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Mapping, Cartography and sharing a location


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I'd like to talk about how a player or group of player can share "locations" in game with other players.

 

I feel like a "bookmark system" is required from a player perspective in order to store and access some "Point Of Interest" that we may have saved before. Let say I find a nice place to create a house and want to come back later, "/savepos future house" could create a POI in my "datapad" that I could rename and send to another player via mail/chat or even using voice by spelling the coordinates.

Ideally, this POI could be "enabled/disabled" as a waypoint in my HUD.

 

Obviously, after quite some time in the game, a player can have visited a fair number of planet and location. Having a planetary map can help dealing with sorting issues, like it was the case in SWG.

 

privateer4.jpg

 

 

In DU, such a map can be used to visualize your POIs, but also display Territorial boundaries and related informations.

Maybe this map could be obstructed by a "fog of war" like in a RTS game minimap. You could share/sell map data and waypoints with other players in order to gain time in your explorations.

As a city mayor it may become possible to "broadcast" your city position via IFF/beacon for all player able to receive the broadcast.

The POI get automatically sorted under the City folder as the IFF/beacon is setup with a variable "type=city". The same can be applied to space station and all.

Maybe we can envision a sort of element to broadcast this type specifically. This element could be obtained in the "Politician" skill tree.

 

User reviews could be attached to those POI for all to read and comment if their experience there, or the services rendered are good or a scam.

 

I think it is important for the player to feel the vastness of the planet, and to be able to navigate efficiently trough it at some points.

 

That was for planets, but in space with the scale of a solar system, it may require a dedicated 3D map.

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This is something that I have not yet seen being brought up though it is an important feature.


One thing I would like is if the planetary monitor (Holographic globe) could have a planet map in it based on whatever planet you select that has beacons you can access or have rights too, this would make it not only aesthetically pleasing but useful to have on the deck of a ship. 

As far as maps are concerned though, yes a 3D map for the solar system and a 2D/3D(Possibly) map for the planets surface with POIs would be needed, even necessary for exploration and navigation as a whole. 

If they are going to do bookmarks, they have to be able to be easily shared, whether traded or via chat. They need to be able to be shared efficiently. I've run into issues with games where the bookmark system does not share and essentially leaves 30 people without a reference as to where they are going, they are just going (can lead to many headaches) it would also make sense to have it shareable as a large cluster of orgs might want to be able to see a position that is strategically important, so the over arching leader can set the point up and share it to the other org leaders/members. 

I agree that a beacon for a city or major structural system would be good, it would have to be maintained and would be based on standings/relations, just to make things political, but it would essentially broadcast to all who are allowed to go there, making it a permanent bookmark so long as the beacon is running (this would be important for say, stargates and stations).

 

Anyway, 
that's my input. 
Good ideas to come. 

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This is something that I have not yet seen being brought up though it is an important feature.

 

 

One thing I would like is if the planetary monitor (Holographic globe) could have a planet map in it based on whatever planet you select that has beacons you can access or have rights too, this would make it not only aesthetically pleasing but useful to have on the deck of a ship. 

you mean something like this???  http://www.dualthegame.com/marmoset/Holo-Table.mview

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In my experience, "ingame holo-things" never do the job well. Too many fluff, no usability. Its just a light show :P

I was more speaking of a real browsable , zoomable map, like google maps/earth

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I didn't mean it as a fancy holo map that is used on the object, maybe it could throw you to a 3D planet version of the 2D map whilst you are in orbit allowing you to see where the landing spots are on a planet etc, (I hope this makes sense).
It doesn't have to be some fancy thing that works on the actual object, it just has to do something, thus making it functionable. 

 

Even if it did lead to a 2D map, it'd have some function other than just sitting there :P

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In my experience, "ingame holo-things" never do the job well. Too many fluff, no usability. Its just a light show :P

I was more speaking of a real browsable , zoomable map, like google maps/earth

I would hope that when you use the hologram, it then shows you the screen like you are referring to.  just a fancy terminal that might also show some important information on the hologram.

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Sounds like something that's obviously going to be added. We already know that Stargates will work like a sort of network, so mapping a galaxy will probably be required. As mentioned in the 10 minute gameplay video the devs released, the GUI inside the cockpit will allow for live information (such as a map) to be displayed.

