Kiama

Today I noticed that the 1.5 checkpoint of Stable Diffusion was out and it was time to play with it again. It occurred to me to try heightmaps. Most of the time I got 3d maps, which weren't useful in spite of being pretty: I found that I was getting quite decent results when I left out keywords that would change it to grayscale: But of course I needed it to be grayscale. Then I thought about ways to salvage these images. I tried using this one: I loaded it up into GIMP and I: 1. Reduced saturation to zero (turns into grayscale) 2. Inverted colors so that lighter is higher 3. Resized it to 1024x1024 (would need to be whatever size the map will be) 4. Gaussian blurred it to smooth it out 5. Fixed the edges with a soft black brush 6. Saved as 16-bit grayscale And this was the result: All those steps were very straightforward and didn't require any careful thought. I put this into Wurm Generator FX: I didn't spend much time on this but I believe it is a solid proof of concept. If you want to try generating height maps, you can use Stable Diffusion either on your own pc (if you know how to code in python and have an NVIDIA graphics card) or on one of the sites that offer free daily credits, such as nightcafe.studio. All Stable Diffusion requires as an input is words. So for example, the prompts I used were: heightmap continents grayscale heightmap fantasy continents grayscale heightmap fantasy island 16-bit grayscale heightmap, fantasy continent, 16-bit grayscale tangram heightmap, fantasy island continent, black and white Every prompt will create something different (and even the same prompt will create something different if you use a different seed, but changing the prompt is more likely to change the structure of the image).

Second island submissions can be given to me as soon as it is Wednesday in the UK. There is still time until then to provide a first island submission if you haven't.

What time would you like to start the Endless Isles Alpha? I have offered 4 times, shown in GMT and EST. https://strawpoll.com/polls/GeZANd22EyV

1. Regarding One Tile Mining: One Tile Mining is actually something I wanted to add but it threw server errors on server startup yesterday so it is currently gone. The rest of the mods I currently have seem to be working fine. Here are the interesting mods: Better Digging (Dig to ground, use vehicles to dig, etc) Crop Mod (No crop decay) Fire Burn Time (See remaining burn time) Harvest Helper (see upcoming seasons) Move Mod (faster movement) Timed Pay (get money just by being online as I mentioned in the settings) Wyvern Anti Cheat (anti Xray, the anti ESP module is not enabled for performance reasons. Anti Xray has been tested and it works.) 2. Regarding bulk separated and bulk transfer: Players will get to vote on many mods during beta but let me begin by putting my foot down on one matter: We are simply not going to be messing with the vanilla storage system: I consider the vanilla storage system to be nicely balanced with good tradeoffs between storage types I'm not sure Bulk Transfer even accomplishes anything anymore? In vanilla WU, you can transfer hundreds between crates, bsbs, and wagon crate/bsbs with a single click There's perfectly reasonably workarounds (like just crafting more bsbs if you need separation) and the remaining limitations aren't at all game-breaking Most mod bugs just result in lost functionality, an error in the server log and you simply remove the mod; meanwhile, storage mod bugs are much more likely to be apocalyptic, and it seems even the Bulk Transfer mod is not immune 3. Regarding Salves labelled with their power and Disable Fog Spiders: Up to Beta players. Not too bothered but I am not personally convinced these are necessary. There will be a vote on this during Beta. 4. Regarding AshProduce and SimpleConcrete: Up to Beta players. I have good memories of filling massive areas with Runescape-levels amounts of campfires to fund my rock manipulation activities. This provided a rare usefulness for the Firemaking skill. There will be a vote on this during Beta. 5. Regarding post boxes and religion: There will be a vote on both during Beta, and they aren't mutually dependant. We can have mail without religion with the No Mail Cost mod that places a Courier enchant on them when they are spawned, and we can have religion without mail by disabling the Courier spell via the Spellcraft mod. If you are wondering: Why the hell would anyone not want mail? The answer is that without it, the distances between places becomes more meaningful and ships become more used. But I'll leave that up to players in the Beta. And the reason for no religion is: I personally enjoy a more pure feudal simulation, and LowKeyTrixter can't take advantage of the in-game religion for personal reasons. But that also will be at the mercy of Beta players. Just remember: fun depends on limitations. Sometimes removing a limitation can make the game less interesting and sometimes adding one can make it interesting in a way you hadn't even considered before. But this server is not about forcing challenging gameplay on players so we'll just see what Beta players want.

