Map Size Fixes

[lachlaan]

Also, I see a sneaky Jorb, HAI JORB, why do you never come say hi to us?

Hi!

Woo, good to see you're still alive and well, hope HnH is going well for you guys, would be nice to see you around at least as often as Loftar has been hanging out While MM are now the adoptive parents of Salem, and I'm sure they'll discipline it into a totally different kid than it would've grown up to be under your guidance, you two are still its biological parents, and should totally stick around for a chat here and there. I'm sure the whole player base have grown fond of you, even if some are too emotionally constipated to admit such a thing!

[Michael]

I feel like the map is more cliffy then it was on old servers. You should really just nuke the whole thing. Indian Burial Grounds be damned!

[JohnCarver]

Prime example is Plymouth. Small map, 1 big faction

Congrats on your hat.

As stated, over 100,000 Towns could fit on Plymouth. It was far from small.

[Pildream]

I think map should stay huge, vast territory adds to the atmosphere .

but I Liked the idea about biomes and diversity

I'd like to reiterate that I think the map design itself also requires a serious rethink along with the related issue of size, as I am not entirely convinced that simply shrinking the map will entirely address the deeper cause of the complaint you have with player distribution. We are discussing, in part, the relative "emptiness" of the map and the distances required to cross to reach one's goal. However, aside from raiding/justice seeking, what reasons are there to even bother traveling? Motivation must also be addressed. Loftar, for whatever reason, decided to nix any regional distinctiveness when he wrote the mapgen code this round, and I genuinely feel that this is an error. The map should be significantly smaller, yes, and fast-travel outposts are absolutely the correct design choice independent of map size, but players still need reasons to travel aside from raiding/vengeance. As it is now, there isn't really much motivation to travel to find a good location to settle, since Loftar designed this map to be very uniform. The darkness will eventually become a distinct region with distinct resources and creatures, and will thus be a draw, but, aside from the ocean, there are no real distinctive regions now. I suggest that biomes be made larger and more unified and have far more unique resources and animals (and to anticipate an objection, while, say, bear might only appear in certain biomes, one can easily find all biomes in a two or three tile radius in most places). That alone would have forced players, especially on a smaller map, to cluster closer together, simply because ideal habitable regions wouldn't be scattered every third tile. Indeed, that seemed to be the consequence of previous map design. Loftar actually complained once that the action in the previous worlds was taking place on the edges of grasslands and forests and nowhere else, but that doesn't strike me as much of a problem, since it meant that in practice the populations were denser in certain areas. It also meant that determined players and towns could hide in less habitable biomes, since those biomes were massive and less traveled. Add to this, say, distinct mountain regions with unique flora and fauna (mountain goats, mountain lions, mountain . . . yeti, I guess - I don't hike much) or massive swamps with alligators and whatever else swamps contain (I don't airboat much, either), and you'd give players a reason to light out for the territories, as Huck Finn once said, and, just as importantly, a place to hide on smaller maps, especially if these regions are made to be particularly brutal, as they should be.

I'd also like to point out that it is probably possible to rewrite the mapgen code and reroll the word without deleting player claims. That info is stored, so claims could likely be dropped down randomly during the map rewrite. The locations probably wouldn't be ideal and the bases might be a touch screwed up due to elevation issues, but enough would be preserved that players wouldn't be starting over. Now, I'm not at all familiar with Loftar's programming, but pushing claim info forward shouldn't be outside the realm of possibility (although writing the code to do this might be). At any rate, I feel map design is itself integral to the size discussion, since the design affects the player's experience of size.

besides most people voted for carriages right ?

better find another way for people who want to avenge criminals and not shrink the map. Especially to the crazy "bump on base every 15 minutes" that would be lame

[Potjeh]

snip

So much this.

[lachlaan]

Prime example is Plymouth. Small map, 1 big faction

Congrats on your hat.

As stated, over 100,000 Towns could fit on Plymouth. It was far from small.

Quit being pedantic. You yourself stated that your target compromise was more or less plymouth sized, a map 20% or less the size of this one, for the sake of a ~2 hour walk from end to end.

Other people using the town you gave as an example to show how the PvP environment worked out when the map was that size doesn't really seem like someone being particularly uneducated. Of course it matters why things worked out the way they did, but obviously one factor is how easy it was to reach a criminal's claim. It mattered because a faction with a decent number of braves could have them patrolling most of the area to ensure that few "criminals" would slip by. That sort of patrolling also removes just about any positive excitement a newbie might get from wandering out of boston claim, since the positive rewards they get from foraging will be nullified by the patrolling murderers ending their journey early. Any attempt at building a base in a timely manner will be thwarted by someone having the capability to scout your general area on horseback (and I mean thoroughly, sequentially so no bit of map is left unrevealed), and kill you before you even have a chance to finish a decent fence. Pair the inability to be safe while online with the fact that you intend to remove safe offline storage in boston, and with the fact that you'll have unreasonably short windows of time to build a base, and you have yourself a game where newbies have no reward from staying online, as they'll be hunted and camped for any money they're saving up to drop a bell. At the same time they'll have no incentive to log out in boston since any future alt-vaulting deterrents will make their early silver grind futile. Ultimately a smaller map makes for more drama which I get that you want, but the way it goes about causing the drama seems a bit unpleasant and unpolished. Feel free to address the poorly paragraphed issues listed by myself and other players with words rather than hats.

[Darwoth]

looks like waypoints are still the best option to me. retains the space of a large map for folks to have room for all their **** and eliminates the long travel times thus solving both problems.

[ericbomb]

For the waypoints I just have a few suggestions if they are added

If put on a claim even if you've visited the way point before you need permission to be on the claim to use the way point, so use of the way point can be revoked by the owner of the claim if necessary.

When you build a way point you have to name it, and so then when you open a list of waypoints you have found you'll see the names, which hopefully give hints as to where it'll drop you off.

[Jackxter]

looks like waypoints are still the best option to me. retains the space of a large map for folks to have room for all their **** and eliminates the long travel times thus solving both problems.

I agree, waypoints sound like a good idea, both for the current and future Salem. A large map size may be needed when the influx of players becomes larger, so why not just keep it large now yet provide a way to travel about the map quickly? Everyone wins.

Maybe completely scatter the map with a grid of teleport nodes perhaps in intervals of an hour walk and make it the only way to travel to and from Boston directly from the homestead is with no inventory. Players could select nodes as 'their's' to teleport from Boston to, or you can use them to fast-travel to other nodes nearby (for a small cost). They don't have to be too fancy, the nodes, just an object perhaps the size of a territorial claim. Create a somewhat large no-fight/no-build zone around the nodes so pricks can't camp them too easily (though they could still camp out around the zone as bandits), but small enough that players could settle near them and gain an advantage over others, thus opening the gates for delicious, delicious conflict. They could also double as a neutral ground for players in a certain area to meet up without fear of death + t-bagging. If anyone tries anything assholey like building a wall around the node zones, destroy their walls, ban the players for a few days and then drink their tears.

This could make having wagons/carriages/caravans/trucks( ) useful as players could drop them off near a teleport zone and go to and from Boston to drop off goods (so long as they're smart enough to let a friend guard them). Also, perhaps Rangers tracking scents could pay a guide in Boston to take them to the node nearest to their target?

Naturally, provide a waypoint to the nearest teleport node for everyone (similar to the homestead waypoint).

I dunno lol, just shooting the breeze here.

[JohnCarver]

We are currently favoring the idea of waypoints.