What about a dual map?

pein · 2019-10-29 02:06:37

Just had an idea while writing to another topic.

Let me start off by my thoughts when started the game: the map is huge, wonder what is outside there? First, you had to learn how to survive alone, make a small farm, there was a time when I couldn't make my own bowls, but when had one, I could feed myself and 2-3 others.
Then got better and I could leave the town. Then I used fences and horses and went 2-3 biome away. Then I had lives when I didn't want to stay inside the camp, just grabbed a horse and went 2-300 tiles away. There are some veins, tarry spots, some interesting clusters of objects.
I was actually disappointed in the map, it's so huge but it's kinda pretty much the same. When the coordinates leaked out, sometimes I had a life where i just went around 1000 tiles then back or other places, made maps about cities, started roads.
But i realized that not worth going more than 2000 tiles and most people don't even go 100 tiles away. before the rift, we had 2 huge cities barely 600 tiles to each other diagonally yet no one wanted to make a road cause no one thought it matters.
Now we got the rift and some point of reference and we got some roads. But they only matter if it lasts long enough.

So the map is just something Jason was bragging with, it really had no point being that big.

There are so many problems with the world which don't make sense:
-when the rift is too small, griefing can ruin the whole world
-when is too big the players won't be able to find other families
-when you stay home, you won't even see more than 80x80
-there is no point of exploring too far, you can't find any expensive resources, you rather make a camp near a mine and oil and that's it
-there is a soft cap on how much resources a town can take home before it's too far for transport
-arc is long and is boring for some
-arc is short and you lose your progress

The best city design i remember so far and got a picture of it is this:

we travelled a few thousand tiles to revive it over and over

similar to san-cal which started out normally, was a crappy town with too many bushes and lot of grinding to make decent
then dodge born as my son and told him that itry to force the mosquitoes out
we filled all the jungle (still was medium temp) and locked them into a corner with bell bases
we made a nice berry farm with diagonal roads from a cistern, then people made a few rooms, then when we found it again we made more and more impressive structures, we always had the hope to rediscover it

So back to the title: Mount and Blade was a homemade game with a lot of bugs, after a few versions it became a very good game despite its basic world map. You had a tiny icon moving on a map, then when you had a fight, you entered a 3d world with good graphics or a town, or a castle etc.

We had all these ideas of islands, rivers, mountains and other stuff but it's so hard to find a golden number cause it really depends on the player base size and still, someone will be unhappy.

So my idea:
Separate map for city and world.
You could exit the city and travel on the world map, then the city would be a few tile size icon, clicking on it you could enter the internal map of it.
The internal map would be small, maybe 100x100 inner square, the outer square would be bigger(maybe even infinite), but you would arrive to the edge of inner square, which could be walled off so people can't enter without access.
each of those city maps would have a few biomes, an oil spot, a limit on wells maybe even on total resources, different seeds.
Maybe the eve would choose a centre and then it would be cropped around it.

Once the family dies out, the map goes into the archive for a few days/weeks.

The external map would be different, all you do is travel anyway, maybe a higher zoom version of the normal map, for example 8x with lower resolution, shoving icons for strategic resources and city icons. (this kinda opposite to the previous, not sure if city and world map should be same)

Once a family dies out, it goes to inactive and a time limit to use it, maybe each player who was inside that city would get a chance later to revive it, with some culling of resources but reset biomes.

The eve runs would be different, you would start on the world map then choose your inner square and settle until then you would have no kids, and you would ride a horse, maybe time limit to settle.
To be able to leave a city and go to the world map, you would need to have a horse.
You couldn't access resources on the world map, you would need to colonize/enter spots and send it home.

I'm not sure on this part really can be anything depending on how this would be actually.
If cities are 100x100 dots on the world map, then we could have a minigame of buying or occupy spots near us. Then we could have resources stacked to connect those spots like rails. The units would be put on a train with no item limit and sent back to city. Maybe it would require a lot of charcoal so you would need to fill it well to worth it, maybe it could have item limit of like 64, 128, or upgradeable by the town. You would need to send workers to a colony by train or horses.

