Elements the Game Forum - Free Online Fantasy Card Game
Other Topics => World of Elements => Forum Archive => WoE Archive => Topic started by: Scaredgirl on September 16, 2011, 12:21:24 pm
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Good news and bad news.
Bad news is that because of monumental fail, the original file of WoE map is gone for good. This means we have to redo the map from scratch, which is a especially annoying seeing how many freaking hours I spent on that thing. Bad news is also that WoE that was supposed to start today, will now be postponed until we get a map. Great, huh?
Current WoE map:
(http://i.imgur.com/ihJde.jpg)
Click to open in fullscreen
(http://cdn.elementscommunity.com/forum/woe/woemap.jpg) (http://cdn.elementscommunity.com/forum/woe/woemap.jpg)
Good news is that we now get a change to rebuild it to something that is even better. Good news is also that I now don't have to make those difficult decisions of what to do this weekend.
So lets hear those ideas.
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(http://imageplay.net/img/m7Gbd226094/ScaredGirl.jpg)
Someone is really poking you out there.
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On a sidenote, that old map only had a few of the (map related) fast travel options on it (Volcano, Rocket, Forest, Boat), some others only partially (Stallion (light city), Camel (no trail)), while the tunnels from earth are missing completely.
Was/is this intentional (for example, can team earth decide where they want their tunnel entrances, or light the ending points of the stallion path), or will they be added on this (new) map?
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...incoming long post. ^^;
Keep all of the cities in their designated areas so as to retain the 4-space rule. As for the elements, here's my opinion on each of them:
AETHER :aether
Kill two birds with one stone; the crystal 'orb' bubble terrain is a bit too weird. A simplified idea is to simply recolor one of the 'pine forest' terrains a turquoise (or aquamarine) huge and plant them around the Aether capital. If that doesn't look right, try to make a light-blueish 'stone hedge' terrain (you know those random pillars that stuck out of the ground? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonehedge)) and surround the capital with that instead. Either or works. Keep the northern forest (65, 79, 95) intact, although you should probably replace them with the 'pine forest' terrain, and leave the 'jungle' (light green) forest to the Life elementals.
AIR :air
Place another "Impassable Mountain" (or highland mountain, whatever you call them) on hexes 132 (directly north of the capital city) and 162 (replace the normal mountain with it). Other than that, no other area can really get those High mountains.
DARKNESS :darkness
Hex 32 should be a mountain hex, or (even better!) a Pine-Mountain hex. What I mean by that is that if there's a way to make a mountain icon WITH Pine Trees on it at the base (you could just color the lower half green or something), then it'd be a much better terrain, because then you'd have mountain AND forest in the same hex (meaning that Life and Earth elementals could capitalize on that same spot with their skills!). It would also flow better with the old map terrain: The Volcano would be surrounded by mountains, of which the bottom half-or so of those mountains would be forests.
DEATH :death
Keep all of the dead forests (and that weird skeleton thing on hex 23) intact. Perhaps the Dead Forest terrain could have more... dead trees? ^^;
EARTH :earth
Reiterating the Darkness changes, if you could make a Hills hex with trees on it, double the capitalization for the win. :) But only do a few (hexes 71 and 88 are good choices). I guess you could also put a tunnel section to connect with hex 70 on 88 and 118, or remove the 'ore' on hex 87 and put a tunnel there instead. Add a hills hex perhaps on hex 107 for future uses...
ENTROPY :entropy
Mushroom terrain is fine, although you could also try recoloring a 'jungle' forest terrain pink with white dots and replace one or two of the mountain ranges with it (preferably hexes 8 and 9). You could also just replace the mountains there with the mushroom terrain you have currently.
FIRE :fire
Lots of changes on this one. First, add a volcano on hex 175; the volcano would be placed 12 hexes south of volcano 163, AND 11 hexes from hex 25. This gives Fire elementals more variety in which directly they'd like to use their fast travel for (or better; to give access for other elements who splash into the skill an easier way to get near the Fire capital).
Second, replace the pine tree forest on hex 5 (west of the Fire Capital) with a Volcano so that there's a 'triangle' formed between volcanoes 5, 163, and 175. (13 hex equilateral triangle). This should add enough volcanoes, and possibly help out with Phoenix Rider more at the beginning.
