World Maps = Distorted Planet

[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 (SPOILER) 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....?

[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. But then, It's widely known that I have too much time to think about weird things, so maybe it's just me.

[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 , 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 . it's nothing more than a map, just like the ones we're used to reading .

[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.


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.


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.


This results in a toroidal shape.


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

[DarkLadyNyara]

Aha! So it is donut-shaped.

[Tgunz262]

Right, that's what I said.

Nice use of MSPaint there DocFrance to help illustrate.