Maps and Moving On

[Dorugami]

A few threads ago, I would still use maps to roam around, plotting my course. When I came to marking them, some of the more outspoken members on this forum reacted negatively to it. Naturally, I know I still cling to a lot of vMC tradition and in a sense am only just learning how to play BTW.

So I took a crack at hunting without maps and only a compass on me, marching forward towards a swamp 2k blocks away for some witch warts and slime balls. It was a fairly vibrant hike, I tend to notice a lot more of the environment. I wandered around, confident that I was still tied to safety with my compass. I enjoyed the trip there and back, and the broken chains of not constantly checking my location gave a rather uplifting freedom to my trips outside the safety of my walls.

Although I still use a level 1 map to plot out my village, I think I'll leave behind the big maps in my home when I do another expedition.

[ion]

i map everything and it's a quest that i really enjoy doing it.

[Kazuya Mishima]

some of the more outspoken members on this forum reacted negatively to it.

What !? Why ? Maps are a survival tool and one way or another humans are mapping an environment with their brains. The map is simply a memory tool so you don't need to depend on your memory to recall certain geographical features. I don't see how they are any different really than putting signs over your chests that tell you what is inside.

I'm not sure how you are navigating with maps but blindly walking forward and simply relying on a map for input about the world is pretty useful until you fall into a ravine or a deep hole you didn't notice because you were using your map like a smartphone mesmerized pedestrian. New terrain generation always fascinated me and i never feel like i am in a rush in MC.

In fact the only time i pretty much totally ignore the scenery is first night in BTW, all i see are trees, animals(food),wolves, and jungles.

[FlowerChild]

What !? Why ? Maps are a survival tool and one way or another humans are mapping an environment with their brains. The map is simply a memory tool so you don't need to depend on your memory to recall certain geographical features. I don't see how they are any different really than putting signs over your chests that tell you what is inside.

The usual. "Magic GPS".

They aren't really maps as much as they're some kind of in-flight navigation system.

[Mud]

I'd be more prone to using them if my current location weren't visible on them. As FC stated, they're more like GSPs disguised as maps

[Kazuya Mishima]

Oh yeah the little GPS dot is definitely a cheaty thing and makes me long for some sort of system of triangulation. I was more concerned preserving some record of uncovered terrain as i find that information useful for reference. Though in another sense maps are cheaty because Steves cartographic accuracy is 100% when translating the information from the world to the paper.

[Dorugami]

What !? Why ? Maps are a survival tool and one way or another humans are mapping an environment with their brains. The map is simply a memory tool so you don't need to depend on your memory to recall certain geographical features. I don't see how they are any different really than putting signs over your chests that tell you what is inside.

I'm not sure how you are navigating with maps but blindly walking forward and simply relying on a map for input about the world is pretty useful until you fall into a ravine or a deep hole you didn't notice because you were using your map like a smartphone mesmerized pedestrian. New terrain generation always fascinated me and i never feel like i am in a rush in MC.

In fact the only time i pretty much totally ignore the scenery is first night in BTW, all i see are trees, animals(food),wolves, and jungles.

I could get behind mapping out terrain generation too, if you couldn't actually see the map on anything but an immobile/non transportable surface like the wall in my house, that way I wouldn't be tempted to use it constantly. The way the map works is you can't map out anything without constantly holding it, which is what I used it mostly for, causing you to ignore a lot of your surroundings like what you said: a smartphone mesmerized pedestrian :p

Not relying on maps offered a lot of surprises to the trail-hike, I liked it quite a bit, like finding a large patch of mushrooms and two witch huts I missed and couldn't be seen on my map, but was visible once I paid more attention to my surroundings. It also made me think about planting some very visible landmarks or notching trees in the vicinity to tell me where specific areas of interest are, which is something I wouldn't have considered otherwise.

[dawnraider]

Honestly, I have never made a map. I don't think that they are worth it considering their exploity nature, especially in vMC. Even if they did work perfectly, I would still not use it as I like to just rely on memory for exploration (I have a fantastic sense of direction, which I know some people don't), but I wouldn't have an issue with them. It would be cool, though, to have a map of the area mounted on a wall in my base somewhere, but I won't touch maps with a ten foot pole as they are, just because they don't seem worth it, and because of the magic GPS thing.

[agentwiggles]

I briefly tried hand drawing maps on graph paper, just basically attempting to mark biome intersections (so that I could say "oh I'm at this border between a desert and a jungle, if I go north thru the desert I can get back to base" or the like.)

