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The Discussion on Map Size (Decision on Pg 1 & 11)

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Re: Larger maps, Why not?

Postby AndyDufresne on Sat Oct 03, 2009 5:33 pm

wcaclimbing wrote:
AndyDufresne wrote:Lack intends to redesign some aspects of of the Conquer Club website---a number of preparations have already been made. I'm not sure what his time scale is though in relation to other updates.


--Andy


Didn't he promise that around two years ago?
Its not going to happen :roll:

He said that he planned on doing a redesign in the future. But people plan ahead for a lot of things. Preparations now have already been made. If you'd like to be a banana hater, you can do so if you want, but what kind of life are you living then, I ask? ;)


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Re: Larger maps, Why not?

Postby mibi on Sun Oct 04, 2009 8:26 pm

AndyDufresne wrote:
wcaclimbing wrote:
AndyDufresne wrote:Lack intends to redesign some aspects of of the Conquer Club website---a number of preparations have already been made. I'm not sure what his time scale is though in relation to other updates.


--Andy


Didn't he promise that around two years ago?
Its not going to happen :roll:

He said that he planned on doing a redesign in the future. But people plan ahead for a lot of things. Preparations now have already been made. If you'd like to be a banana hater, you can do so if you want, but what kind of life are you living then, I ask? ;)


--Andy


banana hating? More like wca is being rightfully skeptical. in the future it is probably best if you not hint about future changes.
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Re: Larger maps, Why not?

Postby captainwalrus on Sun Oct 04, 2009 8:31 pm

Yeah, I would rather be pleasantly surprised than end up dissapointed.
That being said, you had better not dissapoint!
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Re: Larger maps, Why not?

Postby paulk on Sun Oct 11, 2009 12:07 am

With bigger screens and higher resolutions the web standard has gone from (in pixels) 640x480 to 800x600 to 1024x768 to even higher resolutions today. I personally use 1680x1050 for example.

That said I think that the smaller maps was a necessary evil a few years back, but today there is space for bigger maps.

Although I think the site layout could use some major updates to slim the space and optimize it for game playing.

I personally work with designing web pages, and have done so for many years, since the 90's, and I would like to see some small but radical changes. One would be to skip the top header bar, that in my opinion just is wasting space, and move the content to the left column where all the other links are.

Then I would but all the action dropdowns and buttons on the top, with the map just under.
Implementing clickable maps on top of that (as an option) and also have the BOB option to hide the left column and you have a site where your game play is put in focus and you don't have to scroll for everything.

I think that the size should be following the screen resolution and be about 900x700 for the smaller and 1200x1000 for the bigger maps, since very few today use screen resolutions under 1024x768

And I would also love to see the chat to the right of the map instead of underneath.

I made a mash up earlier to demonstrate my point:

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Re: Larger maps, Why not?

Postby captainwalrus on Fri Oct 16, 2009 9:26 pm

But seriously, Why not?
how hard can it be to move things over like 100 px and then just make an announcement about it?
Also, it doesn't matter if people still use small monitors, they have over 120 maps to choose from, so they can just suck it up and deal.
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Larger maps, Why yes?

Postby Nzen on Mon Oct 19, 2009 6:09 pm

Its not likely for the same reason mappers take so long on that third stage: coding. They need to count the pixels to properly display the current troops. New maps and old maps will need to be scaled to the new coordinates. With 141 old maps, there is a strong disincentive to making radical changes that will shut down all gameplay for months. Months, because they would likely need to wait until every game finished (Game 253956, Game 387875) before they could settle to the mind-numbing number crunching. Every new map out of the foundry is another nail in the coffin to radical changes, like bigger maps.

At least, that's what I gather.
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Re: Larger maps, Why not?

Postby the.killing.44 on Mon Oct 19, 2009 6:12 pm

Nah, there are tools to easily find coordinates. Imagine counting every single pixel :shock:
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Re: Larger maps, Why yes?

Postby Tisha on Mon Oct 19, 2009 6:16 pm

Nzen wrote:Its not likely for the same reason mappers take so long on that third stage: coding. They need to count the pixels to properly display the current troops. New maps and old maps will need to be scaled to the new coordinates. With 141 old maps, there is a strong disincentive to making radical changes that will shut down all gameplay for months. Months, because they would likely need to wait until every game finished (Game 253956, Game 387875) before they could settle to the mind-numbing number crunching. Every new map out of the foundry is another nail in the coffin to radical changes, like bigger maps.

At least, that's what I gather.


every map is it's own size, and would be allowed to remain so... there would just be a option when creating maps, to make them larger
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Re: Larger maps, Why yes?

Postby zimmah on Tue Dec 15, 2009 10:46 am

serisouly, what point is it to add 8 players, if 80% of the maps has still only 40ish territories?

map makers have a really hard time making any good large map, because they are very limited in space, furthermore, there are allready like 150 maps to choose from, people can chooce any map the want if they still have a bad monitor.

there are also people who DO have a good monitor and a good resolution, and for example i can have the currently biggest map open on large settings, and still have it only cover about 30% of my screen, with PLENTY of room to make it much bigger and stil be able to read all the rest on my screen.

so, why not increase the map size, if even by a few 100 pixels? maybe add another map size setting (optional) make it, small (for the small resolutions) medium and large.

