Strombonni

How high, in meters (or its equivalent) is the wurm wurld? I see the mountains in the distance, they they seem far away...but I can't tell how far they really are. I know that freedom/indepependance is like...16km square. How about the world height, or "depth"?

If this is true, then really...animals have basic rules about certain tiles (can't walk on water, lava). And, they can't walk through structures. I think they are not even restricted by slope...I've seen them on mountain sides before. And, have animals displayed any pathfinding ability, other than walk straight to my target if I can? For example, if I make a U-shaped wall, and the animal is 'inside' the U, will it actually make its way outside to get me, or is it stuck? I haven't seen any pathfinding ability in the animals is what I'm saying, but maybe i just haven't seen it. I suspect there is a somewhat basic AI engine handling critters in one of two ways: 1) when they are not aggro, just basic movement from tile to tile. 2) when they aggro...head straight as fast as they can towards the target. Can't move through walls Probably in a separate thread, doing nothing but checking each animal every now and then to see what it needs to do. Hopefully in a separate thread

Errr don't get me wrong, I admire what the wurm creators have done. I think this stuff is harder than it looks, otherwise...well, we'd have a bunch of different sandbox games like wurm out there. Instead of so very, very few.

I don't even know if creatures care that much about tree collision, has anyone seen them actually avoiding them? It's not like you can have trees all clumped together, so that the creature must go around them. Honestly, I think that wurm follows some very basic, simple rules and systems for this sort of thing. Which is -one- reason why making them more complex, to handle two stories, is taking so long. So much in wurm has been built upon those basic systems.

You're right, I didn't mean to imply that the client held the data for the entire world. That would be crazy

I'm not so sure about objects not having layers. What is speculation and what is fact? My speculation: Containers play a huge part of wurm. When you build something like a barrel, the game creates a container. When you "craft" it by adding nails, etc...the game actually adds these item to the unfinished barrel container. When the server sees that all required components are inside, a finished barrel is created, the components are removed. While each tile being a container looks good on the surface...in practice, it doesn't seem like it would work well that way. You have two distinct "slots" for a wall type. You have a floor type (rock slab, wood slab). By slots, I mean each cell may have a data structure assigned for it, that has a variable for the left wall type, the "bottom" wall type, one for the floor type, etc. You have one slot that is used to store stackable items. These are things that can be made into a stack, like boards, rock, etc. The server says "There is one board here". If you drop another board, the server says "There is a pile of boards here" and shows the board PILE container. If you drop some rock shards there, the server says "There are two or more different types of things in the stack slot now. Make it a generic pile of items" container. But the tile only stores a reference to the single item or the container, not the items IN the container. Pretty sure stackable items take up one variable or slot for the item, whether it is a single board or a stack of boards container or a generic pile container. Non stackables like barrels, carts, etc are just stored with their positions in the terrain/world. A big list per terrain region, I would suspect. Item type, position, etc. The terrain data for the type of terrain maybe stored separately, maybe not. Last time I checked, there was only one tree max per tile. So this means each cell stores vegetation. If the server just had a list of trees per terrain, you could have more trees. So, if another layer is added...first, you have to have a heightmap for the entire world or terrain regions. No matter what, you have to store the terrain type (grass, tundra, rock) for each tile. The big problem is how structures and vegetation are stored. If each tile in the world stores the data, this means that a that memory must be allocated per tile, for the entire world. I'm going to assume that wurm stores the item type depending on function, in one byte. So, 255 different types of walls/structures. 255 different types of tools. Or, it may just use two bytes, and not distinguish between function. A 2048x2048 layer requires 4 megs of memory. Big deal nowadays, right? Now, if each tile stores 2 structures (let's say the left and 'bottom' wall) for the borders. 2 bytes. Vegetation (let's say or byte per tree type) Bushes/flowers? Another byte maybe. Floor type - 1 byte. Stack type - 1 byte. So, if EACH cell stores this data...that means you are looking at 6 bytes per cell for just non-terrain data. That 2048x2048 heightmap now takes up 25 megs. Big deal eh? Another layer...would take 50 megs. Big deal eh? But freedom is a 4096x4096 heightmap. Following this pattern...that's a hundred megs of data. The server has to access this stuff FAST. I still think it takes more memory per tile. The height is too fine in resolution to be stored as one byte...more likely two. There are a lot more "digs" per tile than 255. I think underground doesn't follow the same scheme. Instead of each tile storing the type of rock/mineral, just use bits to store if it is rock or not. Use a separate list to track the unique mineral blocks. Let's say that there are 250 mineral blocks per terrain region. Storing that in a separate list (instead of one byte per tile) and using bits for rock or not is a HUGE space saving. It means instead of using 4 megs to store a 2048x2048 heightmap for underground, you end up using 512k. I think this is why it is so challenging to add another story. It just doesn't seem to have been designed to handle multiple stories, and so much of the game is built upon that decision. And roofs...possibly created dynamically based on the house layout only on the client. I've never seen anyone walking on a roof. Well, now with 2 stories...you will have to introduce floor tiles as "roofs" for the 1st floor. Not a big deal, but it adds complexities. Let's say you have items stored on a 2nd floor tile. The tile decays. So now, the server has to 'drop' the items down to the 1st floor. Are they damaged in the process? Can people shoot monsters from the 2nd floor, and the monsters won't be able to fight back? It's probably going to introduce many potential exploits by players to steal others stuff, that nobody has run into yet. Collision. I don't think the server does collision detection in the usual sense. Right now, server AI seems to be handled in a pretty basic way. Monsters move from tile to tile. The server can "see" when they are moving to a tile if it would pass through a wall. I don't necessarily believe the server DOES any sort of object based collision detection like game engines usually do...it hasn't needed to up to this point. Ever notice how carts can pass through walls? The game doesn't have jumping for a VERY good reason...it's truly a 3d game in a 2d world. By adding another layer, Rolf has to program for carts (and players!) to move up ramps. To actually BE on a 2nd floor. Fun fun. I don't think it's using physics or even simple colliders to handle movement (up until now maybe). They might have been better using a dictionary, with the key being a 16 bit value for the X and Y tile location packed into 2 bytes, and the value being a data structure storing an array of tile data structures. If you have two stories, the array would be two elements high, each element holding the tile data structure. Dictionaries are not as fast as arrays, but maybe still fast enough. And...they would use a lot less memory overall. Most of the tiles in the world do NOT have stuff stored in there. Trees and vegetation would have to be stored in separately lists. But by using a dictionary, it would only take up data for the tiles that had stuff built on them. Anyway...MORE speculation on my part! Sorry if this post was long-winded, I just enjoy game mechanics. Good luck to Rolf and team, however they solve this challenge

