I’ve spent enough time wandering around the wild spaces of this world to fill a book or two. There is something wholly unique about being out there, away from ‘civilization’, being vulnerable, yet determined.
Being lost is a novelty now, and it would be nice to have that feeling in AoC. Instead of giving me omniscient access to a world map, give me the ability to make maps and use them. Let me iterate them. Make notes. Make mistakes. Get lost. Let there be a cost to exploration, risk, and consequences.
You also forgot to mention the possible REWARDS for exploration as well. With risk there should be a pay off should you be successful. Maybe you are the only one who has managed to navigate a treacherous area of the map and you can now sell that tidbit to others....for the right price
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XyphienMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I think this would be amazing, allowing people the usage of exploration, selling their maps to others, potentially recreating maps, and with every new node there will have to be new exploration to find out new paths, dungeons, etc. to place on the map. It would add a whole secondary subclass.
How do we create a system for Cartography? Well, I think I have one. I know it won't be popular, with some. But how do you do "map making" in a game, especially when everyone will have knowledge of most all places?
As a non progression skill. Cartography can follow the simple mechanics AoC provides.
T1 - Compass. Standard 360 compass we all know. Encluding compass markers.
T2 - Mini-Map. This is an upgrade to compass (obviously). You know, that little radar we all have used in all our games, and rely on.
T3 - Full Map. Full World Map with fog of war (places you've been). Investing points should give you a big advantage. This would give a big boon to navigators.
Ya, I know... It leaves out those who don't have (freshies), and can't tell north from south. But, it makes the skill and profession relivent.
I don't mean to rain on anyone's parade here but the whole cartography thing doesn't seem compatible with the released information about node specific perks. For example scientific nodes can have players upload information on "Locations and last known quantity of gatherable resources" and "Locations and inhabitants of new Dungeons or POIs (Points of Interest) that have spawned" and that sort of thing. It feels like a formal system for information dissemination. My understanding is that you don't need to upload information so people don't download it but yeah... I personally hated this news . I will say this though, there may be some room for cartography in the naval/ocean system, that's the only place I can think of where something may be viable.
I think it isn't really the sense of being lost that we all look for, and that's incredibly difficult to provide anyways, but rather a sense of uncertainty and mystery. I made some posts in the old forums about the use of imperfect information to drive this sense of exploration but I'm too lazy to dig them up. I do have something of the sort in this iteration of the forums (https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/42537/lost-opportunity/p1).
Just a brief TL/DR of my thoughts in those old threads and this one: since initially Intrepid said the game would use imperfect information to drive intrigue I envisioned a rumor system that would be perfect and only possible with the evolving world of AoC. Since when nodes level up the world changes and new points of interest may be available, it would be cool if when you talked to NPCs you could learn about rumors that they may have heard about the world. Now these rumors may 1) be false 2) be true or 3) be currently false but could be true if the state of the world changed e.g. the node level up revealing the rumored location. This sense of uncertainty about the information provided by rumors + a changing world would have you going back to zones and taking off to explore to try to find out if the rumors are true or not and have some cool adventures on the way. But alas it feels like with the node-specific perks this is not really going to be possible or supported .
I don't mean to rain on anyone's parade here but the whole cartography thing doesn't seem compatible with the released information about node specific perks. For example scientific nodes can have players upload information on "Locations and last known quantity of gatherable resources" and "Locations and inhabitants of new Dungeons or POIs (Points of Interest) that have spawned" and that sort of thing. It feels like a formal system for information dissemination. My understanding is that you don't need to upload information so people don't download it but yeah... I personally hated this news . I will say this though, there may be some room for cartography in the naval/ocean system, that's the only place I can think of where something may be viable.
I think it isn't really the sense of being lost that we all look for, and that's incredibly difficult to provide anyways, but rather a sense of uncertainty and mystery. I made some posts in the old forums about the use of imperfect information to drive this sense of exploration but I'm too lazy to dig them up. I do have something of the sort in this iteration of the forums (https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/42537/lost-opportunity/p1).
Just a brief TL/DR of my thoughts in those old threads and this one: since initially Intrepid said the game would use imperfect information to drive intrigue I envisioned a rumor system that would be perfect and only possible with the evolving world of AoC. Since when nodes level up the world changes and new points of interest may be available, it would be cool if when you talked to NPCs you could learn about rumors that they may have heard about the world. Now these rumors may 1) be false 2) be true or 3) be currently false but could be true if the state of the world changed e.g. the node level up revealing the rumored location. This sense of uncertainty about the information provided by rumors + a changing world would have you going back to zones and taking off to explore to try to find out if the rumors are true or not and have some cool adventures on the way. But alas it feels like with the node-specific perks this is not really going to be possible or supported .
but that would only be for the vassal nodes and metro area. cartography would cover everything else
but that would only be for the vassal nodes and metro area. cartography would cover everything else
That would be fairly poor game design to have a profession that is only useful in some cases and redundant otherwise. Especially when you consider that the whole world will be covered by the ZOI of 5 metros. I just don't see it having long term utility and would become obsolete quickly, I don't know.
but that would only be for the vassal nodes and metro area. cartography would cover everything else
That would be fairly poor game design to have a profession that is only useful in some cases and redundant otherwise. Especially when you consider that the whole world will be covered by the ZOI of 5 metros. I just don't see it having long term utility and would become obsolete quickly, I don't know.
