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ChampagneDragon

Indy Map.

Indy Road Map Status  

58 members have voted

  1. 1. Regarding Indy's Current Maps

    • They're fine. More than fine thanks to Hugh and Skye
      12
    • I really think that we need to integrate topology and community map into one.
      43
    • I don't care either way.
      3


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While I would dare say everyone would agree Hugh and Skyefox have done a FANTASTIC job with Indy's community map, treasure hunting is leading to a big issue that we should discuss.

 

Simply put, we need topography.

 

The way it stands right now  (IMO) to do a treasure map you have to have your character open, the Indy map open, and a third window with a topography map.I love our maps, and I love the treasure maps, but my head spins trying to go back and forth between all three windows to pinpoint a location.  I do not know if there is a way to get topography overlays on our current map (PLEASE let there be!) or if this is something that can only be done by utlizing Yaga's map. 

 

So do you think:

 

 

 

 

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I think we can keep the pin and continue update requests for the current map.

But honestly, as a non-native indy player who went there a few times for rifts when chasing my 100 rifts, finding certain spots or areas was an utter nightmare just due to size, trying to find the zone I was currently in and such. The utility and functionaly that the Yaga maps offer is second to none, and I think may of us love them dearly the same way we love the current Indy map.

 

Please, god make an Indy Yaga map. I asked for it a while ago, but of course they're community maintained and nobody at the time really wanted to do it. But as someone who would love to explore Indy in the future, having a new, fresh and crisp Yaga hosted map for it would be 10/10. Please, make it happen.

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Honestly, I quit recommending the Albia maps to new players, for one it doesn't show enough information for a new player, aka Deed locations.

 

By default if it did show deed locations ( don't have to include the name ) just show some indication of where a deed is, or that land is taken up by a deed, then I'll go back to recommending this map.

 

As far as a topo map, really don't matter to me one way or the other. As a long time explorer of Indy, I'm familiar with a lot of the topography ( except the south eastern section of indy only been there a few times ) but for those that barely or hardly ever explore Indy it can be frustrating to realize that yeah this road goes up one side of a mountain and down the other.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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3 minutes ago, Stormblade said:

As far as a topo map, really don't matter to me one way or the other. As a long time explorer of Indy, I'm familiar with a lot of the topography ( except the south eastern section of indy only been there a few times ) but for those that barely or hardly ever explore Indy it can be frustrating to realize that yeah this road goes up one side of a mountain and down the other.

Have you done any treasure maps lately? They rely heavy on topography down to minute detail  

 

FSf45dB.jpg

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There is a community ran map but not many people updated it. I've stopped playing so much but im sure @Drogoswould welcome more using his tool!

It's also more friendly to my eyes as a colourblind person haha.
 

 

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As i have my main travels along the roads on Independence, i ofcourse love the feel of the Albia map. It has some sort of sentimental value with the names on the mountains and lakes, and the almost cartoony feel. And the hours spent into maintaining that map has to be incredible. So credit should be given to the cartographers of the current community map for the hard work they do!

Ive also noticed the urge for a map that uses map dumps, have topography options and guard towers with names on them. Well, just to be able to hover over things on a map and make adjustments makes it more interactive. These things seems to be hard to achieve on the current map so an alternative to that, for me, would have to be the Yaga platform. When i travel to other servers its always very easy to navigate through valleys or via lakes. And now with the treasure clues using both topography and guard towers - for me thats a must have right now.

 

TLDR: I would use a Yaga version of Independence and would support the making of one.

Edited by Nordlys
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Having lived on Indy for years I used to Albia map all the time I knew my way around the server like the back of my hand so. However, I cant help but also think a bit more interactivity on my community map would be great. I love the idea of guard towers and when you mouse over the name appears. 

 

I love Hugh and Skyefox for everything they have done for the community map I think just with times changing our needs are changing. 

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The Indy topo maps are accessible easily from the official links so should not be an issue.

The Albia maps have  hugely much more tile-wise correct detail than the regular server maps *.yaga.host - which ones I love a lot... but the detail and work put into the Indy maps mapping all the road corners by tile is incredible. I don't see any issue with the new treasure maps, just use the official topo for the topo and Albia maps have the details for all other needs I guess.

 

 

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I personally think the current Albia maps are fine, and I'll keep using them as they are.

Perhaps the question is what is the purpose of the map, for treasure hunting or for detailed, surveyed and verified maps of highways, towers, and the names of the deeds that the mayors wish to be included on them?

 

The official topography maps given in the map dumps work fine for treasure hunting.  Just use the Albia maps alongside them when you're travelling out to where you believe your treasure map shows.

Hugh and Skyfox likely don't need the pressure of added work to match terrain, which can be terraformed at any given moment and therefor very difficult to verify for accuracy in the detail the catseye highways are.

 

Edited by Tristanc
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Can't anyone just start making and maintaining and indy yaga map? Like what's the poll here for? 

 

Is the push to make skye and hugh do it? Because that's a lolno 

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3 hours ago, Archaed said:

Can't anyone just start making and maintaining and indy yaga map? Like what's the poll here for? 

