Do you care about a realistic world map?

[Tamerlane]

Fantasy setting is not *only* about magic but about magic *as well*. When you look at PE map you can see a pretty vast scrap of land, a continent almost.

Actually, I'm pretty sure Josh said that the portion of the map shown thus far is about the size of the Iberian Peninsula...

[anek]

No!! Ugh, cold environments are so depressing. I'll take rich jungle with aztec, Indian or chinese influences, or Hot desert planes and mountains with Persian or Turkish or Egyptian influences any day!

 

Adventures are not vacations.

[JFSOCC]

No!! Ugh, cold environments are so depressing. I'll take rich jungle with aztec, Indian or chinese influences, or Hot desert planes and mountains with Persian or Turkish or Egyptian influences any day!

 

Adventures are not vacations.

to me they are.

Edit, or rather, vacations are adventures.

I'm enjoying an adventure when it goes to a culturally rich and beautiful location more than if I have to delve through pits of mud and sleet. Obviously a personal opinion, but one I hold dear.

Edited October 30, 2012 by JFSOCC

[anek]

to me they are.

Edit, or rather, vacations are adventures.

I'm enjoying an adventure when it goes to a culturally rich and beautiful location more than if I have to delve through pits of mud and sleet. Obviously a personal opinion, but one I hold dear.

 

I think cold and human-hostile environments can really add to the atmosphere of danger and risk and purposefulness of an adventure quest and make it more exciting and "vivid".

And such environments can still be very much beautiful at the same time, maybe even more so than grasslands and lush forests.

 

Take a look at the Icewind Dale games, I think the way the environment was done there is pretty cool (pun intended).

[JohanKris]

As a lover of maps and creating words this is almost a dear subject for me. Sure when I was a teen and created worlds they tended to not make much sense in many ways. Now it is important for me, every little detail.

 

The rivers have been fixed for the map, but we haven't been able to update it on the KS site (or elsewhere) yet.

 

Also, the Dyrwood (and surrounding areas) are in the southern hemisphere of this world, so regions tend to be colder to the south and warmer to the north.

 

Nice. any big difference in elevation or highlands?

 

I don't know about realistic. Logical (within gameworld/lore context) sure.

 

Internally consistant. Which goes for most things in the setting unless you aim for comedy. So you might have a magic cloud eternally raining on a mountain and therefore many rivers start from it. But if your world has a magically altered weather that is totally random, then it makes no sense to have a desert or rainforest.

 

Geography in fantasy (!) games/books/movies can be all sorts of weird, what's important is to have a plausible story to back it up. It would be cool for example to have a river which flow is reversed by some kind of magical mishap. Variety is another issue... Looking at PE map, majority of the continent is covered by forests, but I'm still hoping to see a little bit of desert with one or two oases.

 

Fantasy world creators have a habit for a few things. The most classic is the "a country is surrounded by mountains".

 

I think cold and human-hostile environments can really add to the atmosphere of danger and risk and purposefulness of an adventure quest and make it more exciting and "vivid".

 

It will not give off much athmosphere of danger unless you put that in game-mechanics. Even if the game tells you it is -40C you hardly will care unless your guys lose health while being outside. Of course cliffs without invisible walls that keep you from falling sure would give that impression. Would even be cool with attacks that push someone over the cliff. "Stay on the inside Sam!"

[Chilloutman]

For me its always problem of world span. I hate when world have jungles at south/north and snow at north/south just for sake to have different enviroment even that travel from north to south takes you week of traveling. I dont have problem with some magical places which seems out of place if they are explained correctly tho. I liked IWD, Fallout settings etc. I think you can create interesting locations in one geological place without problem. And it feels more natural than traveling from frozen lands of Megaiceland to get to sunny beaches of Tequilasunrise island in 2 days of walking. That for me always breakes immersion of setting. Worst example now is GuildWars. I was so dissapointed about how they make volcano/jungle area next to frozen mountain map.

