A sense of direction

[Suno_Regin]

This is confusing...I'd rather stick to north south east west, but with the addition of altitude being on different levels of Yliakum. For example, North 6 (6th level), or south 4 (4th level), or something of the sort. I haven't even studied into levels but I think this would be a pretty simple way of doing things. =/

[Nikodemus]

Go ahead, noone is stopping you. For those who are capable of the more expanded understanding, they will also know theyr location, what you never find out with simple NSWE. But you should know also the directions in relation to the Crystal, in case a NPC describe direction in this way. Noone ask you to do any math though.

[Pizzasgood]

Maybe it's possible to make specific types of magic fields, which attract weakly but over long distances.  Except maybe there are more than two varieties.  Maybe there are six.  Each bronze door could have the spell cast on it, so that it radiates that field.  So if you need to find direction, you just cast a spell that points to whichever door.  That would be a little complex for using with a coordinate system because the doors are close enough that the fields aren't uniform, but it would work for "go towards such and such door".  Also, comparing all the angles would give you elevation, me thinks.  I haven't thunk hard yet though, but it seems like if you compared all six "vertical" angles and all six "horizontal" angles, and you know the exact positions of all six doors (assuming they aren't perfectly level and perfectly spaced), you could do some math to know exactly where you are.  But that's probably pretty complicated unless you set up some expensive machinery to do it with gears and stuff (possible, but ridiculously complex).  Of course, you only need three of the doors to have the spell, not all six.  That simplifies things a little.

No, I haven't worked on the models yet.  I got inducted onto the team to work on Puppy Linux version 3.03, so I wound up devoting the time I was going to spend modeling to working on my boot-splash program instead.  I'll get these things finished eventually, but don't anybody hold their breath (excepting the Kran, I guess).


Oh, and to the dude who thought this was all stupid, it's not just about getting lost.  Somebody will inevitably need precise maps (When building an aqueduct between cities, or a road, or planning a tunnel where you can't see jack, just eyeballing it doesn't cut it).  For precise maps, you need precise instruments to determine your exact position in a coordinate system.

[Jeraphon]

and you know the exact positions of all six doors

Sorry, there are seven sets. They aren't perfectly spaced, but they're all on the Dome (first level.)

[bilbous]

Maybe there are six coordinates relating to the six ways: Crystal and Dark are up and down, the other four correspond to NSEW. This would allow you to calculate your position magically by the relative strengths of the ways. I am standing at the North Pole so my Blue way rules! but my Red is practically non-existent.

If you look at this it looks very much like the coordinate axes xyz so it is not too far-fetched but it is probably just coincidental.

[Josellis]

I really like all the ideas, however, I don't think we would want to scare newbies... It is already hard for them to get used to the whole world, so they ask for directions then the person says "Oh, easy, just go wallward for 45 meters until you reach an angle with the sun of 56.2680395° then turn left. Trust me, you can't miss it!"

Here is my thought for directions. Of course, I am using the classic NSWE names, however, the names could be changed. Also, when I refer to the "Distance", it would be the the distance from the center.

NORTH: Moving clockwise along a Distance
SOUTH: Moving anti-clockwise along a Distance
EAST: Moving towards the center
WEST: Moving away from the center
ALTITUDE: The distance from the bottom of the stalactite

To give a precise coordinate, we would have a degree, then a Distance then an altitude. So for hydlaa, it might be 167,245,3058. Which would mean that it is at the 167th degree (where is 0°, to decide), 245m from the center and 3058m from the base of the stalactite. Then, we could be even more precise by having decimals. e.g. Hydlaa Library: 169.45,246.86,3051.34. Of course, this can even work in the Labyrinths (assuming that people actually have been able to map the inside). We would just have some possible sub-zero altitudes and some very big distances.


An advantage of this is that on a small scale (for example on the scale of a town), the N-S lines would not be curved and then regions can be easily mapped.
Another advantage is that having four coordinates, this can easily correspond to the four sides of a map. If we had system with 6 or 7 coordinates, this would be fairly inconvenient to display on a small scale.

