Future map ideas?

[Wintermut]

Periodically on Reddit the topic of new map ideas come up. Unfortunately Hinterland staff no longer participate on Reddit, so the discussions that go on there are actually rather pointless.

Mostly every kind of map has already been made in my opinion. There's small towns, coastal areas, flat open areas, rivers, mountains, rail lines, bridges, cars, trucks, and even a shipwreck.

So I was trying to think of things that we haven't actually encountered yet. I couldn't come up with much, but here are a few things...

Trailer Park.

Finding a winnebago...aka a camper.

Abandonded rural airport with hangars with a few small planes, private jet, helicopter, and a control tower. Nothing is functional obviously...like every other vehicle in the game.

Maybe a prison like in The Walking Dead. That bus was going to or from somewhere.

Maybe some of these things would be on a more urbanized area. I get that this is an island, but even islands have some cities that are bigger than others. For instance Hawaii. Newfoundland is an island and it's pretty darn big.

The urbanized area may have a dock where the ferry docks to pick up cars, trucks, busses to take them to the mainland. Movie theater. Hotel or a Motel. The train station. List goes on. 

I get that  Great Bear Island is a largely uninhabited Canadian wilderness island, but even those typically have a port city/town that is the hub where everything lands to spread to the rest of the island. Like those Carter Dam supplies were shipped from somewhere. I know they probably used the rail line, but again that rail line goes somewhere....I suppose if the island is close enough to the mainland then the rail line may just connect via bridge or tunnel, but maybe not. Even if the rail line does connect via bridge or tunnel, there is still probably a ferry for the cars, trucks, and prison bus...and a larger port town/city.

[Doc Feral]

I suggest Doctor Doomwinkle's secret lab, where he clones hundreds of wolves every day and loads them on stealth drones, to drop them all around the island.

[gnomegnine]

NE (nose exhale) this is a good idea. what about bears? does he have a bear factory that produces a wave every 10-25 days?

[codfish107]

I like the idea of a prison, regional airport, and a harbor map. Making a more urban map that has parts only accessible during an aurora, putting in more aurora powered hazards, and making the aurora more frequent on that map.

[Gaudia Certaminis]

How about another coastal site, but with a vehicle/passanger ferry port in it? Bear Island would have a ferry I presume, even if only a small one.

[MarrowStone]

I like the idea of trailers and itd be interesting to see something like a historical site, maybe an Anti Aircraft battery.

[Wintermut]

6 hours ago, MarrowStone said:

I like the idea of trailers and itd be interesting to see something like a historical site, maybe an Anti Aircraft battery.

Yeah, I don't know why I got a trailer park vibe. They seem to be everywhere....especially near camp zones/rural places. Trailer parks pop up, and people park their winnebagos there by campgrounds sometimes. I just figured there could be one somewhere, and we haven't encountered one of those yet. I thought it could be an interesting little loot area with a camper or two and a few trailer park style trailers, maybe a few pickup trucks.

I've been scouring Google maps satellite view and looking at remote Canadian Islands, and it's amazing how many places in the middle of nowhere have air strips....probaby because they are in the middle of nowhere and that's one of the few ways to get there...Places like Cape Dorset on Dorset island, and Sachs Harbour on Banks Island. 

I just imagine there is probably one larger settlement somewhere that is the central hub for the island and where everything else on the island spread from. There's probably an air strip somewhere nearby and probably a few other amenities for when visitors come to the island for some reason. Probably a ferry station. Maybe a small hotel or a motel, a bar, restaurant/diner, possibly a train stop or railway yard, etc.

I also noticed someone added the penitentiary as a location on Great Bear Island on the Wiki. Obviously that doesn't definitely mean there will be one as a location in game, as Wikis are maintained and edited by us fans. You never know though...maybe they will. It was fun in The Walking Dead for a few seasons.

[ajb1978]

I would like to see an underground labyrinth of interconnected caves.  Like those ice caves in Hushed River Valley, but just one big huge sprawling region of that.  Maybe a few caved in areas where sticks and stuff can spawn, an underground river with a special fishing spot that you can use to catch fish.  A few bears and wolves roaming the halls, a few bio-luminescent areas like in HRV, and some cleverly placed rock climbs to ledges that can be used for safe campsites or to evade a pursuing wolf.  

