Define the perfect map

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lgromanowski
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Define the perfect map

Post by lgromanowski »

pogzy wrote: Hi,

After the journal let's play with the map feature, just how I imagine the perfect map as it could be implemented in OpenMW.

The perfect map:
- could be zoomed in and out with no restriction,
- could have the fog of war set to on or off,
- could be scroll in any direction with no limit,
- can be centered at any time to the player position,
- can show the known path between mage guild, silt striders, boats or even propylon indices,
- can show an index of known places and a tool to search places or even NPC.
- should show the places on the map where intervention spells would teletransport you,
- should show marked places.

One step beyond:
- it should be a real 3D map, just as google earth, and a fully 3D Model in dungeons as it was in Descent game or in Daggerfall game,
- it could find the best path for you (as a pedestrian with you particular skills or by taking into account your scrolls or magic items), so that it find a way through these high mountains.

Suggestions are welcome, hope you have great ideas to add to this list :)
Star-Demon wrote: I don't think the paths would work out, because there could be many, many paths.

Some of the later features remind me of questhelper, which I think is not good for roleplaying and makes it feel less like an experience and more like a "game". - turn that junk off, stop and smell the roses. A lot of the game is looking around at everything. (Hla oad, Gnaar mok, Ald velothi - nothing there, but it IS there.):)
sir_herrbatka wrote:
can show the known path between mage guild, silt striders, boats or even propylon indices
MW map have it, but it's turned off.
- it could find the best path for you (as a pedestrian with you particular skills or by taking into account your scrolls or magic items), so that it find a way through these high mountains.
The best path is straith line :D

I want to be able to drawn on the map in order to mark some areas. And yes, zooming!
Greendogo wrote: I think it would be interesting to show the shortest path to a location. I think this could be done easily with discovered locations. You just create a list of all transportation NPCs and Propylon Indices, then do a brute force calculation for the fastest route.

On another related topic, the wheel on the mouse should be usable in the zooming function on the map.

I personally wouldn't want to have the map in 3D, because it would ruin the fantasy element a little. If we could find a reliably map-ish filter/shader, we could alter the exact picture of the map taken from the gameworld and make it look like some cartographer sketched it. I don't know how well that would work out.

If you still wanted to have 3D maps, I would suggest making them low resolution in the sense that the only thing portrayed in 3D would be the terrain and maybe large structures like Ghostgate or castles. Flora such as the mushroom trees would just be flat on the ground. But at least this way the player has an idea of the topography of what he is looking at.

I'd also like the ability to make notes, of course. I think you should be able to grab and move notes and that they should be indicated on the map by something other than what indicates cities and settlements, like a small golden upside down arrow. Zooming into the closest setting to the ground should allow you to set or move a note-arrow to a precise location, but you should still be able to see it after zooming all the way out.

On the topic of cities and settlements, I think something other than that rather blocky indicator square should be used. I think that all of the indicators for one particular location, say Vivec, should be combined into one unified outline, sort of how the newer Civilization games use colored borders to denote the reach of influence. Upon zooming into a city, say Balmora, the good ol' fashioned golden block can be used to indicate the location of interiors. The colored borders could also be used to indicate the borders of regions and provinces (in order to accommodate mods that add Black Marsh, Skyrim, or Cyrodiil). The colored borders could be turned on or off at the City, Region, and Province level somewhere if they got annoying.
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