Topic: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future

[snesmaster]

The transparent labels look nice, but depending on the game and number of colors in the image it can make the file size much larger, especially if it brings it up over 256 colors so it can no longer be indexed.  However with faster bandwidth, and unlimited space on web servers it's not as much of a big deal as it used to be.

[FlyingArmor]

Here's an brief update from me.

I've started mapping Lennus II again, finally finishing off the Andel region maps and beginning the Eltz ones. I just managed to complete the Eltz overworld today, one of the three overworld maps this game has. It was a bit of a pain piecing it all together, what with having to separate all the elements into five layers, but the end result was definitely worth the effort.

The next few towns (the Slums, Gloucester, etc.) are gonna be hellish to map, seeing as how they have so many buildings in each one. I'll just take my time with these. I'm in no rush anyway.

I also finally finished playing the game in English (after not touching it for a couple of years). It sure has quite the ending! Though I wasn't too enthralled with how the script was handled by the translation team. It seemed too goofy and comical for my liking and didn't fit the setting of the game at all. I plan on playing the game again in Japanese just so I can see how the script actually reads.

I noticed when I was mapping Dank that Farus launches into a soliloquy all of the sudden after obtaining a key item. However that same dialogue is completely absent from the Japanese version. Farus seems to talk quite a bit throughout the game, which I suspect I won't find when I play through it in Japanese. It looks like the translation team took a bit too much license with their localization.

I find it a bit funny how the first line in the readme to the patch states: "Lennus-II is written for a mature, educated audience." Well, it certainly doesn't read as such, at least to me anyway.

[FlyingArmor]

Tonight as I was playing Lennus (aka Paladin's Quest), I managed to stumble upon two hidden items I hadn't found before. They can be found in Misuto behind the egg to the weapons and armor store. I've attached a picture so you guys can see where they are exactly. When I took away the foreground layer, all I found was some tree roots; strange. Quite the interesting find to say the least.

In other news, I might as well mention that three new Lennus II maps were put up on the site about two weeks ago: Slums, Gabana Mine, and Resolute. Haven't been working on anything else since then though. Maybe that find in Paladin's Quest will get me to finish off revising the rest of the maps that still need revision.

[Trop]

You're not that far from done in Lennus II.

[FlyingArmor]

You're not that far from done in Lennus II.

If you take out the words "not that", then that statement would be far more accurate.

I think I was avoiding work on mapping Lennus II due to the sheer amount of work that Gloucester would entail. But I've come up with a nice solution to that problem. I'm going to split the entire town into four maps, one for each district. It's kind of nice that the town can be split up cleanly like that.

For those who would like to see some progress, I've attached the image of the First Precinct. That's all I got so far of Gloucester, but at least I'm one quarter of the way there.

[FlyingArmor]

Since my last update, I've gotten over 25 more Lennus II maps finished, including all those pesky mega towns in the Nigel "belt" area. I'm so glad all those are out of the way.

So the grand total thus far is 51. There's still about 30 more maps left to work on, so I still got a ways to go before I can call this project complete. There's three more maps left in Eltz (Jill Island, Zorban's Belly, and Gravity Tower) and once those're done, I'll be able to finally move on to Lennus.

[Trop]

See, that wasn't as hard as you thought it would be was it?  You're doing great.

[FlyingArmor]

Heheh, true. Once I actually got down to mapping those mega towns (Gloucester especially), it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it'd be. I must've imagined them being much bigger and more extensive when I first played through the game years ago.

Splitting Gloucester up was definitely a good call I think. I would've probably been completely overwhelmed if I had to fit all those interiors into one huge map! And even if I did that, it might've not been all that helpful to people viewing it for reference.

[Trop]

Ha!  I might have tried one huge one.  I remember I thought the same thing when I was doing DKC2.  I was sure I couldn't get through it but then you find yourself standing on top of the mountain wondering how you got there.

[FlyingArmor]

I'm happy to announce that I am finally finished with mapping Lennus II. The remaining maps should be up on the site whenever it pleases Jon to do so.

