Sneak Peek: NextGen Istaria Map

[Cegaiel]

Sneek Peek to new Istaria Map...

Note the below link is only at 50% resolution. This sneek peek is at 500x500 resolution. The actual game map will be at 1000x1000 (Ultra High Resolution). So if you use the below link (Google Map view), it will NOT be as nice as the game map, you will have to download to see for yourself, when it's available.

Sneak peek at http://istariareference.com/istarianew/ Some areas you can 'focus' on to see the differences, below:

If you need to compare this, view http://istariareference.com/istariamap.asp to view/compare the current version.

View the entire Dralk area. Many lava pools now show and very detailed...

View multiple blighted areas, such as Western Deadlands, Eastern Deadlands, Northern Deadlands, Tombs, etc etc, try to view all 'black' areas. You should see more details, including walls, things sticking out of the ground, etc

Tazoon area shows water, Feladan shows walls, etc etc.

Note all small ponds, rivers, etc automatically will have it filled in. We no longer need to manually color in individual ponds that Frid's tool might've missed (using world cache files). The method used to create this new map is from new client tools (/slash commands) that takes pictures of all structures, including buildings, machines, boulders, bridges, pads, portals, towers, etc etc.).

The game map will show so much more detail, that you will even be able to see imperial crafting machines across the land on the map.

Scroll and look around very closely before making a judgement

The plan is to implement this map into the main Istaria game as well as map pack. I believe this will be a welcomed addition to both versions. The new map may be missing many of the "bumps" in the terrain but overall, it will show many more things that don't currently show in the current map.

[Dacurly]

Looks really good Cegaiel, be a nice upgrade to the game. Keep up the good work

[Pharaxes]

The method used to create this new map is from new client tools (/slash commands) that takes pictures of all structures, including buildings, machines, boulders, bridges, pads, portals, towers, etc etc.).

*wants to know*

[awdz]

Oh wowsers, I love detailed maps and aerial views. This is waaaay cool to me! :-)

[Ming]

Fantastic! I hope it goes into game map cause I don't want to bother with mods. Lazy.

[Mazrogal]

really fantastic and detailed map! hope it goes indeed into game map.

[Cegaiel]

It looks like a go for the next Blight release Possibly a week or less. Looks like the 500x500 version will be available to be most compatible with all (~50Mb for map). Current World map is ~10Mb @ 256x256. Not too much increase there.

The 1000x1000 version is about 250Mb and would be best with a 2Gb or higher video card memory to load the textures. I've used it on a 1Gb old video card, but if I scroll around/click around the map too fast, it does sometimes lock up the game (but fairly rare). The 750x750 will use about 142Mb. I think that is a fair balance if you want higher quality vs file size (and of course have the resources available on your computer).

The 1000x1000 will have the most highest detail and clarity of objects on the map. The 1000x1000 is just stunning, to me at least. But older computer may have a problem handling it. So I will either make available the 750x750 and possibly the 1000x1000 as a separate download, in map pack. There will not be any images (of Istaria World Map) inside the 500x500 version of map pack, because they can use the same images in the main (/resources) game folder (No point on taking up hard drive space for duplicates). So on the plus side, if you have an older lap top with limited space, the future regular (500x500) map pack downloads will be very small and less resources. Off subject, map pack will start using the same file names, folder names as the regular game map. Many duplicate images will be eliminated (city images, ie Dalimond, NT, NB, etc). So expect the map pack .zip file to decrease in size overall and complete Linux compatibility (even down to case sensitivity)!

Only if you want the 750 or 1000 version will the space jump up by 142Mb and 250Mb respectively).

To be clear, I'd like to point out that different resolutions of the map does not affect the size of the actual map in the game. It will be the same size regardless. The different resolutions simply affect how "clear" things are on the map. The lower the resolution, the more "blurry" fine details become. So while you can clearly see something like a tiny teleporter pad on a 1000x1000 map, the 500x500 might be slightly more blurry and require you to look a bit more closely. Thats all. Higher resolution is higher file size and texture memory needed by your video card.

So my original post was a link to a "Google Map" that has the worst possible resolution (because tiles are 256x256). So you really, really did not get to see the 'true map'. I'd like to now give you an opportunity to actually see it, the way it really should be viewed. Raw format.


Take your time and scroll around and look closely for details of objects in the game. I like how Satyr Isles came out and all the Deadlands. Notice you can actually see the ice bridge that connects Brandon's Shelf (Trandalar) to Isle of Ice. Try to notice pads/portals, crafting machines, cities, towers (cleric, nature, mage, etc), tiny buildings that exist across the land, gates, walls, wood planks on Aughendell mines and Delgarath, bridges, extra land details (boulders, boulder bridges, frozen lakes, etc). Valkor's house is even detailed (NE of Kira)! Also look at the tower in Spires' Apex (Dalimond Peninsula, just east of Dalimond - the one you climb to go to Isle of Battle).

Note before you go to this link, the page will load 1000x1000 tiles "stitched" together. So the first time you load it, it will take several minutes (however long it takes your connection to 'download' 256Mb). Be aware that going to below link, you will be downloading about 250Mb of images!

However, you can resize the images on the fly by adjusting the table cell width (different links on the page). So if you click different links (after initial load of page), it will be instantly, you won't be downloading more images, it just keeps using the initial images loaded. Just try not to hit Refresh button on your browser, simply click different links on the page. Again, all links technically show the 1000x1000 images, but you can resize them on the fly (by clicking different links).


Link: View Adjustable, Full Sized Istaria World Map .

Note this link will only be available for a limited time (due to huge bandwidth that will be hit by search engine spiders forever in future)!

