Goblin Squad Member
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I have created an Unofficial Pathfinder Online Map (150 dpi) using Rich Baker's sketch from the GW blog, and what we know so far from the thread comments. I also have a 300 dpi version (which is too large for Google Drive to have a thumbnail).
Assumptions in making the map
1) I used the map scale from the Thorenkeep map.
2) The actual size of the subhexes is subject to change. The map subhex size is estimated from the larger hexes shown on Rich's sketch, subdividing by 7. See Example
3) Road locations were adjusted to run through subhexes rather then along an edge between subhexes.
4) The roads accented on the Thornkeep map were shown as patrolled NPC hexes. See NPC Hex under Types of Hexes in Over the Hill and Far Away
5) Settlement locations were adjusted from the Thornkeep map to place them in the center of a subhex.
6) The two fort settlements were given a 6 hex surround of patrolled hexes (see NPC Hex reference above), but the smaller settlements were not. I do not know how much each settlement would actually control, just my best guess. Thornkeep may actually have more hexes like the forts settlements.
7) The cited Thornkeep monster encounter areas were shown as monster hexes. They may or may not actually be permanent monster hexes.
8) Distribution and density of trees in the Echo Woods is my imagination and should not be considered as linked to any dev comments.
This map was created in Adobe Illustrator and uses map symbols from the ProFantasy Campaign Cartographer software (for which I have a license).
I plan on revising the map as more information is known. Eventually I hope to use this to catalog player exploration and discoveries.
As always your suggestions, comments, and observations are welcome.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I do have a layer with the larger hexes (and their numbers) from Rich Baker's sketch. This should help but the numbers are hard to read in the forest. I'll spend some time changing these to white. Until then...
Unofficial PFO Map with lager numbered hexes (150 dpi)
Unofficial PFO Map with lager numbered hexes (300 dpi) (too big for thumbnail)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Here is version 0a using large numbered hexes and white numbers in forest areas.
Unofficial PFO Map with large hexes V0a - 150 dpi
Unofficial PFO Map with large hexes V0a - 300 dpi (no thumbnail)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Not my field. Just skills I picked up in RL. I do have a terrain map made from 5-meter LIDAR data sets and modified to fit my campaign (adding lakes and depressions where there were none in the original). But my ArcGIS license has expired a long time ago.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The map is beautiful. I wonder where you came up with some of the names, though?
The place names are straight from the Thornkeep book and map. Were those the names you were wondering about? I tried to match that map as closely as I could. I had to make up the placement and type of trees.
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Goblin Squad Member
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That's interesting as all those icons and trees are right out of Profantasy's Campaign Cartographer 3... I just assumed that is what you used.
I have Campaign cartographer, but Illustrator gives me a greater control of fills (for the terrain hexes) and Photoshop makes it easier to make good images from the Illustrator files (and easier to control file size). CC3 can make hex grids easier but I needed to display information in the hex fills.
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Goblin Squad Member
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That's interesting as all those icons and trees are right out of Profantasy's Campaign Cartographer 3... I just assumed that is what you used.I have Campaign cartographer, but Illustrator gives me a greater control of fills (for the terrain hexes) and Photoshop makes it easier to make good images from the Illustrator files (and easier to control file size). CC3 can make hex grids easier but I needed to display information in the hex fills.
As a side note, I have CC2, but never upgraded to CC3. However I am about to start running a new PFRPG campaign. Is it worth reconsidering and upgrading? I have a lot less skill than you do - KUDOS on doing such a fine job!
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Goblin Squad Member
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The map is beautiful. I wonder where you came up with some of the names, though?The place names are straight from the Thornkeep book and map. Were those the names you were wondering about? I tried to match that map as closely as I could. I had to make up the placement and type of trees.
I obviously need to look at the Thornkeep book more closely, then :)
I was just noticing there were differences between the two links in your post. For example, "Jaderazur's Cave" (far north) from the blog becomes "Thelsterex's Cave" in your map.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As a side note, I have CC2, but never upgraded to CC3. However I am about to start running a new PFRPG campaign. Is it worth reconsidering and upgrading? I have a lot less skill than you do - KUDOS on doing such a fine job!
I have used CC3 a fair amount and it is an improvement over CC2, particularly in the detail of the symbols. I've used PnP for years to great success, CC3 notwithstanding. Two 4' hex maps comes to mind; a large scale and a small scale.
PnP is still the simplest, especially if your RL does not allow for a steep re-learning curve that may be the case with an upgrade. Every software has its quarks and tricks and it may just be me but I found CC3 no exception. I think the final answer will be much like the ones the devs at GW have to face, namely "How much time and resource can you realistically afford to invest in which portion of the campaign".
