Leowarrior's lore on Hou-zi and the gay elf lore stuff such as dark elf and wood elf origins, and the general LT doesn't do nothing regarding it.

 

I mean, I don't care if the LT didn't write a appropriate 3-paragraphs text for a random ruin on the middle of nowhere, but I care if it has anything cannon that could be used to make a more versatile roleplay for me and the community in general.

Also, random plots are completely out of control by now

 

TL;DR: If we are to have big wilds, make a couple of elements on the wilds to be use-able if you find them and schedule a time with the ET responsible member that has the lore for that place. Hell, I don't even have a clue of the elven ruins architeture lore.

 

[TEEbrown 348]

3 hours ago, dsdevil said:

I've been around for a depressingly long time and I've seen the pros and cons of various map sizes. Personally, I believe that lotc works best on the smaller spectrum of map sizes. I don't think fast travels should exist at all and allow horses/mounts to have a purpose. We've always had the problem of having to balance the need to explore and the need to centralize RP. 

 

The main problem is that these days everyone is entitled to having their own plot of land with each person owning 10x10 house where they all have their own storage, which forces the staff to make bigger maps to accomodate all these players. A long time ago, owning a home used to be a prize/achievement, especially obtaining a house in one of the capitals. 

 

The way I believe the map should be designed is to have the 4-5 main capitals be within a resonable radius from the center of the map (something like anthos) or what we are currently doing on Tahn, and have all the exploration be on the outside of this radius. So you don't need to spread everything out to allow for exploration, but you can add an infinite amount of crap on the outside. If players want to explore, they can just start moving outwards. Sort of how Aegis worked.

 

Right now, there are like 10 different cities that are seperated by long empty roads which makes the server feel dead at times. These days im seeing like 200 players online on weekdays? I've never seen that before on lotc, but it definately doesn't feel like it because everyone is so spread out. 

 

LOTC is just a glorified build server now.

 

This in its entirety. I have been on LotC just as long and I can confirm this here. LotC thrives when it has groups interacting with each other on a daily basis and not just when there is a war going on. Closer and compact. And freebuild, much more freebuild.

 

Oh and the guy above me states my other problem with the server build. Everything is about making everything look nice. I could really care less about all the little details if there is no way I can cut a goddamned tree down. Making trees all pretty makes it so they can't be cut down or looked at. All this beautification is turning the server into a painting rather than a game. Less graphics, more gameplay.

[chaotikal 2392]

These 30 minutes or 5 to sprint is on a flat map not a fully developed terrain, right

[Guest Guest]

3 minutes ago, Chaotikal said:

These 30 minutes or 5 to sprint is on a flat map not a fully developed terrain, right

 

Yeah, I just take the direct distance between cities and determine how long it would take. Player sprint jumping is about 6-7 blocks/second, I believe.

[chaotikal 2392]

My ideal map woulf be 16x16k, but in 2 versions.

 

Thr first, cities abd nations are clumped in a small region,  maximum 4k.

 

On the second, theyre spread deep within realistic biomes with lots of event dedicated land and untamed landscaoe, along a singular road with a network of fast travels

[Gallic 1066]

I'm not sure what all the other comments say so I'm sorry if somebody already said this, but:

 

I happen to like Axios' size.

[Ethan the epic 115]

A map big enough to fit a... I don't know...... An antagonist??

[drfate786 1690]

2 hours ago, Shalashask said:

Maybe it's not the place to put this comment either, but a nation should not be entitled to a plot of land at the beginning of a map simply because it is for a specific race/sub race. The key factor in determining this should be how active the player base is at the turn of a new map and how well they have maintained it throughout the map. An inactive/decentralised player base should not be entitled to a plot of land over another nation simply because they are for a certain race.

 

 

I have a better idea, no one gets any land at the start of the map. Instead, people will have to apply for a charter and live in dirt poor camps until then. If a nation leader dies then so be it, that's a good thing. 

[Reckless Banzai Screamer 15456]

I think a lot of yall have forgotten how **** an Athera - sized map was. While aesthetically pleasing save for the mesa and dreaded wilds, some of the geography made no sense and being so close to everyone bothered me. No offense I'm sure a lot of yall are great but sometimes I like to stroll down an empty road without having to look at anybody.

 

Anthos sized map, implement an antag area so we aren't always bashing each other's brains in, and add little treasures here and there with some of the aesthetically pleasing stuff Athera offered.

