Map Scale

[Gulnyr]

Are the scales on the maps, like this one, meant to be more or less accurate, or are they just there as a decoration to give them a properly mappy feel?

[minerva]

The scale is real ... which is why it is absurd that you can run a distance of 1000 miles in 5-10 minutes
 
 If you can pin the Loremaster down to how big a Layo mile is in comparison to a Earth mile... then good luck on ya  

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

So far, I've assumed that a Statute Mile is equivalent to one of our miles, and it's given me the time that, when I factored the standard D20 overland movement rate in, it's taken my characters to make various trips.

From what I figured, it would take a character on foot about two months to go from Seacove on Dregar (roughly the middle of the continent, on the west coast) to North Point.

[Gulnyr]

I asked not because of the seemingly ridiculous speeds at which we travel, since I can understand that we don't really want it to take an hour to get from A to B just because they happen to be so very far apart in the reality of Layonara.  It is silly to RP that, say, Port Hempstead and Fort Vehl aren't that far apart when the map and the D&D standard daily travel speed show it would take around a month and a half to walk between them along the road, or to assume the shorter in-game mechanical distance between two places is somehow automatically the fastest route when the terrain might make a huge difference in reality (like five areas to cross over plains vs. three over mountains. In game, the mountain route is shorter, but in the 'real' Layonara, mountains are still harder to cross and the plains route might actually be faster, RP-wise).

And a mile's a mile.  If not, it needs a new name.

But, let's not toss tangents at Gulnyr today.  Maybe tomorrow...

I asked about the scale because Mistone, as shown with that scale, is about the size of the continental United States.  That's an enormous amount of territory - territory that seems very barren, civilization-wise.  I know every little village isn't shown, and I know there are monster territories out there, but, heh, the Druids have nothing to complain about.  And the bigger Mistone (and the world) is, the stranger the emptiness seems.

What really made me think is the lack of fairly major settlements where they 'should' be.  Port Hempstead is a trade city, and it's at the end of a three hundred mile long road down that peninsula.  Sure, a lot of trade is done by sea, but not every town has a sea port, and sea travel is more dangerous than land travel (generally), so land trade would be important.  So there's that three hundred mile road before it intersects the main coastal highway and branches south toward Dapplegreen and north across the empty plains (that could swallow Texas and have room for dessert) on the way to Fort Wayfare and beyond.  Three hundred miles takes over twelve days to travel on foot by D&D standard speed, and nearly nineteen days by trade wagon.  That's over a month round trip for traders just for that three hundred mile stretch of road, plus who knows how much for wherever they came from.  That intersection at the end of the road from Port Hempstead is prime real estate for a trade city.  It seems odd that there isn't one there.

Okay, sure, there could be kobolds in the way or something, but we're talking about profits here.  And there are adventurers all over the place, ready to kill things for a minor fee.  And, presumably, someone keeps the roads more or less safe, which is why there are roads in the first place.  So surely shrewd and clever traders and merchants would have been hauling goods to the crossroads (guarded by their hired killers), hoping to sell to caravans on the way to Port Hempstead, raising prices enough to make a healthy profit, but not enough to make people want to travel that extra month to and from Hemp.  And over time, it would have grown into something more permanent, and gotten bigger, until it became a fairly important city - except that it isn't there, oddly, at that perfect little spot...

[Leanthar]

The scales are more or less accurate, yes.
 
 A few things to explain why things are like they are.
 
 This was a PnP game at one time (and still is when I get the time) and there were litterlly 3x (maybe 4x) more towns/cities/villages during that time. When I first brought Layonara online I tried to include those towns/cities... it did not work and in fact it was/is a miserable failure. Why you ask? The bottom line is that in the online version it is just a game. What was happening is every single area (other than caves/dungeons; and in many cases them too) had some sort of town/village/city on that map (every area). That meant there was little to no adventuring areas....OR...we spent 100's of hours building the towns/cities/npcs/stores/quests etc etc. and not being able to build adventure areas.
 
 So what I did was go back and cut out 1/2 the towns several years ago. That still didn't work as we STILL had too many towns/cities and the game was just a ton of areas, all with towns/cities...still.
 
 So this time around we went through and cut another 1/3 of them out and now at least we have the ability to have adventuring areas for the future and the future goals.
 
 A good example is that in the MMO we are working on we STILL have SEVERAL areas with 2-4 cities/towns in a single area. To the point where I have seriously considered removing another 30% of the towns/cities. Yes the MMO areas are MUCH MUCH larger, but still the point is...we still have too many.
 
 But I don't want the lands to be more vacant/empty than they are now so I am going to try and keep what we have now. We still have too many (when it comes to online gaming and adventure zones) but it still at least feels like a world.
 
