First off, I would like to acknowledge that I understand the current "Atlas" is likely just a conceptual first draft. It has a cartoony asthetic with disproportionate features. It is not meant to be 1:1 accurate map of the world. That being said, I have concerns that the current design could have a real impact on the actual map and zone design if used as a reference. I am going to focus on rivers as that is where I am seeing the most problems.
Rivers usually start at mountains and end in the ocean. They always move along the easiest available path from high elevation to low. They should never flow parralel to mountains and hills.
Rivers rarely completely cross a continent or other landmass; they NEVER start in the same body of water they empty into.
Rivers never form loops. If they appear to, these are actually ring-shaped lakes. Lakes form in a low area surrounded by higher areas, even if we’re only talking less than a hundred feet of difference, so where you choose to have the river exit the lake means that area is lower. Rivers always join together as they flow toward the sea; they never branch out. Exceptions are made in flat deltas, where the river deposits islands of silt as it empties into an ocean or lake. These are typically small (no bigger than a large city) but can fan out over large distances if the terrain is flat enough.
It is my hope that the devs take realistic geography into consideration as they are refining the map/zone design. I believe these considerations will go a long way in creating a believable, immersive world. Certain exceptions can be made to the rules, especially in a fantasy setting, but these exceptions should be rare and have explanations. A river may empty into a sink hole connected to the aquifer instead of the ocean, a canal may have been constructed to divert it, it may be enchanted to flow against gravity, but in order to do this the devs need to be aware how these things work in real life so that they can consider the justifcation for why they might deviate.
A couple questions for the community; Do things like this bother you as much as they do me? What other aspects of geography are often overlooked when designing fantasy maps? Are there any aspects of the current Pantheon map/atlas that you would like to be improved upon?
Edit: https://wiki.opengeofiction.net/wiki/index.php/OGF:Making_realistic_rivers Has a lot of great explanations and illustrations
I applaud your remark here. It seems useful input. And indeed, if they can, the dev's could use these ideas and explanations to make their world more believable.
After all, if you're in designing modus still, why not use this constructive feedback?
Yes it is a fantasy game, but this aims to give the story and the world more depth. If their priority layed on fantasy, they'ld create purple trees with yellow unicorns as fruit.
Personally, I tend to trip over things relating to plants or animals. I recently noticed a childrens book depicting a so called "whale" with a vertical tail fin and the spots of a whaleshark (last one being a fish, not a mammal). Most people wouldn't notice it but it's clear as daylight for me. So I get where your frustration or remark comes from.
So, cheers for the constructive input, @Tylee.
It's not something I usually think about when I run around in a game world, but looking at a game map, yeah it does kinda bother me, did some tabletop RPG and once I learned this my worlds would incorporate this and I would study more real life geography, but it would also take longer since I'm by no means versed in that.
Still I would love if VR sees this and takes it into consideration.
It is a bit of a rabbit hole though once you get really detailed.
Good post haha.
"Do things like this bother you as much as they do me?"
Not at all. This is a fantasy world and as such I do not expect it to comply with known science or meterology.
While I like accuracy in graphics for a more realistic character, a river running contrary to the "real world" can be chalked up to it being a different world.
I've noticed while playing any fantasy/sci-fi game, action, mmorpg or otherwise that the more realistic the game is the better it is for me. Even if I never would of noticed it. Kind of like subconscious realism.
Anways, this is a thread in a forum for a game in PA4 and those points were valid to express. Nice job Tylee.
Trasak said: I follow a process when I am making a map for a table top game. 1) establish the size of the planet (or dish or ring depending on the setting. 2) rough scetch the tectonic plates and where the overlap(ocean trench) butt into each other (mountains) separate (ring of fire) or slide parallel (earth quake zones) 3) use the plates to establish geography of continents and major elevation peaks 4) midpoint between peak and sea level I will usually put a Continental divide to create water flow controls and smaller mountains. 5) Based on the mountains, water sources, air flows, elevation and latitude I will assign general environments. 6) add in all the story driven or fantastical elements that modify or deviate from the above. 7) only after all that do I start adding people. Breaking with realism and choosing a fantastic effect should be an intentional choice, not just a hand wave used to excuse a lack of attention to detail.
