[Abandoned] - Welcome to mars!

[pikkio]

really stylish icons!
with that icons i think it isn't necessary to colour the circles. find a colour that pop well and then colour all the circles the same, or at least reduce the colour to a line border.

the legend it's not much clear in my opinion.. in particular i don't like the icons behind the names cause they are totally covered.

[lt_oddball]

really stylish icons!
with that icons i think it isn't necessary to colour the circles.

For me , i like the colours...i'd hate to see them go.

[hecter]

I feel the colours just need to be whiter.

[dolomite13]

.....
Is there going to be a link from Tartarus to perhaps Nepethes? That island is a bottleneck.
I like the overall design.

I believe the map is upside down classic, and that represents the aussie area. Not too many people actually think it is that broken on classic so you have my support to leave it as it is.

I know you want to keep the map to no added bonuses but you might want to consider +1 for holding all 3 cities. It isn't a big bonus but makes people see the cities as part of gameplay and not just eye candy. And who cares if someone gets all 3 on the initial drop, they will surely be targeted in the early game and in the end game 1 army probably wouldn't make that much of a difference. Just my 2 cents worth.

==D

[oaktown]

...or at least reduce the colour to a line border.

Ooh, I like. Gimil thought he might get an update out today, but if not I'll play with the colors.

[whitestazn88]

the castles or whatever they are in the random territs are drawing too much attention to my eyes... lessen the glow?

[thenobodies80]

Hey Oak & Gimil ,

maybe to have circle symbols on the left of names on the legend? (instead they are hidden under names)
i share the "cities" problem. They are too visible without a real gameplay purpose. and maybe they are too big
Army cirlces....i love them! Nice idea! Maybe green, purple and pink are too strong.

[oaktown]

the castles or whatever they are in the random territs are drawing too much attention to my eyes... lessen the glow?

dude, you avatar is drawing too much attention to my eyes!

Gimil was going to do the next update, but I may not have given him enough time before he split for vacation... I'll work on both the circles and the cities in the coming days.

[mibi]

Are you guys for real? This map is a disaster. I am quite shocked that two excellent map makers have arrived as this garbage.

[oaktown]

Are you guys for real? This map is a disaster. I am quite shocked that two excellent map makers have arrived as this garbage.

Well then, I'll just file that one under Posts That Add Nothing to the Discussion.

Is there something in particular that offends you, or is it just a funny feeling that you get, mibi?

[mibi]

Are you guys for real? This map is a disaster. I am quite shocked that two excellent map makers have arrived as this garbage.

Well then, I'll just file that one under Posts That Add Nothing to the Discussion.

Is there something in particular that offends you, or is it just a funny feeling that you get, mibi?

Well let me try to explain this funny feeling.

This map reminds me of that rediculous attempt that Hecter did, some hideously red mars looking thing with text scattered about.

First of all, Mars has water. Which would make sense if you read your thread intro about solar rains, but there is nothing on the map about it. Instead you have something about man harnessing the power of the atom, which if I am not mistaken, we did some 60 years ago. Second of all, it seems to me that there is too much water there for a mars map. When I think mars I think dry, dusty, orange. You would think all that water would affect the atmosphere and the orangeness of it all. I find it hard to believe that once Mars has huge oceans of water it is still a dry, dusty, and orange. Likely with that much water, it's climate and atmosphere would look similar to earths. So what peaks my interest more, in keeping with the mars theme, is that it is still dry, dusty, and orange, because there isn't much water, and its so scares that it is fought over. A precious natural resource delivered by the infrequent solar rains, not some huge dump of pure blue water that covers the entire northern pole.

Second of all, the map really just sucks, graphically. It is quite obvious that you just took a topological map of mars and threw some stuff on it. The stretched out nature of the southern ice cap really looks like crap and doesn't evoke my ideas of mars. It might look good on a science project, but for a game it just doesn't. Further more the distortion and skew of the whole 'sphere turned into a rectangle thing' looks really off. Getting rid of the snop cap altogether might alleviate that. And you know I get that the map is all about mars, but it seems you have these two conflicting ideals going on. One is very detail oriented with the exact topological map of mars and the other is fun and fantasy based with the old school spaceships and the cities of light etc. The problem is, the two don't mix. My suggestion is go the fun route and keep all the little spaceships and such but ditch the topological map of mars. You have already added vast amounts of water to the planet, take it a step further and totally reinvent the map so you are not trying to squeeze the fun out of an unfun map. Trust me, if the map is fantasy based, slightly tounge in cheek, as the spaceships reflect, no one is going to care if the topology doesn't match the latest NASA images. I think people are going to have a hard time conceptualizing and entire planet which is one huge continent if it is rolled out into a rectangle like this one. For all anyone knows, this could just be a small section of coastline somewhere, with a pond.

Third of all, the graphic quality really needs to come up a notch. The soft edges look terrible and the contrast between the land and ocean is so stark and unnatural. The title treatment could use some work, looks pretty squashed and distorted. The iconography looks decent except the cities, which seem random. Is there some bonus attached to those, or are they just distracting eye candy?

Fourth of all, I get that you dig simple maps and such, but it seems like a wasted opportunity here. You have mars, with water, and all these new space civilizations or colonies, spaceships, major cities, but at the end of the day, its just an upsidedown classic. We already have World Cities which has the same gameplay, in addition to two other classic game play maps. What made you guys think it was a good idea to do another one? Why not take the opportunity to make it a classic "evolved" map. One with the same configuration only with a Spice resource, or Tiberium, or with capitals, or teleporters, or solar rain catchers. Anything that would give this map a purpose, because right now its rudderless.

