The original vision of the Adellion game was a single massive continent; one that frankly was more territory and more computing power than could reasonably be developed and managed. We debated making a small corner of the larger territory, but the results seemed generally unsatisfactory. So, in order to handle the number of people envisioned for the game, and the amount of territory that would be reasonable for that number of players to start the game, we elected to reduce the size of the game world.

I developed a set of algorithms that would make maximum use of the territory each server could support and would require the minimum amount of communication between servers. This will allow many more players on a single server. These algorithms were presented to the other programmers on the team, and then to the entire development staff.

Based on that information the mapping team came up with a new map of the terrain. After review, the artists and lore team went into overdrive, rewriting the entire history, re-locating all the critical historical elements of the game world into the smaller area. They re-argued the entire history of the world and all its interactions, altering the histories in major and subtle ways to make the new Adellion as rich and immersive as the original.

The results are being brought out today. The maps and other materials that are being presented now are based on this new scale. The resulting game world is still very, very large, especially in comparison to many of the other games on the market. And it is expandable so that more territory can be later revealed.