Just looking at the OP, my two cents' on this:

While the shape of the land is preset (which is a big loss to cartographers, in my opinion), size alone is not what determines a "big" discovery. Mapping the pass between seemingly impassible mountains separating two sections of the landscape is a pretty big discovery. Mapping the vacant spaces within a heavily forested area and the high/low points of elevation through lands rich in resources are vital for the establishment of efficient spatial networking in a kingdom, and can mean the difference between a wagonload of ore taking days to reach its destination or hours. Being the first cartographer to map a lost city (potentailly home to artifacts or unique resources) could make you a very rich and famous person if the map is sold to someone who knows its worth.

Cartographers miss out on the biggest discovery of all, but that doesn't mean there's nothing big to discover. Anoch Sun lays nested somewhere within that desert in the middle of the map, along with the key to humanity's survival. You know the desert's there, but can you honestly say there's nothing mind-blowing to map within it?

Yeah, I like the idea of knowing less and exploring more. I plan on being a hard-core cartographer and explorer so finding new things and getting the chance to name them and tell the world what I've found is really exciting to me. So, I understand the concern with having too much revealed so early, but I would have to agree with all of the other posts that say there is more to discover than just the shape of the continent and location of different biomes. Sure, we don't get as much opportunity to be a Vespucci or Magellan but there is still so much out there to find! So exciting!

Yeah....

So you have to recognize that this is a game with players that communicate outside of it. Information, including maps, will be plastered all over Discord servers, guild websites and wikis. The only way anything is going to stay "secret" is if no one has found it yet.

Caspian is spot on with his comments on exploring and cartography being all about the smaller things, the local secrets and resources. That will all take time and skill to map out and keep players plenty busy until a new continent is available, at which point I will unleash my army of Bards upon the unsuspecting... uh... nevermind.

Posted By Poisonated at 3:17 PM - Sat Jan 13 2018

@Nitt Yes, but at the same time the common man in this era doesnt have the technology to know that stuff to a degree.

I think you should realize that no player will ever be, just a "common man." We will all be pseudo immortal beings with several hundred years of cumulative knowledge that we carry with us from one life to another. It should be expected that one of us immortals would know at least the general shape of the continent we've spent potentially hundreds of years on.

Posted By Hieronymus at 10:35 PM - Sat Jan 13 2018

The continent has to be known to a certain extent because the land has been claimed. These claimants are those we refer to as the nobility and they exist at the start of the game.

What you're really after is a new frontier where nothing at all is known about the land. To borrow from fictional works, in a Game of Thrones, the land beyond the Wall was like that, an area shrouded in mystery and unkown dangers, where the land was mostly wild and uncharted because people stayed away. Maybe Elyria needs a wall too.

Another equally interesting possibility would be discovering new continents like historical explorers of the past had to do. Like Christopher Columbus, explorers would seek sponsorship from monarchs to fund their expeditions out in the open seas. And in return, the monarch would lay claim to any new lands discovered. There's a pretty cool dimension here in terms of gameplay and conquest/expansion but this also adds to the cost of developing and supporting the game. Maybe it's a year 2 option for expansion.

The wall for Elyria is imo the other 62% of the world where the undiscovered tribes are.

Assuming the continents do not completely fill their allocated space, but have some ocean around them, I figure they will be roughly the size of Connecticut.

Is there anyone here who thinks that it's not possible to get lost in the woods in Connecticut, even with a map?

If you are one of those people, then maybe the continents will be too small for you, and maybe maps will be too much of a convenience. I think most people will not think so.

Remember, we are beginning this game in mid Elyrian history, not from the dawn of Mann. If I follow correctly, literally all the land on the starting continent has already been discovered and claimed by someone prior to launch. It technically already has belonged to one king or another for some generations, has it not? Thus the histories of the proto nerans, and the formations of the various tribes, and the current lore that is being developed within the communities, etc..

So, off of that, can we make the base assumption that the initial shape and broad topography outlines were already done by the previous generations of cartographers that came before your characters current lifespan? The Kings of France and England both claimed large chunks of land in the New World and set arbitrary boarders long before 99% of the area was known.

And, as Caspian stated, it is about the details. Just because you know there is something there, you don't actually know what it is until you get some boots on the ground and actually go there.

Rather than thinking about your self as Vespucci, perhaps a better model would be Lewis and Clark. Jefferson had a basic notion of what he got in the Louisiana purchase, but no real specifics other than it went from the Mississippi to the Pacific. He sent them out to do the nuts and bolts, fill in the blank, work.

