Website & Forums Option to hide unvisited parts of the map

Heyy,
I'm returning to the game and enjoying it a lot so far. One Problem which I encountered is tho, that the world map is a huge spoiler for new players (and returning ones), but it is also very practical. So I wanna use it, but in the same time don't wanna look at it at all.

So, I think it would be a great mechanic, to have to discover the world map, for people who wanna go all in in the role play. This could be done on a province level, so each time a player visits a province or city for the first time, it gets unlocked in the map.

This mechanic would make discovering the world much more fun I think.

For people who don't like this, there could simply be an option to "clear the clouds" off the map.

Thanks in advance!

 

You could use an in-game minimap for this; it's not the same experience but it will at least offer that level of mystery for new areas. I think this makes a lot of sense to add though, because the players who will be needing the map the most are newer players and, as you pointed out, having the whole map shown to you in high detail is rather spoilery.

 

Are you talking about the website map?

 

Yes

 

Wait so how would it look like if someone who doesn't play the game enters the website

 

I guess, the standard would be, that people can't see the map. There can be a info that says: In order to discover the map, play on the server (Or use the option to uncover it).

I mean yeah, that would be a bit weird, having a completely covered map on the website, but I think it is also weird to have such a huge spoiler for the game on the website :P And for me, back in the days when I played the first time, some parts of the map where still covered, because they where not out yet, and I actually thought that was exciting instead of weird. Shows that there is stuff to discover.

To make it a bit more exciting, I just thought about, not just having a uniform cloud cover above it, but have for example black clouds above the Silent Expanse and maybe have some big Landmarks like the Tower of Ascension or Mount Wynn reach out a bit of the clouds, to make players more curious. I mean even if the map is covered, it doesn't have to be boring.

 

I think that having it covered with the option to uncover it would probably work fine. I'd make sure to add some sort of waypoint system though; if you're trying to figure out how to get somewhere, and for whatever reason the in-game directions don't give you enough info, but it's also not somewhere you've been, it would be good if you didn't have to fully reveal the map to see where something is. Maybe something in the vein of a low-detail, paper-esque map that gets full detail as you explore, that would let you know where specific landmarks are but wouldn't show anything beyond basic details.

They actually already have a system that would work for tracking where the player has been; territorial discoveries, which could be used to track what territories you have or haven't visited (possibly with the option to click to unlock a specific territory, in case of them being reset again). They could probably even tailor it to a specific class. I'm kinda curious how difficult this would be to set up: at first I was thinking this would be a ton of work, but since they track territory discoveries in a similar manner as quests, I see no reason they wouldn't be able to easily check where the player has been and feed that info into the map. If someone in the dev team reads this I'd love to hear how reasonable that would be.