Re: CF: World Maps

[Mark Wedel <mwedel@scruznet.com>]

John Cater wrote:
> 
> To all,
> 
> Well, as far as I can see, map development has really slowed down. I for one am waiting for the 0.96 release to take advantage of the
> new object structure etc. e.g. the DICE object or whatever it is.
> BTW has there been some consensus on scripting for NPC's?

 As a note, 0.96.0 is just likely to be a rewrite of the object structure,
without necessarily a substantial addition of new objects.  I am sure that will
follow.

 That said, maps designed for 0.95.x should work with minimal changes under
0.96.  Granted, you may not have all the new features, but thats not a big deal
(areas I see needing update in maps are things that deal with
protections/vulnerabilities/immunities (since those are redone), and some other
variable names will be changed.


> Mapmakers should wait the next release out I think, and once things have begun to settle down, we get together and design a decent,
> semi-consistant starting world for crossfire, since most of the maps will need at least some touching up anyway..

 touchup is needed.  Discussion of what the starting world should be could be
discussed now however.

> 
> The kinds of features I imagine this mapset having are:
> 
> 1. A fully navigable (wrap-around?) world map of single scale that can be travelled by boat or dragon etc.

 Problem with wrap around is that if you ever need/want to expand the world, you
end up inserting something into the map.  I certainly think it is better to just
makes the ends impassable.

 While not realistic, it is also much easier to deal with a planar world than
one that wraps (where everything at the poles is really south/north (I don't
know of any games that have ever dealt with that properly).  At best, you do
something like a torus, and if your going to do that, why not just have ends of
the world.

> 
> 2. A number of starting cities/maps, at least one for each RACE of character

 Ideally yes.  But I don't think this is a requirement.  Doing #1 and filling in
the details is more important.

> 
> 3. Areas of each type of terrain with a controlling god/race/etc. Eg, A dwarven city in the mountains, an elfish town in the forest etc.

 Sort of goes with #2 (since the elf would start in the elven city)

> 
> 4. A semi-consistant "creation myth" and an a "political" atmosphere .ie. This part of the world is at war with this part.

 Unfortunatel, the later part can be harder to do without adding something.  IF
you have 2 sides at war, but don't see much real details (like troops in the
field), this can feel sort of phoney.


> 6. The map would be divided into a regular grid of small sections (16 x 16?) that auto-tile. Somebody or some group is responsible for a
> set of these.

 Some size.  Auto tile is on the TODO list.

> 
> 7. A nice, consistant naming scheme for things. eg. city maps named by the name of the city instead of just 'city'.  Things could live
> in directory that referenced where they are in the world

 Doesn't this sort of go with the unified scale (really I think 2 scales -
indoor and outdoor, with city maps being in the outdoor scale).  The problem
with trying to groups maps by location too much is you may in fact have a quest
which covers perhaps half a dozen outdoor spaces - grouping by the fact it is
one quest probably works better than grouping by location.
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