Thinking Big about Guild maps

[Redrobes]

Sure its a plug but heck, its frustrating when you plug all day and night for 5 years over this and people still say that its almost impossible. Collating all the maps together has traditionally been the hard bit and making the maps is the fun and easy bit - its just that there would be an awful lot of them to do. In the past, like say Forgotten Realms, the creators have produced many maps of the same place at different scales. A) This is a waste of time and effort and B) They never really lined up seamlessly. Also, people would generally independently make very similar maps of similar places like inns & castles whereas what you need is templates of maps which could be chopped about and modified. So given that these three issues can be eliminated the actual difficulty can be significantly reduced to a manageable level. Add on multiuser networking etc and its all there for the taking.

If you had written Photoshop and people kept saying that its almost impossible to make maps with MSPaint then you cant help going Aaaarrrrhhhh !!! The undertaking of making a continental sized campaign world down to floor plan level seems daunting only if your sat there with a pen or a paint package contemplating the enormity of the task ahead. If you change your perspective on how to deal with the problem then its doable. Not easy of course but very possible. The talk of it petering out after a certain time is a nonsense if you are not making the map like writing a book starting at page one. Everyone could continue to make the maps they already make and it would still progress. Nothing has to change - it just needs collating into a campaign. The most change would be that sometimes you might have to make a map of a more specific area because its missing. The idea of GTS is to do away with even that by generating a base land that has everything already there but not populated.

[Robbie]

I'll support an effort like this as much as possible, short of actual programming...I've discussed my programming in the other thread hehehe...

I have a site that is currently hosting a Wiki that I was using to do my homebrew world...Kinda like Pyrandon's world Wiki.

If you guys wanna do a project like this, I'd recommend starting with a sub-forum for planning, then as the project starts to reach scale, move to a larger repository, such as a Wiki.

[NeonKnight]

Sounds like fun. I'd probably concentrate more on town city mapping.

[Kagehito]

I'd love to jump on board of this project! I know I'm still a little green here, but I can offer some whatever skills I have. I work front desk at a hotel, and really only spend about 1 hour out of my 8 actually doing work. The rest of the time i'm running around on the net and doing game stuff.

Also If I could, for anyone working on this project, I have a reading suggestion. Its a little out dated, but the book "Harlan's World".

The first part of the book is pretty much a seminar that Harlan Ellison taught as he and a couple of his friends (including Frank Herbert!) started to develop a world.

It's a good read to see how other people enter the design process of a task to big, and a timeline to get it done to short.

A good mood setter!

[Torq]

Seeing as the idea of this post was to gauge the communty's views on the viability of such a project I thought I should give it a bump in case anyone missed it.

Torq

[Airith]

I think it would be awesome to see you guys do something like that. A world of maps is way better then ... a non-world of maps.

With the skills you guys have it'd be one epic game world.

Too bad I couldn't contribute

[NeonKnight]

I think it would be awesome to see you guys do something like that. A world of maps is way better then ... a non-world of maps.

With the skills you guys have it'd be one epic game world.

Too bad I couldn't contribute

Why couldn't you? The main reason I do ALL my maps in CC3 with no after effect work done in Phtoshop or Gimp or anything is to try and show people what can be accomplished with the CC3 suite of Software and nothing else. If I can make cool maps, then anyone can make cool maps

[Torq]

I agree with Neon. Airith you would certainly be able to contribute. If we do take on this thing, I dont believe there should be any requirement as to the software used. Everyone should be allowed to map using their app of choice> sure this may lead to style inconsistencies but these can ne easily overcome and diversoty is one of the things that defines this community>

Torq

[Midgardsormr]

You know what might be fun? If each of us adopted a fictional cartographer persona while working on the maps. That way, we'd be roleplaying while creating the world, justifying a variety of different styles, and building some interesting NPCs all at the same time.

[NeonKnight]

You know what might be fun? If each of us adopted a fictional cartographer persona while working on the maps. That way, we'd be roleplaying while creating the world, justifying a variety of different styles, and building some interesting NPCs all at the same time.

That sir is such a good idea it deserves some REP!