[8] [CF-Devel] Map naming scheme

[kevin at ank.com]

On Tue, Dec 11, 2001 at 10:42:44PM -0800, Mark Wedel wrote:
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      other regards (easier to do other entrances and the like).  It would also reduce
     
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      crossfire to a 2 scale system, and let us get rid of a few images while we're at
     
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      it.
     
     
I'm not sure why this is desirable, but...

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      1) Create a top level Index txt file.  This would be english, and say things
     
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      like 'Scorn is on tiles 110_115 and 110_116' and 'Navar city is on tiles
     
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      125_112' and the like.  In a sense, just some pointers so if someone wants to
     
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      edit those, it is easy to find.
     
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       But I'm not sure how well that works out, or if there are better suggestions
     
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      out there.
     
     
Have you considered overlays?  Keep the city in a city file and paste it in
to the world map on the server according to its location, letting the world
map show through the city map ground tiles if there are any empty ground 
tiles in the city.   Ideally the editor would let you see the world tiles
that you are covering up as you make your changes to the city files.

Scorn the city has to continue to exist as a directory to hold all of the
buildings, undercity, and the like anyway, but teleports should continue 
to be relative to the city map location.  

But to the point, having vast outdoor regions is only interesting if there
is actually something in those regions.  Having explored much of the 
randomly generated Ultima Online world, I'd have to say that if you can't
fill the size world that you have now with interesting landmarks, there is
little reason to expand it tenfold.  Is a run length of a thousand mountain
icons really interesting?  Or on the other hand, are random stretches of 
woods, desert, lake, and swamp interesting even if they change from one
to the other every ten or twenty paces?

Rivers and mountain chains are interesting because they represent 
natural borders between nations.  Forests are interesting because they
harbor brigands.  Northlands are interesting because they are the edge
of the civilization beyond which monsters breed freely.  

You have to create your story first; then make the map that corresponds
to that story.

Cheers,
-kls

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