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When you said the 3D globe is was thinking about that massive spherical holoprojector on the command deck of that station and in the screenshots.  I can't make out what it is supposed to be displaying in those images but a planetary map would be as good as anything, or use it as the main display for all sensor data I think that would look much cooler.  Maybe to share a location publicly you can display it on these types of maps and then other players would have the option to update their own maps.  I think the book mark system is going to be explained when they introduce the ingame communications systems, for chat and other data like market orders, and how they are transmitted though out the network.  As a side note being able to sell bookmarks using the market system would also be amazing for professional prospectors and treasure hunters and the like.

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I'd like to talk about how a player or group of player can share "locations" in game with other players.

 

I feel like a "bookmark system" is required from a player perspective in order to store and access some "Point Of Interest" that we may have saved before. Let say I find a nice place to create a house and want to come back later, "/savepos future house" could create a POI in my "datapad" that I could rename and send to another player via mail/chat or even using voice by spelling the coordinates.

Ideally, this POI could be "enabled/disabled" as a waypoint in my HUD.

 

Obviously, after quite some time in the game, a player can have visited a fair number of planet and location. Having a planetary map can help dealing with sorting issues, like it was the case in SWG.

 

privateer4.jpg

 

 

In DU, such a map can be used to visualize your POIs, but also display Territorial boundaries and related informations.

Maybe this map could be obstructed by a "fog of war" like in a RTS game minimap. You could share/sell map data and waypoints with other players in order to gain time in your explorations.

As a city mayor it may become possible to "broadcast" your city position via IFF/beacon for all player able to receive the broadcast.

The POI get automatically sorted under the City folder as the IFF/beacon is setup with a variable "type=city". The same can be applied to space station and all.

Maybe we can envision a sort of element to broadcast this type specifically. This element could be obtained in the "Politician" skill tree.

 

User reviews could be attached to those POI for all to read and comment if their experience there, or the services rendered are good or a scam.

 

I think it is important for the player to feel the vastness of the planet, and to be able to navigate efficiently trough it at some points.

 

That was for planets, but in space with the scale of a solar system, it may require a dedicated 3D map.

 

 

You are also not taking into account that mapping & cartography is not just limited to a planets surface - but space itself. Each system discovered will need to be surveyed. This will require, at least as you mentioned, a mapping and way point ? marker system. 

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You are also not taking into account that mapping & cartography is not just limited to a planets surface - but space itself. Each system discovered will need to be surveyed. This will require, at least as you mentioned, a mapping and way point ? marker system. 

"Perhaps the amount of detail or space covered can be altered by zooming in and out."

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Use the RDMS for maps as well.

With individual constructs/asteroids/planetary hex sectors being the smallest unit and the rest being handled by sub-/groups and access rights.

 

With whole planets or systems being available to the whole faction but the positions of that surveillance ships not.

 

Or any other combination someone finds useful.

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Totally unrelated to the suggestions here, but did anyone ever play any old MMO's where maps weren't a thing?

 

Where people had to map out things by hand, and you had to ask other people ingame for directions?

 

 

Eve Online even had people that published books covering the strategic maps for all of the systems in the game. I remember having stacks of maps drawn up for Everquest, and to this day you can still find plenty of maps that people drew themselves:

 

soluseks_eye_atlas.jpg

 

 

Now I'm not suggesting that DU's maps all default to players having to make them, but I think there should be a bit of mystery or places that the maps in game don't necessarily explicitly show. 

 

I imagine having my own maps for shipping lanes drawn, or my own stargate maps even (on the computer, not necessarily on paper). Cities might even have their own maps available online detailing where shops are and where landmarks can be found. 

 

I guess what I'm getting at is, I want to be able to feel lost.

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Totally unrelated to the suggestions here, but did anyone ever play any old MMO's where maps weren't a thing?

 

 

I played T4C, and we had to extract (and print) the gamefiles to have maps! It was fun, for a time ;)

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Totally unrelated to the suggestions here, but did anyone ever play any old MMO's where maps weren't a thing?