If the world map would be separate, we could have separate maps for each square which doesn't show real maps just a square for cities. Eves would need to choose a spot near each other(some limitation of how far, for example, an 8x8 board) enter the inner map, then choose a location on an infinite map, a private rift of sorts, that would recenter the map to it so the landing would always be close to the travellers.
travel between towns wouldn't be the same, I mean there is not much point anyway like I generally spend one life running around the rift, noting down where is what then just go there next time.
There are only a few reasons to explore, wars, boredom, joining another town to mix the population.
SO rather than running 15-20 minutes on a horse, you would travel instantly (or almost instantly like 20 sec per small square of 8x8) and pay the cost first. Maybe would start 1 minute each square then upgrades would decrease it, for example now we got 6 rails with one board and blade, it would need 17ish to go 100 tiles, so for that cost it would decrease the travel time. it's not fun sitting and waiting while our life passes by.

For example, you would have a 8x8 map start of the week, a fog of war, eves choose a tile from 64, maybe some map generation differences, maybe some of them hidden for example this is heavily forested, this map has more ponds, this map has more animals.
Then players would need to pay scouts to scout their own map to see where cities are. Once you see a target on map you could travel there. Maybe you get there instantly but lose a year for each square (this would have the problem that traveling back you would be older than others born the same year or you could skip young ages so maybe decrease life expectancy or a waiting animation)

the squares could have official names or player side names, so you could technically know where you were before related to other towns you know.

group travel: in case of war, families could send war parties who enter on another family map in a group and they can attack them (maybe some siege against fences?) probably they die or never return anyway so towns should only send out some part of the population to attack
similarly, some groups could join in peace to them

some other mechanics like radios would signal how big the population is on the square, airports would allow flight between sectors

next week the spiral would shift, old town locations get archived, you could still find them and repopulate if you are female (maybe minimum group would need one male and one female to travel to inactive un-scouted areas)

of course, accessing world map would require to pay off resources or tokens so you can't just hop around the map

server-side these maps would be archived and only accessed if an active player is inside them, maybe population limit to access more than the inner 50x50 or 100x100 so the town could be loaded anywhere just marked on the world map, so they would be virtually near each other but physically not connected like now, and even they would be close to each other, they would have plenty of space, also limitations on their own (one well, one oil). the world map could be accessed on sides of the town or in special buildings (train or airport).

While travelling the other map would load in. So you could go back to previous weeks maps if you want to. If a map wouldn't be accessed for a month it would be deleted (or moved to another server if that's possible)

So each family would have a mini rift on its own. During the eve window, people could choose same tile, then fight for control of it. The map would be player side and would only reveal locations where you been already and you rediscover it. Scouting would cost life points and time, also your maximum life expectancy would decrease by moving. Your maximum time you could travel would be half of your last life length rounded up to closest decimal like 10,20,30,40,50,60. So based on what travel methods you got, it would cost you 30,20,10,5 minutes of max-age (foot, horse, car,plane between locations, to have road you would need to connect centre to edge, to have horse bonus you would need to get a horse, car for car speed, train maybe, airport on both location for air travel, also a plane), you could access travel by entering a specific zone on the 100x100 edge/corner of current map. travel would be simulated as planes do it now, you enter one side, exit other by loading the map. Group travel would be via a queue, people enter a location, press join and ready then leave same time. Scouting could be spending life tokens and after a time you would get an update on your world map what is next to your tile. Eve spiral would return, filling empty dots on the map, but saving old spots if anyone wants to go back (maybe delayed each arc, so you could travel after 2 days when you got similar tech levels). Old and uninteresting places would be deleted. Scouting a place twice would show a preview of the square.

I'm just throwing ideas, sorry if it's random or hard to understand.

Not sure about others, I generally live a whole life in a small place, never going too far, so the map is the same when im born back there. Or I scout the whole rift. Or I move once to another town, it is not much exciting wandering around the map seeing some ruins and spots without water. The recent changes made the map similar to cheese, you got some greasy spots, and the rest are holes in the cheese, basically a filler, if there is no mine or oil, you can safely assume that no one ever gonna cut trees or move resources from there, not much purpose for roads you build for hours when the world resets so quick. I would skip out on the time i spend travelling between towns. And I don't see the point of these horse thieving one man raid teams or one man pseudo Eves changing locations. You can basically die and born back on the other place or you can mindlessly walk to top right or top left or any corner without knowing where you are, so towns which are on edge or corner are easy to find, the animal dodging is not really a challenge and neither eating some wild food to stay alive, and especially not the fact that you just wasting time wandering when you don't know what you are looking for, and without a well or multiple ponds there is no value in random locations so might as well consider each city a separate map and the between territories fillers.

