Volunteer Task: Map Re-Creation Project

[Gildre]

It was a team effort on both your parts to convince me ;) so you two can share in that overwhelming glory lol

[Wimpie]

Meh I claim the full 75%

[Gildre]

I am about 80% done building the landmass, and about 40% done internal details, for a quick update.

[Wimpie]

I am about 80% done building the landmass, and about 40% done internal details, for a quick update.

Very nice!

[Gildre]

My apologies! I haven't fallen off the map! Work has been quite busy, I have barely had enough time to pump out any RPs IG, let alone work on the map, but I promise I will complete it! Don't lose faith! lol

[Wimpie]

My apologies! I haven't fallen off the map! Work has been quite busy, I have barely had enough time to pump out any RPs IG, let alone work on the map, but I promise I will complete it! Don't lose faith! lol

We're already glad you're working on it!

Take your time,.. But not too much  8)

[Anaris]

Thanks to Gildre's tireless efforts, the Colonies now has an updated map, which includes all the region names.

If you do not see it yet, you may need to empty your cache.

[Wimpie]

Waow Gildre, thanks a lot. That looks great!

[D'Espana]

You rock, Gildre. I had totally and utterly forgotten about this!

[Anaris]

In poking at other things, I realized that the Dwilight map was still only partly done, so I put in some hours on it.

It's still not ready to replace the existing one, but it's come a long way.

[D'Espana]

It looks really nice  :)

[Haerthorne]

Is there still any work that needs to be done on this?

[Chenier]

Dwi's was already done, but afaik, not uploaded yet?

[Lefanis]

While it might be cool to see what some of the existing maps would look like done in the AoW2 (3?) or Shadow Magic editors, that's much lower priority than getting them re-created in the original AoW editor.

Beluaterra's southern peninsula has become very, very isolated since the catastrophe years ago.

I know this is an old issue, but I believe the map would benefit from a more interconnected landscape (one that allows realms like Riombara and its neighbors to interface with the north again).

Would it every be possible to invoke another change at some point?

Thank you,

This is planned, but not trivial to implement, and definitely requires some kind of RP buildup.

We also need to work out just what the change would be.

Finally, it would be significantly easier to implement if we had a re-creation of the original BT/AT map made in the Age of Wonders editor...

Hello Tim!

I've been browsing the forums after a bit of a hiatus from BM, and noticed that we are still discussing maps, which reminded me of something I'd been working on back in 2012.

http://i.imgur.com/ZAokl.jpg

Warning- Pretty large image.

Rough attempt to make part of a continent. Yes, i know, badly pasted together, and i added fluff and filler stuff.

Do we want something this scale, or smaller?

Goldpanda- is this what you want? http://imgur.com/a/gBLB6

I recall that I had finished recreating East Continent using the Shadow Magic Editor, and checking my old HDD, have discovered that I still possess some files from back then (for EC, AT, and Colonies) in the Shadow Magic format. The above image was a rough sketch of what this could actually look like (above is south BT)- the completed EC was much more thorough.

Thank you  :)

Here is EC. Warning- 180 mb.

http://db.tt/gA2ENQAe

I thus wanted to make the following proposition- I still have my copies of AoW and Shadow Magic, and the inclination to fire them up and spend some time mapmaking (particularly Shadow Magic, since it would mean much prettier and more detailed maps).

Given few free weekends, I can cobble together the maps for the remaining continents using the Shadow Magic editor. I can create a border layer to mimic the current dynamic map, and a third layer with regions names as well. If there is an appetite for making changes to geography, I can include geographic features to make the Beluaterra map more playable for the South. This would mean not only proper borders, no blue cities, but also possibly a land bridge/archipelago through Avalon.

The proof of concept is the East Continent Map posted back in 2012- much more detailed, fresher city graphics, and topographic features that aren't on the current maps to add some flavor- I need to screenshot it since the old link is expired, but I can try that over the weekend/next week. A side benefit of this project would also to have high res topographic and political maps for all the continents, which could allow interesting changes in the future.

Of course, I imagine there would be an effort needed on the dev side of things once these maps are set up. Is this something that would be potentially doable or considered for implementation? If it is, I would be quite excited to give this a shot!

[Anaris]

Getting all the maps in the original AoW format is priority #1. Given those, we can make minor changes to fix little problems, or to enable interesting RP events.

If we had alternative versions of the maps that could work with the same overlays, I could add them as selectable layers on the Dynamic Map (and I could probably do some kind of magic with the older Political Map to make them work there, too).

In any case, for all maps, what is needed is (1) the original file (AoW or SM map), and if you want to go to the trouble of making (2) the full-size geographic map by stitching together screenshots, that's greatâ€"just make sure that it at least matches the existing full-size geographic maps. If you want to go the extra mile of making (3) the full political map, with region borders drawn in, region names added, and ferry routes where applicable, that's fantastic. All of these things take time, and the more of them you do, the fewer I have to do! ;D