Shape of the World: Difference between revisions

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pitch: ring-world circumnavigation (proposal, not settled design) (via create-page on MediaWiki MCP Server)
 
rewrite in plain design-note register; ocean no longer claimed as most of the world (via update-page on MediaWiki MCP Server)
 
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''<b>Status: proposal</b> (2026-07-27). Nothing here is settled design — this page exists to be argued with. Engineering feasibility has been assessed and is not the bottleneck; everything else is open.''
''<b>Status: proposal</b> (2026-07-27). Not settled design — feedback wanted. Engineering feasibility has been assessed and isn't the bottleneck; everything else is open.''


The world is a '''ring''': sail west far enough and you return from the east. It is not a globe and does not pretend to be one — the world's shape is a fact of its cosmology, and one that nobody living has proven.
The world is a '''ring''': sail west far enough and you arrive from the east. The world's shape is part of its lore, and nobody in the world has proven it yet.


== The pitch ==
== Circumnavigation ==


'''Circumnavigation as content.''' A player stands at a west-coast dock, provisions a ship, and sails west into open ocean. Hours later — if the voyage holds — they make landfall on the world's eastern shore. This is the medieval-explorer fantasy: not teleporting, not fast-travel, but a genuine expedition that most players will never complete and every player knows is possible.
Circumnavigation is a goal in the game. Players provision a ship on a west coast, sail west across open ocean, and eventually make landfall on the world's eastern shore. It should take long enough to be a real expedition: something most players never complete, but every player knows is possible.


Almost no game in this genre has an honest wrapping world. The ones that feel like planets fake it; ours would simply ''be'' a ring, and own it.
== Lore ==


== The cosmology ==
The world is a band. East–west it closes on itself; north and south it ends. What the ends are is open:


The world is a band — call it a ring, a hoop, a girdle. East–west, it closes on itself. North and south, it ends.
* '''North''': an ice sheet? permanent storms? impassable mountains?
* '''South''': the rim itself, or more of the same?


What the ends look like is an open flavor decision, and a rich one:
In-world, the shape is disputed. Scholars argue ring versus disc versus sphere, and maps disagree at the margins. The world isn't ''known'' to be a ring until players — or someone in the lore — manage to circumnavigate it. Whoever does it first settles the argument.
 
* '''The north''': an impassable ice sheet? A wall of storms? Mountains no pass crosses?
* '''The south''': the rim itself — an edge the sea pours over? Or just more ice?
 
In-world, the shape is ''disputed''. Scholars argue ring versus disc versus sphere; sailors have opinions; maps disagree at the margins and decorate their ignorance with serpents. The first circumnavigation doesn't just cross the world — it settles the argument. That voyage is lore the players themselves get to write.


== The ocean ==
== The ocean ==


Most of the ring is open sea. This is what makes the whole idea affordable: '''land interrupts ocean, not the other way around'''. The sea needs no authoring — it simply exists wherever nothing else does — and continents, islands, and archipelagos get seeded into it over years.
The stretches of the ring between landmasses are open sea. The sea can be generated procedurally and doesn't necessarily have to be created by us; we author continents and islands and add them to the ring over time. That's what makes a world this large affordable.


Open ocean is also a natural home for procedural and repeatable content: weather, currents, fishing grounds, shipwrecks, sea creatures, uncharted islets. None of that is designed yet; the point is that the canvas is enormous and costs nothing.
This doesn't mean most of the game is ocean. Content still lives mostly on land; the sea is the space between, plus whatever repeatable content suits it (fishing grounds, shipwrecks, sea creatures, weather, uncharted islets). How much of the ring is water is a geography and travel-time decision, not an elemental-balance one — an ocean tile doesn't make Water a bigger part of the game any more than a mountain makes Earth one.


== Ships ==
== Ships ==


Circumnavigation is a voyage, so this whole proposal is '''gated on ships existing as real content''' — not a teleport with a boat animation, but sailing you actually do. What that means (a sailing skill? navigation? provisioning and spoilage? crew?) is entirely open design space, and it is the prerequisite: no ships, no ring.
This proposal depends on ships being real gameplay, not a teleport with a boat animation. What sailing actually is — a skill? navigation? provisioning? crew? — is open design space, and it comes first: no ships, no ring.


The second gate: '''travel must stay slow'''. The ring only means something if distance does. If fast-travel ever makes any two points seconds apart, the world's shape becomes a trivia fact nobody experiences.
It also depends on travel staying slow. If fast travel ever makes any two points seconds apart, the world's shape stops mattering in play.


== Scale ==
== Scale ==
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The working recommendation is the '''18,000–36,000 tile band''': big enough that rounding the world is an expedition, small enough that real players actually do it. Below roughly 3,000 tiles the wrap is discovered by accident in a first session and the world reads as a toy.
The working recommendation is '''18,000–36,000 tiles''': long enough that rounding the world is an expedition, short enough that players actually do it. Below roughly 3,000 tiles, players discover the wrap by accident in their first session and the world feels tiny.


A ring also flatters its own size: no destination is ever farther than half the circumference, and there are always two routes — east-about or west-about. The world feels ''complete'' rather than walled.
Two properties of a ring worth noting: no destination is ever farther than half the circumference, and there are always two routes to anywhere (east-about or west-about).


