7 Days to Die Live Map

Where it is and what it shows

Open your server and click Live Map in the sidebar.

The map is built out of the tiles 7 Days to Die renders itself as players explore the world, with live player markers drawn on top.

The page is laid out like the other games' live maps: a toolbar above the map, the map in a square frame that the whole world fills when it opens, a lettered and numbered grid on it, and a Layers panel beside it. The panel starts with your world's name, its size, the save and how many tiles have been rendered, then lists every layer with its icon, a short note and a count, with All off and Reset to defaults under them. On a narrow screen the panel moves below the map.

Under those tiles is a world overview: a picture of the whole world — hills and valleys, biomes, roads and town streets — drawn from the world's own files. It is there from the moment your server is installed, before anybody has played: a stock world such as Navezgane has one before the server has even started, and a random world has one as soon as its first start has generated it. Explored ground is drawn over it in full detail as players move around. You can switch it off with World overview in the Layers panel.

Below the map, the Online Players table lists everyone connected with their name, entity id, their position as the game's own map shows it, the raw coordinates, and — when the server's web dashboard is on — their health, deaths, zombie kills and ping.

Nothing is installed on your server for any of this. It uses the game's own map rendering, the REST API 7 Days to Die already ships, the world's own files and the world save — no mods. That matters because any mod turns off crossplay and locks PlayStation and Xbox players out.

Map rendering is on by itself

A Map Status card at the top of the page shows two badges: Web Dashboard and Map Rendering.

You do not need to turn anything on. GameGrid switches the game's own EnableMapRendering setting on every time your server starts, on every server, unless you have turned it off yourself in Settings — the same way it keeps Telnet on. A new server is rendering from its first start.

If Map Rendering reads OFF, you turned it off, so the server is writing no tiles. Click Enable Map Rendering to turn it back on. That sets EnableMapRendering for you.

It needs a restart, and on a running server the panel does that for you. 7 Days to Die reads that setting once when the game starts and never again. The message after you click still says "Restart the server for it to take effect"; you do not need to press Restart as well. While the running server has not yet restarted with it, the badge reads ON (restart pending). On a stopped server it takes effect when you start it.

A server that was already running before GameGrid began switching it on can also show ON (restart pending): it turns on at that server's next restart, whichever restart that is.

Once it is on, tiles appear as players move through the world — usually within a minute or two of somebody exploring. Until then the map shows the world overview.

The card also names the world and save the tiles come from — the one your server is running, set by GameWorld and GameName. If you switch to a new save, the map shows that save (only the world overview until it is explored), not the old one.

Why parts of the map are missing

This is the most common question about this map, and it is not a fault.

Tiles are only written while map rendering is on. Ground your players explored before it was on has no tile at any zoom level, so it shows the world overview there — the ground as the world was generated, without anything players built — or a gap if the overview is switched off.

Your in-game map looks complete over the same ground because that map is drawn from each player's own map data, which is separate from these tiles.

The fix is to travel back through the area with rendering on, or use Render whole map (below). The tiles are written as the ground is visited.

Moving around the map

Scroll the mouse wheel to zoom about the pointer, or use the − and + buttons in the toolbar, which zoom about the selected cell when it is on screen and the middle of the map otherwise. The number between them is the zoom, where 100% is the whole world. Drag to pan. Whole world shows the whole world again.

The map always stays on your world: you cannot zoom out further than the whole world, or drag it off the edge into empty space.

With the map selected (click it once) the keyboard works too: the arrow keys pan, + and − zoom, 0 shows the whole world and F switches Full screen on and off. Esc leaves full screen.

The map picks the level of detail for you: zoomed out it loads a few coarse tiles, zoomed in it loads the detailed ones, and while a detailed tile loads you see the coarser one stretched under it instead of a hole. The Detail dropdown at the bottom of the Layers panel reads Auto by default; pick a level to force it.

Tiles you are looking at are checked again every 15 seconds, so ground rendered while you watch fills in without reloading the page. A tile that has not changed costs almost nothing to check.

Players, zombies and animals glide to each new position instead of jumping.

Refresh forces an immediate update of the players, the map and the markers rather than waiting for the next poll. Nothing is polled while the page is in a background tab.

Coordinates

Point at the map and the box in its bottom-right corner shows exactly where you are pointing, two ways:

The map position drops the fraction rather than rounding, exactly as the game does: a player standing at x -597.9, z -1808.9 is 1808 S 597 W in game and here.

Height is not shown — the map is flat, so the height at a point is not known.

On a touch screen there is no pointer, so the box shows where you last tapped.

The Online Players and Last Known Positions tables have a Map column in the same format, and a cell's panel shows its centre both ways.

Tools at any point: right-click

Right-click anywhere on the map — or press and hold on a touch screen, or use Point tools in the toolbar for the middle of the map — for a menu of what you can do at that exact point. The point is marked on the map while the menu or a dialog is open.

Copy map position, Copy block coordinates, Copy grid reference and Copy region put that text on your clipboard, ready to paste into chat or a ticket.

Measure from here starts a ruler; so does Measure in the toolbar. Click to add points; each leg shows its length, and the bar above the map shows the total and the compass direction from the first point to the last. Right-click, press Esc or click Select to stop; Clear removes it.

Add marker in the toolbar (Full Access) makes every click on the map open the marker dialog at that point, until you click Select again.

With Full Access you also get Add a marker here, Teleport a player here and Spawn an entity here. A tool that cannot work at that point is shown greyed out with the reason — for example when the point is outside the world.

Teleporting a player to a point

Choose Teleport a player here…, pick an online player and confirm. The dialog shows each player's current position and how far they are from the point, and the button names who goes where: Teleport Ada to 300 N 832 W.

They land on the ground at that point. You can choose which way they face when they arrive.

Before anyone is moved, the server checks again. The player must still be online, and must still be the same person — a player's entity id changes every time they log in, so a player who left and rejoined since the list loaded is not moved by mistake. The point must be inside your world. If any check fails, nothing is sent and the dialog says why.

This needs the web dashboard on, because that is where the player's permanent id comes from. It is limited to 20 teleports a minute per server, shared with the cell panel's teleport.

Every teleport — and every refused one — is recorded in your account's audit log with the player's name and id, where they were, where they went and what the server replied.

Spawning at a point, and markers

Spawn an entity here… places 1 to 25 of an entity at that exact point. It drops in from above and lands on whatever is below; hostiles attack any player nearby. A number above 25 is sent as 25, and the button shows the number that will be sent. It is limited to 10 spawns a minute per server and is audited with the entity, count and point.

Add a marker here… leaves a labelled pin on the map for everyone who can open this server's live map — a trader run, a base to check, an area to reset next week. Markers are stored by GameGrid, not in the game, so players do not see them in game and they cost your server nothing.

Click a marker to see who added it and when, copy its position, or remove it. A server can have 200 markers, and each person up to 50 of them. Adding and removing markers is audited.

Player positions

Positions refresh every ten seconds, read from the game's own web API.

Because it is the game's own API rather than console text, the table carries more than a position: health, deaths, zombie kills and ping, and a Banned badge on anyone who is. Point at a player on the map for the same details.

If Web Dashboard reads OFF, the map falls back to reading positions from the console. That still works — you get the name and the coordinates — but a teleport to a point cannot be verified that way, so it is not offered.

If the player list cannot be read at all, the table says so, and why, rather than showing "No players online".

Last known positions

Tick Last-known positions to see where players were the last time they were seen online.

These are not live. They draw as a dashed grey ring with the age on the label — "Ada · 3h ago" — and the table below gives the same thing in full.

The game does not report this; its API only knows who is online right now. Positions are recorded while this Live Map is open in a browser, so the list fills in as players come and go while somebody has the map open. It is cleared when the panel is updated, and entries age out after two weeks.

