[LatentSparrow]

Hey guys. I know I'm not around very often, but I do tend to poke around the forums/Discord and see what is going on. I've noticed that it has been a rather popular topic to address the state of the game when it comes to RP. Since we're in the process of addressing some of the common issues that I think we've all noticed with SL2 at some point in time, I would like to take the time to point out some things that I've noticed regarding the mapping.

I'm not here to bash anyone's mapping, cause effort goes into everyone's work. I think we all can agree that we hold appreciation for anyone who is willing to put their work on display for everyone to enjoy. I'm not expecting for everyone to chime in on this only due to not everyone being knowledgeable in this field, but chiming in to get a conversation going is always good enough. I apologize for any added stress onto anyone by speaking on this topic at this time. Anyways, time to begin.

Tileset(s):

This is probably the most noticeable issue when it comes to the game's design. Whether you're a new player or an old player I'm sure you have all realized this at some point. Simply put, there are too many different tilesets. What do I mean by that? I'm not speaking of tilesets that cover each environment / biome, I'm speaking of that there are too many tilesets that are clearly made by different authors. Going from the "Default" Cellsvich tileset to the Shrine tileset, Oniga to Lispool. You can just clearly tell that they do not fit in with one another.

Solution? 

It is most likely impossible to fix with SL2 due to how many maps are actually made with the game (Unless everything is remapped...). The game desperately needs a tileset pixel artist. I know there are some talented individuals who play this game who have the ability to make a tileset, though it would be very time consuming. If you look at Cuddlefish's game, Secrets of Grindea, it includes multiple different biomes but you could tell that everything was made by one person OR a group of people who was able to do the job in a similar way. It would definitely make the game look more polished if everything was more uniform and possible would attract more players who keep an eye out for detail.

Map Editor:

Probably the most obvious issue on the subject of mapping. I feel like this is one of the main reason why people usually give up on mapping for this game. It's a struggle trying to get what you're wanting out of it. Of course there is no one to blame for this one. The Dev has already given us the best possible way for us to map the game. The editor however is just a little clunky and hard to maneuver around for anyone new to it. It is very time consuming to get use to and to use it to the fullest of it's extent. It is not very user friendly. It's honestly a turn off knowing that I'm going to have to struggle using this program to map something.

Solution?

This one is honestly just a shot in the dark and most likely impossible. We either need a more user friendly editor or a way to convert maps from another tileset editor to Byond. Small maps aren't so bad to deal with in the editor, but the larger maps.... hah...

For comparison, mapping a 100x100 detailed Map on RPGMaker would probably take me 3 days. (Working for 4 hours each day for 3 days)
Making a detailed 100x100 Map on Byond would take me over a month. (Working for 4 hours or more in the span of that month. This mainly comes from browsing through the every tileset to find what I want. Making new tiles and editing tiles on my own. Mind you, I'm not very good at creating or editing tiles)

Miscellaneous Thoughts (Mainly my rants):

Teamwork:
One thing this game desperately needs is a team. It needs a team for all aspects of development. But since this topic is on mapping, I'll only talk about that. I feel like we need to get a group of players who are willing to learn, share ideas, take criticism from one another and able to come to a agreement on how they should map the game. #Mapping topic on Discord isn't really living up to 'a group coming together'. I'm speaking of an actual development team.

Criticism:
This one annoys me the most. This is more of a personal rant. As someone who mapped for this game, I need your help. The other people who mapped this game needs your help. I mean you, the Playerbase. There are people who actually have requests and help by pointing out mistakes and want changes done to something that do not seem right to them. Then there is from what I see as the majority:

• "Looks better than what we have now."
  
• "Looks good! (No other input included)"
  
• "Keep up the good work!"
  

Now I really don't mind the last two, compliments are always great. But lets be real, you all know where I'm going with this. What is this going to do other than leave all the mistakes are in the map stay within the map? Nothing. If it looks great and you really mean it, but that's not helping the Mapping community (if there really is one) improve. Help us make you all more happy, please. There is no point to bash everything that's wrong after the map gets released because honestly, there is only very very little that we can do. I was lucky enough that the houses were messed up in Cellsvich that I was able to make extra bug fixes on top of it.

Deadlines:
Please.. and I really mean it. PLEASE. We need deadlines. I understand that we have lives and of course we don't want to be mapping non-stop. I'm glad most of the playerbase cares in that they don't want mappers to be worn out but without deadlines, we don't have to release anything.

I am a perfect example of this. Cellsvich Map was done months before I even handed it to the Dev. Arena was done months before Spo took over the project. (Spo did a great job btw <3) I don't play SL2 anymore so it's not a dire need for me to have to get a finished project over to you guys as bad as it sounds. I'll be doing my own personal business and living my life while the map collects dust. I want to treat this as a job as much as possible, getting paid to do it or not, so I'd also like to feel the need that the map needs to be released.

I think this is all I'll include in this post for now. If you creative minds out there also have something you wish to add, or issues that I didn't mention. Or even if you straight up disagree with me, I'd like to hear what you all have to say. 

[Autumn]

I still feel a little bit bad over the state of the arena remap, but most of the points here are what I can agree with, as someone who's worked with RPG Maker for years and years and years I can absolutely say that the mapping system in that is incredibly user friendly and takes minimal time to actually create maps in, if I had the option to I would import tilesets into it and make maps there exclusively.