[Wintermut]

12 minutes ago, ajb1978 said:

I would like to see an underground labyrinth of interconnected caves.  Like those ice caves in Hushed River Valley, but just one big huge sprawling region of that.  Maybe a few caved in areas where sticks and stuff can spawn, an underground river with a special fishing spot that you can use to catch fish.  A few bears and wolves roaming the halls, a few bio-luminescent areas like in HRV, and some cleverly placed rock climbs to ledges that can be used for safe campsites or to evade a pursuing wolf.  

That's actually a pretty interesting concept....

Maybe on one side it could start off as a mining operation that eventually broke into a natural cave system formed by water that ends on the other end at like cove that goes out to the ocean. That would be interesting....

[ajb1978]

18 hours ago, Wintermut said:

Maybe on one side it could start off as a mining operation that eventually broke into a natural cave system formed by water that ends on the other end at like cove that goes out to the ocean.

The Long Underdark XD

[Silverhour]

I just started Wintermute, and already I can see that there really needs to be an airstrip on the island. Will and Astrid planned on landing somewhere. I would imagine it should be near Milton as that seems to be the central community of this island. There could be a route out of Milton to maybe a coastal port similar to DP, where instead of a whaling station we have a ferry or cargo dock, but is too rugged to be an actual community like Milton. Maybe have all the major transport routes meet there, with railways near the shore to unload onto boats, and a truck stop for the loggers, with the airstrip for cargo and crew transport. Lots of oil and logging industries in the far north use fly-in/fly-out crew rotations for remote areas where vehicle travel is unreliable. 

I haven't gotten far enough into Wintermute to find this prison bus I've seen mentioned. It seems unlikely that such a sparsely populated island, no matter how isolated, would have their own penitentiary. Closest thing that might be is an RCMP depot with a few holding cells. It's likely the prison bus was a mainland transport collecting inmates.

On 10/8/2018 at 8:42 PM, ajb1978 said:

I would like to see an underground labyrinth of interconnected caves.  Like those ice caves in Hushed River Valley, but just one big huge sprawling region of that.  Maybe a few caved in areas where sticks and stuff can spawn, an underground river with a special fishing spot that you can use to catch fish.  A few bears and wolves roaming the halls, a few bio-luminescent areas like in HRV, and some cleverly placed rock climbs to ledges that can be used for safe campsites or to evade a pursuing wolf.  

This would be a wild trip, I think. Sure there could be open areas to allow daylight in on occasion, but for the most part you're either stumbling around in the dark or chaining torches, hoping you don't run out. The only problem with a map like this would be finding a purpose for it, beyond the desire to explore. There would have to be something specific that would be valuable draw, like renewable coal areas (maybe occasional tremors bring more coal down, like storms do for sticks and branches) and/or a new resource like ore, which could be used like scrap metal but is also renewable (again with tremors.) Maybe having the cave come off FM so there's a forge nearby, but in hostile territory. Then having an area that provides you unlimited coal and metal might be worth the risk of roaming an area in total darkness. 

[MarrowStone]

5 hours ago, Silverhour said:

There would have to be something specific that would be valuable draw, like renewable coal areas

Coal is actually renewable now, I find it all the time where I'm sure I've picked it up before. Maybe it isn't on interloper, I don't play that difficulty. Ore is a great idea but with all this scrap metal already lying around... perhaps a chance to find dynamite! Muahahaha! 

Maybe its designed for another "challenge mode" and your goal is to find a way out while scavenging for supplies and placing markers as you go. I'd really enjoy that challenge actually, would bring back memories of survival island games in Minecraft. 

[codfish107]

On 10/8/2018 at 11:02 PM, Wintermut said:

That's actually a pretty interesting concept....

Maybe on one side it could start off as a mining operation that eventually broke into a natural cave system formed by water that ends on the other end at like cove that goes out to the ocean. That would be interesting....

Have maybe an open pit mine form one end and then a frozen beach on the other while having you and animals freely able to go end to end without separate loading screenings.

Perhaps have the main mine shaft/s and the underground river be apart of the same loading screen as the outside parts with small side passages being tier own loading screen.

[Wintermut]

15 hours ago, Silverhour said:

I just started Wintermute, and already I can see that there really needs to be an airstrip on the island. Will and Astrid planned on landing somewhere. I would imagine it should be near Milton as that seems to be the central community of this island. There could be a route out of Milton to maybe a coastal port similar to DP, where instead of a whaling station we have a ferry or cargo dock, but is too rugged to be an actual community like Milton. Maybe have all the major transport routes meet there, with railways near the shore to unload onto boats, and a truck stop for the loggers, with the airstrip for cargo and crew transport. Lots of oil and logging industries in the far north use fly-in/fly-out crew rotations for remote areas where vehicle travel is unreliable. 

