Jason wants to remove the infinite map [brainstorming]

pein · 2019-07-22 05:09:13

On last email he mentioned that he want to remove the infinite map

I kind agree, we been around -50000 -50000 and 40000 -50000 so other than the tutorial and donkey town, we never used more than 100x100k of the map, but that's the whole year

right now since the last wipe, we are using like 6000x6000

i missed te apoc, seems like the center is Eve Black

it was only for flexing anyway "the map is so big it would take 17 years to walk trough it"
without new biomes, and new items, doesn't have an unique feeling to it
everything kinda the same, ofc is better than just a small map where you can remember where things are, but no reason to be any bigger than a few thousand tiles

i think is kinda bad that everything is wiped in 8 hours, at least some other stuff like painted adobe, rails, maybe iron should remain

a finite map could mean that the sandbox changes and eventually people will do apocalypse to wipe it out

Some ideas: different levels
the map starts with a spiral but the center is higher
you need to pay resources to unlock acces to inner tiles where there are more resources and different tech maybe
a map of like 3 concentric circles would be interesting, would mean that families need to move inside and they would want to move inside and the famileis would meet eventually
it wouldn't need much of a change just some graphical elevation zones, and some acces points

Islands: same as above, the water would be only edge of map, the families would be born on smaller islands and would need to go on bigger ones, the fee would be iron, oil, tools, food, etc.
similarly an outer to inner approach would be better
could be just rivers and to build bridges but it would make sense that you pay food and other stuff to go across a big ocean
would feel like a progress, also would help families to stick together
maybe you would always born to same family if they move places
so it would be a gameplay reason to care about the family
the zones could differ in lighting effects, like darker and more desaturated outside and more colorful on the inner side

Techtonic plates:
if it's about civilizations, it takes a lot of years, maybe the continents move and the families stay
either that or the map around the civilizations get cut out, and pasted into the other map, where the other family becomes close neighbours
this would be a bit more magical in theory
but generally you don't know where you are on the map, top left corner or top right corner? doesn't really matter
you wont go thousands of tiles to meet others
this would be a nice way to simulate fights between tribes
be that generation levels or tech levels, the similar families would be put together and they would eventually have to fight it out

the map parts could have sectors which get cut out, and some rim around them which is just masking the biomes together
in reality just your coordinates would change and that border aroudn the civ

either that, or valleys in an octagon shape, and the borders would open up if you reach certain requirements

this would mean that you would focus on tech and the other civilizations would make contact delayed but same time and you would know they are there
then you could fight it out or help each other to advance further

the turf/unlock system would need processed materials
we don't really have many
like pies, raw stew pot, etc. maybe calories value and giving back the plates and bowls
i could imagine cash crops like tobacco, coffee, sugar, cacao, wood or processed further to cigarettes, ground coffee, chocolate, furniture (tropico example)
this items coudnt be consumed, just for making trade and unlock areas

Booklat1 · 2019-07-22 06:27:43

personally i`d like soft limitations like mountains

pein · 2019-07-22 15:08:25

yeah, maye just slowing you down would make you settle for a while

well i seen maps where 200x200 only had like 3 ponds in a savanah(before sprign update), popping kids i had to settle, even after i was checking cause daughter didn't liked the map, but the time lost is worse than guiding a family of 3 trough 200 tiles with no plan

i just don't see the point why would anyone ever travel 3-4k to meet others, other than killing them

moving a location should be fun and refreshing, not like the feelign that you got to start from scratch,, that can be only archieved if you need to move and you get advantages with longer lineages and tech so startign areas should be worse than the locations you move to, and you got to be limited in moving before reaching some targets

The_Anabaptist · 2019-07-22 15:29:00

My only concern would be that the limited map is so static that I essentially memorize it all by its biome contours. I often run without home marker and just memorize my way back to town by biome contours and landmarks. It would be nice if the biome boarders would shift over time, or if the entire map was swapped out once a quarter just to keep things fresh.

The_Anabaptist

jasonrohrer · 2019-07-22 19:02:37

The idea is that map will still be infinite, but there will be an uncrossable boundary. No sense in changing all that infinite code just yet.

Anyway, the boundary area could change layout-wise in two ways:

1. It could move somewhere else on the map each run.

2. I could use a different map-gen seed for each run.

I hesitate to do 2, because it would break third-party map tools.

