As we await the Mistlands update, I was drawn to the developer notes on whether our existing seeds will inherit the Mistlands update or if we would need to begin a fresh seed. The notes specifically mention that area rendering will take effect when a new part of the map is within 300 to 500 meters of a player's position. This made me curious as to how Valheim calculates position and distance. Our handheld geodetic devices typically display positions with latitude, longitude and altitude but 3D distances rely upon some cartesian system with X, Y and Z. Valheim seed maps employ a cartesian pattern but there may be some variations in the assignment of axis. In some systems, X most closely resembles east-west (longitude), Y most closely resembles north-south (latitude) and Z most closely resembles displacement from earth-center (altitude). Other systems may swap the Y and Z references. In Valheim, the 'pos' command seems to follow the later interpretation. But as long as the interpretation is consistent, then coordinates can be fed into any 3D distance calculator and displacement from two points accurately calculated. If we look again at seed maps, we can see that a Valheim seed runs from +10000 West to -10000 East and +10000 North to -10000 South. The key question is whether the distance from the North to the South poles is indeed 20km or some other metric. Assuming that the distance from 0,0,0 to 0,1,0 is 1 meter, a player is advised to remain 0.5 km away from the Mistlands to get the update into their existing seed. Too much work? Just bring in a new seed.