Of course, for maps covering large areas, either the map will have to be distorted (like the current rectangular maps of the earth) or drawn like half-circles or circles.

[Nikodemus]

"Oh, easy, just go wallward for 45 meters until you reach an angle with the sun of 56.2680395° ...

but you do realise, that going wallward direction your angle doesn't change in the slightest? Unless you were going to tell, "go 45 meters in the 56.2680395° direction from the point you stand on. " what is nonsense, because i don't have a frakking idea what tool would give you so precise number. The best you can get is 56,5^o if you really wish to look beetwen the scale lines.
What is equal to Wallward-Rightward if you take Wallward in your actual spot as 0^o
Or it is equal to N-E direction btw if you take N as 0^o. In real you tell people to go 56.2680395^o or rather you tell them to go N-E for instance?

In short, you people who want to see things complicated, try looking at the from simple perspective.

Another thing is if one start a character, and he know $@#& about the setting the only option for him is to roleplay a peasant who just left his village in search of adventure. One may roleplay someone who is going to be cartographer if he as player knows null about the in-game cartographing. And if people start giving someone (newbie) directig with angles and numbers, no wonder he won't understand. And if they continue doing so, it is their way of roleplaying, playing smartass, who don't eve think about helping a 'dump' farmer.  He was playing in farmer all his life till got bored. But he still knows nothing about anothing else. He has to learn.

As for attitude idea, i don't see a point i giving it, while showing direction. (if you want to give it so extremaly precise, your free will, but there is no reason most of the time. ) All you need to know is on what level is the place you are going, ad you instantly know its ~height. Further, I don't think one should count the height from bottom. One should count it from the Crystal to the bottom. The lower, the bigger the value. Simly from practical reasons.

As for distorting the maps, there is no reason at all for doing so. Because we don't have there globe --> surface problem. We have surface into surface, so i don't know what distortion you are trying to introduce.
And you can't say that East is equal to Edgeward and West equal to Wallward, because it is correct only when North direction is  perpendicular to line covering Edgeward and Wallward directions on the left side of the Crystal, when you look in the true north direction. Every instance, beside that, these directions are completly unrelated.

Did you read the thread carefully? because somehow as you see above, i can't see sense in most of your reasoning.

[Pizzasgood]

And you can't say that East is equal to Edgeward and West equal to Wallward, because it is correct only when North direction is  perpendicular to line covering Edgeward and Wallward directions on the left side of the Crystal, when you look in the true north direction. Every instance, beside that, these directions are completly unrelated.

I think the idea was more that in general people would give directions like, "go 1 km clockwise and .25 wallward", but just replacing clockwise/counter-clockwise and wallward/edgeward with east/west and north/south.  So then north/south/east/west would become relative directions based on your position around the center rather than "absolute" directions like they are on Earth.

If you ask me, I think the basic idea makes perfect sense, but that using the names north/south/east/west would just add confusion.  Either use fitting names similar to clockwise and wallward, or use unique Yliakian names.

The whole angles thing is mainly for instruments and maps, and precise directions.  Average people would skip the angles and use distances, "automatically" adjusting for curvature when traveling over longer distances out of experience.

And as for seven doors, great.  Seven is a prime example of a lucky number.

[Nikodemus]

... but just replacing clockwise/counter-clockwise and wallward/edgeward with east/west and north/south.  So then north/south/east/west would become relative directions based on your position around the center rather than "absolute" directions like they are on Earth.

But what if we really have magnetic field? I believe people would take advantage of that, as i believe that at least one race, which arrived to Yliakum, developed compass in the world they came from. especially that these directions are already used by NPCs.
Then, how would you call these directions? That was my point.
Unless Josellis assumed there is no magnetic field and the Crystal is the only way of showing direction with use of a device.

[Pizzasgood]

Which is why I said this:

If you ask me, I think the basic idea makes perfect sense, but that using the names north/south/east/west would just add confusion.

