Runescape geographical analysis [long]

[EugenyG]

PREFACE:

 

 

 

This post reasonably relates to all RS players, but the reason I'm putting it in P2P is because they have much more, erm, geography, under their belt, and more importantly, they are the ones who will get the vast bulk, if not all, of future geography updates, and this post has quite a bit of future-looking in it.

 

 

 

Basic knowledge of geography and geographical measurements will help you understand the post better.

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION:

 

 

 

How big is the world of RS? Most would say very big. And it is so, by all means, given the huge amount of things to do, quests to complete, lands to travel, etc. But I decided to look at it from a more mathematical point of view.

 

 

 

DEFINITIONS:

 

 

 

The first big clue I came across is the observatory. Why? Because thanks to the observatory (and the resulting treasure trails) I got a hand of an absolute and objective way to measure distance across RS - by degrees.

 

 

 

Since we are using the common North/South/East/West measures to define a position in RS, I'll assume the world of Gielinor (which is the name of the physical land RS is in) is a planet-like spheroid. Of course, I could be wrong, as the gods of RS could really create the world flat, or in any other shape they wanted, but the big clue is 'degrees' north and south the observatory has provided. If I had assumed Gielinor is flat, then the observatory scientist would not have used 'degrees' to measure distance from the observatory, but rather a length-measurement such as miles, km, or whatever alternative RS is using. Degrees are used when measuring not just distance but also curvature. And if its some other kind of shape, than it would have been extremely difficult for the observatory to actually measure distance using astronomical observations as he is using. So, for the purposes of calculation, I'll assume the planet of Gielinor is a sphere. Another assumption I have to make is that the scientists, just like the real world, use the 360-degree system (360 degrees make a circle, or circumfer a sphere, while 180 degrees make half a circle, or half a circumference.

 

 

 

So the assumptions are:

 

• - North pole is 90N
   
  - South pole is 90S
   
  - Equator (position of observatory) is 0N
   
  - Western hemisphere is everything west of observatory, and vice versa.

Sure, one could argue whether it is really the case that the observatory is precisely on the equator, or whether all measurements simply use the observatory's own position as the centerpoint. But doing so (while certainly eccentric) would not be very scientific, and besides, the latitude of the observatory does geographically seem to match the hottest area of RS (Karajma, Al-Kharid). Places like a desert and a rainforest do perfectly match equatorial geography. For these reasons, I'd assume the chicken came before the egg, that is, the geographical positions were derived first, and then the observatory was build precisely on the equator.

 

 

 

So, In other words, a point on the planet Gielinor which is located 0N 0W (the observatory) would be exactly to the opposite of the point 0N 180W. A point 25N 30E (northeast tip of Wilderness) would be exactly opposing the point 25S 150W. Just like on Earth, certain points in North America are exactly opposing certain points in Australia.

 

 

 

Or, more generally, to the opposite of point X north, Y west; is X south, 180-Y east.

 

 

 

Unlike the North/South division (which has to be divided by the equator), the East/West division is entirely arbitrary, so we don't care whether it was decided by the observatory professor or by some other entity. For all it matters, we can assume the professor, once finding where the equator is, has decided where on that line his observatory would be, and derived that the peaceful and prosperous South Kandarin is a better choice to the blazing heat of Al-Kharid or masses of the Karajma jungles.

 

 

 

MEASUREMENTS:

 

 

 

Now that we have defined our measurements, let's take a look at how much of the planet's available space is taken up by the presently explorable land. For simplicity, we'll assume all the explorable land sums to a rectangular area, rather than subtract all the black areas on the World Map. As you will later see, this does not significantly impact measurements.

 

 

 

Unfortunately, certain degrees have to be roughly assumed, as the tip.it locator which I use to measure degrees is terribly out of date.

 

 

 

So:

 

• - The Northernmost point is Iceberg. It is roughly 30 degrees North.
   
  - The Southernmost point is the island just to the south of the Void Knights' Outpost. It is roughly 20 degrees South.
   
  - The Westernmost point is Lunar Isle. It is roughly 12 degrees West.
   
  - The Easternmost point is Mos 'Le Harmless (with a close tie to Dragontooth island and Harmony). It is roughly 45 degrees East.
   
  - The Observatory is at 0 North, 0 West.

