MAP - All map discussions here please

[Scaredgirl]

NEW!

I made a simple WoE example map show some features we could have. You can find it here:
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/map/

Idea is to divide the map into 4 sections. Click on the top-left corner of that map to zoom in. Once there, you can click any of the 3 "hot spots" to see additional information.

This example is very basic and final version will be different. This is just to give people some ideas about what the map could look like.

Maps below are just concepts.





I think the best way to start building the map is to first decide all the different parts the map will have.

How many capital cities?
How many castles?
How many smaller cities?
How

Map will have hexagons with 6 sides that enable the player to move in all directions. We should determine how many hexagons there are per element, and how many neutral hexagons there are. Then we just count everything together and we get the size of the map.

Next step will be to place the hexagons so that map makes sense. We might have to use the good old "good" vs. "evil" for this.

Post ideas here.

EDIT:

Here are some more details about the map.

1. Map will be non-symmetrical. We are going to use a MMORPG model with a non-symmetrical map. We are not going to use a "strategy board game" model with a symmectrical map, like for example in chess.

Those who think a symmetrical map would be more "fair", understand this:  because players are allowed to pick any element, and player amount is not limited, different elements will have different amounts of players. This alone guarantees that the event will not be "fair". It's the same thing with MMO's that have different races or factions - some sides will always be stronger.

To balance out this we will use different techniques like Global Events, "living" map, perks to players who join a less popular side, etc. Having a symmetrical map is no solution for this.


2. Map will have hexagons. Hexagons are the most logical choice because they allow movement to 6 different directions. There is a reason why 99% of war board games use hexagons.


Those two thing above are final. It is very unlikely that they will change because they are both proven techniques that will work, 100% guaranteed. Suggesting something that contradicts those two is pretty much pointless so I suggest not wasting time for that.

I think there is a demand for a more "strategy board game" type of event with a symmetrical map and fixed player sizes, but that's not what this particular event is about something else. We will most likely have an event like that in the future (Kael Hate is working on something like that already).

[Kael Hate]

Is it decided that the World of Elements is Flat and thus has no height or trans dimension?

The characters and creatures of Elements the game fly, burrow and span dimensional limitations.

[Scaredgirl]

Is it decided that the World of Elements is Flat and thus has no height or trans dimension?

The characters and creatures of Elements the game fly, burrow and span dimensional limitations.

I was thinking that if (and maybe ) had their own mini-map, another dimension.

Also some elements could live partly underground, like suggested in chat. We could call it.. "Underworld". Unique, huh?

[Glitch]

Well, here is the map I made for mah forum game:

The world you live in is an island.  When I say an island, I mean that there is a mainland where you can live, and a radioactive sea surrounding it.  Because of this sea of radioactivity, the island is the only place anyone has ever gone.  Traveling inland on this island from the west, we come across the dread mountains.  These mountains are too close to the sea of radioactivity to inhabit, and surround the island entirely. 
Continuing eastward, we arrive upon a great forest.  In this land the elves live.  The elves are a secluded race, and to protect themselves, they create forest warriors like cockatrice to defend themselves.  The forest is full of such beasts, to defend the temple of life, the great tree.  Around this tree the aura of the forest seems to distort.  You'll be unable to tell if you're moving slower or if everything else is going faster.  The large swarms of beasts seem to heal each other and their master, to the point of near impasse.  The elvish warriors defend this tree because it holds the secret of creating life from quantums, which many would love to get their hands on.  To the north of the elves we find the misty lake, which the plants of the woods use to grow.
This lake and it's many rivers feed the forest side of the island, and in it the creatures of water live.  Streams that lead to this lake can be found on the entire island.  As you go deeper into it's waters, you will find yourself freezing, and squids and other creatures attempt to defeat you.  As you get close to the bottom, you will find the temple of water.  Few dare go further, as the water turns toxic and single prick of a spine can mean your death.  Only those who live in the temple know what secrets are inside.  This murky land is dark and deep, and none remember ever reaching it's bottom.
Continuing north of the misty lake, we find the snow covered woods of the creatures of light.  Here, the children live in an entirely pacifistic community.  They grow up happily being defended by angels, and playing with photons as pets.  The land is centered around a great shrine of light, and approaching it will cause you to begin to glow.  Inside lie the secrets of miracles, a cure to any disease and any ailment.  Many people pay homage to try and have a miracle, but the archangels kill anyone who tries to steal their precious secret.
Now we turn our gaze south of the woods to the great valley.  Here, the creatures of air flaunt their wings and play.  But all is not peaceful in the land of air.  Horses from the land of light once made a great journey to the south, and stole the ability of flight from the great temple.  In order to mount a counter-attack, the firefly queens stole the ability to produce life from the tree of life, and continued to attack the people of light.  In the great battle that ensued, the people of life and the people of light teamed together, and the angels taught photosynthesis to the elves.  The battle ended in a stand still, with no peace arranged, and a great reward promised by the angels and elves to anyone who can strip the firefly queens of their glory.  The queens too, promise a pretty penny for the head of a pegasus.  The valley of air is a conflict center for this area, and it's temple has become one of the most defended of the the land.  Some say it has so many fireflies defending it the temple no long stays on the ground.  But all say attacking is suicide.

