Large map sizes won't cause "lag" under any circumstance.

Moreover, I think you suffer a misapprehension that size is necessarily a selling point. Not to sound like I'm insecure here, but size really doesn't matter. It's what you *do* with it that counts.

Most of the games that advertise a "1000x1000" map basically have very large, bland, repetitive mapping. I've yet to see a single game on BYOND that advertises a map that large use it in such a way that could justify the dimensions.

Also, the number of tiles really don't tell you enough about the size of the map. As different games can have different movement speeds, obstacles, and gameplay styles, you'll find that 1000x1000 can be absurdly large, or feel "not big enough" depending on design choices you have made.

BYOND's map sizes aren't an issue. Anybody hitting the limitations of the engine should reconsider what they are doing in the first place.

Oasiscircle wrote:

I think it has to do with the "bigger is better" mentality that gets attributed to quite a lot of things.

If anything, I've noticed that "less is more" is becoming a common feature of the indie community.

1-bit, 2-bit, 4-bit, and 8-bit games are becoming popular again, 320x240 resolution is suddenly king, (I myself am quite partial to 80x25 games), and worlds that fit on a single in-game screen have started coming back in vogue.

There's a certain enjoyability to small, compact, well-designed playspaces.

I had a difficult time with the classification: Indie.

I mean, we're all by definition independents, as we aren't affiliated with any large-budget studio.

Unfortunately, to some degree, many of the games that are classified as "indie", on the other hand, have been produced by big-budget studios.

So really, the term is difficult to define. I think hobbyist definitely fits the BYOND community better, but even so, the very nature of labels makes them inadequate for accurately representing anything when inspected beyond a surface appraisal.

Once thing I've noticed over the years is almost every video game ever lies about the actual size of their map.

It's not uncommon for games like Skyrim to state the map size is something like 256 square miles (making is 16 x 16 miles). Despite this you can run across the entire map in about 20 minutes.

Here is a fun fact. A normal person walks about 3.5 miles in an hour. If it takes you 20 minutes to traverse from one end of a map to the other, your map is just over 1 mile across, not 16.

Anyway, if you want to see a big map in a video game. Go play Daggerfall. Must of it's randomly generated, but the map is about 250 miles across.

As for BYOND maps. 1000x1000 depends entirely on how you use it. The entire world of some SNES games, which are a full 20-30 hours long could fit into a 1000x1000 map with room to spare. This makes 1000x1000 seem tiny.
But at the same time, if you took something like Skyrim with it's map which takes 20 minutes to traverse. It is made up of a height map, which is 3808 x 3008 pixels in size. A rough translation is 1 pixel = 1 tile. So that is over 3 times what BYONDs map editor will allow you to set. Yet the world doesn't seem large, and this makes 1000x1000 seem tiny.

Translation: It's all about how you use the space you've got.

What you're talking about is apples and oranges mate.

I'm simply saying, Skyrim's map size is technically big. If you look at the numbers, and do comparisons it seems like the map is big. But what the player perceives gives the impression it's actually pretty small. (And by that I mean, there isn't a lot to explore, it takes 15-20 minutes to walk across the map and so on)

It's not about the size, it's how you use it.

This is exactly how I feel. Why you don't understand me?

Dibs on best man at the wedding.

But no, I actually hate large maps. I don't like doing a lot of unnecessary walking. I recently played Arma 3 when it was free for 1 weekend, and walking through a large, empty city with repetitive scenery ( I literally walked past the same exact building like 20 times ) was pretty uninspiring.

I did however enjoy Dragon Quest 8, which had a large world, because it was actually designed well, and there was a lot of action in between where you were and your destination. There wasn't this long, boring trek through the mountains where next to nothing happens. Which is kinda what happens in Skyrim. You can be walking for 5 minutes and the only interesting thing that happens to you is being attacked by 2 wolves.

What's wrong with them crossing to a new zone? There's no way for a player to even know they're doing so most of the time, unless you let them view Z, or you map it in a way that makes it obvious.

I can understand this with a large open world, to an extent, because it's much harder to smoothly connect zones in that case but if you're dealing with interiors, warps, 'moving between continents' and such it's perfectly fine.

It's only if they could say, use a submarine to traverse water so there's no true limit to where they can go except the size of the zone. That's where the tough to connect thing I mentioned might come into play...

Toddab503 wrote:

What's wrong with them crossing to a new zone? There's no way for a player to even know they're doing so most of the time, unless you let them view Z, or you map it in a way that makes it obvious.

It's pretty simple honestly, don't see how it's hard to understand that in a fast paced fighting environment "map hopping" has always been annoying. Map hopping is when someone uses the edge of the map going back and forth to escape a fight. Having a more wider world can prevent this from happening.

Now once again, if the game isn't an action game and is similar to Pokemon's play style map hopping no problem. But majority of BYOND games are a comparative environment of fast paced real-time action.

Well, that was... an unfortunate derailment. Anyone can hit 50 players for a bit. Even my first game averaged 50-60 for roughly a few weeks, and it still uses those awful stat panels and has numerous other problems until it gets its final update. A true accomplishment is keeping that many longer term, but that's all pretty off topic so back to the point...

I think what is and isn't large truly does depend on a number of factors, including movement speed, the type of game, and what not. As for how games on BYOND tend to do... I think it's another case of that the higher the number the better thing you see in most rips and most fan games.

Whether it be gaining tons of stats in seconds, having like 200 skills, 30 races, or something else the vast majority of rips and fan games always seem to be run by people that believe bigger and higher numbers are a good selling point. I think this mindset has lead to many of them thinking if they say they have a 750x750 map, their game is massive, even if most of that space is water or dirt or something.

People really need to learn less is more. Gotta use space properly, and not waste it or data. If you need 1000x1000 with 1 zone, then great. If you need 500x500 with 3 zones, then that's great too. I just wish more people would make sure they NEED the amount of space they advertise, instead of just using it for poor and honestly somewhat false advertising.

TL;DR

There's nothing big about a map that is mostly water, dirt, or some other plain poorly placed content. More people should stop wasting space and data, then learn to set their maps up properly, or to hire someone else who can.

What is large is largely subject to the game and how it is designed.