The grid

The map has the same lettered and numbered grid as the other games' maps, so a place can be called out as C7: letters across from the west, numbers down from the north, written along the top and left edges of the map. It covers the world and nothing outside it.

Under it the world is divided into regions of 512 × 512 blocks, named the way the game names them — r.-2.3; zoom in and each region's name appears in its corner. On a default 6,144-block world the two line up exactly: A–L by 1–12, one region per square. On an 8k or 10k world each square is 1,024 blocks, two regions across. The size is read from the world's own files, so an 8k or 10k world — generated, or one of the game's Pregen worlds — gets its full grid.

Click any cell to see what is inside it: players, zombies, animals and land claims, with counts. Clicking costs nothing — it filters what the map has already loaded.

If a layer is switched off, the panel says "Layer off" rather than showing zero.

Layers

The Layers panel beside the map chooses what is drawn. Each row has the layer's icon as it appears on the map, a short note and, while the layer is on, how many there are; a layer that could not be read says why instead of showing zero. World overview, Grid and Markers are on by default, and so is Vehicles where the GameGrid map mod is on; the rest are off, and a layer that is off costs your server nothing. All off clears everything drawn on the map but the world overview, and Reset to defaults puts the defaults back. Your choices are remembered in this browser. Players online is always shown, so its row has no tickbox.

Under the layers, the Players online list names everyone on your server, sorted by name, with the grid square each one is in (such as "C7"). It refreshes with the player positions, every ten seconds. Click a name to centre the map on that player and ring their dot; point at a name to ring the dot without moving the map. If the player list cannot be read, it says why. The full table of online players, with entity IDs and coordinates, is still under the map.

A bear counts as a zombie here. The game splits these two lists by whether something is hostile, not by species.

Point at anything on the map for its name: a player, a zombie or animal's type, a claim's owner, a marker's label.

Shapes differ as well as colours, so the layers stay readable if you do not distinguish red from green.

Land claims, bedrolls and backpacks come from the world save

The game version your server runs has no console command or web API for land claims or bedrolls. They are read instead from the player file 7 Days to Die writes into your world save, which needs no mod and works with crossplay on.

They are as current as the game's last write of that file, not live. The Land claims label shows the time of that save, and so does the tooltip on a bedroll or backpack. A claim placed a minute ago may not show until the game saves player data again.

Each claim is drawn at your server's own LandClaimSize — 41 blocks by default — with its owner's name.

Acting on a cell

Click a cell and the panel has an actions area at the bottom. These need Full Access, and everything is recorded in your account's audit log.

Teleport player here moves an online player to the centre of that region, on the ground. The same identity check as a point teleport applies.

Spawn at the centre of r.x.z places 1 to 25 of an entity at the region's centre, dropped from above. It works with nobody nearby, and it shares the point spawn's limit of 10 a minute.

World events are under their own heading. Airdrop and wandering horde are server-wide: the game decides where they appear. The screamer is aimed at the centre of the selected region. Each event is limited to three per five minutes.

Rendering the map

Render whole map in the toolbar has the server visit the whole world so every region gets map tiles, using the game's own visitmap command. It is real work for your server and costs performance while it runs; on a big map it takes a long time.

Render r.x.z in a cell's panel does the same for one region.

Stop render cancels a run. It appears once you have started a render from this page.

Whole-map renders are limited to two per five minutes, and region renders to three a minute.

Resetting a region

This destroys everything players built in that 512 × 512 block area and returns the terrain to how it generated. Only the account owner and admins see the control.

The reset runs in the background, in steps, and the panel says which one it is on:

1. A check that your server can run a reset at all — it is running, its web dashboard is on, and its game version describes the reset command in a way we recognise. If not, it stops here: no backup is taken and nothing is changed.

