Split maps and a bit more magic
Congrats everyone. If I was a quest NPC, I would give you a reward. Alas, I am not. So how about some more details:
For most of Beta, people may remember, EQ2 only had maps for the cities. The additional maps for Antonica/Commonlands/etc are encrypted and map icons are sent down from the server (along with the fog settings.) We wanted characters to have to explore to discover these regions. Nothing however should prevent you from adding your own versions of the images/locations -- you'll just need to find the name and zonerect. I suspect the fog will reset itself if you change the ZoneRect though.
Sidebar: Calculating the zonerect if fairly simple if you know the /loc and map pixel location for two places on the map (as far apart as possible in x & y). I'll leave that up to the reader. "Ratios are your friends."
Added at the same time was the ability to split maps. It's actually much more complex than that -- and I don't think I left any examples in the XML -- so here are the two additional map properties:
AvailableRect (x1,y1,x2,y2) -- similar to ZoneRect except it specifies the zone area (current location) when this map should be displayed. This defaults to ZoneRect. Overlapping split maps (Antonica/Commonlands) set the shared edge to the point you want to switch to the second map. This allows the maps to switch without moving all the way to the edge.
AvailablePriority (n) -- sets a priority for a map if more than one map has an AvailableRect that contains the current position. This defaults to 0. Lower numbers get preference. The current map is used if there is a tie. This allows detailed maps to be displayed for subsections.
For example: You could break Antonica up into 6 individual maps. Or one overall map with details maps if you travel within an area. Or...
For instance (with fake numbers):
MapStyles
qey_south_0
zonerect -200,-200,200,200
AvailableRect -200,-200,150,200
AvilablePriority 2
qey_south_1
zonerect 100,-200,500,200
AvailableRect 150,-200,500,200
AvailablePriority 2
qey_south_2
zoneRect -50,-50,50,50
AvailablePriority 1
If you are within the zoneRect of qey_south_2 that map will be drawn
based on priority. Otherwise it will pick from south_0 and south_1 appropriately. Note the _N attached to the zone names forn multiple maps.
And as correctly pointed out, the maps currently do not support changing on the Z axis.
I hope that helps.
MrBobble
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