Another map poll, wow

All remains on the table.

A man chooses, a slave obeys.

Please continue all discussion related to all map proposals in this thread. This poll is not binding or anything like that.

So we seem to have come up with two separate map proposals that people are in favor of, and it's time to narrow it down a bit. I'm certain that there are few, if any, members who are happy with the drafts as they currently stand, so this poll will instead focus on what draft we use and improve upon.

CORO'S MAP DRAFT:

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KYLE'S MAP DRAFT (INCLUDING ETHNIC CLUSTER MAP):

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A Map of Europe

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; (28/5) ;

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(29/5)

Ladies and Gentlemen, may I kindly and humbly present to you a map I have been working on today. It is my own interpretation of what is a modified-Europe-to-be. I do not have the 'ambition' to propose another map but since every one is so busy I could not contain my desire to design one. So again basically I would like to emphasise this is 'a map', not 'the map' and is merely something I just wanted to work on.

I have tried to take all previous suggestions and remarks into consideration and as you may notice it is simply a renewed drawing of our current map, but it is rather 'smaller'. It is smaller in two ways; first it is literally scaled down some pixels (3000x1800 px, our current 5000 px), but secondly and most importantly proximity! Proximity in a sense that the oceans and waterways have become smaller so yes there's less sea and more land to it, but the landmasses on this map are very insular. The multitude of isles and islands will/could form the stepping stones which ought to bring all our nations closer to one another. In addition, as implemented into Coro's and Kyle's exempla too, I have provided some smaller inland seas and large lakes which again can form natural borders and highways at the same time. Also, the map has an arctic and antarctic region and has meridians and tropics to indicate some broad climate zones.

Concerning names and landmasses then as you can see the greater outlines are preserved, with even some seas and natural shapes partly being integrated. Major changes on the other hand are for instance the sizing down of Himyar and the enlargement of our 'Eurodisney' which I have named Erofa (due to lack of inspiration of course..). This, to actually meet with our current needs (concerning space and role-play). Our 'Europa' can thus contain some more nations if necessary and our renewed Himyar region ought be more attractive in terms of colonisation and exploration. Himyar too contains much more islands now - big and small - but a grand mainland is kept, such as with Toyou. For convenience I have named some sub-regions or transitional areas such as 'Near- and Far-Toyou' to differentiate between the Middle-East and the Orient; also an 'Insular Himyar' has been named, which perhaps together with the 'Near-Toyou' region could form the more Middle-Eastern regions, surrounding the Inner (Mediterranean) Sea. ; ) The Occident basically remains much the same, but as stated before is moved closer to both the Himyar and Erofa continents.

Again, I just wanted to make the map, I do not expect anything of it but I must be honest I do hope you all just give it quick peek please and offer me some feedback. Perhaps it could be useful for the future. =)

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For reference.

Just for my own sake, when a person votes for "other", what is it that they are voting for? Is there any other map I'm unaware of?

I'd suppose it would entail any option not explicitly covered here, including completely different maps, retaining the map, changed versions of proposed maps etc.

Then again a poll during a discussion, eh.

This was the last draft I finished, though the debate on this map was not 100% over actually. =) Nonetheless, there goes.

[MENTION=1]Anti-State[/MENTION] brought up a good point in regards to world scale earlier from the other thread and I'd like to bring it up again - even though I think its opening a can of worms. Despite any sort of attempts to reform the map to increase activity, it can't beat a condensed Europe even at the loss for other ethnicity and regions. I'm just not sure how interested other players would be on giving up their current spot to fit themselves into an all exclusive European continent, however. I personally have no strong opinion on the fact since I can play either European or Asian countries, but I can't deny the strength at just cutting away every other continent and just have everyone be involved in whatever clusterfuck situation occurs in Europe, regardless of power projection capabilities.

Who will maintain the map that we pick?

We aren't picking maps. The poll is just a device to spur discussion.

Sixia said:

[MENTION=1]Anti-State[/MENTION] brought up a good point in regards to world scale earlier from the other thread and I'd like to bring it up again - even though I think its opening a can of worms. Despite any sort of attempts to reform the map to increase activity, it can't beat a condensed Europe even at the loss for other ethnicity and regions. I'm just not sure how interested other players would be on giving up their current spot to fit themselves into an all exclusive European continent, however. I personally have no strong opinion on the fact since I can play either European or Asian countries, but I can't deny the strength at just cutting away every other continent and just have everyone be involved in whatever clusterfuck situation occurs in Europe, regardless of power projection capabilities.

