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). -Mjoll

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. -Mjoll

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. -Mjoll

There's a limit to how much you should help stupid people. Eventually, you're overdoing it and making it tougher for players who are not stupid. I think the current version of the article is just the right compromise in terms of length vs information. By the way, Mjoll, don't forget to sign your replies. ;) --Borror0 08:18, February 22, 2010 (EST)

Row/column size

I was considering making the images smaller to make the average column smaller by decreasing the icon's size and increase the length of the table so the second column can hold all the text that is meant to fit in one line, on one line. However, it seems that the wiki won't let me resize of them. Anyone has an idea on what's going on here? --Borror0 08:18, February 22, 2010 (EST)

I don't know how to resize them using the wiki but I added 2 smaller icons, 18x18 and 26x26. Let me know which one suits your plans (I guess the 18x18 one) and later I'll make one for each symbol. - Mjoll

Either would be fine, but the 18 would be probably better. Also, I'm not sure what did it but you broke the page on my browser (Firefox 3.5ish). The sidebar was displayed at the bottom. =/ --Borror0 10:07, February 22, 2010 (EST)

Yeah after saving the page I was scratching my head trying to figure out what went wrong :) 18 it is then. - Mjoll

Optional NPCs/Side Quests

I have yet to see a map using your "optional" symbol. How about adding a new catagory of symbols (Question mark in a box) to represent mobs that are not always there and/or start side quests? For example:

White: Rare mob, no chest.

Yellow: Rare mob, chest.

Red: Side Quest starter optional mob.

Purple: Rare mob, unique item loot chest.

So, for example, the spider in "The Snitch" would be marked with a purple questionmark box, since it's chest can contain the poison throwing dagger, while the Teifling in the magicians area of "Under The Big Top" would get a red one, since he starts a side quest, and XP-only (no chest) optional mobs would get a white one. Redwood 13:02, September 11, 2010 (EDT)

I thought about this at some point, basically I wanted to use 3 symbols: one for named monsters that have no chest or have a chest without named loot, one for named monsters with chests with named loot and one for end bosses. But I abandoned the idea after encountering some problems...

- Problem #1 would be that there are chests that drop named loot without having a corresponding named monster attached to them (ie. the underwater chest in Crucible).

- This leads to problem #2, having to map all chests instead of only those attached to monsters.

- Which leads to problem #3, randomly placed chests. I like randomly placed stuff when I run quests but I hate it when it comes to mapping the quests, I had to run the Tomb of the Crimson Heart at least 20 times in order to map every single random thing and I'm still not sure that I found all of them.

- And then there is problem #4, I already use a symbol (yellow background + black cross) for some chests (those that require a key to open), so I'll end with having 2 symbols for the same object. - Mjoll