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CountZero

What do you look for in a map?

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turns out i quite like making maps but I'm a little stuck for basic shape (i always end up drawing more or less the same thing :P)

 

What do you look for in a map? I make most of mine 4096 but do you prefer bigger?

Do you prefer a single large continent, a few continents or mostly islands?

Do you love rivers or not bothered?

 

what else do you like to see or what would you love to see but cant find?

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i prefer a large continent with arms reaching out. Or a pacman shaped landmass.

What I usually dislike about maps is that every tile is almost slope. 

I prefer flat area and steep mountains next to it. Not a massive bumpy terrain where you have to surface mine if you want something bigger than a 10x10

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interesting, i recently spent ages trying to make a map not flat cos I thought it looked boring and unnatural lol. Good to know

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Well I didnt mean flat like Elevation. But I like plains surrounded by mountains.

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Not flat, not hilly, with rivers inside, few islands nearby

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mmmm, yea i meant flat as in the ground was really smooth - bunch of hills about tho. Getting it just right is kinda difficult as in the terrain editor you actually need quite pronounced spikes to get mild elevation changes. Its hard to tell if the spikes are too much or not enough :P

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Keep in mind the maximums slope mounts and vehicles can pass. I've always treated this as a single slope must be less then 40 or the sum of a compound slope must be less then 40. There is an actual formula I believe. The optimal map would be where a significant portion of the map is pretty flat, next largest would be hilly where those hills don't prevent mounted/vehicle movement, and the last and smallest portion are supper steep mountains.

 

Some water is good but water is pretty much wasted space in Wurm and I think it should be kept to a minimum. But if you like the look of that and are playing with few people space is very much a surplus.

Edited by joedobo

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I find singular continents to be extremely boring. They also (especially if they have no rivers crossing through them) defeat the use of boats completely, or force everyone to settle on the coasts. I think a setup of at least two separate continents with one or two smaller rivers running through them really helps to break up the map space and is especially useful for PvP servers, since it enables more boat usage. 

 

A singular continent can work too, if it's broken up by enough rivers going through it. All I'm saying is I don't like when boat usage is hindered. If the only use for a boat on a given map is going around the coast, I consider that bad.

Edited by Aart

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my top 2 fav maps ended up being Tamriel and Britannia, both of which probably had hundred of hours poured into the heightmap creation before being crudely imported to wurm xD

i think in Taumriels case it has so much caricature to it, there is alot of areas that are somewhat unique to themselves like the deserts, marshes, mountains and volcano, which also acted as landmarks

landmarks are very important you should be able to tell where you are on your map by looking around, that has been slowly ingrained in us with wurms iconic hill and peaks

in Britannias case it was the sheer vastness of it , the 16k size allowed for these massive true mountains that gently sloped down ever so naturally into the rolling hills and then the beach it was a true sight to see but not entirely sustainable cost and hardware wise, maybe some day tho.

i think a good flattish coast is important, a large landmass that takes up about 2/3rds of the water with a large mountain or 2 that kind of breaks up the land and provides landmarks, perhaps some interesting peninsulas and some smaller outlaying islands

 

 

 

 

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