[DustyPorViva]

Map, Exploration and Warping:

I intended exploration to be a huge part of the server. I wanted to give players a reason to stray from their journey of Point A to Point B, and even give them a reason to go back to previously explored areas.

The map would initially be covered in many clouds, except for perhaps the starting area and Graal City. These clouds wouldn't disappear just from entering the area, however. In order to disperse the clouds covering the area on the map you would have to find the map of the area. They could be found as simply as by buying them from a shop in the area to completing a long side-quest, depending on the importance of a map for that area.

For example, in the desert area on the map in the original post you can see 5 areas of water. They are very crucial for getting through the area. When you enter the area you would be overcome by blinding desert sands and a crippled view. You'd only be able to see about 10 tiles around you. More importantly, you'd have to make your way from one oasis to the next before becoming dehydrated(depicted by a bar at the bottom of the screen that would constantly fill). I timed the average trip to go from one to the next, and make that a base. So even surviving the desert would become a quest of sorts to get to the pyramid. You could either choose to simply conquer it, or if you were having that much trouble go through a sidequest to find the map of the desert. This would show you all the oasis hotspots, making it much more easier to navigate the desert.


Warping was going to be handled by the traditional warp ring, but vastly different. Over your journey you would gather certain red jewels. Scattered over the overworld would be statues. Placing said jewels in the statue would allow you to warp to that statue. However I was planning to have less jewels than there were statues, forcing you to micromanage your warp spots. Now I'm not saying there would be only five jewels and fifty statues, but there would most likely not be one jewel for every statue(you could remove them from statues to move them elsewhere). You'd obtain these jewels in various ways, from finding them in caves to getting them as rewards for sidequests. One idea I had early one involved the player noticing the local fortune teller had one on his turban. If you were observant, you'd be able to hopefully negociate it away from him.

Warping would be integrated into the map instead of some external method. When you went to warp, it'd open up your map and also show your warp spots as well. You'd simply warp by highlighting the warp spot and selecting it! I was going to have the map have various functions like this, including showing area names and such.