Tempted · 2019-10-29 02:31:03

pein wrote:

Just had an idea while writing to another topic.
Let me start off by my thoughts when started the game: the map is huge, wonder what is outside there? First, you had to learn how to survive alone, make a small farm, there was a time when I couldn't make my own bowls, but when had one, I could feed myself and 2-3 others.
Then got better and I could leave the town. Then I used fences and horses and went 2-3 biome away. Then I had lives when I didn't want to stay inside the camp, just grabbed a horse and went 2-300 tiles away. There are some veins, tarry spots, some interesting clusters of objects.
I was actually disappointed in the map, it's so huge but it's kinda pretty much the same. When the coordinates leaked out, sometimes I had a life where i just went around 1000 tiles then back or other places, made maps about cities, started roads.
But i realized that not worth going more than 2000 tiles and most people don't even go 100 tiles away. before the rift, we had 2 huge cities barely 600 tiles to each other diagonally yet no one wanted to make a road cause no one thought it matters.
Now we got the rift and some point of reference and we got some roads. But they only matter if it lasts long enough.
So the map is just something Jason was bragging with, it really had no point being that big.
There are so many problems with the world which don't make sense:
-when the rift is too small, griefing can ruin the whole world
-when is too big the players won't be able to find other families
-when you stay home, you won't even see more than 80x80
-there is no point of exploring too far, you can't find any expensive resources, you rather make a camp near a mine and oil and that's it
-there is a soft cap on how much resources a town can take home before it's too far for transport
-arc is long and is boring for some
-arc is short and you lose your progress
The best city design i remember so far and got a picture of it is this:
https://i.imgur.com/zfPF4UP.jpg
we travelled a few thousand tiles to revive it over and over
similar to san-cal which started out normally, was a crappy town with too many bushes and lot of grinding to make decent
then dodge born as my son and told him that itry to force the mosquitoes out
we filled all the jungle (still was medium temp) and locked them into a corner with bell bases
we made a nice berry farm with diagonal roads from a cistern, then people made a few rooms, then when we found it again we made more and more impressive structures, we always had the hope to rediscover it
So back to the title: Mount and Blade was a homemade game with a lot of bugs, after a few versions it became a very good game despite its basic world map. You had a tiny icon moving on a map, then when you had a fight, you entered a 3d world with good graphics or a town, or a castle etc.
We had all these ideas of islands, rivers, mountains and other stuff but it's so hard to find a golden number cause it really depends on the player base size and still, someone will be unhappy.
So my idea:
Separate map for city and world.
You could exit the city and travel on the world map, then the city would be a few tile size icon, clicking on it you could enter the internal map of it.
The internal map would be small, maybe 100x100 inner square, the outer square would be bigger(maybe even infinite), but you would arrive to the edge of inner square, which could be walled off so people can't enter without access.
each of those city maps would have a few biomes, an oil spot, a limit on wells maybe even on total resources, different seeds.
Maybe the eve would choose a centre and then it would be cropped around it.
Once the family dies out, the map goes into the archive for a few days/weeks.
The external map would be different, all you do is travel anyway, maybe a higher zoom version of the normal map, for example 8x with lower resolution, shoving icons for strategic resources and city icons. (this kinda opposite to the previous, not sure if city and world map should be same)
https://i.imgur.com/0YvJoLq.png
Once a family dies out, it goes to inactive and a time limit to use it, maybe each player who was inside that city would get a chance later to revive it, with some culling of resources but reset biomes.
The eve runs would be different, you would start on the world map then choose your inner square and settle until then you would have no kids, and you would ride a horse, maybe time limit to settle.
To be able to leave a city and go to the world map, you would need to have a horse.
You couldn't access resources on the world map, you would need to colonize/enter spots and send it home.
I'm not sure on this part really can be anything depending on how this would be actually.
If cities are 100x100 dots on the world map, then we could have a minigame of buying or occupy spots near us. Then we could have resources stacked to connect those spots like rails. The units would be put on a train with no item limit and sent back to city. Maybe it would require a lot of charcoal so you would need to fill it well to worth it, maybe it could have item limit of like 64, 128, or upgradeable by the town. You would need to send workers to a colony by train or horses.
If the world map would be separate, we could have separate maps for each square which doesn't show real maps just a square for cities. Eves would need to choose a spot near each other(some limitation of how far, for example, an 8x8 board) enter the inner map, then choose a location on an infinite map, a private rift of sorts, that would recenter the map to it so the landing would always be close to the travellers.
travel between towns wouldn't be the same, I mean there is not much point anyway like I generally spend one life running around the rift, noting down where is what then just go there next time.
