Talk:Rhûn/@comment-34723156-20151211171427/@comment-25101089-20151222191857

I will admit, I do like some elements of the MERP map. However, I don't think it would be right for the mod, for two main reasons. ( Yes, it would take quite a long time to redraw the map, probably at least a week, but that doesn't really bother me.)

1. It's just too large. A bigger map image directly correlates to more RAM usage. So, the larger we make the map, the fewer people will be able to run the mod, or more RAM would need to be allocated to the game to run it, which would be problematic.

The current map is 3200x4000 pixels; I superimposed the MERP map on top of it and to keep things at the same scale  (i.e. the size of the northwest areas on the map image, not the in-game world size) it would need to be roughly 8000x7000 pixels. This is a factor of ~4.5x larger.

(Reducing the scale is not an option because this would mean the size of one pixel would translate to a bigger area in-game. and thus rivers would be proportionally wider in-game. They already are too large at the moment; I wouldn't want to make them even worse. The same applies to other small-scale map features.)

2. Similar to the above, but somewhat different. The MERP lore is huge, with far more regions and cultures and factions and everything else than what exists in our plans for the mod. It would take at least a decade to even fill that map let alone go in-depth with it. I don't think I could bear to have all that hanging over my head, and the mod would suffer as a result from being so bloated.