Atlantis - v43 - BETA - P32[D,Gp,Gr,FF,XML,BETA]

[NemesisChild]

OK it's all gone very quiet in here again
It looks like we are getting the visits but not the comments ( about 300 in the last week I think).
This has happened a few times before and then picked up again but as I think we are reasonably close to getting or graphics stamp(IMO),especially as we have now addressed the most recent Names v's Numbers V's Symbols issue, I want to try and push this on a bit.

I am really interested in what the community as a whole now thinks as to where we are.

• Are there Graphic isssues you think need addressing?
• Are the names satisfactory?
• Where can we take this map next?

I am looking for some genuine and constructive comments from anyone who is willing to give them.
Also if you think we are good for our stamp please say so too.

In other words if you visit leave a comment good or bad.

I will when ask prem to add the following when he gets a chance:

• XML Test results
• XML file link for XML review

I know the New 'Classic' map is now taking priority as it is to be the future flagship map ( and it looks like its going to be really good .. Nice Work Sully ) and gaining most interest as it is an announcement already but others have been working on maps too for quite some time and may be starting to feel a little abandoned (yes I do have abandonment issues),

P.S. If you are a MOD can you please leave a comment if you think we have some more issues to address or not if you think that is the case. I am open to any suggestions for improvement.

[ender516]

Yes, I suspect you're right, the Classic Revamp is probably hogging the time of the powers that be. The Whac-A-Mod weekend event likely stole some time too, as evidenced by the number of maps that have been stamped for Beta play, but have been waiting a while to be uploaded for play (First Nations of North America, Austerlitz). Vancouver is up, but has been waiting three weeks for an update to the XML which has been agreed upon.

[RedBaron0]

Well, I think you're pretty good, you're likely going to have to reposition a couple circles, especially on the small map, 888 will likely cover some stuff up, like Sophia, Xi, Ixion, Myron. Those are the ones I notice right off the bat. Get those tests in order and you should be ready. We're all waiting limbo thinking we're done, or nearly done with graphics, or gameplay, or both. We'll all get done eventually.

[ender516]

Yes, I suspect you're right, the Classic Revamp is probably hogging the time of the powers that be. The Whac-A-Mod weekend event likely stole some time too, as evidenced by the number of maps that have been stamped for Beta play, but have been waiting a while to be uploaded for play (First Nations of North America, Austerlitz). Vancouver is up, but has been waiting three weeks for an update to the XML which has been agreed upon.

England and Route 66 are also waiting. So many interesting new maps that I want a shot at...

[MrBenn]

I know you guys have got a bit frustrated with the territory naming thing - but I personally think this is a vast improvement - makes it feel more tangible.

-There are lots of places where you have rotated territory names, when I'm not sure you need to. Could you try and straighten them all out so the text is all aligned the same way (unless you absolutely can't get it to fit)

-The subtitle at the bottom (The Cradle of Mankind) would look better beneath the main title at the top of the map. You could then make the compass rose a bit larger

-Is there any particular reason that the compass rose isn't orientated with North at the top? Atlantis is a fictious place, and your vision of it is pretty much circular, so there doesn;t feel like there's a logical reason for North not to be up - does that make sense?

- The outer glow around the legend text (and your sigs) is a bit too heavy. I'd suggest either making it a shade lighter, or decrease the spread of it - you need to get it just enough to make the yellow text legible, without overpowering.

- Part of me wonders whether the legend would look more orgainsed if it were right-aligned, with the icons at the right... It feels a bit squeezed in, and I wonder if the reverse alignment would make it fit a bit better?

- You can afford to make your signatures very slightly larger.

[ender516]

Permit me to cast a different light on some of these comments:

I know you guys have got a bit frustrated with the territory naming thing - but I personally think this is a vast improvement - makes it feel more tangible.
-There are lots of places where you have rotated territory names, when I'm not sure you need to. Could you try and straighten them all out so the text is all aligned the same way (unless you absolutely can't get it to fit)

This is likely a good idea, but I do like the way most names are entirely on the land: the contrast is better that way. One advantage of this map is its fictional basis: if the text doesn't fit within the borders, simply move the borders or add some land! You could even swap names: Melchetium could be swapped with Euclid, which is a wider region and could better hold the longer name.
One set of names which looks like it could get confusing is on Santorini. With the circles nearly covering the border between Phygria and Sisyphus, and the texts being nearly equidistant from the circles, it is not immediately obvious which is which. This is a situation where simply expanding the land mass to the north might help a lot.

