Map of the Act I and some information about the places on it

Story & Setting
#1

Hello there, because I was quite bored during the time when the forum was offline, I did the probable map of the Act 1 based on the first videoblog about the environment.

Full size here

In this topic I would like to show you that the map is not small at all. And also show you some location with real photos and description. I know there are already topic concerning this, but I would like to summarize it.

Information about real places

There are several places with interesting history and atmosphere. I would like to take you through them, show you bit of history of each place and suggest how the places will look in the game. I tried to sort it by the importance of the place and how much is the place interesting. And since there was a lot of information about Rataj in the first video update, I will start with Sazava Monastery.

Sazava Monastery

History
Sazava Monastery was founded by hermit Prokop at the beginning of the 11th century. Mere Christian settlement was transformed to the Benedictine monastery in 1032. It was considered as a source of Slavic education. The Slavic monks were expelled in 1095 and replaced by Latin monks from Břevnov. Druing that period the monastery was famous for its high level of art. Wooden buildings in the monastery were replaced by the Roman style buildings. The influence of the monastery was noticeable in the near surroundings where several building were also built by monastery. Other big recreation started during second half of the 13th century. This one was in to the Gothic style. The transformation lasted until hussite revolution at the beginning of the 15th century. During the hussite wars the monks were expelled and the monastery was plundered. Another recreation started after 200 years, in the 17th century. In the meantime the monastery was maintained by several monks.

What we can expect?
During 1403 the monastery was on the peak of its glory. So we will probably see beautiful nearly finished Gothic monastery with lots of workshops creating artistic object to decorate the remaining unfinished parts. The quality of the art there was really good, above average compare to rest of Bohemia and it bares some signs of Italian and France school so it is possible that we will be able to encounter several foreign artist from Italy and France.

I’ve chosen few photos of the monastery. Only few parts remain from the 15th century, most of the monastery has the baroque visage nowadays.

Model of the monastery temple (wasn’t finished) Source

Remains of the temple Source

Frescoes in the Chapter Hall Source

Scale of the map

There were several concerns about the size of the map. 9 km2 or 3.5 sq. miles is too small in some opinions. To be honest I also had some concerns about it and that’s why I did this “research” ;). So firstly I would like to say that the size in km or miles isn’t good measure for this purpose. You have to think about the map as the part of the countryside rather than about the whole realm (like in Skyrim or Oblivion for example). And because the map is based on the real world, it feels really realistically. There are not some nonsenses like large mountains with size of average hill, or epic valleys 3 meters deep :stuck_out_tongue: And even though you can’t reach the horizon, you will have the perception that there is something beyond. Those are psychological elements which helps you with that perception. Warhorse did excellent blog about it: http://kingdomcomerpg.com/?p=66
Actually I think that the best way how to find out whether the map is big enough is not to compare it with existing game maps and counting square kilometres or whatever, but to compare the part of the map with screenshots. For this purpose I made several screenshot with the map side by side. There is a cone which represent the angle of the camera in the scene so you can actually see how much of the map you see in the view. Then you can compare to the fullsize map above.

Hill with the size of Skyrim mountain :smiley:

So what do you think? Is the map still too small or is it big enough? And remember this. The map will not be procedurally generated so everything is handmade. And this is just Act I. You will see another maps with the same size in the future acts.

I will write more info about the locations tomorrow, for I’m quite weary today already :slight_smile:

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#2

Hi!
I don’t feel this map so big, but it’s just a feeling, I know it will be enough!! :smiley:

(Especially the first cone view, it feels “small” viewed over the 2D map.)

#3

I’m not to concerned about the size of the map. I thought I remember them saying that it will be about the size of Red Dead Redemption, and that was a good sized map.

I like large maps and I think everyone is getting in the mindset of “a bigger map is better” especially with some games really pushing that scale, but in all honesty I think that the content in the map is a more important factor than the maps actual scale.

But I am interested in how the future acts will work. Are we playing in a new location, sticking to the same one or is the existing location being extended into a larger map and will our choices/actions carry over?

#4

I think most people say: “big map means more quests!!!111!1!”

#5

You can fit as many quest as you want on small place, you just need to be creative so it is not boring and repetitive.

@OmarTheBest There was speculation that the city marked on your map as Melnik is Stribrna Skalice. The city is nearer and the castle there was destroyed by Sigismunds troops around 1403 (so relevant to story).