2. A backup. If the backup fails, the reset does not run. Not a warning you can click past — the command is never sent.

3. The reset of the region you chose, and nothing else.

You can leave the page once it has started; it carries on, and the result is recorded in the audit log with the backup id.

The dialog tells you what is in the region before you commit, including who owns the land claims there. Turn the Land claims layer on first — the dialog offers to load them.

If we lose contact after the reset command was sent, the panel cannot tell whether it ran and says so, and the button stays locked until you reload. Check the audit log before trying again; a backup was taken first either way.

Blood moon

The Map Status card shows the blood-moon state — either that one is tonight, or which day the next one falls on.

It is read from the game's own blood-moon endpoint. If your server's game version does not have that endpoint, or answers in a form we do not recognise, the badge is simply absent rather than showing a wrong answer.

Crossplay and the GameGrid map mod

Everything above works on a crossplay server. Console crossplay needs Easy Anti-Cheat on and no mods, so the live map is built entirely from what an unmodded server offers.

A few features cannot be built that way — vehicles on the map, land claims the moment they are placed, dropping an item at a point, and waypoints on players' own maps. The Crossplay and map features card below the map lists them, with the reason for each.

Those features need the GameGrid map mod, our own server mod. Today the map uses it for vehicles; the card marks the other three Not in the panel yet. It is off by default. Turning it on asks you to confirm that PlayStation and Xbox players will not be able to join while it is on, and it is recorded in the audit log.

It takes effect on the next restart: the mod is installed, and EAC and crossplay are turned off. To undo it, turn it off in the same card; on the next restart the mod is removed and EAC and crossplay go back to how they were.

Your server's machine downloads the mod by itself, in the build that matches your server's game version. While it downloads, the card shows its progress; you can turn the mod on at any time, and it is applied at the first restart after the download has finished. If a download fails, the card says why and has a Retry button; it also retries on its own.

A 7 Days to Die update does not switch the mod off. Until a build of the mod is released for the new game version, your server keeps using the newest build made for an earlier game version, and changes to the version made for yours by itself once it is released. Only a server on a game version older than every build of the mod has nothing to run; the card then says so and that our team has been notified, and the mod is applied automatically once a build is available.

If the mod keeps failing on a new game version, on your server or on others running the same version, it is paused on that version: the next restart runs your server without it and puts EAC and crossplay back to how they were, exactly as switching it off would, and our team is alerted. Your choice stays saved, and the mod is put back by itself at the first restart after it is working again.

Vehicles

With the GameGrid map mod on, the Vehicles layer shows your players' bicycles, minibikes, motorcycles, 4x4 trucks and gyrocopters. Hover one to see whose it is. Without the mod the switch is greyed out and says it needs the mod.

• A solid marker is a vehicle near a player. Its position is live and updates every few seconds.
• A hollow marker is a parked vehicle with no player near it. The game unloads the land around it and records where the vehicle stands, and the map shows that position. A parked vehicle cannot move, so that is where it is.

You do not need anyone online to see parked vehicles. If the layer says only vehicles near a player are shown, your server is still running the older version of the mod, which can only see vehicles near a player; the newer version is installed automatically at a restart once it is available for your server's game version.

The burnt-out cars along roads and in towns are part of the world's scenery, not vehicles, so they are never on this layer.

Zombies and animals are different: the game only spawns them around players, so those layers are empty when nobody is online.

Metrics layers

When player statistics are switched on for your server, the map's layer list also offers Density (where players spend time), Trails (the paths they took) and Deaths / Kills (where players died, and where kills were made if the game reports kills). They start switched off; tick one to draw it under the map's markers. They read the last 7 days (Trails: the last 24 hours, for the 20 players who travelled furthest). For any range, a player picker and a replay of the trails, open Metrics and its Travel tab. These layers are shown only to you in your panel, never on a public share link. See Metrics: Your Server's History.

The other games are different

This map is specific to 7 Days to Die. Every other game with a live map has its own, built from something entirely different.

See The Live Map: What Each Game Shows.