A Discussion on 9.0 Region Design

[Xarkly 12580]

LotC 9.0

REGION DESIGN

 

Music

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Welcome to another schizopost.

 

With early development of our ninth official map in the works, I wanted to take this opportunity to build off my last post - on map storylines, which you can read here - and talk about our philosophy of how we design regions for 9.0. Obviously, a physical map is the product of all the various regions put together, but regions themselves serve more than just being something to be looked at or travelled through. A region, as most of us know, can be anything from a generic plains biome meant for players to build their settlements on, to stunning fantasy vistas primed for exploration and events.

 

Region design can appear deceptively simple at an initial glance, but I think practical experience has taught us there are ample footfalls when it comes to designing regions/biomes for a new map, and we sometimes find ourselves mired in repeating the same mistakes when it comes to region design, leaving us with a lot of dead space and impractical or just plain bad designs. So, today, I wanted to talk a bit about all this, and specifically advocate some lessons I think we can learn when it comes to designing regions for 9.0. In particular, I hope some of the approaches suggested by this thread can lead to more creative/fantasy biomes.

 

I'll break this post down into three parts: firstly, let's talk about the mechanical purposes that serve as the driving force behind region design, and some of the problems we can observe through this categorical lens; secondly, I'll share a few of my ideas that I think could really benefit region design for the next map; and, thirdly, I'll spitball a few examples of how I think better region design should be done.

 

So, bear with me, and please do leave your own thoughts in a reply below.

 

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I

PURPOSES & PROBLEMS

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So, how do we actually design regions?

 

Regions aren’t (or at least shouldn’t) be built for pure aesthetics. Instead, aside from looking great, they should always serve a particular purpose in the overall map design. I think we can generally classify three mechanical categories of region design - settlement regions, secondary regions, and narrative regions:

 

• Settlement Regions: Usually, the majority of map space (especially on Almaris) is dedicated to acting as land upon which player settlements, from nations to villages, are built and expanded. The primary focus of this land is not intended to be the land or the biome itself, but the  towns and cities built upon them. Because of this, these settlement regions tend to mirror very generic, real-world biomes like plains, fields, etc. with very few remarkable details, because these best facilitate settlement building. Contrary to the main point of this post, this is actually fine -- like I said, the focus of these regions is the settlements built upon them, and not the actual region itself.
   
• Secondary Regions: What I mean by this are regions that tend not to have an explicit purpose -- they’re normally wilderness or connecting space between various nations or settlements. They could be called travel regions, characterised by roads that go through these regions on their way to settlements, but Almaris’ Hubs negate the need for that. Instead, these secondary regions usually act as backup space for small non-nation settlements. The problem is that most of these secondary regions also tend to be generic and unremarkable, and this usually isn’t offset by the presence of a player build, so we’re left with a bland landscape not worth a second glance.
   
• Narrative Regions: By this, I mean regions built with a very specific purpose in mind, like for a specific storyline (i.e., the flooded ruins of Lost Balian) or for exploration and events (like the Rimeveld and volcano were intended for, but botched upon implementation). Unlike the other regions, the core focus of these regions are the land and how they are built, in a way that entices exploration and helps tell the map narrative in a “show, don’t tell” way (through things like ruins). While the theory here works, these maps have been horrifically implemented historically. Take the volcanoes out west -- these were meant to be the lands of a ruined Dwarven civilization that harvested their wealth and power from the volcanoes, traversing the magma upon special ships and exhibiting a fire-based culture (not too unlike ATLA’s Fire Nation), but instead we were left with a smear of mountains utterly uninteresting to explore (before players stepped in to build on it).

 

The Problems

With the above breakdown in mind, I already mentioned some of the practical problems we have with our current region design, so let’s analyse them in a bit more detail.

