World map

From The Ghost of Windsor
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The Windsor Isles! First glimpse of the world map, as seen in World Machine

Currently under construction, the world map is going to be big. Very big.

The map is going to feature an ocean, with two large landmasses, and a lot of small to medium islands.

Each landmass is going to have a main city, which is essentially the capital of that landmass, and is also one of the two (initial) spawn locations for new players.

There will be many more cities throughout the game, but players will start in one of the two capitals. Think of them as Ultima Online's "Britain", except one for every landmass.

In fact, the UO analogy goes further. In Ultima Onlne's classic map, you pretty much had one landmass and several islands. Our map has a similar structure, except with two large landmasses.

Large game world

The idea of having a large game world is exciting, but also poses certain challenges. While it allows players to explore a large realistic world, it may also rob them of player interaction. If you have to travel for a long time before you even run into another player, the game may end up feeling kind of empty - a pretty big problem for an MMORPG.

The solution is simple: everything is centered around the two main cities. Dungeons, mines, areas of interest - all can pretty much exist in close proximity to starting cities, allowing player to pretty much hang around a smaller area, never needing to go too far.

But then, why build a huge world in the first place?

  • Distance. Even if most of the players stay around their main city, the huge map creates distance. If you want a rare object, you need to travel far. This opens up a new world of player merchants and trading.
  • Places. So, if the world is huge, this means that there will be lots of interesting places. You don't have to be there all the time. Even if it's a journey you take once, or rarely, it's still there.

The point is that even in the real life, population distribution is very uneven. Huge empty forests and deserts, with no human settlements for hundreds, and even thousands of miles, while most people live in relatively densely populated cities. The idea is to create something similar. A few population centers where 80% of people will spend 80% of their time, while still retaining that option of traveling far, discovering new places, and finding new resources/items/creatures.