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I get this argument, and if the forum community decides to go with a European-centered context, I will adapt. That said, I feel we could do the same by altering Ulst's map in the following way:
Create an inset map which shows an enlarged European area, which can function as a standalone map for European people to play in. In this manner, they have a map to reference outside of Europe and interact there and acquire resources and do business. However, the majority of interaction would be within Europe - hence why they get a hi-def map of their own. Outside of Europe, people can choose to dwell, but they do so knowing that their opportunities for interacting are a bit more limited.

Anyways, back to the point Sixia and Anti-State made - would this Europe specific map provide opportunities for non-European play, specifically areas for near-European cultures like Middle East and North Africa? Would the map you envision be comparable to a map which is not a full representation of the globe, but rather a "Map of Europe"?

Given the fact that a major RP is being brewed (troubles between Auraria and Sikandara), I think it would be best to keep the current map, on second thought. We will see how to fill up the empty spaces. I know that Eurodisney is a popular location for most countries, but then let's decide that a larger part of the continent Eurodisney is situated on will be considered Eurodisney.

Sixia said:

@

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brought up a good point in regards to world scale earlier from the other thread and I'd like to bring it up again - even though I think its opening a can of worms. Despite any sort of attempts to reform the map to increase activity, it can't beat a condensed Europe even at the loss for other ethnicity and regions. I'm just not sure how interested other players would be on giving up their current spot to fit themselves into an all exclusive European continent, however. I personally have no strong opinion on the fact since I can play either European or Asian countries, but I can't deny the strength at just cutting away every other continent and just have everyone be involved in whatever clusterfuck situation occurs in Europe, regardless of power projection capabilities.

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As I stated in 'A Map of Europe' before, I am much in favour of preserving non-European cultures and areas to boost role-play and maintain diversity. In terms of activity I wonder if not a few minor NPC-nations could be created? Just one or two per continent to fill the void, provide a semi-fixed history or background and which could be controlled by the Administration to trigger new or old scenarios.

Kyiv said:

We aren't picking maps. The poll is just a device to spur discussion.

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IF my map proposal would be preferred by the majority of the community, may I kindly ask an administrator to reopen my thread 'A Map of Europe', for I had the feeling we were having a good discussion concerning map alterations and so forth? Otherwise we'd have to create yet another thread, while we could easily continue over there. =)

Yujin said:

I get this argument, and if the forum community decides to go with a European-centered context, I will adapt. That said, I feel we could do the same by altering Ulst's map in the following way:
Create an inset map which shows an enlarged European area, which can function as a standalone map for European people to play in. In this manner, they have a map to reference outside of Europe and interact there and acquire resources and do business. However, the majority of interaction would be within Europe - hence why they get a hi-def map of their own. Outside of Europe, people can choose to dwell, but they do so knowing that their opportunities for interacting are a bit more limited.

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A good suggestion, though I wonder what effect(s) it will have in the long run; shall the Europe-centered finally open up to its surroundings or would the periphery simply die out in some way? Reminds me of the 'One country, two systems' policy.

Yujin said:

Anyways, back to the point Sixia and Anti-State made - would this Europe specific map provide opportunities for non-European play, specifically areas for near-European cultures like Middle East and North Africa? Would the map you envision be comparable to a map which is not a full representation of the globe, but rather a "Map of Europe"?

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Again, full representation of the globe. =)

We'll consider all options

Was just thinking: we could cut the America-styled continent from whatever map we eventually take. Asia/Arabia/Africa equivalents do have a historical importance for Eurodisney, we can't really develope the background for Eurodisney nations without also featuring them at least one the sidelines. We don't need a America equivalent. If people want to play a colonial background nation, they can just go to Himyar.

Why not something like this? Obviously not exactly like this, would have to be edited/completely created form scratch in a similar fashion. But just look at it - very focused. Has a periphery. Everyone cares about everything. Basically a rough visualization of what I was talking about earlier.

My question is: do you sail off the edges of the planet? Is there a planet beyond the borders of the map? Or would this be the entire world, not just a region but a world focused on a region - a world that is basically only Europe?

Carentania said:

Was just thinking: we could cut the America-styled continent from whatever map we eventually take. Asia/Arabia/Africa equivalents do have a historical importance for Eurodisney, we can't really develope the background for Eurodisney nations without also featuring them at least one the sidelines. We don't need a America equivalent. If people want to play a colonial background nation, they can just go to Himyar.

