One of the things we said we wanted to do for the new patch is change the world generation to make it more dynamic. Though we're working on a better system that I will (actually I will copy and paste what Pb said because I am that lazy) explain a bit later on.
So, I've changed our current one so that it removes all the diagonal-ness and therefore added a few new things, such as forests:
Here's an image with the whole world having the new world generator applied:
As you can see, the world is much more varied than it used to be, and parts of the world are no longer generated diagonally. This will not however be the final world generation. This is just the preparation for it.
Now, our new way of doing it:
create a grid of nodes, each node holding data of stuff about the environment, such as average rainfall, temp, soil content, etc
and these nodes work on a range system similar to my lighting system
in that they are strongest closet to the node, and then their effects decrease the farther out you go
plus, two node effects might interact withone another and average out
on the fringes of their ranges
now, you begin your passes
first, figure out where your water features will be
and how much water based on node effects
from there, add vegitation that meets the requirements of the node, jungle trees accompany jungle nodes, woodland trees accompany forest nodes, etc.
In basic terms we are going to create a couple of levels of the world. Each expanding upon the detail added in its predeccesor. But before we do this, the world will have certain areas with certain humidities and the "levels" will depend on these areas' humidities.
Complicated stuff, we're working on it. Can't really say much about a release date or any player test versions unfortunately but we will keep you updated.