There are only a few reasons to explore, wars, boredom, joining another town to mix the population.
SO rather than running 15-20 minutes on a horse, you would travel instantly (or almost instantly like 20 sec per small square of 8x8) and pay the cost first. Maybe would start 1 minute each square then upgrades would decrease it, for example now we got 6 rails with one board and blade, it would need 17ish to go 100 tiles, so for that cost it would decrease the travel time. it's not fun sitting and waiting while our life passes by.
For example, you would have a 8x8 map start of the week, a fog of war, eves choose a tile from 64, maybe some map generation differences, maybe some of them hidden for example this is heavily forested, this map has more ponds, this map has more animals.
Then players would need to pay scouts to scout their own map to see where cities are. Once you see a target on map you could travel there. Maybe you get there instantly but lose a year for each square (this would have the problem that traveling back you would be older than others born the same year or you could skip young ages so maybe decrease life expectancy or a waiting animation)
https://i.imgur.com/WpIYzMm.png
the squares could have official names or player side names, so you could technically know where you were before related to other towns you know.
group travel: in case of war, families could send war parties who enter on another family map in a group and they can attack them (maybe some siege against fences?) probably they die or never return anyway so towns should only send out some part of the population to attack
similarly, some groups could join in peace to them
some other mechanics like radios would signal how big the population is on the square, airports would allow flight between sectors
next week the spiral would shift, old town locations get archived, you could still find them and repopulate if you are female (maybe minimum group would need one male and one female to travel to inactive un-scouted areas)
of course, accessing world map would require to pay off resources or tokens so you can't just hop around the map
server-side these maps would be archived and only accessed if an active player is inside them, maybe population limit to access more than the inner 50x50 or 100x100 so the town could be loaded anywhere just marked on the world map, so they would be virtually near each other but physically not connected like now, and even they would be close to each other, they would have plenty of space, also limitations on their own (one well, one oil). the world map could be accessed on sides of the town or in special buildings (train or airport).
While travelling the other map would load in. So you could go back to previous weeks maps if you want to. If a map wouldn't be accessed for a month it would be deleted (or moved to another server if that's possible)
So each family would have a mini rift on its own. During the eve window, people could choose same tile, then fight for control of it. The map would be player side and would only reveal locations where you been already and you rediscover it. Scouting would cost life points and time, also your maximum life expectancy would decrease by moving. Your maximum time you could travel would be half of your last life length rounded up to closest decimal like 10,20,30,40,50,60. So based on what travel methods you got, it would cost you 30,20,10,5 minutes of max-age (foot, horse, car,plane between locations, to have road you would need to connect centre to edge, to have horse bonus you would need to get a horse, car for car speed, train maybe, airport on both location for air travel, also a plane), you could access travel by entering a specific zone on the 100x100 edge/corner of current map. travel would be simulated as planes do it now, you enter one side, exit other by loading the map. Group travel would be via a queue, people enter a location, press join and ready then leave same time. Scouting could be spending life tokens and after a time you would get an update on your world map what is next to your tile. Eve spiral would return, filling empty dots on the map, but saving old spots if anyone wants to go back (maybe delayed each arc, so you could travel after 2 days when you got similar tech levels). Old and uninteresting places would be deleted. Scouting a place twice would show a preview of the square.
I'm just throwing ideas, sorry if it's random or hard to understand.
Not sure about others, I generally live a whole life in a small place, never going too far, so the map is the same when im born back there. Or I scout the whole rift. Or I move once to another town, it is not much exciting wandering around the map seeing some ruins and spots without water. The recent changes made the map similar to cheese, you got some greasy spots, and the rest are holes in the cheese, basically a filler, if there is no mine or oil, you can safely assume that no one ever gonna cut trees or move resources from there, not much purpose for roads you build for hours when the world resets so quick. I would skip out on the time i spend travelling between towns. And I don't see the point of these horse thieving one man raid teams or one man pseudo Eves changing locations. You can basically die and born back on the other place or you can mindlessly walk to top right or top left or any corner without knowing where you are, so towns which are on edge or corner are easy to find, the animal dodging is not really a challenge and neither eating some wild food to stay alive, and especially not the fact that you just wasting time wandering when you don't know what you are looking for, and without a well or multiple ponds there is no value in random locations so might as well consider each city a separate map and the between territories fillers.