Even if you really like to make maps, players can be very imaginative and can fill in their own experience with just the simplest of outlines. If you are planning on being a GM for an extended period of time, both with the new campaign and the future ones, the upgrade and re-learning curve are worth it in the long run. You will eventually save a lot of time when you can make maps more efficiently. It probably took me 24-hours days over 7-days to make the map posted in the OP. I am more familiar with Creative Suite so it would have taken longer for me in CC3 and some things I did in Illustrator I could not do easily in CC3. Is it worth it to your players (and to your own play experience as GM) to make that type of time investment in your campaign maps?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Oh, luddite hipsterdom, yay...
Anyway, I wanted to request a different font. There are areas where the white text is lost on the very light background. Darker text may work, but even better would be a font that has a built-in outline. Thanks!
I didn't create them, but here's another map list.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Anyway, I wanted to request a different font. There are areas where the white text is lost on the very light background. Darker text may work, but even better would be a font that has a built-in outline. Thanks!
If you zoom in a little the names where there is a light green background are outlined in black, but I agree that they would look better solid black. The names in the forest are white so they can stand out. I'll look carefully at font/color for the next version. Thanks.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Anyway, I wanted to request a different font. There are areas where the white text is lost on the very light background. Darker text may work, but even better would be a font that has a built-in outline. Thanks!If you zoom in a little the names where there is a light green background are outlined in black, but I agree that they would look better solid black. The names in the forest are white so they can stand out. I'll look carefully at font/color for the next version. Thanks.
I like the font used out on the grasslands, I just think that would be better on the forest too. Outlined fonts work on most backgrounds.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I am looking over this map...I already have some good ideas where to locate settlements (well, they seem to be good looking at terrain, but might be impossible to keep secure, we'll see), but this area seems awfully small. I know it is a lot of programming and seeding for the game designers and programmers, but if there are going to be several thousand players continually routing monster settlements, farming and harvesting, as well as competing with other players settlements and kingdoms, I see this map area getting crowded very quickly. And can see land expansions pretty early on.
Just my view. I know Ryan stated cometing for resources will excite more player conflict, but I don't think he was talking about playing in Bangladesh.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yeah, I did, but we are only talking about 11 x 12 miles. I don't want to have to cut it, but still. Although I do like the multiple monster comlexes. On this map, pink equals gooood.
Picture of A couple fishing at Silvershade Lake.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Comments on Distance in PFO
1) The concepts of distance and space are still very much in the air. The map helps but the only real experience with distance is the Environmental Experience and we can not map that area to the area of a hex, since we do not know the final across flats hex distance.
2) I timed going from one extent to the other in the experience. Based on my video card it takes approximately 60 seconds to cross that area from boundary to boundary. I went to the tower and for me it took a second to move accross the face of the tower. Assuming that the tower is 10' x 10', that makes the distance across the experience roughly 600 feet (or approx. 182 meters).
3)In Over the Hills and Far Away the devs are thinking of a small hex size of between 400 and 1000 meters across. Therefore (if my numbers are correct) a small hex is anywhere from 2.2:1 to 5.5:1 times the Environmental Experience distance across.
4) Scaling from the Unofficial Map, a large hex is approx 1778 m (5832 ft) across while a small hex is approximately 593 m (1945 ft) across. If the ratios are correct (and there is still a great deal of doubt about that) then a small hex in the map is a little over 3 times the extent of the Environmental Experience.
I have no experience with modern MMOs and the size of the play area. How do you think these distances match up with other MMOs? Someone please try the timed run across the EE and check my estimates.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Quality detective work HN. My connection is not good enough for the EE. There was a thread on the map size where I posted some links to other world maps... I'll see if I can dig it up and repost here. GJ!
On a related note, I really hope a full valley (x,y,z) is a full valley in scale, not a little knoll down to a little brook! We shall see.
Here we go: MMORPG.com:
General : Large Video Game Worlds Size Comparison
How large are MMO worlds now REALLY? A comparison in world sizes
& related:
If we have the ability to have a seamless world the hex boundaries will likely be invisible. If we have to do some kind of staged zone transfer, then you'll know where they are. There are game design and aesthetic benefits to both approaches and it remains to be seen where we'll eventually go.
I would really like there to be a huge system for map manipulation. So rather than selling a map to another person, you'd sell them information that you've gathered and it would appear on their map. Your character's map would be a way of keeping a whole lot of information organized.
Open maps.google.com
Search for Pullman, WA
This is the college I attended many, many moons ago. It is roughly the size of a Hex. This town holds about 24,000 folks (Washington State University is 19,000 of them).