I wonder how big the map would have to be, before it was TOO big. When there was so much distance between settlements that people felt isolated.

Our little village was near devil's horn mountain, which seemed massive. I think one thing that made it seem larger than it really was was the lack of trees in the distance. That created the illusion of a far away mountain, when really it wasn't that far or big.

My friends and I played briefly last year, and we always wanted a map but didn’t have one. I see now that they have been officially posted. Our local area seemed so big…and yet, looking at the map, it was such a SMALL portion of the map! What throws me for a loop is…the map size. The image says 4096x4096. Amazing how vast the world seemed, with such a relatively “small†heightmap. Looking at the map…it almost seems like some kind of optical illusions were used to make things seem so vast. The mountains truly seemed distant.

As bitter as this makes Wild players...Freedom and its style of play, what it offers, is the main reason people play wurm. It logically follows that freedom rules have a greater weight than wild.

I'd love to see a new map, totally different. At the end of the day, people leave wurm for various reasons. I'd rather them leave to settle new lands, than leave because of overcrowding. Besides, there is a psychological effect to new, unexplored places. Freedom doesn't really offer that any more. I can't walk more than a few minutes without running into some place others occupy or have occupied. There's something magical about distant lands where no foot has trod. It sounds to me like wurm has an hardcore group of bah humbugs...bah freedom what good is it (nevermind it has the MOST paying customers), bah this bah that back in my day blah blah blah. Go ahead and keep that attitude, until the servers shut down around you and you're bitter that everyone has moved on :\

That is part of the beauty of wurm, it doesn't tell you how to play. You determine what you want to get out of the game. It takes some time but eventually everyone finds their niche. Or you just wander around everywhere (which is perfectly fine as well).

Ok, something I am struggling with...as you progress, knowing how much to raise/lower each tile around you. Try working your way out from your starting "level"...as you progressively raise/lower each tile's border, you have to keep track of the total amount to lower the next one. I guess what I'm asking is, how to lower the next tile's border, relative to the height of the current border. Not sure if that makes sense or not...but it took a lot longer than I would have liked. Honestly...I think it may have been simpler to just add 1 tile at a time. Snap it onto the existing one, THEN lower it, instead of adding a huge section of tiles. Any thoughts/suggestions?

Make yourself a pixel accurate map of your locality in MSpaint. Giving everyone a mini-map or detailed in-game map would cause a few related "problems": [o] The "feel" of the size of the map would shrink [o] Players village locations would be made available to everyone (not a big deal on Freedom, but is on Wild) [o] Compasses would become obsolete [o] The "dangers" of exploration and survivalism would greatly decrease (which is part of the game, no matter if you find it thrilling or frustrating). Some very interesting points. About making a pixel accurate map...do you mean putting a green pixel for grass, a brown for steppe...and so on? If that's the case, it seems like I would be developing my map making skill in real life, instead of in wurm...something that seems to me to be better suited to doing in wurm. It's like duplicating an effort you could be doing in wurm, but instead do in real life...for wurm. As far as player villages being available...then perhaps maps could be untradable on wild, I dunno. I can see how that would negatively affect those on wild, for sure...though I half expect that there are plenty of online resources already available to give rough ideas of where villages are. But what about the thrill of exploring/scouting, and the danger of it? In order to improve your map making skill...you HAVE to explore and such. What an incentive to get out and do it. Your greatest cartographers would with the bravery and survival skills to get good maps. Granted, people may share the image...but that would happen anyway. If I made a pixel-accurate map, I would -definitely- be sharing it with my friends, anyway. And the compass...the map doesn't have to show your location in real time. Granted, it might be a nifty feature...but not a got to have. I mostly would enjoy seeing the map of my travels, and being able to plan future trips, find other routes, etc. Yes, it would fill in as you explore...but you already sorta know your location anyway at that time. It's mostly a reference for the future. I can see how it would diminish the dangers of exploration/survivalism some...but all it leads to is creating an alternative in real life. In my humble opinion. I think the pros outweigh the cons, though this is subjective. I mean...you can get by without a compass, I -still- don't have one. Wouldn't the exploration/survivalism aspect of the game be increased by not having a compass? Anyway, just some thoughts. I'd still like to at least see it on the requests sticky/wiki, it seems like it deserves a spot there.

Er...thanks, I think. In my original post, I did post I used search. Apparently, I didn't use it from the right forum or such. It wasn't that hard at all. I guess I was just doing it wrong ;D But thanks for the links. I think what surprised me the most was, it's not in the list of planned/requested features in the wiki/sticky, but it seems to me that a map making skill would be one of the biggest features under consideration!