There will be some areas at the point your character begins his story that are already populated and civilized, while other places may be mostly unknown. Whether it is then explored from the inside out, or the outside in (like Africa was), will depend on what already exists at this point in time. Do the T'oresk seek the headwaters of their Nile? What is in the middle of the Great Dras Swamp? These are just a couple of examples.

I see that as the very important role of a cartographer within this timeframe, until the tech develops to the point where venturing off continent begins. Then it would be more like the way your initial post is describing. I also see that knowledge being a very useful (and valuable) commodity to be traded within a kingdom. And perhaps even more so across kingdom boarders. But this post is already long enough without expanding it even more to start talking about the strategic importance of maps and such.

I'm not really sure what OPs issue is?

I see plenty to explore. I don't see any towns, or rivers, or major landmarks, or animal distributions, or plant distributions. I don't see resources or roads, I expect when I start choosing my land to see some of these things, but not all. This leaves plenty of room for explorers to find neat things and to make a profit of selling that information.

To put his in a modern context, the United Kingdom has been settled by humans for thousands of years, the oldest of its ruling families can trace their lines to before the Norman Invasion of 1066 and the Ordnance Survey has been in effect since 21 June 1791. You'd think that there isn't much left to 'discover' in the United Kingdom right? Well there are 10,000 changes registered by the Ordnance Survey every day.

While we as players will not quite have the same effect on our landscape as millions of modern day humans I'm pretty sure we'll provide plenty of work for cartographers and explorers just on the starting continent.

Keep in mind also that it will take time to develop the skills that will be needed once we become an ocean going civilization. Only the most talented cartographers will be able to chart the sea lanes. This brave and skilled souls will ultimately be the ones to first see, and map, the previously unknown borders of whole new continents. Given how slow ships can be, it may well take several ships working in different areas to fully map even the outside boundaries of such a continent. Also, there are going to be more than one new continent as well.

Then there will be in the inland expeditions who will be mapping land features such as rivers, mountains, biomes, and such for the first time in our civilizations history! These cartographers will need to know more than how to document landmarks on parchment, but how to survive long enough to do so! Perhaps one of these expeditions will be lucky enough to find one of the other two planned tribes?

As I have stated before in my OP I probably missed something. However, you cant just say "oh, its all the little things like Caspian said!". You gotta question it, and its kinda scary to question what Caspian said. Don't forget that in the post(made by Caspian) and I have re-stated multiple times that there is still 60%+ un-mapped, un-discovered land.

I agree that explorers, cartographers, and adventurers still have A LOT to do with all the small things. That is something I didn't think about im my OP and Caspian made that clear. I enjoy that very much, BUT to say something like "its all about the details" or the "small things" when there is 60%+ is just ridiculous.

I dont understand how someone can compare exploring the real world to exploring a game world. They dont compare, ESPECIALLY from todays modern world to the medieval era where we didnt have good mapping skills and technology. Being a human being on Earth and exploring is so massively different than being a person in a video game that is trying to be a living breathing world.

You can't expect an island like continent of many tribes and cities who know of eachothers existence and where many of the tribes people migrate between biomes to not have maps that show the layout of the continent. I mean the Neran are in almost every biome, the Dras came from the Janoa, the Dras at one stage cohabited with the To'resk. Every tribe has historical ties of some sort, to say we shouldn't be seeing a map like birds eye view of the continent at the very least cos we shouldn't know what it looks like is rather preposterous. Even in ancient times they had at least bare minimum maps which showed the layouts of islands and the coasts.

The Elyrian world has history, we're not starting from nothing.

I think that from an explorers standpoint a lesser map is obviously better but it’s not really practical or logical. Let’s not forget these are established socieites. Major landmarks like lakes, forests, mountains, etc have most likely already been uncovered. At least, the major landmarks that a starter map would show would likely already be known logically.

As for the practical part, it’s not really practical for people to start the game without basic land knowledge. Having no idea where the nearest source of water is, is only fun for the guys exploring, not the guys that want to settle their town and play their game without dehydrating because not enough explorers joined their city. This especially becomes a problem for nobles with this being an unnecessary time-gate of sorts for progress and adds a PUBG-Esque Level of RNG where you start losing your territories simply because the guys next to you find their basic source of food/water first and can actually progress meanwhile your city is starving and dying because you weren’t as lucky. The same way in PUBG that you may drop near a building with no gun spawns and the guy next to you finds all his guns and armor in a single room sweep. This works in short term games like PUBG but not long term macro play games.

You need to have enough map knowledge to say “if I settle here I have the basic foundations of life”. A water source, food source and shelter source. The point of pre-live is to build on the existing world, not from the ground up.

