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[9.0] [Your View] - Map Size & Biomes


WestCarolina
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Big map

actually useable

realistic biomes that are not just for show but are buildable

profit.

 

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21 minutes ago, Xarkly said:

The pitfalls past maps have fallen into with biomes is that they think a variation of boring biomes is sufficient. While we should have some forests, hills, yada yada, you should be able to distinguish one part of the map from the other. Almaris' populated land is just the same fields and hills and woods everywhere with minimal uniqueness.

 

9.0 should have interesting and memorable biomes that tell a story unto themselves, and make the map actually interesting to explore. To build on that, the 'interesting biomes' we have right now like the volcanoes etc. are painted in such a way where they're just an incomprehensible blend of mountains with nothing to really see. Biomes should also be interesting traverse - roads wounding through ruins, elevation, etc.

So tell us, what sort of biomes would you be interested in seeing?

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Do you like the concept of a smaller map? Why or why not? 

I personally am fond of a smaller map size for the sake of greater centrality and easier access to other cities/regions. It also makes the land feel more alive as you see people more often in shorter periods of time. That said, it doesn't need to be too small, but definitely down a few thousand blocks from what we have now. 

 

What consequences do you think a large map has had on Almaris, good or bad?

On one hand, the larger map allows for a lot more space for settlements, builds, events, etc; there's more breathing space between nations and other groups and settlements have an easier time finding their own land. On the other hand, Almaris just seems incredibly static and empty. As grandiose and stunning as the terrain might be, there's no point to having all that space when there is nothing to fill it, save for perhaps dead settlements or abandoned vassal builds. Nations hold claim to incredible amounts of land much of which is unused. With so much land available, nations are inclined to give land to just about anyone without regard to their actual impact on activity, since activity need only be subsisted by the nation's capital, rather than the vassal themselves. Likewise, traveling between nations takes an incredible amount of time too, and with fast travel being the alternative, it just seems like there is little point to having all that space to begin with if it's only going to be skipped over. New players also struggle to find places to roleplay right-off-the-bat when they join, unless they're fortunate enough for someone to come along and guide them. But after seeing empty build after empty build, most new players likely just assume the server is dead and log off. 

 

How do you think a smaller map scale will affect roleplay hubs?

I think a smaller map scale would encourage more active road-side vassals without needing to recourse to activity plugins to manage it, thus putting activity in the hands of the players to decide rather than just staff. Given that nations can only claim a more limited amount of land on a smaller map, they might be more incentivized to give their land to active groups, as said vassal would need to provide consistent activity lest they be taken down and replaced with someone who could do better. I can see a lot more road-side settlements actually being active as a result, and roadside RP would become more common, depending on how the roads are designed at least. 

 

What biomes, high or low fantasy, sound interesting? 

When it comes to map biomes, I think low fantasy biomes are ideal for the most part. If everything is too high fantasy it can detract from the experience of players who might be trying to settle for something more realistic. However, if you start with a low fantasy base, you can still allow wanting player-groups to manipulate land to be more high-fantasy if they so desire (i.e. Magical Rifts), while the less fantastically-inclined can simply elect a region that is untouched and more mundane. That said, I do think the occasional high fantasy biome could be neat if done tastefully; the edge of the abyss, as a past example -- or maybe even a simple mushroom forest could be cool. What it really comes down to though is whether or not the biome is usable for substantial roleplay, be that as event sites or even settlements if they wanted to dwell there. 

 

Are there any world-lore pieces that could be utilized better? 

Pretty much all of them. In all seriousness though that kind of comes down to the ST being in collaboration with the world-lore when it its written. In the past, the map lore was just handled by individuals who were 'part of the ST', but really had no substantial knowledge on the actual lore of the server and thus created a narrative which, though neat in concept, didn't really fit into canon. Since ST management and administration has a more active hand in the project this time, I'm not as concerned.

 

Also as a side-question: is map dev team recruitment still ongoing? Should we expect to hear back any time soon if we applied? 

 

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 I will go here on a bit of a longer talk I think.

 

 First of all - MAP SIZE - The current map size for an experienced player should be great, especially thanks to the fact that we can use the hubs which in turn make the map feel smaller than it truly is. I feel like there are 4 subregions to which I travel. Sure I can get from one to another without using the hubs, but at the same time there is no point.

 With it comes the fact which I remember from Arcas - we tried to settle any spot on the map using an actual settlement 'booklet' that was used back then. There were only 2 spots we could really use, and both of them turned out to be unusable because other settlement was close enough that it would block us out. That was really disencouraging, especially that it was still a few months before the end of the map. Right now I still find a lot of great spots that could be used if needed and would hate to feel the same way as back then - stuck and discenouraged from making anything.

 So I'm in favour of keeping the map size in a same note as it is right now, or only a bit smaller, adjusting the unhabitable terrain accordingly to the needs.