[Pharaxes]

Note this link will only be available for a limited time (due to huge bandwidth that will be hit by search engine spiders forever in future)!

robots.txt? there you can declare that robots might not enter certain directories

[Cegaiel]

robots.txt? there you can declare that robots might not enter certain directories

Yeah true, but not all obey the robots.txt file. Its a conspiracy ^_^ . It's like some want to see what you're trying to 'hide' even more and make you a top priority to 'indexing'.

[Cegaiel]

The new map is now on Blight Patch. If you are still using Map Pack but wish to try out the new map, I made a small download available. The .zip file contains no images, but simply contains 2 .def files you will want to overwrite to your /resources_override/resources/interface/maps/istaria folder (map.def and map_istaria_terrain.def). Make a backup of these two files first.

If you play on Blight server, then you only need to overwrite these two map pack files and it will just use the terrain images located in the regular game folder (/resources).

If you play on Chaos/Order then you will need to patch to the Blight Patch first. But there is a way you can still play on Chaos/Order using the Blight Patch.

After patching to Blight then go to your Launcher, click Troubleshoot button and tick the "Disable patching" box so that it does not get undone (re-patched) when you play on a normal server.

Here is the file to use the new Istaria Map, while using Map Pack (with the Blight Patch):

istaria_blight260.zip

There will not be a new map pack version, until after the next Live/Delta patch to Chaos/Order, due to how I want to restructure the files and folders to match the main game (current Blight). Map pack will lose 80% of its images and just use/share the regular games' images and some .def files. But everything has to synch up first (Go Live). So this will be the closest thing in the mean time and will also demonstrate how we are "sharing" files from the main game folder. No need to have two sets of Istaria Terrain images If something changes in the future, then a new image or .def can certainly be inserted and "override" the main game folder (which is what map pack does anyways).

[Cegaiel]

Almost all city/isle maps has now been updated with the high resolution/extra details maps on latest Blight Patch (386.48.1).

The game now has a very nice and robust maps all around (imo at least )

With these latest updates to Blight, we also now have a working version to the new map pack format (but only on Blight patch at the moment), but this format will continue to be valid when Blight goes live (next major/delta patch) - should be soon, Summer Festival is coming! I'm going fishin' for that +fishing bonus (emblem/title bonus) from Ted's quests

Map Pack will no longer contain any .png files (except Doom, FieryRift, Rift, Tomb of Ashlander, Tomb of Helian) which is currently a map pack only feature. The size of map pack mod has been reduced to only 4.5Mb !!! Map pack will be pointing to and sharing the map images in the normal game folder (/resources), except for the maps listed above. Why? The normal game images are now "map pack quality" images, what you would normally expect. Now they are in the normal game, nifty, eh? So we don't need a 2nd set of images any more.

Additionally, most of the normal game folder's maps has been reduced and optimized, using only one single .png file in most instances (instead of multiple .png files to create a city/isle map). So a lot of disk space has been reduced overall (for map pack and non map pack players). But the quality and details has also been increased for the most part at the same time.

This new map pack format is also 100% Linux compatible. So Linux users can also now use map pack mod and not have any conflicts with this new format. In the past, Map Pack was likely a nightmare (if not impossible) to Linux players, previously.

With that said, here is a working sneak peek of Map Pack for the current Blight Patch (if you're feeling brave to update some things). If not, then be patient and a new installer will be available on the map pack mod page when Blight goes live! But note, this .zip version will be the same (minus any pending marker updates).

Because of this new format, I strongly recommend you completely delete any version of map pack you already have, first! The easiest/recommended method would be to simply delete the "interface" folder in your /resources_override folder (Likely C:\Program Files (x86)\Istaria\Resources_Override\Resources\Interfa ce).

Otherwise you're going to have a lot of obsolete files and images leftover that isn't used any more (wasted disk space). Also, you will have leftover obsolete folders too (due to some map folders/files getting renamed). However, these leftovers should not conflict and will be ignored. So even if you forget to delete current map pack, it should still work flawlessly (even with the leftovers).

This preview will only work if you are playing with the Blight Patch. You can still play on Chaos/Order using the Blight patch. Just re-read my previous post about how to do that (disable patching from Troubleshoot button) and play a Chaos/Order character (after patching a Blight character first). If you play on Blight Server exclusively, then you do not need to disable patching!

After you delete the old map pack, then grab the below .zip file and unzip to your MAIN game folder (Likely C:\Program Files (x86)\Istaria).

This .zip also contains all the latest updates to marker/marker locations, so you will basically have the latest version of Map Pack (unofficially, wink wink). When it becomes 'official' then I'll post to the Map Pack 3.7 thread.

Let me know if you find any bugs or anything not displaying correctly.

• Download Map Pack Sneak Peek: mappack3.7_Blight260.zip

[Pharaxes]

Because of this new format, I strongly recommend you completely delete any version of map pack you already have, first! The easiest/recommended method would be to simply delete the "interface" folder in your /resources_override folder (Likely C:\Program Files (x86)\Istaria\Resources_Override\Resources\Interfa ce).

wouldn't that be resources_override\resources\interface\maps? At least I have the map pack there for a long time now. In the mentioned folder there are only icons inside for me should I delete them too?

Edit: might be because first you say interface in /resources_override folder and in your example you have it in /resources_override/resources heh.

I always manually updated the map pack

[Cegaiel]

Ah yes. I did say that incorrectly. Would be the interface folder, in the resources_override/resources folder.

Just got home from work, I see the shards just came back up a few minutes ago. But this is the update I have been waiting for to do a map pack update. Will start doing my exports from the database and create a new installer package (as well as the manual .zip files).

Stay tuned, should be an update in map pack thread very soon tonight.