Hi. I'm just curious, because it interests me and I know nothing about it (which will become blatantly obvious with my next sentence)... What does a map like this look like, and what design features make it work well with a "sandbox"? Are you looking for a 2D artistic map or something that can be immediately meshed into a 3D gaming program? Feel free to ignore me. =)
Originally Posted by Chashio
Hi!
Thanks for replying to my post, and before I answer your question, I would like to make a note. Ignorance (the act of ignoring people or knowledge) neither benefits my cause nor, yours to grow. So worry not about your question. Honestly these are questions I should have answered with my above post.
1.) What makes a map usable for a sandbox game is that just like our world, before evolution or god.. depending on your path. you have to design it with out "inhabitance" first.... then you have to define locations where people (npcs) would be. Sense say only 45% of the world will be static (governed by a single npc faction) the rest of the world would need to support the idea that at any place any where players might wish to set up "shop" for the resources that are in that location.
The biggest thing is the map designer and design needs to be mutable enough to take something like this step by steps. IE: Im not looking to pay you or make an agreement and then in a set amount of time get back a finished map, we will need to work together for every stage. Which assuming someone decides to take up the map project, I will outline for them as follows:
1.) Define continental land masses
Challenges:
a) At least one continent needs to be really large. This is where "established" civilization lives.
b) Environment needs to vary greatly across the entire planet, just as our own does
c) sooner or later players will be able to utilize water, including oceans so think about this
d) NO CIVILIZATION AT ALL is defined during this period. Not even land mark names
2.) Add forests, mountains, and other environmental.
Challenges:
a) Its important to leave enough open area to define civilization after this.
b) Also named land marks can be defined. Like "mount doom"... but not "silver city"
c) It should be obvious at this point, where jungles are, where deserts are, and so on and so forth
3.) Add NPC civilization
Over all note:
This is to be defined as a "world map" so intensive detail is not important. After this if the mapmaker choices to continue with me. We will work on specifically mapping regions and areas!
2.) I should have posted links to maps that I liked, but I kind of assumed everyone did the same kind of maps (I was wrong upon further inspection of your community. My apologies) I am looking for something of your generic fantasy hand drawn type look. Like something out of a DnD book.. or at least that as a finished product. The need for it to go into any sort of 3d program is not necessary. Its primary job will simply to be a reference for world building, as well as a map to be used for the players reference in game. However I dont want to put a specific style requirement on the map, because I would really like to review multiple styles of peoples work!
Thanks for asking such great questions!
Another thing I would like to note:
If you have never worked with any game engines or are curious about game engines. I would love to show you hero engine. I can set you an account up right away and get you logged in to see what will be used to make the world you will basically have a large hand in designing! Heck if you want you could even put your world building skills to work if you liked
Either way don't be scared.. at the end of the day I just need some maps made... pretend I was doing a DnD campaign or something. No game dev knowledge is required on your part, and anything you need to know. I will tell you
Hey there!
I just stumbled across this post when I was looking at how to make an MMO on the interwebz, and I see this was posted a long time ago and was just wondering if you were still doing this. I don't have much knowledge on this stuff unfortunately, but this engine sounds pretty cool and I wanted to help out if I could, i'm not looking to make any money from this, just a bit of fun.
Thanks,
Edible
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote