Marked in areas the places that are right now just an image. There is nothing dynamic about it. All the graphics are placeholders so don't expect that this is the final. Apologies that it is sloppy, I was testing some UI and lighting. My question to those scanning is... should that area marked with red arrows be generated from a real map or do you think people are accepting of a view that does not match the upcoming scenery?

http://i47.tinypic.com/epr4tl.png

My thoughts so far are that the game isn't 3d so what's the point of trying to be so realistic but I also think it might be more enticing to keep moving if I saw something interesting in the distance so, I'm torn on that part.

Between you and I.... the reason the sky is showing is to cut down my objects on the screen at once on the more object driven base and so that weather can be important in things and never far from the main view. There are plans to make weather affect how your character plays so it isn't a sideline item and the sky will give cues to the weather situations.

If you're going with a 2D isometric view, then if the ground doesn't go all the way to the top of the screen, it's probably going to look all wrong regardless of what does show at the top.  The ground only going so far up the screen before you get to the sky really only makes sense with a 3D perspective world.  Or perhaps if you reach the end of the world and it looks like you could fall off.

If you only want to have so much of the game world on the screen at once, why not figure out how much that is and scale it up to cover the whole window?  Or do you already have a bunch of artwork done that you can't scale?

Eek, it does look like the world ends in a way. Thanks for the observation. I was taking inspiration from side scrolling games and giving it a twist.

There is no permanent art made yet so that one isn't a barrier. Those graphics there now are 1minute photoshop mockups just to get an idea of size. I have most of the UI off the screen and just planned on making the game 1000px X 600px with 300 for the sky and 300 for the ground being the sky and ground.

Instead of having the UI overlay the play area, instead I wanted to put it on the sides and bottom. Shot of the position of UI started http://i46.tinypic.com/2s922bq.png (the big blobs are me trying to figure out why that outside border stroke is looking beveled when zoomed but not when smaller) . That's the type of menu items I want to use if you click on objects in the world to interact, the blobs. To understand, those are two generated circles. The outside one has a gradient on the border and the other one gets two colors using the fill and the border.

<g id="found_round">
<circle cx="300" cy="490" r="30px" fill="#404040" fill-opacity="1.0"
stroke="url(#MyGradient4)" stroke-width="10px" stroke-dasharray="none" stroke-dashoffset="6" stroke-opacity="0.4">
</g>
<g id="found_round4">
<circle cx="300" cy="490" r="14px" fill="#f0f3cf"
stroke="#101010" stroke-width="3.0">
</g>

Because it's browser based, I expected that people might play it while doing other things instead of dedicating a full screen to it. That's why, I just chose a flat size. I'm letting the board be scaled so that you can zoom out and in on objects or the whole walking area.

So you see the sky as just fluff and confusing. Maybe it needs to be smaller and I'll have to use the generated upcoming scenery to give it more value. You may have answered the question. I already wanted it there for seasons and weather but if it is taking up so much screen space maybe it does need more value.