[anek]

We all have our little peccadilloes. This one doesn't bother me, personally, but I can understand why someone with a bit of physical geography knowledge might get a bit bent out of shape.

 

Just like I feel somewhat amused whenever I see a castle / tower / multi-level-dungeon / etc. in a video game that doesn't show the slightest hint of structurally sound engineering, and would surely collapse under its own weight in the real world.

 

Or like an evolutionary biologist would likely shiver at the sight of many of the monsters and fantasy-animals that appear in video games, and wonder how they ever came out on top of the survival-of-the-fittest selection process, with their ridiculously impractical body shapes and all...

 

I'm sure there are many other examples.

 

And while some amount of world realism does add to the immersion and shows the designers really care about their world, I don't think it's necessary to be overly pedantic in this regard. "It's fantasy" is a valid excuse.

[quantum_freak]

I`m playing fantasy games to visit fantasy worlds. The geography can look as unrealistic as it gets as long as I`m having the "WOW" moment when i see them.

[jivex5k]

I hope they rework the map entirely. I didn't like the look of it, and it seems kind of small TBH.

[exodiark]

Every art is based on reality, so yeah, might as well make a more realistic world map.

[jivex5k]

Every art is based on reality, so yeah, might as well make a more realistic world map.

Oh yeah?

What's that based on?

[rjshae]

Every art is based on reality, so yeah, might as well make a more realistic world map.

Oh yeah?

What's that based on?

Absinthe?

[nikolokolus]

Geography in fantasy (!) games/books/movies can be all sorts of weird, what's important is to have a plausible story to back it up. It would be cool for example to have a river which flow is reversed by some kind of magical mishap. Variety is another issue... Looking at PE map, majority of the continent is covered by forests, but I'm still hoping to see a little bit of desert with one or two oases.

 

In general though, I don't really care about realistic geography.

 

That's not a continental map.

[Chilloutman]

Every art is based on reality, so yeah, might as well make a more realistic world map.

Oh yeah?

What's that based on?

Absinthe?

 

I am thinking we are observing here something more seriouse

[JFSOCC]

LSD spiked Absinthe?

[TheDogProfessor]

I would like a fair amount of realism and consistency. Deserts on the leeward side of mountains and wet, lush forests on the windward side. Magical phenomena would, of course, alter particular areas to varying degrees, but on the whole -- unless there is a reason otherwise that is made entirely internally consistent with the rest of the world -- I would like to see the geography of Project Eternity based on our geography. After all, there may be magic, but I'm assuming that Newtonian physics will still apply to arrows and people (not that geography is Newtonian physics, exactly). My point is that most of the science that applies to our world is probably going to apply to this one as well.

[Quadrone]

Regarding the initial question:

No. Not at all. This is so unimportant to me that I didn't even once think of it before I read this thread.

As long as there is nothing completely obvious like deserts bordering a frozen tundra I won't care.

[JohanKris]

As long as there is nothing completely obvious like deserts bordering a frozen tundra I won't care.

 

This is actually a plausible outcome. Deserts are not always hot, they just lack rainfall. There is plenty of frozen desert in Asia. I can't remember any desert in direct connection to tundra though, as most tundra regions of our world see enough precipitation.

[exodiark]

Every art is based on reality, so yeah, might as well make a more realistic world map.

Oh yeah?

What's that based on?

 

Well as you can see, there are purple, red, green, and orange colors, which are colors you can find in reality.

Then there are lines, which you can also find in reality.

 

As why are those lines bending in such way, it depends on how you control your brush... in reality.

 

There.

Edited October 31, 2012 by exodiark

[Keldorn]

As long as there is nothing completely obvious like deserts bordering a frozen tundra I won't care.

 

This is actually a plausible outcome. Deserts are not always hot, they just lack rainfall. There is plenty of frozen desert in Asia. I can't remember any desert in direct connection to tundra though, as most tundra regions of our world see enough precipitation.

To compliment this, Antarctica and the Arctic are considered the two biggest deserts in the world.