-The subtitle at the bottom (The Cradle of Mankind) would look better beneath the main title at the top of the map. You could then make the compass rose a bit larger

Yes, the subtitle does tend to get lost down there.

-Is there any particular reason that the compass rose isn't orientated with North at the top? Atlantis is a fictious place, and your vision of it is pretty much circular, so there doesn;t feel like there's a logical reason for North not to be up - does that make sense?

Well, it is aligned with the ships which are named for the four wind gods associated with the cardinal directions, and I think it adds a little dynamism to the map by being skewed.

- The outer glow around the legend text (and your sigs) is a bit too heavy. I'd suggest either making it a shade lighter, or decrease the spread of it - you need to get it just enough to make the yellow text legible, without overpowering.

I agree with this as long as we don't lose the increased legibility I lobbied for and got when you brightened the font colour.

- Part of me wonders whether the legend would look more orgainsed if it were right-aligned, with the icons at the right... It feels a bit squeezed in, and I wonder if the reverse alignment would make it fit a bit better?

The same icons and the same text will have the same width left to right or right to left. However, you might want to remove the word "only" from the description of dock attacks, or someone might think a territory with a dock cannot attack adjacent territories across land borders, but only across the sea.

- You can afford to make your signatures very slightly larger.

True dat! Don't hide your lights under a bushel.

[Blitzaholic]

This is looking great, I can't wait to play this map.

[NemesisChild]

Permit me to cast a different light on some of these comments:

I know you guys have got a bit frustrated with the territory naming thing - but I personally think this is a vast improvement - makes it feel more tangible.
-There are lots of places where you have rotated territory names, when I'm not sure you need to. Could you try and straighten them all out so the text is all aligned the same way (unless you absolutely can't get it to fit)

This is likely a good idea, but I do like the way most names are entirely on the land: the contrast is better that way. One advantage of this map is its fictional basis: if the text doesn't fit within the borders, simply move the borders or add some land! You could even swap names: Melchetium could be swapped with Euclid, which is a wider region and could better hold the longer name.
One set of names which looks like it could get confusing is on Santorini. With the circles nearly covering the border between Phygria and Sisyphus, and the texts being nearly equidistant from the circles, it is not immediately obvious which is which. This is a situation where simply expanding the land mass to the north might help a lot.

I will look at moving some names around bvut i think it is gouing to be almost impossible to have them all perfectly straightened out. This is the same on most maps

-The subtitle at the bottom (The Cradle of Mankind) would look better beneath the main title at the top of the map. You could then make the compass rose a bit larger

Yes, the subtitle does tend to get lost down there.

I like it down there, It was originally up underneath the main title but it made the top of the map cluttered while we had nothing to fill an empty space at the bottom.
For now i would prefer to leave it where it is

-Is there any particular reason that the compass rose isn't orientated with North at the top? Atlantis is a fictious place, and your vision of it is pretty much circular, so there doesn;t feel like there's a logical reason for North not to be up - does that make sense?

Well, it is aligned with the ships which are named for the four wind gods associated with the cardinal directions, and I think it adds a little dynamism to the map by being skewed.

The compass is angled as it is for the reason stated by ender, If you look through previous posts you will note a rather large discussion reagrding this. the Boats are basically named after the greek gods used for N S E W ands the compass matches this naming system of sorts. it makes little difference to the game play and it is a sneaky little intellectual addition.

- The outer glow around the legend text (and your sigs) is a bit too heavy. I'd suggest either making it a shade lighter, or decrease the spread of it - you need to get it just enough to make the yellow text legible, without overpowering.

I agree with this as long as we don't lose the increased legibility I lobbied for and got when you brightened the font colour.

I will look into it but I think the legibility on the small map will be adversly effected if I tweak it too much.

- Part of me wonders whether the legend would look more orgainsed if it were right-aligned, with the icons at the right... It feels a bit squeezed in, and I wonder if the reverse alignment would make it fit a bit better?

The same icons and the same text will have the same width left to right or right to left. However, you might want to remove the word "only" from the description of dock attacks, or someone might think a territory with a dock cannot attack adjacent territories across land borders, but only across the sea.

Asthetics, it makes no change to the game play and i think it is better as is
I might however look at using a centralised font and put the icons above it.

