World Maps = Distorted Planet

[Tgunz262]

I was just thinking about how the world maps work. Whenever you get to an edge you always are jumped to the other side. This works fine for East <-> West but for North <-> South it breaks down. Unless we are missing half the planet, and the game just skips over the far half, the planet must be shaped like a doughnut in order to jump East, West, North, and South edges like that.

Just a thought.

[TheSpoonyBard]

Don't you think trying to explain the physics of a videogame where magic, summons, and monsters run rife is a little pointless, if not impossible?

[Doomgaze]

Yes, most RPG worlds are toruses.

[DJZen]

I don't see why it would be. The NE, NW, SE and SW corners all meet up. Maybe it's just a funky map.

[rubah]

it makes sense.

You'd be better off to dispute the distortion of using a square map, when the worlds are most likely round.

ff2 and ff8 had the right ideas, round rotating world maps (I'm fairly sure 7 didn't have one, 10 obviously didn't, 5 didn't, what about 6 or 9 or 4? ) except they're a pain to navigate.

So they should use the maps that curve at the edges, because everyone knows square maps show the continents as false sizes. (I can't remember whether it's that the poles are larger than they shoud be, or smaller)

But then when you consider that the world is square, I guess it doesn't matter.

(I hate geography anyways)

[Doc Sark]

It is a doughnut world. You are quite correct.

[ljkkjlcm9]

May I make note that just because a map is square, doesn't mean the world is, I mean honestly. It is possible for it to be a sphere, and in fact they all are.

THE JACKEL

[rubah]

Uh uh.

It says so in ff6!:D

[udsuna]

Yeah, but we get to see the planets, or models of them, in FF7, FF8, and FF9. Very much round. I do wanna know why, when I go to the north pole, I suddenly find myself at the south pole. That's one funky navigation system in my ship. I know: the answer is that the programmers got either lazy or stupid. Your pick- I don't wanna get in the middle of that argument.

[Ultima Shadow]

Hey, why do you think the name of the company is "Square" in the first place. :chuckle:

Ok, well... seriously... I really don't have a problem with it and I can't see why you have either.
How could it be done in a better way? :greenie:

[louby_4eva]

The planet is round, you can get square maps of this planet, but it doesn't mean it's doughnut shaped. It'd be quite weird if it was doughnut shaped though, could you fall through the middle??

[TheSpoonyBard]

There's probably a really long scientific explanation involving the words 'gravity', 'perpetual suspension', 'vortex', 'limbo', and 'black hole'.

[Craig]

The planet is round, you can get square maps of this planet, but it doesn't mean it's doughnut shaped. It'd be quite weird if it was doughnut shaped though, could you fall through the middle??

But if you traveled to the North Pole and then went North a little more you wouldn't magically appear in the South Pole would you.

[rubah]

oh come on now.

It just means that the north pole is all around the edges of the map, and the south pole is smack daub in the middle:P

[Doors]

1.Its a map
2.If the whole world maps of our earth were right then antarctica would be the size of Eurasia. Its not.

[Rase]

<--- DOesn't care.

Seriously, does it matter? As long as I can get everywhere, I'm happy.

Oh, and FFIV definatly had a sphere shaped world, you can see it if you return to "Earth" from the "Moon" in the Big Whale

[Captain Maxx Power]

If I've figured this out for it to the work the world must be shaped like a four cornered triangle, but with the corners on the inside....? :confused:

[DarkLadyNyara]

Don't you think trying to explain the physics of a videogame where magic, summons, and monsters run rife is a little pointless, if not impossible?
Precisely. That's why it's so much fun to debate. :D But then, It's widely known that I have too much time to think about weird things, so maybe it's just me. :p

[kalaspappa]

But what if north or south is in the middle of the map, and vice versa end up with eachother at the upper/lower of the map.
Aha!

[Yuffie514]

I was just thinking about how the world maps work. Whenever you get to an edge you always are jumped to the other side. This works fine for East <-> West but for North <-> South it breaks down. Unless we are missing half the planet, and the game just skips over the far half, the planet must be shaped like a doughnut in order to jump East, West, North, and South edges like that.

Just a thought.

i really don't care :mad: , but i do get a better view of where a certain location is with the square map ;) . hey, it's not you're going to fall off the planet :D . it's nothing more than a map, just like the ones we're used to reading :p .

[Snap Jumper]

This whole thread makes my head hurt. Maybe there's a warp zone somewhere near the north and south poles or edges of the map. Or maybe the poles are east and west. Maybe the planets are shaped like a cylinder or a Pringles jar. But that doesn't make any sense either.....

[DocFrance]

Say you're travelling north on a normal spherical planet with north and south poles. No matter where you are on the planet's surface, if you're travelling north, you will eventually arrive at the north pole. Once you reach the north pole, any direction you choose to travel after that will be south. In short: if you travel north, you will eventually begin travelling south, and vice-versa.

Compare this to a toroidal RPG map. Start from any point and travel north. Eventually, you'll reach the north edge of the map, but unlike a normal sphere, you will continue travelling north. In short, if you travel north, you will continue to travel north. A few illustrations will prove my point.

First, something everyone can agree on about world maps in RPGs.
http://home.ripway.com/2004-3/80243/map1.PNG

Because every point along the north edge corresponds to a point along the south edge, this is like wrapping the map around like a tube.
http://home.ripway.com/2004-3/80243/map2.PNG

Now, because the same thing can be said about the east and west edges, you can wrap the tube around and connect the two edges.
http://home.ripway.com/2004-3/80243/map3.PNG

This results in a toroidal shape.
http://home.ripway.com/2004-3/80243/map4.PNG

I hope you all enjoyed today's lesson in non-Euclidian geometry.

[DarkLadyNyara]

Aha! So it is donut-shaped. :D

[Tgunz262]

Right, that's what I said.

Nice use of MSPaint there DocFrance to help illustrate.