Shroud of the Avatar: Another Map Piece Revealed
It being the weekend, there is of course another Update of the Avatar posted on the Shroud of the Avatar website. And like most Updates in recent history, there’s yet another map piece gracing it:
The name of the town, by the way, is Point West. Interestingly, it doesn’t appear to be on the base map of Novia that was revealed during the Kickstarter campaign; whatever this place it, it’s a later addition to the world.
As always, you can find the Ultima Codex’s up to date maps of Novia, labeled and unlabeled, on our Shroud of the Avatar subdomain. But because I’m cool like that, I’ll save you a click; here’s the labeled version of the map including this week’s piece:
While I appreciate the practicality of having the land mass packed tightly within the space afforded, there’s something about the open sea that begs exploration and may be missed here.
On a similar note, I wonder how the edges of the map will be handled with respect to movement? Will it wrap around or have an ethereal void? Perhaps it will maintain coordinates outside the regular map, allowing one to sail until the coordinate datatype resolution becomes inaccurate. I’ve found that wrapping the map in a multiplayer environment creates the potential for all sorts of foul issues.
I think the KQ4 strategy of giving a warning, then killing you, is a good one. It gives you the illusion that if you keep swimming/sailing you’ll actually get somewhere while effectively keeping you within the boundaries.