Third, remove the mountain on hex 38, and create 'lava streams' between all the nearby volcanoes in that area to the magma pool southwest of the Fire Capital. (I don't know if it's possible, but if you could 'paint' the red lava connecting from the volcanoes to the magma pool just like the 'rivers' from ship hex to ship hex, it'd be perfect) Possibly add a bridge on hex 38 so that if a human were to try to enter the area, he would have to 'cross the lava moat' to get into the city:
(http://imageplay.net/img/m7Gbd226098/Lava_Correction.jpg)
Finally, if you're super bored, you could also have a 'eternally burning forest' terrain and light trees on fire and place one of those randomly near the fire area (possibly south of the magma pool?). But that's just random.
GRAVITY :gravity
Remove that 'castle' thing on hex 177, and if you have a 'Frosted Mountain' terrain (i.e. - a mountain with a glacier cap of some sort), put the Frosted Mountain in place of the 'huge dent' crater on hex 210 (north of the ice forest areas). You should probably run/pain a river into the ice forest area if you can. If you don't have a Frost mountain terrain, just ignore what I said about 210 then.
LIFE :life
Keep everything intact, including the 'small creeks' that you painted into the forest from the Water hexes up north. Don't change the positions of anything. :)
LIGHT :light
Same thing as Life, although if you still want to use that 'castle' icon from the Gravity section, you could probably place it somewhere near one of the hexes that's surrounding the Light capital and call it a day. :)
If you're bored, you might also consider coloring some of the grass yellow instead (like a wheat field), but otherwise just ignore that.
TIME :time
Place one more Oasis -north- of the Capital and you're solid. The camels (as limited as they are) and cacti are perfectly fine where they are, although there could be a hex where there's -several- cacti in it (like a cacti field). Probably would be better suited near a Oasis, and cacti wouldn't survive otherwise in groups without a major water source.
WATER :water
Major changes here as well. First, remove whatever those 'grey' things are in Water hexes 192 and 213. They seem a little bit off. Secondly, when drawing the river from the center ship to the eastern ship (hex 92 to 169), have it go south and branch off of the southern water path around the city to flow towards the eastern city, instead of making that weird 'bend' on hex 126 to retain the hex distance:
(http://imageplay.net/img/m7Gbd226097/River_Correction.jpg)
UNDERWORLD :underworld
Just leave it be. :)
I'll add more comments later. Until then, thanks for listening SG, and hopefully this will help a bit. ^^;
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I wouldn't mind an 'elevation' perk based on mountains. It requires an extra action point to walk on these 'raised' areas...
Of course, skills would bypass this.
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Aether is positioned so much closer to Time compare to how far Entropy is from Gravity.
Same goes for :darkness/ :light compared to :death/ :life and :earth/ :air
I don't know if the team positions are up for debate but isn't it an idea to swap death and darkness and entropy and aether around?
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Just a random idea, I realize it's too late now but going to throw it out here, just in case.
Fog of War
This has nothing to do with the similarly named Air skill. This is the mechanic or whatever you call it known from strategy games.
The whole map would start out as black first; maybe with the exception of noteworthy places like the capitals of each element. Elements could also see the terrain of their own area. Everything is invisible. This would obviously need 13 different maps for it to work.
Every player would have a sight of 1 hex: so if I was in the Underworld capital, I could see only the surrounding hexes and all activities on them. If someone moves into hex 141, however, I can't see it unless there's a teammate nearby. This could lead to another item introduced: The telescope. The telescope could increase the range of your sight by another hex. Watchtowers could be built for a fair amount of electrum to continuously keep an area in check (range of 2 hexes?). Capitals could have a range of 2 too.
If there are no players in an area from your team, the team can't see what's happening there. They see the terrain (provided they have explored the area already), but will not be able to see if there's any player on them.
(http://imageplay.net/img/m7Gbd226111/woemap.jpg)
The player icons would be invisible.
Instead of the black background, you could show the whole blank map so that players could see the borders of the map, and show the terrain/others only on hexes that you see.
I hope what I wrote is understandable, although I realize it is too late now for such a big change.
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(http://imageplay.net/img/m7Gbd226094/ScaredGirl.jpg)
Someone is really poking you out there.
Oh, so we just need to kill SG... (jk)
Mabye there could be a couple of caves near earth, but other than that everythings been said...
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My first suggestion that will change... a good deal...