I agree that there is most likely an air strip somewhere on the island simply because most remote settlements on islands have an air strip somewhere. I formed this conclusion by looking at numerous remote island settlements via satellite view on Google Maps.....most of them have an air strip or a small airport no matter how ridiculously remote they appear. That being said, wherever Will was taking Astrid on the island specifically... didn't necessarily need to have an air strip where he planned to land. Will was a "bush pilot." They specialize in landing in remote places with no actual air strip. Also, I believe Will's plane also had pontoons on it. Meaning regardless of air strips he could land off the coast of the island, weather and waves permitting.

Island size or population isn't really a contributing factor to a prison. Some prisons are specifically built on islands to prevent prisoner escapes (because even if they escape how are they getting off the island), and because people don't want to live near a prison. Think Alcatraz. That wasn't the only prison put on an island, it is just the most famous one. They are considered impractical, and I believe the last one in the US has closed now. The problem of staffing remote prisons is usually solved by building living quarters for the guards and/or having them work "tours of duty" of various lengths.....like a week or a month. People are willing to live and work in difficult conditions for the right price. That's how oil rigs and crabbing boats are staffed. It's amazing what people are willing to do for the right price. There are many jobs I personally am not willing to do, that others seem to be willing to do. Staffing a jail or working on a crabbing boat are two of those jobs...lol.

[CGTv]

Looking at the map now i see two possibilities.
A mountain region north above Mystery Lake that connects to Pleasant Valley and Mountain Town or Hushed River Valley.
A smaller region east of Pleasant Valley that connects to PV.

Apart from that, i would love a region with a lot of (for a lack of better words) 'no loading screen' buildings.
With a layout much like mystery lake and Timberwolf Mountain.
Two small lakes at the top, one east, one west, each with a fishing cabin.
The lakes go down into two seperate small rivers that end up in a large lake with thin ice where the leftovers part of Grizzly Airlines have crash landed and partly sunk through the ice. With the possibility of ice fishing in a crashed plane part on the icy lake.
At the top there would also be an intact ranger station with a small hunting lodge down stairs.
Spread across the map you'd obviously have your caves as well and also a few (larger) hunting blinds with window lids you can shut.
And for the rest there would be plants and birds and rocks and things.

~CGTv

[JErosion]

There is room on the map for a region to exist north of Desolation Point and East of Timberwolf mountain. It would be the ideal location for a town in ruins. Since you could have the railroads that disappears into the mountains around the Coastal Highway to reemerge. Better yet have it be a town that has been hit by a tidal wave or has even slid partially under the waves... like there would be just the roofs of some houses sticking up above the ice... some of the few places you can seek shelter include the steeple of a submerged church or the second story of a house whos flooded downstairs can act as an icefishing hole

[MarrowStone]

On 10/14/2018 at 1:27 AM, JErosion said:

the second story of a house whos flooded downstairs can act as an icefishing hole

This is a wonderful idea, and also adds the creepy notion that those fish mightve gotten sustenance from any poor souls that didnt make it out below... Kind of like that one part in the book "Hatchet" where Brian re-discovers the body of the pilot in the pond he'd been fishing in to survive.

[Doc Feral]

On 14/10/2018 at 8:27 AM, JErosion said:

some of the few places you can seek shelter include the steeple of a submerged church

Lago di Resia / Reschensee, South Tyrol, Italy

[BareSkin]

As long as there is no stupid bush barriers like in HRV, fine for me. But please no more puzzle maps. I have Tetris/chess for that part of my brain

I think the railway stopped in Coastal Highway before the First Flare since the is no railway after that point, I think it's not a road collapse. To me it seems obvious a ferry dock or airport should be after the broken rail road map, otherwise why would trains go beyond that point?

Also, an air strip is not mandatory if the Great Bear economic collapse occurred before the 90's.

The prisoners could have been brought here for temporary work in the coals mines maybe?

[NardoLoopa]

One thing I would like to see is a map that has an area inaccessible, except if an Aurora is present.  Something like an elevator or draw-bridge that you can only activate when the Aurora is active.  Maybe a small ski resort where the chairlift only works when the Aurora is active.

(kinda the opposite of the Dam, where electrical lines prevent passage during the Aurora)