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Tigerclaw

Newbie Playing wurm Update the map !

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What I'd propose is having a searchlight beacon of a particular colour beam straight up over Haven's Landing so that if you're anywhere near at all you can see how to get back to the starting token of Haven's Landing.  That way, with a link to the excellent community map of Independance linked on the forums, you can see 'Hey, I'm pretty far from Haven's Landing and it shows southwest of me' using the starter compass.

 

It wouldn't change the importance of learning landmarks and techniques for keeping track of your location, but for new players at least it offers a point of reference that they could importantly make use of.  It also would allow the players to learn how beacons work for such things as Rifts in their future gameplay,

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As a new player I also enjoyed the challenge of learning to navigate the map and the terrain, learn the highways, the starter towns, landmarks, player deeds, etc.  It takes some work and some careful travel at first as you figure out how roads and highways connect, but that is integral to the game in my experience. 

 

When you initially spawn you choose your starter town to spawn in.  When you die you choose a place to re-spawn, so in both cases right away that tells you where you are on the map.  From there (or anywhere else where there is a waystone), you can plot a course via the highway system if you need to get to a specific deed or settlement.  We are not supposed to be able to just run off in a given direction and know where we are all the time without paying attention to our surroundings.  If you dropped your tent in an unknown wilderness location, that gets more tricky if you don't know where you were when you did that, but that is a lesson learned if you did that without thinking.  Add to that the server and global chat features where you can ask for help, and there is already plenty in the game to help you figure out where you are and navigate from there.  Let's not forget you spawn with a compass as well, so you can keep straight in your head which direction you are headed in as you take all the above tools and learn to use them to figure out where you are on the map.

The only compromise I've seen offered so far that feels like a possible option that would not break the feel of the game would be to allow players (maybe only new players with the new player buff?) to approach a guard and ask them where you are.  The kingdom guards should know where they have been stationed by the king anyway, so it is a realistic fit. 

 

As for guard towers not being available on any new servers and therefore no ability to get directions- that is the nature of a new server.  No one knows it yet.  Build the place up, put highways in place, build guard towers and station guards.  As the new server is explored and colonized, then you can start getting help from guards as to where you are.

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22 hours ago, Tristanc said:

What I'd propose is having a searchlight beacon of a particular colour beam straight up over Haven's Landing so that if you're anywhere near at all you can see how to get back to the starting token of Haven's Landing.  That way, with a link to the excellent community map of Independance linked on the forums, you can see 'Hey, I'm pretty far from Haven's Landing and it shows southwest of me' using the starter compass.

 

It wouldn't change the importance of learning landmarks and techniques for keeping track of your location, but for new players at least it offers a point of reference that they could importantly make use of.  It also would allow the players to learn how beacons work for such things as Rifts in their future gameplay,

this could be a really really really..... good feature for pve to find:

- personal body bag(when you die.. to get your items back)

- your house/tent (maybe makes sense for new players without a deed yet)

- your village(owning or part of)

- spawn town

 

maybe it breaks the game for some(they skip using it).. but definitely makes sense for players to have general idea for the direction where they should be headed... having this as a personal beacon showing only for you.. cant break things too much, right?

And it's a way to get your way to reasonable locations.. it's not like you can pin the map and get a beacon for random location(unless you have an alt, friend/ally/etc summons your alt somewhere.. you kill your alt.. respawn at your village, and both get on a cart and chase the beacon toward your friend/ally/etc's place.. to learn the path; don't blame me for that... wurm is a game loving alts and letting certain things happen)

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What I did this weekend:

 

I jumped on my horse and just headed south (from Harvestmoon Lagoon, NE corner of Release), passing through current deeds and ruins of past deeds.  No reference to map or compass, just general sense of direction and "Oh, that looks interesting" to navigate and explore locations, generally poking around and seeing what people are doing / have done with their settlements.  Places like Eagles Nest, Fishy Anchor and Lunar Landing.  Eventually, I figured it was time to head home and seeing a waystone, I used "find route" for directions back to Harvestmoon and my neon-green treehouse.  I just followed the cats' eyes and checked each new waystone for directions and pretty soon found myself coming into familiar landscape (albeit from a different perspective) and could have headed straight in but decided to let the waystones guide me all the way.  A very satisfying journey, and up until almost back home never really having anything more than a vague idea where I would be on a map.  I looked up the community map later, and found I never left the NE quadrant of Release even though it felt like I had traveled much further. 

 

A little smart/gps minimap or "you are here" pointer on the regular in-game map would have ruined the experience for me.  As easy as it is to say "don't look", we all look.  It changes our perception, and for me at least the immersion is gone.  Information points (guards, deed tokens, etc) would be nice, but they should remain at least general enough to suit the setting.  New server continents and wilderness areas would be without these, but what pioneer heads into uncharted territories not only wishing they were charted but also that they could know at all times exactly where everything is?

 

I am not trying to put down the OP, but as a relative newby I would like to suggest be careful what you wish for.

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