• Dead Space: This is probably one of the most prevalent issues in current map design. I always find it weird how we’ve made such a big discussion about what size to make the next map without mentioning the fact that so much of our current map (more so than maps that came before it) is dead and useless space. Whether it’s the northern mountains, or the stretch of deserts in the south, there’s a huge amount of land on this map that serves utterly no purpose. They’re not settled on, there’s no narrative purpose to them, and, more often than not, they’re not even interesting to look at. Why do we build space that has no purpose?
• Unremarkable is the Norm: I mentioned that generic real-world biomes with little engaging detail like plains were fine for settlement regions -- this is because the settlement is the engaging detail, and the focal point of the landscape is whatever city is in the vicinity. However, when this same design philosophy is extended to secondary regions, the near entirety of the map (outside the fringe dead space mentioned above) is reduced to mostly fields, hills, and sparse woodlands without settlements serving as the main attraction. This also contributes to dead space, and makes most of the map just … uninteresting. 
• Watered-Down Biomes: There’s nothing necessarily wrong with using real-world or generic biomes, but I think, if you look at a lot of these biomes critically, they’re not so much an array of real-world biomes, but just small variations on boring old plains (especially in the north and east of the map). Our forests, for the most part … aren’t really forests. They’re just roads flanked with occasional trees that don’t really offer any real different experience in terms of traversal. Overall, our use of real-world/generic biomes is generally lacking, too, especially outside of settlement regions (again, where there is no other focus to the land so it becomes almost dead space).
• Creativity is not Compromise: I’ve mentioned a lot how these generic plain biomes are best for settlement building, and that this is fine, but I think it’s also worth flagging that this isn’t always 100% true. You can have settlements built on regions that do not conform to the normal unremarkable plain terrain -- it just takes a bit of common sense in the design process, and not making the terrain utterly inhospitable (like the Rimeveld, for example). You can have settlements built even on floating islands, and coordinate with certain races pre-launch -- for example, we could design a great-tree forest (think Attack on Titan’s forest of giant trees) for them to build their settlement in.
• Nothing to Explore: These next two points feed into each other, and they essentially amount to the fact that maps like Almaris aren’t worth exploring, as there is practically nothing to find. Now, I need to preface this by saying I’m talking about how the regions are designed for launch, and not if they’re modified by eventsites after the fact. This sort of builds off the issue of dead space, in that a very clear message has been sent to players that there is no real incentive to explore the map, given there’s nothing to find.
• The ‘Show Don’t Tell’ Approach: In my previous 9.0 thread, I spoke about map narratives - which you can read here - and I talked about how LotC’s best storytelling tool is the map itself. On a server where, unlike a book or show, people can’t start on episode 1 at their own pace, a map that conveys narrative is an invaluable resource. From ruined cities that help tell the tale of the current map, to ancient murals that divulge the server’s wider lore, things like these (which I’ll give an example of in the region section) are just missed opportunities.
• Corner Syndrome: For some reason, there’s a persisting trend of map philosophy of trying to shove some regions in a corner of the map where they’ll rarely be accessed by anyone. This has often been done throughout most maps in recent memory. Why would we take the regions that might arguably take the most amount of work and be the most interesting to explore, and relegate them to a place on the map that is far from optimised? I take the view that interesting regions should be actively woven into the well-travelled roads of our map.
• Verticality: This is just a short point, but our maps have neglected to explore verticality in our region designs. I’m not talking about some hills and mountains for the Dwarves, but regions with actual depth - like a canyon, for example, with explorable and traversable land both above and below.
• Interest & Identity: Lastly, a map like Almaris - with its abundance of generic, watered-down regions, extremely poorly-implemented narrative regions, and its colossal expanse of dead space - isn’t interesting, and doesn’t infuse it with a sense of identity. This is probably more just a personal thing, but I think a map should have a memorable design and, as I’ll speak about below, have features that actually stand out (in a good way).

 

 

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II

LESSONS & SOLUTIONS

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So, what can we learn from all this?

 

I think there’s a few major solutions we could explore for better region design in a way that allows us to minimise dead space, create regions that entice exploration and help tell the map narrative, and overall make for a better player experience. I’m going to talk about three lessons I think could benefit 9.0 region design: (1) the memorable model; (2) the specific purpose model; and (3) interweaving.

 

1: The Memorable Model

So, the idea here is that each region should be designed to be individually memorable. If you drop players in any given part of the map, they (assuming they’re not a noob) should be able to look at their surroundings and go “oh, I’m here”. The logic with this one is that a region memorable for the right reasons makes for a better one, and a better experience, no matter whether it's for settlement, secondary uses, or narrative ones. 

