Add Separate World for Ocean Exploration

[Riddla]

What if a whole shard/world was added, dedicated to Ocean exploration?

Throughout the ocean on the Surface shard, a survivor can stumble upon "Rogue Whirlpool" as they sail, which acts as an entrance to the Ocean shard, just like Sinkhole for Caves.

I think such separate environment is perfect to implement specific mechanics from Shipwrecked, and also add highly unusual islands + encounters as you sail.
Natural disasters, waves, fog, tropical seasons, hell even volcanoes - this dimension could throw so much danger, in exchange for stumbling upon shiny rewards from various encounters.

The dimension could be filled with pirate monkeys, who are not shy from carrying around a treasure stash on their boats this time. Maybe you could find Sirens? A deserted boat of a fallen survivor? Perhaps there are denizens of the constant who need rescuing as they helplessly hold onto a wooden plank above water?

Islands could be as special as setpieces on the surface. Some islands could be abandoned because of how dangerous they are - imagine meeting a whole biome covered in spider web, with Spider Queens guarding valuable trinkets. Perhaps a volcanic island, or an arctic glacier full of frozen ancient creatures? A meeting camp of pirate monkeys, or even a chance to meet their whole tribe?


 

In my opinion, the randomness of encounters and the mysteries the player could uncover, as they slowly & gradually sail over the map, would make sailing extremely exciting - I think it works well to take it slow when you're exploring the complete unknown, something that could suddenly blow in your face if you do not tread carefully, yet at the same time very rewarding, and worth your efforts.

As a bonus, albeit possibly FAR too heavy for the game, perhaps there could be separate worlds for separate rogue whirlpools, so that there will always be new things to explore and conquer. Sorta like randomly generating worlds for roguelikes.


TL;DR - SHIPWRECKED IN SEPARATE SHARD, YEAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

[SSneaky]

perhaps if they optimize the 2 shards that we already have.

[Jakepeng99]

They should rework world generation instead to make the ocean less janky.

[chirsg]

I think we should have the option to "Link clusters".

That way we can have connected caves and surfaces while only having 1 server running at all times.