Less overall maps, but a few updated and possibly bigger ones

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Ilkka Bruno Somero
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Helbreath as a game was originally planned to support around 600-800 ACTIVE players. Currently the game peaks around 200 active players (probably not even that).
The game has way too many maps for the active playerbase, which kills the game. 95% Of the time its a single player game outside of town unless you have co-ordinated action with other players, thats not what an MMO is supposed to feel like.

We should have way less maps than we currently have, but at the same time adding new or updating old maps would be great new content. Maps should also have more interest points within them. Boring and one dimensional map designs like SW, DV and D3 should be removed and repurposed.

Off the top of my head I would suggest only having one or two TOH -maps, but creating more interest points within (pits, spawn points and so on).
I would do the same with dungeons, only a maximum of 2 dungeons is needed. D3 is a massive map that serves no purpose in the game, it is also poorly designed and basically nothing but lava, you could easily redesign it to serve the purpose of both D3 and D4.
I would also completely get rid of Silent Woods and Death Valley and repurpose Eternal Field and Rocky Highland to serve a similar purpose to those. Currently EF and RH are just waste of time that you have to travel trough while going to more interesting places.
Middleland Mine is a useless map, we could simply get rid of MLM and have mining spots withing the rocky parts of ML and make that map more alive and action packed.

You could update some of the maps and make them a little bigger. That way we would have new content and while we wouldnt lose that much overall map space, we would have more action within the fewer maps. Having fewer bigger maps also help make the game feel more immersive and less instanced.

Towns could also be smaller. 60% of the town maps are unused waste of space that are only there so you get annoyed while having to travel for long distances. It makes no sense that a TOWN is as almost big as MIDDLE LAND.

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Cleroth
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None of this makes any sense. What you're proposing would go against the goals you're setting.

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Ilkka Bruno Somero

The goal is to have more player interaction and more immersive world, cant really think of a better way to achieve that.

Everyone that plays Helbreath knows there is a hell of a lot of dead space in the game that serve no purpose other than longer travel times and less player interaction.

Am I wrong in saying that Helbreath was designed for a larger playerbase than it currently has?
To try and sustain a game world as big as Helbreath has with a player base that isnt close to what it was designed to sustain has been killing the game for years.

There probably are other ways to fix this than reducing map amount and space, but it seems like the obvious solution. You've added the ability to teleport into parts of the map which is one way to fix this, but the question arises; if parts of the world are nothing but an inconvenience that can be skipped by teleporting over them, why are they there in the first place?


Over the years there have been a handfull of succesfull servers alongside the "big three" of Olympia, Nemesis and Polska. All of those have used less map space, updated or new maps and emphasized more player interaction, sadly they've all destroyed themselves with internal problems and poor server performance.

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Cleroth
Quote from Ilkka Bruno Somero

The goal is to have more player interaction and more immersive world, cant really think of a better way to achieve that.

Everyone that plays Helbreath knows there is a hell of a lot of dead space in the game that serve no purpose other than longer travel times and less player interaction.

Am I wrong in saying that Helbreath was designed for a larger playerbase than it currently has?
To try and sustain a game world as big as Helbreath has with a player base that isnt close to what it was designed to sustain has been killing the game for years.

There probably are other ways to fix this than reducing map amount and space, but it seems like the obvious solution. You've added the ability to teleport into parts of the map which is one way to fix this, but the question arises; if parts of the world are nothing but an inconvenience that can be skipped by teleporting over them, why are they there in the first place?


Over the years there have been a handfull of succesfull servers alongside the "big three" of Olympia, Nemesis and Polska. All of those have used less map space, updated or new maps and emphasized more player interaction, sadly they've all destroyed themselves with internal problems and poor server performance.

> Am I wrong in saying that Helbreath was designed for a larger playerbase than it currently has?

Very likely. Considering the maps were split into multiple computers, and the code written like shit so ran super slowly, on top of being on very old hardware, it's unlikely it ever saw the numbers you are talking about. As for what it was originally designed for, I think if you look at the history of Helbreath you'd know fairly well they really have no idea what they were doing. It was one of the first MMOs after all.

Yes, there is a lot of unused empty space, but that's not the important part. The important part is the interesting points on each map. You have many players complaining there aren't enough pits for the population, and you want to cram them all into a tighter space? They would be getting ganked every 2 minutes.

There are two other ideas which suggest improving current map pits and adding new maps. This one is like the opposite of both of those. I suggest you look at those and try to voice your ideas there instead.


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