 

Where people had to map out things by hand, and you had to ask other people ingame for directions?

 

Asheron's Call was like that. There was another, a sci-fi themed one that came out shortly after that. In neither game were maps or mapping or a fog of war provided. The world was so incredible large that a fog of war wasn't necessary. The dungeons and grounds and stuff you just memorized and no two locations (out of literally hundreds), were identical. It also originally had the best magic and the best crafting systems I've ever seen. Unfortunately, they streamlined stuff and it isn't near as good as it once was. But to say how good it was, it is still running and it was introduced in 1999. But, they stopped content updates in 2014.

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Asheron's Call was like that. There was another, a sci-fi themed one that came out shortly after that. In neither game were maps or mapping or a fog of war provided. The world was so incredible large that a fog of war wasn't necessary. The dungeons and grounds and stuff you just memorized and no two locations (out of literally hundreds), were identical. It also originally had the best magic and the best crafting systems I've ever seen. Unfortunately, they streamlined stuff and it isn't near as good as it once was. But to say how good it was, it is still running and it was introduced in 1999. But, they stopped content updates in 2014.

 

Wasn't the AC server supposed to be released? 

 

I remember reading they had some delays with getting it out the door, but then all communications about the topic just stopped suddenly. 

 

https://www.asheronscall.com/en/forums/showthread.php?65105-Player-Run-Servers-Information-To-Date

 

Fingers crossed that they actually do package it up one of these days. 

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Wasn't the AC server supposed to be released? 

 

 

 

Fingers crossed that they actually do package it up one of these days. 

I hope so. It was the first MMORPG I played and in many ways, because of the ways they did skills, crafting, magic and so many things when it originally came out, I still feel it was mechanically, procedurally, and simply thought out, the best and I have played a lot since then.

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What I hope is that you get no maps in the beginning and the whole beginning planet is unexplored, the players will have to explore and map the entire area which can later be shared/traded/sold to other players and organisations , not only does it refers to a planet but space as well as asteroids fields and other stuff like space stations and more can be mapped, It will definitely give huge importance to explorers as a whole different role because the role they play while exploring and mapping will probably make a huge difference when it comes to game play.
The story line essentially says that we are beginning our new lives on a completely unknown planet with just our motor skills and the ability to learn new skills, so having no definitive maps of the area we are in just gives a new sense of exploration and adventure that I think players will enjoy.
While I think the idea of a holographic map is cool I don't know how successful that system can be as it can be quite hard to read it and follow it in some cases, but who knows how the mapping system will be implemented in the game.

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What I hope is that you get no maps in the beginning and the whole beginning planet is unexplored, the players will have to explore and map the entire area which can later be shared/traded/sold to other players and organisations , not only does it refers to a planet but space as well as asteroids fields and other stuff like space stations and more can be mapped, It will definitely give huge importance to explorers as a whole different role because the role they play while exploring and mapping will probably make a huge difference when it comes to game play.

This is what I would like to see also. I think it would be cool if there were several arkships on a single planet in completely different regions so that as we explore and as a civilizations and governments start to form and embed themselves, we encounter other players weeks and months down the road that started from a completely different ship, e.g., a ship in Eastern Europe, Alaska, South Africa, South America, and Australia.

 

Expand it further, and not only are there multiple ships on a single planet, but there are starting arkships on different planets. To me, that would be cool.

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This is what I would like to see also. I think it would be cool if there were several arkships on a single planet in completely different regions so that as we explore and as a civilizations and governments start to form and embed themselves, we encounter other players weeks and months down the road that started from a completely different ship, e.g., a ship in Eastern Europe, Alaska, South Africa, South America, and Australia.

 

Expand it further, and not only are there multiple ships on a single planet, but there are starting arkships on different planets. To me, that would be cool.

 

Not going to happen. Not only would it not make sense lore-wise for several ships to be on one planet, but JC said as much in the GrayStillPlays interview:

 

"Gray:

Will there be multiple arkships?

JC:

Unlikely, because that would divide the community, so, so far the plan is we give them one."

 

 

https://github.com/yamamushi/DUExplorers/blob/master/transcripts/08-06-2016-GrayStillPlays.txt#L1207

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