 

Is the push to make skye and hugh do it? Because that's a lolno 

 

I think the idea behind the poll is to see whether the community wants to change to a yaga hosted styled map or not. I don't think the expectation is on Hugh and Skye to automatically do it however.

 

Personally, the Albia map's were fine back before the rise of map dump usage, however they do feel out of date with how much more modern the yaga maps feel with the ability to filter and search for what you need instead of searching over it by hand.

 

I think Zachariah summed it up perfectly, our needs when it comes to maps have become more refined than simply trying to find X, Y or Z.

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2 hours ago, Aristia said:

 

I think the idea behind the poll is to see whether the community wants to change to a yaga hosted styled map or not. I don't think the expectation is on Hugh and Skye to automatically do it however.

 

Personally, the Albia map's were fine back before the rise of map dump usage, however they do feel out of date with how much more modern the yaga maps feel with the ability to filter and search for what you need instead of searching over it by hand.

 

I think Zachariah summed it up perfectly, our needs when it comes to maps have become more refined than simply trying to find X, Y or Z.

Sure, but both can be run in tandem, there's nothing stopping champagnedragon herself taking this on. 

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Its simple business management. As times change needs of customers change. Business's must adapt to those needs or they suffer failure. For example, Blockbuster. The needs of the customer changed, buyers wanted more convince in streaming at home. This was the rise of Netflix. Blockbuster failed to adapt to the growing presence of streaming and eventually they had to close their doors. There is still a standing Blockbuster but thats beside the point. 

 

If we think of the map as a business, the "customer" needs more accurate topographical maps. If Albia maps as a "company" cant adapt and provide the option of accurate topographical information they run the risk of customers turning to other map providers. In this case it's the option of hosting their own Yaga map. Now I know this is a lot to ask, this isnt an exact science its just an analogy. But it helps express the idea of why this discussion is even taking place. 

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Except the community maps are all developed and maintained by players, 'customers', not by the business nor owners of the Wurm Online intellectual property at all.

 

Edited by Tristanc
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First off in the thread, I have to say Skyefox and Hughmongus have done an incredible job of keeping the map up to date for all these years. And I do love the tradition we have on Indy of using the same style of map since the original hand drawn one in the days before mapdumps. The road detailing especially is really useful for navigation. Also, all of the mountain/sea names add a lot of character to the map and reference the server's old history, and I don't think that Yaga maps support place names.

 

However, it would also be nice to have the topographic details of the map dumps & the search functionality of the Yaga maps. The best case scenario might be to somehow have an extra layer on the Yaga map platform that shows the old coloured style of map too.

 

A stopgap/alternative could be to simply overlay the existing Albia map details onto the topographic map. I tried this (very quickly) below, it only took 5 minutes in Photoshop - and could be automated quite easily with a Python script:

 

uc?id=1kgnmgsFnFT-nrVSJSQjgKOAUGcuCLaEo

 

(direct link for download of full version)

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17 hours ago, ChampagneDragon said:

While I would dare say everyone would agree Hugh and Skyefox have done a FANTASTIC job with Indy's community map, treasure hunting is leading to a big issue that we should discuss.

 

Simply put, we need topography.

 

The way it stands right now  (IMO) to do a treasure map you have to have your character open, the Indy map open, and a third window with a topography map.I love our maps, and I love the treasure maps, but my head spins trying to go back and forth between all three windows to pinpoint a location.  I do not know if there is a way to get topography overlays on our current map (PLEASE let there be!) or if this is something that can only be done by utlizing Yaga's map. 

 

So do you think:

 

 

 

 

I also just want to point out that the topography of the treasure maps does not match the topography of the map dumps, it's a different scale, and not intended to line up. The use for it is understanding the lay of the land when you're at that spot, whats a hill, a mountain, etc. 

 

i'm all for someone maintaining another version of the community map if they want, but I don't see any need for this poll, just take it on and work alongside it

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7 hours ago, Archaed said:

Sure, but both can be run in tandem, there's nothing stopping champagnedragon herself taking this on. 

This isn't about me starting a new map.

 

This was a discussion amongst many people and people didn't want Hugh and Skye to think we didn't appreciate their efforts.  We do. It was felt that whatever happened should have the input of the community. I just happened to be the one who made the forum post..

 

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21 hours ago, Enuf said:

There is a community ran map but not many people updated it. I've stopped playing so much but im sure @Drogoswould welcome more using his tool!

 

Just a little note from me here, WurmNode is not an option as a community map, it was never intended to work that way, and it never will. If someone wants to use it privately, they are of course welcome to do so, and if later on someone starts to maintain a Yaga map / interactive community map, then it is very easy to export all plotted spots from WurmNode to Yaga maps so one does not have to start from scratch then.

Edited by Drogos
typo

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Speaking as an outsider (I live on xan, but was pointed to this thread) the inability to easily zoom in on the existing community map without downloading and putting into another program is a serious detriment.  Hugh and Skye have done a great job, and their map is a very nice tool, and definitely shows the love they have for both the game and their map - this coming from someone who made maps & blueprints for years - it is hard to use effectively at the scale it necessarily has to be drawn at.  

