Mapping

[JonD]

Assuming that others find it as irritating as I do when wilderness map progress is lost (I know there's probably a good reason for it, but that doesn't stop it being irritating), I have a suggestion. The Explorer Locations already found in an area are tracked by the game, and it is possible to flag an area's map as being fully visible (e.g. The Marketplace); so when a character has found all of the Explorer Locations in an area then the game could flag that character as being able to view the entire map for that area (i.e. the character has explored the place enough that they know it inside-out).

Admittedly, until all of the Explorer Locations are found the irritating disappearance of map progress will still occur, but that means being able to view the entire map is a decent incentive for tracking down the Explorer Locations (rather than the small amount of xp currently given for finding them all).

Am I missing something or does this appear workable?

<braces self for ridicule>

[Silverwren]

I seem to remember this subject coming up once or twice before. I think the reason had to do with the server and performance issues, which is why you only get the "fog of war" cleared from the last three instances you've done, be they quests or wilderness areas.

It would be great if they could do as you suggest without adding to the already severe lag we've all had to deal with during the past few weeks. I think the devs have got larger fish to land, gut, and fry though.

[somenewnoob]

Idea comes up every once in awhile, and as always I will say

/SIGNED

I'm one of those go everywhere, see everything type players and the wilderness map resets annoy me to no end.

[Ganolyn]

If they had the map saved client side instead of server side it would only call up the map you were on and not take resources to to save millions of duplicate maps.

[dotHackSign]

I'd like to suggest something slightly different. The map behaves as is it does now, until you get all the explorer points. Then when you come into the area instead of the locations being blacked out as they are now, the map is covered with a translucent gray that lets you see everything but still lets you track your progress through the area if you need to... you know in case you have to park your toon for lunch or something.

[JonD]

I seem to remember this subject coming up once or twice before.

Ah, sorry about that - I did try searching for "map" and "mapping" and so on in the forum and nothing similar came up as far as I could see.

I think the reason had to do with the server and performance issues, which is why you only get the "fog of war" cleared from the last three instances you've done, be they quests or wilderness areas.

Implementing this idea wouldn't increase the server load, though. The "last three instances" for which the server was keeping track of the "fog of war" simply wouldn't include the wilderness areas where all of the Explorer Locations had been found. At the extreme of a character having found all of the Explorer Locations in all areas, it may actually reduce the load as the server would only need to track the "fog of war" for quests, which are arguably smaller than the "fog of war" for wilderness areas.

Having searched for threads involving mapping and server issues, the only ones I find are in relation to requests that the "fog of war" be tracked for longer (i.e. more instances). This is not the same thing at all.

I think the devs have got larger fish to land, gut, and fry though.

Yes, but that's always going to be true, it doesn't mean the less important stuff should get ignored.