Love the game, but the map's gotta GO!

[Kursa]

Ok
The map is pretty and everything and I'm sure you guys are proud of the artist who rendered the world into a brown n white version of a travelable map; however, the logistics behind the practicality of the map leaves a lot to the imagination.

It's sorta useless. I posted this since the wee hours of beta.

I understand you all have some show-stopping bugs you are dealing with, but can you get an artist (who isn't knowledgable in coding) to redesign the map overhead display?

No offense to you fine artists over at Sigil (love the world btw) but that map is literally the worse map design in mmo history :)

±Kursa

[Lupich]

Ok
The map is pretty and everything and I'm sure you guys are proud of the artist who rendered the world into a brown n white version of a travelable map; however, the logistics behind the practicality of the map leaves a lot to the imagination.

It's sorta useless. I posted this since the wee hours of beta.

I understand you all have some show-stopping bugs you are dealing with, but can you get an artist (who isn't knowledgable in coding) to redesign the map overhead display?

No offense to you fine artists over at Sigil (love the world btw) but that map is literally the worse map design in mmo history :)

±Kursa


qft.

[Ghostwise]

I'd just like to see waypoints accurate heh. And maybe be able to see where your team members are? Only seems to work when there's 2 people grouped up.....and then it doesn't even work half the time heh. :rolleyes:

[Geldoff]

Ok
The map is pretty and everything and I'm sure you guys are proud of the artist who rendered the world into a brown n white version of a travelable map; however, the logistics behind the practicality of the map leaves a lot to the imagination.

It's sorta useless. I posted this since the wee hours of beta.

I understand you all have some show-stopping bugs you are dealing with, but can you get an artist (who isn't knowledgable in coding) to redesign the map overhead display?

No offense to you fine artists over at Sigil (love the world btw) but that map is literally the worse map design in mmo history :)

±Kursa

I agree, the game was better with no maps. -hehe

ps I think leaving alot to the imagination was indeed exactly what they wanted to do?

[Molitoth]

I like the maps as they are, EQ was great with no maps.

[rook818]

In beta the map was an overhead satellite view of the terrain and was much hated. There were multi-paged threads asking for something more organic, like a hand drawn map...

I like the map. No map makes No sense and would be completely assinine (no offense). They had working maps going almost back to cave man days...why an adventurer, who is destined to travel would not have a map is beyond me. He/she would be borderline retarded (again no offense to anyone).

Yes to a map. NO to a return of the satelite overhead...I don't care if they redraw the map, but some type of map is necessary.

[RedRider]

I agree, the game was better with no maps. -hehe

ps I think leaving alot to the imagination was indeed exactly what they wanted to do?

All they had to do was have the map dark till you visit an area then light up like many other games have done. Crap, its 2007, if I have to use pen and paper, its the program that has a problem. At the very least we should be able to annotate the map and add out own locations. Sigil didn't want a map and gave us this shoddy one as there way of bowing to pressure. Lazy job Sigil...

Sigil reminds me of an old man: When we were young (EQ1) we didn't have any dumb maps, we would spend hours running around looking for things, and we LOVED IT !!!

Hopefully some talented fans will eventually replace the maps with something more usable, but on the other hand, since the game has a rather limited population, this might take a while....

[rook818]

All they had to do was have the map dark till you visit an area then light up like many other games have done. Crap, its 2007, if I have to use pen and paper, its the program that has a problem. At the very least we should be able to annotate the map and add out own locations. Sigil didn't want a map and gave us this shoddy one as there way of bowing to pressure. Lazy job Sigil...

Sigil reminds me of an old man: When we were young (EQ1) we didn't have any dumb maps, we would spend hours running around looking for things, and we LOVED IT !!!

Hopefully some talented fans will eventually replace the maps with something more usable, but on the other hand, since the game has a rather limited population, this might take a while....

There were some good ideas about this in beta. The best was:
Add fog of war
Add Cartography skill

Your Cartography skill, will reveal more points of interest, and more details about points of interest as you level it up.

Was a nice idea.

[Kates]

The maps would be fine if I could annotate things on it (and those things would be spacially accurate).

[Elessar]

The maps would be fine if I could annotate things on it (and those things would be spacially accurate).

Agreed. As they are now, they are quite useless. Especially inside cities.

[Quinalla]

I like the map myself. It is simple and basic enough that it makes sense that every adventurer would have one like it, but it gives enough information that I can at least point towards a city or other major point and get there eventually, but not so much that every little thing is drawn on the map and known before I explore. I would like to be able to add my own waypoints though.

[Aegorian]

Maps in Vanguard were never meant to play a big role. They are there to give basic guidance. They are not and should not be detailed to the point where you can make out every single landmark per the intended function.

That being said, the ability to create your own waypoints would be pretty cool.

[MagicNumbers]

Whether you like the map or not there's one thing I think everyone can agree on, and that's, that the map we are using has bugs in it. I love the game, but a bug is a bug and letting them know about it is a good thing.

[Varel]

CITY MAPS

God...how hard is this concept to grasp? Why would a city not have a map of itself?

The world map i can lvie with. Being able to pin your own POI to it and set waypoints would be cool. but the aesthitic feel is ok.