 

If you cramp folks together they will kill each other because there can only be 1. NO BUENO.

[Z3r05t4r 855]

No to the size of Athera. It was the reason I proposed Vailor to the admins back then in the first place. The small territory, everyone clumped onto eachother, the region grabbing and stealing with the Nexus plot system, it was a recipe for cancer (for the lack of another more appropriate term).

 

Vailor had something I liked. Yes, the distances were vast and so forth, the roads may have felt empty, but considering, the cities were being RPed at. At least for the humans. Those RP hubs were connected by a fast travel system. Also, in the case of a battle we had room to actually do battle and not step within someone's garden all the time.

 

Room is required. Maps need to have a decent size. Anthos from my experience was already borderline too small. Asulon was vast (also fancy with MC-generation, would save some effort), don't know about Aegis only souled there once. Axios has multiple islands, has a lot of room, which is fine in my opinion, but at some part I think it would be a bit more convenient to have all the nations in one place. i.e. Tahn. Also saves performance.

 

Anyhow. For a new upcoming map: Give us a vast wild (MC generated?) map. Add some additional landscapes or whatever suits you. And then let all people who have a ship land on their desired spot and go from there. Give them nothing and let them claim land on this wild land. Like colonizers. Would be curious how that turns out, and who decides to land where.

[Fishy 2709]

 

Here's a shitty concept I came up with for a map a few months back. It'd have to be adjusted but I think a ring design for the layout of nations and road would be good. You could also listen to the other stuff I spew in aegis chat too. 4k by 4k is a pretty good size, having much bigger maps kills with lag and player view distance. A map shouldn't require fast travels to work either, end this multiworld tyranny.

I think we should ax charters while we're at it, just start with the existent nations at the end of this map so if you want to get land you have to deal with what is present. I hate all these random guilds that got their free plots at the start of the map and proceed to do **** all, if you want to condense anyone it should be these groups into the cities or their outskirts. Cute event regions would be nice for each of the main four races but it should still be considered apart of a nation's territory. Also, don't theme the map around being apart of a particular race's lore, it's gay af and probably over 3/4 of the players don't even give a damn about it. 

[Kvasir 1121]

I'll have my say, I haven't been around for very long, only since athera. I have to say I really liked atheras size, but I also love the size of TAHN in Axios... Perhaps the thing I would enjoy most out of an Lotc map, is a map a little bit bigger than tahn, and riddled with really nice ruins and things to explore that tell a story. The north of axios in tahn is beautiful and rich with self-telling stories. I really think that we should focus on a medium sized map, with a lot of detail. In axios nobdoy ever goes onto Asul or Sutica's private island. I think the nations on these two islands would benefit greatly if RP was centralized to a map just a bit bigger than Tahn, and more detailed!

[Wolf Druid Ouity 1461]

3 hours ago, Niccum said:

I do not get this. (The people that insist on having an Athera-esque map)

 

Athera was one of the worst maps LOTC has ever had in regards to performance. There were other factors (such as some of the rules and staff) that probably contributed, but as for its size it was simply too small to actually be functional with this many warring groups and factions. Mind you, this map came at a time where 70 people online at a time was actually a blessing, after us hitting like 150 people online at peak times in Anthos. The map may have been beautiful in some places, but its functionality was not there, and I'll get to explaining this.

 

Considering there are now four or five different human kingdoms, there needs to be room unless we as a playerbase want warclaims and raids every week. Something about as big as Anthos would be okay, but if the amount of work that went into Anthos could be put into an Asulon-sized map, I think we'd have plenty of room for expansion and exploration. I might also add that, while on Asulon and Anthos, nation capitals were set back in their various territories, all of the national capitals were close together. Not only is this extremely unrealistic from a strategic standpoint, but now you've also created a system that is extremely ripe for bandits. While I am all for encouraging risk and reward along the roads, this is too easy. There need to be different roads that lead to different areas of the map from a neutral central location.

 

One of the largest reasons that I can see for the decline in role-play along the roads and in various settlements is simply the inability for new people to find these places. In Asulon, correct me if I am wrong, but there were named roads going out from the Cloud Temple that were appropriately marked to designate which races the roads would lead to. As a young noob in Asulon, this was crucial for me to get anywhere! Not only this, but I distinctly remember role-play happening along these roads very often. If we want ease of mobility and increased player retention, I think that finding role-play along the roads and exposing risk and reward in this way is a good way to go about it.