 Yes, we could move towns/cities around on the maps, and in many cases we have. But keep in mind much of this is that the world has always been in turmoil and many key cities/towns have been destroyed, rebuilt, and destroyed again etc. So we don't need make everything exactly where they should be as history and lore supports the population bases where they are now.
 
 Would I like more towns/cities? Yes.
 
 Is it possible to do it and keep the ONLINE game fun and immersive and have adventuring zones...without spending 1000's and 1000's of hours in areas that do not "add" to the game? No.
 
 A statute mile is the equivelent of AROUND 3 miles of our RL miles. A statute mile is a human walking for 1 hour...since we walk (on average) 3MPH that means a statute mile is 3 miles as we think of it in RL.
 
 Best we can do here folks. It is not perfect but it never will be. I also realize how jarring it is when people say I am traveling from Hlint to Fort Vehl and they do it in less than a day....in RL that would take much much much much longer...but it is a game. We do the best we can with what we have.
 
 Now...yes...we could build the areas more to scale and when Layonara first came out I tried that. It was going to turn out to take 3 servers (at the current amount of areas that we have on a single server now-a-days) for each continent...or right around 30 servers to serve the world. People already do not spread out...I can't imagine what this would have done or how much wasted time/resources it would have meant. And yes, we have the same issue in the MMO. But it is a game, the idea is to keep the player base somewhat close to each other (but allow them areas to adventure in and spread out; to ease lag)....nasty balancing act but it has to be done.
 
 Hope that helps to explain why things are like they are.

[Gulnyr]

Thanks.  I can completely understand the need to cut out bits and pieces to make the world work online.  I don't have any problem with that and wouldn't have it any other way.  So, please don't think I'm asking, "Why is nothing in-game?"  I get that.

It's just odd to me that the maps seem so empty.  There are things on the maps not represented in-game, and no one has a problem with it - Beirun, Kheldell, Luxia, Echo, Drake, Paruin, Khemit, Vandery, Dapplegreen itself, all just on Mistone - so it's odd that there aren't other places on the maps, too, y'know?  Things don't have to be in-game to exist.  Even without ever being able to visit these places (without DM intervention), they add to the world just from being named and placed on the map.  I don't think I can count all the games I've played or books I've read that have had more places on their maps than the game or book itself ever got around to using or mentioning, so it isn't vital that any named and mapped place be added somewhere that characters can walk to whenever the players want.

So, no problem.  I'm not even suggesting that the maps be more populated, really.  I'm just saying that wouldn't be a bad thing.

This though:

A statute mile is the equivelent of AROUND 3 miles of our RL miles. A statute mile is a human walking for 1 hour...since we walk (on average) 3MPH that means a statute mile is 3 miles as we think of it in RL.

I'm going to have to object a bit.  Now you're telling us that the road from Hemp to the intersection is not just three hundred plain ol' miles, but three hundred Layonara statute miles, which is about nine hundred plain ol' miles.  That means Mistone is around nine times the size of the continental United States (three times longer and three times wider than we previously thought).  I'm going to claim that as insanely enormous and, quite honestly, rather silly and ridiculous.  BUT, if you want to change the scale on the maps to say '100' where it currently says '300' on the statue mile section, things would be back to normal and Mistone would only be one United States big.

[minerva]

Umm Gulnyr..... 1 mile on the Layo map = 3 miles in RL....   not 1 RL mile = 3 Layo miles.....

[Gulnyr]

that means a statute mile is 3 miles as we think of it in RL.

1 Layonara statute mile = 3 RL miles.  If the scale says the distance is 300 Layonara statute miles, then it equals 900 RL miles.

[minerva]

math was never my strong point but I think the generalization is that the size is 1/3  not  3x.... the number on the layo map of 300miles would equal 100 of what we know as a mile not 900...

[Dorganath]

One thing to remember on the maps and the number of places...

20 years of Dark Ages and the famine and such that came as a result caused a lot of towns and villages to be wiped off the map completely as their populations died out or moved on to more sustainable locations.

[Falonthas]

when i played on alfa, this was a while ago they had i think 30 teams and each team took on a part of faerun
then the admin took each teams servers and linked them together
this gave the way for you to travel mile for mile across faerun east west north south
the trouble is once everyone looked across the servers they found that some were much better done then others
some had settlements and eye candy for you to interact with on your travels
some were just empty zones with some trees and a path
the ones that were done completely
those were the servers that got the most traffic
of course when you have a player base fo 1000 core and you have 60 servers your going to run into people
until some of those who wanted to have their char be established in the poorly setup servers got discouraged and they ran to the other servers
this of course caused lag and then others left as well
basically the theory was sound
the execution was not
there is a phrase you can please some of the people all of the time and all of the people none of the time

they learned the hardway
and have revamped from what i have read to doing a much smaller scale with their remaining core for nwn2