I would love to see one of these maps you created. That's a lot of work. Could you scan one and post it?
I certainly don't expect things to be perfect but I believe the little details go a long way in making a beleivable world. Water doesn't flow up hills. Unless magic, which I think is AWESOME, if there's some glimmer effect or a note somewhere the alludes to an old wizard enchanting it or something. When I see something that DEFYS reality, it should pull me into the fantasy world, not out of it.
Also: Something else I found after posting that has a lot of great additonal information
https://wiki.opengeofiction.net/wiki/index.php/OGF:Making_realistic_rivers
@Trasak I approve your method!
Tylee I agree in all respects.
A high fantasy world should be as realistic and logical as any other world. The natural laws that apply to the world are different (as in having magic and Gods) but once the basic laws and parameters are set all should flow logically therefrom.
What else is often done wrong? Boundary conditions. So often one crosses a zone line and the topography and climate are totally different. Not 100 miles into the zone, which may make sense, but 100 *inches* into the zone. This just shouldn't be without a compelling magical or deific reason e.g. the new zone is the magically maintained home of a water God who maintains a water environment all the way to its boundary.
While I agree with the Tylee, that it looks like just some simple shifting things around and adding some lakes where the rivers flow could solve everything without much effort. I also don't understand why people are so drawn to realism in video games, for me realism usually just means a lack of imagination and adventure. As long as something isn't designed lazily I am 100% okay with it, the more weird and out there it is the better in my opinion I like to be surpirsed.
I'm going to throw this out there in hopes that one of the older members can help find it.. someone like Bazgrim with supernatural search skills, because I tried and failed.
I'm SURE in the lore, or a message thread. Here on the site someplace (I don't use other sources of info) the devs have confirmed "on Terminus, water may even run uphill" I remember this because I didn't like the idea, but it was a Dev. that said it. Something about other world's (races) combining with the original Terminus and some of their uniqueness comes with them.
I searched
"Water flowing"
"Flowing uphill"
"Flow uphill"
"Flows uphill"
And several other combinations and can't find the info.
Ultimately what I'm getting at, is I don't believe we can expect Terminus to play by the topography rules.
Tylee said:I certainly don't expect things to be perfect but I believe the little details go a long way in making a beleivable world. Water doesn't flow up hills. Unless magic, which I think is AWESOME, if there's some glimmer effect or a note somewhere the alludes to an old wizard enchanting it or something. When I see something that DEFYS reality, it should pull me into the fantasy world, not out of it.
Also: Something else I found after posting that has a lot of great additonal information
https://wiki.opengeofiction.net/wiki/index.php/OGF:Making_realistic_rivers
@Trasak I approve your method!
Awesome link for the devs, I hope they use it with their finished product. =)
Zorkon said:I'm going to throw this out there in hopes that one of the older members can help find it.. someone like Bazgrim with supernatural search skills, because I tried and failed.
I'm SURE in the lore, or a message thread. Here on the site someplace (I don't use other sources of info) the devs have confirmed "on Terminus, water may even run uphill" I remember this because I didn't like the idea, but it was a Dev. that said it. Something about other world's (races) combining with the original Terminus and some of their uniqueness comes with them.
I searched
"Water flowing"
"Flowing uphill"
"Flow uphill"
"Flows uphill"
And several other combinations and can't find the info.
Ultimately what I'm getting at, is I don't believe we can expect Terminus to play by the topography rules.
You've certainly piqued my curiosity! I'd be completely okay with this. I did try to do some searching before posting and did't find much myself regarding rivers/maps.
Huh, found it. https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/2184/updated-map/view/page/1
Aradune said:
I posted this elsewhere, when a concern was raised that the atlas had some topographic 'anomalies' -- e.g. regions, mountains, rivers, etc. that wouldn't make sense in a real world. Thought I would share it with you all:
The idea of different pieces of planets colliding with Terminus, bringing new races, their architecture, their gods, etc. gives us a ton of creative freedom and a really fun sandbox to play in. Part of that freedom means that one region of the world doesn't have to make sense geographically when compared to an adjacent region. The topography can totally change and in a surprising, unexpected, and yes, 'unrealistic' ways. Yes, this includes the directions rivers may seem to be running or any other 'anomaly' you may perceive in the atlas. Pantheon's world is truly fantasy, with an emphasis on the fantastic.