 

Asulon was a total shitshow. I have vivid memories of desperately trying not to die because I knew if I did, I would be spending the next 45 minutes swimming back to the elven island-- a process so unspeakably frustrating that I almost rerolled to live in another kingdom. Respiren, one of the people who designed the map, called it his biggest mistake as a GM. Most Aegis players I know came to loathe Asulon. It was huge, empty, and restrictive.

 

When I want to roleplay, I don't want to have to go on a mission just to find another player. I should be able to aimlessly wander and find somebody along the way. Is it realistic for nations to be clumped together? No, of course not, but it's also very unrealistic to have half a dozen nations whose total population is about 300. The comments about vast empires etc are a bit silly. No playerbase can manage more than 3-4 active settlements. There just aren't enough people playing. Oren is the only faction that ever comes close, and it's notorious for its empty castles dominating the skyline. Realism shouldn't be the primary focus of map design, practicality should.

 

I would also argue that creating a large, sprawling map solely for the purpose of making warclaims more realistic is daft. You're making a sacrifice to 80% of your time on the server so that you can have a feel-good moment protecting a plot of land in your empire which you've probably never even bothered to explore before. I can't count all the times I participated in a WC in Asulon and Anthos where I had never even seen the location the battle was being held on. I would argue that if there's an issue with WCs in a small space, that it is a problem with the system rather than the map geography.

 

I don't know where you guys get your data that says the biggest maps have the most people playing. I have a sneaking suspicion that you haven't actually been keeping track. I've always theorized that players will say the type of map they started on is the best. Maybe somebody should do a study. I seem to remember the.. Fringe, was it? Absolutely bubbling with activity and it was a map which was confined to maybe 1000-2000 blocks. I know that I personally have felt almost no motivation to log on since the new map dropped. It's totally empty, there's literally no way for me to find roleplay except to wander into a city, where everybody is already busy doing something. I miss encountering people on the road. It's where I used to get all my interactions with other players. I don't particularly enjoy roleplaying in a clique, and meeting people on the road is just about the only way to do it.

[argonian 14254]

51 minutes ago, Fishy said:

 

Here's a shitty concept I came up with for a map a few months back. It'd have to be adjusted but I think a ring design for the layout of nations and road would be good. You could also listen to the other stuff I spew in aegis chat too. 4k by 4k is a pretty good size, having much bigger maps kills with lag and player view distance. A map shouldn't require fast travels to work either, end this multiworld tyranny.

I think we should ax charters while we're at it, just start with the existent nations at the end of this map so if you want to get land you have to deal with what is present. I hate all these random guilds that got their free plots at the start of the map and proceed to do **** all, if you want to condense anyone it should be these groups into the cities or their outskirts. Cute event regions would be nice for each of the main four races but it should still be considered apart of a nation's territory. Also, don't theme the map around being apart of a particular race's lore, it's gay af and probably over 3/4 of the players don't even give a damn about it. 

This IMO. Everything from the shape of the map to the general placement of locations looks really nice here. 

 

I think out of all the maps we were on before, Anthos was the best. I still thought it was a bit too big, as even the very closest city (Kingston) couldn't be reached before you dropped too low on hunger to sprint. The placement of cities on that map was pretty questionable in general, with Kingston killing the RP of the rest of Oren(and the rest of the map, really) by being by far the closest to spawn and the only way to get into Oren. The placement of cities and nations is way more important that map size. Aegis was a gigantic map, but since all the major cities were so close, everyone remembers it as being small and having condensed RP. Anthos wasn't that big, but people remember it as being bigger than it was because travelling between cities was a real pain in the ass.

 

Asulon was way too big and the roads were a complete mess. It was a nightmare to travel anywhere before fast travel, and fast travel causes a lot of awkwardness and issues. We need clear, well-marked roads and preferably no fast travel in 6.0

 

Athera, on the other hand, was way too small to support all the random vassals and villages that invariably pop up these days. I think Nexus Regions was one of the biggest issues with Athera though, since it encouraged groups to go on their own and build their own little settlements everywhere, despite the point of a small map being to condense RP. In 6.0, we need to have no overcomplicated, awkward region system like we've been getting lately. None of this Nexus Regions or plot crap. We just need to divy up the land at the start of the map and then let the borders change naturally through RP disputes and what not.