The first "Universe of the Spheres" is a colored woodcut, territories are outlined in bold, paths between stars and sphere's are marked with black lines. 81 land + 0 sea
The second "Otherland", a satellite photo with territories outlined in bold. Any boarders that touch allow travel. 37 land + 6 sea
This is 5 maps in as many days.
You know, I like Dominions 3 and was really excited to be creating content for it. I made some statements when I first posted - that map creation was easy, and that I felt disappointed in the selection, so I decided to take action to correct that.
I, like many of us here, am college educated, well traveled, and well read. I *know* that it is not easy to create a map pixel by pixel. It is amazingly difficult and time consuming and after hundreds or thousands of hours it can produce a thing of beauty. (And often may never happen - I mean the thread is even titled "The map that will never be")
Of course that's completely unnecessary to create a Dominions 3 map. All you need is an image - whether that's a woodcut, a photograph of your Warhammer 40k terrain, a pencil illustration or whatever. You need to add white dots and territory names and traits, and write some text and play-test. *That* isn't difficult - and apparently isn't done. [1]
I had excitement and saw a lack and didn't just complain, but took matters into my own hands and gave these maps to the community. The response? Threats, criticisms by people who didn't even try the maps, and a long string of verbal abuse (swearing and name-calling) by one of your long time members, followed by them telling me I deserved it. And, hell, you know, I only created 5 maps. I would hate to think what I would have deserved if I *hadn't* actually produced a solution to my issue instead of just mentioning it. (There were nice and helpful people and things said - I mention those at the end :-)
I spent some time searching the boards reading about strategies and such and actually ran across several posts, where someone new to the community said something about it being insular and hostile. The next response from a regular was "Not this complaint AGAIN!"
I've gotten some advice about how to manipulate or befriend the community. That's not my goal. My goal was just to share some things I made for a game I like, and hopefully inspire someone who, up till this point, might have thought they needed to put in hundreds of hours to have a good looking and functional map.
I search semi-annually for new Dominions maps, and had never come across this board in my search. It was only once I reached the IRC channel that I learned about these resources. In my enthusiasm I decided to share. I have some web space where my software is hosted, and I think that perhaps that is a better place for me to post my maps. It seems as if it will be easier to find from Google, and truthfully, some of the hostility makes me not excited about something I really like -- Dominions 3.
Just a few final words - there *are* some really nice maps, *and* some really nice people. I know there are probably actual balance issues with my maps, and I'd really like to say thanks to the people who tried them out and gave me good advice. And some people in the IRC channel have been *very* nice, lch, and Pshawdawg in particular. I don't expect *anything* from this missive, it's just if we find the world a way we dislike, nothing will change if we don't take action. Sharing my thoughts and creating these maps are my actions.
Enjoy the maps.
[1]Of course it can be a little more difficult to produce a *good* map. As Sombre said, balancing and testing take time. :-)
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Of course that's completely unnecessary to create a Dominions 3 map. All you need is an image - whether that's a woodcut, a photograph of your Warhammer 40k terrain, a pencil illustration or whatever. You need to add white dots and territory names and traits, and write some text and play-test. *That* isn't difficult - and apparently isn't done.
Yes it is. You've been told this. Several maps we've had for a long time have been made by taking a satellite photo, map taken from another source (or fantasy world) etc and turning it into a dom3 map. There aren't as many of these as user created map images though, probably because people enjoy making the images and want to create their own maps.
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The response? Threats, criticisms by people who didn't even try the maps, and a long string of verbal abuse (swearing and name-calling) by one of your long time members, followed by them telling me I deserved it. And, hell, you know, I only created 5 maps. I would hate to think what I would have deserved if I *hadn't* actually produced a solution to my issue instead of just mentioning it.
If you have received threats I suggest you notify the forum administrators immediately.
As for the 'long string of verbal abuse' I invite people to look at the response I gave you on this forum and why you got it. You came to the forums essentially putting down everyone elses efforts, then denied you did and put words in the mouths of others. In fact I believe you've now edited your original posts because of the reaction you got, which was well deserved.
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I've gotten some advice about how to manipulate ... the community.
I doubt that. All the advice I saw given to you was how you could avoid people having the negative reaction against you they did. That isn't manipulating a community, that's just making an effort not to offend them.
A number of people have used very creative sources for maps. Map generators from other games, satellite images, fractals, spirograph, magnetic charts, multiple layers for underworld-surface-air, ringworld, etc.
I even remember one discussion about playing on the image of a girl in a bikini.
The more creative maps dont tend to get the same play as the more mundane ones but they do add good contrast to the overall collections.
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I quite like the look of the satellite one. The land could do with a bit more constrast though I think, it looks a bit homogeneously dingy. Also it's hard to guess what the terrain types will be. The sea looks lovely.