A simple fix that would maybe be worth looking into would be an infinite or near infinite map without an ever expanding eve spiral, except every once in awhile. Some resources deplete while others, when handled properly, would regenerate. You would have an ever expanding starting area that would likely just keep getting bigger as people joined. Some resources you would have to travel for after they were depleted, but with the cartography update, it wouldnt be impossible to find your way back to civilization. Maybe a choice to be born in the main starting area, or eve out in the middle of nowhere? I don't know.

pein · 2019-10-29 03:14:41

Tempted wrote:

A simple fix that would maybe be worth looking into would be an infinite or near infinite map without an ever expanding eve spiral, except every once in awhile. Some resources deplete while others, when handled properly, would regenerate. You would have an ever expanding starting area that would likely just keep getting bigger as people joined. Some resources you would have to travel for after they were depleted, but with the cartography update, it wouldnt be impossible to find your way back to civilization. Maybe a choice to be born in the main starting area, or eve out in the middle of nowhere? I don't know.

well that's the main thing with this idea
if each city is a separate "rift" with a centred map, it can go infinitely, it's just a filler anyway, unlikely that people gather everything around it

the entering point is still close to center, which is a bit of warp of the map, it wouldn't be perfect representation but close enough

i mean you can technically lock off some map parts and they won't be seen so they regenerate but it isn't jasons intention, he wants resources to run out, kinda 99% sure that people prefer renewable resources even if it requires work, perfect cycles, maybe longer processing but not this gathering and running out type of game

if the world map is separate from town maps, you can have towns close but still enough place for each
also, have them flexible from the centre outside based on population

for 1 person load 50x50 of it, for more can be more area

I mean that is sorta magic or high tech, we could have star gates to dump you on random locations or between each other. Pseudo eves would be possible by going into virgin lands.

too many eves are bad, eve tokens would be best so people can play Eve any time if they deserve it. Some limitation so won't be too many families but if let's say there are 3 families, would allow one person to be Eve, it would require 3 long lives to earn a token or weekly one. People always abused suicide to enforce themselves to be Eve and ruin others eve runs when they suicide. People who could be a good eve had to choose not to as we were spread too thin. Basically you need like 12 players constantly for a family. That means that only 1 of 12 people should be Eve and makes sense that either equally give chance or based on skill. I talked in other topics that we rather have allied races or teams/countries that allow multiple allied families within a team so you could have your own name still belong to the same tribe. Then the tribes can go to war to each other.

We saw that we got too many shitty camps and those don't deserve to take from space. That might be subjective, but most people don't like bad camps, not necessarily want t make their own but to join a decent setup. If the world map is separate, you can be close to each other, fill all gaps, go back to old spots, if those spots aren't filled then no one cares about them, so can be purged and rewritten. Basically like defragmentation of a hard drive. Your camp doesn't have a location until becomes a city if you reach a certain tech level gets to the map on a random spot. Failed camps are the reason we can't pack a spiral nicely.

Tempted · 2019-10-29 05:07:25

pein wrote:

