Exploration points = better Explorers?

Exploration points are an intriguing new development, and I'm interested to see how they'll be integrated into game mechanics (in more than just a keep track of your exploration and set your rank on the leaderboard way). It's my hope that one of the associations that will benefit most directly from the introduction of exploration points will be the Explorers.

Explorers have become somewhat less relevant or useful since their two real abilities (estimate location and forage) were genericized, so adding a couple of minor benefits to the association which were tied to the accumulation of exploration points could perhaps serve a few purposes, such as revitalizing the Explorers' Guide, bringing more people into the association, and adding another incentive (along with exploration XP) to people to actually explore the MUD (too many people I know have never even seen Maardryd). Maybe something along the lines of giving an autokeep compass or sextant, a simple spell that replicates the effect of the crystal cubes, an ability or item that adds a boost to the running skill.... Really, there are quite a few interesting possibilities.

The Explorers' Guide

The Almerian Expansion has hit, and I've been glad to see that most people have taken it in stride for the most part. I do have to admit on my part to no small amount of surprise at the sheer size of the expansion, since I had figured post-expansion Almeria would still be a 40x40 map, just with an extra axis involved... But wow. My first impression is that there's just a whole bunch of space now -- it's nothing I've really seen before on a MUD, and I have to say that I'm impressed.

All of the new content that's been showing up lately (Avalon, Gardagh, the rest of Almeria) has made me think a bit of the Explorers' Guide, believe it or not. Nowadays, we've got the Wiki, which is an invaluable resource for just about anyone who wants to find their way around the game, but somehow, I always enjoyed reading the articles in the Explorers' Guide, since so many of them were written in-character, and showed a lot of good humor and narrative voice. For awhile, I had a character (a POEE) with whom I intended to be an Explorer and dedicate some time to writing in the Guide. I did get some articles done and entered into the Guide before running out of inspiration, but I regret not doing more with her. Maybe I'll come back to the idea sometime soon, since there's just so much more to explore now, and while there's a whole lot to say for having everything at your fingertips in the form of wiki pages and other channels of OOC knowledge, it can still sometimes be nice to forget all of that stuff, and try to find help from something that your character might turn to in a time of need.