 

What do I actually mean by memorable, though? There’s not a set definition, but the gist is that each region should be designed to be interesting - whether to facilitate settlements or otherwise. We should not paint the entire map with the same generic fields with some trees and lakes and hills here and there, because this does not make for interesting design and it’s silly to think that the entire map should be reserved for settlement (because this is never the reality). Instead, we should plug the gap between settlement regions with this ‘memorable’ design approach (bearing in mind these regions can be settled, too).

 

This was the approach me and Julius took when we drafted some early designs for Almaris (well over two years ago), and even this much time later I still think they convey the point I’m trying to make here, so if you want to know more feel free to check out those ideas by clicking here.

 

2: The Specific Purpose Model

I spoke a lot in the previous section about Almaris, and many maps before it, having a ton of dead space with quite literally nothing in them. We can fix this by designing regions with specific purposes that I spoke about in the last part, namely settlement, secondary, and narrative. 

 

Settlement regions, like I said, should generally try to facilitate player factions building their stuff, and so it shouldn’t have untraversable terrain that makes building very difficult. Remember, though, a region doesn’t have to be a flat plain for players to inhabit, and I think many communities might welcome more varied biomes for a change. The only rule is that they shouldn’t be like the Rimeveld, the western volcanoes, or Swiss-cheese mountains. For obvious reasons, regions like these make building impossible (and generally are badly designed).

 

Secondary regions are, as mentioned, a bit harder to place, because they’re secondary by virtue of the fact that they fall outside of settlement and narrative regions (though generally are kind of treated as lite settlement regions that are seldom used). I think we should stop the practice of just filling in the blanks between nation land with more of the same generic biomes, and instead adopt what I mentioned above (the memorable model) to create more unique and interesting biomes that span between settlement landscapes. Whether these are creative high fantasy concepts or more low-fantasy regions but fleshed out with the memorable concept, these connecting regions should be interesting to explore and travel through, and leave a lasting impression. Remember, these don’t prevent settlements or narrative uses. As a TLDR for this one, if we’re making a region that specifically connects one settlement region to another, the idea should be to make it an interesting travel route.

 

Lastly, narrative regions mostly speak for themselves -- we just need more of them. 

 

3: Interweaving

Lastly, and this mostly ties in with the existing points already. I think we have another problematic habit where any interesting features we do have are usually side-pieces, usually off in a part that is seldom seen when instead we should be interweaving these features into parts of the map that are actually used (which help create more compact maps/reduce dead space). 

 

It's been quite commonplace that Map Dev teams might design something like - for example - an enchanted forest biome, in stark contrast with the rest of the map's generic regions, but then put it out of view in an isolated corner of the map Why would we put one of the few creative regions (the enchanted forest) off in the corner of the map like this? Instead, I think it’s much more compelling if we interweave a cool region idea like this in the more travelled parts of the map. Why not make this enchanted forest a cool secondary or narrative region that spans between, for example, the Dwarven and Elven lands? It makes so much more sense to have this interwoven with the central map, so that players can actually experience it, and Staff can use it for events. 

 

The philosophy of leaving some regions in the middle of nowhere is redundant. 

 

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III

SOME EXAMPLES

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Lastly, I just want to feature some examples that might fit the bill for some of the criteria I’ve described for new region design.

 

These are purely examples - the placement, design, and narrative basis are purely made up for the sake of demonstrating some of the stuff discussed earlier, so don’t read too much into the practicalities. 

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THE CLOUD TEMPLE

Spoiler

 

A sacred site of rebirth and healing.

 

Floating high above the waters of Lake Cirann, the Cloud Temple is a ruined temple that sits atop a chunk of rock, suspended in midair through some incomprehensible magic. From the jagged, pale rocks of the floating temple, clear water pours down in an array of waterfalls to the Lake below, where pilgrims constructed altars and sites of worship and collected the fallen water, for they believed it to hold healing properties. The belief is not without foundation, for there exists countless legends of souls being reborn atop the floating island, who descend back to the world of the living by dropping into the Lake below. 