(so no XML or Map updates are required for excisting maps) and all the new maps have 3 values, the small maps have the same limit as small maps have now, the medium have the same limits as large have now, and the new large maps have the limits as large have now +200, or +300 pixels or so.

it shouldn't be too much of a problem really, and that way everyone can play every map (ye, those with a small resolution will have a hard time to see the map if they really insist on keeping a small resulotion, but hey, that's their own problem, right?)


i say, allow bigger map sizes.


(btw, i'm quite sure a lot of people nowadays use 1600x1200 pixels, and when i get my new monitor, i will even increase it to 2560x1600 probably, i mean, why not.)


to make it a bit more clear:

currently, there is 2 images and 4 xml tags for the coordinates (small x, large x, small y and large y) to divine the position of the troop numbers.

let's say we add a new option, 'huge' or something. then all the maps would become un-playable you say?

well, no problem, just make it so, that if no 'huge' is defined, use large instead of huge. (that's not too hard, or is it?)

then, for the newer maps(or revamped maps) which do have defined 'huge' settings (so, in effect, they have 3 image files, and 6 coordinates) they will havbe the option to show the huge maps to those who want it to be huge.

then everyone will be happy.

if that's not possible then only 1 other option:

revamp all the maps, with a small team of dedicated mapmakers/xml writers (count me in!) and add the required values to all current maps, say like, 5 at a time. once every map is done (this will take a few months) then get the update done, and everyting will be good in the end.

so. any reason NOT to?



Display Resolution

The current trend is that most computers are using a screen size of 1024x768 pixels or more:
Date Higher 1024x768 800x600 640x480 Unknown
January 2009 57% 36% 4% 0% 3%
January 2008 38% 48% 8% 0% 6%
January 2007 26% 54% 14% 0% 6%
January 2006 17% 57% 20% 0% 6%
January 2005 12% 53% 30% 0% 5%
January 2004 10% 47% 37% 1% 5%
January 2003 6% 40% 47% 2% 5%
January 2002 6% 34% 52% 3% 5%
January 2001 5% 29% 55% 6% 5%
January 2000 4% 25% 56% 11% 4%


i will update in januari when the results of 2010 are updates.

this clearly shows that most users use HIGHER resulotions then 1024x768. and only 4% uses resulotions lower then that,

so, who you favor? the 4% who use low resultions (of which the most part likely uses laptops/pda's anyways, and therefore, use higher resultions on their main computers), or the nearly 60% with higher resolutions?
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Re: Larger maps, Why not?

Postby MrBenn on Tue Dec 15, 2009 12:49 pm

The size restriction is a result of the user interface. If/when that changes, then there will hopefully be a change to map size limits.

It's going to be difficult to make the existing maps larger, as scaling them up will likely lose a bit of quality.

As for monitor sizes, the important thing is to do with the monitor size of CC users, as opposed to those in general use. Lack should have those stats from google analytics - but I don't know what they are.
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Re: Larger maps, Why not?

Postby AndyDufresne on Tue Dec 15, 2009 12:51 pm

Part of Lack's redesign in 2010 will free up space for larger maps most likely...


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Re: Larger maps, Why not?

Postby paulk on Tue Dec 15, 2009 3:32 pm

MrBenn wrote:It's going to be difficult to make the existing maps larger, as scaling them up will likely lose a bit of quality.

I don't see why it would be necessary to mess with the old maps. Just leave them exactly as they are and cap the number of players to 8 on them.

New maps should have new rules, maybe also increase the number of players on some maps.
It is all doable with the right coding. There is no "it can't be done". Anything can be done.
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Re: Larger maps, Why not?

Postby cairnswk on Tue Dec 15, 2009 4:04 pm

We already have a facility available like in Google maps that lackattack could use
...if it's possible to load the very large map on a layer beneath the actual browser page game window, we wouldn't have to scroll with the browser...then it would work like a google map where you could use the mouse hand indicator to scroll to the area of the map you wanted to view. Of course lots of other aspects to work out along with that.
This could allow maps to be a big as mapmakers wanted them to be (within reason I guess)
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Re: Larger maps, Why not?

Postby paulk on Tue Dec 15, 2009 4:36 pm

cairnswk wrote:We already have a facility available like in Google maps that lackattack could use

That sounds really cool as long as the maps don't get so big that you start missing what is on it.
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Re: Larger maps, Why not?

Postby zimmah on Tue Dec 15, 2009 4:47 pm

MrBenn wrote:The size restriction is a result of the user interface. If/when that changes, then there will hopefully be a change to map size limits.

It's going to be difficult to make the existing maps larger, as scaling them up will likely lose a bit of quality.

As for monitor sizes, the important thing is to do with the monitor size of CC users, as opposed to those in general use. Lack should have those stats from google analytics - but I don't know what they are.



interface is nice, but, isn't it beyond the point? because, are we here to play some risk, or are we here to view the best interface on the internet?

i come here to play risk. dunno about the other 99.999999999%, but my guess is that most people here want to play risk.

i don't want to be rude or impolite or anything, but i'm just trying to make a point.
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Re: Larger maps, Why not?

Postby cairnswk on Tue Dec 15, 2009 5:11 pm

paulk wrote:
cairnswk wrote:We already have a facility available like in Google maps that lackattack could use

That sounds really cool as long as the maps don't get so big that you start missing what is on it.


Yes i agree paulk.
I know however, this facility would be ideal for maps like Mibi's "Tower".
If this were available for us to use, lack wouldn't have to re-design the site layout.
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Re: The Discussion on Map Size (Decision on Pg 1 & 11)

Postby MrBenn on Tue Dec 15, 2009 6:16 pm

[merged] the discussion about map size with the historical thread...
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