An interesting tidbit in the Rise of Kunark announcement
 

Rise of Kunark, the fourth expansion, was announced at Allakhazam tonight. One interesting UI feature mentioned:

Advanced Mapping System - New full-screen detailed maps and a smaller, always-up mini-map.

Sounds similar to some other popular MMOs to me... but I just wonder if the current map window will remain or be replaced by these two. Would a player need three different types of maps?

I really don't see them supporting the current map system after the release of RoK. Well there still be need for EQ2MAP after RoK, that is yet to be seen. It will depend on what the new map system is capable of doing.

I guess it's time for the EQ2MAP team to get ready for beta!

Sent an email to Scott and he said the map system isn't going to be part of RoK most likely. They are developing the new map system with eq2map in mind. He is going to be out of town for the rest of the week and will talk more later.

Err, not part of RoK meaning every player will get this? That's what I was assuming actually. Or, does he mean it will arrive at a different time than RoK?

A minimap is requested pretty often so I think it's a really good change. Also, most MMO players coming from other games have probably gotten used to this type of UI, so it will ease the transition for them.

With the bigger "zones", they had to do something with the maps. Already in EoF, the scale of the maps is such that you can't see a lot of detail.

Yeah SOE_Bobble was hinting at some changes at the last Fanfair in Atlanta, I plan on going to the Vegas Fanfair in August hopefully I can corner some one there and get more info. Right now as I understand it, they are still in the planning stages and they do have eq2map in mind. I'm guessing it will be similar to where we can have a xml file full of poi's per zone.