having everything to scale would be perfect for all
but is it practical
no
like if we found ourselves spending the day in the sooth moors wandering and beating the nasties
do we really want to take a couple hours to go see someone who has just landed in leringard?
even sea travel would be this way
right now not counting monk feet
we take about 10 minutes rt to go from hemp to hlint
now in game mechanics thats 8 game hours
which roughly boils down to adventurers who may have found shortcuts through the forest that trade routes dont follow
or not following the road at all
wagons would have to
but on foot why not run straight through the grassy vale

besides we have our minds giving us our own view on what L has provided
can he make it yard by yard perfect
sure if he wanted one big city
but i think we all like the way things are
we can see our views and merge them with everyone elses and combined we have this great amazing place that we all call layonara

and alot of us even those getting up in time and levels call it home

[Gulnyr]

math was never my strong point but I think the generalization is that the size is 1/3  not  3x.... the number on the layo map of 300miles would equal 100 of what we know as a mile not 900...

I disagree.  If one statute mile is one hour of Human walking, then one statute miles is, indeed, meant to be three RL miles, just as Leanthar said.

One thing to remember on the maps and the number of places...

20 years of Dark Ages and the famine and such that came as a result caused a lot of towns and villages to be wiped off the map completely as their populations died out or moved on to more sustainable locations.

Certainly.  I'm not really prepared to discuss whether people would move from smaller to larger towns, or vice versa, or some of both, or to wherever everyone else was going, or whatever, but I understand the point.  I would say that since I'm only discussing the apparent emptiness of the maps that 'Ruins of Place' and 'City Name (Abandoned)' wouldn't be so bad for the flavor I was mentioning.  

And, again, not really a suggestion as much as a 'that would be kinda nice to plug the holes.'  And, again, I'm not at all in any way, and never have been, requesting a perfect, to-scale world to walk around in.

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

If one "statute mile" is equal to three miles, then substituting "statue mile" for A, and consider one mile to be 1, we get the following equation.

A=3(1)

So let's say there's something that says, on the map, it's 100 miles across. But remember, these are Statue Miles. So, to get the number of RL miles...

A=3(100)

In this case, something that says it's 100 miles on the map is actually 300 RL miles.

I know I didn't explain this properly and in appropriate detail, but blah.

[Leanthar]

It is okay folks. Things will be right when we get ready to release everything. Only so much we can do with the time we have. Lets get off the mile thing.

[Dorganath]

Certainly.  I'm not really prepared to discuss whether people would move from smaller to larger towns, or vice versa, or some of both, or to wherever everyone else was going, or whatever, but I understand the point.  I would say that since I'm only discussing the apparent emptiness of the maps that 'Ruins of Place' and 'City Name (Abandoned)' wouldn't be so bad for the flavor I was mentioning.  

And, again, not really a suggestion as much as a 'that would be kinda nice to plug the holes.'  And, again, I'm not at all in any way, and never have been, requesting a perfect, to-scale world to walk around in.

The maps are meant to represent what is there now, not what was there some other time.  Point taken, but then consider the sophistication of cartography in Layonara's level of technology.  Someone has to hand-draw these maps, and only the most dedicated cartographers are going to bother dotting a map with all the blips and bumps that were ever there.  It would be a greatly tedious process and such maps certainly wouldn't be made generally available as they'd take too long to copy.

Most former towns, villages and settlements that disappeared during the Dark Ages (or through other reasons) may not have much in the way of ruins, depending on how the homes were constructed.  They could have succumbed to nature if wood or mud, been torn down or scavenged for building materials, burned by raiders or even druids and so on.

And to put what Leanthar said another way, the definition of the statute mile has changed since those maps were created.  They'll be fixed to line up with our definition of a statute mile (and yeah, there's been new lore written about it for the next handbook) and then the scales will all line up properly.  For the time being, assume that Layonara is an Earth-sized planet and for the sense of scale for the size of continents, refer to the map that shows all of Layonara.

[Gulnyr]

So, basically, the maps are out-of-date kinda like the currently-available handbook.

[Dorganath]

A little, yes.  The correct representation of scale is probably the biggest thing.  There's a few typos on place names as well, but they're relatively minor.  They are being worked on (and have been) though to make sure they're as correct as possible.  It's a process, but what we have up on LORE right now is probably 95% or more correct.

[egoober]

The traditionalist in me cannot resist but point out that a Layonara Statue Mile is pretty darn close to being 1 League.

Sorry L, the tempation was too strong

[Leanthar]

@egoober, heh. I did not know that.

[EdTheKet]

So, basically, the maps are out-of-date kinda like the currently-available handbook.

No, the maps are not out of date. They're correct, except for the scale being mathed...err...messed up, which is being worked on, and some very minor things.

And for those that wonder about the question if Spellgard is supposed to be spelled as Spellgard, it is (and not Spellguard)