OK, I spent the last few days playing a few different titles on the PS 3 and um... it needs to be said; YOU PEOPLE DOING GAME MAPS SHOULD BE SHOT! I don't need an infrared, night visioned, topographical map of my factious area! I need straight lines and a big frigging arrow.
It doesn't make me simple it makes me right.
Look, there are good examples and bad but lets look at some tried and true things that have seen us though many a game. We in the beginning had 2 D linear format. Straight line! Easy... we can do that. Then this format exhausted itself... all things do! We were presented with open world maps and random encounters. We were greedy. Champions of Norrath had a relativity clear mapping for thier open world. (Yes I know it is a linear game I know it's not a truly 'open' world.) There was a mini map that was overlaid atop the players screen in a corner or a full size map over the whole screen. Nice to just pop-up and close when needed or leave small in the corner. Did it get in the way? SOMETIMES. So does hitting a button to bring up a map screen. Do I hate all maps? Most annoy the heck out of me; shining examples being FALLOUT: New Vegas. Not only is this map HUGE with other DLC maps that make other areas available; these are gigantic as well. Let me tell you things like levels the rooms are on are pretty darned unclear in most of the areas especially the vaults.
Is there nothing in the map world that pleases me? Sure! I loved the glowing trail toward quests in Fable (all of them were good for this) and there was also a spell in Skyrim that gave another glowing trail to follow for a time. This is a GREAT way to clear up the confusion when it came to the floor a chest/person of interest or quest item is on. Yea, it sort of made things too easy sometimes but it also saved me looking around an area for 2 hours to miss the door in front of my face. Dragon Age, did a fine job to start but tried to open up maps in the expansion; leaving me wandering around in circles looking for landmarks to point me in the right direction. Dragon Age: II was so nice in it's format for mapping, I know the gameplay was chapter based and the same map had small variations depending on chapters but regardless I was in looooooooooove! Let me see, what other examples are there of games that let me get from point a to point b, oh yes! Kingdoms of Amular : Reckoning; another good job. It had a wide open map, simplified world map, fast travel and a local map that didn't make me want to stab myself in the eye getting from place to place. I could see areas that were nearby without being confused by icons on my mini map. Quests didn't have to be active to be marked on the map, it was on the whole a very user friendly map.
So a glowing cheater trail, or a spell you pay for to give you a hint as to where to go. This seems like a feasible option that could easily be added to games. I know the argument of the overlaid map being distracting is a valid one but it seems less so than stopping and pulling up the full map. That may just be me being lazy or even wishing the game worlds weren't so big.
Like I said, I don't need to have everything spelled out for me, but it is nice to not curse being lost for an hour in game despite pulling up a map screen every 2 minutes and 15 steps. I'm not willing to check out other games either and see if I don't come around to the way things are mapped out. Drop me a reply, tell me my gameplay is simple, tell me I'm right. (I mean I know but tell me.) give me good examples or even bad ones! Lets make maps better damnit there are enough gamers to do it!
