Stendhal Development Meeting 2009-11-22/Result Log/World Map

Contents 1 Regions in Stendhal 2 Wiki 3 Expanding the world 4 Stendhal Atlas image

Regions in Stendhal

• there are already "regions" like Semos (with the city, village and farm), Ados (city is multi zone), Nalwor Forest, ...
• each region has a theme
  • Semos is a rural region for low level players
  • Ados a port city with a food issue
  • Nalwor is an elvish region
• perhaps regions may be suitable for level-ranges
  • as a rule we stick to keeping the Semos areas safer, not putting crazy creatures there, nalwor is indeed the elvish area, and so on
  • we already have the idea that the further you go from Semos City the less safe it is
  • perhaps we can make that more obvious to players
• regions vs. zone
  • currently the main way to identify your position in the world is the zone name.
  • something like 0_semos_city, int_semos_townhall, 0_semos_village_w.
  • those names are there for technical reasons.
  • I guess we still need them. But I would like to have some in-game names. Not on a per zone basis.
  • a "region" is usually something that spawns multiple zones.
  • Ados city is so huge that it has multiple zones.
  • But from a players point of view that is Ados city.
  • We probably should use the current zone names as subtitle.
• maps
  • we currently don't have a map in game because it uses too much memory to display it.
  • but we may be able to create multiple maps. One per region.
  • those would be a lot smaller.
  • like the map of ados city that Julius gives out
• those regions should be more visible
  • for example with a transparent message on screen when you enter another region
  • there are zone entrance messages
  • a message you get every time when you go from say Orril to Nalwor.
  • but without the white background so that it is not annoying.
  • or the messaging area text, is less annoying because it doesn't pop up, like /me in chat
  • we do have a global coordinate system for all maps, except those starting with "int_".

Wiki

• it would be cool if we had a wiki page for each "region".
• it should say something about the region, the background story, what makes it special, its history, etc.
• many NPCs in world give useful background information about the regions they are in. It would be very useful to have that on the Wiki (without spoiling the quests)
• examples
  • Ados is a port-city. It suffers from not having enough food.
  • Semos consists of an old village and a small city. It is a rural area.
• a good starting point is StendhalAtlas and StendhalHistory
• such collected background stories will make it easier to write new quests that fit into the theme.
• suggested page content
  • a small image of the map
  • background story about the whole region
  • points of interests
  • out-of-character information for players
  • photos (screenshots)
  • see Semos for a first example
• blackfinix and yoriy volunteered
• more help welcomed

Expanding the world

• Will the map become extended with the next release?
• There are still many empty spots, so we prefer to focus on improving existing zones rather than adding new ones
• There are ideas for future expanding at StendhalRefactoringAtlas

Stendhal Atlas image

• The map with dungeon entrances is very outdated (0.62 instead of 0.79).
• Currently it is created manually by drawing the circles right into the .png file
• The StendhalAtlas should be a two layer image instead
  • the generated map images
  • the yellow circle overlay
• So the overlay can easily be applied to new versions of the map file
• Other map topics:
  • jpeg was suggested as image file format
  • region borders (see region section) could be added as a layer, too
• tigertoes volunteered to create the multi layer map as Gimp .xcf file created WorldWithMarkedDungeons091122.xcf.