Hi everyone! In previous installments, we reviewed the advantages
and disadvantages of the ships of the U. S. and Japanese Tech Trees.
And today we'll take a closer look at the battle sites.
Today's topic is maps in World of Warships.
Full ahead!
Developer Diaries
The main two concepts of development of maps in World of Warships
are challenging gameplay and visual implementation.
In terms of gameplay, a map should contain variety:
choosing different ship types should give players choices of strategy
or the game tactics that suit them best.
At the same time, interesting scenery and conformity with the settings
where real naval battles took place in the first half of the 20th century
are also important…
Of course, we try to connect the game maps
we develop to the real world.
We don't precisely copy locations - islands, archipelagoes, and so on -
but we try to reproduce certain details, creating associations
with areas, locations, and different theaters of military operations.
If you open Google Maps and try to find a specific landmass,
to recognize a locality, you won't be able to do it.
Why? Because our priority is to make the map interesting for players…
How are maps in World of Warships created?
The work is done is several stages.
At each of these stages we have to take into account a range of peculiarities:
from game balance to visual details…
Any map starts with an idea.
The idea grows into a prototype:
it represents a raw blank without art, even without any islands;
it just has some outlines.
This is what we use for gameplay testing.
And then, when we're confident that everything is ok so far -
the gameplay satisfies us, everything moves as it is supposed to,
and everyone has a range of options - the map is transferred
to the LevelArt Department and is filled with details.
Beautiful islands, some locations, houses, fishing schooners
and other objects are placed there.
Along with this we pick out a general mood, a feeling;
I mean we arrange the sky, water and weather
based on the overall conceptual design…
Not many players notice the moving sky in the game:
drifting clouds, slightly changing light.
In the heat of the fight, people rarely pay attention to this,
but from time to time we read comments
of players who stop to look around and say
“Guys, it's moving!”
After we've implemented all the aforementioned art
and game tasks,
the so called run-in test of the map begins.
In particular, game designers pay special attention to the map's balance.
Where battleships sail, where destroyers sail,
how they collide, and when.
To visualize it, we create so-called heat maps.
They're painted with specific colors according
to the presence of the different ship types.
For example, battleships are very often seen in this square at this point,
the color will be more active there; in another corner it will be less active.
These maps help us analyze the players' distribution:
where they generally prefer to sail.
And this may lead us to either relocate islands
or move the points of interest or think about respawns -
it's really useful.
The real areas where naval battles took place are very large.
So the map sizes in our game range from 12.4
to 24.9 miles (20 to 40 km) per side.
They're designed so that players can use different Tiers
and different types of ships and never feel deprived…
At the initial stage you are in a so-called sandbox.
You use small ships that navigate conveniently
among small islands on a small map
and you train there.
On high Tier ships, especially on the highest Tier ones,
you get to play on the largest maps with longest distances where firing,
playing, and other actions are most convenient.
Right now the game has eight maps of various Tiers.
Ocean is the simplest one:
no islands, just a large expanse of water
and ships fighting at sunrise or sunset.
This map is available to players of any Tier.
The maps Big Race and Islands were developed for beginners:
they contain various small archipelagoes among which maneuverable ships
can conveniently navigate, shelter behind the islands,
and conduct battles at close range.
The maps for medium Tiers-New Dawn and Fault Line-are larger…
They already have greater space and more possibilities for large ships…
bigger, faster, and more powerful.
Aircraft carriers appear now, so they also need an appropriate place to play:
there's enough distance for them to stay out of range of enemy artillery fire,
but at the same time they can act effectively…
Using the highest Tier ships, you can get both the two preceding maps
and also several more complex ones—Islands of Ice, North, and Hotspot.
These maps have the longest distances, so that aircraft carriers;
powerful, fast, and long-range cruisers and battleships;
and also top-of-the-line destroyers all have the chance
to demonstrate their power.
Hotspot is one of the new maps.
It evokes Polynesia, small islands in Oceania.
This map has an interesting gameplay feature:
initially, teams appear diagonally,
and they're separated - they won't be able to congregate on one flank as a group,
they'll need to coordinate.
Each game map imposes its own battle conditions,
its unique tactics for an individual player and for the team.
It depends not only on the ship type used in the battle,
but also on the peculiarities of the location you have chosen.
Our task is to model these conditions on one map
in a way that provides each ship type with a definite advantage
in a definite part of the map,
while limiting them a bit in other parts of the map.
That's why islands are arranged the way they are -
in some places they are more or less compact,
in other places there are no islands at all -
and points of interest, in the form of bases or capture points,
are distributed accordingly.
For example, we create zones of small islands where destroyers can shelter and maneuver quickly,
and through this part of the map they can reach the enemy's rear.
We create large open spaces for battleships to fight,
and special zones for aircraft carriers to sail in (basically shelters);
and we try to combine these zones logically on every maps
to enable each type of ships to use their advantages.
The work on maps is still going on:
in the near future, we plan to add new locations
and add more realism to those already present in the game.
Because the project is still in the early stages,
testing is under way and there aren't many maps yet.
As a consequence, there certainly occur situations a player moves up a Tier
but still gets placed on the same maps.
But if the player upgraded quickly,
they got access to new maps.
We'll fill the project with maps;
more and more new maps will appear
and everything will be good.
We started with Northern Europe;
in plans we have the Black Sea with the Soviet theater of military operations,
the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic -
there are a lot of locations we can depict to make the project more realistic.
A new type of equipment might appear that hasn't appeared
before on any of the maps - or in the game at all.
A new nation branch with new peculiarities might appear.
And then we will have to change the maps again
to make them convenient for all players
and provide everyone with a fair chance to win.
So, in World of Warships,
new locations are developed
and elements of the already existing maps
that haven't yet been implemented
are being prepared for start-up.
All this will add more variety and interest to your game,
and in future players' emotions will be even brighter.