One question

[I4prez]

One of the features that I like about Runescape is that everything is small and condensed. Not a lot of wasted space on the map, travel times are short, etc.

 

That's true, but I think the game would be much better if they made it bigger.

[Bows]

Maybe JaGEx could make a massive overhaul for the game engines? :thumbsup: Maybe then we'd have our precious horses (lv 43 summoning, perhaps?)

 

They already have, and recently too. Let me look up the news post. EDIT: Can't be bothered to look for it after searching through 20 pages. XD It was upgraded to something like RuneTek5.

 

Yeah it was RuneTek 5; and with that update came the destruction of many safespots. :thumbdown:

[SwreeTak]

One of the features that I like about Runescape is that everything is small and condensed. Not a lot of wasted space on the map, travel times are short, etc.

 

That's true, but I think the game would be much better if they made it bigger.

 

I agree fully. Runescape is a little too small for being a massive multiplayer online game, at least in my opinion. We need bigger distances.

[Hameigh]

I remember someone at Jagex once saying something along the lines of "We want there to be stuff for you to do close by" though with a quick search I couldn't find what interview that was in.

 

Also a blog post http://knifestorm.blogspot.com/2009/05/measuring-unknown.html

[I4prez]

Interesting blog... But I think it's terribly inaccurate. Maybe divide the size by 100 and that'll be close...

[GuidesForScapers]

68.5 exactly. Don't question me. You know i'm right.

[calum12]

We know roughly how big one of our avatars is supposed to be, so just scale it to a game tile and count the tiles?

[Zaaps1]

We know roughly how big one of our avatars is supposed to be, so just scale it to a game tile and count the tiles?

 

I'm not entirely sure where I heard this, maybe it was reading through the wiki, but our characters in Runescape do not follow the golden ratio, meaning they are not scaled to a real human. Since they are in a disproportionate scale, you cannot use our characters as a scale to base everything else off of.

 

You could, however, use something else if you can assume it's correct.

[I4prez]

Like Al the Camel, perhaps?

[Bows]

Like Al the Camel, perhaps?

 

Yes, like Al the Camel.

[I4prez]

Hmmm... Maybe we could use... A TREE!!!!!!!! Those seem pretty scale-resistant...

[Zaaps1]

But in RL, the size of trees varies so much and since we don't know the particular species of tree (what type of willow?), we can't get an average height.

[Grimy_Bunyip]

Couldn't we use the sextant to estimate the width of the RS map.

assume the width of the RS map is the circumference along the equator.

 

Scale that to the size of the earth.

Then use that to derive the scale coefficient?

[Zaaps1]

Couldn't we use the sextant to estimate the width of the RS map.

assume the width of the RS map is the circumference along the equator.

 

Scale that to the size of the earth.

Then use that to derive the scale coefficient?

 

No, because we can't assume Gielinor is as big as Earth is. There's nothing to suggest that.

 

at the same scale of Varrock to Falador distance being 80 miles. The wilderness (not including dungeoneering area) is a 160x160 mile square.

 

Asgarnia (including taverly) and Misthalin (including the duel arena and al kharid and land up to the western edge of the river Salve would be 220x1600 mile square(including water).

 

Morytania would be a 80x120 mile square of land.

 

Fremmenick providence would be a 80x60mile square of land.

 

Runescape as a whole inluding the oceans would be aproximently 500x500 miles across.

 

Now this is using the 3-5 day travel scale between varrock and falador given that the traveler walks 20 miles a day.

 

But even at this scale runescape seems pretty small on a global scale

 

considering the united states is 2900 miles wide and 1500 miles long, so runescape is a 3rd as tall as the united states and 1/6th as long.

 

Other way around, but anyway that's completely acceptable to me. After all there's only a handful of cities, not like the 200+ big ones in the US, and a whole bunch of small towns, unlike the thousands upon thousands in the US. There are different Kingdom boundaries, but if you look at Europe, it's perfectly fine for a kingdom to occupy a fairly small area when compared to the US. (Monaco is what, a city?)

[I4prez]

Let's say the Kharidian Desert is about as big as the Sahara. It would look like this:

That means Gielinor (the known part of it) is about as big as Eurasia maybe?

(My calculations are probably wrong...)

[I4prez]

I just thought of something... maybe the wilderness would be the size of Australia? Any thoughts about that?

[Sir_Squab]

Dunno. But the world is definitely scaled down. I kinda like it though. A lot of games that I play that try to have more "realistic" distances, tend to have a very underpopulated world. Like, a continent with one city. Runescape is the opposite of this.

 

It seems very difficult for games to get a world-scale correct. Games that have the correct scale are probably mostly games that occupy a smaller area. I really like that "scale theory" or whatever.

[I4prez]

Maybe if you're a member you could change to a more realistic scale? Then there would be more rune rocks, magic trees, etc., but bank times would be longer and teles would cost more?

[jettrider]

Scale is one of the things Jagex has given up as a result of making gameplay enjoyable.

 

Even in classic, where fewer players had the luxury of teleporting, it only took a couple minutes to go from Varrock to Falador or vice versa. Exploring the members area took quite a while however.

 

Now it seems that the distance factor is being confined to a couple places where it enhances the atmosphere (from Ardougne to the elf land gates down through the winding path and through the forest...yikes) while being compressed to make cities, especially the Varrock/GE/Barb/Edge complex, easier to navigate. That's ok by me really, it's just a video game.

[Troacctid]

Well the answer seems simple enough to me. Characters in Runescape travel at the speed of plot. It doesn't matter how far it is from Varrock to Port Phasmatys as long as you pass by the Digsite, the earth altar, the Sawmill, Paterdomus, Canifis, and the Haunted Wood.