Therefore, the conclusion is as follows: the explorable land of Gielinor spans about 50 degrees (out of the possible 180) from North to South, and 57 degrees (out of the possible 360) from East to West.

 

 

 

If you still don't get why North-South only goes 180 degrees, but East/West go 360, think of it as follows: The world is a sphere. North pole is 90 north. 91 north would make no sense, it's the same as 89 north from the other direction. Same with 91 south. But 91 degrees east is NOT the same as 91 degrees west, they both go from 0 (observatory) to 180 (exactly opposite point on the equator). 180 degrees west, however, is exactly the same as 180 degrees east.

 

 

 

If you still don't get what I'm talking about, look at this picture (taken from website of University of California):

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see, the longitude lines span from 180 East to 180 West, while latitude spans from 90 North to 90 South.

 

 

 

INTERPOLATION:

 

 

 

Let's clean up this picture a bit, so we end up with just the geographical lines (and sorry, my Photoshop skills suck and I don't want to spend the whole day cleaning it, so you'll see some artifacts).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, let's transpose the current RS map on this image. When transposing, it is important to:

 

• - Maintain proportions of the size of the explorable map to the size of the Gielinor globe.
   
  - Correctly place the map so the center of the observatory matches with the center of the globe.

And we get the following:

 

 

 

 

Kinda shocking, isn't it? How small the current map is to the overall possibilities! But if you find it hard to believe, look at the degree locations of the map. You will see that, in fact, Lunar Isle reaches about 12 degrees East, Mos 'Le Harmless reaches about 45 degrees West, Iceberg reaches about 30 degrees North, and the island below the Void Knights reaches about 20 degrees South.

 

 

 

CALCULATIONS:

 

 

 

Using crude mathematical calculations, we find that the total visible surface of Gielinor (which includes both continents, water bodies, and even some black (unexplorable areas) inside the square is only about 7% of the total possible size. Taking these into account, the actual explorable land is even less (but it may actually be more if we count all the dungeons not taken into account on the surface map). In any case, there is still a very long way to go before RS runs out of space.

 

 

 

Then again, if we compare the relative RS size to the globe size with real-life counterparts, we will find that it is the same relative size as Africa (30 million km^2 compared to the world's 510 million km^2). In other words, the current RS size is that of a large continent.

 

 

 

If we look at the shape of the current explorable RS world, we will find that it is mostly surrounded by water at this point. All of the northern part of the map is surrounded by water, as is most of east, west, and south. In fact, the only places where continental expansion is possible would be north of Priffindas, southwest of the poison wastes, southwest of the Feldip Hills, south of the Kharidian desert, and west of Mortania. Out of all those, I think only Kharidia can be expanded without looking weird on the map, as the general shape of all the other places seems to indicate water would be surrounding it as well.

 

 

 

PREDICTIONS:

 

 

 

But now, that the explorable size of RS is that of a large continent, AND is mostly surrounded by water at this point it would actually make sense for future updates to be on a different continent altogether, rather than expanding the existing continent. So, when do you think the next huge new-continent update arrives? If coming, it would be the largest Gielinor geography update since Asgarnia and later the P2P Kandarin, with the potential of being bigger than both of those combined.

 

 

 

SOME EXTRA STUFF:

 

 

 

Another interesting exercise would be to find the actual (not relative) land size of Gielinor, both the current explorable area and the size of the planet. To do this, we log in RS, and take a measured number of steps. I found that walking from the wall of the Lumbridge castle to the Al-Kharid gate took exactly 40 steps, which corresponded to 82 pixels on the full World Map.

 

 

 

The entire World Map (unexplorable borders trimmed) is 3600 pixels wide and 3060 pixels high. That means that it would take about 1750 steps to walk from the Easternmost point to the Westernmost, and 1490 steps to walk from the Northernmost point to the Southernmost. If we assume the average step is 80cm long, then the total explorable size of RS is about 1400 meters by 1200 meters. This is not nearly as much as it seems, eh? The total explorable size of RS is only 1.68 km^2! And so much things to do in such a small space!

 

 

 

By comparison, if player characters were the size of real human beings, the explorable size of RS would be either of (approximation):

 

• - The area of about 300 American football stadiums (only playing fields measured, not spectator seating)
   
  - 50% of the area of Monaco
   
  - 2.5 times the area of the Pentagon
   
  - 4 times the area of Vatican City

And how big would all of the Gielinor planet be, then? We already established that the explorable area is about 7% of the total planet size. Therefore, the planet's characteristics would be (approximations):

 

• - Surface area: 24 km^2.
   