All who participate in the Alpha and Beta will be offered alpha and beta roles in Discord which will provide access to corresponding alpha and beta channels (as well as generally something to be pleased about having on your discord profile). These channels will be used for the Alpha and Beta polls, the result of which could be that everything changes, so please get involved in the Alpha and Beta if you want to continue to have a say in the server after Alpha starts.

The OP now tracks the current state of the map but the exact positions of the islands will be randomised in Alpha, Beta, and the final Release in order to make it more interesting for those playing in Alpha and Beta.

I am pleased to announce that I have developed some map fixing functions. One of the issues I have had with the map generators is that I can't seem to load the map files back into them to make changes without just redoing the whole thing, and the exact changes I want to make aren't straightforward to make. So here's the post generation fixes I can apply for you if you need: Smoothing out the map (I average each tile with neighbour tiles N times, you tell me what N should be - just 1 is usually enough to remove ugly spikes). Spawning one type of tile (biome) on another type of tile with a particular frequency of 1 patches in N tiles. So there's two useful things happening here: 1. You can set tiles to appear only on particular other tiles such as only spawning tar on sand. 2. You can ensure that there will be a certain percentage of those tiles that have the resulting patches. Currently I've just been spawning patches of 1 and 4 but it will be easy enough to add the ability to spawn larger, messier patches that spread in random directions the way the generators do, if you want this functionality. Removing all of a particular tile, replacing with nearest other tile type. Useful if you realise you want the tile types to be added more intelligently with the above functionality. Adding sand to near water level, except around Marsh (or other tiles you don't want to have beaches). Scaling all tiles above water except for one tile type (or the inverse). This might seem a strange thing to want to do but I used this to flatten out my landmass while leaving the volcano towering above them. Finally, this isn't something that is useful for our 1k maps but I'd be happy to help you do this for other maps: merge 4 maps together into one larger size map.

That's all exactly right

Definitely, you can play without making a map! Edit: I realise I should answer your other question in this reply even though Brash_Endeavors did so correctly: Yes, the player made maps are all for everyone.

Here's the first 4 maps merged together:

This is what I am thinking of having as the starting island, with Penyo being the starting town: If anyone is interested to know the process, it was: 1. Generate the landmass with Inkarnate (so that we can use Inkarnate later) 2. Use Gimp to manipulate the image into a height map (I used Gimp because it can edit 16 bit greyscale images, which the height map has to be) 3. Import the height map into Wurm Generator FX and keep customizing the map in Gimp until you are happy with the height map 4. Customize the rest of the map as normal 5. Go back to Inkarnate and decorate the map to match what you made

A lot more than 4! A 4k map has space for 16 1k maps and the original plan was to have space for 64 separate maps (we'll see if we get enough participation). But this doesn't rely on getting that many creators - as you can see in the schedule in the OP, there will be up to 4 opportunities for each creator to submit a map so we'll likely have 4 maps that I made, and then however many (up to 4) others are up for making.

Polls are now linked to at the bottom of the OP. Please include your Discord name when you vote.

Guess it's time to make some polls!

All reasonable suggestions. I am not precious about any of the details so have made all those changes since yours is the only comment so far. And if it turns out we are getting enough participation to make it 8k, that will be an easy change during Alpha. The settings in the Alpha will be whatever most players want in the comments. The settings in the Beta will be whatever most players who played in the Alpha want. The settings in the Beginning will be whatever most players who played in the Beta want. Once we have enough feedback I'll start putting up polls.