Problem: As it stands, the inner 6 elements will have a 'more likely' chance to meet their rival (light-darkenss, etc.). It takes them 10 spaces to get to their rival's capital, where as the outer ring it takes 16 spaces.
Solution: Flip a few of the outer ring with the inner ring. Your options are:
air-light, gravity-time, death-fire: gives each rival 13 spaces to opponent's capital.
air-aether, gravity-water, death-darkness: gives each rival 12 spaces to opponent's capital.
options 3-4 are the same, but with bringing in the other 3 outer.
My Thoughts: My favorite would be flopping life-light, fire-entropy, earth-time. Desert would be behind the mountains of earth, making sense geographically, their could be volcanoes on both sides of earth's montians and fire, give a good movement for them. Earth would have hills to dig into near air, fire, one or two by light, and theirs. River + lake can stay close to the same, but having life's forest more next to the main water source. Light's and time's travel system can be used within their 'pie slice', and made fairly large in that area, but then not extend into the other sections.
If this is favoriable, I can start throwing ideas around for the terrain with this capital setup. If not, let me know and I will reign in my ideas to the capital's locations right now. Or some other configuration!
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I updated with first post with capital city positions. They are pretty much fixed at this point because they are not randomly put there, they follow a system where opposing elements are at opposing sides and neighboring cities are at 5 hexes distance.
Thanks for all the ideas and feedback. I'll read all of it tomorrow and rebuild the map. Hopefully many of you are in chat at that point so we can better collaborate.
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Not sure how to explain this, but I'll try. Right now, all the city positions are perfect. The city on that position is not. Three opposing element sets are much MUCH closer together than the other three. I'm not sure if this is a good thing. What if instead you used something closer to the layout below, where opposite elements differ by 6 numbers. (1, 7; 2, 8; etc.)
(http://i56.tinypic.com/2cwsdhg.png)
| 1 | :earth | 7 | :air |
| 2 | :death | 8 | :life |
| 3 | :entropy | 9 | :gravity |
| 4 | :aether | 10 | :time |
| 5 | :light | 11 | :darkness |
| 6 | :water | 12 | :fire |
| 13 | :underworld |
At this point it would probably be too much of a pain. But it's something to consider for the future I guess!
[edit] Ninja'd by Ak I guess. But at least I have a pretty diagram explaining what I meant! His elemental swaps are probably better though :P [/edit]
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[edit] Ninja'd by Ak I guess. But at least I have a pretty diagram explaining what I meant! His elemental swaps are probably better though :P [/edit]
Hehee, but I am glad you see it too. Gives more of an opportunity for it to change!
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I support Napalm's diagram and Ak's (clearly superior) elemental swaps!
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Alright, since I want the capitals re-positioned, due to opposing elements getting equal treatment, I am going to more state some prescriptions I would like to see on the map and not specific tiles. Most of these stem from the travel options and making these mechanics feel good. The remainder of the tiles can totally be flavor in my opinion. I just want to see the travel options be solid and balanced (applaud already to having all the options and how different + balanced they already are!). I have the stuff in order of importance (I feel) it needs to be placed on the map.
Water & Boats: Their city should be surrounded by the lake (at least the adjacent 6 hexes), and a boat should be on one of these adjacent hexes. I would love to see 3 other boats, one in the middle of the map, the other two thrown in a fork from the center, making the boat system look like a 'Y'. Mechanically, I feel the boats should be exactly 6 spaces apart (make the river curve slightly if needed to make it so). Then we can have the bridges in the middle between the boats, 3 spaces away. That way when someone uses 'ship navigator', they go from a ship to a bridge, and if they can keep using it on their second turn, from a bridge to another ship... give some good visuals to where they will move. No closed cluster of 3 hexes should have river (no sharp turns.)
Mountains & Hills: Located near earth, fire, air and other places to close 'gaps'. Like you had it before would be perfect for them.
Volcanoes: I would love to see what we have currently, 3 by fire's capital, and then a few by the edges. Like what we had + one down between air/life. Lets them move faster than using a boat, but less accuracy in travel direction/distance.
Forests: Not an overwhelming amount, as long as life has the talent 'Shaman' they can make them everywhere eventually. Just some here and there like we have it, and it'll be good. Depending on if forests can be grown on hills, the river tiles, and if you can keep animal form and move in and out of trees, minor mechanics of that skill, life could eventually have the 'best' travel system.
