C216 - Fog of War gradient

[Event "Janе" Horizon]

Dear Dr Butler,

Way the Fog of War is being cleared is causing unnecessary extra work for me.

The Fog of War clears the map using a gradient to ... clearer at the player location graying out as you get towards the edge of the clearing.

The overall result look similar to the below image:

The side effect is that a player must traverse the cleared area multiple times to remove 'smudges' left behind due to the gradient otherwise they get the following effect:


Instead of:




So - could the Fog of War please be adjusted to totally clear the area revealed by the player (i.e. not gradient)


Many thanks

[Zaelkaer "Allfather" Vampyre]

If this was changed it wouldn't really be "fog" of war anymore.. I've seen the current method in other games, I think it would be strange to change it to how you requested.. the only thing is would suggest to "make it easier" is to widen the player sight a little bit. I think its fine how it is. Annoying? maybe. fine for me

The Allfather

[Event "Janе" Horizon]

If this was changed it wouldn't really be "fog" of war anymore.. I've seen the current method in other games, I think it would be strange to change it to how you requested.. the only thing is would suggest to "make it easier" is to widen the player sight a little bit. I think its fine how it is. Annoying? maybe. fine for me

The Allfather

So the maps provided at great effort by other players are of no benefit and you see no reason to make it easier for players to continue producing these for the community?

[Sifalio "Sifis" Kritikakis]

I must agree with "the father of all" (not that i am afraid to be biten )

Indeed the way fog of war (FoW) is atm is more realistic!
Indeed it requires a HUGE effort to cleanup map, (i have used alot of time to clean up NU and still havent managed to do so, due to the same remainings of FoW.

But I would suggest just to widen a bit the range of FoW.
Maybe a function related to the time that avatars are "watching" an area would increase the distance of the revealed area....

Regards

[Zaelkaer "Allfather" Vampyre]

It is because it is difficult to make such nice maps that they are valued so highly. I believe brickwit commented somewhere about the possibility of players creating map disks to then be used by other players "inserted" into PDA. if this is true, they will be used and bought, and probably at decent prices. like the above comment, i just think it's realistic this way (the further away things are, the more blurry they become), But, perhaps the amount uncovered isn't enough (much less shade on outside (1/3 of current on both sides) and that 2/3 on each side becoming clear map) ..opinion

The Allfather

[Sifalio "Sifis" Kritikakis]

This was an idea (cant remember by whom) since AWA. To develop the profession of cartographer.
Someone could create maps, by exploration and then sell those maps that can only be created by his own PDA (map rights) and not copied by any other machine!

I loved that idea and was very supportive on that

Regards

[Event "Janе" Horizon]

This was an idea (cant remember by whom) since AWA. To develop the profession of cartographer.
Someone could create maps, by exploration and then sell those maps that can only be created by his own PDA (map rights) and not copied by any other machine!

I loved that idea and was very supportive on that

Regards

In my experience - players are interested in way-points, locations and pathways ... what details would an in-game map have that could not be replicated out-of-game?

[Jarod "Brickwit" McBrickerton]

Just to be clear, it was only an idea I had about Map Disks being able to open parts of the map for other players (similar to the way that trading maps with other civilizations in the Civilization games works) and I have not heard a whisper of this from anywhere but my own mind. I think this would be pretty cool but there's no way for me to know if the devs have any intention of doing this.

@Sifis: James "JK" Kennon was the one wanting Cartography. He's the one who provided all of the original AWA zone maps and put them into Google Maps format for us. He did some starting work on an AWS map using the original map image from the main AW site but I don't think he's been around since AWA closed.

@Event: Even though we can have all possible map information outside of the game there is still greater utility from having the in-game map revealed as much as possible. If this was not the case I don't see why the devs would have bothered with implementing the FoW in the first place. Even if someone had had the foresight to take screenshots of the entire pre-FoW in-game map and posted it for all to see it still wouldn't be as useful as having the in-game map cleared of fog. In reality there's not much need to post images of the fully-cleared maps for other players when the wiki already has all of the main points of interest available for all to see - we can all run to any set of coordinates in the game whether the map is cleared or not. It's just easier to do it with a cleared map and even easier with a cleared in-game map.

Getting to the original topic, I find the gradient rather annoying for the same reasons as Event though it makes sense to me for the reasons pointed out by others. If the devs turn off the gradient it will probably just reduce the amount of fog cleared away to create thinner clear-cut paths. The end result is that you would still need to make as many passes through an area as are needed to clear away the "smudges," if not more. If you don't like to deal with the smudges, just run on paths that are closer together in the first place.

I'd like it if the amount of map opened while running through a new area was wider/further than it is now but I've noticed that you clear more of the fog directly in front of you than you do to the sides, as you would expect. So if you turn your avatar (not just the camera) you reveal a bigger 360º circle than if you just keep going straight. If you're able to figure out how to do this while running you could open up a wider path in the fog. If there was a way to turn on auto-walk in addition to auto-run it would be easier since you wouldn't go as far off of your intended path while turning but if you overload yourself you can create the same effect - though it would take significantly longer. Some detailed testing might be able to quickly figure out which method is better.

[Event "Janе" Horizon]

@Brickwit: my point is that players will use external mapping software if the  other option is to run  in circles several times just to 'de-smudge' a small portion of the map. Hence the request to have the visual parts of the map cleared in one one go instead of many.

[Jarod "Brickwit" McBrickerton]

I just added a bunch of stuff to my post in an edit. The site apparently doesn't warn you of new posts being created during this process.