== Cost and timing ==
== Cost and timing ==


Engineering assessment (2026-07-27): converting the world to an east–west ring is tractable — the map code is already well-factored for it — and, importantly, '''it can be bolted on later without resetting or migrating the existing world'''. Nothing about today's map, the live server, or near-term content is blocked or made throwaway by deferring this. A true sphere was assessed and rejected: topologically hostile to a square tile grid, a rewrite of the renderer, and — since the curvature would be invisible at any playable scale — indistinguishable from a ring in actual play.
Assessed 2026-07-27. Converting the world to an east–west ring is a moderate amount of engineering, and it can be added later without resetting or migrating the existing world — nothing is blocked or thrown away by deferring it.
 
A true sphere was considered and rejected: a square tile grid can't cover a sphere, the renderer assumes flat ground, and at any playable scale the curvature would be invisible anyway, so a ring plays identically.


So the sequencing is: keep building the world as-is → ships, someday, as their own initiative → the ring lands as part of an "age of sail," with the cosmology already written into the world so the geography was never pretending otherwise.
Sequencing: keep building the world as-is; ships as their own initiative; the ring after that. The one thing worth deciding early is the lore — if the world is a ring, geography and stories written now shouldn't contradict it.


== Open questions ==
== Open questions ==


* Does the ring cosmology fit the world's story as it exists in your head? Ring vs. disc vs. something stranger?
* Does a ring fit the world's story? Ring vs. disc vs. something else?
* What are the north and south ends?
* What are the north and south ends?
* Where does the existing landmass sit on the ring — and what's at its antipode?
* Where does the existing landmass sit on the ring, and what's on the opposite side?
* What is sailing, as gameplay?
* What is sailing, as gameplay?
* How should the in-world shape dispute surface — books, NPCs, a questline, a Celaboran opinion?
* How does the shape dispute show up in-world — books, NPCs, a questline?
* Circumference: does the 18–36k band feel right, given how the world should feel to cross on foot?
* Does the 18–36k circumference band feel right, given how the world should feel to cross on foot?

Latest revision as of 09:41, 27 July 2026

Status: proposal (2026-07-27). Not settled design — feedback wanted. Engineering feasibility has been assessed and isn't the bottleneck; everything else is open.

The world is a ring: sail west far enough and you arrive from the east. The world's shape is part of its lore, and nobody in the world has proven it yet.

Circumnavigation

Circumnavigation is a goal in the game. Players provision a ship on a west coast, sail west across open ocean, and eventually make landfall on the world's eastern shore. It should take long enough to be a real expedition: something most players never complete, but every player knows is possible.

Lore

The world is a band. East–west it closes on itself; north and south it ends. What the ends are is open:

  • North: an ice sheet? permanent storms? impassable mountains?
  • South: the rim itself, or more of the same?

In-world, the shape is disputed. Scholars argue ring versus disc versus sphere, and maps disagree at the margins. The world isn't known to be a ring until players — or someone in the lore — manage to circumnavigate it. Whoever does it first settles the argument.

The ocean

The stretches of the ring between landmasses are open sea. The sea can be generated procedurally and doesn't necessarily have to be created by us; we author continents and islands and add them to the ring over time. That's what makes a world this large affordable.

This doesn't mean most of the game is ocean. Content still lives mostly on land; the sea is the space between, plus whatever repeatable content suits it (fishing grounds, shipwrecks, sea creatures, weather, uncharted islets). How much of the ring is water is a geography and travel-time decision, not an elemental-balance one — an ocean tile doesn't make Water a bigger part of the game any more than a mountain makes Earth one.

Ships

This proposal depends on ships being real gameplay, not a teleport with a boat animation. What sailing actually is — a skill? navigation? provisioning? crew? — is open design space, and it comes first: no ships, no ring.

It also depends on travel staying slow. If fast travel ever makes any two points seconds apart, the world's shape stops mattering in play.

Scale

At run speed (5 tiles/second), with a hypothetical ship at twice that:

Circumference Nonstop run Nonstop sail (~2× run)
9,000 tiles 30 min 15 min
18,000 tiles 1 h 30 min
36,000 tiles 2 h 1 h

The working recommendation is 18,000–36,000 tiles: long enough that rounding the world is an expedition, short enough that players actually do it. Below roughly 3,000 tiles, players discover the wrap by accident in their first session and the world feels tiny.

Two properties of a ring worth noting: no destination is ever farther than half the circumference, and there are always two routes to anywhere (east-about or west-about).

Cost and timing

Assessed 2026-07-27. Converting the world to an east–west ring is a moderate amount of engineering, and it can be added later without resetting or migrating the existing world — nothing is blocked or thrown away by deferring it.

A true sphere was considered and rejected: a square tile grid can't cover a sphere, the renderer assumes flat ground, and at any playable scale the curvature would be invisible anyway, so a ring plays identically.

Sequencing: keep building the world as-is; ships as their own initiative; the ring after that. The one thing worth deciding early is the lore — if the world is a ring, geography and stories written now shouldn't contradict it.

Open questions

  • Does a ring fit the world's story? Ring vs. disc vs. something else?
  • What are the north and south ends?
  • Where does the existing landmass sit on the ring, and what's on the opposite side?
  • What is sailing, as gameplay?
  • How does the shape dispute show up in-world — books, NPCs, a questline?
  • Does the 18–36k circumference band feel right, given how the world should feel to cross on foot?
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