#6

Well, I don’t know exactly since I’m just passionate fan of the team and the game, but what I’ve heard the places in the acts shall be far away from each other. Each act will have coherent seamless map like this, but acts will be connected with each other by some fast travel probably. But as I said that’s just my suggestions from what I’ve heard and read.

There was speculation that the city marked on your map as Melnik is Stribrna Skalice. The city is nearer and the castle there was destroyed by Sigismunds troops around 1403 (so relevant to story).

Thanks, I will change it

#7

That’s not always true and it’s not just about how many quests there are it’s the depth of the quests. Compare something like Skyrim to Mass Effect 3, not the best comparison but if you look at Skyrims side quests they all seem tedious and most are just clones of one another. Skyrim has a big map.

Now look at Mass Effect 3, many of the side quests tie into the main story of the game with memorable characters and interactions and they all feel different. But Mass Effect isn’t really that big, it’s just many small maps sectioned off from each other, and only a handful of those locations let you return to them.

#8

I’m looking forward to this game no matter the size of the map. I would venture to say that a smaller map with more creative quests is better than a bigger map with quests that have you traveling all over the map for 30 minutes.

1 Like
#9

amazing job. nice detail with the perspective view. and yes, realistic scale. small hill in this game=big mountain in skyrim :slight_smile:

#10

I prefere a perfect small map with a lot of things to do than a large empty map !

2 Likes
#11

Thank you for taking the time to highlight this. The map will clearly be big enough, yet not too massive.

#12

The good news is they’ve already talked about not overloading the game with pointless quest junk, but making the quests worth going through. Now they’ll only have to deliver on that, but for me the size of the map is secondary to how well the map is utilized.

#13

Yes, I bet there will be lots of well written human made quests with several different ways to solve it. But back to the map size. Sry to compare everything to Skyrim but since it is still the holy grail of RPG, there will be always comparison until next king appears. Skyrim has really beautiful and rich environment. But one thing really bothered me. The scale. Even the richness of it can’t erase that notion that I’m in some kind of “doll” world with the scale 1:10. In my opinion CD Project did it much better in their Witcher series where locations are separated, but with believable scale. Warhorse will do something between. One huge open map with realistic scale connected with other maps in other acts by some fast travel. In my opinion ideal thing for this type of game.

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#14

I also feel that the details are more important than the size, it’s better to have a “little” place full with different things than a massive place filled with the same things over and over again

#15

I agree with you in every way possible.

Personally I think Skyrim overloaded its quests like you mentioned.

#16

I don’t have any issue with the size of the map as announced. The map for KC : D will be larger than the one used for Read Dead Redemption which was one of the best games of previous generation with open world, plenty of content and interesting locations. Granted, using a real world countryside won’t brig such a variety as Mexico/plains/mountains in RDR, but there will be still plenty of space to wander around in search of side quests or random events.

#17

Good job with the map. I was trying to figure it out myself, while comparing it to today’s map and historical map. The part about Rataje matches almost exactly today’s map but I was puzzled with the Sázava monastery, because it’s further on the river. But it looks like they copied that part of the river and pasted it closer. Also the Melnik? was puzzling me, it cannot be Melnik, that’s a town very far away. It could be Stribrna Skalice, which is further along the river and was copy-pasted to the map. I have read a history about the time, it was famous for silver mines. Looking forward to missions in silver mine dungeons :slight_smile: Also Vranik is interesting because the nearby settlement was destroyed in 10th century. Looking forward for exploring the ruins :slight_smile:
I’m Czech myself and quite excited about the real-world locations. Thinking about weekend trip to the area :slight_smile:

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#18

As for the Sázava monastery being far away, Dan Vávra has been talking precisely about this: There are several great locations for the story, but as they are quite far away, they went with compression of the map - this is most probably the case with the monastery.

#19

We can neither confirm nor deny that this is quite accurate :wink:
Though Mělník probably won’t be in our game.

#20

So I Just did some research on map sizes in games and GTA San Andreas had a 36 square kilometre map. So I think this map will be small inn comparison to other games on the market but this game doesn’t have any large bodies of water so it will fell just as big as some other games. So not including the water of San Andreas, Kingdom Come is about the size of one island in that particular game.

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