The half of the map so far:
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Key:
X = Toxic sea
^ = Mountain
V = Valley
F = Forest
~ = Lake
† = Land of light

Now continuing east of this half of the map, you run into the mountain range that runs through the entire island.  The north section of this range is inhabited by the people of Aether.  These people, your people, practice a form of Taoism.  This calm pacifistic religion has allowed them to have peace with their neighbors to the west, the people of light.  This religion is founded upon a great temple which contains protected inside the connection between this realm and the spirit realm.  This connection allows the people of Aether to summon great spirit guides like immortals, whom cannot die in combat, but cannot be seen outside of combat.  Upon these mountains there is also the main tributary into the great lake.  Once, a strange creature no one had ever seen before, came and presented the aether people with a great weapon.  It didn't attack an opponent, but it attacked their spirit helpers and knowledge.  These people called it the lobotomizer, and gave it to the aether people in exchange for never contaminating the river.  You, however, do not have a spirit guide, and instead have mastered the art of electricity.
South of your land, in the very middle of the island, is a chaotic mountain range where strange things happen.  In these caves are demons who spend their entire time blinking each other out of existence.  Elves from the forest sometimes break the elvish code and try and make a non-forest creature.  They are exiled to here, the abominations they make must come with them.  Here, in the center of the island, there are strange ruins which all the elements exist in, and inside is a legendary shield that can turn energy into immortality, as long as you have the energy to power it.  But none even attempt to get close in this chaotic storm of death.
Even south of here are the people of earth.  They, seeing the wars to their west and chaos to their north, decided that quantum energy is evil, and began to develop ways to destroy it.  Their temple, hidden deep underground, holds a forge that allows any artifact to become indestructible, if you can get past the indestructible traps and get it.

The map so far:
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Key:
X = Toxic sea
^ = Mountain
V = Valley
F = Forest
~ = Lake
† = Land of light
A = Aether mountains
C = Entropic Chaos
E = Earth's land

Continuing east of the Earth people, you'll find strange mounds of dirt.  This marks a ring of devourers around the land of darkness, whom will drain the very energy out of you.  Next you'll feel a small prick as the parasites drain the life out of you.  If you successfully make it inland, you'll see a city of vampires, which hand select the best of all the humanoids from around the world and bring them here.  They use a strange device in the middle of town to block out the sun at all times, and have a mission to pillage all of the temples of the world.  To do this, they send vampiric armies to war.  Sometimes, when attempting to make a vampire, they instead create a monstrosity that can change itself to being humongous at whim.  These "lycanthropes" are condemned to live in the entropic wastes.
North of the land of dark is a great desert of time, as far across as the eye can see.  Scarabs swarm, and flow, and great creatures called anubis turn their friends into immortal spirits.  The anubis would like nothing more than to take over the aether temple of immortality.  The temple of time, meanwhile, defends the ability to see the future, and it is rare anyone gets close.

The Map so far:
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Key:
X = Toxic sea
^ = Mountain
V = Valley
F = Forest
~ = Lake
† = Land of light
A = Aether mountains
C = Entropic Chaos
E = Earth's land
T = Desert of Time
D = Land of darkness

East of the land of darkness are the swampy marshes of death.  These creatures hate those of life and light, whom can heal and create life.  The great lyches and necromancers here would love to get their hands on that, but instead must live a life of reanimating bone.  These people also pollute the water, and have added poison into the great lake, allowing poisonous creatures to exist.  The people of bone are at war with the vampires of darkness, trying to steal their eternal midnight.  They defend their reanimation abilities to the death, and once they die, continue defending it with cruel vigilance.
North of the land of death is a great humanoid city.  These people became so scientifically advanced they harnessed the power of gravity in order to make themselves impossible sizes.  They can also distort their own personal gravity, and use it to fall past any shield.  They defend this technology, but are mainly peaceful and content to work on their science.
There is one land left, on the eastmost side of the island, we come across a great volcano.  Around here the people of fire guard a secret of using this fire to become impressive size, even if it kills them in the process.  Many people, like the people of earth and gravity, have stolen this ability, and this causes much war.  So the fire people wait silently, and prepare for their conquering of the known world.

The Map:
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^^FF~~~~~~~~~~~F^CCCCC^TTTTTTTTTTTGG^^MMMMM^^^^
^FFFF~~~~~~~~~FFF^^CCCC^TTTTTTTTTTTT^^MMMMMMM^^^
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XXX^^VVVVVVVVVVVVVV^EEEEEE^DDDDDDDSSSSSSSSS^^^^
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XXXXXXX^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Key:
X = Toxic sea
^ = Mountain
V = Valley
F = Forest
~ = Lake
† = Land of light
A = Aether mountains
C = Entropic Chaos
E = Earth's land
T = Desert of Time
D = Land of darkness
S = Death's swamps
G = Gravity City
M = Magma Mountains

Sure, it's ASCII, but I'm still proud of it.