 

The ruined Temple itself consists only of weathered pale-stone walls, eroded over many hundreds of years to near-collapse. The worn stone stairs lead from the sole remaining parthenon, the site of supposed rebirth, down to a small shore from where the waterfalls spawn. Ancient murals and stone pillars flank the descent from the parthenon, allegedly depicting the tale of the Four Brothers and their war against the Archdaemon Iblees.

 

From the fallen Temple, the reborn could throw themselves down into the Lake below, and swim to the shore where the roads that pilgrims took to the Temple many moons ago lead across the world. It was widely believed that the Cloud Temple once formed a part of the Old Imperium.

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THE OLD IMPERIUM

Spoiler

 

Once, there was a great civilization that ruled from above.

 

From floating islands, shrouded in clouds, the people of the Old Imperium reigned over much of the land beneath. To them, to touch the ground was a severe heresy and a renunciation of what they believed to be their ascended blood as those born in the sky. Those who lived on the land below were their vassals, who paid tribute to them with food and other materials that were carried to the floating holds of the Old Imperiums through hot-air balloons and winch-elevators of unbelievable height.

 

From across many parts of the continent, traces of the Old Imperium are visible floating in the sky, high above. Ancient texts speak of Old Imperium soldiers sailing through the sky in their balloons, from which they would rain arrows and magic down upon their enemies and rebelling vassals who neglected their tributes. Like all once-great empires, however, the Old Imperium was not immune to the passing of time; some speculate that they incurred the wrath of the Stormdrakes Hyvenar and Thrykas, while others claim a string of vassal rebellions left them without food and triggered their collapse. 

 

Some ardent explorers might uncover one of the ancient hot-air balloons or elevators that still function, and allow them to ascend to some of the abandoned floating settlements of the Old Imperium.

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THE FLOODWOOD

Spoiler

 

The true name of the great forest to the west of the Cloud Temple has been lost.

 

Instead, it is known only as the Floodwood. Initially, it might appear to be a puzzling name, for the woodland is without proximity to any great body of water. Long ago, a tribal Elven Seed that inhabited the forest worshipped the great Raintrees, which were revered as sacred blessings of nature. Instead of budding leaves, the branches of the Raintrees produced a ceaseless stream of water. For generations, the nomadic Seed travelled the woods in an eternal pilgrimage between the Raintrees, but their folley came when they tried to cultivate new Raintrees. 

 

At first, these new Raintrees brought new growth and prosperity, but their water soon began to flood the forest floor. Unable to stem the flow of the water, for they were barred from felling the Raintrees as an act of blasphemy, the Seed was forced to build their camps higher and higher in the branches of the other trees. Eventually, most of the Seed was lost to the rising floods, and later settlers chopped some of the Raintrees, for its wood was highly prized. Some of the water drained from the Floodwood, leaving the Seed settlements in the branches of the trees, but the forest flood remained flooded.

 

Today, the Floodwood can be traversed through the bridges connecting the old camps of the Elven seed, though brave explorers can descend to the flooded forest floor below, or travel it by boat.

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THE PLAGUED PATH

Spoiler

 

Once a bountiful span of farmland, the land now known as the Plagued Path is a living relic of the spread of the plague dubbed Vrein’s Blessing.

 

Long ago, Vrein’s Blessing was a plague cultivated by an obscure, but powerful, figure named Vrein, about whom little is truly known. Contrary to what a plague suggests, Vrein’s Blessing did not necessarily corrupt and kill the body; instead, Vrein’s Blessing actually bestowed enhanced strength and agility upon its host, but it robbed them of their free-will, and subjected them to the will of Vrein. Those who contracted the plague but resisted Vrein’s will suffered from their blood hardening, and splitting through their flesh like vines, horrifically killing them.

 

The Plagued Path was a focal point of the infection during its height, and believed by some to be the seat of Vrein’s power and his thralls. Red vines - which, in actuality, are tendrils of hardened blood - cloak the land, infesting nearly everything on it. Since Vrein was supposedly slain at the hands of the Silvarien Order, many years ago, the plague no longer seems to infect those who travel the Plagued Path, but the blood-vines remain as a stark reminder of Vrein’s Blessing, and the sway it once held over the land. 

