Improving on the Automap feauture - your ideas.

Surf Solar

Surf Solar

So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
Basically, the thread title says all. I was quite surprised, even shocked when I came to edit the said graphics for the Automap function on my own game (eg - here:)


asdfasdgfa4xoqi.png

(it's using exactly the same files as this here:)


Fallout_PIP-Boy_2000.jpg



and basically everyone said they'd never use the map feauture. :shock: Now, let's use this thread for the WHY - why is this feauture underdeveloped, what is lacking, what is missing, what can be improved upon? I guess this is something every total conversion can learn from, hence I created a single topic for it. Even all to you non-modders - post your opinions here, what was bad about the map function, suggestions and so on. Thanks!

I guess the fact it is using some very abstract perspective to display buildings and such comes in handy. THe fact that you don't gain any advantage using the map feauture?
 
It would be somewhat useful if the player could make notes on the map. A similar feature would be for quest related/important locations to be labelled after they've been investigated or an npc has told your character about them. Could work it into a quest by making it very difficult to find what you are looking for unless someone gives you directions. Marking exit grids/stairways after they've been discovered would be useful too.

I know that the few times I've used the feature, I was trying to find a specific person/place/terminal or how to exit a map. Some maps are easier to navigate than others.
 
The maps are too hidden. You need lots of clicks to get to it (Game -> PipBoy -> Automaps -> List -> Map). The list should be accessible from the maps button on the main game interface. Also it's pretty useless, because it shows nothing except house contours. Being able to add personal notes on the map is the least that should be possible.
 
Lexx, if I'm not mistaken auto-maps could be brought up by pressing Tab on the keyboard. And regarding notes, these could be made into the disappeared Clues button.
 
No, you only open the current map with Tab, as you would do if you press the Map button on the interface.
 
You can get every graphic into the engine. It's just a question of the format or how you port it.
 
So the veredict - if it would be easier to access (maybe with one single click) - had more useful informations (for example "house of npc xy", "graveyard" etc. it would be used more? Maybe there could even be some mechanic to write the maps one has discovered on a holodisc/paper (depends on player having a pipboy or not) and sell it to them? The motion sensor is pretty clumsy aswell, maybe it could be improved a bit too? And finally the ability to place notes on the map really is needed, yeah....

@ tester123: Technically, like Lexx said ofcourse the engine could read and display the graphics from Icewind Dale - but it would look weird/wrong since the scenery in IWD is rendered in a dramatically different perspective than Fallouts. However, on this screenshot there are no IWD graphics. The trees, snow, ice I made myself, the stones are from Fallout Tactics.
 
For us, who played both games dozen+ times, it might not be as useful as for other, but here's the idea anyway:

Have you played Gothic 1/2 or Planescape: Torment? Then you pretty much have to remember "New journal entry" line. That was said every time you heard/read anything new related to the quest and then you could read it again in your log.

Yet it Fallout, you have to keep it in your mind, since there is no log. Sometimes, you can ask the NPC again ("Could you please tell me again about GECK?") but not on every occasion. Therefore, for new players, it might be a good idea to implement this feature. Not just for original game, but since we are in modding section, for your mods.

Basically it would be reusing of that good ol' Clues button from Fallout demo. Plus it could be combined with some PipBoy notepad.
 
Tom9k said:
For us, who played both games dozen+ times, it might not be as useful as for other, but here's the idea anyway:

Have you played Gothic 1/2 or Planescape: Torment? Then you pretty much have to remember "New journal entry" line. That was said every time you heard/read anything new related to the quest and then you could read it again in your log.

Yet it Fallout, you have to keep it in your mind, since there is no log. Sometimes, you can ask the NPC again ("Could you please tell me again about GECK?") but not on every occasion. Therefore, for new players, it might be a good idea to implement this feature. Not just for original game, but since we are in modding section, for your mods.

Basically it would be reusing of that good ol' Clues button from Fallout demo. Plus it could be combined with some PipBoy notepad.
Click to expand...

Hmm your right fallout didnt have a journal, i like this idea.
 
Well, the tasks in Fallout never had been very complicated. Most of the time, what you had to do was obvious or it was easy to find further information. I.e. most of the time, bartender or such folks can give you more information about other people, etc. I don't find it very hard to get around.
 
Agreed with Lexx, plus keep in mind we had some (very ambigious though) Questjournal in the Pipboy (1. Help Torr watching his Brahmin 2. Pay Suliks Debt etc).

As for mods with lots of choices and more than one way to solve (looking at you Lexx ;) ) I wouldn't mind some journal, though. I'm using a similar one in my mod aswell.
 
I agree that language would make the map much more useful: labels for points of interest on the map, whether automatic or player-created - or ideally, both. Still, the current map system is good enough for most newbie "oh, okay; I see where I am now" orientation needs.

Another idea - just brainstorming, though, not something I'd advocate - would be a small heads-up map display for one's intermediate surroundings: whatever you can see or have seen past the screen edge, but not all the way to the edge of the map. Could be located on the Pip-Boy somewhere, such as in place of the cover for the "Turn / Combat" buttons, or else in an upper corner, like racing and space combat games often do. But I'm sure the cost of development would vastly outweigh the utility of such a feature.

So, in short: I vote for automatic and/or player map labeling.

-m
 
Where is the PC, in relation to the buildings? Pretty much all maps in gaming show where I am, in relation to the buildings, except for that of Fallout.

I think that's prime importance, then labels of various things.
 
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