any plans for poi piles?
 

:D
LoL:

Any shot at merging all those into 1 big "dock" poi? Any plans on how to stop this from happening in the future, as more and more people submit pois?

Hopefully the POI filtering feature that might be coming will address that issue. That's why I haven't been deleting those 'overlapping' cluster POIs.

but those are all the same thing, NPCs, the new filtering thingy will help that?

I don't believe there is any way to prevent this from happening. When it does happen, though, we can go in and manually put them all into one POI that lists those different NPC names.
I've been thinking long and hard lately about dealing with dupes and clustering and can not decide on any good solution that doesn't have side effects just as bad, if not worse, than the original problem.

Maybe make a new PoI Category?

Multiple NPC's.


Then List all NPC's in close proximity to that location in the new Category?

Just a thought.

eventually (like a month or 2 at least) i may make a thing for the website that automaticly puts multiple things of the same type that are close together all in the same POI on the map, however dont plan on this happening any time soon (if it does happen)

ok, well i have written the code to detect when there are clusters like that, how does everyone think they should be handled? should there be like a new icon that represents a cluster that then has all the entries for that "cluster" with the type in the description??? any ideas anyone.

TO: Eloa and Quib
you will see a Check For XML Clusters link in each zone next to the Generate XML File link. right now all it does is echo what pois are clustered together in the map.

I think a new icon for poi clusters would be great. Maybe a triangle if possible?

I think if a new icon type goes in for clusters it'll be a + on my version of the icons...mostly because the upside-down-yield triangle is already denoting named mobs, and I wouldn't want it to get confusing. ;)

But I do really like the idea of aggregated PoIs. As long as the tooltips tell me what all is there I'm okay with being a couplefew meters off for the sake of visibility.

I agree, A triangle made of circles would be cool..

Something like:

almost like the biohazard symbol without the border, LOL

yea and just use 3 different colors for the circles to show that it is different types of things (like quest name loc) ect.

I have to think about how to write the code to merge the POI's together but i should be able to do it. I will wait on writing it until we have the icon made for the multiple POI "style"

We'll need to pick a baseline graphic for the new type of POI, but getting it into the XML files will be easy. Right now there're a few unused colors for dots in the default graphic file we could use, and ger could modify his graphical set for a new fancy graphic? Personally, I think just a larger, different colored dot wouldn't be too bad for default.

Sorry I've been so out-of-touch these last few days; this is my finals week.

Quib

I liked the idea someone said about filtering the POIs by type, being able to turn them on or off. But of cousre there could be clusters of the same type. I like the newer smaller circles, which definately helps out clusters a bit.

Filtering them by type is in the works.

Quib

cluster checking is almost implemented, if you want to see an example of what it may look like go here. the icon will be different than that though in game.

sorry to chime in so late here, but i think that the most prevalent areas of this problem are in town. someone or several someones all went around and POI'd groups of every npc in several positions.

the problem isnt in the system implementation, its its use. over the space of 1 day or maybe 2, people found the same guy and wrote down his /loc and all posted. then an extremely overworked POI programmer type just fired them all into the system. and you end up w/ a cluster of 12 of the same three npc's.

another issue i see is the non-necessity to POI every NPC in every city section. some of them give quests yes. but i have no wish to see a POI for Blort the weaponsmith in big bend. there are guards in game that give perfectly good wp for NPC's.

perhaps categorizing and filtering submissions of every "guard #2" ingame is a bit overzealous. there's just too much grey area for people to sift through, this quest but not this.. this funny tree but not this crooked rock. I just cant begin to imagine the paramaters really. but right off the bat id say 3/4 of every in-city poi need to go.

The main question to look at i think is what's the purpose of the map mod.

if its to list and categorize every quest and every npc and every special location in-game. then yes, the total focus needs to be on how to represent them on the map, and make them logically selectable and readable. (to include mulitple overlays for quest, npc, raid, lvl requiremnts, quest start, quest checkpoint, a zoom feature, and/or significant symbology changes.)

but if the point is only to increase the overal intuitiveness of existing maps, and install dungeon maps where there were none... then that's a whole different issue.

Perhaps limiting the mission statement slightly, or generating one at all, will increase the focus and effectiveness for your efforts. It seems to me you've [well we've, i helped plot a map :)] got an abundance of motivation and effort and teamwork, w/ no solid goal in mind.

i agree that there are probably some pois that are not necessary, however there needs to be a way to do clusters because there are places where there are clusters that have different things, all of which are relevant.

a good try on filtering. Try making separate pages within each icon page. Each page will contain different POI types. One for mobs, one for npcs, etc. Then have a few checkboxes. When you uncheck [_]Mobs all the mob dots (the mob icon page) are hidden.

I have a solution in the works for filtering POI types. Will be really nice once I get it finished up (on the XML side) and implemented with taco-man or Eloa (there's some website auto-generated code that'll be needed).

Quib

/cheer Quib

I swear, the community here never ceases to amaze me with the ingenuity of its members. :D Keep up the great work.