Plains: The other side to life's power, spaces for their potential. I would love to see their "third" of the map, cut up by the river, be mostly plains w/ a mountain or two, like we had it. That will give life some fun, building out their forest, and even give them a natural boundary line (the river!). In the other places, having a forest or plains, just scattered around would be enough to suit their needs. As a warning, any city with either a forest or a plains adjacent will be easier to siege by life & people who get 'One with Nature', 'Pack Hunter'. Should be fine, but, just as something to consider.
Camel & Horse Paths: Camel, just snake it around, I think it is flexible enough to put in late in the map-making. Two paths could stem off the capital city, one to the north, one to the south and they could snake around as what looks good. I just noticed that horses are much faster than camels... what gives? I would make it move 3 on horse path for 2 actions. Then I would put just one long path going from near Outlaw city, through light's capital and down to the edge of the map. If light is on the edge, it would give an easy way to the map's center from their city... but as Rome, ease of travel made them great and also was their downfall.
Hmmm...These paths might work differently then I first thought they did... if they are 'start node' and freedom in direction, (i.e. start on horse/camel spot, go 2/4 and can't use again till you go back to the horse/camel start), then just put their 'nodes' like they are now. I suggest not to have the horse node on the light capital, but an adjacent tile, or have 2 of these nodes. Camels look good as was.
Iron Bird: One next to gravity, one somewhere else. (Can they build a new one later in the game, that would be fun!).
Alright, I'm done, I will be quiet now. I won't be able to be in chat tomorrow, so this is my hope my ideas are read and considered in our world re-design.
HAHAA!!! ScaredGirl, is this world remake because the world exploded a few days ago??
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Nah, I had an accident... I tasted a little Entropy. Very bad for the Gravity diet.
(http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/2641/shoopm.jpg)
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Updated the first post. Two drastic changes:
1. Bigger map. We now have a total of 271 hexes.
2. Capital city positions. 100% evenly distributed.
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I lol'ed at the little (http://elementscommunity.org/art/aether1.png)
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I lol'ed at the little (http://elementscommunity.org/art/aether1.png)
Anyone who didn't doesn't have a good enough sense of humour to be part of this community :)
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New version posted.
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Last update of the day. Tomorrow we launch.
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I miss the waving dead guy from hex #23. :(
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I miss the waving dead guy from hex #23. :(
He ran off to welcome people to the desert!
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Last update of the day. Tomorrow we launch.
Yea! I am liking the ship and skeleton in the desert. Also liking the open spaces, should be fun to see how we shape the world to our needs.
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For the Ship Navigator fast travel, it might be a nice idea to move the lower three boats one hex to the left, making the distances between them all equal (and removing that ugly boat out of water's capital).
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For the Ship Navigator fast travel, it might be a nice idea to move the lower three boats one hex to the left, making the distances between them all equal (and removing that ugly boat out of water's capital).
She intended for a triangle of ships, and a fourth one at the capitol, all to be 6 hexes apart from the tip of the triangle near the capitol, such that the skill had a minimum efficiency of 3 hexes per round, just above the usual move rate. Also moving the triangle of boats to either side one hex would asymmetry it vertically, something she really wanted with the fast movement terrains.
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I see what you mean, but right now the travel distance between the lower left and the upper left boat is 7 hexes, which is quite awkward.
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I see what you mean, but right now the travel distance between the lower left and the upper left boat is 7 hexes, which is quite awkward.
It's not about the rivers or the lake parts that you travel over, but the overall distance between start and finish, which is 6 or 12 (from the capitol to a west ship, or vice versa).
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To clarify, the old Ship Captain mechanics have been changed. Now you travel between two boats in 2 Days, no matter how many hexes of river are between those boats.
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Entropy's land seems kind of... featureless compared to all the other lands. What's the reason for it?
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Entropy's land seems kind of... featureless compared to all the other lands. What's the reason for it?
The reason is it's not ready yet. :)
I updated the first post.
Behold, crazy pink magic mushrooms!
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Entropy's land seems kind of... featureless compared to all the other lands. What's the reason for it?
The reason is it's not ready yet. :)
I updated the first post.
Behold, crazy pink magic mushrooms!
Planted from Chaos Seeds. Be careful, some have odd effects. :3