I disagree. Having a globe is opposed to my Flat Earth Society beliefs, as well as probably meaning the terrain generation will suffer from it. I prefer maps of a more local feeling, such as you see in the maps of almost any fantasy book. A small area by the sea, with an impassable mountainside to the east perhaps.

If you do something cool like fall off the edge, then the flat will help fit the fantasy!

Maybe we'll get to see some elephants on the way down into darkness!

I perfer worlds that are tubes (They wrap east to west but not around the poles)

Sammual

Just make it so that the map borders aren't just a line but, like in Terry Pratchet's books, a cliff falling down to the turtle below.

As far as I'm concerned as long as the distortions are kept to a minimum especially at the polls and one is allowed to change the orientation at will all will be good.

I would like world shaped like a woman body (or I could live with only certain parts of it) ))

personally, I'd like a map shaped in 6 dimensions. but having a gorgeous rimfall would be sublime too.I like the look of the old style 2D maps SD seem intent on having, it would really lend some authenticity, at least for me.

I used to spend hours in school drawing fantasy maps for my RPG games i used to run. They were terrible, truly ugly things but i used to love creating them (even if i only had any use for some of them). In fact i remember buying the LotR rpg (can't remember what it was called but was based on the Rolemaster system i think) and, much to my everlasting delight, i found a colour map of the entire Middle EArth. Wow.

I prefer the flat map but if SD decided to include a global view as a max zoom I would not complain.

Both options would be good. Then modders and map/world builders can go crazy.

I would expect flat, globe, and donut (toroidal) would all be pretty easy.

It would be pretty awesome if the whole 'zoom out and see a map' thing held to a globe as well.  Like if you zoomed out and saw a olde-style globe.

I think it would also be neat if it was a map, but the map itself scrolled.   Like when you zoomed out everything went from 3D to look exactly like ink on cloth, but if you zoomed back in and scrolled then zoomed out again the map would be different.   You could also have new things (like new towns and such) burn themselves into the map if the player is all the way zoomed out when it happens.

I expect you'll be able to mod something like that - I'm thinking Last Exile here

Since its supposed to be full scalable from outmost-zoom to extreme closeup zoom i'd guess a map makes most sense.

I kinda like the idea of a globe though. Surely channelers of that magnitude would go for nothing less then global domination (insert MUHAHAHAWWWWW here). I'm sure it could be possible to make distortion minimal if the land doenst get divvied up in nice squares (like civ4) If you allow for "odd-shaped" lands i'm sure globes area feasible. In mostly zoomed-out mode you could then move the map/turn the planet quickly to zoom in again at your preferred point.

btw what it poles? I believe you havent invented magnetism yet (and having poles does not necessary mean impassible ice barriers either - thats just how it turned out on our world)

Only on a map *with* an equator

I haven't caught any word about the current map options other than what BoogieBac said in reply 2: "...flat and non-square..."

So, having an equator might be an option, or an equator of some sort might be a result of choosing an option or set of options that sum up roughly as Has Two Polarized Regions at Center Top and Center Bottom. The polarizations could be complicated: opposed elements (e.g. fire vs. water); a divided element seeking to re-unite (e.g. flood the world); good vs. evil for a given element, etc.

My real preference would be to have the map generation options strongly reflect the back story, so we could have something like what you describe for when "the channeler's essence doesn't work as well near the magnetic poles because its too close to the dead heart of the world."

In other words, I want the story of magic in Elemental to be woven directly into the algorithms that generate game maps. Even if we can't see it directly as players, I want it to be there. There was a World Before the Game. Great Powers wrecked the world, and the current channelers have some sort of (Elemental?) connection to those powers of old. So whatever input players give to generate a map for a new game should run through algorithms that know the Shards were all part of One Thing, remember where that Thing might have been, have some ideas about how a few choices made by Great Powers might have gone differently, etc.