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THE VALE OF AARGAD

Spoiler

 

Among the continent’s more peaceful regions is the Vale of Aargad.

 

Lying between the northern mountains of the Rykenwall and the south-western peaks of the White Stairs, the Vale of Aargad is renowned for its silver-grass fields and the Bell Trees, with its metallic leaves that chime together in the wind like a chorus of bell chimes, filling the fields with a constant din. The Bell Trees, like the expanse of silver-grass, are a pure silvery white, resplendent in the light of moon and sun alike. 

 

The peaceful silver-grass fields, broken in parts by small streams and rivers that stem from the Rykenwall and the White Stairs, make for fertile land for farming, and ergo for Descendant settlement. The land was named after the original First Knight of the Silvarien - an ancient order of dark-hunters - and thus is considered to be blessed as a safe place. Various gravestones and monuments to the Silvarien throughout the region are believed to act as protective charms for the land’s new inhabitants.

 

Some of the floating islands of the Old Imperium are visible above the Vale of Aargad, to the east.

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THE MOONTEARS

Spoiler

 

In the north, the mountains of the Rykenwall stand.

 

These sheer, icy cliffs were once thought to be nigh-impossible to traverse, until a cunning guild of mountaineers took up their chisels, and stairs and roads through the abundance of frozen waterfalls. Through these frozen stairs and tunnels, people could now scale the cliffs of the Rykenwall safely. Atop the slopes, accessed through the waterfalls, were signs of the Yomska civilization -- a reclusive race of yeti-like creatures that were averse to violence, and prone to flee at the sight of travellers. 

 

Through the paths of ice, travellers could cross the otherwise treacherous mountain peaks, past strangely abandoned sites of Yomska habitation, and to the once-mysterious lands of Helvang that lay beyond. Although the Yomska appear crude and unintelligent, they are especially remarkable for their construction of bizarre altars from crystal and ice, which appear to revere the moon.

 

It is said that, on nights of the full moon, the altars bloom with a celestial light. Some travellers claim that, on such nights, the altars beckon spectres to them. 

 

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[UnusualBrit 2050]

When the forums go down before anyone can look at ur post 😳

[GoodGuyMatt 7060]

babe wake up new conorpost @Fionn__TWG

[Reece Nolan 634]

A prevalent issue is that, these dead regions are perfectly fine, it's that nothing is ever put into them. Take Arcas for example, Urguan had massive caverns of bare stone that had a lot of potential, but nothing was ever evolved from them until much later in the map. The same applies to Almaris, as the caves are left unfinished and clearly world edited, as if given up on half way through and just sealed off.

 

Understandably, the world team has a deadline to meet the moment that they announce the next map. These dead areas aren't a result of poor map design or any flaws, they're signs of underdevelopment, likely from not having enough time to think of anything to put there.

 

As far as incentive to even go out there, there's plenty of things one could do, such as adding sealed off event entrances for later use or utilitizing the node system in creative and clever ways, like a ruined keep that's overgrown and at the top a rare herb node sits, or maybe literally just a really neat place to RP at for events players or st can host.

 

Possibly one of the biggest advantages of putting interesting things out in these dead areas, is giving unique and already completed areas for small groups such as spooks or even a poltergeist haunt, or perhaps a new monument or landmark to settle around. Rather than just having the player be the only source of inspiration for their establishment, imagine they come across a giant mushroom out in a forest, suddenly there is the potential for them to form their own story around it, when in reality it serves no other purpose in the world lore than just being a feature of the land.

[Fionn__TWG 2616]

18 minutes ago, GoodGuyMatt said:

babe wake up new conorpost @Fionn__TWG

 

Too bad it won't go anywhere. Map design crazy these days, lead by the ST, and ScreamingDingo, who I personally hate

[MissToni 3487]

Good soup

[Xarkly 12580]

34 minutes ago, Reece Nolan said:

A prevalent issue is that, these dead regions are perfectly fine, it's that nothing is ever put into them. Take Arcas for example, Urguan had massive caverns of bare stone that had a lot of potential, but nothing was ever evolved from them until much later in the map. The same applies to Almaris, as the caves are left unfinished and clearly world edited, as if given up on half way through and just sealed off.