I couldn't really get into making them much better than just a series of blobs, but if you wanted to do some more careful distance estimations, i think you could come up with some fairly functional hand drawn maps, which would be way cooler than the in-game ones and would still be useful without having GPS functionality - not to mention would have a more realistic amount of effort in their construction.

[Dorugami]

I briefly tried hand drawing maps on graph paper, just basically attempting to mark biome intersections (so that I could say "oh I'm at this border between a desert and a jungle, if I go north thru the desert I can get back to base" or the like.)

I couldn't really get into making them much better than just a series of blobs, but if you wanted to do some more careful distance estimations, i think you could come up with some fairly functional hand drawn maps, which would be way cooler than the in-game ones and would still be useful without having GPS functionality - not to mention would have a more realistic amount of effort in their construction.

The amount of effort taken would really go a long ways for immersion...but man, some people suck at cartography (especially me). Drawing anything that resembles a map is way beyond my artistic talents XD

[Mesh]

Personally I don't really see a map much more "cheaty" than a compass. Now I wouldn't miss that little arrow marking my location if it were ever removed, but as far as it being cheating, I see no difference from an arrow showing me my location on a map, than a compass pointing me in the precise direction of my spawn. Both of them yield the same results.

Now that I think about it though, without the arrow marking my location, tiling maps together would be pretty much impossible :/ I use max zoomed out maps to give me an overview of my surrounding biomes, and I use the zoomed in ones because they look cool when tiled together using the item frame display addon from this forum. I love maps, it's an extra part of the game and for me, an additional activity to map out my surroundings

[FlowerChild]

Now I wouldn't miss that little arrow marking my location if it were ever removed, but as far as it being cheating, I see no difference from an arrow showing me my location on a map, than a compass pointing me in the precise direction of my spawn. Both of them yield the same results.

Ummmm...wow.

Ok, thanks for the lol. The brain spasm the above caused was not entirely unpleasant :)

[FlowerChild]

Actually, this conversation has really highlighted something for me:

I've been largely trying to pretend maps don't exist. I never would have built them into the game as is, yet I've been unwilling to remove them knowing how attached people are to them decoratively.

I think I need to stop doing that, accept they're in the game to stay, and adjust the recipe to fit the functionality.

Really, I think the big disconnect for me (and I suspect others) is that there's no internal justification for why they do what they do. The ingredients are distinctly mundane, while the functionality is so high tech as to be distinctly magical within the context of MC.

I'll fix that up. I doubt I'll get them to the point where I'll want to use them myself, but I can at least reduce the problem with them, and do so quite easily.

[Dorugami]

Cool, one of my threads actually had some use instead of earning me a warning. Guess I'll do a celebratory lap-dance and break out the Nutella. Looking forward to your version of maps FC.

[VegasGoat]

The "magic GPS" thing does seem cheaty. I sill use them, but I always justified it to myself that since the recipe used a compass, that Steve was just using compass readings to figure out where he was while making the map, like how we can triangulate manually with the compass. Steve is obviously a smart guy. I think needing to hold the map for it to work plays into this, Steve's hands are full with using the compass and marking up the map.

Personally, I'm not a fan of needing to use pen & paper while playing a video game. My hands are already full with the controls, and I don't usually have a flat surface readily available for it (the mouse and keyboard are already there). I'd rather the game provide the tools for things like that.

An interesting example (to me at least) is a game called Etrian Odyssey. It's a dungeon crawler on the Nintendo DS, but instead of automatically creating the minimap while you play, you have to use the touch screen to create your own map as you explore. So the game partially provides the functionality, and helps you out by providing the grid instead of making you do it freehand.

Anyway, it'll be interesting to see what happens with maps. I do enjoy the gameplay aspect of needing to make markers and roads to not get lost.

[jkievlan]

I find maps occasionally useful, specifically to keep track of how many jungles/deserts are near my nether portal, and in which directions, so I know when I've searched them all. I agree with others here that the GPS arrow is very "cheaty" and I wouldn't be at all upset if it went away. However, they're a useful terrain-recording device.

I could do the same thing with a piece of paper and a pen, but I tend to lose paper :)

[Ribky]

My maps are wall decorations. Period.

I do "quest" to fill them in... but only so they look sexy.

[nmarshall23]

My maps are wall decorations. Period.

I do "quest" to fill them in... but only so they look sexy.

Yup, same here, I have a wall of maps that helps me conceptualize, were I should build rest stops.. ^H^H safehouses on my roads.

[DiamondArms]

Not a map user, though I took an old one out of storage to figure out how it worked(I didn't know how zoom works until today). I mapped out my small island and left the map in an item frame. It's not convenient enough to bother with, in my opinion. You lose sight of the trees for the forest.