Tempted wrote:
A simple fix that would maybe be worth looking into would be an infinite or near infinite map without an ever expanding eve spiral, except every once in awhile. Some resources deplete while others, when handled properly, would regenerate. You would have an ever expanding starting area that would likely just keep getting bigger as people joined. Some resources you would have to travel for after they were depleted, but with the cartography update, it wouldnt be impossible to find your way back to civilization. Maybe a choice to be born in the main starting area, or eve out in the middle of nowhere? I don't know.
well that's the main thing with this idea
if each city is a separate "rift" with a centred map, it can go infinitely, it's just a filler anyway, unlikely that people gather everything around it
the entering point is still close to center, which is a bit of warp of the map, it wouldn't be perfect representation but close enough
i mean you can technically lock off some map parts and they won't be seen so they regenerate but it isn't jasons intention, he wants resources to run out, kinda 99% sure that people prefer renewable resources even if it requires work, perfect cycles, maybe longer processing but not this gathering and running out type of game
if the world map is separate from town maps, you can have towns close but still enough place for each
also, have them flexible from the centre outside based on population
for 1 person load 50x50 of it, for more can be more area
I mean that is sorta magic or high tech, we could have star gates to dump you on random locations or between each other. Pseudo eves would be possible by going into virgin lands.
too many eves are bad, eve tokens would be best so people can play Eve any time if they deserve it. Some limitation so won't be too many families but if let's say there are 3 families, would allow one person to be Eve, it would require 3 long lives to earn a token or weekly one. People always abused suicide to enforce themselves to be Eve and ruin others eve runs when they suicide. People who could be a good eve had to choose not to as we were spread too thin. Basically you need like 12 players constantly for a family. That means that only 1 of 12 people should be Eve and makes sense that either equally give chance or based on skill. I talked in other topics that we rather have allied races or teams/countries that allow multiple allied families within a team so you could have your own name still belong to the same tribe. Then the tribes can go to war to each other.
We saw that we got too many shitty camps and those don't deserve to take from space. That might be subjective, but most people don't like bad camps, not necessarily want t make their own but to join a decent setup. If the world map is separate, you can be close to each other, fill all gaps, go back to old spots, if those spots aren't filled then no one cares about them, so can be purged and rewritten. Basically like defragmentation of a hard drive. Your camp doesn't have a location until becomes a city if you reach a certain tech level gets to the map on a random spot. Failed camps are the reason we can't pack a spiral nicely.

It would be nicer than current iteration I feel. The big thing lol is of course trying to make the game something people want to play more than once, which doesn't seem to be what the dev wants, at least it looks a lot like that when changes are made to limit the experience of players? Not sure why, but this idea would I think be awesome if we had, on average, a hundred players or more.
Currently it seems like there are attempts to "fix" things either with half of the information, or ignoring practicality in favor of the numbers? Doesn't take into account the actual, on the ground experience, which doesn't make a lot of sense to me

StrongForce · 2019-10-29 10:06:40

pein wrote:

