Very nice analysis Kazz. A few of my personal observations to consider when reading your data:
- We don't see any small rivers (which might be unswimable and crossed by few bridges and fords) or other small localized land features which may prevent passage and create more bottle-necks all over the map. (Hinted at earlier in this tread).
- Cliffs (and other future impassable terrain features) reduce access to hexes, but they are also a good security factor, preventing access from some fronts.
- "Valid hexes" include both "empty" or "suitable wilderness hexes" - where we will build POIs and Outposts - as well as Monster/MonsterHome/Badland hexes - where I believe we can't build POIs/Outpost but we can look for harvesting/gathering rarer and higher quality resources (correct me if I'm wrong). The way I see it, the value of each is quite different, depending on the plans of each guild. On the other hand, NPC hexes will still give common and lower quality resources, so maybe they should not be completely disregarded.
- One more thing to consider when choosing starting position: closeness to other settlement, including future settlements spots that will unlock later. For example, AC might look like a good spot, but once the two other settlement spots on that mountain are opened, it can become a bit crowded.
Am I right in thinking that only empty (with no icons) hexes will be PC claimable POIs? Will passes/choke-points also be claimable POIs or are they only specially juicy PvP ambush sites?
Also, I feel like this should be on the first page but better late than never. Here's a map key I gathered from the video and this tread:
Map Key:
Map Key
Colors (dominant terrain of each hex)
Light Green: Plains
Dark Green: Forest
Yellow/Tan: Hills/Highlands
Brown: Mountainous Forest
Orange: Mountains
Light Blue: Water (only 4 hexes, found immediately south-east of settlement Z)
**Not on map currently** Swamp
Dark Grey: Meteorite impacts (some important resssources will be found only in these places, like skymetal, adamantium, meteoric-iron, etc.)
Symbols
Stars: Starter NPC Settlements - Thornkeep (north-east) and Fort Inevitable (south-west) ***A third, Fort Riverwatch, will be added later farter to the north-north-west of the map
Black lines: Major trade routes
Triangle: NPC hexes - NPC-patroled/controled/protected areas
Letters "A" to "AD": Initial settlement spots available during land rush/early enrollment (total of 30)
Village (one big hut and one small hut): Future settlement spots to become available later
Lion: Monster hexes or specific adventure spot (Emerald Spire between V and W), *likely* related to escalations
Castle: Home hexes, permanent home to specific group of NPCs/monsters, with permanent escalation (orc/ogre tribe XYZ, etc.)
Ruins: Badlands, also related to escalations, not as icky as monster hexes, may also be used later by developers to add future content
Big white X: Passes/choke-points - Only way to move from one "tier" of elevation to the next
-> Low tier: Lowlands - Light Green (most of south-west quadrant and small south-easternmost portion of map) (includes settlements L, M, N, O and P) (will eventually include swamplands as well)
-> Middle tier: Highlands and Woodlands - Yellow and Drak Green (most of map) (includes all 19 other settlements)
-> High tier: Mountains - Brown and Orange (most of north-east quadrant and 3 other spots) (includes settlements A, B, W, AA, AC and AD)
--> Note: To better visualize, imagine "cliff lines" where the colors meet and plateaus in between
--> Note: Sprinkled "off-color" terrain will *likely* be on the same tier as the dominant color around them
--> Note: You can moving freely between yellow and dark green regions as well as between brown and orange regions
--> Note: Actual "cliff lines" might be drawn a bit differently if there are some "off-color" terrain right next to the "cliff-lines"
--> Note: There was a hint at unswimable rivers which are not currently drawn on this map (I would guess, other small impassable terrain features are also possible) that will hinder settlements from easily accessing/controling adjacent POI hexes as much as the tier cliffs
--> Note: Apparently, one big white X is missing, 3 hexes north-west of Thornkeep along the trade route
@Djoc, based on your reading, would P be able to travel directly into the dark-green hexes to its east? If so, then why would the nearby X be there? If not, then it seems like P would be a horrible choice for a Settlement since fully 1/3 of the neighboring POI hexes would be unreachable.
Yes, that would be my reading that the two dark green hexes to the east of P would be higher tier and require to circle around to the X to access them.
If I'm right, protection offered by having a settlement's back at the bottom or the top of a cliff (reducing the number of sides other settlements can attack from - until we start seeing feather-falling or climbing special forces) will come at the price of having to reach farther to control POIs.
There's still the possibility that the cliff lines might not follow exactly the color changes as I see it, though. We'll need the updated map to be sure.
EDIT: I also want to note that I can't watch the video yet, so all of my observations come from looking at the map and reading this tread.
I'm just wondering what you came up with for the table on which Aldern placed all the relics of the PC he's obsessed with?
PF#2 states these:
- Empty potion bottles
- Used scrolls
- Enveloppe of Hair, hairbrush/comb
Here are a couple of my ideas:
- Bathing relics (towel, brush, soap, maybe even a bottle of soapy water from her bath...)
- Bedroom relics (pillow cover, bedsheet)
- Meal relics (used plate/bowl, ustensils and mug/glass, maybe with rotten/moldy left-overs in them)
- Mundane jewlery relics (ribons and other hair fashioning objects, mundane bracelet/earing(s)/necklace)
- Old adventuring equipment relics (either sold back or left over once she got better equipment, like small weapon, used up kit, etc)
- Small piece of parchment with random doodles and notes from the PC.
Well, everybody bleeds a couple drops all the time (small cuts, etc), and you wouldn't consider that -1 HP, would you? I mean, don't tell me that wizards get a long beard because shaving (and getting one or 2 small cuts in the process) is too much of a risk because it could render them unconcious and they could bleed to death if no one is nearby to stabilizes them?
I like to see DR as a requirement to permanently break the link between cells of the body of a creature (something like in real life physics, where you need some energy to break the link between particles, just replace energy with a given special material or magic). Much like you could strike at water with any weapon, but the water would close in as soon as the weapon is off the water. Weapons don't bounce off the creature. They apparently do the damage for a split second, but it's back to normal right after the weapon gets off the wound, as cells of flesh, muscle, blood vessels and bone would link back together instantly, as if nothing split them. As for blood, I could easily see that some would still coat the weapon that was used to do the strike, just too little to make that an important blood loss for the creature. The few drops of blood on the blade can then be droped in the runewell...
Goblin Squad Member