I realize this is different than, say, Middle Earth. I'm a huge Tolkien fan, I assure you, but so many 'fantasy' worlds (in novels, games, etc.) have also been crafted to be 'realistic fantasy' that we decided to take a different approach with Pantheon, similar to our different (non-traditional) approaches to some of the playable races, etc. Too much 'sameness' is something MMOs have been struggling with, IMHO.
Tylee said:A couple questions for the community; Do things like this bother you as much as they do me? What other aspects of geography are often overlooked when designing fantasy maps? Are there any aspects of the current Pantheon map/atlas that you would like to be improved upon?
I love this post! As an ecologist by training and a geologist by family birthright (lol), I too am often bothered by the lack of logical sense in created worlds. When working on my own fantasy world, I've put a great deal of thought into the various forces over geologic time that would have shaped the world - and how those resulting features would impact the societies that develop in them. To be honest, my dream job would be to be a scientific consultant for video games. xD
As for your second question, I am super bothered by that giant waterfall on the west side of the map (near Syronai's Rest)! It is hard to tell the scale, but how it starts out as just a lake at the top of the mountain and then drops off a sheer face is buggish to me. The two land bridges do not make much logical sense either. I suppose one could say that the ocean levels were significantly higher in the past and have dropped over time (leaving that one stranded inland sea, but the elevation of the land bridges (particularly the western one) looks to be quite high. The ocean would have had to have almost completely covered the two continents at one point in order for those to form.
One thing I think about when creating a fantasy world is tectonic forces. Mountains do not spring from nothing - they are the result of massive amounts of pressure slowly squeezing, bending, and folding rock. Here at least we have some consistency in the continents - both have mountains to the north. This suggests some convergent tectonic boundary running roughly between the two visible continents and the ice sheet to the north of them. I would like to know if that ice sheet is attached to an actual continent (like Antarctica) or if it's simply a large mass of floating ice (like the Arctic). If the latter, the presence of mountains along the northern ends of the continents would not make much sense, so I'm going to hope/assume it's the former. That said, there seems to be considerable distance between the continental crust of the two continents and that of whatever land mass exists to the north. The best explanation I can come up with is something similar to how the Appalachian mountains formed. This means that the northern continent would have collided with the two southern continents at some point (hundreds of millions of years ago), creating the mountains. Then as the tectonic plates continued to shift, the three gradually moved apart (just as the North American and Eurasion plates did). This, however, would have happened so long ago that the mountains in question should be significantly eroded. It's difficult to tell elevation for those on Reignfall, but the mountains of Kingsreach are a lot more like those of the Rocky Mountains. They are high enough in elevation to have bare tops, suggesting they're fairly young. This is problematic because these northern mountains should have been formed at the same time (and would have been part of the same mountain range), which should result in them showing similar degrees of erosion.
Continuing with thoughts on tectonics... the continents seem to be made of several smaller tectonic plates that are diverging. The western continent, Reignfall, appears to be made of no less than three plates, with great faults running to the west of the Valley of the Watchmen and to the east of the Burning Sanctum. This unfortunately means that land bridge on Reignfall makes even less sense. Kingsreach has its own, uh, strange geological features as well - most notably to me are the crags on the southern tip and that lip-like cliff face north of the Silent Plains. The latter would have to be the result of some uplift and subsequent erosion of softer materials, leaving behind likely igneous rock similar to granite. The shape and position of it (at the base of a mountain region) are a bit odd, though. The crags on the southern peninsula of Kingsreach also give me some trouble. I'm having trouble coming up with a decent explanation for them beyond the possibility that they could be granite domes a la Enchanted Rock or Stone Mountain.
Random thought: latitude-wise, I have to assume they're located somewhere between 60 degrees and 90 degrees North, given the range of apparent temperatures from the north to the south.