 

Understandably, the world team has a deadline to meet the moment that they announce the next map. These dead areas aren't a result of poor map design or any flaws, they're signs of underdevelopment, likely from not having enough time to think of anything to put there.

 

As far as incentive to even go out there, there's plenty of things one could do, such as adding sealed off event entrances for later use or utilitizing the node system in creative and clever ways, like a ruined keep that's overgrown and at the top a rare herb node sits, or maybe literally just a really neat place to RP at for events players or st can host.

 

Possibly one of the biggest advantages of putting interesting things out in these dead areas, is giving unique and already completed areas for small groups such as spooks or even a poltergeist haunt, or perhaps a new monument or landmark to settle around. Rather than just having the player be the only source of inspiration for their establishment, imagine they come across a giant mushroom out in a forest, suddenly there is the potential for them to form their own story around it, when in reality it serves no other purpose in the world lore than just being a feature of the land.

 

Yeah, obviously a lot of the suggestions here demand some more work.

 

However, I disagree that these things are hindered by deadlines. There is no deadline for an LotC map other than social demand - this isn't an insignificant factor, but it's not a decisive one either. We've been on Almaris for, what, two years now? And 9.0 development has only just began. While timeframes are certainly something to keep in mind, I don't think there's any real time pressure, and Staff certainly doesn't think so either based on the time it's taken to start developing this next map.

 

I think that narrative/interesting regions should definitely be finished before map launch -- I've seen it happen twice now where Map Dev Teams say "Oh, we'll build the event stuff after launch", and then momentum/energy is completely lost and it never gets done (Arcas being a prime example). 

[Benjikhei 696]

these takes are consistently amazing- a regrettably apt terminology in ‘dead space’ for Almaris, I do agree we could all use a few more flavourful region designs next time around.

 

Let’s hope we can make it happen.

[ReveredOwl 5314]

A good bunch of suggestions that sound like it will add a lot of flavour to the next map, it is a shame this will be ignored due to certain players unjustified hate for its author.

[Elennanore 2708]

All the memorable biomes this map are memorable for being dog shit. You don't need high fantasy or 'special' biomes for them to be memorable or 'good', you just need a biome that establishes itself as unique when compared to others, something that is explicitly unique.  You recognize a forest as being unique amongst its peers, such as exclusively having pine trees/oak trees, or a forest that gives a 'dark', 'evil' vibe. This universally applies to most other biomes as well. The problem LotC has faced this map is that unique biomes were mad that were terrible from the get go, so they get remembered for being shitty. All the other biomes are just, not unique.

[Xarkly 12580]

8 minutes ago, Elennanore said:

All the memorable biomes this map are memorable for being dog shit. You don't need high fantasy or 'special' biomes for them to be memorable or 'good', you just need a biome that establishes itself as unique when compared to others, something that is explicitly unique.  You recognize a forest as being unique amongst its peers, such as exclusively having pine trees/oak trees, or a forest that gives a 'dark', 'evil' vibe. This universally applies to most other biomes as well. The problem LotC has faced this map is that unique biomes were mad that were terrible from the get go, so they get remembered for being shitty. All the other biomes are just, not unique.

 

Yeah, this is essentially what I say a few times in the thread.

 

While I definitely would love to see more fantasy biomes, I also recognise that there's nothing inherently wrong with generic real-world biomes -- I just think that, as you say, they should be made to be a bit more engaging, rather than variations of plains throughout the majority of the map (by that, I mean a lot of different biomes attempt to differentiate themselves through only minor detail, like some sparse trees off the road). 

 

Likewise, I agree that Map Dev Teams have, for many maps now, greatly struggled to implement unique biomes. Whether this is the fault of the World Painters, or just map builders not having the time or inspiration, I'm not sure, but this map has ample examples. The volcanoes and the Rimeveld, for instance, were initially written to have a lot of unique details that lent themselves to environmental storytelling and event potential, but instead we just got some mountains without really anything at all to see within them.

