VisualNewt Software

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#     WoW Surveyor

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#      (c)2008 VisualNewt Software.

#      All rights reserved.

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# The purpose of this project is to figure out how big WoW is in real-world terms based on relative scales.  

# That is, if you had to build the WoW world in the real world, how much land would you need?

# Even though we know coordinates via various mods, we have no idea how big the distances are in the real world.

# This assumes the Cartographer mod.

# Lets take a look at Stormwind.

# 1 - Measure a straight line distance using Cartographer points and coordinates.  This will be our reference distance.

#     Stormwind Keep from the entrance steps to the far back wall is a nice straight line.

# Cartogropher coordinates:

# Entrace to SW keep (on first step)

x1 = 68.8

y1 = 28.8

# back of keep (statue)

x2 = 83.3

y2 = 12.0

# Calculate the distance between these points using standard Pythagorean theorem. 

# The result will be in something I'll call 'wowunits' which is what I'll call Cartographer's units of measure.

# This is the Ruby routine to do the calculation.

def distance

xdif = x1 - x2

ydif = y1 - y2

z = Math.sqrt((xdif*xdif)+(ydif*ydif))

puts z.to_s + " wowunits"

end # distance

# The result when this is run is:

distance

22 wowunits

# 2 - Measure the same distance using a human character walking (not running)

#    We use a human character because we have a real world figure for an average stride. 

#    We can always scale other WoW races based on how they relate to human strides.

#    Assume WoW humans have an average human stride of 3 feet. (3 feet is the average stride of us humans)

#    I get 193 paces to traverse the length of SW Keep when I walk it using a human character (Skeeve)

193 * 3 = 579 human feet between the Keep entrance and the back wall. Plus or minus a foot.

# 3 - Divide the distance in human feet by the same distance in wowunits to get human feet per wowunit.

579/22 =   26 ft/wowunit

# 4 - Thus there are 26 real world feet per Cartogropher's unit (wowunit).  This is our scale. (This is rounded).

# 5 - Figure out square mileage for Stormwind.  This will be approximate since its not a true rectangle.  

#    The real size will be much smaller than what we calculate, but this will give us some idea of Stormwind's scale.

#    Given our scale, we can now just use the Cartogropher coordinates to calculate real world distances!

#    Cartogropher could actually build this scale in to display actual distances in addition to coordinates.  (See NOTE below.)

#Stormwind

#----------

# extreme left point

x1 = 83.3

y1 = 11.6

# extreme right point

x2 = 21.7 

y2 = 86.0

distance

96 wowunits wide

# extreme top point

x1 = 32.6

y1 =  23.1

# extreme bottom point (gate)

x2 = 61.6

y2 = 71.0

distance  

56 wowunits height

# Stormwind: 96 x 56  wowunits or 

#            2496 x 1456 human feet (@ 26 human ft/wowunit) or 

#            3634176 sq ft

# To calculate square mileage calculate: sqft * 3.59E-08 = sq mile

def square_mileage(sqft)

  sqmi = sqft * 3.59E-08

  puts sqft.to_s + " square feet is " + sqmi.to_s + " square miles."

end   

# Running this:

square_mileage 3634176

3634176 square feet is 0.1304669184 square miles.

# To calculate acreage calculate sqft * 2.30E-05 = acre

def acreage(sqft)

acre = sqft *  2.30E-05

puts sqft.to_s + " square feet is " + acre.to_s + " acres."

end

# Running this:

acreage 3634176

3634176 square feet is 83.586048 acres.

# Therefore, Stromwind is about 0.1 square miles or about 83.5 acres--nice and cozy.

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#  NOTE: I've rounded some of the results.  

#  Also, the scale of 26 feet/wowunit only probably holds within Stormwind.  

#  Once you leave the gates the scale is probably different and would have to be recalculated for each zone/map.

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