  - Circumference: 8.7km
   
  - Diameter: 2.73km

In comparison, the planet's radius would be roughly 10000 times smaller than that of Earth. A better comparison would be Mars' moon Deimos. The planet of Gielinor's radius would be about 1/6 that of the moon Deimos.

 

 

 

CONCLUSIONS:

 

• - The RS map is not going to run out of space anytime soon, with only 7% of possible map space exhausted over the development of 6 years. At this rate, it'd take over 80 years to fill up the space.
   
  - While very large in relative game terms, the world of Runescape is tiny when compared to real life sizes. It could be walked from corner to corner in about 20 minutes in real life.
   
  - While the total Gielinor planet size is still very small, it does compare to well-known astronomical objects, such as the two moons of Mars.
   
  - Given that the current RS continent-to-planet ratio is consistent with Africa-to-World ratio, and given that it is mostly surrounded by water already, it is possible to assume that at one point or another, we shall witness the introduction of a completely new continent to the RS world.

REFERENCES USED:

 

• - Map of Runescape by Jagex Ltd.
   
  - Tip.it geographical locator for treasure trails
   
  - Map of Earth from University of California
   
  - Google Earth
   
  - Wikipedia

Any thoughts or comments? Other than the fact I have way too much free time on my hands.

 

 

 

Edit: Corrected some measurement errors (biggest error a completely off comparison to Mars' moons). Please tell me if you see any other errors that are obviously bigger than approximation or rounding errors.

 

 

 

Reuse: You may re-use this article on any RS-related website/forum/wiki/whatever without further permission, provided that (1) It is not modified, (2) I'm attributed, and (3) you post here the link to where it is published. For other conditions, please PM me.

[nomadmike]

:shock: I read it all.

 

 

 

I am speechless for now.

 

 

 

I might comment later.

 

 

 

:shock: Wow :shock: Just Wow :shock:

[ThoseTheBrokes]

Wow.

 

 

 

Basically, I've never even bothered to think about it, It's actually quite interesting.

 

 

 

I'll have a thorough read through when I have the chance.

[Veryhyper]

I love you

[Dalcyte]

good read, but there's some iffy stuff in there.

 

 

 

Firstly, unless you want to get philosophical on me, the earth is not a game, or in a game. The Earth was formed in the universe, something that has a size that is indefinite. RS has limitations however. It's a game, with various size limitations, so that seriously restricts it. I think it's a little off to be comparing RS to the Earth. But good findings.

[Ezz]

Wow... That's quite good research done there :thumbsup:

[HellsBells]

I actually read it all. Nice find. I never thought about RuneScape that way.

[kemikalkadet]

very nice research, i've often thought about what it'd be like if jagex made a new contininent. just a tip, not that it'd really affect the findings, but rsbandb has a complete up to date map with coordinate locator on it.

[Infernosage4]

That was a very good read. That post actually increased my IQ instead of lowering it like most of the threads floating around now.

[EugenyG]

very nice research, i've often thought about what it'd be like if jagex made a new contininent. just a tip, not that it'd really affect the findings, but rsbandb has a complete up to date map with coordinate locator on it.

 

 

 

Except it doesn't. :/ Iceberg isn't there, nor is Harmonia, maybe other stuff too.

[Danqazmlp]

All i can say is WOW

 

 

 

I didnt have the attention span to read through it all, but from the world picture looks like theres along way to go lol.

[Thus]

I love you

 

 

 

me too. That is some awesome research! This should be a TET article!

[darkblob0]

amazing work :thumbsup: ,that was really well put together

[rareghoul1]

a new continent would be cool, too bad jagex doesn't have the common sense to put it in

[reaper88888]

... :shock: Very, very interesting... How long did it take to figure all that out? And yes, you have waaay too much free time. Go play a game of c-wars :P

[caldius]

Very very nice. I love the way you have sumerised this topic in a way that is easy to understand for anyone who cares to read it.

 

 

 

Basically this just puts thoughts Ive had for sometime into scope. As far as new continents go, I thinks its safe to assume an eastern continent with asian influences will be next.

