Fix.The.Map.

There should be no more excuses. This is vital - if you want to get new players, fix the thing.

If you don't want to have it, shut it down. But don't let the tool produce wrong informations that makes the creator look like a fool - this is just awful.

Either way - I expect that the person who produced sotamap at the current stage get a decent ingame reward - which is decent enough to reward the current efforts ( I have really high expectations into this, should be something really outstanding, I know you can do this, portalarium. ).

 

Dunna look at me about this. When I first heard they were gonna use SOTAMAP I actually complained loudly. I love Sotamap and used it and had great respect for the guy who made it, but it was a terrible idea to integrate some random 3rd party thing into this game and I warned it would be an issue (and it was sooner then even I thought). Its almost insanity for them to think it would work out (and we suggested such things as maybe they buy it from the guy and run it local to the game). SOOO many negatives (is the guess web server in a high available design or are we gonna open up 404's at times). I took a lot of heat from the usual cultist types for saying that back then... so to you I say "I told you so".

 

Yea, I have a lot of respect for the creator of SotAMap, but I think it would end up working a lot better for the game if the devs just finished the in-game maps, gave people a world map and maybe a regional map to start off with in their inventory, and polished the in-game map system a bit.

 

Hi Pickswin2,

We are working to correct these outdated errors, apologies about the incorrect information here.

About the options, the take-down option would take longer than one realizes. It may yet come to that, but we're hoping that we won't leave the community without a map option at all.

The other option is to continue to fix and upgrade it, which is the path we are looking to take.

 

Perhaps, but we also have to think about the authoring experience for POT owners. Sotamap gave all town owners the ability to "put their town on the map" and then decorate it at will with immediate updates in game. As a town owner, I find that set of features essential to help my residents and town visitors. Port would have to rebuild that too or introduce some kind of ticketing system to do it, which would be nothing short of a nightmare to everyone. Not agreeing or disagreeing with anything that's been said already, but have to appreciate the extensive contribution that Jakub White made thus far. And given Portalarium's lean budget, I'd prefer that they spend time on the top 10 list than delay all that in favor of making better maps. Again, just my 2c. I'm sure the map zealots will crucify me now, so have at it

 

No, it wouldn't be impossible for the devs to facilitate that eventually, and it wouldn't require them to custom draw every map or put every POT owner on a ticketing system. The server knows all the locations of lots and buildings, so a program resident on the server can always take a map template, draw all the lots on it, then cache it. Or the game could draw the lots on the fly -- whichever is faster. Cartography would be a cool addition to the game, and if the devs were ever willing to introduce that post-launch, they could include some code to draw POT maps.

And that would take some dev time, yes. But if you also want my opinion as someone who is stewarding a POT, too, I also don't personally think a map system which functions well for the average player --- which I think a dev-created map system would do *much much* better than SotAMap --- should be held off from being in the game just because POT owners also want their POT maps in the game.

If there is a dev-created system, eventually POT maps can come, but I don't think they're an immediate necessity. And remember the single-player offline game needs maps, too.

 

this sounds alarmingly non-definitive

 

It can be with 3rd party tools we are using, so we cannot guarantee anything when it isn't 100% under our control.

 

Ummm .... buy the SOTAMAP code, own it and improve it.

You're welcome.

 

I have always felt that the push for community-produced mods (in any game - not just SotA) by a developer is a cop out on good game design. This is no exception.

Someone from the community saw the need for mapping and created a really slick mapping tool. Mapping is key to any RPG and Jakub's is a great addition. It was a great tool when I used to play, I even contributed quite a bit of the content in Spite. The developer saw that people actually wanted this key feature and, rather than creating one from scratch, started pushing people to the community-produced maps. The problem they don't want to address is community membership fluctuates. Here one day, gone the next. What happens tomorrow?

This happened with localization for a while and then they finally contracted that out.

 

Next telethon reward - $40k - Buy Sotamap code

 

SotAMap is a web app that relies on web libraries; even if they did buy it, its not going to ever work as well as something specifically developed for the game. Plus, there's a lot of in-game integration features they could build into a game-specific map system.

 

@Berek

Then why on earth did Port decide to use it, knowing that they would be left with NO mapping if a 3rd party "owned" it and then quit updating/supporting it ???

Exactly what @Koldar said:

@Budner has it exactly right:

 

buy sotamap code

 

Isn't this exactly like Discord in game chat?

 

It's easy for everyone to say just buy the Sotamap code... but how do you know if Jakub White even wants to sell it?

 

That is something that Port should have considered before EVER incorporating it into SotA.

 

Own your map system. Any other option is unacceptable. This game will fail based on the poor map implementation alone. This is no small thing and I can't stress it enough.

Hats off to Jakub, but we need a maps that update and are accurate. I'm really sad to say something so harsh and now quite worried.

 

Amen.........

 

We have ingame Maps.

Improve them, make the Map feature more immersing, more challenging.

I would like to not use sotamap, but instead have Maps ingame i can write on, make my own markers, need to find where i am and how to read the map properly, add notes and then sell them maybe.