Choose Your Language

Tuesday 4 November 2008

Map Pins Have A Future?

In the last post you may recall that I managed to work a system that enabled a player to use my own version of "map pins" within NWN2. As I built this system, I was in contact with Sunjammer via the Bioware forums (website added to the website links), who gave this response when I asked him about the possibility of using existing NWN code for map pins in NWN2:

"It isn't possible at this point. In NWN1 when you clicked on the map the client sent the information to the server so the map pin was displayed immediately. In NWN2 all we are doing is creating the underlying variables and there is no message being sent to the server that tells it to create the corresponding map pin ... until the client enters the new area. However I have it on good authority that a) the code still exists in NWN2 and b) it would be very easy to create a UI callback to send the appropriate message to the server. Consequently I'm submitting a feature request to Rob & Rich.Hopefully it can be included in v1.22 (v1.20 is SoZ, v1.21 is the "day 1" patch for SoZ, v1.22 will be the first normal patch after SoZ)."

So, basically, if Obsidian are able to make this UI callback available to us, then I guess the idea of including map pins for area maps will become available to us once again. And if they do, then it would be a great honour to say that it all started here, and thanks to Sunjammer, may become a salvaged system to replace the method I currently have in place. Here's hoping ...

4 comments:

EC said...

You're talking about player placed map pins? That would be phenomenal!

What's next? Fog of war? ;)

Lance Botelle (Bard of Althéa) said...

Hi E.C. Patterson,

Thanks for dropping by. :)

Yep! Those are the ones! :)

As I say in my previous post, a lot of the map pin code is still in NWN2 (from NWN1 code), and I have managed to add a map pin version of my own using it. However, if Obsidian are able to add the UI callback, then there is no reason why we should not see them back in their original format in a future patch.

Lance.

Anonymous said...

This is great news for NWN2! :)

Player-made map pins are sorely missed. And, just like E.C says, a fully functional fog of war as well.

Indira

Lance Botelle (Bard of Althéa) said...

Hi Indira,

Good to see you drop by too. :)

I agree that the fog of war would be a great addition to the mapping system. When my friend and I play, we are very frustrated by the fact that we get the whole map before we have even started exploring.

Surely it would not be that difficult for then to implement ... would it?

Lance.