A sense of direction

[evil scotsman]

Planeshift has a problem, namely the compass, or to be more accurate, the cardinal directions.

Since we inhabit a spherical world we are used to using the cardinal directions we know from our childhood, North, South, East and West. However Planeshift is not spherical, and our use of Earth based directions have many major problems in our Cylindrical world.

Mostly it's a question of names, and settings. Since the world of Planeshift is cylindrical in nature, north and south lose their meaning as directions, instead i'd like to propose the adoption of more useful names, such as sunward, wallward, clockwise and anticlockwise ( or perhaps widdershins ), much the same as the conventions used in Discworld, which work in their special circular setting.

At the moment we still use the familiar north south naming system, which works only because of the restricted nature of the world we have at present, however as the world enlarges and grows, the convention of referring to the Bronze Doors as 'northward' will have to change.

In the world of yliakum the inhabitants would soon have to abandon the earth based systems they were used to, instead they would develop a naming system that described directions based on the world they found themselves in thus sunward, which would be the direction one would walk in order to go from the wall to the edge of the level, from any point in the circle this would be a consistent direction similarly the converse could be known as wallward, which would be away from the sun, toward the wall. Equally clockwise would be to walk around the level in a right hand direction, anti-clockwise, or widdershins a left hand one. Logically to give directions a combination of sunward and clockwise might be used in order to describe the location of a particular place, for instance, the bronze doors might be described as 'following the road wallward', and north gate becomes the wall gate, the south gate the sun gate, etc.

I'm not saying that these names would be the ones that would be used, more discussing the eventual adoption of some system of naming of directions in a more IC manner than the OOC manner we use at present, obviously the details will need some fine tuning, and there will always be problems with navigation in a world that has no real analogue in our own experience I'm really just trying to call attention to an issue that may confront us some time in the future as the world changes around us.

[Ver]

The PS world is not cylinder-shaped. Yliakum is part of a much larger planet; Yliakum qua is a vast network of descending caves below the ground. Years from now in far more developed releases of the game (after 1.0), we may get tastes of the surface.

[Jeraphon]

Scotsman, settings is aware of this issue and has discussed it many a time, and in fact have even discussed a discworld-style directional naming system.

One of these days we'll have something viable but until then, maybe it would be best to stick to landmarks and relative direction.

[evil scotsman]

For the purposes of navigation it's simpler to call it cylindrical since most navigation will be done on any given cylindrically shaped level, each level is indeed smaller than the one above, but follows the same shape, navigating vertically is simply a case of either up a wall, or down an edge, ( which is also the wall of the lower level), however navigation on each level must involve either travelling toward that level's wall, it's edge, or circularly around that level.

It's not a network of caves, it's one single cave hollowed out inside the stalactite, yes, it's part of a larger world, however this has no bearing on the problems of navigation, or the naming of directions within yliakum, in the future we may indeed have other areas to explore, but this is not certain yet and indeed will present other problems, including navigation.

*edit*

Scotsman, settings is aware of this issue and has discussed it many a time, and in fact have even discussed a discworld-style directional naming system.

One of these days we'll have something viable but until then, maybe it would be best to stick to landmarks and relative direction.

Ah, when I didn't find anything relevant in the forum I wondered, since I couldn't believe that no-one else had seen the potential problems, glad to see it's been discussed, I agree that at present, given the size of our world, that landmark and relative direction work, it just seems a little OOC to use north-south and such.

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

As with many posts I am glad players are discussing it. We have talked about it but players showing support for certain changes does provide leverage. Thanks.

[Zan]

Good point. Thinking about the situation for a few minutes gave me an idea that could be used instead of the four directions we all know.

I'm assuming all the levels of Yliakum have the shape of a circle, without the center. Now the most logical thing to do is divide that circle into sections. Whether we stick to the good old system and use four quadrants or maybe take over the clock system and use twelve, doesn't really matter. I'll leave that up to the settings to decide. One thing that does matter is getting a never changing, obvious for all, starting point.

Here we use magnetism for a starting point but that hasn't been known forever, before we used the sun and stars. Since Yliakum is a stalagtite on a bigger world, which also has a sun .. and we can see the effects of the sun through the Azure Crystal ... why can't we also use the sun? I mean there has to be one side of the crystal that darkens first when the sun sets and one side that lights up first when the sun comes up in the above world. Personally, I'd use that.

[Parallo]

No it all lights up instantly Zan. I've sat and watches it in game for days on end to check.

But seriously, Zan is right. Based of what he has said you could have a system that is basicaly North East South and West with new names. Not terribly original but it works and seems more realistic for practicality.

[Nikodemus]

First of, I think each PS map lacks the Azure Sun in in a postion where it realy should be. Each map is in the same bounding box, where something what looks like Azure Sun is at the top. I think that as we move around, we should see the Crystal in different places. I gues there is a difference we you sit near level edge and compare it to looking from the level wall.

So, with this, by looking at the Crystal, we know that facing it we go directly towards the level edge. Having it at our left side we are walking around the level opposing clock direction. With the crystal behind us, we go towards the level wall. With it at our right side we go around the level in direction as the clock goes. So one could call each of these directions N E S W... and this is how it is on our real surface planet too. For instance going constantly west, you would reach the point you started from.
So, all in all, we should have 4 directions, but I'm sure they would call them differenty in Yliakum, coz even if the priniple remains the same, standing 50km away you can't say the direction arrows show the same directions as before. The scale of the phenomenon is much smaller.
For instance, you can create words, which sounds similiar to In_Front, Behind, At_Right and At_Left in the language of the first race in Yliakum, or the First race, which cared to create directions ;)

I also like Zans idea with dividing each level into zones basing on polar coordinate system. Because it is what i been thinking about too since long.
Because if you know i which zone you are, from many things, you can know for instance what is the distance to another zone.
There could be 6 main zones, with each starting every 60^o And then each of these divided further into 6, what give a zone every 10^o.
Adding to this, there could be a ring every 5km for radial divide of the surface.
This sounds complicated, so i would expect only smarter and educated people to operate with this. A commoner should know only the 6 base zones.

