Online Gaming Map Project

[cu11]

Hey, im looking for 1 or more people to please help me build an online interactive game for users to play.

Heres my story:

I created an online game 3 years ago which failed.... but there was one great feature i made that put the game uniquely above the rest. It was an interactive map. So i thought - ok i failed that game so time to try again and not make the same mistakes. So i have started again and now have 300 active daily users (and i opened less than 2 months ago) this is steadily increasing. Eventually based on competitors and as long as the features are good i could be getting 500,000 + daily users which is very exciting. Now the game is in an "Egyptian" setting (Ancient egypt). And users train their character and battle other players online. Currently its all text based leaving it to the imagination at most. But i kept the original script for allowing users to interact with a map image.

NOTE:
My game is not for profit - it is free to play and your welcome to play it any time! To avoid my gaming users finding this out i will not post the link to my site directly i don't want to ruin the surprise. But i can tell you in private if you are involved in the project what the site is so you can understand how exciting the potential it can achieve.

Before i start talking about the project:
A little bit about this can work, firstly communication is going to be important to make sure everything works with my coding + the images which is the harder part. I have MSN/Email & Skype all available to communicate via to get this project organised.

If interested:
If you are interested please ether reply here or PM me to exchange email or something so we can discuss as i do not wish to post my email directly in here due to possible spam attacks. Thanks

Now on to what the project is about:

Style:
I'm looking for a birds eye view of Egypt with nice realistic desert textures - the river nile + the green vegetation surrounding it also and some of the ocean where the river mouth is.

Quality & Size
The whole of egypt will be split up in to sections so each area of Egypt (lets call them regions) can be worked on one at a time. Its a little complex but theres different zooms.
I can show you photoshop designs of the regions over the map as it forms using simple lines - as that is the most i can do when it comes to images lol!

Time Constraints
I have no time constraints.... the players can wait for the feature and get all excited I don't want rush an artist as you all have other things to do in life aswell etc.

Description of Map
Firstly its desert based as you can guess because its Ancient Egypt. The main important features are the monuments when in a region zoom and city zoom and the river nile with the green vegetation around it eventually leading to the sea. Do not worry about applying villages/towns/cities as currently that is just an after thought - need to get the map done before i lay anything on top.

Reference for geography for egypt : http://www.nil-egypte.net/egypt/map-egypt-touristic.jpg - this is not how the zoom of the map would appear this is just so you know the river and where mountains are.

Quality & Size
Well size wise i will set a specific size when we have formed discussions on where we start, and all agree on which is best to work with - obviously it needs to be of a size that will match my site layout + user friendlyness + keeping it as easy to make as possible for you the artists. For quality - well im not fussy on quality although i will imagine users are - so quality would be discussed during project briefing prior to starting.

Copyright
Well i don't like to ask for copyright of some one elses work but at the same time it could damage my site if another site gets hold of the project to use for their game. So i just urge with a strong PLEASE do not share the image/project for others to use - if you want to show it as a reference to your work please watermark clearly, that will protect both of us, so no one can use it for their own. Thanks.

[cu11]

Hmm 78 views no takers - maybe im asking for too much =/

[Ascension]

You should probably put up a few examples that you like so that those who do such things may gain interest. If you're wanting total satellite realism and accuracy on a regional scale (to allow for zooming and such) then that's probably beyond what most of us here can do...that's the realm of GIS and only a few folks here do that. You're asking for pro-bono work so don't expect to get a masterpiece unless you get lucky and someone has nothing better to do but this being summertime (in the northern hemisphere) things always slow down. Second, I used to play MUDs all the time when I was younger and for one game (Dragonrealms) me and Salius made all the maps ourselves. They were basic but so was the software of the time...things are much better now. Maybe you have an obsessive mapper as a player like me n Salius. As a reward, instead of paying him, you could give him a nice sword or extra spells. In one MUD back in college I got to create my own area within the game and I also got to be a demigod with super cool powers like I could take over a dragon and walk around town and talk to people...they'd always attack first, stupid humans, and when I'd say "ouch" they were not expecting that (normal dragons didn't talk in the game) and they'd get all freaked out then we'd have some ales, sing songs, and go cow tipping. At any rate, if you reward them they will come.

[Jaxilon]

Have to agree with Ascension, I feel like this would be a stretch for me at the moment. Mainly because while I'm pretty good artistically I'm still learning a lot about doing it digitally as well as map making in general.

It sounds interesting and having a map that is being seen by a bunch of folks would be cool.

[cu11]

The geographical accuracy is not important in terms of scale - colours etc, it just needs to have desert appearance a river going from the south to the north so users see it and go "thats the nile" where the water would be - as for how accurate the meandering direction is doesn't matter - not to the users. What i meant by the "accuracy" was things like theres green vegetation around the river and then desert further out instead of just a river and sand The satellite image was to show you the main zoom level for the first layer.

For the map type i would say something like : http://www.cartographersguild.com/at...0&d=1233094574

Thats more than amazing but i would need to chat with all who take part (the more people the quicker it be done by using project sharing via my server) prior to starting so theres no confusing on what is needed for the game engine to work - because as the maps are made im coding the game engine to go with it.

It sounds interesting and having a map that is being seen by a bunch of folks would be cool.

Thats only part of the exciting bit - the main excitement is the fact people can walk around the map and visit buildings etc like a proper game Though that stuff is what i have to do.

The structure is like this:

3 Tier zoom:
North Region > Zooms - Mini regions inside north regions > Zooms - Towns in the mini reigion
South Region > Zooms - Mini regions inside north regions > Zooms - Towns in the mini reigion

I know the towns/locations etc i can place them on via my scripts

[cu11]

ill have to abandon this due to lack of interest - shame was hopeing to change the way these maps interacted in a game environment

[Redrobes]

If you could get a pic up of the region boundary of the part of Egypt that your interested in then maybe I could download the real satellite DEM data for it. Then I can run it through a script of mine to color the DEM into a map - a big one -> really big and then you can chop up the zooms off of it - at least two of the levels I think. How does that sound ? That sounds quite doable to me. At least then you only have the towns to map. You may have to help me out with the vegetation placement a bit but the rest I think I can whoop up no problem. Also, I care not about the copyright - more about the time it takes cos really, I am a bit swamped at mo. Maybe my result could be used as a starting point for someone else anyway.

[cu11]

Thanks for the reply, yes it is a bit of work but the project once hundreads of people play it will be worth it.

Map boundry:
http://www.world-guides.com/images/egypt/egypt_map1.jpg

Then this will help for the colours of the desert:
http://www.nil-egypte.net/egypt/map-egypt-touristic.jpg

[Redrobes]

Ok, ill take a look at it. Dont know if ill be able to replicate the many colors of sand tho. It may look a bit flat. Still, lets try and see what we get.

[Jaxilon]

RR those colors look a lot like sandstone tiles we have all over the place here in Arizona. I see them constantly, it would be no problem for me to take a close up photograph of some of the more interesting ones to use as a background texture. I've been thinking of doing this anyway but this would give me added impetus. Not sure if I have a good enough camera but if you are interested I will post back. If not, I may just create one for myself.