Thinking about it, another thing the average Joe could have, if people did use angles somewhat, is a basic conversion plate.  I just make that up, probably could be named better.  Anyways, it would be a pie shaped thing, covering maybe 45 degrees or so.  It could have arcs along it at set distances from the point.  There would be a scale, so that one cm away from the point is like 10 km in reality.  The arcs lengths would be marked appropriately.  Then there could be straight-line paths covering various angles, also marked.  It could also have extra arcs showing the average inner-radius of each level, or just the level it's made for, to help with visualization.

People who deal with the angles often would memorize enough of the conversions to make fairly accurate estimations, but this way the average Joe would have something to just look at to say, "Oh, 45 degrees at 50 km is about 38km, or about 39 if I follow the curve..."  Following the curve would usually only matter along the wall or the edge, in which case it would be nice to have those distances.  Also, it could easily be incorporated into some other device to cut down on any added bulk you'd have to be carrying.  Just have it printed on the back of a map or something (by print, I don't mean with a laser printer.  I'm talking block-printing or stenciled or what-not)

[Josellis]

If there is a magnitic field, wouldn't it be from the rest of the world around Yliakum? Unless it is a magical field which would make much more sense in the setting.

I also read somewhere that compasses won't go ingame (where I can't remember), but if this is true, then there can't be any tools to show the nomorthern and southern magnetics poles. If there were magical poles, then there might be some magical spell which might be able to give the ability to the person to give the direction of crystal and dark magic poles.

[Nikodemus]

Alright, the degrees to distances conversion plate. For the first level. It obviously is going to be differet for other levels as everyone knows ;P.
If believe the book, and make some assumptions:
Let's say the distance from Azyre Sun to the surface, which includes the outer curcumference of first level is equal to 10km
And the Inner curcumgerence could be 1km lower for instance
then the conversion plate looks like this:

showing the radius from 15km to 25km as the book say. The scale is every 500m. So two (the dark and lighter rectangles give 1km) So you can say you radius in exactness to 500m. Not very precise it turned out. One could probably draw the rectangles with exactness to 100m, with the compass outer ring as you see there:



And some table i did in excel, for those, who didn't get it yet ;P Even though i tried to be clear as much as possible.

radius	height	bottom interval	tan(zeta)	upper interval	angle	angle hop
	11050
15000	11000	0.736666667	0.733333333	0.73	36.24+0.10°-0.10°	1.02
15500	10950	0.709677419	0.706451613	0.703225806	35.22+0.10°-0.10°	0.97
16000	10900	0.684375	0.68125	0.678125	34.25+0.10°-0.10°	0.95
16500	10850	0.660606061	0.657575758	0.654545455	33.3+0.10°-0.10°	0.89
17000	10800	0.638235294	0.635294118	0.632352941	32.41+0.10°-0.10°	0.87
17500	10750	0.617142857	0.614285714	0.611428571	31.54+0.10°-0.10°	0.83
18000	10700	0.597222222	0.594444444	0.591666667	30.71+0.10°-0.10°	0.82
18500	10650	0.578378378	0.575675676	0.572972973	29.89+0.10°-0.10°	0.78
19000	10600	0.560526316	0.557894737	0.555263158	29.11+0.10°-0.10°	0.7
19500	10550	0.543589744	0.541025641	0.538461538	28.41+0.10°-0.10°	0.72
20000	10500	0.5275	0.525	0.5225	27.69+0.10°-0.10°	0.72
20500	10450	0.512195122	0.509756098	0.507317073	26.97+0.10°-0.10°	0.64
21000	10400	0.497619048	0.495238095	0.492857143	26.33+0.10°-0.10°	0.65
21500	10350	0.48372093	0.481395349	0.479069767	25.68+0.10°-0.10°	0.61
22000	10300	0.470454545	0.468181818	0.465909091	25.07+0.10°-0.10°	0.61
22500	10250	0.457777778	0.455555556	0.453333333	24.46+0.10°-0.10°	0.57
23000	10200	0.445652174	0.443478261	0.441304348	23.89+0.10°-0.10°	0.58
23500	10150	0.434042553	0.431914894	0.429787234	23.31+0.10°-0.10°	0.53
24000	10100	0.422916667	0.420833333	0.41875	22.78+0.10°-0.10°	0.49
24500	10050	0.412244898	0.410204082	0.408163265	22.29+0.10°-0.10°	0.49
25000	10000	0.402	0.4	0.398	21.8+0.10°-0.10°	~0.48
	9950

