Mapping Changes

Jeremy Saunders

I have made several small changes to a lot of the general areas in the game today. Nothing too serious.

And then I came to the desert. I will probably be making some significant layout changes in the next couple of days so that is makes more sense. I forgot how all over the place the desert is.

Any major objections or suggestions?

Khizan

Nuke it from orbit.

It's the only way to be sure.

Labil

Long time over due!

Areas like the Nolmines (both Eastern and Western) and the Paran mountains are also annoying to traverse. And an absolute pain in a shadowgame.

Jeremy Saunders

I have not done the mountain ranges yet. But I will.

Khizan

On a more serious note, I'd really like it if you'd patch up the split areas. There's several areas that are in two or more completely isolated parts, and this makes PATH FIND SHARD really frustrating, since it won't path to shards in any of the other isolated parts

Lalitana

Jeremy said:

I have made several small changes to a lot of the general areas in the game today. Nothing too serious.

And then I came to the desert. I will probably be making some significant layout changes in the next couple of days so that is makes more sense. I forgot how all over the place the desert is.

Any major objections or suggestions?

Can you make more pear grow while you're at it?

In seriousness, the desert is laid out badly and it should feel bad. Even just making all the crazy "sections" fit together properly would be an improvement.

Lionas

Desert island is my best friend.

Aleutia

I don't know if this will make sense or not, but here we go.

I think it would help if you do like Lalitana said, and 'piece' the desert together in a way that makes sense (Use long exits, whatever it takes). Maybe remove some of the in game map breaks and just have a HUGE desert area on the 'outside' and then have the map break for the 'inside' area which surrounds Antioch city.

Dicene

Areas with tons of fragmented breaks do suck(Heartlands, Areish). That said, there are a few areas that have breaks that done suck(Renfrewshire is broken up appropriately, and I like the river split style of break).

I think Areish and other mountain ranges could be rearranged in a way that shows the level above and below on the same MAP screen(similar to various areas I can't think of right now) so you get a feel for where you are vertically.

Jeremy Saunders

Yeah @Aleutia, that is what I am thinking. Have that inner antioch desert, connected with a couple exits to the main desert. Get rid of all the exits that loop strangely. Probably add a few more generic desert rooms where needed.

So Main Desert -> Inner Desert -> Antioch

Does that made sense?

Aleutia

@Jeremy - Exactly what I was thinking, yes

Jeremy Saunders

Khizan said:

On a more serious note, I'd really like it if you'd patch up the split areas. There's several areas that are in two or more completely isolated parts, and this makes PATH FIND SHARD really frustrating, since it won't path to shards in any of the other isolated parts

Give me an example location so I can see what you mean.

Ahkan

Areish, Heartlands, Yhumara

Khizan

The Areish Mountains are one off the top of my head. I can't remember them all.

Jeremy Saunders

In something like the Heartlands, the problem is that the river is running through it?

Ahkan

The river is a big deal, plus there's a lot of mini-cross overs with surrounding areas like the desert and a forest (or two?) and graytrem.

Jeremy Saunders

Right. I saw some of that while moving things around. I will play with those some more.

Juran

I don't mind large demarcations like the north and south halves of the Heartlands. Anyone with even basic map awareness can cross a river.

The river island in the Egeria, the wharf in the Areish, and the ivy tavern are a bit harder to locate if you haven't been shown them before - those are the sort of small changes that I would make to areas.

Khizan

The river isn't a problem for me, because it's a clear demarcation, and I know that if I can't find it in this half of the Renfrewshire, I just have to cross the river.

It's the Areish and such athat bother me. 

Aleutia

I think the only truly odd bit of the Areish is the subsection over by the river that used to be Cimi's temple. Then again, I'm around the area being discussed often so there's that to take into consideration.

Labil

Oh, so that is what that subarea was for.

In any case, I want to say a big THANK YOU for doing this. Specially for the heartlands, that now actually make more sense.

Edit: Omg, and the Renfrewshire swamp's rooms that NO LONGER loop.

Lalitana

Nogba Wetlands has always been weird and loopy - are you planning to look at it, if you haven't already?

Jeremy Saunders

Yeah. Looping areas are going to be significantly reduced. Mapping makes it fairly irrelevant and just annoying.

Sarrius

Is there a 'changelog' of what you've altered?

Bathan

I want to meet the guy who was like 'what if we made areas confusing with MULTIPLE COPIES OF THE SAME ROOM'.

Akumu

I'm so glad the Mudlet Mapper lets me click Download Map and I get a new copy of the map.xml file so I can path find after all of these fixes.

Dicene

I like the sound of giving unique names to all the rooms in public areas. I don't mind duplicate room names in areas where it's supposed to be confusing, like in sewers, but it's annoying in places like the forests or any regular shardfall areas. Even if you don't feel like making every room unique, reducing the number of repeating names to something like a max of two or three rooms with the same name would still be great.

Jeremy Saunders

There is not a change log. There are too many little changes to do that. I have made some significant changes to the desert today, including breaking some places out into their own maps. I have not yet changed the exits going into the inner desert around Antioch, but I will probably do that later today.

Aleutia

@Jeremy While you're mucking around in the desert, would it be possible to get Room #6587 - 'In the shadow of a stone outcropping.' and those rooms connected to it added to the in game map view?

Also I just flew through the Shaahri, that looks about a thousand times better

Labil

For those that for some reason still use IMTS' mapper (and because Eldreth is going to ask for it eventually) here is an IMap file updated with the recent changes.

So far this includes

- Heartlands

- Renfrewshire swamp

- Shaahri desert

- Eucrates/Ederith river

Fairly guaranteed to be updated with all changes that happened up to 16:00 GMT today.

Be aware that if you have some particular things, like messages for transport abilities, you will have to include them yourself.

While links between rooms are fixed, and I improved the layout of the areas along the way, it isn't an exact mirror of the in-game layout, mostly because of limitations of IMTS map generator/format.

Sarrius

Jeremy said:

There is not a change log. There are too many little changes to do that. I have made some significant changes to the desert today, including breaking some places out into their own maps. I have not yet changed the exits going into the inner desert around Antioch, but I will probably do that later today.

Is this map change spree a precursor to fixing the issue we aired in the I Hate thread? Also, I like the new look on the desert.