[8] Re: [8] [CF-Devel] Map naming scheme

[kevin at ank.com]

On Thu, Dec 13, 2001 at 12:29:33AM -0800, Mark Wedel wrote:
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      kevin at ank.com
      
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      > Have you considered overlays?  Keep the city in a city file and paste it in
     
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      > to the world map on the server according to its location, letting the world
     
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      > map show through the city map ground tiles if there are any empty ground
     
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      > tiles in the city.   Ideally the editor would let you see the world tiles
     
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      > that you are covering up as you make your changes to the city files.
     
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       This could be done.  It adds a new layer of complication to many programs
     
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      (server and client) that now need to support this.  In theory, such a major
     
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      change of the world should be happening quite infrequent.
     
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The advantage as I see it is that the cities remain seperable from the map
they are on.  They could be placed on any world map, in almost any location
and still make sense.

But really I think that three-scale usually works better than two-scale.
Baldur's gate for example uses the three scale system quite effectively; you
very much have the experience of exploring new areas even though the map
implicitly restricts exactly where you can go.  

The three scale system helps to reduce the tedium of exploration; wilderness
is either designed by the author to be interesting, or is reduced to a 
scale where it can be readily traversed.

I would probably wouldn't change the scale of the world map at all; It would
be more interesting to have the world map use automatic transports to 
move you into detailed regions of the map whenever you wander through a
specific portion of the map.  So rather than applying a city, just have the
map expand as soon as you get within a few squares of the city... there 
would have to be some sort of indicator to the player of what is happening,
but then a little two-square forest on the overview map can be expanded by
some enterprising mapper into the fell den of thieves we all know it should
have been in a 50x25 submap.

And until that fell den has been created, the two square forest isn't as
dull as walking through 50 squares of trees with a few wandering monsters.

Just my opinion of course.

Cheers,
-kls