[Terroking]

Is it decided that the World of Elements is Flat and thus has no height or trans dimension?

The characters and creatures of Elements the game fly, burrow and span dimensional limitations.

Something like this might work:

Alright, I failed the text version and my current computer cannot copy images, so I'll just explain it.

Basically, it'd just be a square with the 12 capital cities arranged in a hexagon around the "Other" city, and each city surrounded by 6 (18?) squares of it's element.

Taking only 6 (Give each elemental hexagon a diameter of 3) would enable a smaller map size to be used, but 18 (diameter of 5) would probably give us a lot more room to work with, and since it looks like anyone can join at any time, bigger is probably better.

Then either everywhere else could be random (With some landmarks?) or those spaces would be the "Civilized" parts of a territory, where you would start out, be protected by walls, and buy/sell things. There would probably have to be small towns and such in neutral areas and places outside the cities as well though, just not as big and more limited (No upgrading there, only certain cards available, worse deals than in cities, ect.)

Just another idea: You can capture land for your element, including other cities (Would be protected by everyone in them ofc, and, if at all possible, a FG). Capital cities cannot be captured.

I seriously doubt this will ever actually come into fruitation though (At least a forum-based version).

[Kael Hate]

I can make a map that is multi dimensional, problem is you can't look at it as a flat map. It has to be looked at as text. It can be hex based with 6 portals between territories. It has the advantage that land can be added at any time and all factions are an equivalent distance from each other so there is no unfair location advantage.

[Scaredgirl]

Yeah, that's not going to work. It has to be a non-symmetric map. Think of it as Europe during WW2, instead of thinking it as a chess board or some 3D virtual reality map.

Areas of different elements will be different. Some elements will have a disadvantage in terms of how they are situated on the map, but they will have advantages in other areas.

[Kael Hate]

Yeah, that's not going to work. It has to be a non-symmetric map. Think of it as Europe during WW2, instead of thinking it as a chess board or some 3D virtual reality map.

Areas of different elements will be different. Some elements will have a disadvantage in terms of how they are situated on the map, but they will have advantages in other areas.

Sucks to be on the disadvantaged team.

[Scaredgirl]

Yeah, that's not going to work. It has to be a non-symmetric map. Think of it as Europe during WW2, instead of thinking it as a chess board or some 3D virtual reality map.

Areas of different elements will be different. Some elements will have a disadvantage in terms of how they are situated on the map, but they will have advantages in other areas.

Sucks to be on the disadvantaged team.

Did you read everything I wrote?

[Kael Hate]

Yeah, that's not going to work. It has to be a non-symmetric map. Think of it as Europe during WW2, instead of thinking it as a chess board or some 3D virtual reality map.

Areas of different elements will be different. Some elements will have a disadvantage in terms of how they are situated on the map, but they will have advantages in other areas.

Sucks to be on the disadvantaged team.

Did you read everything I wrote?

Yes. You are going to try and give advantages to elements in different ways, either by location or some other method.

Problem is those advantages aren't equivalent. Instead of each team getting 1 apple, 1 banana and 1 orange. some teams could end up with 3 oranges and no other. If Oranges turn out to be stronger than the other advantages then the teams without oranges are disadvantaged.  Thus sucks to be them. If everyone has the same location compared to all others and have the same resources then only the Element is the variant and makes it fair cause that is what we are testing against each other.

[the dictator]

But how would you put 12 elements in such a map that they can all attack each other (because that is basically the problem).

Yes, that is impossible in a flat figure, but in a 3D map it will be also difficult.

However, I can see something in Terro's idea.

Give each element, let's say, 12 hexagons + a capital = 13.

You could use 3 or 4 different layers, like:

Underworld: Darkness, Death and Fire
World: Life, Gravity and Earth
Heaven: Air, Light and Water
Another Dimension: Aether, Time and Entropy

This made most sense to me:
Underworld: Darkness and Death are obvious, fire are the flames of hell
World: Earth (of course) and gravity should be placed in a normal world, life makes sense also.
Heaven: Air flies, light is about it for example: blessing and guardian angle, and water comes from heaven (rain)
Another dimension: Aether and Time are obvious, entropy gets here to make it 3:3:3:3 but entropy is also something we don't know on Earth.

You could add some cities (or whatever you call them) where you can buy or sell cards (if we chose so), where you could travel to other dimensions (also the cities there), they will be free places (no fights), but each time you go trough it, you lose 1 or 2 cards (to prevent people from abusing the free-ting).

[Kuroaitou]

You know, for a world that's composed of all these Elements by some God (Zanzarino ), you'd think that the world would be in constant chaos from all these battles that, at some point, would cause the actual 'realm' of Elements to be shifting as well.

Why not have it so that, aside from the Elemental bases, the world is constantly changing in terms of spaces, and either spaces are added, removed, or switched around to give each element different advantages and disadvantages every set of a plethora of rounds, so that no element can be 'in the center' or having better access to a certain area of space, and whatnot?