The Measurement of the World

When confronted with virtual worlds, size can be expressed in many ways. In 2D times it was "screens" later it became levels, nowadays it is areas. Most important point of all: the scale of every virtual world is always messed up somehow. You just can't simulate a continent the size of America, do you really want to travel for weeks on foot? Who is going to create a map that large? Which CPU could compute such insanity?

With that in mind, how big is Tyria? Sure the map on my screen is 33cm wide and 22.5 cm high, but how does that translate into a distance known form real life?

First, my basic assumption: the normal running speed (unboosted) appears to me as such that I would guess that the player could complete a marathon in around 2h:15 min. Considering that warriors seem to be physically fit that time should be in their range. In turn, that means that their average running speed is 5.2 meters per second.

Now, let�s go to the desert. The arid sea provides for a long stretch. I open U-Map and mark the position on my monitor. To be perfectly safe, I make it so that it is consistent with the appearance of a red dot. Then I run until I almost hit a wall and again stop at the appearance of a red dot. I measure the time using a stop watch. Then I measure the distance on the U-map in centimetres. I just ran 6.7 centimetres in 87,0 seconds. No running boost involved. Straight line.

Now I want to know if I can trust the U map. So I measure the distance on my screen between Amnoon and Destiny Gorge. I compare that with the measurement of the zoomed in M-Map. Result: Same distance. I can compare my U-Map results with the M-Map. I now measure the distance between Gorge and Amnoon when the map is zoomed out. The Result is a factor of 1:6.

When using the U-Map or zoomed M-Map, my measurement yielded the result that 1cm on my screen translates to 67,64 meters of "real life" distance. Due to the zoom factor of 1:6, each centimetre on the zoomed out M-map will therefore translate into 405,84 meters

Combine this with the onscreen map measurements I took at the beginning I have a world size of 13,3km width and 9,1km height. That�s 8,25 miles by 5,6 miles.

Feel free to try that on any other MMO but consider this: each GW area is a designed level. Some MMOs just fire up the random terrain generator, sprinkle some mobs into it, have no level design whatsoever and therefore larger surface size. You can also doubt my basic assumption, but even if it is off by a factor of two and a trained Ascalon warrior can run a marathon no faster than Joe Average, the size of the world will still be a few miles and not the size of a real continent. To be more graphic: a real size model of Tyria could be fitted on a small island off the coast of Germany (Foehr), fit conveniently on the Isle of Man and have room to spare.

Before you ask what the use of this knowledge is, consider that I knew your question before. That knowledge also served no purpose, yet it exists. The marvel of the universe revealed.|||http://guildwars.incgamers.com/forum...light=distance

Ranger Nietzsche did this before...