This post originally started as a reply to the following, but expanded so I decided to make it it's own thread:
Quote:
Originally Posted by gm9
I think we should wait how SOE will implement the POI filtering. Depending on their solution it may make more sense to simply put "discovery XP" or something like that in the POI description (some have that already anyway, you can search for it) and hopefully the filtering will show only the search results.
Otherwise we may think of adding a new POI type, but the problem is that many discovery locs are also quest update locs and then you can discuss which is the correct type to choose (we already have this issue with Named mobs, some people now enter them as quest updates, which of course many of them are).
Drago I'll already note you as volunteer to update all the POIs one way or another.  We could use some POI mods anyway to weed out the many dupes or otherwise bad POIs. |
Amen, GM9. I see so very many POIs that are miscategorized, duplicates, or just plain don't belong. I try to whack them as I find them, but the current system is somewhat... cumbersome to fix a POI. It takes 3 form submissions to finally mark it bad once you're at it's page (which takes another form submission of the number). Have to change multiple things? 3 more submissions per thing. But anyway, you could consider me a volunteer to help update POIs as well.
Also, out of curiosity: Is there an "official"
posted policy for random "!" spawns and other POI types? I can see the page icon for specific ones (like those used in the 3 RoK language books) but for random collection !'s they just clutter up the map to me. I see on the POI submission/update that it says only Fixed location ones, but there are still plenty of random ones as well
I think that is one major source of confusion. What are the guidelines to choose whether to use one icon type or another, now that there are so many types. What's the difference between a "Door" and a "Zone" type? And I assume "Overland" is supposed to be EQ1-style zonings (i.e. location activated zonings, not clicks) and yet I see them used plenty of places where you have to physically click. Users submitting POIs are given a huge list to choose from, and with only short (sometimes unclear) guidelines for when to use each it's not surprising to me that so many are inconsistently labeled. Do keep in mind this isn't a rant against you folks that work on EQ2MAP, just a suggestion for improvement. You can even consider that me volunteering to help out if you'd like me to help =).
Some examples of possible simplification would be... Change the green/red doors to be "Zone" and "Instance" respectively. Thus any Green door would correspond to a click-to-zone (i.e. the gates into NQ from Antonica, for example) while any Red door would be a zone in to an instance (heroic OR raid, just so long as it is an instanced zone). Another one is the bevy of quest start/update options... which become an issue for NPCs that both offer and update quests. I think the descriptions for those are pretty well done, but I think there might be a more simpler way if the submit page defaulted to a simpler one that asked questions to determine the type.
What I mean by that, is it would first ask you what you are submitting: An NPC, a clickable object, a Zone, etc. And then based on that it would ask another question (done via some pretty simple Javascript) until it determines the exact POI type for the user. That would have the benefit of not requiring so many pageloads to submit one POI Keep the old method, and perhaps give logged-in users an option to use the advanced (current). I could probably whip up a demonstration of what I mean this weekend on my personal site.
Let me know your thoughts on that, folks. I willing to back my suggestions with code, and discuss this stuff further =)