[META] A quick overview of the map

[Mesabi]

Hi Ya'll, Mesabi here. So one of the things I really enjoy about BoBS is exploration. But how much of the world have we even touched? I decided to compare our world with the real one. 

Comparison map silhouette by North White, on Flickr

Assuming the maps are the same type of projection, and the BoBS world is the same size as ours, this is what the size of the known world compared to ours. I made a few assumptions, as I don't know the actual latitude and longitude of the BoBS world.

Maybe @SkaForHire can help clear it up for me otherwise, just a quick overview, for your consideration.

[Maxim I]

Americans... Always thinking the world turns around them :p

Anyway, it is an interesting idea. You scaled the map so the scale match the scale of the map of the real world?

[Bregir]

49 minutes ago, Maxim I said:

Americans... Always thinking the world turns around them :p

Funnily enough, I had the exact same thought ;) But in his defense, he didn't use a map where 'MURICA is in the center, and given the directionality of our world, it sort of makes sense ;)

50 minutes ago, Maxim I said:

Anyway, it is an interesting idea. You scaled the map so the scale match the scale of the map of the real world?

Yeah, I am interested in understanding how you set the scale too. I imagined our world (bobs) to be a smaller scale than shown here.

[Admiral Bejaune]

4 hours ago, Maxim I said:

Americans... Always thinking the world turns around them :p

 

That’s because it does. 

[Darnok]

I think the scale should be done correctly, but I am not the BotBS map expert. Still: an interesting comparison, well done!

 

Which map projection did you use? This one is quite... dishonest when it comes to the northern hemisphere. 

[Professor Thaum]

1 hour ago, Admiral Bejaune said:

That’s because it does. 

Funny man !

Edited January 10, 2018 by Professor Thaum

[Flavius Gratian]

I think you have vastly overestimated the size of the known world. Considering no eastward sea travel took place whatsoever before Terraversa was availible as an acess point, I think the distance between the Sea of Storms colonies and Nelissa would be at least as wide as the Atlantic Ocean

It might be because of the Mercator projection but I don't think you realise how huge the BoBS factions would be if they are the scale you suggest

[KotZ]

7 hours ago, Bregir said:

Funnily enough, I had the exact same thought ;) But in his defense, he didn't use a map where 'MURICA is in the center, and given the directionality of our world, it sort of makes sense ;)

On a side note, I've never seen that kind of map used anywhere in the States.

[Kai NRG]

1 hour ago, Flavius Gratian said:

I think you have vastly overestimated the size of the known world. Considering no eastward sea travel took place whatsoever before Terraversa was availible as an acess point, I think the distance between the Sea of Storms colonies and Nelissa would be at least as wide as the Atlantic Ocean

Overestimated?  Do you mean underestimated?  If the distance between the Sea of Storms and Nelissa is as wide as the Atlantic, then the whole map should be considerably bigger in comparison to the map of Earth.

1 hour ago, Flavius Gratian said:

It might be because of the Mercator projection but I don't think you realise how huge the BoBS factions would be if they are the scale you suggest

Huge?  Compared to what, Ireland?    I think they'd be pretty small compared to the US or Canada or Russia or Greenland... the scale looks about right to me.

[Flavius Gratian]

13 minutes ago, Kai NRG said:

Overestimated?  Do you mean underestimated?

No, I'm pretty sure I mean overestimated, i.e. thinking they are bigger than they should be.

14 minutes ago, Kai NRG said:

If the distance between the Sea of Storms and Nelissa is as wide as the Atlantic, then the whole map should be considerably bigger in comparison to the map of Earth.

No, either the BoBS map has to be smaller, or the Earth map bigger

14 minutes ago, Kai NRG said:

Overestimated?  Do you mean underestimated?  If the distance between the Sea of Storms and Nelissa is as wide as the Atlantic, then the whole map should be considerably bigger in comparison to the map of Earth.

Huge?  Compared to what, Ireland?    I think they'd be pretty small compared to the US or Canada or Russia or Greenland... the scale looks about right to me.

