World Map & Overworld

The map screen has two views. This map is the map the player is standing on. World is the whole world, and you decide how it is drawn:

• an illustrated overworld — one picture of your world with locations pinned on it, each opening a map; or
• a zone grid — your real maps as framed cells, laid out the way they sit on your world board, the classic screen-by-screen overworld.

Players switch between the two with the tabs at the top of the map screen. The map key (N) opens This map; the World Overview key (;) opens the same screen straight on World. Both keys are rebindable.

Where to Author#

UI / HUD Editor → Minimap → World map (the second view of the Minimap tab).

Two other places feed it:

• World → Overworld — the world board. The zone grid is drawn from where your maps sit on it, and the board is what makes each map's preview picture.
• Database → Content → Locations — discovered places appear on the grid's cells and on every map's own view.

Set Up a Zone Grid#

This is the default. A world that never opens this page already has one.

1. Open World → Overworld and arrange your maps.
2. Open UI / HUD Editor → Minimap → World map. The world map is should read Zone grid.
3. Pick a Layout: True to the world board keeps each map's real place and size; Equal cells gives every map the same square cell.
4. Decide whether Interior maps belong on it. They are left off by default — a world with forty shop interiors would bury the maps that matter.
5. Use Maps left off the grid for anything else that should not show: a tutorial map, a developer test map.
6. Set Undiscovered places if the world should fill in as players explore.
7. Save, then publish the UI config.

Use One of Your Maps as the World Map#

For a game with a real overworld map — one map players travel across to reach everywhere else — make that map the world map. There is nothing to place by hand.

1. Open UI / HUD Editor → Minimap → World map.
2. Set The world map is to Use one of your maps.
3. Under Which map, pick your overworld map.
4. Save, then publish the UI config.

In the game, the World view is that map, with what is already on it:

• the places the player has discovered on it — click one for its card and, where you allow it, fast travel;
• its exits and portals — click one to open the map it leads to;
• its shops and services.

They are the same marker kinds as on the minimap and are styled in the same place (Minimap → Markers); a kind you hide there is hidden here too.

Standing on the overworld map, a player sees it live, with their own position, and can drag and zoom around it. Standing anywhere else, they see its picture — the server's picture of the map, and on top of it the real ground for the parts they have walked this session when the map is drawn As drawn in game (see Minimap).

Extra locations are optional: the Extra locations card lets you pin more places on top — a region name, a place the map has no exit to — exactly as on a picture, below.

Use a Picture as the World Map#

1. Open UI / HUD Editor → Minimap → World map and set The world map is to Use a picture.
2. Under Which picture, pick or upload your world map.
3. In Locations, press + Add location (or click the picture where it should go).
4. With the location selected, set Opens the map — the map players see when they click it. This is the one field a location cannot do without.
5. Click the picture to move the selected location. Across and Down nudge it precisely.
6. Give it a Name, a Drawing or Your own icon, and a Description for its card.
7. Repeat for each place. The amber box at the top lists anything still missing.
8. Save, then publish the UI config.

In the game, a player clicks a location to see its card, then View map (or double-clicks the location) to open that map.

Fields#

World view#

Zone grid#

Extra location markers#

A location#

Look#

What Players See on a Map They Are Not On#

Clicking a cell or a location opens that map's own view. A player's game only holds the terrain of the map they are standing on, so another map is shown as its preview picture, with:

• the places they have discovered on it — click one for its card and, where you allow it, fast travel;
• its shops and services;
• its exits. Clicking an exit follows it to the map it leads to.

The index down the left side of the map screen works the same way: clicking a place on another map opens that map with the place selected.

Gotchas#

• A map's own markers need the player to have a reason to see them. Discovered places appear once the player has discovered them; exits lead only to maps they are allowed to know of under Undiscovered places; shops and services are the NPCs standing on that map.
• The sharper picture of a map is fetched when that map is opened, one map at a time, and is capped in size. For a second or two a just-opened map can show its smaller preview first.
• Map pictures are made for you. Each map's preview is built from its painted terrain — by the world board in the editor, and by your game server itself once it is running, so a published or hosted world has them without any extra step. The server builds them in the background the first time someone opens the World view, so the very first look can show flat biome-colored blocks for a few seconds. A map with no painted terrain stays a flat block.
• A map that is not on the world board is not in the game, so it is not on the grid either.
• Discovery is per character and is kept on the server. A character has "been to" a map once they have stood on it. Characters that existed before this feature start with only the map they log in on, and fill in as they play.
• Fogged and hidden really are withheld. Under Fogged an undiscovered map's name and picture are not sent to the player's game at all; under Hidden the map itself is not. Nobody can read your world off the network.
• A location with no map to open is not shown to players. It stays in your list with a "no map" tag so you can place it first and point it at a map after.
• A location's position is a percentage of the picture. Swap the picture for one with different proportions and the pins keep their percentages, not their landmarks — check them after changing the picture.
• A deleted map leaves a dead location. The location stays in your list but shows nothing in the game. Point it at another map or delete it.
• The World Overview key defaults to the semicolon key. Every letter is already taken by another panel. Rebind it under World → Player Controls, like any other key.
• Turning the world map panel off turns both views off. The World view is part of the World Map panel (UI Editor → Panels → World Map).
• The world map is part of the UI customization document, so changes reach players on the next UI config publish.
• The whole system sits behind the World Overview feature flag. Off = no World tab, no World Overview key, and this editor view is hidden; No world view above does the same from inside the editor. Quest markers and waypoints still find their way across maps either way.