General Map Feedback

flatlander

In short: (For people who do not want to read a lot)
Terrain in a map needs to make sense.
If I find a small dirt path I can reasonably assume it is used to get to a "point of interest"
If I find a larger dirt path with cart tracks I can assume this path was used by carts, so it is most likely going from a small town to a point of interest or another town.
If I find a paved pathway (or gravel) I can assume this is going to a more developed town/village/location and if that gravel path has cart tracks on it I should be able to assume it will lead somewhere that carts would go often. (Larger Towns or other points of interest)

In more detail:
So when I follow this pathway and both directions lead to nowhere. And it seems there would actually be no way carts would be commonly traveling this pathway, it's a little immersion breaking. (And honestly bad map design)



I know this is probably not the final-version of even this portion of the map but I thought i'd leave my feedback. I feel it's pretty important that when you are placing roads or leaving landmarks that they make sense and can be used intelligently by your players.

For example, running rivers should lead to the ocean (Unless it specifically leads to an underground water source/cave/etc) but if a river just suddenly stopped into a few rocks it wouldn't make sense, that isn't how rivers work.

Same with these pathways, having a pathway that looks like carts have been going up and down it very often and having both ends of that pathway lead to nothing makes literally zero sense and gives players the wrong expectation when following a road as to what they will find once they reach the end of that road.

Melofeign

I was also looking at the road structure and thinking it felt out of place. If we are really landing back in a world after thousands of years, and there are no cities built, the roads should either be really old good roads (like Roman Roads) or non existent. Since lots of things change when the node levels (love the bridge at village!) I also hope that roads can change based on node level. So village would also drop these cart tracks shown above between starting area and the node, or other nodes that are village or above for example.

I can see some roads presently leading nowhere, if when the node levels up it leads to a new PoI. Again, having the road pop in when the PoI pops in will really help in feeling like we are exploring a new world and having civilization start to claim it!