Those are literally the 1st, 2nd and 4th largest countries on Earth. They are huge. Most countries today don't even come close to that size, not to mention countries in our period which is comparable to 17th to early 19th century. The US is about 9 times bigger than France, which was probably the most powerful country in Europe during that timeperiod

[Mesabi]

9 hours ago, Maxim I said:

Americans... Always thinking the world turns around them :p

Anyway, it is an interesting idea. You scaled the map so the scale match the scale of the map of the real world?

Well, I thought about mirroring it, but I didn't think it was necessary. Looks like I have some mirroring to do!

Yup! I took the map that @Mike S provided, (Which I assume is accurate) and changed the scale till it was the same as the real world map

3 hours ago, Drunknok said:

I think the scale should be done correctly, but I am not the BotBS map expert. Still: an interesting comparison, well done!

 

Which map projection did you use? This one is quite... dishonest when it comes to the northern hemisphere. 

Mercator I think. But for all I know @SkaForHire used Tobler or some other one 

1 hour ago, Flavius Gratian said:

I think you have vastly overestimated the size of the known world. Considering no eastward sea travel took place whatsoever before Terraversa was availible as an acess point, I think the distance between the Sea of Storms colonies and Nelissa would be at least as wide as the Atlantic Ocean

It might be because of the Mercator projection but I don't think you realise how huge the BoBS factions would be if they are the scale you suggest

Look mate. I took the map, with the scale, and made the scale fit a real world map. That's what happened. I'm not overestimating or underestimating anything. I just did a photoshop thing. 

[Flavius Gratian]

15 minutes ago, Mesabi said:

Look mate. I took the map, with the scale, and made the scale fit a real world map. That's what happened. I'm not overestimating or underestimating anything. I just did a photoshop thing. 

I understand and I didn't mean to be accusatory or anything. It's just that in regard to your question "But how much of the world have we even touched?" scale is pretty important. Judging by your map we have touched quite a big portion of the world already, which I personally would think is a shame, while I have been under the assumtion that there is a lot more out there, both to the south and the east.

[Darnok]

I think the scaling is done correctly. The BotBS Old World (from the maps known) is about the size of the US and Canada combined, which sounds reasonable to me. The main nations seem to have the size of the bigger countries in Europe - again, a reasonable comparison.

 

The distance between Old World and New World is - by coincidence or planning - about the same in real world and BotBS (aka "once across the Atlantic), which I really like.

 

There should be another landmass of continental proportions either a bit more east (as rumoured in the New Haven map thread) or north. Interesting times ahead for explorers for sure!

 

6 minutes ago, Flavius Gratian said:

 Judging by your map we have touched quite a big portion of the world already, which I personally would think is a shame, while I have been under the assumtion that there is a lot more out there, both to the south and the east.

While a good portion of the BotBS world might be mapped, we know surprisingly little about even a lot of those mapped areas. There is much to explore, even in the "more civilised" regions.

Edited January 10, 2018 by Drunknok

[Flavius Gratian]

Again, I think you might be fooled by the Mercator projection. Here's an article explaining the problems with it.

And if you want to do some comparing yourselves, here's a pretty good program

[Capt Wolf]

I'm staying out of the size/scale discussion and am just going to say that it's neat to have this map comparison to provoke some thought. Thanks for creating it!

[Darnok]

19 minutes ago, Flavius Gratian said:

Again, I think you might be fooled by the Mercator projection. Here's an article explaining the problems with it.

And if you want to do some comparing yourselves, here's a pretty good program

Mesabi himself brought up this very problem in the OP, and it is really not the big issue here.

 

Even without differences in projection, and assuming the scaling is done more or less correctly, the currently mapped BotBS world is about 1/4 of the size of the real world. Assuming both worlds are about the same size, there is 3/4 of the BotBS world not shown on maps yet.

 

And that is not adressing the point that a huge part of the mapped BotBS world has not yet been explored or described in detail.

[Captain Dee]

Cool overlay, despite the issues with Mercator projections (which are only accurate at the Equator). I assumed both maps were at the same scale based on the comparison of Serentia and Algeria. And I didn't realize how far the islands are from the mother countries. Getting to them would require very long voyages.

