How much fun can *you* have with a piece of paper and an inky goose feather ? :D

-Can maps be made to be a part of gameplay? > mapping for profit & fun? Should they be?

quote: Original post by CMN

And why not have a small icon that tells the player that his character is taking a leek as well? And if the player didn''t stop every twenty seconds or so he would have trouble concentrating during battles...

Actually, your leak comment is kind of lame. And leek is spelled leak. As for my idea, in its original incarnation, it is pretty good. It is informative, it does not bother the player with micro-management, and it is realistic.

And then you go on to say it is a game and it supposed to be fun, but not realistic. My idea is not going prevent the player from having fun. Why do you think that? And who ever said one is NOT supposed to have realism? Not everybody wants to play Mario Buddy whatever.

Hey. Don''t take it personal. I don''t hate you. I don''t want to kill you. In a debate you are supposed to be able to say what you think, and i think it would be stupid to draw your own map in a game. You might not think so and that''s okay with me, but that doesn''t give you a reason to call me stupid.

By the way. Telling me how leak is spelled was just dumb, even you understood what i meant so I don''t think anyone else needs your help on clarifying the point. How many swedish words can you spell?

/CMN

quote: Original post by CMN

Hey. Don''t take it personal. I don''t hate you. I don''t want to kill you. In a debate you are supposed to be able to say what you think, and i think it would be stupid to draw your own map in a game. You might not think so and that''s okay with me, but that doesn''t give you a reason to call me stupid.

By the way. Telling me how leak is spelled was just dumb, even you understood what i meant so I don''t think anyone else needs your help on clarifying the point. How many swedish words can you spell? /CMN

I don''t take it personally. I''m merely defending my good ideas against a response which attempts to draw another reader away from the actual elements of what I was describing.

Besides, I would like you to point out where I indicated that the player should draw his own map? It appears that is what you thought I was describing, and that is ''clearly'' not what I was describing.

Regarding your leak comment, if you wish to use examples such as this to buttress your points, expect the worst.

Personally I think that there is validity in both points.

Bishop_pass, maybe the map would be very rough and drawn innacurately if you were running around being chased by monsters.
It could be drawn in with different colour ink, and then be erased and remapped if you returned without the monsters.

But if you are just running around without monsters (ie. not panicking), it would be easier on the player if they could map fairly well.

> It would annoy me to have to stop moving to draw a map, of course this depends upon how it is handled.

Hmm...

I'm really finding it difficult to understand why you *wouldn't* want an automap in an RPG.

You all seem like pretty intelligent people, and I'm sure that your RPGs would be full of awe-inspiring events, interesting characters and stunning locations - so I would also imagine you'd want to help the player get to these ammazing features.

From a player perspective, I don't mind having an automap which only shows areas you've already visited. That's fine, and helps build a sense of exploration. But what frequently happens in RPGs and adventure games with no map, is that the player is given some reason why he wants to go back to a previous location and has to spend ages trying to find it. Not fun.

With regards to what makes a good automap, I don't think it needs to be very detailed. I've always thought that simply showing the shape of the rooms and the possible exits is fine - a la Phantasy Star Online for a recent example (I know it's technically a radar in that one). The sign of a good automap (for me) is if I can take my eyes away from the main display, and using the map, run through all of the previously visited rooms to get back to my desired location. Alternatively, if the map is not overlayed on the main screen then it should be carefully designed so that the player can find what information he/she requires, and actually remember where it lies in relation to other important landmarks etc. Having to switch the map on and off a thousand times to navigate three rooms away is just annoying.

If you need to display lots of complicated details on a map then a) check your gameplay/navigation isn't unnecessarily complex and b) you should be able to select the level of detail shown.

One more quick thing: rotating the radar/map with the player's line of sight just confuses matters.

Regards,

E


Edited by - Eight on March 14, 2001 9:48:25 AM

Yup, I agree with eight there. Actually, it has to enable me to find what I''m looking for, that''s all. No need to put every single tree on it.
I guess it doesn''t always have to be something like saying "switch here", but you have to be able to find the room on the map if you have already been there. If you just have square rooms that all look the same, you probably will have to directly say where it is, but otherwise you could just make the room look really special (in shape, mainly, but also in other optics) so that the player remembers "Oh, there was this special room, maybe I have to go there", looks on the automap, finds it and goes there. That''d actually be a pretty good way for doing it, imo, though maybe not all the time.
But I think this is important. It just isn''t any fun going through all those rooms you have been in before looking for something, actually, I can''t think of many things that annoy me more than that. Because it is boring.

Maybe there are some people who enjoy not having a map or having to do the map by themselves, but most people are probably just as lazy as I am .