Summer blocks at UVU run fast and I've been cramming for finals. While I finish up my research for my next big article I'd like to share with you another of my older documents. This is one I believe is just as valid today as the day I wrote it.
Far too commonly games have their maps automatically available to the player for the entire world at once. If the world you are playing is supposed to be well explored and heavily documented with easy availability of information, that’s not a problem. But EQN is supposed to be a new discovery of this ancient and changing world. If I understand the released lore our peoples have only recently come back after generations of captivity, we have little information about the world around us. Given that information networks are not vastly established I would think our maps should reflect this.
Our map should only initially reveal areas we have already seen with vague indications based on what our character has heard about. But even when the landscape is mapped out, you will still need to find out the places name(s) from the locals or others who have found out before that information will display on the map. They might be able to point out on your map, “Oh, yeah, that's Mulborn Forest, good game hunting there, and that one is Winsor Peak, where Lady Winsor calmed the five year storm.” This motivates exploration of the unknown and asking questions, lore immersion, and opens up the possibility for a crafting profession, Cartographers. Not everyone wants to be an explorer, they want things and locations already mapped out for them. Cartographers could use their crafting skill to make maps of specific areas as they travel them, then sell those maps to other players. When the other player uses the item it fills in their in-game map with any information they didn't already have.
These maps could include not just the base map of the game, but also anything the cartographer has discovered about the area, such as locations of secret items/doors/passages. Current (as of crafting) known locations of mob camps. You could also leave special notes in the map which might be clues or your very own ‘quest’ in the world that you write for people to follow. This system would be similar to the current Player Written books in EQII.
In other proposals I have already said that Quests should change, practically be done away with for everything but social structure initiation style events (such as an NPC guild having you do specific things to prove yourself before they let you join or increase your rank). I would even say there is basically no reason to have a Quest unless it requires the player to pay attention to it and think through how to accomplish it. As such, you should also never have the location just show up on the map for where you need to go unless the NPC is willing to indicate that for you. Some groups that would give you a mission might have a map of where they want you to go, awesome, that’s a way a player might gain an area of map they hadn’t already purchased or visited.
There might even be several locations in which the mission could happen, and when you do it the location is picked randomly for you and your group (so you don’t have to do it in different places when playing together) or can do it at any location any other member of your group has the same quest at too. These locations should scale in difficulty for the number of people going into them as well, either by increasing the number of enemies or their intelligence.
If you want an easier time of doing the Thieve’s Guild quest then you could check online to see if anyone has posted the information for your server’s version of it, or you might check the Auction House for a map some cartographer has created detailing the quest. Such a map where they show all the possible locations, with markers, notes about mobs and what you need to do, maybe even hints about things you should take with you. This would be like having a mentor in the Guild who has passed the test before and is willing to give you advice.
How might Cartography work? You would need to craft or purchase the paper and ink, the larger the map you intend to make the more paper and ink you will need. You travel to where you want to make the map and start recording, remembering to give it the settings you want to use (such as recording known place and Point-of-Interest names, visited NPCs and their observed routs, current mob camp locations). Anywhere you travel from there will be recorded until you run out of paper or ink. You can open the map and add markers and notes at your current location and set these notes to be visible on mouse-over or on character’s arrival in the area (useful for player created quest maps). Eventually you will end the recording or run out of paper or ink and it will end automatically. A cartographer can learn to duplicate any map they have in their possession for distribution to friends, which will take more paper and ink of course, but the map’s original creator earns most of the money when they are sold on the Auction House/Broker.
Some classes might have abilities which can grant them additional options for recording on maps, like recording scent trails they come across, or divining resource locations or weather pattern effects. Other classes might be better equipped to unlock specific types of information, such as places of magical power or which deity is currently infused to a specific house of worship. In many of these cases a friend traveling with the cartographer could supply the information for recording.
With the constantly changing nature of the world explorers will always have new things to find in old places, and cartographers will have reason to update their maps for sale. As such, maps should always show when they were created as well. It is easy to envision a few ambitious cartographers making daily runs in a given area on a given server and becoming well known for supplying them on the market, ensuring that anyone willing to pay for it has accurate and up to date information available to them.
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