I also wonder about the general scale of these continents. To be honest, compared to the bits of land/ice we see at the edges of the map, these "continents" look more like large islands than anything.
[edit] Of course, Tylee would find that Aardune post while I'm writing all this up. XD Although this leads me to a new question: Is Terminus FLAT?
I'm on board. I dabble in a little bit of cartography as a hobby so I try to appreciate these kinds of details.
While the link provided above briefly alludes to this from a mathematical standpoint, one additional thing to consider is the speed and flow of a river/stream in relation to its shape. The shape of a river is dictated by the land it travels through. As a general rule, rivers and streams tend to flow more straight when they are travelling over steep terrain, and tend to meander more as they move over more flat terrain. The same river can (and often will) exhibit both of these characteristics as it moves out of mountains and over plains as they run toward the sea. Additionally, fast moving rivers/streams will cut "V" shaped beds, while slower moving ones will cut "U" shaped beds (this is less important for the purposes of representing the river on a map, but pretty cool nonetheless!).
Sorry Naunet, I still loved your post! The whole planets colliding thing is cool but I don't think it's fair to use it to just explain away every anomoly in the map, certainly better than nothing!
Edit: But just IMAGINE the massive amount of magic it would take to keep two planets that are colliding from just completely obliterating each other!
Tylee said:Sorry Naunet, I still loved your post! The whole planets colliding thing is cool but I don't think it's fair to use it to just explain away every anomoly in the map, certainly better than nothing!
Edit: But just IMAGINE the massive amount of magic it would take to keep two planets that are colliding from just completely obliterating each other!
Thank you! And I generally agree. I think VR needs to tread carefully here. While I totally understand (now) that the nature of Terminus can lead to some unexpected environments, there does need to be some logical consistency within the world. I don't think that river that starts in the ocean and ends in the same ocean makes sense even given the whole "formed out of colliding worlds" thing. Once these chunks of realities have connected, they should still be beholden to the forces of geology, evolution, and ecology - just as they would have in their original worlds.
I still would like to know how literal this "collision" is. So how does it happen? Surely we're not talking planet-sized collisions. But even then, what happens when a landmass from another world "collides" with Terminus? Is it something that just magically appears and blends into the existing land? Or is it a more literal collision, where a landmass comes crashing down upon the surface of Terminus, likely resulting in great upheaval of the land/water around it? Can you imagine... Think about the global effects of a single asteroid impact 66 million years ago. And these chunks of worlds arriving at Terminus are likely far larger than that particular asteroid.
Eep!
Damacon said:While I agree with the Tylee, that it looks like just some simple shifting things around and adding some lakes where the rivers flow could solve everything without much effort. I also don't understand why people are so drawn to realism in video games, for me realism usually just means a lack of imagination and adventure. As long as something isn't designed lazily I am 100% okay with it, the more weird and out there it is the better in my opinion I like to be surpirsed.
This!
Tylee said:Huh, found it. https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/2184/updated-map/view/page/1
Aradune said:I posted this elsewhere, when a concern was raised that the atlas had some topographic 'anomalies' -- e.g. regions, mountains, rivers, etc. that wouldn't make sense in a real world. Thought I would share it with you all:
The idea of different pieces of planets colliding with Terminus, bringing new races, their architecture, their gods, etc. gives us a ton of creative freedom and a really fun sandbox to play in. Part of that freedom means that one region of the world doesn't have to make sense geographically when compared to an adjacent region. The topography can totally change and in a surprising, unexpected, and yes, 'unrealistic' ways. Yes, this includes the directions rivers may seem to be running or any other 'anomaly' you may perceive in the atlas. Pantheon's world is truly fantasy, with an emphasis on the fantastic.
I realize this is different than, say, Middle Earth. I'm a huge Tolkien fan, I assure you, but so many 'fantasy' worlds (in novels, games, etc.) have also been crafted to be 'realistic fantasy' that we decided to take a different approach with Pantheon, similar to our different (non-traditional) approaches to some of the playable races, etc. Too much 'sameness' is something MMOs have been struggling with, IMHO.
yea that's it. Great find Tylee. Thanks!