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I have to imagine its because of geographical and ethnicity constraints placed upon Himyar (i.e. not temperate North American climate). Of all the continents people would be least interested in actually having their primary nation be placed in, it would probably be Africa from my opinion.

I am in favor of getting rid of America in the event we actually seriously decide if we wanted to, largely due to the fact it was never a continent that was easily reachable from the Old World and is made redundant by the other continents but I'm sure some people would argue otherwise (primarily the players on Occidentia).

[MENTION=1]Anti-State[/MENTION] Seems to work fine more or less for me. Map would still need to be bigger though to allow extra detail if we're going to be regional focused and so smaller nations can fit in if they wanted to play those ones.

[MENTION=945]Yujin[/MENTION] I'd have to imagine we'd need to make it the entire world, as it would seem a little odd to treat the rest of the world as a "here be dragons", unless you use the previous suggested method of an "inset map".

[MENTION=1802]Heroquoia[/MENTION] We used to have NPC nations IIRC but for some reason we decided to stop doing NPC nations altogether, at least that's what I vaguely remember.

Sixia said:

I have to imagine its because of geographical and ethnicity constraints placed upon Himyar (i.e. not temperate North American climate). Of all the continents people would be least interested in actually having their primary nation be placed in, it would probably be Africa from my opinion.

I am in favor of getting rid of America in the event we actually seriously decide if we wanted to, largely due to the fact it was never a continent that was easily reachable from the Old World and is made redundant by the other continents but I'm sure some people would argue otherwise (primarily the players on Occidentia).

[MENTION=1]Anti-State[/MENTION] Seems to work fine more or less for me. Map would still need to be bigger though to allow extra detail if we're going to be regional focused and so smaller nations can fit in if they wanted to play those ones.

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I don't mind getting rid of Occidentia, and then saying Himyar has no Bantu etc., only Hemitic, Semitic, and Amerindian in the south. (Damn the cultural impossibilities) If people wanted to play Bantoid, we could add an Australia for them. It's the least played ethnicity, probably because there are no black people that RP that I know of.

[MENTION=945]Yujin[/MENTION] While I do agree to a race has a factor on what players would want to play (racially and culturally driven bias), I think it also partially stems from the lack of familiarity and interest with Africa's history and culture. There's nothing culturally prevalent that has come out of Africa since Ancient Egypt and Ancient Carthage, as far as most people know of it Africa is a big desert playground for colonial powers to toy with. We've been exposed to cultural exports of North America/Europe/Asia, but I can't say the same for Africa.

I don't really have any sort of opposition to people wanting to play a Himyar nation if they wanted to, but a slight ethnicity shift -could- help activity in Himyar and exceptions can be made to accommodate players. However I ultimately still think Himyar will be underplayed and undervalued, so ultimately I guess right now I'm leaning towards either leaving things as status quo (same continents, different map) or altogether just focus on Europe. Getting rid of Occidentia while I personally think is a good move, its still a more played continent than Himyar could ever hope to.

Sixia said:

[MENTION=945]Yujin[/MENTION] While I do agree to a race has a factor on what players would want to play (racially and culturally driven bias), I think it also partially stems from the lack of familiarity and interest with Africa's history and culture. There's nothing culturally prevalent that has come out of Africa since Ancient Egypt and Ancient Carthage, as far as most people know of it Africa is a big desert playground for colonial powers to toy with. We've been exposed to cultural exports of North America/Europe/Asia, but I can't say the same for Africa.

I don't really have any sort of opposition to people wanting to play a Himyar nation if they wanted to, but a slight ethnicity shift -could- help activity in Himyar and exceptions can be made to accommodate players. However I ultimately still think Himyar will be underplayed and undervalued, so ultimately I guess right now I'm leaning towards either leaving things as status quo (same continents, different map) or altogether just focus on Europe. Getting rid of Occidentia while I personally think is a good move, its still a more played continent than Himyar could ever hope to.

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Oh, my cynicism about why African's aren't popular runs much deeper than my snide comment. It runs far deeper in our society than "There's no blacks who RP" or "Lack of familiarity with African culture." I'd just rather not go on that tangent and just accept the fact that, in our entire forum history, Bangala has been the only active African nation that wasn't blaxploitation.

Kyiv said:

We aren't picking maps. The poll is just a device to spur discussion.

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I realize that. Mine was just an attempt to weed out the option that is attached to a frustrated mapmaker that in the future will make one or two updates, but than realizes all the requests and complaints are too much and just gives up on it, leaving us with nothing. I think we've got a good thing going now. There is hardly any rp here anyway. Maybe I should have just said that