[Elennanore 2708]

2 minutes ago, Xarkly said:

Yeah, this is essentially what I say a few times in the thread.

 

While I definitely would love to see more fantasy biomes, I also recognise that there's nothing inherently wrong with generic real-world biomes -- I just think that, as you say, they should be made to be a bit more engaging, rather than variations of plains throughout the majority of the map (by that, I mean a lot of different biomes attempt to differentiate themselves through only minor detail, like some sparse trees off the road). 

 

Likewise, I agree that Map Dev Teams have, for many maps now, greatly struggled to implement unique biomes. Whether this is the fault of the World Painters, or just map builders not having the time or inspiration, I'm not sure, but this map has ample examples. The volcanoes and the Rimeveld, for instance, were initially written to have a lot of unique details that lent themselves to environmental storytelling and event potential, but instead we just got some mountains without really anything at all to see within them.

The real problem with creating high fantasy biomes is mainly the limitation of builders dedicated to pour hours into producing such a feat. Generally speaking, more fantastical biomes are held to a higher standard than other biomes by the wider population of players, mainly due to the fact that they aren't conditioned to seeing such, so its criticized a lot more harshly than the generic oak forest. Thus, if a fantasy biomes is done poorly, then it receives a lot of negative criticism. I'm all for fantasy biomes, but at the end of the day, there are only so many people who would to spend weeks of hours building biomes in minecraft.

[Xarkly 12580]

3 minutes ago, Elennanore said:

The real problem with creating high fantasy biomes is mainly the limitation of builders dedicated to pour hours into producing such a feat. Generally speaking, more fantastical biomes are held to a higher standard than other biomes by the wider population of players, mainly due to the fact that they aren't conditioned to seeing such, so its criticized a lot more harshly than the generic oak forest. Thus, if a fantasy biomes is done poorly, then it receives a lot of negative criticism. I'm all for fantasy biomes, but at the end of the day, there are only so many people who would to spend weeks of hours building biomes in minecraft.

 

For sure, I don't think anyone's suggesting that this is the easier route. On the contrary, doing things better usually does take some more effort.

 

Ultimately, there's a lot of factors involved in making regions like this, from map size, to timelines, to manpower, and it's not much use for us to discuss those things given that that information isn't really freely available. While accounting for feasibility, the goal here really is to just generate discussion on these ideas in general. If talks like this can lead to even a few cooler regions next map, I think that's a net-gain.

 

Anyway, I appreciate you commenting as a member of the Map Dev Team and taking it outside of your Discord.

 

[argonian 12836]

1 hour ago, Elennanore said:

All the memorable biomes this map are memorable for being dog shit. You don't need high fantasy or 'unique' biomes for them to be memorable or 'good', you just need a biome that establishes itself as unique when compared to others, something that is explicitly unique.  You recognize a forest as being unique amongst its peers, such as exclusively having pine trees/oak trees, or a forest that gives a 'dark', 'evil' vibe. This universally applies to most other biomes as well. The problem LotC has faced this map is that unique biomes were mad that were terrible from the get go, so they get remembered for being shitty. All the other biomes are just, not unique.

It's important to avoid Theme Park World though. A common trend in LOTC maps is to have flat grassy plains as the default, and then they go through a shopping list of biomes, adding them to different corners of the map. It makes all the untouched (or barely touched) parts of the map extremely dull, while the few biomes there are are then exaggerated. Every mountain has to be unscalable, every forest has to have gigantic trees that block out the sun entirely, etc.

 

The map leak was pretty worrying because it looked like every mountain was part of a gigantic range designed to separate nations from each other (why???), all the interesting biomes were shoved to the corners of the map, the snowy part was a clear wasteland, etc.

 

A greater number of less drastic biomes and terrain features would be in order IMO.

[NotEvilAtAll 9926]

2 hours ago, argonian said:

The map leak was pretty worrying because it looked like every mountain was part of a gigantic range designed to separate nations from each other (why???), all the interesting biomes were shoved to the corners of the map, the snowy part was a clear wasteland, etc.

I mean, it could be worse I guess. At least there's only a single volcano instead of a volcanic biome.