Just had an idea while writing to another topic.
Let me start off by my thoughts when started the game: the map is huge, wonder what is outside there? First, you had to learn how to survive alone, make a small farm, there was a time when I couldn't make my own bowls, but when had one, I could feed myself and 2-3 others.
Then got better and I could leave the town. Then I used fences and horses and went 2-3 biome away. Then I had lives when I didn't want to stay inside the camp, just grabbed a horse and went 2-300 tiles away. There are some veins, tarry spots, some interesting clusters of objects.
I was actually disappointed in the map, it's so huge but it's kinda pretty much the same. When the coordinates leaked out, sometimes I had a life where i just went around 1000 tiles then back or other places, made maps about cities, started roads.
But i realized that not worth going more than 2000 tiles and most people don't even go 100 tiles away. before the rift, we had 2 huge cities barely 600 tiles to each other diagonally yet no one wanted to make a road cause no one thought it matters.
Now we got the rift and some point of reference and we got some roads. But they only matter if it lasts long enough.
So the map is just something Jason was bragging with, it really had no point being that big.
There are so many problems with the world which don't make sense:
-when the rift is too small, griefing can ruin the whole world
-when is too big the players won't be able to find other families
-when you stay home, you won't even see more than 80x80
-there is no point of exploring too far, you can't find any expensive resources, you rather make a camp near a mine and oil and that's it
-there is a soft cap on how much resources a town can take home before it's too far for transport
-arc is long and is boring for some
-arc is short and you lose your progress
The best city design i remember so far and got a picture of it is this:
https://i.imgur.com/zfPF4UP.jpg
we travelled a few thousand tiles to revive it over and over
similar to san-cal which started out normally, was a crappy town with too many bushes and lot of grinding to make decent
then dodge born as my son and told him that itry to force the mosquitoes out
we filled all the jungle (still was medium temp) and locked them into a corner with bell bases
we made a nice berry farm with diagonal roads from a cistern, then people made a few rooms, then when we found it again we made more and more impressive structures, we always had the hope to rediscover it
So back to the title: Mount and Blade was a homemade game with a lot of bugs, after a few versions it became a very good game despite its basic world map. You had a tiny icon moving on a map, then when you had a fight, you entered a 3d world with good graphics or a town, or a castle etc.
We had all these ideas of islands, rivers, mountains and other stuff but it's so hard to find a golden number cause it really depends on the player base size and still, someone will be unhappy.
So my idea:
Separate map for city and world.
You could exit the city and travel on the world map, then the city would be a few tile size icon, clicking on it you could enter the internal map of it.
The internal map would be small, maybe 100x100 inner square, the outer square would be bigger(maybe even infinite), but you would arrive to the edge of inner square, which could be walled off so people can't enter without access.
each of those city maps would have a few biomes, an oil spot, a limit on wells maybe even on total resources, different seeds.
Maybe the eve would choose a centre and then it would be cropped around it.
Once the family dies out, the map goes into the archive for a few days/weeks.
The external map would be different, all you do is travel anyway, maybe a higher zoom version of the normal map, for example 8x with lower resolution, shoving icons for strategic resources and city icons. (this kinda opposite to the previous, not sure if city and world map should be same)
https://i.imgur.com/0YvJoLq.png
Once a family dies out, it goes to inactive and a time limit to use it, maybe each player who was inside that city would get a chance later to revive it, with some culling of resources but reset biomes.
The eve runs would be different, you would start on the world map then choose your inner square and settle until then you would have no kids, and you would ride a horse, maybe time limit to settle.
To be able to leave a city and go to the world map, you would need to have a horse.
You couldn't access resources on the world map, you would need to colonize/enter spots and send it home.
I'm not sure on this part really can be anything depending on how this would be actually.
If cities are 100x100 dots on the world map, then we could have a minigame of buying or occupy spots near us. Then we could have resources stacked to connect those spots like rails. The units would be put on a train with no item limit and sent back to city. Maybe it would require a lot of charcoal so you would need to fill it well to worth it, maybe it could have item limit of like 64, 128, or upgradeable by the town. You would need to send workers to a colony by train or horses.
If the world map would be separate, we could have separate maps for each square which doesn't show real maps just a square for cities. Eves would need to choose a spot near each other(some limitation of how far, for example, an 8x8 board) enter the inner map, then choose a location on an infinite map, a private rift of sorts, that would recenter the map to it so the landing would always be close to the travellers.
travel between towns wouldn't be the same, I mean there is not much point anyway like I generally spend one life running around the rift, noting down where is what then just go there next time.
There are only a few reasons to explore, wars, boredom, joining another town to mix the population.
SO rather than running 15-20 minutes on a horse, you would travel instantly (or almost instantly like 20 sec per small square of 8x8) and pay the cost first. Maybe would start 1 minute each square then upgrades would decrease it, for example now we got 6 rails with one board and blade, it would need 17ish to go 100 tiles, so for that cost it would decrease the travel time. it's not fun sitting and waiting while our life passes by.
For example, you would have a 8x8 map start of the week, a fog of war, eves choose a tile from 64, maybe some map generation differences, maybe some of them hidden for example this is heavily forested, this map has more ponds, this map has more animals.
Then players would need to pay scouts to scout their own map to see where cities are. Once you see a target on map you could travel there. Maybe you get there instantly but lose a year for each square (this would have the problem that traveling back you would be older than others born the same year or you could skip young ages so maybe decrease life expectancy or a waiting animation)
https://i.imgur.com/WpIYzMm.png
the squares could have official names or player side names, so you could technically know where you were before related to other towns you know.
group travel: in case of war, families could send war parties who enter on another family map in a group and they can attack them (maybe some siege against fences?) probably they die or never return anyway so towns should only send out some part of the population to attack
similarly, some groups could join in peace to them
some other mechanics like radios would signal how big the population is on the square, airports would allow flight between sectors
next week the spiral would shift, old town locations get archived, you could still find them and repopulate if you are female (maybe minimum group would need one male and one female to travel to inactive un-scouted areas)
of course, accessing world map would require to pay off resources or tokens so you can't just hop around the map
server-side these maps would be archived and only accessed if an active player is inside them, maybe population limit to access more than the inner 50x50 or 100x100 so the town could be loaded anywhere just marked on the world map, so they would be virtually near each other but physically not connected like now, and even they would be close to each other, they would have plenty of space, also limitations on their own (one well, one oil). the world map could be accessed on sides of the town or in special buildings (train or airport).
While travelling the other map would load in. So you could go back to previous weeks maps if you want to. If a map wouldn't be accessed for a month it would be deleted (or moved to another server if that's possible)
So each family would have a mini rift on its own. During the eve window, people could choose same tile, then fight for control of it. The map would be player side and would only reveal locations where you been already and you rediscover it. Scouting would cost life points and time, also your maximum life expectancy would decrease by moving. Your maximum time you could travel would be half of your last life length rounded up to closest decimal like 10,20,30,40,50,60. So based on what travel methods you got, it would cost you 30,20,10,5 minutes of max-age (foot, horse, car,plane between locations, to have road you would need to connect centre to edge, to have horse bonus you would need to get a horse, car for car speed, train maybe, airport on both location for air travel, also a plane), you could access travel by entering a specific zone on the 100x100 edge/corner of current map. travel would be simulated as planes do it now, you enter one side, exit other by loading the map. Group travel would be via a queue, people enter a location, press join and ready then leave same time. Scouting could be spending life tokens and after a time you would get an update on your world map what is next to your tile. Eve spiral would return, filling empty dots on the map, but saving old spots if anyone wants to go back (maybe delayed each arc, so you could travel after 2 days when you got similar tech levels). Old and uninteresting places would be deleted. Scouting a place twice would show a preview of the square.
I'm just throwing ideas, sorry if it's random or hard to understand.
Not sure about others, I generally live a whole life in a small place, never going too far, so the map is the same when im born back there. Or I scout the whole rift. Or I move once to another town, it is not much exciting wandering around the map seeing some ruins and spots without water. The recent changes made the map similar to cheese, you got some greasy spots, and the rest are holes in the cheese, basically a filler, if there is no mine or oil, you can safely assume that no one ever gonna cut trees or move resources from there, not much purpose for roads you build for hours when the world resets so quick. I would skip out on the time i spend travelling between towns. And I don't see the point of these horse thieving one man raid teams or one man pseudo Eves changing locations. You can basically die and born back on the other place or you can mindlessly walk to top right or top left or any corner without knowing where you are, so towns which are on edge or corner are easy to find, the animal dodging is not really a challenge and neither eating some wild food to stay alive, and especially not the fact that you just wasting time wandering when you don't know what you are looking for, and without a well or multiple ponds there is no value in random locations so might as well consider each city a separate map and the between territories fillers.

