Design Excerpt: Maps and Exploration, Part 1

This particular section of the design document is several pages of text, so I'm going to split it up into multiple posts over several days. Here's part 1, describing the World Map.

Maps, Movement, and Exploration

There are three types of maps: the World Map, Area Maps, and Local Maps. Each map covers a different level of detail and has its own movement parameters.

World Map

The World Map displays the entire (known) world, divided into Areas. Only broad geographical details (large lakes or rivers, forests, mountains, oceans, plains, very large towns, etc) are visible. The Area that the primary party is currently at is displayed with bright, vibrant colors, with a waving flag denoting the actual position of the primary party. Areas that secondary parties are currently at are displayed with less vibrant colors (except if the primary party is already there), with a smaller waving flag denoting their estimated position. Areas that have been visited, but have no active parties present, are displayed with washed out colors. Areas that have not been visited at all are displayed in greyscale and may have missing details.

Movement on the World Map is very abstract. In actuality, there isn't any real movement on the World Map itself. The World Map exists to show the relative layout of the land and to provide feedback on how much of the world has been explored. In order to move from Area to Area on the World Map, a party must move across the boundary of an Area on the Area Map. They are then transported to the World Map and may select either of the Areas sharing the boundary that was crossed to move to – either the Area the party came from, in the case of an accidental crossing, or the Area across the boundary.