Forums » Suggestions
Dynamic Maps
How about this as a long-term project:
Right now the system maps in the PDA are static - they show stations, wormholes, stars, planets, and roids. Maps also conveny information about bots, although textually rather than visually. It'd be very neat - and very useful - if certain other visual information appeared dynamically in system maps.
Here are two examples I've come up with; I'm sure others can think of more:
(1) Groups/Guilds/Buddies: You can track the location of people in the game in a couple of ways right now. If you're in a group, each member's location appears in the group box on the HUD. Buddy locations appear in the Communications tab of the PDA. (I assume guild members do as well; I'm not a full guild member.) Wouldn't it be neat if you could get the same, or nearly the same, information just by looking at a system map? So you're looking at the map of Sedina, and you see a little [colored] dot in L2, where a buddy is loading out; a dot in K9, where a buddy is botting; a dot in B8, where a buddy is PVP'ing; and so on throughout the galaxy. Clicking on the sector tells you which buddy/buddies are represented by the dot.
(2) Storm markers: It'd be very useful to be able to add a storm marker to a system map that showed the date/time it was added, and with either an automatic expiry time or a customizable expiry time, so that you could keep track of the storms you run across. Even more useful would be the ability to share your storm markers with your buddies/group/guild - so that a large enough collection of people could put together a pretty comprehensive storm map - although one that would obviously need to be updated to be useful.
Thoughts? While I know nothing about programming, I suspect this would require a hefty bit of coding that the devs certainly don't have time for right now; but as a player I think these sorts of changes would be very beneficial to gameplay without having any serious downsides.
EDIT: I notice that the general idea of tracking storms on the map has been discussed before (i.e. here: http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/9293 ). I don't mean to rehash old discussions. But I think my suggestion avoids the problems discussed there by limiting the information to the player who creates it (by discovering the storm) and those players whom he or she shares it with, rather than the entire universe of players.
Right now the system maps in the PDA are static - they show stations, wormholes, stars, planets, and roids. Maps also conveny information about bots, although textually rather than visually. It'd be very neat - and very useful - if certain other visual information appeared dynamically in system maps.
Here are two examples I've come up with; I'm sure others can think of more:
(1) Groups/Guilds/Buddies: You can track the location of people in the game in a couple of ways right now. If you're in a group, each member's location appears in the group box on the HUD. Buddy locations appear in the Communications tab of the PDA. (I assume guild members do as well; I'm not a full guild member.) Wouldn't it be neat if you could get the same, or nearly the same, information just by looking at a system map? So you're looking at the map of Sedina, and you see a little [colored] dot in L2, where a buddy is loading out; a dot in K9, where a buddy is botting; a dot in B8, where a buddy is PVP'ing; and so on throughout the galaxy. Clicking on the sector tells you which buddy/buddies are represented by the dot.
(2) Storm markers: It'd be very useful to be able to add a storm marker to a system map that showed the date/time it was added, and with either an automatic expiry time or a customizable expiry time, so that you could keep track of the storms you run across. Even more useful would be the ability to share your storm markers with your buddies/group/guild - so that a large enough collection of people could put together a pretty comprehensive storm map - although one that would obviously need to be updated to be useful.
Thoughts? While I know nothing about programming, I suspect this would require a hefty bit of coding that the devs certainly don't have time for right now; but as a player I think these sorts of changes would be very beneficial to gameplay without having any serious downsides.
EDIT: I notice that the general idea of tracking storms on the map has been discussed before (i.e. here: http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/9293 ). I don't mean to rehash old discussions. But I think my suggestion avoids the problems discussed there by limiting the information to the player who creates it (by discovering the storm) and those players whom he or she shares it with, rather than the entire universe of players.
Seeing buddies on your map (instead of just group info) would be a nice addition. Same for guild and groups. Buddies might be a problem, come to think of it, since people with a lot of buddies might not want their map cluttered.
Storm markers are also a good idea. If I've heard Inc correctly, storms are on their way out though (to be replaced by a more static fog), so the idea might be obsolete quickly. Of course, fog markers would be appreciated.
Storm markers are also a good idea. If I've heard Inc correctly, storms are on their way out though (to be replaced by a more static fog), so the idea might be obsolete quickly. Of course, fog markers would be appreciated.
To fix (1): Add a search function for a specific buddy. I'm not sure I'd like that (that being buddies shown on the map), though, it would make me accept or issue even less buddy requests (as well as dropping some people from buddy status) than I do now.
I think ideally it would all be customizable - that's the beauty of making it dynamic. So if you don't want buddies on the map, don't select (or unselect) the option of having them show up; to me that'd be the easiest fix. At the extreme you could have a function allowing you to choose which buddies would show up. But really I was thinking about groups and guilds; buddies just seemed like a logical possible extension. I can certainly appreciate that folks with a lot of buddies wouldn't want their maps to be cluttered, and I'd think any implementation would have to allow people to choose.