Not if the maps just displayed what it was like at the time of drawing.
Maps should be very in-detail, including all the monsters types, roads, dungeons, resources you see but not change depending on the development of the world.
If the nodes on your map are LvL3, but they have developed to level 5, then the old map should not display that, should not display the new roads, dungeons, monster spawns, events etc. That should require a newly created map.
but that would only be for the vassal nodes and metro area. cartography would cover everything else
That would be fairly poor game design to have a profession that is only useful in some cases and redundant otherwise. Especially when you consider that the whole world will be covered by the ZOI of 5 metros. I just don't see it having long term utility and would become obsolete quickly, I don't know.
Not if the maps just displayed what it was like at the time of drawing.
Maps should be very in-detail, including all the monsters types, roads, dungeons, resources you see but not change depending on the development of the world.
If the nodes on your map are LvL3, but they have developed to level 5, then the old map should not display that, should not display the new roads, dungeons, monster spawns, events etc. That should require a newly created map.
I think this is one of those cases where it sounds good, but would get really annoying really fast. I'm not personally a fan of this concept, but to each their own I guess.
Secret quests sprinkled in the wild, far away from nodes, and don't have a big obvious ! on the quest givers / origins, would also be nice.
Please do leave some subtle hints that would lead a dedicated explorer to them though.
A degree of randomness (regarding when, where, how these secret quests spawn & despawn) would be even better.
Nowadays quest information / guides in most newly released mmos are quickly posted online, and that kinda ruins the exploration fun. Of coz one can refuse to visit such quest-guide sites and insist on exploring everything blindly, but then one will also be forced to start at a disadvantage.
Comments
You also forgot to mention the possible REWARDS for exploration as well. With risk there should be a pay off should you be successful. Maybe you are the only one who has managed to navigate a treacherous area of the map and you can now sell that tidbit to others....for the right price
Here is what I proposed in another thread. I know, not well written. I got excited.
https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/46522/idea-cartography
Source:
-https://ashesofcreation.com/news/2019-04-10-know-your-nodes-scientific-node-type
-https://ashesofcreation.com/news/2019-05-32-know-your-nodes-economic-node-type
I think it isn't really the sense of being lost that we all look for, and that's incredibly difficult to provide anyways, but rather a sense of uncertainty and mystery. I made some posts in the old forums about the use of imperfect information to drive this sense of exploration but I'm too lazy to dig them up. I do have something of the sort in this iteration of the forums (https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/42537/lost-opportunity/p1).
Just a brief TL/DR of my thoughts in those old threads and this one: since initially Intrepid said the game would use imperfect information to drive intrigue I envisioned a rumor system that would be perfect and only possible with the evolving world of AoC. Since when nodes level up the world changes and new points of interest may be available, it would be cool if when you talked to NPCs you could learn about rumors that they may have heard about the world. Now these rumors may 1) be false 2) be true or 3) be currently false but could be true if the state of the world changed e.g. the node level up revealing the rumored location. This sense of uncertainty about the information provided by rumors + a changing world would have you going back to zones and taking off to explore to try to find out if the rumors are true or not and have some cool adventures on the way. But alas it feels like with the node-specific perks this is not really going to be possible or supported
but that would only be for the vassal nodes and metro area. cartography would cover everything else
https://knightsofember.com/forums/members/winner909098.54
That would be fairly poor game design to have a profession that is only useful in some cases and redundant otherwise. Especially when you consider that the whole world will be covered by the ZOI of 5 metros. I just don't see it having long term utility and would become obsolete quickly, I don't know.
Not if the maps just displayed what it was like at the time of drawing.
Maps should be very in-detail, including all the monsters types, roads, dungeons, resources you see but not change depending on the development of the world.
If the nodes on your map are LvL3, but they have developed to level 5, then the old map should not display that, should not display the new roads, dungeons, monster spawns, events etc. That should require a newly created map.
I think this is one of those cases where it sounds good, but would get really annoying really fast. I'm not personally a fan of this concept, but to each their own I guess.
Please do leave some subtle hints that would lead a dedicated explorer to them though.
A degree of randomness (regarding when, where, how these secret quests spawn & despawn) would be even better.
Nowadays quest information / guides in most newly released mmos are quickly posted online, and that kinda ruins the exploration fun. Of coz one can refuse to visit such quest-guide sites and insist on exploring everything blindly, but then one will also be forced to start at a disadvantage.