Ok, had a thought the other day.
If you made inkweed a lot easier to see
made cartography one of the cheapest early skills you got,
and made sure the LP bonus was worth while,
Then maybe we'd have more new players out there trying to make maps?
That'd result in more maps, new players spending more time exploring their areas and hopefully bumping into each other, and potentially less horrible noob grinding areas with a million half built looms