Maps of the Three Great Continents

[RomildaRayne]

Since my map of the Three Great Continents got a lot of attention on Reddit, I figured I'd post it here on the official forums, along with a bunch of other maps I've labeled.

• The Three Great Continents
• Eorzea
• The Far East
• Vylbrand
• Thanalan
• The Black Shroud
• Mor Dhona
• Coerthas
• Dravania
• Abalathia's Spine

Sadly, as of Stormblood, they've stopped making region maps the way they used to in favor of showing the overall shape of the in-game zone (with a slightly-misleading silhouette of Eorzea or the Far East behind it that doesn't really match up with the location's placement at all).

[Theodric]

Great maps!

I'm going to have to bookmark this for future reference.

[Alleluia]

Maaaps.

With english. woot! I think Eorzean script is pretty, but *man* did I have a time trying to remember how to read it when I got back from a game hiatus.

[Iscah]

So are these pre-Stormblood maps from in-game, with just the labels translated? (I didn't start playing until after Stormblood released.)



I was trying to put together some complete maps a while ago by treating the areas as a "jigsaw puzzle" to put together, but I didn't get very far. I need to try that again.



I did put together a very rough map of aetheryte locations based on distance (= teleport cost minus 100), which didn't seem to quite overlay the world map whichever way I twisted it. (It's all based on relative distances, so no way of telling exactly where north should be, either.)

I'm not certain that it's a truly accurate map of where the 'real' locations are located relative to each other, but the teleport costs are consistent.

Something odd I've noticed in conjunction with those maps you posted though... from the teleport distances, I'd worked out that Azys Lla must be northwest of the Sea of Clouds, but there was some dialogue indicating it should be northeast - and that's where the map of Abalathia's Spine puts it.

[Alleluia]

lWhat was your reasoning for putting Azys Lla NW?

[Iscah]

lWhat was your reasoning for putting Azys Lla NW?

No "reasoning" as such, but mapping the numbers given by the teleport fees.

I worked out it's a consistent price-to-distance ratio, plus a 100-gil travel fee - although it's calculated from the town on that map rather than exactly where you're standing.

My initial test when working out if it was consistent, was mapping the first four capital cities. (I tried it with and without subtracting the 100, which changed the shape of the map, and this was the version that worked out correctly.)

Step 1: Ul'dah and Ishgard

The teleport fee between these cities is 568 gil.

Draw a 4.68 cm vertical line. (or scale everything up for easier mapping)


Step 2: Limsa Lominsa

Teleport fee is 553 gil to Ishgard and 422 to Ul'dah.

Use two rulers to find the point that is 4.53cm and 3.22cm from those points.


Step 3: Gridania

Same process. 2.45cm from Ishgard and 3.62cm from Ul'dah.

We have now drawn a trapezoid shape with the four cities at the corners.


Step 4: Measurement check

Measure the distance between Limsa and Gridania (618 gil). It should be 5.18cm.


Step 5: Cloudtop and Azys Lla

Same triangulation process.

Cloudtop: 1.67cm from Ishgard and 2.17cm from Gridania

Azys Lla: 1.33cm from Ishgard and 2.77cm from Gridania


Map it out, and Azys Lla is clearly northwest of Cloudtop - maybe more just north or just west depending on exactly what angle is supposed to be north. But certainly not northeast.

[Alleluia]

Interesting. The teleport fees certainly don't seem like arbitrary numbers since that logic does seem to work out mapping the rest of them. Maybe someone messed up? Like the person setting the fee messed up, or the writer of the in-game text that says Northeast.

[Iscah]

I assume everything was calculated from, essentially, the map that I reverse-engineered from the teleport costs. Expanding that logic out to all of Eorzea, all the cities can be mapped by the same process and then as far as I can tell, the costs remain consistent between any two points.

I think they must have started with drawing the map and worked from there, or it couldn't be so exact.

The question is whether it's a "true" map or something similar to the area maps in the game now, with all the areas roughly placed next to each other but not joined exactly as they should be in real space.

[WhiteArchmage]

Oh, dear, I may be gushing about these maps for a while, thank you!

[DarthSanguine]

Uznair? Isn't that where we go from doing treasure maps?