 

 Second - HUBS - They are a great addition in my honest opinion. Having a reason to TP back to CT every now and then, travel from centralised spots and only there spread out to all the different spots brought to me more encounters on the roads than it did back in the day. It made everything be that bit much closer, so every trip doesn't feel as tidieous as it did back in the day. Additionally, players know now better where to focus if they plan to do any bandit actions, but at the same time, the roads become more active with people so it comes with a greater risk.

 

  Third - UNUSUABLE TERRAIN - Having it is fun. Using it is not, because there are not as many world focused events as there used to be I believe. Whether it is the ETs fault or not, I'm not here to judge, there are a handful of players, and it is understandable that they need to focus on bigger groups too. But in general, the terrain except for being an eye candy, doesn't bring much of fruition to RP. Perhaps having some objects of importance akin to mines would bring more interest to it, but in general I think that unless those lands are more used for events, they don't bring much to the RP itself.

 

 Fourth - PERSONALLY PREFERED BIOMES - I would love to have some well prepared valleys in mountain regions which would be pre-made into not being accesible from the sides to get into. Having an actual town in a mountain valley would be great, but right now the minecraft benefit of it stands near at 0, seeing that people usually use mechanics to jump into settlements, forcing leaders to raise ugly or overly sizeable walls.

 Except for that? Perhaps a big forest of giant spruce trees, akin to the image here
-> 47e38e464841af04e1b76de7d38d13aa.jpg

Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk!

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give me a central american style desert so I can live out my Hyspian days in peace

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on behalf of the wee folk, we want plains with rolling hills!! grass, lazy rivers & lakes

Tour the Hobbiton Movie Set in Matamata, New Zealand | HGTV

essentially just give us this in minecraft form and we r happy.

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1 hour ago, WestCarolina said:

Bigger Map? Smaller Map? Same size?


The vast size of Almaris has been a recurrent issue, despite the fact that certain biomes are quite visually appealing (though *just* that, otherwise unnavigable), and that ultimately points towards the fact that most of this large and wide land is unusable by the average or ordinary player (without considering that most nations own loads of land which they give no purpose to other than mostly inactive vassals).

 

Whilst I comprehend the frustration of fellow members from the entire community, I personally do not *feel* like size is actually the problem. We just need to receive the permission or, at the very least, chance to recycle these regions into something -new- - as big, or as small, as the next map may result to be, all of its land should be accessible to players so that they aren’t simply beautiful to look at but also an interactive setting for us to be able to build something from it. 

 

I’d also like to add that road management is absolutely garbage nowadays. They are either rushed, do not connect to any other roads and have very few destinations, or they are just not made until there is a negative outburst from the community. This needs to change. And please bring back the way Arcas’ roads were made… It was very cool that all of them were connected imo, and whilst it may pose a difficult task for considerably large maps like Almaris, there could always be a very likely possibility for the next.

 

1 hour ago, WestCarolina said:

Do you like the concept of a smaller map? Why or why not? 

 

A smaller map could help achieve these changes, but the dimensions should be upped a little bit. Like I said, size is not that much of an issue when the main problem is the fact that most of the space is just unusable. Perhaps either 5k by 5k or 6k by 6k could work. And I also really love the replacement for Cloud Temple. 

 

1 hour ago, WestCarolina said:

Biomes


Biomes are very weird in this version. Extremely beautiful, that is for sure, but they are completely harmful to roleplay. As unnavigable as they are, players have no other choice to build underground (from personal and closely known experiences) and are unable to modify these regions simply because it supposes a very hindering and time-consuming endeavor. Esplanades should be more recurrent, regardless of biome, and I’d like to personally see more ice-based land that is *actually* accesible, the typical bog-witch swamps, mountains and perhaps even canyons… I like a lot of things lol
 

1 hour ago, WestCarolina said:

Are there any world-lore pieces that could be utilized better?

 

Yes. What primarily comes to my mind is open or free materials such as either ferrum, daemonsteel (daemite or w/e), kadarsi steel, etc. I feel like we should actually implement ways to harvest these, so that we can actually settle a foundation for players to follow and use as a guide. Otherwise, I feel like none of these materials will ever be roleplayed as mined or searched for, and players will just continue to shart them from existence by magically pulling it from a bag or their pocket. 


