Island/Continent Based Map?

[CG62]

Am I the only one slightly disturbed by this "alternate dimension"?

I mean, we have two persistent worlds...




OOH. WHAT IF THE ALTERNATE DIMENSION WERE INHABITED BY... TIME-EATING RAISINS?

[theTrav]

I've had a brief look at the new map and I LOVE it.

massive oceans as opposed to rives everywhere, fairly well mixed up feature regions, interesting beaches.

I don't think the one tile water/beach/sand things are a problem, every instance of them I saw seemed perfectly reasonable, I love the fact that there's reefs and sand bars and I think the way the edges are irregular is a real plus for making it interesting.

The current map has quite smooth edges between features, which is not really natural

[CG62]

N... no one got the reference in my last post?

Bummer.

Anyhoo, I might request a warp later so I can experience this place firsthand. First, I have to grind up to get some skills for my hermit farmer.

[RaptorJedi]

I'm pretty sure I did CG62, it was The Langoliers right?

[CG62]

I'm pretty sure I did CG62, it was The Langoliers right?

Of course, the moment I press the "quote" button, the title of the movie slips my mind.


It was about a buncha people who get caught in time with... evil... time eating... raisin... things.


I think it was a Stephen King movie.

[RaptorJedi]

That's The Langoliers. That was a good movie.

[Jest]

So now that it kinda works what's the possible time-frame of actually being able to play on one of these epic maps?

[loftar]

Well, having evaluated the map further, I stand by my previous conclusion. These kinds of maps have a few advantages and a few disadvantages, and I think that the disadvantages by far outweigh the advantages.

The main advantage is that the map gets some interesting, irregular formations every here and there, which look really neat and make the map worth exploring just to see the variation.

The disadvantages, however, include at least the following:

• Almost every terrain type can be found almost anywhere. You seldomly have a walk more than a few screens to find every type of terrain, and often there is a ridiculous variation in terrain in one place -- one of the places that I've fast-linked to, for instance, has no less than 6 narrow bands of water (and beach), moorland, grassland, heath, dirt and mountain right next to each other, and it is far from the only place which looks like that.
• Many features look really unnatural, such as small ponds of 5x5 or 10x10 or so tiles of water or similary sized mountains. These defects, I suspect, is inherent in fractal map generation precisely because fractals have details at every level of scale, and they would be extremely hard to post-process away.
• On a large scale, a fractally generated map is precisely as meaningless as the current maps are.
• The terrain just looks really... weird. I can't really put my finger on exactly what the defect is, but real terrain doesn't look like a crumpled piece of paper.
• On a more Haven-specific note, this map (though that is surely tweakable in various ways) has far too much water. I wouldn't mind parts of the map having archipelagos, but this map looks more like some tropical region.

Mind you, when I speak of advantages and disadvantages, I am not speaking in comparison to the current map generator, which I am well aware has many deficiancies. Just to be clear, let me re-iterate the fact that the current mapgenerator is just something we're using "for now", just to be able to test some of the terrain features we've wanted to have, and will most likely be disposed of entirely before the next map reset (which is still far off, mind you). The primary thing I would like to carry with me from fractal generation is the ability to create interesting terrain formations every here and there, but it has to be checked against total weirdness, and I haven't been able to figure out a way to do that yet. Well, there are lots of things that are unobvious, and I'm glad I've got a lot of time to think about it before the next map reset.

[PhaedrothSP]

From what I saw, the land is far too thin. Also mountains and deserts should really not be that small.

...also the little 1 tile sands bother me.

[Fluffy]

If it helps and is possible, a few general rules could improve the generator. Rules like mountains must be a certain size, sand beaches must be at least 3 tiles wide or something like that.


Oh, and..

• Many features look really unnatural

lol