Help talk:Map Legend

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hey. thnx for your contribs on the wiki. re:map legend. i kinda having difficulties following this legend. the symbols are not intuitive. its not easily identifiable when looking at the quest info articles and you have to constantly refer to this page to decipher what it means. it doesnt use any of the ingame symbols that players are used to seeing ingame. i think it would have been better if you used the icons for Search and Disable device as symbols. Colors are a bit off too. Traps should have a "danger" color to it like red instead of green. -Sef326 06:36, February 19, 2010 (EST)
 * I agree. At the very least, it would be good to feature the legend on the map itself. --Borror0 07:42, February 19, 2010 (EST)
 * Hey. The symbols are not intuitive at first when you just look at the maps but I think that you can get the hang of it quite fast if you run 2-3 quests without rushing through and using my maps at the same time. I find it very very easy to run through a quest using my maps but I'm subjective of course. The game has some symbols that I could have used but also lacks symbols for a lot of other things I have symbols for. So instead of using symbols of my own AND ingame symbols I decided to use my own symbols only (this is something I don't intent to change since I have 130 maps and having to change the symbols for most of them will put me into a straight jacket). I don't know why I went with the green color for the traps, maybe I made some subconscious connexions with poison which is often represented as green.


 * The colors are off because I'm using a +30 exposure filter on the maps since I find them too dark. But this can be easily fixed since I keep the original files so I can always replace the maps if they are too bright. Also I'm using just MS Paint and ACDSee so don't expect works of art. :) To compare: (xorian cipher map) (original on the left, +30 exposure on the right)


 * I'll stop adding maps for now, I don't want to waste my time and other people's time undoing the changes I made but I'm opened to suggestions as long as I don't have to make major changes to my maps.


 * re:Borror's suggestion... I could add the legend to the map but what about the text that accompanies the legend? Because in some cases the legend plus the text will be bigger than the map itself.


 * I made two variants, png files this time so the colors should no longer be off: black and white. I made them in a hurry so there is room left for some finishing touches. Any opinions? -- Mjoll
 * you misunderstood, my fault. when i said that the colors were a bit off, i as referring to the colors of your icons (green for traps etc). youre right the maps ingame are too dark so when i make maps for the wiki, i try to amke it lighter as you have in your example. but i would have to agree that your maps are very detailed, juz a matter of convenience in understanding them when pe0ple are alt-tabbing between game & wiki while doing the actual quests. - Sef326 05:02, February 22, 2010 (EST)
 * Gotcha now. And about having difficulties following the legend... I was thinking over the weekend that one way of understanding my maps is choosing a quest you know very well and running it in your head while looking at my map but without peeking at the map legend. It will help at least those that know the quest's layout (not sure if this method will help those that are new to the quest).

eh, its not best idea to just paste your legend right next to your map. i think part of the problem is legend description being too long. "NPC that never turns against you and that you have to examine..." is too much and some people may stop reading and following at that point. can you shorten the description (in that case, to "Friendly NPC", for example)? i know that by doing so, your information will lose some of its accuracy and details but you know, sometimes we have to surrender and compromise things... --yoko5000 21:55, February 19, 2010 (EST)


 * I was overgenerous with the symbol descriptions because I wanted to make them foolproof for those people that start a "what does aggro mean?" thread on the forums instead of googling it and getting an answer in 2 seconds. I took your advice, I compressed the descriptions for the symbols and I'll let it sit for a day like it is now, maybe I get a better idea in the meantime. And I'm opened to more suggestions.

Everything should be fine now: I will keep the Map Legend page as it is now, I will upload unexposed png files instead of jpgs, I will add map notes under the Tips and Misc section and I see that Yoko added a line to the Quest template that links to the Map Legend page whenever it is needed.