Zone type

Town Area
A town area is a pre-defined area of the map where a village or city used to exist on Elysium in the days before the Fracture. It can be reclaimed by players to fund and develop a new settlement.

A town needs several public buildings to be 100% functional, and there are serious benefits in making it as populated as possible – such as how well it can be defended. Running multiple settlements is demanding, and they can easily be lost to your enemies!

Plenty of town areas exist on each planet with the average size of a town spot being 256m2. This is large enough to support 100 - 200 buildings of a medium/large guild. Towns are located at least 1km apart, which takes approximately 5 minutes to walk.

If abandoned, towns are typically haunted by monsters and studded with ruins. More specifically, the ruins of a town hall can always be found close to the center of a town area. While by default town areas are haunted and unclaimed at the start of a new server or a new testing phase, two notable exceptions exist:

Players are not allowed to build freely within the boundaries of a town area that is haunted or that contains a town with an elected governor. 
 * NPC towns. There are only a handful of them on each planet, which serve as starting locations and hotspots for new players. They feature basic facilities that cater to the basic needs of players and can’t be conquered. Starting in an NPC town is not mandatory – you can always choose for your character to be created in a player-run town if authorized to do so.
 * Governor pack. If a player has pledged on Kickstarter as a Governor (or higher), he/she is able to choose a town to rule on before the server starts. When the server starts, the town is already claimed and ruled by the Governor.

Free Area
Free areas are portions of the world where players can freely build their home. Building a home in a Free Area turns a small zone surrounding the house into a Claimed Area, where the owner can start cultivations, place basic crafting stations, etc.

Building a home in a free area guarantees total freedom, but also comes with some risk (if on Syndesia or Tartaros). While player buildings can’t be destroyed and cultivations can’t be pillaged by strangers, players with malicious intent can still enter claimed lots, which lack the partial protection from crime granted by guards in town (or the total protection offered by a Good-aligned town on Syndesia).

Claimed Area
As mentioned above, a claimed area is the zone around a player house built in a free area. Other players can enter it but can’t build in it.

Just like in town, player buildings in a claimed area require maintenance to prevent the house at the center from decaying, which frees up the area to be claimed by a new owner. This maintenance can be carried out by the owner and co-owners of the lot or by a Carpenter NPC. Most Kickstarter pledges offer free carpenter NPC contract time – from 3 months in the Pioneer pack, to lifetime in the Immortal pack!

Neutral Area
Neutral areas are areas of the map where all kinds of player buildings are forbidden. They’re usually located around the borders of a village area, around dungeons and around other important world locations.

Mines
Mines are the primary source of minerals in the universe of Fractured. While minerals can theoretically be found anywhere on Syndesia thanks to events such as falling meteorites, they are rather rare occurrences, unable to sustain the needs of an organized group of players.

Mines are (almost) always located close to a town spot connected by easily walkable paths. A town can’t claim control of a mine directly – everyone can potentially enter it and dig minerals. However, the ores extracted are a heavy resource that can only be carried by hand or in handcarts and wagons. Moreover, ore can only be processed in specific town buildings – not in temporary crafting stations in the wild, nor in personal land plots. This means that a mine can de facto be exploited only by the citizens of the closest town.

Roads
Roads are predefined paths on the ground that connect towns and other important world locations. Walking on a road grants a movement speed bonus that changes according to the type of road (paved vs unpaved) and its condition. Since the planets of Fractured are large open worlds, roads are designed to be quite straight and easy to navigate and not unrealistically convoluted to slow players down. In Alpha Phase 1, the implementation of roads is basic – they can’t be improved and don’t decay over time. Later on, the system will expand to include active participation of players in the creation and maintenance of the road infrastructure of the planet.

Rivers
Rivers in the plains of Myr are often shallow and quiet, featuring plenty of fords that can be crossed by players who aren’t carrying heavy loads. This makes it easier for explorers to move around, while still requiring merchants to follow the main roads that feature large bridges. As of today, swimming is not planned, and sailing is not in the list of topics for Alpha. However, the proximity of towns and rivers is definitely not a coincidence! Transportation of players and materials through boats is something we’ve planned to implement later on – and when we do, it’s going to shake the worlds of commerce and warfare!