 

 

 

Another interesting study to do based off your data is to work out if the weather patterns, animals and plants found in area on runescape would be accurate considering the location on the globe. For example, should we be getting ice bergs so far south of the poles and woud there be penguins on them (to answer those ones, probably not to the ice bergs, even though one could float that far it would soon melt and penguins are only found in the south pole on earth... how ever climatically they would fit in to where ever there is ice)

[EugenyG]

Very very nice. I love the way you have sumerised this topic in a way that is easy to understand for anyone who cares to read it.

 

 

 

Basically this just puts thoughts Ive had for sometime into scope. As far as new continents go, I thinks its safe to assume an eastern continent with asian influences will be next.

 

 

 

Another interesting study to do based off your data is to work out if the weather patterns, animals and plants found in area on runescape would be accurate considering the location on the globe. For example, should we be getting ice bergs so far south of the poles and woud there be penguins on them (to answer those ones, probably not to the ice bergs, even though one could float that far it would soon melt and penguins are only found in the south pole on earth... how ever climatically they would fit in to where ever there is ice)

 

 

 

That's indeed interesting to think about.

 

 

 

Over 90% of the current world of RS lies within the "tropics". The northernmost point (Iceberg) does not go above 30 degrees north. For comparison, places on Earth that are at, or close to, 30N north are New Orleans, LA; Eilat, Israel; Al-Qahirah, Egypt; Kuwait City, Kuwait, Okinawa, Japan; etc. They hardly qualify as "penguin" and "iceberg" places.

 

 

 

Perhaps Jagex tried to make sure they won't ever run out of space, and thus made the Gielinor globe (as measured using the degree system) much bigger than their current land, but didn't take into account that pretty much all of RS needs to have the climate of Karajma and Al-Kharid for that to work.

 

 

 

Although, it would also depend on the star the planet Gielinor is orbiting. If the star is a dwarf star (and the orbit distance is thus very close to the star, much closer than Earth to Sun), then even small variations north or south of the equator would mean very big temperature changes. But if that were the case, than the real north and south poles of Gielinor would be like -150 to -200C, and thus not inhabitable by anything.

[nomader]

Very well written article. For me, I think that runescapes disproportionate size could do with some fixing. Increase it to a more realistic distance between cities and landmarks, make mountains actual mountains, not hills with ice on them. Oh and increasing distances adds so many possibilities (hmm perhaps I should make a topic on this).

[muggiwhplar]

One of the most intelligent posts I've seen on these forums

[Aneron]

:shock:

 

 

 

Whoever said this should be a tip.it times article is right.

 

 

 

Amazing job.

[iwatake]

You say you have too much spare time on your hands, and you might, but you have done a very nice job with this analysis.

 

 

 

Your project - no, your endeavor - is very, very nice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In any case, a entirely new continent would be nice... it would kind of spread out the max of 2000 players on each world a lot, but it would be nice to explore a giant thing entirely new. There really haven't been any large area updates recently, I hope they make one soon.

 

 

 

all and all, a terrific article, and no, you don't have too much spare time on your hands :

[trunksrs]

I was actually a little suprised when you pointed out that the map goes from 30 N to 20 S. I would think that the iceburg would match up with Alaska, but only 30 degrees? That's almost tropical. The tropic of cancer and the tropic of capricorn are like 27 degrees, aren't they?

[Silver_Corner]

While your post is theroticaly correct, you also forgot a main point on your statment "Jagex will never run out of room".

 

 

 

If you were to apply your world diagram to the current earths size I would agree with you, however you must remember RuneScape is on a virtual plane and therefor has some limitations.

 

 

 

The limitations is server space. While the RuneScape world may be only 10% of the real world in comparrason, it could be 80% filled with server space, and only have 20 % to grow.

 

 

 

So mathmatically you are correct, but in a real world application your point does have a few flaws.

 

 

 

Regardless my =D> for adding this all up. It is a very intellegent find.

[Stilev]

10\10 on orginallity

 

10\10 on organaztion

 

10\10 on thought imput

 

10\10 on spelling grammar

 

 

 

:thumbsup:

[Kill_Thomas9]

All I can say is wow. That is some awesome math/research. But if jagex only used 7% of the space, I doubt the script runescape is written on can hold 14x the land it does now. Rs is already over like 1500 lines of coding. Imagine a 22,000 line javascript.