Now, whether or not this is a complete map set, I am not completely sure since the in-game maps seem to indicate other areas existing on certain islands in Eltz and Lennus (the ring of mountains in the southwest corner of Eltz, for example, seem especially suspicious). Try as I may however, there seems to be nothing there. I surmise that other areas were planned to exist, but were cut out altogether due to impending deadlines, but if anyone knows otherwise, I'd love to know.

[FlyingArmor]

Now that one major RPG mapping project is over and done with, I'm moving on to another! Dragon Quest V (SFC) will be my next project. I have nearly all of the mapping done for it, having done most of it late last year.

I had said that I was going to label them with the Japanese names rather than the English ones, but I changed my mind on that. Having tried labelling the maps in English, I have to say that they don't look all that bad. Even when it comes to the longer item name labels, they're not nearly as obtrusive as I had thought they would be. There will be some maps where I will need to resort to using a treasure legend (due to multiple chests being clustered together), but for the most part that shouldn't be a common occurrence.

If all goes well, I should be able to get most if not all of the maps done before the end of this month.

[FlyingArmor]

So I finished mapping Dragon Quest V a little while ago. So while I'm in the Dragon Quest mood, I thought I'd tackle Dragon Quest I & II on the SNES. I just finished playing the first game yesterday, and I'm somewhere in the middle of the second.

I don't know about anyone else, but I feel that the gameplay progresses so much more quickly with the SNES iterations as opposed to the original NES ones. When I had played the first Dragon Quest on the NES for example, the game just felt like it dragged on forever and ever. But with the SNES version, I was done in about 15 hours over a three day period.

Besides that, I've got an "undercover" project I'm working on at the moment. I don't want to disclose it just yet, but once I've got a fair number of maps done for it, I'll make an announcement here.

[FlyingArmor]

I finished mapping Dragon Quest I a few days ago, and since I just finished playing Dragon Quest II yesterday, my attention has shifted to that. I've found this game compilation to be surprisingly easy to map; a nice break from the frustrating juggernaut that was Lennus II! If things go well, I should be done with it fairly soon.

[FlyingArmor]

These past few days I finally got around to finishing off my revisions for the Paladin's Quest maps. Now they're all uniform in style, and include many item labels that weren't present in the original maps. I think I covered all the areas that have items to discover, so it's probably safe to say this map set is now truly complete.

As for Dragon Quest II, I got about two or three areas left to map, so once those are done, that project will be complete as well.

[FlyingArmor]

Alright, now that mapping Dragon Quest I & II is all done with, onto another project!

Although I had only intended to work with the Japanese version, I talked with Jon yesterday and he insisted I also work on the North American version as well. So it looks like I'll have my hands full with Final Fantasy IV (SNES) and its English counterpart for the next little while.

As far as progress goes, I'm already about three quarters of the way done with the raw mapping, so it won't be long before you start seeing them. I'll go ahead and attach a few examples of the approach I'll be taking (at least as far as the Japanese ones are concerned).

I decided to use a legend for the items in chests and pots, etc. like I did with Final Fantasy VI. It will include the Japanese name, then its translation into English, like so:

01 ポーション　Potion
02 きんのはり Golden Needle
03　フェニックスのお Phoenix Down
04 ... etc.

In terms of order of release, I'll be starting with the Japanese versions, then afterwards work upon the North American ones, tweaking them and/or redoing them to reflect the changes that were made when the game crossed the Pacific Ocean.

There are quite a number of changes between both versions such as: rearranging sections of towns, tweaking of colour palettes, restructuring certain features in dungeons, being able to see the hidden passageways, changing the appearances of treasure chests/save points, and so on. I thought it would be interesting for people to compare both versions and see these changes first hand.

Jon brought up the idea of toggling between both versions of each map back and forth and witnessing where the changes occur, and that would work for many of the maps where everything will be in the exact same place, but for those that have buildings added in or taken away, the toggling won't end up being quite as clean as one would like, but it'd still show more or less some of the more drastic changes that were made.

Anyway, that's all for now!