Future State: Expansion of the playable area

[Bringslite]

oheeee Think of the nasty critters hanging out in mysterious deep sided canyons and crevases! Lotta fun.

[Golnor]

You know, in a game with potentially world-breaking magic, if you want a mountain, all you need is for a particularly powerful wizard to say "I wish that there was a mountain there."

Poof!

Mountain.

[KarlBob]

Being wrote:

Thinking of it, if Mt. St. Helens would only occupy four hexes, then it seems to me the PFO map is considerably larger than the Philadelphia metro area. Not so large as New Jersey, but if centered on Philadelphia it would cover a big chunk of New Jersey.

I should try superimposing the PFO map on a map of Washington State by describing hexes...

Okay so I centered a map on Mt. St. Helens, WA and scrolled out to where I felt it would fit in four of Harad's hexes.

At the bottom of the map Portalnd was in view and well as the Dalles on the Columbia. On the North I estimated the edge would almost be up into Mt Rainier national forest.

That is a very large area.

For those not familiar with the US East Coast, some measurements from Wikipedia:

Note - These are city limits only. Some of the metro areas surrounding these cities are huge.
Philadelphia - 143 square miles/369 sq. km
New Jersey - 8,700 sq. mi./22,600 sq. km

Places I'm more familiar with (both have Metropolitan Statistical Areas bigger than New Jersey):
Houston, TX - 630 sq. mi./1,625 sq. km
Phoenix, AZ - 520 sq. mi./1,340 sq. km

[avari3]

KarlBob wrote:

Portal travel wouldn't just take characters to different terrain types; it would effectively take them away from the settlement-expansion-warfare portion of the game. Some will cheer for that possibility, but that seems to be a major aspect of the game GW is making.

You would be going there to get rare resources for the warfare.

[KarlBob]

avari3 wrote:

KarlBob wrote:

Portal travel wouldn't just take characters to different terrain types; it would effectively take them away from the settlement-expansion-warfare portion of the game. Some will cheer for that possibility, but that seems to be a major aspect of the game GW is making.

You would be going there to get rare resources for the warfare.

That's one reason to leave the River Kingdoms, and to come back. My concern, though, is that some players might go to an NPC-controlled kingdom, stay there, and expect GW to provide a complete themepark experience there.

[Aeioun Plainsweed]

I'm not a fan of portals. Moving a great army through one is an event of epic proportions. Don't know how often that would happen if we had two maps connected by a portal. What would be the incentive for characters, CC, settlements and kingdoms to start colonizing that area and would trade happen through a portal. How would diplomatic relationships be handled with two different maps. What kind of balance would it create between kingdoms on both areas. I don't think there would be much warfare between the areas. A bottles neck I would call it.

I've played EVE for just a few hours, but it's just empty space everywhere. No different landscapes.

But I agree that all kinds of terrain in a larger scale is desirable. Just put some mountains next to Echo Woods and call the game Bathfinder Online. :P