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I've no idea what Yaga maps are. But for treasure maps I use the topo map dump and the community maps equally. The guard towers being seen and the names help. Topo to narrow down the others. I find the map dumps harder to read all the roads imo. The community one is easier to navigate roads. Just my 2 coppers.

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On 6/18/2022 at 6:31 AM, Archaed said:

but I don't see any need for this poll, just take it on and work alongside it

My apologies Arch, but they thought about the impact of them just doing this - without the rest of the server's approval - before hand: had they gone a head and done so maybe it would have interfered with current plans, and or the community may have not liked it. This way at least the current maintainers can give their input along with being 'valid' in the eyes of the community. 

both are big pluses don't you think? 

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On 6/19/2022 at 9:23 AM, Eleraan said:

I've no idea what Yaga maps are. But for treasure maps I use the topo map dump and the community maps equally. The guard towers being seen and the names help. Topo to narrow down the others. I find the map dumps harder to read all the roads imo. The community one is easier to navigate roads. Just my 2 coppers.

 

This is the community map for Deliverance, which is the original "Yaga map" as he's the maintainer (+ Substr who built the web part). It has all of the features of the Albia map but with different layers (tunnels, highways, guard towers, etc) being both searchable and toggleable. Also, I was wrong above in the thread - the Yaga maps do also support place names for lakes and roads.

 

 

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On 6/18/2022 at 3:15 PM, Docterchese said:

First off in the thread, I have to say Skyefox and Hughmongus have done an incredible job of keeping the map up to date for all these years. And I do love the tradition we have on Indy of using the same style of map since the original hand drawn one in the days before mapdumps. The road detailing especially is really useful for navigation. Also, all of the mountain/sea names add a lot of character to the map and reference the server's old history, and I don't think that Yaga maps support place names.

 

However, it would also be nice to have the topographic details of the map dumps & the search functionality of the Yaga maps. The best case scenario might be to somehow have an extra layer on the Yaga map platform that shows the old coloured style of map too.

 

A stopgap/alternative could be to simply overlay the existing Albia map details onto the topographic map. I tried this (very quickly) below, it only took 5 minutes in Photoshop - and could be automated quite easily with a Python script:


That's a quite impressive job you did there and would fill in some of the accuracy need.

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On 6/18/2022 at 8:15 AM, Docterchese said:

A stopgap/alternative could be to simply overlay the existing Albia map details onto the topographic map. I tried this (very quickly) below, it only took 5 minutes in Photoshop - and could be automated quite easily with a Python script:

 

 

(direct link for download of full version)

 

This is amazing. Would have saved me hours of frustration.

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Gud'morning folks,

Saturday, June 25th, 2022 at 17:27 GMT

 

First we want to thank every one for their comments, Pro and Con.

 

This is not the 1st time we have had this question asked of us, just the 1st time publicly.

 

We DID experiment with inserting the Topo underneath several years ago... and we privately asked some friends to "preview it".

 

The feed back we got was....

a... that Topo lines would cause Confusion as they are 1 pixel wide, just like 1 tile roads and it would be hard to distinguish where the road went.

b... the map was cluttered enough already and Topo lines would make it hard to use.

c... villages on hillsides with 1 tile roads would not show clearly.

 

So we did Try using the Topo map as an underlay but it would have been a mess.

 

Also, some folks have voiced disappointment that we do no put ALL villages on the map.

There are many folks out there who want to be Off Map, to have some privacy.

 

We did see several years ago a string of complaints from other servers where people were adding villages that were not their own to the Yaga maps, to the upset of the Hermits and Loner types.

 

These observations did reinforce our decision to maintain the Opt In nature of the map, that started with Darkmalace, was continued by MamaDarkness and continued by Archaed.

 

As for the Next update of the Albia Maps.... As Skyefox reported this morning in the Albia Roads Map of Indy forum topic.

 

1... we have been on a Wurm break since the last map uploaded in May 2022...

2... when we switched to new W10 computers, our old drives ceased working when we popped the SATA drives into the new computers to do the Data Transfer.

3... On the Up side... I have found a March 30th, 2022 back up copy of the 50 meg PSP file since Skyefox posted this morning, that contains the raw Indy map data, so we have only lost the April inputs.

4... The Techs at the store we bought the new computers from did try to help us, but the drives are dead.

Hopefully they just need a new controller card, but if not... we will need to go out to some Data recover specialists with a clean room which is going to cost us up to $1,000 per drive.

 

Also RL has been very demanding of our time in the past 7 weeks. 

Skyefox very busy getting our veggie garden (back yard farm), planted with our summer food crops.

Hugh has been hard at work doing landscaping prep around our new home to get ready for the new garage which starts construction soon and was overseas in Stockholm for 9 days for business reasons.

 

Both of our cars have let us know the do not wish to spend another winter out side at temperatures down to -32c. (Grin)

 

Food for thought,

 

Kindest regards,

Hughmongus

Cartographer of Indy, Co-Administrator - The Albia Roads Maps of Indy

and Co-Leader - The Albia Consortium

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