Tldr
Ainnobodygottimeforthat

Spoonwood · 2019-10-30 17:03:05

pein wrote:

when is too big the players won't be able to find other families

Well, this did manage to happen sometimes. Thing was, there wasn't any way to preserve the path between towns. Low-cost roads, such as dirt paths, as I think you've suggested would have solved this issue or at least made it more feasible to find other families with the old Eve-spiral system. Sure, maybe you couldn't use a car or horsecart to travel to every town on the map. But, planes did exist. Landing strips didn't need to decay to prevent people from going to the tutorial area all the time. The tutorial area could have just got put onto a different server.

pein · 2019-10-30 21:59:45

Spoonwood wrote:

pein wrote:
when is too big the players won't be able to find other families
Well, this did manage to happen sometimes. Thing was, there wasn't any way to preserve the path between towns. Low-cost roads, such as dirt paths, as I think you've suggested would have solved this issue or at least made it more feasible to find other families with the old Eve-spiral system. Sure, maybe you couldn't use a car or horsecart to travel to every town on the map. But, planes did exist. Landing strips didn't need to decay to prevent people from going to the tutorial area all the time. The tutorial area could have just got put onto a different server.

My point is that I don't enjoy running in the wilderness. There is no point, once you get used to the map, it's pretty much the same, nothing to go out for. No reason to leave your family and join others, language difference, they might kill you, you can die and start there, no point running 2000 tiles a life cause that's 1/3 of your life. Roads never really get built and seem like a waste of time for 2-day arcs. No resources, work-intensive, removes resources from other projects. IF you could enter a city and has a centred map, it has all the benefits and none of the downsides. so practically skip out the wilderness part, and have a minimap or a fog which you need to explore once. A different town map would keep towns close and maps reusable. If your town is a dot on minimap, you could go back later. If no one goes back then It can be deleted.

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2019-10-29 02:06:37

What about a dual map?

#2 2019-10-29 02:31:03

Re: What about a dual map?

#3 2019-10-29 03:14:41

Re: What about a dual map?

#4 2019-10-29 05:07:25

Re: What about a dual map?

#5 2019-10-29 10:06:40

Re: What about a dual map?

#6 2019-10-30 17:03:05

Re: What about a dual map?

#7 2019-10-30 21:59:45

Re: What about a dual map?

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