Yeah the sea does look good. I think there's more scope for maps which do interesting things with water provinces - deep trenches and coral reefs and underwater caves for instance.
If you have received threats I suggest you notify the forum administrators immediately.
As for the 'long string of verbal abuse' I invite people to look at the response I gave you on this forum and why you got it. You came to the forums essentially putting down everyone elses efforts, then denied you did and put words in the mouths of others. In fact I believe you've now edited your original posts because of the reaction you got, which was well deserved.
The threats and verbal abuse came from you Sombre and it was in IRC, not the forums.
I'm an adult now, but even when I was a child I was taught to not call people names. There's no excuse for being abusive - no reason good enough to lash out and be hateful. I work daily with people in abusive relationships, and everyone's always got a reason for why they hit someone, or called someone a name. Doesn't make it right.
I'm not denying I removed a sentence that might have been poorly worded soon after posting my first map when someone commented it might have been out of line. This, I think, was the right thing to do. What's up now is what I stand by. If there was a miscommunication (as in the case with ballbarian), I freely admitted to it, and clarified myself. I know it doesn't happen, but people should focus on what I *did*, not "essentially" what I did.
Look, uh, I guess the point is, I made some maps, and the choices you made caused me to be less excited both about contributing to the community and playing Dominions 3. I regret coming here and taking the time to contribute because of what you wrote and how it makes me feel.
Okay, I gave them a quick spin, here are some thoughts:
As llama said, the satellite one looks nice, but the standardized look of the land mass makes it hard to make out the provinces' terrain features at a glance. The image also suffers from some minor pixelization, and IMO the province divisions could use some work. It looks to me like you've mostly divided them by visual borders, and that's fine, but in some places it doesn't really mesh with gameplay - first of all, the irregular shapes mean that sometimes you have to do a bit of searching before you get the game to register a click in the right province, unless, again, you have neighbors on and click on the defined province centres. Also, the tiny micro-provinces are a bit annoying, and especially the cluster in the west is a pain to work through. Furthermore, a few of the provinces have an unreasonable amount of neighbors, at least for me - this tends to result in annoying gameplay patterns because the area becomes very hard to defend.
The sphere map is very pretty, but a little too concept-heavy for my tastes. The idea of having each star as a little province is cute and all, but again, working through that massive patchwork of tiny provinces is not particularly fun, especially when their connections are so hard to make out.
Also, as a general tip, it's a good idea to state the number of land and sea provinces for the map in the description, along with a recommendation for player numbers.
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The threats and verbal abuse came from you Sombre and it was in IRC, not the forums.
I didn't threaten you. That's a flat out lie that's easy to show up by checking IRC logs. I called you out on the way you acted on the forums. I wasn't the only one who had a strong negative reaction to it.
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There's no excuse for being abusive - no reason good enough to lash out and be hateful. I work daily with people in abusive relationships, and everyone's always got a reason for why they hit someone, or called someone a name. Doesn't make it right.
I wasn't being hateful. I was calling a spade a spade. You yourself said (paraphrasing) "If you don't like the way the world is you shouldn't just ignore it" - I don't, I speak my mind. Particularly on IRC or in person.
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Look, uh, I guess the point is, I made some maps, and the choices you made caused me to be less excited both about contributing to the community and playing Dominions 3. I regret coming here and taking the time to contribute because of what you wrote and how it makes me feel.
Wow. Grow a pair. Seriously. If I actually believed you were crying yourself to sleep every night over it I might think "Hey maybe I was a bit harsh" but it's clear you're playing the bird with the injured wing now.
Oh noes Sombre was mean to me and now I don't like dominions! Hilarious.
Until you accused me of threatening you I just disagreed with what you said. Now I want absolutely nothing to do with you. I'm putting you on ignore to try and avoid this becoming some scary e-drama. I hope this works for you.
Edit: I can't seem to find an ignore function on this forum, so I'll do it the old fashioned way. Point is I wash my hands of this. I think this solution will suit VALIS too.
Last edited by Sombre; October 6th, 2008 at 12:16 PM..
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Not having read any of the text in this thread and thus skipping over any drama stuff I'll have to say that this would be the first maps that I could see finding actual use by a larger amount of the player base. I always liked the first image, which is from a woodcut again I believe. Does the thing in the top left look familiar to you? The second map is a tad too dark, but the province borders look interesting. Can you maybe brighten up the image a little, at least for the landmass?
2 New maps: Otherland and Spheres
I'll have to say that this would be the first maps that I could see finding actual use by a larger amount of the player base. I always liked the first image, which is from a woodcut again I believe. Does the thing in the top left look familiar to you? 
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