The world is generated by perlin noise chunks and will only be saved once that chunk has been generated. It will also not necessarily have one obvious (to the user) central point anywhere in the world, but the chunks start at 0,0 and go in all directions.
What would work to help people find their relative position to another user or buildings?
A few ideas that have crossed my mind:
- Area names - creating the names procedurally might be an issue though (?) and doesn't entirely solve the issue (until you're used to the names, they will mean nothing to you)
- A grid system, then there is something to be relative to - from a user's point of view, this is pretty tedious and I can't imagine it is really a good solution (UI-wise)
- A compass that shows the direction to chunk 0,0 and the distance from it, this is the closest solution for me so far
- A mini map of the environment would work, but only for local areas otherwise the minimap would end up taking up the entire screen or having to scroll for ages to reach other areas
Or some combination of the above.
Any thoughts on the above or other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.