Since each level is hilly, looking though current PS maps, i assumed that there will be no place, which goes higher than 50m above the avarage and no lower than 50m. This give 100m, though the zone i been checking has diference of 70m at most ;>

You bored yet? ;P

Because of that i added bottom and upper intervals, but it proven, that the height fluctuations don't have much effect on finding out your radius, basing on the avarage height and the vertical angle.

Tan(zeta) is height/radius

angle hop is the angle 'i'-'i+1'

hmm

If there is a magnitic field, wouldn't it be from the rest of the world around Yliakum? Unless it is a magical field which would make much more sense in the setting.

What are you saying by that? i don't see conclussion. :s
Explain maybe ?

[Faldor]

Wow, first of all I must say that after 4 pages of this discussion, I commend all of you that have put forth the effort to come up with these mathmatically and scientifically correct methods of determining and communicating direction in a world set along a ring shaped terrain.

That being said, I agree with those that have expressed concern over these methods.  They are entirely too complicated and confusing.  Newcomers to Yliakum will not understand them and will abandon those directions (or worse, abandon the game) for more simple explanations.

I do understand the issues with only using directions based on NSEW, as they are overly simple and cause problems with movement (like when technically one town my be directly SW of another, only it happens to be on the opposite side of the ring!).  NSEW still has its place on a small scale, such as within a town/region.  I don't see the need, however, for going to the opposite extreme and introducing complicated coordinate systems.

Currently, most people (in RL and in-game) use landmarks for traveling between two places.  "Go out the east gate and continue through the first canyon.  Go up over the hill on your right and you will see a group of consumers.  Just past them is the cave you are looking for."  To me, and apparently many others, that is simple and works as it is very descriptive, even if a bit wordy.  Accoring to the discussions here, the revised directions would be "Go out of the clockwise gate and head 200 meters.  Turn edgeword for 112 meters and you will find the cave you seek.".  That is much more complicated and is just about as wordy.  I won't even go into what the description would look like using degrees and such nonesense.   

I think that we should stick with NSEW when used on a small scale, such as a particular town or region, and then adopt the clockwise/counter-clockwise/wallward/edgewood when describing long distances.

I.E.  In Hydlaa, Harnquist is just south of the plaza fountain, and the arena even further south of that.  Ojaveda can be found about half way between the wall and edge, by leaving the east gate of Hydlaa and traveling in a clockwise direction.

Now of course these new directions would be greatly aided with a simple compass (magical or otherwise) that gives your location around the ring.  It wouldn't need to tell you height, as you should know which level you are on by the terrain, people and other surroundings (not to mention that you travelled there!).  One problem we face without the compass is that I have yet to see the edge of the level and look up/down into the level above/below.  Also, I'm not sure that just because I come up against a great mountain that appears impassable, that I am actually at the "wall" of the current level.  I'm sure the edgeward part of this is intentional by the devs as we don't currently have access to multiple levels, but the point still stands.

So for those of you who now think I don't know what I want  , here is the executive summary.

Keep NSEW for small scale (town, region) and use clockwise/counter-clockwise/edgeward/wallward for long distances between two points.  The use of relative positions can still be used where appropriate and according to personal preference.  Finally add a simple compass, in the shape of a ring (you can make it magical, polarized, magnetic, etc) that shows your current position, both around the ring and between the edge and the wall.  The ring should still have a NSEW on it, otherwise you would be totally lost if you rotated the ring.     The compass would not need to, and in my opinion should not, show height, as distance around a ring and edgeward/wallward is all relative to the level you are on.

Just my two trias.