Just going to add my $.02

First off: Posted By Ravenlute at 03:00 AM - Sun Jan 14 2018

So you have to recognize that this is a game with players that communicate outside of it. Information, including maps, will be plastered all over Discord servers, guild websites and wikis. The only way anything is going to stay "secret" is if no one has found it yet.

Meta "play" is going to have a major roll in this game weather someone likes it or not (I'm not saying this is a bad thing btw). If that map that we get to see during voting is limited, be it a black silhouette with no directional orientation or an "medieval style" rough sketch on canvas, when it comes the the actual land selection Kings/Dukes/etc. will want (and need) more detailed maps to plan their kingdoms around. They would be fools if they do not at that time take detailed pictures/screenshots of the map to not only plan but share. Anything less would put them at a significant disadvantage to potential rivals. So this information would be available outside the game to everyone in the kingdom who wants access to it.

Second: It's more about the experience then the knowledge.

Going back to games like Oblivion or Skyrim, We have in game maps (and out of game maps) that show you where everything is. It's quite possible to know what they entirety of the game looks like before you finish installing the game. However nothing beats that first few moments when you step out of the tutorial village and see the mountains of Slyrim with the clouds of snow and fog rolling off them into the Riverrun valley and hearing a dragon roar in the distance above you. It's not about knowing what the world looks like, it's about experiencing the world (and all it's beauty) first hand.

That said, rough stretched maps would be nice from an immersion standpoint, but by no means would lesson my enjoyment of exploring the world if i had a 3D rendered Satellite view of the world.

Posted By Bluemaze at 4:32 PM - Sat Jan 13 2018

Posted By Noryn at 4:01 PM - Sat Jan 13 2018

Good point, Poisonated.

I do love the information Caspian shares with us and appreciate the map of the continent as a beautiful and well thought-out example to have good starting places for all kingdoms and tribes. This map of a continent looks really great and shows that all areas are playable and no kingdom needs to worry about being disadvantaged.

BUT I would prefere it to be the only one this detailed we get to see outside the game. In my opinion it just leeks to much information. Knowing less is better than knowing more. Keep exploring and cartographing a true challenge also on the starting continent, please!

The 25 maps for voting could be much less detailed, reduced to a rough outline without showing the exact shore line, rivers, lakes, mountains etc. Maybe only write the kingdoms and biomes on the map and leave a bit to discover and surprise for the first settlers and travellers. Those maps for voting for the starting continents could look like simple hand drawn medieval maps in contrast to the kind of modern "satelite supported" 3D map we see in image 9.

"The 25 maps for voting could be much less detailed, reduced to a rough outline without showing the exact shore line, rivers, lakes, mountains etc."

WHOLE HEARTEDLY AGREE !!!!

I have no words to describe how deeply I disagree with you.

Posted By Rhyin Arcwolf at 03:57 AM - Tue Jan 16 2018

Second: It's more about the experience then the knowledge.

Going back to games like Oblivion or Skyrim, We have in game maps (and out of game maps) that show you where everything is. It's quite possible to know what they entirety of the game looks like before you finish installing the game. However nothing beats that first few moments when you step out of the tutorial village and see the mountains of Slyrim with the clouds of snow and fog rolling off them into the Riverrun valley and hearing a dragon roar in the distance above you. It's not about knowing what the world looks like, it's about experiencing the world (and all it's beauty) first hand.

That said, rough stretched maps would be nice from an immersion standpoint, but by no means would lesson my enjoyment of exploring the world if i had a 3D rendered Satellite view of the world.

I guarantee that it is more about knowledge than experience. They are VERY VERY close, but it is more about knowledge. Playing Everquest for the first time a couple years ago, I didnt look up any maps. There were no in game maps. It was SO amazing to walk around and memorize(because there were no maps) Felwithe(high elf city), finding Kelethin(wood elf city), and especially finding(exploring and memorizing) Crushbone(the first dungeon).

Exploring Norath for the very first time was so good that it immediately became my #1 favorite game over WoW(which I played for 10+ years). There is NOTHING like having no maps and having to memorize your surroundings. It's absolutely amazing. I wish every MMO(that is like EQ) wouldnt have had any maps. Now that I look back I know where everything is and it's boring. When new content comes out suddenly it's enjoyable again to explore. The difference? Knowledge. Not experience.

The enjoyment doesnt come from experiencing dungeons in Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim. Lack of knowledge and finding those dungeons and exploring them is whats enjoyable. You could exchange the words explore and experience here, but what I am getting at is that finding it yourself is like a catalyst for enjoyment.

And TO A DEGREE, there's little room for your imagination to go wild. Not knowing the whole map makes the world feel ABSOLUTELY HUGE. Then, when you get to know the world a bit better it gets smaller in your mind.