- You can afford to make your signatures very slightly larger.

True dat! Don't hide your lights under a bushel.

No need to over power the map with irrelevant text, I woud rather put something else in there rather than my name but couldn't think of anyhing , I am inclined to leave them as is

This is looking great, I can't wait to play this map.

Cheers Blitz we're working on it

[NemesisChild]

OK so here we go

A bit of an update, I am waiting for Prem to get back from a short vacation later today and he will update the first post.
I have taken into consideration some of MR Benn and Enders Comments and have made the following changes

• Changed text, layout and alignments in the legend
• Moved Icons around in Legend
• Lowered Outer glow on Legend text to the lowest I can without effecting small map legibility
• Tried my best to get all text aligned the same way, this meant moving names and at least one new name (lol new territ name of Nu on Numenor) about as suggested and tweaking some army circles ( shhh! don't tel Prem.. lol, he's gonna flip!! )
• increased sig font size and aligned it accordingly

V36.x : will be Version 37 when 1st post updated

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[RedBaron0]

You could try offsetting the glow down a pixel and maybe left or right 1 pixel too. Worth a try that might allow for the text to be even more legible with out lowering the opacity.

Map looks good, stamp should be coming, eventually.

[ender516]

Well, if you are looking for stuff to fiddle around with, you could:

• move the description of the Temple of Artemis (which bombards ports) up and over so it is beneath the description of a port
• move the description of the Temple of Zeus (which bombards boats) over so it is beneath the description of a boat
• move the description of the Temple of Poseidon (which bombards docks) down so it is closer to the description of a dock

[MrBenn]

The text looks heaps better now it's (mostly) horizontally aligned, although there are are a fair number of them that are a little way off - the following list is those I can see that are off at a quick glance:
Thais, Acacius, Hera, Demon, Styx, Cronus, Gamma, Heron, Iota, Timon, Minos, Rowlandesia

The legend/temples text is a lot more clear now - well done on that. I'm not sure that the rearrangement of the text makes a great deal of difference though - I just thought that right-aligning the text would help to move the text away from the edge of the playable area and make it look less squashed into the gap

[NemesisChild]

The text looks heaps better now it's (mostly) horizontally aligned, although there are are a fair number of them that are a little way off - the following list is those I can see that are off at a quick glance:
Thais, Acacius, Hera, Demon, Styx, Cronus, Gamma, Heron, Iota, Timon, Minos, Rowlandesia

Done!
they are all now perfectly straight (Apart from boat names of course, but they look better matching the angle of the boat anyway), had to move a couple of names about to get it sorted, but I went through it with a fine tooth comb and the grid on to ensure they were right.

Well, if you are looking for stuff to fiddle around with, you could:

• move the description of the Temple of Artemis (which bombards ports) up and over so it is beneath the description of a port
• move the description of the Temple of Zeus (which bombards boats) over so it is beneath the description of a boat
• move the description of the Temple of Poseidon (which bombards docks) down so it is closer to the description of a dock

Done, Moved the text to align as you suggested and tweaked the icon sizes and locations too, so they are all the same size now and sit relative to their text description

The legend/temples text is a lot more clear now - well done on that. I'm not sure that the rearrangement of the text makes a great deal of difference though - I just thought that right-aligning the text would help to move the text away from the edge of the playable area and make it look less squashed into the gap

Tweaked legend text a touch more but am now at the absoloute limit of readability on small map.
I kept the same positioning of the legend, apart from enders suggegestions and have tried out the right alignement you thought might work, I think it definitely gives a feeling of being less squashed.

As well as this I have played with the Mnimap numbers as i now thought they stood out too much when compared to the rest of the text on the map , they are now toned down but still readable i think.

So anything else?

Here is my latest update, will get Prem to update first post ASAP.

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[ender516]

Lots of good work there!

It looks like you have achieved your goal with the mini-map numbers, because as I was reading the post and checking the changes to the legend, I hadn't noticed the mini-map at all, but when I looked at it, the numbers were quite clear, and when I looked away, my eyes were not drawn back by overly bright text. Well done.

Now, on the down side, at the top of the legend, you now have the port symbol closer to the word "boat" and vice versa. Although there is little chance of mistaking one for the other, and the attacks are symmetric, I did have a moment of cognitive dissonance as I read the statements, and I do wonder if a non-English speaker, trying, say, to associate ports with the Temple of Artemis might be confused. Perhaps a layout like this would work in roughly the same space:

A port ⚓
can assault
any boat.