However! The non-existence of city maps is idiotic. Yeh, ask a guard. Woo. if it works you still have to navigate round an unfarmiliar city.

Put it on the to do list, huh?

[intristin]

There are a few map mods over at VGsohInterface.com if you don't like the default one. I'm sure more mods will come out in time.

[Dasein]

Initially, I'd like to see a few minor changes made:

1. Different icons for different locations. A city should have a little building, a dungeon a cave or door, important NPCs their own icon, quest related NPCs and locations a slightly different icon.

2. The ability to filter location typs. I might only want to show the locations related to the quest I'm on, or only show cities or dungeons.

3. Highlight roads so we can easily plot courses between major locations like cities and dungeons.

For a later release, I'd like to see a more developed cartography system, perhaps including sub-maps for cities that one could purchase, and player made maps for dungeons.

[Varel]

Initially, I'd like to see a few minor changes made:

1. Different icons for different locations. A city should have a little building, a dungeon a cave or door, important NPCs their own icon, quest related NPCs and locations a slightly different icon.

2. The ability to filter location typs. I might only want to show the locations related to the quest I'm on, or only show cities or dungeons.

3. Highlight roads so we can easily plot courses between major locations like cities and dungeons.

For a later release, I'd like to see a more developed cartography system, perhaps including sub-maps for cities that one could purchase, and player made maps for dungeons.

Nice ideas.

While i do like the rusticy map...it is also useless. Some choice and depth of this nature would be appreciated.

/peace

[DocSavag]

I like the look of the map. I"m indifferent to Fog of War because the map as is doesn't give you a lot of detail beyone some rudimentary idea about where roads might be.

The uselessness of the map is in the inability to add your own annotations to it. Stop giving me as much automatic annotations and let me add my own when I find stuff.

If I had to level cartography I'm ok with that as long as it wasn't some long boring grind just to make a mark on a map where wolves can be found which anyone with a crayon and opposable thumbs could accomplish :P

[Ethanael]

While i do like the rusticy map...it is also useless.
/peace

There are people out here that keep saying this map is useless... Few points to make: A) I use the map all of the time to learn of new exploration places and B) To direct individuals to my location, or a location of a quest outpost, via the map.

Those two important elements are essential in this game. The map may not be high definition/detailed and to your standards, but it achieves the goal of a map - to get you from point A to point B.

Now, the concept of having a cartographer in the game would be freaking sweet. A person who 'discovers' maps or 'creates' maps based on where that person has visited and sells them to adventurers planning to explore that region...... immersion right there. Expansion perhaps?

Regards,

[ThreadKiller]

I have to agree with Varel. There have been city maps available since the beginning of cities, I don't know why we can't change to a localized map while we are in the cities boundaries. Hopefully they can spakle them in with one of the patches.

[Dasein]

The way I envision cartography is that one would need to visit certain points of interest to create a basic map - this could be an entire dungeon, or maybe just one section for a much larger dungeon, or it could be an overland region. I would treat cartography more as a subset of crafting, so once you've visited the POIs in am area, that map shows up as a recipie. The quality of map you produce is based on how good a job you do with the crafting. Higher quality maps show more detail and provide more information.

[Riggin]

I have to agree with Varel. There have been city maps available since the beginning of cities, I don't know why we can't change to a localized map while we are in the cities boundaries. Hopefully they can spakle them in with one of the patches.

Nice! I've gotten one in already too... :D

-Riggin

[DocSavag]

The way I envision cartography is that one would need to visit certain points of interest to create a basic map - this could be an entire dungeon, or maybe just one section for a much larger dungeon, or it could be an overland region. I would treat cartography more as a subset of crafting, so once you've visited the POIs in am area, that map shows up as a recipie. The quality of map you produce is based on how good a job you do with the crafting. Higher quality maps show more detail and provide more information.

I like the idea of being able to produce maps for OTHERS as a cartography skill but anyone should be able to create points of interest on their own map. Creating maps for dungeons and such in game as a cartographer sounds fantastic..it also sounds complicated from a programming standpoint.

[Miggy]

Us UI modders have a bit of a head-start on this one, we have standardised map mods format. There's already one (which I'm using) which has all the major towns/cities written into the correct chunks, so really you could do mostly anything with it.

However we still haven't found a way to insert PoI's from in-game.

[DocSavag]

Us UI modders have a bit of a head-start on this one, we have standardised map mods format. There's already one (which I'm using) which has all the major towns/cities written into the correct chunks, so really you could do mostly anything with it.

However we still haven't found a way to insert PoI's from in-game.

Miggy,

Pardon my questions but I've only briefly looked at the UI mod stuff. Can you add them from outside the game or are they stored server side exclusively?

[shadowkai]

All they had to do was have the map dark till you visit an area then light up like many other games have done.


Umm. The map is fine as is. It's a map. Maps don't suddenly change based on what areas you discover, that's why it's a "map" :)

I think the only thing that could have been cooler would have been to have people actually explore and create the maps as crafted items.

[Axel]

the map is vague and crappy for a reason - to have you explore the world yourself. The map is more or less a crutch for going in the right direction.

Leave the map as it is (or re-define the waypoint icons, i think they're too big).

[Cronjob]

It isn't a perfect answer, but more useful than the default map. Go download Eveario's Map r2 mod.