In Pathfinder Online, this would be the largest type of settled area. In the Crusader Road area there are no settlements this large, although Mosswater is an undesigned area at the moment.
Now go north of Pullman, to Garfield. This town holds about 600 folks. It's about the size of one of the three NPC settlements. It occupies about a 4th of a Hex. A very large PC Settlement would be something roughly this size. Garfield is a town that you drive through on your way from Seattle to Pullman and its the center of a large farming community so it's daytime population is higher than 600 residents, more like 1,000 people.
Now to give all that some scale, go west to Mount St. Helens. The mountain would fill approximately 4 Hexes (2x2). So you could have something the size of a massive volcano taking up just a corner of the map, and dozens of small settlements scattered all around it without feeling crowded.
^This last one refers to the old large hex size unit.
EVE with it's huge systems and various specialisms for exploration apparently excels on this front. I hope PFO can measure up in a fantasy guise.
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Goblin Squad Member
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aside: I think you need a 'swamp' map icon.
Agreed. The CC3 symbols for swamp (which are used around Toad Hollow) I am not fond of, but you are correct that there should be a swamp hex entry in the Legend. I also need a hill legend hex, but have no information about which hexes will actually be hilly. I will look into another symbol for swamp and add both a swamp legend hex and a hill legend hex in the next release. According to the Thornkeep book, the whole Toad Lake (unlabled as was in the book's map) is knee-deep and swamp-like.
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Goblin Squad Member
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All this sounds good...and I remain hopeful. I am a skeptic though, and wiall keep my "wait and see" attitude. I hope to be pleasantly suprised.
I can't compare EVE to any of the other worlds. EVE feels really closed in because you can't explore anything in a traditional way. No planet expeditions, no exiting the ship. You are trapped. That always made it feel small to me no matter how big the universe is. Your explorable world is only as big as the cockpit of your current ship.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Hmmm, I'm taking an ArcGIS introductory class this quarter, and will have access to the software for a year. I've barely begun but it has made me wonder how the software can interact with PFO.
You can compare a GIS map to an Illustrator file in that both have layers of information. If the terrain in PFO can be exported out of Unity in a .dxf, or even in an unprojected lat-long csv file, it can be imported into ArcGIS. Then you could build data layers with the locations of settlements and single structures. You can also tie information like leader, charter, services offered and price, as well as a list of buildings to each location point. If the location of active players can be exported in real time, you can also bring in that data to update the map real time. Think of the Marauder's map from Harry Potter. It's the same way you see cellphones tracked on NCIS. ESRI has ArcGIS for Server which can publish maps over the web. A realtime player location map would be amazing, as long as it just showed player dots and not names. That would make bounty hunting too easy.
If others want to play with a GIS they can download Quantum GIS for free and start checking it out. I used it to make this map for the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta profile.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Someone's got a decent amount of CC3 skill. I like your style Harad. You got any other works?
Areks, I finally found that terrain map I made from the 5-meter LIDAR data sets. I made the big lake in the middle by recalculating some of the data point z-values. This is a cropped image that actually extends about three time the width (to the right). I don't know if I still have that image.
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Goblin Squad Member
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New version 0b added; Changes in this version:
- Swamp/Bog and Hills symbols added to legend
- Terrain around Toad Hollow changed to Swamp/Bog
- Lettering color in Open Plains areas changes black
- Large hexes turned off in preparation for small hex numbering
The devs said initially that they were looking at 256 hexes, then expanded each hex into 7 sub-hexes. This would make the new number of hexes 2304, calculated by 256 larges hexes times 9 [7 sub-hexs plus (6) 1/3rd hexes at each of the six corners]. The unofficial map has 2489 hexes as I added some territory to the east to make full large hexes.
Links:
Unofficial PFO Map - 150 dpi version 0b
Unofficial PFO Map - 300 dpi version 0b
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Goblin Squad Member
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Harad, my iPad can open the 150 dpi map, but not the 300 dpi map as it says something like "no view available". FYI
Yes, Google Drive (where the images are stored) does not appear to have a thumbnail for 300 dpi images. You have to download the image and view it locally. I made 150 dpi for viewing in browser and 300 dpi images for downloading as a higher quality image for printing etc.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yes. Deepest woods in UP (NE) corner of current map, with multiple monster encounters, and Thornkeep. Although seems to me Fort Riverwatch would have been on the southermost side of the map, as the story goes we are all arriving and heading north to the World Wound. Not that we are ever going to get there.
Still, the river should be somewhat more peaceful and will likely have the lowest level materials to be harvested, with the monster difficulty, material level, and general expectation of trouble to increase as you head east and north.
Although Mosswater should be challenging if PFO sticks to the storyline for the local ruins.