Make the map discoverable.

[Definitoon]

Make the map discoverable instead of handing people the map at once.

Why this change?
The moment people join at PWMC now, they have to fulfill quests to achieve experience and gold. Yet, they already know that there are villages and cities on given locations because /map just shows the whole map to everyone.

What would change?
Make it so that people only see Hogsworth and the area around it the moment they join for the first time. snip the map in regions so that players actually discover parts of the map as they go along. The parts of the map that people haven't discovered yet would be a darker color or black without any details of what could be in those parts of the map.

How would it work?
When flying/walking around the map they "discover" cities and villages. this same system could be used to let people discover parts of the map. The easiest way would be to snip the map into parts: Cities and the ground around it, mountain-regions, forests, etc. the moment a player gets over the border of such a region the region will be discovered.

 

[Miss_Strudel]

I don’t agree with this because it would simply increase the number of barriers that new players need to overcome to understand the server. Many other mmos have the player slowly discover the map, but the difference is that those with this feature allow players to autopath for quests, which we don’t have the ability to do at the moment. If a new player is trying to find Hogsend for the first time and they can’t see the map / don’t have an auto path, the odds of them finding their desired location instead of getting lost and frustrated is slim to none. The map is relatively large and travel already poses a challenge. If players don’t know which direction to travel in, this challenge grows exponentially.

I can understand why you made this suggestion and agree that it is a neat feature to slowly uncloud your map in mmos, but for now I don’t think it fits with the travel system. Also for clarity this is just my opinion not the gd team’s decision.

 

[Nyn]

Cool idea, but I see an issue :/

What if the person went to the map from the website, wasn't logged in, or just didn't have an account. What would they see? Everything? Nothing?

 

[ZLBottom15]

I have to disagree with this. It's really inconvenient for newer players. I remember, starting the quests, I relied heavily on the map. It maybe be a so-called "crutch", but I feel like making the map discoverable would make a lot of newbies quit quickly.

 

[Definitoon]

Cool idea, but I see an issue :/

What if the person went to the map from the website, wasn't logged in, or just didn't have an account. What would they see? Everything? Nothing?

They would see nothing. If they did /map they should see the parts only visible to the character. guess that can be done using UUID, not sure... I'm not a developer

 

[Definitoon]

I have to disagree with this. It's really inconvenient for newer players. I remember, starting the quests, I relied heavily on the map. It maybe be a so-called "crutch", but I feel like making the map discoverable would make a lot of newbies quit quickly.

Hmmmm... could be, not sure. it adds a new part of exploration that isn't there now. i personally love the part in which you have to explore to find stuff. i don't have to explore anything really atm since everything is explored already

 

[Nyn]

Hmmmm... could be, not sure. it adds a new part of exploration that isn't there now. i personally love the part in which you have to explore to find stuff. i don't have to explore anything really atm since everything is explored already

I think itd be better to rely LESS on exploration so nOpE sOrRy

 

[nathan1e]

I agree with everything that's been said so far that goes against this suggestion. As Strudel said, it's something that's currently not possible, while at the same time it doesn't really "add" anything.

I just want to add onto the list of things that have been said so far:
One could argue that the changes to travel that came with the revelius update somewhat discouraged players from exploration. But what I think still encourages people to do that is the many interesting towns spread throughout the server. However, you're not going to tempt players to go look for these towns when they are completely oblivious of their existence.

Personally I very much remember first seeing the Revelius map. That is to say, not the actual builds but a low-quality screenshot of a 2D dynmap. It was during the April 2019 HS Q&A, and it immediately sparked my attention and excitement. I experienced a similar level of excitement upon seeing the actual map on the website when it was released on the 5th of July, shortly after the revelius maintenance commenced. If it wasn't for the fact that I was able to really see this map, I don't know if I would've been similarly excited to go around the world and explore all the new locations and builds there were to explore.

 

[Definitoon]

alrighty. thx all for the comments. I see that there is not only benefits to this suggestion but also a lot of things that are against the idea. So hereby--> rip suggestion

 

[Grace]

Hello!

Thank you so much for your suggestion. It is very interesting and I can see that people have mixed opinions on this. I am going to go ahead and bring this up with the rest of the Poltergeist team to get their opinions on it. Once we have come to a decision regarding your idea I will reply to let you know! Hope you have a wonderful day.

 

[Grace]

Hi again!

We really appreciated your suggestion and trying to encourage the exploration aspect. I have brought up your idea with the team, but unfortunately we will be declining it. We ultimately feel that making the online map discoverable would cause a lot of frustrations within the player base. The world is already pretty big and players tend to get lost already while using the map. Currently, a lot of players heavily rely on the map and we felt that making it discoverable would make it extremely hard for people to find mobs, towns, and quests areas.


Again, we really appreciate your idea to encourage exploration and your overall suggestion! Hopefully we can read future ideas you have for the server later on. Hope you have a fantastic day!