And of course vice versa, but I don't think even Unicode has a boat glyph, so you will have to figure it out yourself.

Straightening up the text should keep everyone happy, and you did it while keeping all of it legible. Again, well done.

And that completes my compliment sandwich, copyright Stewie Griffin.

[NemesisChild]

Lots of good work there!

It looks like you have achieved your goal with the mini-map numbers, because as I was reading the post and checking the changes to the legend, I hadn't noticed the mini-map at all, but when I looked at it, the numbers were quite clear, and when I looked away, my eyes were not drawn back by overly bright text. Well done.

Glad to hear it

Now, on the down side, at the top of the legend, you now have the port symbol closer to the word "boat" and vice versa. Although there is little chance of mistaking one for the other, and the attacks are symmetric, I did have a moment of cognitive dissonance as I read the statements, and I do wonder if a non-English speaker, trying, say, to associate ports with the Temple of Artemis might be confused. Perhaps a layout like this would work in roughly the same space:

A port ⚓
can assault
any boat.

And of course vice versa, but I don't think even Unicode has a boat glyph, so you will have to figure it out yourself.

Ok, I'll look into it, now as i review it again i get what you mean, I'm sure i can find some way of putting it all together , might have to at worst revert to haveing the icons above the statement just for boats and ports.

Straightening up the text should keep everyone happy, and you did it while keeping all of it legible. Again, well done.

And that completes my compliment sandwich, copyright Stewie Griffin.

Thank you again, ?? copyright Stewie! hmm! sounds distinctly more like Brian to me

[Premier2k]

First post updated!

Premier2k

[NemesisChild]

right guys

I am having an absolute mare with this legend again
Font wise its fine, Its legible, clear and I think it explains sufficiently
Problem is layout. here is a quick look at an attempt for the next version
Opinions& Comments please.

[Premier2k]

Try swapping round the text, like this:

A dock can assault a connected dock
Temple of Poseidon can bombard Docks
Temple of Zeus can combard Boats
Temple of Artemis can bombard Ports
A boat can assault any port
a Port can assault any boat
and then finally

Ports and Boats cannot assault like territories.

That way the longer the length of text is at the top where there is more space and it doesnt looked squashed in

[ender516]

Try swapping round the text, like this:

A dock can assault a connected dock
Temple of Poseidon can bombard Docks
Temple of Zeus can combard Boats
Temple of Artemis can bombard Ports
A boat can assault any port
a Port can assault any boat
and then finally

Ports and Boats cannot assault like territories.

That way the longer the length of text is at the top where there is more space and it doesnt looked squashed in

Seems like a good idea, but I would put all the temple information first, just because it's in a similar vein, then the bit about the docks, then the boat and port stuff. Also, I would put the icons consistently on the left, where they serve as bullet points for the statements. If necessary, wrap text around them as if they were a drop capital at the beginning of a paragraph.

[Premier2k]

Yes good idea. So like this:

Temple of Poseidon can bombard Docks
Temple of Zeus can combard Boats
Temple of Artemis can bombard Ports
A dock can assault a connected dock
A boat can assault any port
a Port can assault any boat
and then finally

Ports and Boats cannot assault like territories.

And I agree with Ender, keep the icons on the left as yes, they will look like bullet points

[NemesisChild]

Yes good idea. So like this:

Temple of Poseidon can bombard Docks
Temple of Zeus can combard Boats
Temple of Artemis can bombard Ports
A dock can assault a connected dock
A boat can assault any port
a Port can assault any boat
and then finally

Ports and Boats cannot assault like territories.

And I agree with Ender, keep the icons on the left as yes, they will look like bullet points

OK, I have tweaked the legend as suggested, had to revert it back to the text being Left aligned as it looked very odd when it wasn't!

Here you go , Prem will update 1st post ASAP

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[ender516]

By George, I think you've got it!

[NemesisChild]

By George, I think you've got it!

EUREKA!! I think you right!

Oh and Prem has kindly updated the first post!!

Oh Mr Benn , where do we stand now?

[NemesisChild]

So are there any more issues we need to Iron out
please let me know if there is as I want to push this on.

[Premier2k]

I have updated the XML to reflect the changed territory positions.

Premier2k