The Endless Isles is a community map that has been painstakingly crafted by its players. The Endless Isles launches at Midnight of the New Year, UK time. The Artists The maps and their artists 1. Ozma by Batta 2. Aeren Mora by Kiama 3. Wyspa by Brash_Endeavors 4. Betgrel by Grochar 5. Alba Bhig by LowKeyTrixter 6. Rohan by zCat 7. Soran Fae by Kiama 8. Litenfjord by Brash_Endeavors 9. Tatiyapu by LowKeyTrixter 10. Avelon by Grochar 11. Gwedillion by LowKeyTrixter 12. Katamochi by snars 13. Tri Crann by LowKeyTrixter 14. Scopulum by snars 15. Botrum Portassent by snars 16. Nagarythe by snars 17. Tropicalia by RicoPolo The Settings Trader, Dwarf, Fae, Iron, and Loyal Game Modes (see below) 3x skill gain, 3x action speed PvE About 20 copper each day, regardless of whether you are online Crops grow 1 stage per 6 hours Characteristics start at 21 30 hits per mine wall 50k creatures; I have carefully tweaked each creature count (overall it equates to about 30% aggressive) and have included gorillas and hyenas (presently nonaggressive) 50 salesmen/women spawn randomly all over the map and can be traded with You can hitch 2 creatures to tents Creatures that would normally spawn underground spawn on the surface instead (and don't spawn underground) You can load with 21 Body Strength Base movement speed is increased by 30% Discord: https://discord.gg/F5thWQHHmQ Game Modes

Starting next Saturday at 2pm GMT, I am leading an expedition around the islands. We'll be a party of adventurers entirely made up of new characters made on the day, and of course you are welcome to create an alt to join in. We will be moving camp for 2 hours every other Saturday at the same time and we'll see how far we can get before 4pm GMT. Each time we move camp, a different person will decide where we go next. Let me know in the expeditions channel on discord if we should expect you to join. Please be there early if possible. And please be warned: we will probably be making do without clay for a long while. The expedition will go on as long as there are people who want to move camp. Once there are no longer people who want to move camp again, I'll probably start a new expedition. The next expedition would be at a different time to cater to a different group of people. But we'll only have one expedition going at a time to consolidate players as much as possible.

I believe they are talking about how I have had servers before the original Stormfall. But yes, surprise, hardly used servers eventually go down. There's plenty of good servers and not many players to go around so my options are: Pay for a mostly dead server indefinitely (in the last case, 6 servers) Give up Try to make something with a better unique selling point than the last time When I started out hosting, I did idealise [1], but I eventually concluded it wasn't benefitting anyone. I believe all my previous servers made me a better creator and a better host. Look at the first Stormfall: a concept that complex and involved and yet coherent could not have come from someone's first attempt at hosting. Yes, I have failed many times, but it seems clear to me that those failures have taken us to more worthwhile places.

I've been lost on my own server for hours. It being winter doesn't help. Nothing but shards as far as the eye can see. Fortunately the terrain is very conducive to climbing. I am going to try to climb this and see what I can see.

