Ryandor.com

This is my second real attempt at making my own map just wanted some feedback its not even half finished atm tho



Mainly asking because i have not seen many other maps around and have not alot of compare my work with

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Psyion.net

its a good start

for some comparison images on ryandor main site there are some images good luck

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http://ax-n.net Admin X's News and Resources

thankslot

oops it did not login for me anyway looked at the pictures on main site and they OWN

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Psyion.net

Dont look to shabby for your second try.

Most people here like the jagged coastline, they say it makes things more interesting which I agree some what.

Here are a few things I do on mine (everyone has their own method)

1. Cover the entire land masses with grass after doing the outline, this prevents little holes from appearing in areas I might miss with a brush while painting the forest or other terrain and makes it easier to edge along mountains or other features.

2. Only make thick mountains if I am going to place outside terrain areas in the middle of them such as snow areas or dungeon areas like Covetous in the real game. You can always teleport players to large seeming areas so the real dimensions are not required and leaves more area for developing other map terrains.

3. Dont make the land masses to thick as well or you will have "HUGE" ingame areas that seem to run on forever which are boring for players.

4. Dont try making 20 cities because odd's are even with 100-200 players they will all center around 1 or 2 towns (and you will be working on them the next 20 years and never finish). If you make one of them large and well laid out people who like to "pimp" their "rides" or bank parkers, then make a nice village that is rural and quiet for the "shy" normal people to hang out. Perhaps a few minor towns that have popped up around guard towers along roads where villagers have set up farms.

5. On all of my maps I like to "define" terrain types by raising or lowering the different terrains. Roads for example are edged in grass which increased after the first couple of tiles by 2z along the edge giving the appearence of rutts. Forest terrain are elevated 2z from the surrounding grass terrain. Swamps are trimmed with grass and drop 2z in elevation then trimmed with another 2 tiles of grass before hitting the actual swamp area giving the impression your dropping into a lower "swampy" region and looks much nicer than that flat old boring swamp UO is famous for. You can also place grass islands in them for lizardman villages or what ever you desire.

Come up with your own methods that define your maps as "you" prefer, that is what makes them all so fun to see.

There are dozens of fantastic map makers out there, just look at their works and they will inspire you with more ideas than you could hope to fit on one map.

Dev

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"So...if crazy people don't know their crazy...does that mean your only sane if your know your crazy?"

yeah the ones in the gallerys made me have some ideas of my own also i am testing out what you said about defining areas by pushing them up by 2 z looks pretty kool man good tip

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Psyion.net

Hehe for jungle I drop the z by 2. Normally I place the swamp areas in the jungle regions so it makes more sense then you can also place a small river in the middle of the swamp going out to sea.

That way everything is "flowing" downhill and makes more sense to the players.

Dev

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"So...if crazy people don't know their crazy...does that mean your only sane if your know your crazy?"

nice im working with some swamp at the moment any tips for that ?

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Psyion.net

Yeah break them up into "pools" with rivers in them.

I normally start with a 5-10z elevation of grass then depending on the surrounding terrain (I use jungle) I do the following.

Lets say we start with 5z;

1. fill the region with 5z grass using the paint tool.
2. select the next lower grass color on your list which normally is 2z.
3. paint small puddles of grass just a little larger than the swamp pools that you desire.
4. next you select the swamp color for the same elevation as the last grass color used which in this case would be 2z then paint it inside the last circle of grass making sure you leave a "lip" of 2z grass around the edges for about 2-3 tiles.
5. for larger pools of swamp you can place islands, to do this simply work in reverse by painting the 2z grass followed by a 5z grass and if large enough you can even place some jungle on the small island for deco and filler.

This method creates a much more interesting swamp for players to play in.

Dont forget that you can back the swamp up next to a mountain which can be used as the entrance to a lizardman fortress or other nasty critters.

You can also place small outlines of mountain terrain (2-3tiles) around some parts of the islands to get the elevations up then place structures like those found in that little town in T2A.

Another nice trick is the sloped cave entrance which works great for swamps. Simply place a dirt path sloping downward from say 5z to -15z then line the edges with mountain terrain followed by a hill on the deep end with a cave entrance. This allows you to place caves almost anywhere, not just mountains.

Dev

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"So...if crazy people don't know their crazy...does that mean your only sane if your know your crazy?"

ill had a go i am have updated my pic at the top if u wanna see thanks for another good tip

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Psyion.net

Here are a few examples of what I was talking about though some things have been changed since.











and no...you cant see the whole map, thats a secret

Dev

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"So...if crazy people don't know their crazy...does that mean your only sane if your know your crazy?"

said i dont have access

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Psyion.net

Hmm works fine for me not sure why its not working for you. Shouldnt require any access unless your trying a different variation of the link than what is posted.

I'll move the folder to the main level and redo the links and let you try it from there.

Screw it I'll just post the actual images instead of the links

Dev

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"So...if crazy people don't know their crazy...does that mean your only sane if your know your crazy?"

i am getting a broken image now ? lol somthing messed up ? where r u hosted ?

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Psyion.net

Nothing is messed up, I can view it from two locations on three seperate computers so its not on my end.

If you have a slow connection and try to scroll before images finish loading it will distort them sometimes.

Dev

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"So...if crazy people don't know their crazy...does that mean your only sane if your know your crazy?"

i have a 3mb ADSL line hehe so its not that ? maybe you could upload them to my public FTP ? ftp.psyion.net ?

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Psyion.net

Psyion: Right click on the little red "x" then click "properties". Cut and paste the location of the image into your address line and it'll take you to the image.

Btw, Dev, nice work.

-CMS
*******

ok i got it wokring i still cant understand why i had to do that tho ? web server must not like leeching or somthing i dunno maybe need to change some settings but thanks for the help some nice looking swamp

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Psyion.net

I can/could see them fine.

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Blog: http://www.sydius.org
Web: http://www.sydius.net

pretty odd then ? maybe its my ISP

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Psyion.net

Most likely your browser settings.

Dev

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"So...if crazy people don't know their crazy...does that mean your only sane if your know your crazy?"

Broke for me too..

Something wierd going on...
but "view image" works ok

-Ryandor

Broke for me at work.

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Blog: http://www.sydius.org
Web: http://www.sydius.net

Ahh I bet its from the Router/Switches/Firewalls, mine has the options to block certain graphic types.

Some of the computers at work are set to block .bmp and .jpg files to keep the kiddies off the none business web sites. It can also be blocked under options in Explorer (yeah I know you know but you knew that!)

Dev

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"So...if crazy people don't know their crazy...does that mean your only sane if your know your crazy?"

Whatever it is, I think it is on your end, Dev. I sat up the router, firewall, server, and computer I was on at work, and no other image has ever been blocked to me. Unless you are using some new format of JPG?

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Blog: http://www.sydius.org
Web: http://www.sydius.net