But I know the platform we work on is incredibly jank, with BYOND being the way it is I can only request a few things for the map editor:

1) Every single tile is named Sigrogana Legend 2, this makes it extremely hard to navigate through as a result.
2) Tilesets are a bit of a mess and end up being a jumbled hogsmosh of various bits and pieces you have to sift through, trying to assemble an opaque tree or gate is a nightmare in of itself.

Other than that, I am very pleased with some additions to the newest map editor update, I'd love for some features like jump points and much more variety of lighting objects as well if I were to continue mapping.

I am willing to continue mapping as well if some sort of team is required, deadlines and working together with other mappers would be a pretty good deal if you ask me.

[Neus]

Very understandable, the user unfriendliness of the map editor has been noted in private conversations. One thing we're doing to try and make it more accessible is organizing the tilesets and breaking them down into different type definitions so it's easier to find what you want, instead of having to generate instances and find it from there, or premap the tileset and copy/paste.

As far as using a different program to map, that's a little outside of my expertise. I think it would be possible, in theory, since .dmm files are simply just text files at the end of the day. However I'm not sure if it'd be easy to set up, especially with no 'import' function from BYOND to the program in question.

I would be interested in setting up a team of mappers if possible - it's rather difficult though since I'm not sure who in the community outside of a handful have interest and the skill required. (Which isn't to say that I don't appreciate everyone's mapping efforts, just that it's hard and some people are more casual about it than others.)

In any event, I appreciate your opinions as always and am willing to try and help as much as I can.

[Jupiter_Storm]

Re: Mapping Team

Hello, I wanted to weigh in on this since the question is being asked and focus in particular on the notion of a team - since I agree entirely with all of the points made here but feel this one needs a little bit of a closer look (and I've not attempted the Byond map maker at any length so I can only take Spoops and Sparrow's word for it).

I'm commenting on the recommendation for a team because I am a mapper with extensive experience using Campaign Cartographer 3, Vassal Engine, Adobe Illustrator and of course, SL2's house building tool (though only the latter is really relevant design-wise for what you use). Thus the idea of putting myself forward as a member of such a team, has crossed my mind more than once - and it is in this spirit that I'll attempt to constructively point out a couple of barriers to interest from my perspective and, potentially the viewpoint of others who might be quietly watching.

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1) Thematic Consistency - In the case of many of the more 'modern' factions (which isn't even accurate terminology outside of community headcanon, but that goes to illustrate the point) there is very limited information as to the exact nature of that society, their cultural norms and real-world parallels, beyond the over-arching elements that identify them as unique - for instance, Chaturanga = "Chess", Oniga = "Eastern Culture", Egwyn = "Jungle / Forest / Junglest".

For me this already presents a bit of pickle in terms of inspiration for fear of incorrectly representing something even if I myself think that would be appropriate. It would help prospective team-members to have a more clear-cut mental view of the architecture and cultural details they should be going for. Perhaps expanding on the Wiki entries for the major factions, or at the very least (and maybe this is done, already) privately distributing a package of such details to the team.

2) Creative Muse - Because of the fact that actually paying a mapping team to deliver results would be a completely ludicrous idea, the 'reward' for a mapper is inherently the enjoyment they are going to get from working on the project and sharing their vision with others. However every individual member of a team would be inspired by something different, and to keep the creative juices flowing (and inspiration firmly grounded in the lore of Sigrogana Legend 2) I am forced to raise the age-old point about a world that changes, somewhat, over time.

There are only so many times you can map out existing, known concepts, before additional content (as was done with the Loyrwell Tombs & Karaten, which was great by the way) would be needed.

As an example, you 'could', for instance, map out the Mechana Forest. Or you 'could', map out Egwyn. But there would need to be a reason for people to go there. Some sort of development within the world that draws particular interest to these areas - something which alters the plot enough to spark the curiosity of adventurers to explore this terrain. Because ultimately, what a mapper wants to see is people enjoying and immersing themselves in the content they create. But we'd need help from the Lore team to pull in the same direction.

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These are just my own thoughts on the matter, though, and I could be completely alone in this regard!

[Shujin]

tileset consistency

That the tilesets are a mix and match of different sources, is very obviosu yeah, but so are the monsters and many other things. I personally do not have such a big problem with it, as it is (sort of) a community project. While dev is the one in charge of everything, he is mainly doing the beautiful coding and accepts resources that are either freely accessible for public use, or people like us collaborate on, to work with.

And obviously we have artists here with different degree of skill, editing work or flat out a different art style. My from scratch made monsters for example will never even look remotely similar to Sawrocks. Same would go for tilesets or in game objects.


While yeah its noticeable, I personally do not worry too much about it. In a sense I think everything that makes the game a bit more accessible and allows more people to help is fine. SL2 has other more glaring issues...

Map Editor

Oh boy. I have tried using that thing serval times now, and attempted to get my head into it. I can map...Okayish, not great but okay enough. But in this Map Editor I spend hours without even making any progress and give up. I can't do it for the life of me and respect everyone who can sink their head in there enough to get it working.

So if this was in future made to be easier accessible, I would highly appriciate it. I know I would still only be able to make mediocre maps at best as thats simply not my forte, but not feeling entirely lost in it certainly would be a welcome change.

That being said, and me certainly not being a good mapper, I can as I have done with the new Cellsvich map, definetly help making the "puzzle pieces", I am just not very good a puzzling and arragign them together in a bigger picture.


I also agree that new locations were already unnessecary with Altalsia. Not because I dislike the map or the effort put into it, but simply because there isn't all that much reason to be there and there are plenty other places that could need more flashing out that are on the main continent. The palyer base isn't really all that happy to "Spread out" in the world, nor big enough to inhabit such a large world that we already have.