Cartography Skill and Exploration Rewards Possibilities

Heyas~~!

While watching the latest news, I saw that they mentioned "World Map Discovery" changes. I started thinking (dangerous, I know!!) about what that could mean...

Has anyone thought about how interesting it would be to go out, train skill as a map-maker, and then sell (or give) the information to other players? Things like terrain, dungeons, resources, enemies, ect. I could see training in cartography and equipping your map and compass, then filling in blank spots on the map as you explore.

Would this work? Would it even be wanted? Lately in most mmo's the map just gets magically opened up as you travel, without much effort involved.

Personally, I'd welcome something involving a bit of challenge and effort

Thoughts/comments/suggestions?

Thanks!!

o7

~War~

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tautau

Would work delightfully as a citizen of a scientific node. The node may have a map in the library which citizens might automatically add their knowledge to when they look at the map, so it would be the sum knowledge of all the node citizens.

The mayor of the node might have under his/her control to set access to this map to citizens only or to citizens+allied nodes, or open to everyone.

Night Wings

I would enjoy that it make groups/guilds explore more rather just go into grinding to hit max level.

Elder

Something like this might be interesting as the world is first explored but might become less meaningful or even tedious once everything has been discovered to completion.

Warspawn

Elder wrote: »

Something like this might be interesting as the world is first explored but might become less meaningful or even tedious once everything has been discovered to completion.

But what if things change as the world evolves? Will the world be dynamic, with construction and expansion changing it? New roads? Resources? Dangerous areas that are controlled by boss mobs or hordes of something one may want to avoid?

The ranger in me thinks just maybe my services as a scout could be useful in such a situation

Heck, I could even see a rogue making a map in a city illustrating hideouts or smuggling routes.

Hmmm....

o7

~War~

CROW3

My fav recurring topic. We’re still waiting to hear how cartography will take shape.

tautau

Adding to my comment above that scientific nodes could have active maps in the library for citizens...

Perhaps having such a map (which updates when used by players) could also be one of the options that a guild could choose, in addition to guild size and other skills.

Elder

Warspawn wrote: »

Elder wrote: »

Something like this might be interesting as the world is first explored but might become less meaningful or even tedious once everything has been discovered to completion.

But what if things change as the world evolves? Will the world be dynamic, with construction and expansion changing it? New roads? Resources? Dangerous areas that are controlled by boss mobs or hordes of something one may want to avoid?

The ranger in me thinks just maybe my services as a scout could be useful in such a situation Heck, I could even see a rogue making a map in a city illustrating hideouts or smuggling routes.

Hmmm....

o7

~War~

That would for sure make it more useful, I'm now just wondering how much of this info we could assume to be available online once people have these maps in their hands. What would stop someone from buying/receiving one of these maps and making them available on a subreddit or wiki.

Warspawn

Elder wrote: »

That would for sure make it more useful, I'm now just wondering how much of this info we could assume to be available online once people have these maps in their hands. What would stop someone from buying/receiving one of these maps and making them available on a subreddit or wiki.

True. That could happen, if they weren't interested in doing something like it as a source of in-game income. There's no real way of throttling information spreading, except to have a way to make it irrelevant by changes to detail. Sort of like getting a map of the area you're wanting to go that was sketched out by Lewis & Clark. You could get an idea of which direction you may want to go, but things will have changed from out dated information you're working with...

I know if I was headed out, I'd look for the latest intel I could find

o7

~War~

Warspawn

I'm glad we're discussing possibilities!

o7

~War~

Dygz

Yep. We're interested in Cartography.
@Vaknar
It would be great for Steven, in the next Dev Livestream, to mention some dev ideas about World Map Exploration.

Liniker

Liniker wrote: »

So, I don't want to be that guy, but I feel the need to give everyone in this discussion a reality check. There's a lot of good ideas here in theory but I would like to remind Intrepid, and everyone here, that we no longer live in the early 2000's.

Have a look at this Website for the game Mortal Online 2 a game that also doesn't have a classic MMORPG map: https://mortalonlinemap.info/

This is an interactive map tool made by the community that people can in real-time mark and search for every POI including the most recent PvP fights going on that people add to the map, it can be used for rescources, new content, community event is happening and so on. Imagine something like this in Ashes, with a page to sort by server, and guilds updating this in real-time with information on the nodes, the boss spawns, where guilds are at, and so on - same as everyone does in MO2.