 

Either way, love the post and appreciate all the hard work that is being put into ensuring that the new map is up to the standards of the whole community! Thank you Carol and the rest who are making this happen 💋💋

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big maps offer alot more room for nations and the like to expand, grow and maybe fail however what i have noticed on this current map is the insane amount of damn mountains taking up so much space that some tiles are near useless due to the amount of work it takes just for it to be usefull

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High peaks, grasslands and Californian desert.  Perhaps, more islands with large cave systems below to allow better ship rp and exploration.  ‘Unlockable’ areas throughout the duration of next map’s release would be interesting as well.  I’d like to see some world events where the descendents join together to uncover the secrets the land itself holds.  Maybe,  a present threat?  Are there any natives like there were for this map?  I’d like to see more light shed on things like the giant skeletons we had in this map similarly for landmarks and other such things on the next map.  RUINS AND DUNGEONS.  But like hide them like you’re hiding thanhium nodes.  Ruins with lore about local fauna and creatures or the natives would be dope/ history of the land.  These could be strewn throughout the continent.  As well as a plethora of dungeons.  It’d be nice to compile a catalogue of dungeon builds to insert into the continent over time.  That way x-rayers don’t spoil everything right off the bat.  
 

To build off of that final idea, I think dungeons should be identical in process to the nodes.  Eventually upon being failed x amount of times or done enough then they will eventually be closed through RP means. And perhaps make them a 1 time event per character.  Just an idea. 

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Make it one giant island. Allow for the ability to expand the map or add additional islands if space gets used up. Islands could be for event lands or new island for player to explore/colonize. Problem is eventually all land gets used and people for some reason feel weird building over old builds etc. Most like a blank slate to design on.

 

Please look into elevation as well. Its pretty boring to have a flat map with mountains everywhere for the only differences. Have highlands, swamps, caverns, trenches. Even in the ocean as well. 

 

Glad to see sebs back on the team. Goodluck on 9.0

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I like the 4k-4k size map. Also put CT on a small island directly off the mainland. 

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28 minutes ago, WestCarolina said:

So tell us, what sort of biomes would you be interested in seeing?

 

Here's an example of some I wrote back when I was on WT ages ago. I'd disagree with using some of them now, but you'll get the general gist of what I'm suggesting: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u4TVxFt9dTHGmYntW3HmAN9Z0-KqF1ikWrZGiovtWSc/edit?usp=sharing

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Smaller map for sure. I think a 4kx4k would probably suffice, but just in case of future growth I'd go for a 5kx5k to account for any non-habitable areas like the seas/oceans.

 

I love the idea of both a surface world and subterranean world. Could definitely go smaller (4kx4k) if we account for some underground based groups. I wonder if there is a way for this concept to basically include two maps? One on the surface and one below. It would require stackable regions, though, which maybe is more trouble than what it's worth. But a neat idea!

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make cloud temple float in the sky or something, seems only right

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Ever since the new map was announced I have been looking through the map to see what I personally think would be good, and I have a few thoughts.

The main, main thing I have noticed, which is probably due to the tile system, is how weirdly artificial the transitions between biomes are on the map. Instead of smooth, interweaving transitions between small bits of woodland along rivers through plains, you usually just get a big section of forest, or a big section of grass, or a big section of fire mountains. Now these interesting places can be fun, but taking over an entire tile like a jigsaw piece is where it gets a bit weird. Take swamps for instance. I LOVE swamps, but should swamps be taking over an entire tile? Probably not. Ideally you would have swamps in pockets along coastland or rivers where such things meet with woodlands, or swamps inter broken with flatter, more build friendly marshland, bogs, ect. Instead we have these massive, sprawling biomes which sometimes just... start inexplicably. 

This leads into my other thing. Volcanoes are lovely, but an entire six tiles devoted to nothing but volcanoes? Not as much. High fantasy stuff like giant volcanic mountains, icy spikes, and swamps are good when used in moderation. The map should have one volcano at most, and if it has more than that each volcano should have something about it which makes it very visibly different and unique from others. One could have a giant skull that spews fire at the top, another could be jagged and crownlike with geysers and hot springs all around it.

Now map size, I think 4k by 4k is a bit too small, and Rayalia brings up the point that it's hard to really do event stuff which requires deep nature for a setting. I'd recommend maybe making the map a bit bigger and having a few designated "hostile" areas which have something about it which make it too dangerous to settle on at all. These should be purposefully out of the way and used exclusively for events and such (this could be a way to have biomes that should exist but nobody wants to settle on, just design them not to be settled.)

Counter argument to my own argument, a smaller map would probably allow for much more effort and care to be put into the specifics without burning people out. Especially if your having expansive verticality.

Underground areas sounds very very based! I'd make sure though that they are somewhat interconnected and unique. Stuff like crystal growths, fungal jungles, or cold and utterly desolate deeper caves.

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hho_underdark_fungi.jpg?resize=640,338&s
583622a7a9beac8bf015b3efcc0287cef143f262

I'm looking forward to what everyone comes up with though! And beyond my suggestions it's important that the team does what is manageable for them. If you have to burn yourselves out to make the map ideal then don't do it.
 

Also I'd like to see this lore used more in a few places, I think you could do some creative fantasy stuff with it.
 


P.S. I almost forgot, the new CT MUST have a t rex in it. This is nonnegotiable and the map will FAIL without it.

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