As for compas, i gues the setting team already knows about an idea with device, which always show the direction of the Azure Sun. And if there is magnetic field, this mixed with casual compas. So, two arrows and possibility to measure the angle beetwen them. This way ability to tell in which zone you are i think.

[evil scotsman]

I think that indeed we would tend to use the azure sun as our natural centre point, and all major directions would be based on this, a polar coordinate system would naturally follow from this, with the divisions radiating out like the spokes of a wheel, terminating naturally at the wall, so each 'region' would be a wedge shape.

Language tends to evolve to fit the environment and culture of it's users, so I think that naturally we would refer to directions based on the position of the sun, with reference to our present position, so walking away from the sun would be something like 'anti-sun', 'wallward', or simply 'away', and toward would be 'sunward', or perhaps simply 'inward', perhaps the leftward and rightward directions would be as simply named.

I like the idea of a compass based on two systems, since this could also provide position information to a suitably skilled navigator, yet be simple enough to provide basic direction for the novice.
A system based on polar coords and a two system compass could be incredibly sophisticated, yet easy enough to use for new players, although compasses were not standard equipment for the average person in medieval times.

[Jeraphon]

Good ideas, guys; keep it coming. Personally I prefer wallward and "edgeward," although that wouldn't work too well on the Pit level, which has no edge seeing as it's the floor.

Protip: think of eight sections as this part's been done, even though it's meaningless to the player at this point. 

[Zan]

Isn't the pit section fully submerged though? And if I'm not mistaken not all that big either? I don't think a lot of direction is needed there ... you can replace "edgeward" with "central" though.

[Nikodemus]

Jeraphon. That bottom level is so small anyway, that you can hardly get lost there. (or it is deeper than wider i think hm)  But indeed, they may need a coords system there too. Or a system, which helps to tell where you are. Near the fact that a polar system wouldn't work right there, the bottom level isn't just the surface - it is a 3D space. It is an underwater world.
So because of that fact Nolthirs and Klyros could feel the need to have a different coords system than the rest of Yliakum anyway.

I can't say how such a system could look like. They could need a deepth indicator... A tool which measures the preasure. But I don't know i Yliakum is on high enough tech level (it is past medieval).
Maybe there could be underwater waybuoys (container filled with air, attached to the ground at the bottom), which float at given deepths.

[Pizzasgood]

They could need a deepth indicator... A tool which measures the preasure.

They could just use their bodies.  Water's dense enough that if you lived in it naturally, you'd probably be able to tell how deep you are just by what it feels like.  That would cover the majority of people.  They'd still need something precise for records and such though.

Cylindrical coords sounds great to me.  The nature of the world as a whole is irrelevant, since to most people, Yliakum is the whole world.

As for one side of the crystal lighting up first, that isn't very likely.  The "ceiling" of the stalactite is still miles below the surface, so there's a very large amount of crystal and distance for the light to go through.  Partly due to the angles, and partly due to the sheer amount of crystal, the light will be pretty evenly dispersed by the time it gets to the bottom.

[bilbous]

Seems to me we need a three part coordinate system: degree, radius, and height. You specify one direction as being 0(360) degrees, set the radius to be the greatest internal distance from the designated center, and depth from top to bottom. This would allow you to specify any location within the stalactite and even outside. A compass could be nothing more than a needle shaped shard of the crystal within a liquid filled glass ball. Precise markings on the outside of the globe would give you all three coordinates. It may well need some magic to ensure the markings are always oriented correctly. This would assume that such a shard would exhibit homeostatic tendencies, if I can stretch the meaning. A more simple compass might require no magic but for the user to face the crystal, less useful, of course if inside a cave or building or whatnot where the crystal is not visible. Such places may have markings to indicate the appropriate direction if they are common places for people to be.

[evil scotsman]

Good ideas, guys; keep it coming. Personally I prefer wallward and "edgeward," although that wouldn't work too well on the Pit level, which has no edge seeing as it's the floor.

Protip: think of eight sections as this part's been done, even though it's meaningless to the player at this point. 

'Edgeward' works fine, describes the direction of travel perfectly, and since the lowest two levels are flooded there is no problem using edgeward to describe inward travel, (toward the centre of the 'lake').

I'm glad the there is mention of quadrants already, or rather 'octants', which ties up neatly with the octarchy, or am I extrapolating too far to fast?

I like the thinking on compasses, obviously these too will have been discussed, but the eventual system used should be interesting to navigate with. Already I can see some thought of levels of skill being thought of, with regard to compass use.

As far as the light from the crystal is concerned, i'd expect that a crystal this large would have a lot of internal reflection/refraction going on, and this would probably mean that not only would the light be diffuse and non-directional, but would probably be subject to transmission delays, and this would also explain why the crystal is never truly dark, even at night. Anyone know what the refractive index of the crystal is anyway?

Finally, as a bit of a science geek, I do tend to think of the physics of the Planeshift world as a natural part of the settings, since regardless of the fact it's a medieval fantasy setting, the science still has to work, for me anyway.