There is also Discord, and many other tools that people Will use and Intrepid has absolutely no control over nor would they be able to ban since this happens on 3rd party websites/platforms, and can pretty much make all these cartography ideas completely irrelevant - why pay gold or level a profession that a discord server or a website can do better?

This game is already doing a lot and has awesome design ideas, so messing around with all this Map and Cartography idea is just something not worth the time since people will be doing this outside your game anyways.

A classic MMORPG map, with maybe some fog of war is enough, don't spend time with this and focus on other parts of the game that you can have control over so we can get the core viable product delivered before Archeage 2 comes out.

CROW3

Except that MOII had one server with a fixed land mass arrangement.

Ashes will have multiple servers each with different node development over time. Not arguing that there won’t be crowdsourced maps, but cartography could still be viable unless you’re interested in constantly alt-tabbing for your map.

Liniker

CROW3 wrote: »

Except that MOII had one server with a fixed land mass arrangement.

Ashes will have multiple servers each with different node development over time. Not arguing that there won’t be crowdsourced maps, but cartography could still be viable unless you’re interested in constantly alt-tabbing for your map.

Well, that's irrelevant, this map I used as the example is really just a simple tool, 1 click and you make 1 map per server - and with 50k people per server population in AoC is already 5 times more than MO2 ever had to keep a community map like that updated all the time.

Alt-tabbing is also something that was an issue 10 years ago, I'd argue most MMORPG gamers nowadays have 2 monitors, I have 4.

I just feel like this is a waste of time and effort if people will use 3rd party solutions for this, and different from a random feature - let's say something like Proximity Chat - if 90% of your population don't use it that's OK for the game - but creating a Profession that might not be viable is detrimental to the game.

CROW3

So, your theory is that more players would prefer an out-of-game map than an in-game map?

Somehow I’m skeptical.

Liniker

CROW3 wrote: »

So, your theory is that more players would prefer an out-of-game map than an in-game map?

Somehow I’m skeptical.

Yes, because the out-of-game map is completely free, no need to hire or pay gold to a cartographer, do any exploration, or have any hustle, just open your 3rd party website or your discord and all the info is there - why would I pay gold or level a profession or quest for a map or any info that I can spend 3 seconds opening my browser and getting all that info... you feel me?

Are you also skeptical that IF they do Nothing against Gold Sellers, this will ruin the economy? It will because gamers always take the easy way - now the difference is, you can ban gold buyers/sellers - but there's absolutely Nothing they can do or even try to do against 3rd party websites.

That's why I say it's a waste of time and effort trying to do this, and the game won't be any worse because of this.

CROW3

Liniker wrote: »

you feel me?

Totally, I just disagree. I think if Intrepid found a way to implement a cartography with a simple way to import exploratory finds to in game maps for players that it would be used more often than a third party website.

Are you also skeptical that IF they do Nothing against Gold Sellers, this will ruin the economy? It will because gamers always take the easy way - now the difference is, you can ban gold buyers/sellers - but there's absolutely Nothing they can do or even try to do against 3rd party websites.

I could see that being an outcome. So …what if cartography were a life-skill that would allow any player to see greater relief in their in-game map as they increase that skill? Maybe add some type of share function?

Agreed on Ashes not suffering if this skill isn’t in. But it would be cool if it were, with relatively few drawbacks.

Liniker

CROW3 wrote: »

I could see that being an outcome. So …what if cartography were a life-skill that would allow any player to see greater relief in their in-game map as they increase that skill? Maybe add some type of share function?

Agreed on Ashes not suffering if this skill isn’t in. But it would be cool if it were, with relatively few drawbacks.

I think something like that might work, I personally would love for this to make it to the game, I just hope they don't end up investing time(money) into something and they don't consider the things I previously said, but that's why we give feedback

tautau

I don't like the idea of a public map, it seems illogical. If some player I never met discovers something, how in the blazes should I know about it?

Instead, I like the idea of private maps known only to nodes and guilds who have acquired the necessary cartography ability. Perhaps this should be restricted to scientific nodes or guilds with castles or guild halls. Anyway, if the node or guild has the skill and a member accesses the map in the library or guild hall, then their knowledge gets added to that map. Only citizens/guild members would have access to that map.

The map would only be as current as the members' discoveries. If a node levelled up and new content appears, it won't be on the map until the citizens/guild members find the new content and then put it on their node/guild map.

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