Let's Talk About Hickory Branch

For the record I dispute that - the size and location of the clickable buttons are seperate to the .tgas you see on screen.

That part I dare say you are right about.

You're a GENIUS! I've said it before, you've got the crafty mind of a modder H_K, you're wasting your time on graphics We should do EXACTLY that.

But lets not get carried away - one extra spot will do it I think

 

That does sound like a great idea, and I agree HK is one of the smarter guys around. (He just disguises it by using that second language ruse. )

Does anybody know how to actually do that? The button would have to be moved down to the HB location. Just asking - I'm sure Ted moved the KotB buttons around that way.

Verbo does just fine as that 'it's over there' thing, but it would be nice to have a real spot for HB 2 (It Came From Welkwood) too. Maybe steal the broken tower for that. As HK says, it's easy to get there from next door.

 

Don't forget, people can always click on the side list to get to those places if they desperately need to.

One hiccup - we can't do the red-dot paths - the Temple surrounds maps use the Temples paths. :sadblinky

Otherwise its all quite easy (since neither of these maps has much in the way of attachments).

Swap the names in data/mes/mapnames and data / mes / worldmap_location_names_text.mes

Swap the relevant lines in modules/co8 5.0.0/rules/maplist

Swap the folder numbers for the townmaps.

Change the locations in jumppoint.tab for going to and from the Temple map, and going to and from the Crypt below HB.

Move the button.

Change whatever it is that marks HB on your map from area 15 to area 12

Thats about it.

 

One other thing I had thought of along these lines before (though I didn't actully 'have the idea'): the Deklo Grove.

Meleny is said to 'sneak away' there from time to time, yet by the world map it's further away from Hommlet than the Moathouse. Does she really trudge the 6 hours or so one way to get there, her absence all the while unnoticed? Maybe the Deklo Grove should actually be quite near Hommlet - so near that you could get there via a door icon on the outskirts of town, say - and then HB or Welkwood could become the Deklo Grove on the world map, complete with red dots.

Or maybe Deklo could become Hommlet east. Or Welkwood could. Or maybe we're getting too carried away?

It just seems a bit superfluous to have multiple worldmap locations for single destinations when there are others that could make better use of them, especially given the fact that in Hommlet now you can get wherever you want to go in a snap through the signpost.

Thinking out loud ... Hommlet could remain Hommlet west (WW jump point location - right next to the signpost); Deklo could become Hommlet north (same general direction); Welkwood could become Hommlet east; HB could become the old Deklo. Plus there's the two extra temple spots to put stuff that might fit in up there, such as AoH or that kind of thing.

Interesting possibilities ...

The only thing we'd have to worry about is the hard-habit-to-break people who would say "Co8 sucks! They got rid of the Deklo Grove!"

[edit]

Sorry if I seem overly excited about this, but I think we're really on to something. Another possible change that would make sense is moving the ogre cave to one of the temple locations. I think Alrrem says the cave is "nearby," which it really isn't in its current location. Then something unrelated could go where the ogre cave is.

[edit 2]

Like so:

I wonder, does the module say where places like Emridy Meadows etc. are specifically?

 

Thanks fellers. The reason I'm inquring about Emridy Meadows specifically is that, if we wanted to be complete on the clickable buttons thing, and if the module didn't say exactly which hex EM was in, we could use that location for Verbobonc on the worldmap instead. I know that Verbo's actually far NW of that, but it could say 'to Verbobonc' with an arrow or something like that, just so that it's clickable. Then maybe move Emridy down to the Deklo grove site (it currently seems like an unlikely place for the 'ultimate battle of good vs. evil' anyway, not particularly near Hommlet or the ToEE), and move HB to the other open temple slot, being as HB is supposed to be in the Gnarley Forest after all.

At a glance this all seems like unnecesary maneuvering, or fiddling around for fiddling around's sake, but I do seriously think that we could make some dramatic improvements with this. People still get confused about the worldmap locations of HB and Verbo because they can't click them and there are no icons. We could dismiss that problem and the dots problem in one fell swoop just by more intelligently using the resources that are already there. And our custom stuff would finally look fully-integrated.

 

Well, I would say we leave that one alone, being as there's really not anything else we need to put up there. Plus, I think geographically Imeryd's Run is supposed to be up the river.

I've been wondering about thar whole scenario. Specifically I sort of wish that the location wasn't so far away. You'd think that if players were going all the way up there early on, they'd soon stumble over Nulb too. Likewise with Emridy Meadows. We'll have to think about all that.

btw, I see now that HK already thought of everything I posted above recently, so sorry if it seemed like I was stealing your ideas. :blush:

[edit]

Here's another possibility:

(Can we trade the icons around, btw?)

 

I personally suspect that most people don't have the worldmap memorized and might not even notice the changes, tbh. What they'd be more likely to notice is that our new stuff doesn't have the appearance of being hacked in anymore. :yes:

 

The icons can be swapped around quite easily - swapping them over in art\interface\WORLDMAP_UI\0_worldmap_ui_textures.mes should do it.