Telafiesta · 2019-07-22 20:07:22

How will this effect the experience of people who build and play on custom servers?

pein · 2019-07-22 20:24:25

well, generally we don't know where are we on a map, and for first era we shouldn't even know
like you start as eve, but until you reach a point where you got no grandkids, you are working for food anyway, so no point exploring too far
each section would be limited in away

but yeah, i laso like wondibles map so maybe just cut into pieces the current map

each family would start in somewhere and would be placed closer if they survive
like gen 3 could be fixed position, basically just cut out and place in a slot, temporary coords would turn into permanent

alternatively each Eve could start in a new hex
if they die out it could be reset in few hours

the border between them, could be hills, water, higher elevation anything
like aoe2 has

it's still 2d but has a visual effect of map levels

the borders between could be mashed together to look more natural on the edges

the unlock system would be nice, like we would start on a smaller map, with more soil, wild food, but less iron and stone, etc.
advancing to next area would give acces to more resources , this part wont need change the map just adjusting the rarity rates based on area tiers

each person would need to pay a tax to cross trough, so would make sense to send young girls to next area, eventually the startign map would run out of resources and people would e too old so no going back

the size of this hexes could be around 200x200, that's enough generally to last quite a few hours without issues, maybe iron is scarce

alternatively unlocking borders and movign, then giving up the old area to open other border
this would mean that you gain 2 areas and lose one each time, so there is a slow progress with the generations

ollj · 2019-07-22 22:20:11

jason could use higher dimensional noise (which soon gets you into simplex noise as its barycentric lattice simplifies higher dimensions) and have it animate over time, which could be one noise, that changes biome contours on 8-hour reset triggers. or it just animates +1 tick every apocalypse.
the noise-animation can blend smoothly (between tiles of it, so one tile could be in a tifferent time than another, and there would not be a hard border between them).
smaller torodial maps could easily be done and could make the area slighly less lonely, but this sure seems to not be the point of this game.
theres plenty of (fratal brownian motion) (perslin/simplex) noise that tiles seamlessly (modulo arithmetic) on www.shadertoy.com for a torus world as in the [settlers (1)] game.

procedutally generated impassable terrain is a bad idea, as it only makes the whole game a lot less fair.

impassable borders have the issue, that any (concave) area near a border is automatically saver for prey to evade predators. you find more prey and less perdators, where ever AmbientOcclusion is darker. over time you would segretate people by aggression, just by having impassable terrain anywhere.
we haf a big taste of this by the town that flew to the tutorial area.
the tutorial zones were essentially death (end) traps in favor of any griefer. its long vertical walls sure trapped many people to be hunted down easily.

the game sure does not use barycentric/hexagonal tiles. thats just unneccessary here.

plate tectonics is so slow, its very irrelevant to a 3000 year scale of human written history.
plate tectonics gets a minor relevance in terms of "end of the most recent ice age", where glaciers in north america sure shaped the landscape, and where there was a passable land bridge between france and england. but other thaqn that, the pacific grows roughly as fast as human fingernails grow, but its a pretty large area, and thats one of the fastest tectonioc divergences.
much more relevant for human history is volcanism. large volcanic errupotions can cause local or even global mass starvations and collapses of tribes/ciovilizations due to food shortages (and general superstition) due to colder temperatures for 1-3 years by global dimming of ash. this likely happened globally most cecently around the year 655 (?) CE, there where almost global reports about 3 years in sucession without a summer and with very low crop yields, and only horse-based-cultures (huns,mongols) where unaffected due to higher agility, and so the mass migrations in europe happened in search for better farm land and in evading conflict from dominant horseriding neighbors.
Sure no city died out completely, but global mass starvation is a global trauma, usually involving murder, arson and cannibalism.

Last edited by ollj (2019-07-22 22:32:39)

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2019-07-22 05:09:13

Jason wants to remove the infinite map [brainstorming]

#2 2019-07-22 06:27:43

Re: Jason wants to remove the infinite map [brainstorming]

#3 2019-07-22 15:08:25

Re: Jason wants to remove the infinite map [brainstorming]

#4 2019-07-22 15:29:00

Re: Jason wants to remove the infinite map [brainstorming]

#5 2019-07-22 19:02:37

Re: Jason wants to remove the infinite map [brainstorming]

#6 2019-07-22 20:07:22

Re: Jason wants to remove the infinite map [brainstorming]

#7 2019-07-22 20:24:25

Re: Jason wants to remove the infinite map [brainstorming]

#8 2019-07-22 22:20:11

Re: Jason wants to remove the infinite map [brainstorming]

Board footer