I am curious as to how the USA actually compares to the big black BoBS landmass. Without knowing the type of BoBS map it's difficult to say exactly how they compare.

The islands' climate descriptions could give some clues about latitudes, but that's a lot to dig through.

And finally: BoBS is a fictitious world. What's to say that it's the same size as the real Earth anyway? Even if it is there's still a huge amount of unmapped, unexplored territory regardless of the extent of map distortion.

[Mesabi]

26 minutes ago, Captain Dee said:

And finally: BoBS is a fictitious world. What's to say that it's the same size as the real Earth anyway? Even if it is there's still a huge amount of unmapped, unexplored territory regardless of the extent of map distortion.

We really need @SkaForHire 

[Mike S]

10 minutes ago, Mesabi said:

We really need @SkaForHire 

I’m pretty sure it is his intention to have the size of the world discovered by in game mechanics.

[Bregir]

Yeah, keep speculating and discussing, but stop asking for answers. ;)

The BoBs world is for us to discover and create, and the globe it sits on may be smaller or larger.

Ska can't tell you what is to the south of Mokolei, or what is inside Mokolei. That is for us to discover.

There are some basic thought about a far east parallel somewhere to the south, and leadership will give some clues or basic information as necessary, but don't expect the whole world defined and populated in advance. Things exist when we create them. That is the beauty of BoBs. :)

[Mesabi]

7 minutes ago, Bregir said:

Yeah, keep speculating and discussing, but stop asking for answers. ;)

The BoBs world is for us to discover and create, and the globe it sits on may be smaller or larger.

Honestly, I'd just like some latitude and longitude , as I feel that's not the kind of thing to come up in game. Also, it'd be nice to know what kind of projection is being used...

Also, I'd say that the Corrington should probably know the size of the world, as the ancient Greeks did. But that's just me. I don't really expect any answers.

[Bregir]

1 minute ago, Mesabi said:

Honestly, I'd just like some latitude and longitude , as I feel that's not the kind of thing to come up in game. Also, it'd be nice to know what kind of projection is being used...

Also, I'd say that the Corrington should probably know the size of the world, as the ancient Greeks did. But that's just me. I don't really expect any answers.

IC you can know all these things. OOC, I see absolutely no need for that information.

What is the need for the projection? Have Ska even considered it when going from globe to flat map? And does it matter? I can't see how it's important.

Latitude and longitude requires a 0 point. Do you want to start discussing where that should be? Again, what is the purpose?

I perfectly understand the interest in speculating and discussing the nature and size of the world, but I don't get the wish for certainty. Why not be ready to be surprised? To maintain the thrill of discovery, rather than muddling it with meta-knowledge? I'd prefer not to know. If I ever get that knowledge, I'd prefer to get it by IC discovery, not some OOC meta discovery.

[Darnok]

6 minutes ago, Bregir said:

Latitude and longitude requires a 0 point. Do you want to start discussing where that should be?

Actually it just requires a point of reference, which could be anywhere.

 

8 minutes ago, Bregir said:

I'd prefer not to know.

That's just like... your opinion, man.

[Capt Wolf]

15 minutes ago, Mesabi said:

Also, I'd say that the Corrington should probably know the size of the world

Europeans didn't know the size of the Earth before it was circumnavigated, and that momentous event hasn't taken place yet in BoBS.

[Flavius Gratian]

7 minutes ago, Bregir said:

I perfectly understand the interest in speculating and discussing the nature and size of the world, but I don't get the wish for certainty. Why not be ready to be surprised? To maintain the thrill of discovery, rather than muddling it with meta-knowledge? I'd prefer not to know. If I ever get that knowledge, I'd prefer to get it by IC discovery, not some OOC meta discovery.

Personally, I don't want to know yet. I agree completely with you that the mystery of it all is an integral part of BoBS. It was just my expectation that the world would be quite big in the end, so when Mesabi brought up the question I thought I should share my perspective