Anyways, I am really surprised that two veteran map makers have managed to come up with a concept and execution that is quite simply, amateurish.

Have a good day.

[lostatlimbo]

I'm not crazy about the recent changes. the city graphics are far too strong for something that has no gameplay purpose. i think you had plenty of decor on this with the ships and alien face compass. the cities are overboard, imo.

i think the colors did plenty to distinguish continents without the shapes, though i do agree they are a tad nicer than simple circles. having one shape per continent (rather than all) and collect all 6 for a bonus, might be interesting. either way, it may help to make reference to the shapes in your map's intro. something about 'warring clans/factions/tribes'? gives it a Mad Max vibe.

however, you've both expressed a desire for a simple, classic gameplay. i agree and i think that the look should mirror that. but for a lack of impassables, i think you guys had this map near perfection circa update 5.

$.02

[hecter]

This map reminds me of that rediculous attempt that Hecter did, some hideously red mars looking thing with text scattered about.

It wasn't that bad...

[oaktown]

With apologies to Hecter, I actually agree with most of what mibi wrote. Some things are easy to fix - such as restoring the line about why there is water on Mars - but the graphics are troubled in many ways. The stretching of the south polar area has bugged me from day 1,and a fix would require either changing up the map projection (not what we want) or doing some teraforming of our own.

But mibi nailed what I think is the biggest problem - that the graphics are clearly the result of two different points of view. Gimil started the map with a satellite image and I wanted it to go retro sci-fi: the two probably don't belong on the same map. Basically, gimil wants to make this:


While I want to make this:


So while I would contend that neither his work nor my work is as bad as mibi suggests, I think we may have the makings of two maps here, not one.

Oooooh... maybe we should split up and actually make two maps, not one. A geographically correct Mars map and a Sci-Fi-Fantastic Martians map. Gimil is away and I'm about to split for a week, so we can discuss this down the road.

[RedBaron0]

There is a lot of things to consider when trying to do this map. First and foremost is the simple fact that Mars in half the size of Earth, so distortion on a flat map is going to be twice as bad, especially at the poles. So perhaps a direction to move in is to have a map this is similar to the picture oaktown posted with the poles rounded off to prevent this.

I agree the scifi angle + natural landscape of Mars map just isn't meshing together well. So perhaps 2 maps may be the way to go. If you go that way my suggestions are:

Natural Mars:
There is almost no natural impassible boundaries. Mars is a vast dessert, a dead world. My suggestion would be to do say one hemisphere (the side with Olympus Mons and Valles Marnieris would be the most recognizable and offers some natural barriers) and work the angle of human exploration, the rovers, and the orbiters mapping the planet. Even throw in the 2 tiny moons of Mars in there, Phobos and Deimos.

Terraformed, Scifi Mars:
The water placement is, in general, correct. The northern hemisphere is a lowland region, where a large body of water would collect. Also the large inland sea is the site of a large impact basin which would also collect water. There is another impact basin in the south that is missing in this map that would offer another fairly large body of water. There would be rivers that have to form from the weather created which should generally flow from the south towards the sea. The stories that could be created are numerous in a science fiction universe here, so go crazy! Oh and just a note, the iron content of the Martian soil (one of the reasons its rust colored in the first place) if leached from the soil due to weathering would turn the color of the seas, green.

[luxCRUSADER]

With apologies to Hecter, I actually agree with most of what mibi wrote. Some things are easy to fix - such as restoring the line about why there is water on Mars - but the graphics are troubled in many ways. The stretching of the south polar area has bugged me from day 1,and a fix would require either changing up the map projection (not what we want) or doing some teraforming of our own.

But mibi nailed what I think is the biggest problem - that the graphics are clearly the result of two different points of view. Gimil started the map with a satellite image and I wanted it to go retro sci-fi: the two probably don't belong on the same map. Basically, gimil wants to make this:


...

So while I would contend that neither his work nor my work is as bad as mibi suggests, I think we may have the makings of two maps here, not one.

Oooooh... maybe we should split up and actually make two maps, not one. A geographically correct Mars map and a Sci-Fi-Fantastic Martians map. Gimil is away and I'm about to split for a week, so we can discuss this down the road.

In short I would rather play on the real map of Mars than what you have to date- to bad you can't work from it somehow ... the map you two have put together hurts my eyes !!! Sorry - its too loud !

But if you work from the real mars photo with the gameplay features you have, I think I would be in ... my humble opinion ...

[hecter]

I like the idea of terraforming your own Mars map to go for the retr-sci fi thing. To the point where having it all grey would be nice.

[icehack]

Oooooh... maybe we should split up and actually make two maps, not one. A geographically correct Mars map and a Sci-Fi-Fantastic Martians map. Gimil is away and I'm about to split for a week, so we can discuss this down the road.

I wholeheartedly support this and would play both Mars maps.

[alex951]

in the description in the last line, is the word destruction or destraction? just a bit hard to read

[sinctheassasin]

Yeah, I would play both.

but nice work so far!

[sinctheassasin]

Did I like, kill the conversation or something???

There hasn't been an update in a while, and I really don't want to see this go down the drain, you two put so much work in this.

I think there is definatly enough interest. You guys have the most views in the draft room ( my map is trailing in second by 200, watch out )

I hope to see this map avoid vacation land, and even though I admit to not knowing chickenshit about mapmaking, I know you two can do it!
that was a great speach

Good luck guys

[thenobodies80]

[Moved]

It would appear that development of this map has stalled. If the mapmaker wants to continue with the map, then one of the Foundry Moderators will be able to help put the thread back into the Foundry system, after an update has been made.