Two Questions

[Nicketh]

FIRST: Is it possible to magnify, or zoom in, on the map? I'd like to be able to zoom into an area, I don't care if the way of doing it is:
- makes it like 4x centered automatically on me
- Draw a box with the mouse and they become the limits
- Something else

Is that something the program does already? If not, is it being considered?


SECOND: Would you consider providing an easy way, inside of EQ2, to record a PoI with text label, so that either:
- I can sumbit it to YOU for inclusion in map download for others
- I can see it on MY map, in case you don't want to include it

I get around a lot, do A LOT of very late night soloing, and notice many PoI's that are important quest related ones and not on your maps, especially in new zones, and I notice some errors on your maps as well. If ther were an easy in game way to mark it and label it, then give it to you when I got off maybe, or volunteer to allow you to grab that info when I update the maps (which I do daily just about), it would be great.

If it comes to typing or writing down the loc, and the label, well let's just say I've found that when I camp, it's just not on my mind.


You have a great program, I love it and am constantly telling people about it in game. Keep up the great work!

Chanter The'Wizard
Guk Server

[gm9]

The first idea is one that I had considered as well when I couldn't see the map for the large number of PoIs submitted in one area where I was. I suppose - without ever having looked at the way the map is coded - that it should be trivial to include code to have the map + overlay resize x2 or x4 and then make it scrollable. I have no idea whether anything like this is being considered by the EQ2map team (or whether anybody has already modded this).

The second one is not really possible (the only way I see this could be done is by outputting the relevant data via chat to your logfiles where a separate parser program could pick them up. Probably too much hassle just for that. I usually just alt-tab out of the game to submit new PoIs right away. Only takes a minute.

[Landiin]

Nicketh, Sorry, neither of your request are possible at this time.

Zooming:

This can't be done because of the way SOE did the location properties in the UI. So we can't recalculate the location of each POI on the fly.

POI Submit:

What gm9 said.

[gm9]

Thanks for settings me straight. Now this is interesting, I guess I'll have to take a closer look at EQ2map to see what it does after all.

[lordebon]

Originally Posted by Landiin

Nicketh, Sorry, neither of your request are possible at this time.

Zooming:

This can't be done because of the way SOE did the location properties in the UI. So we can't recalculate the location of each POI on the fly.

I could be wrong but...

I believe you could probably zoom the map easily enough, but aren't the locations of the POIs hard-coded in a sense for the normal mapsize? I think thats what Landiin is saying, just wanted to dbl-check my thought.

Perhaps it would be possible to make say a x4 size map, and have the updater download special POI sets for that and then use scrollbars. But then it would be a sort of toggle between "Full map" and "Zoom map"

Nothing like draging a box to zoom in or clicking to zoom in is possible, as far as I can tell.

[Landiin]

You can zoom the map "image" and then have 4 hard coded positions to switch between, kind of like how the mini map works. (I guess it'd be bigi map then :P)

Doubling up on the POI (one set for normal and one set for zoom) isn't a viable option either.

[gm9]

Well, looking at the code now, the /waypoints are hardcoded in the "pathfindlocation" property. They would not be affected by scaling the map and still work correctly.

The only problem I see is that you and your group member positions as well as the X for waypoints will not be scaled accordingly and thus appear incorrect. And of course that the code to either scale PoI positions dynamically or with a premade second set could lead to a performance hit with loads of PoI's in one map.

[lordebon]

Ah well, it was worth a thought =)

Guess it's time to /feedback it... the map in EQL, while limited in ways, was zoomable as I recall, and that was useful.

[gm9]

Hmm, yes, a way to scale any window would be nice but probably not easily implementable.

[Zonx]

Fetish has included an external resizable map with preset zoom settings for over a year

POIs could be made to reposition properly with the right packloc settings, but it would seriously bloat an already bloated window. Lacking the right settings, my zoomable map does not include POIs.

In any case, it is currently impossible to resize the main map window and have the player/group markers show the correct position without resetting fog.

[gm9]

Are you sure PackLocation would be enough? I have some doubts whether it would correctly position them in both dimensions but maybe it works using proportional settings.

But since the PoI's are script generated anyway it would also be possible just to calculate and add alternate location properties to be used when zoomed.

Do I understand your post correctly that you can scale the map window including player/group positions if you accept resetting fog? That's very interesting - you could just hid fog completely if you do that I suppose.

[Zonx]

If all POIs were given packLocs of pcp,pcp, they would reposition apropriately when the MapPage and Icon Pages were resized. We'd need some extra code to also resize the overlays not within the MapPage, but that's not a big deal. Would be very useful for my exteranl window.

The hard part is getting the player markers to track properly. Marker position is derived through a hard coded formula that calculates a ratio of the zone rect to map size for the current map. That ratio is then applied to your current loc to determine where to place the marker.

Last I checked (a while ago) the map size used in the hard coded formula is also hard coded and not taken from the XML. Resizing the map has no affect on where the markers are placed. They always assume the map is the default size. The only way to change the ratio to match a zoom setting would be to change the zone rect, which resets all fog for the zone. You'd also wind up with a partial map with markers disapearing off the edges.

The correct way to deal with POI blind using the current system is to create sub maps for heavily marked zones. Gfay does this for the newb area. Unfortunetly it would require retro-fitting existing maps on the submission site. Using Feerott as an example, we'd have to slice it up into several detail maps, then move all the POIs for that region to a new icon layer. Possible but probably more work than its worth.