[Nikodemus]

When complaining about the idea being to complicated for newbies, see my second post on this page. Noone is forced to know everyhing. Not to mention that most people who start playing, don't even realise about the shape of the world they play in.
Also to explain to all, who hope for a compass icon in corner of their screen to show there where they are. A compass spoken about in this thread is an actual item, which
a) you need to get (expensive from its nature, so don't expect everyone to have one, especially that it looks like many would find it to complicated  and never learn how to use it. It is fine, it is good, it shows the level of knowledge of the late mediaval people^^)
b) you need to use, so stop by and see what it show. Hide or move from your sight and walk again.

Noone stop people from pointing a direction in various ways! Noone ever! People are free to show ther directions as they wish. Only they will find themselves helples in the middle of nowhere, lost, with noone to help, unable to recognize any landmarks. With the described compass, if you actually cared to learn how to use it, you can't really get lost (in Yliakum!).
I want to make it clear, so that no one say the idea is complicated again, without repeating the same arguments. Noone would be forced to use it! And Edge... Wall... Right, Leftward aren't complicated at all. They are much alike like NSWE. But no wonder they sound unusual to people who used NSWE all their life long.
But remember, in Yliakum, you RP someone else than you, you should try to RP that person as well as you can, and learning the enviroment he/she live in.

Saying that, I have no idea why you want to use NSWE on short distances :s



It is as simple as saying Harnquist is edgeward from fountain, arena further in that direction. You leave to Ojaveda, by going through Leftward Hydlaa gate.

And you are another one who complicate things and appearently didn't get the discussion there right. By saying "Go out of the clockwise gate and head 200 meters.  Turn edgeword for 112 meters and you will find the cave you seek." this sounds very similiar to Go out through east gate, head 200m, turn south, walk 112 m and there is your cave. Really...bah.

It wouldn't need to tell you height

Lol, if you know how to make a compas show your actual height, I be glad to hear, but for now you are the only one who thinks the compass can show height (actual working method). You must think so in the first place, if you think it doesn't need to show it.

Finally add a simple compass, in the shape of a ring

You need to describe how it works, because otherwise we don't know what you are talking about. Only guessing

[Pizzasgood]

Yep.  Things are only complicated when you try to calculate your precise (or therabouts) location, which is where all the talk about angles comes in.  Few people would actually need to do that.  I mean, how many people know their coordinates in latitude and longitude here on Earth?  That's the equivalent to what the more complex discussions have been involving.  For that matter, calculating your exact position in Yliakum is much simpler than trying to calculate your exact position in a similarly sized area of Earth, due to the big honking landmarks.

Most people would use either landmark based directions, or wallward/edgeward type directions.  Just like in real life, where you hardly ever give directions in the forum of latitude/longitude.  But they're still important to have for mapping purposes and large scale directions in, say, a military setting.

As far as knowing which way is wallward and being confused about it, same goes for north.  On Earth, I can just look at the sun to figure out which way is which (really, some of the buffoons out there who don't know which window looks north make me ashamed to be human...).  Well, when you're in a big cave, you can use cave formations to tell which end is the north end, assuming there are large enough formations to see them from 40+ km away (~24 MILES)!

The near wall, on the other hand, would be less than half the distance away.  So knowing wallward would be much easier than knowing north, and as with north, the other three directions come automatically once you know the first.  Also, think about this practically.  You live in a place where there's a big honking wall on one horizon.  You would naturally say, "oh, that town is off toward the wall, veering a little to the right".  That's far more natural than something based off an invisible magnetic field.  Sure, the directions would change as you go around the loop, but big deal.  Big cities or bronze doors could be used as reference points when that becomes an issue.  For most people, it wouldn't even matter.  How many people in the real world actually care about the fact that true north isn't the same as magnetic north, and that the amount it's different by actually changes if they travel too far east or west?  Not the average person, that's for sure.

Also, because I'm naturally paranoid, I have to comment on this:

you should know which level you are on by the terrain, people and other surroundings (not to mention that you traveled there!)

Who says I traveled there?  Maybe someone drugged me, and when I woke up I was on a completely different level.  But anyways, elevation is only important for finding your distance out from the axis of the stalactite, which only matters if you're using the coordinate system.  In which case, you would need the actual elevation to get precise numbers, though you could estimate simply based on your level.