Update: This server has fallen into disuse. I had told the remaining active players that it would stay up for as long as they wanted it but they are also taking a break now. So this server will go offline on August 13th unless something changes. A freak storm leads your humble fishing boat to run aground on an unfamiliar island in the dead of night. In the distance you see flames dancing, but it is too far tonight. You tip your small boat over and shelter inside until morning. You wake to the smell of smoked fish, a gift from the natives for you, along with some basic supplies to fix your boat. You are grateful, but need to find your way home. You right your boat and drag it into the water, then look out into the vast ocean. Your jaw drops at how empty it isn't. ---------------------------------- Last night, Dynara had joyously celebrated the return of the Low Tide, as had all Stormfallers. Now a sadness filled her. She wished she could explain to you your bad luck. You will not be returning to your family. Every other century, the Low Tide protects this island from the Storm, but also seals off all but the 8 closest islands with walls of perilous shards raised from the seabed. ---------------------------------- You start with a rowing boat, a tent, and crude tools. You are on the island of Stormfall, and there are 8 other islands to be explored on this 8k server, all with unique resources. Navigation, however, will not be the simple feat you may be accustomed to. It will be hard just to find somewhere you are content to start, and you are advised to not be picky to begin with. Remember: you have a boat, so much of whatever progress you make can be taken with you. ---------------------------------- Expeditions Starting on April 16th, 2022, at 2pm GMT, I am leading an expedition around the islands. We'll be a party of adventurers entirely made up of new characters made on the day, and of course you are welcome to create an alt to join in. We will be moving camp for 2 hours every other Saturday at the same time and we'll see how far we can get before 4pm GMT. Each time we move camp, a different person will decide where we go next. Let me know in the expeditions channel on discord if we should expect you to join. Please be there early if possible. And please be warned: we will probably be making do without clay for a long while. The expedition will go on as long as there are people who want to move camp. Once there are no longer people who want to move camp again, I'll probably start a new expedition. The next expedition would be at a different time to cater to a different group of people. But we'll only have one expedition going at a time to consolidate players as much as possible. ---------------------------------- Discord: https://discord.gg/QA8snwcabp Settings 1x/1x PvE Characteristics start at 19.1 No religion Alchemy Only 5k animals across a huge 8k server 5% aggressive animals Crop growth once an hour 20 hits per wall Passive income of 2c per 10 minutes Sorted Bulk Storage Better Dig Better Farm Crops don't decay Check fire burn time

It looks to me to be past time to repurpose all these resources. I am sorry to say I am going to stop paying for this cluster. If someone else wants to take over the cluster (or if no one wants to take over the whole thing, any one of the servers, including Mirage Island and the Haven), I am happy to transfer the files to them to do so. If anyone is wondering how much it would cost to try to do this whole setup, it was about £38 a month for all 6 servers. I obviously can't justify that with this level of activity.

It looks to me to be past time to repurpose all these resources. I am sorry to say I am going to stop paying for this cluster. If someone else wants to take over the cluster (or if no one wants to take over the whole thing, any one of the servers, including Mirage Island and the Haven), I am happy to transfer the files to them to do so. If anyone is wondering how much it would cost to try to do this whole setup, it was about £38 a month for all 6 servers. I obviously can't justify that with this level of activity.

The Storm has momentarily subsided. This month, all islands will be open and new players will be given free ql 30 rowboats to begin their journey in Stormfall (ask in discord for the boat). I'm discontinuing the Stormguard system. This month, anyone who was already a Stormguard can choose any of the rewards including a gold coin as their (for now) last reward.

February: Seasons and Secret Gardens For this month, I am introducing a game, not exactly a "choice". You can still post your reward choice as normal. From now on, each of the five islands will have a unique seasonable mod. To change the seasonable mod, you must: 1. Make a garden on any island 2. Keep the garden for longer than anyone else has yet on that island 3. Have that garden be found by someone To start a garden, find somewhere on any of the five islands that you believe is sufficiently remote and place at least a wooden or stone bench, a trellis, and some flower pots. You may additionally adorn it however you like; try to make it unique. Do not deed the land. Post a photo of your garden to this forum, and try to stage it with as few contextual clues as possible. If you find someone else's garden, you may post a photo of the garden you found to this forum. Then, if the player whose garden was found has set a record for the longest maintained secret garden (on that server), that player gets to change the seasonable mod of the island that the garden was on. The mod they choose has to be one that isn't currently a seasonable mod on another island. If the mod turns out to be incompatible with the server, they may choose another one. When someone else finds your garden, you may immediately start a new one and post the photo here. You can only have one garden at once.

Congratulations on being part of the first Untangling! It was super tight between Brianna and Igor.