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MAPPING CONTEST 2K3

Posts

Versalia
must be all that rtp in your diet
1405
Arcan: Square square square square ...

... but I like that you made it seem more like an urban fortress-city with canals than LOL A GIANT CASTLE. Makes me think of Venezia in Tales of Phantasia, a little bit
arcan
Having a signature is too mainstream. I'm not part of your system!
1866
come at me bro
Ah what the hell, I'll give this a go. Here's my map.

Looking at yours, SGCN, it just occurred to me that those red-orange tiles are actually roof tiles. I thought they were a floor tile.

I must have different sensibilities, because when I look at Blindmind's I just see randomly placed tiles. He has a pillar growing out of the middle of a path. Ruins still have structure to them, they're just ruined.
I've seen so very many wrongly-used or wrongly-placed tiles in this thread.

That is all I'll say.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Everyone seems to think this tileset makes a great lakebed castle. So I made a wasteland fortress. The lack of cliff tiles was a problem, but I made do. Inspired by some combination of Hellfire Ramparts and Helm's Deep.

author=Jude
I must have different sensibilities, because when I look at Blindmind's I just see randomly placed tiles. He has a pillar growing out of the middle of a path. Ruins still have structure to them, they're just ruined.
To me there is no rigid 'criteria' for using tiles, with some obvious exceptions. I focus on simply aesthetic value above anything else. I understand that's not everyone's thing, though. Sure, I could have painstakingly emulated the style of the original DQ (?) source material, but I made a conscious choice not to.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
I don't think he meant you used tiles to represent the wrong things, but rather that you had things in places that didn't make sense. I'm kind of used to seeing that in ruins-type areas - pillars in places they have no right to be - and generally assume it's because the walls that made them make sense have crumbled into dust. But it depends how much of the rest of the ruin is intact, I guess.

As an aside, this contest was way quicker to do than the last one. Because I didn't have to labor over creating my own custom tileset.
harmonic
It's like toothpicks against a tank
4142
author=Blindmind
I haaate this tile-set. Oh well.



If there's one thing Blind does well, it's mapping.

In general, this map has the most unified artistic vision of them all, and has a good theme and feng shui. The castle itself is attractive, and the structure of the place, in general, makes sense. There is some randomness, but that is a good thing.

I have several picky complaints though. It feels like BM is kind of out of practice, since there are several misuses of the tiles. The top right pillar has no bottom lip to the top rampart, the short twin pillars have a funky base and a mysterious floating buttress on the right side. Also, the 3-tile-rule rears its ugly head again. Although I like the randomness in general, I think the "tile puke" thing happening on the floor could be cleaned up a bit so that it's easier to navigate. Natural randomness is clumpy and pattern-y, not puked out sporadically.
author=Ocean
http://vgmaps.com/Atlas/SuperNES/DragonQuestIII(J)-Romaly.pngThe original map (Some pieces might have been taken from other DQ3 areas) if anyone is curious.

Missed this. Thanks for sharing, Ocean. I've never played the SNES remake of DQ3 before, but the NES and GBC ones were excellent. It looks like our tile set is missing a few pieces or are not positioned correctly (for example, we can't place windows on the towers). We're also missing trees, wall shadows, some bits around the doors, and other things. I assume the tile set creator ran out of space to add everything, so it's understandable. Looking at how many people implemented balconies, it would've been nice for that tile to be included at least.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
What's funny is that every single map submitted so far made a better castle than the one in the original game
author=LockeZ
What's funny is that every single map submitted so far made a better castle than the one in the original game
Thanks dude :)
arcan
Having a signature is too mainstream. I'm not part of your system!
1866
Everyone that submitted a map check to make sure I got you are on the list and that the right map was put on the 1st post.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
how does we voting.?
Decky
I'm a dog pirate
19645
4 days left - I might make one.
author=Jude
I must have different sensibilities, because when I look at Blindmind's I just see randomly placed tiles. He has a pillar growing out of the middle of a path. Ruins still have structure to them, they're just ruined.


I couldn't agree with this more. I mean, yes, BlindMind's map LOOKS nice, but it makes no sense past a cursory glance. This style of mapping works well for wilderness areas, but it works less well for areas that somebody would have designed. Like I said, the map is still aesthetically pleasing and I like it, but literally the first thing I noticed was "oh, there's a pillar directly in the middle of that path, that makes no sense".
a path that isn't straight ?? OH MY GOD
Hey thanks for dropping in geodude, insightful commentary as usual, right on the button

Paths tend to stay straight over open ground also they don't tend to change width randomly (as it does when wedged between the short column and the tall one) and blah blah who gives a shit? The point is not that it's IMPOSSIBLE for a column to be in the middle of a path, it's that they are columns strewn about willy nilly everywhere. Have you ever seen a man-made structure where the designer decided it would be a good idea to just erect columns of different types with literally no rhyme or reason?

Again, this isn't some horrible indictment of BlindMind's map; it's got excellent colour balance, the 'weight' of the map is great, and it's appealing to look at if you set aside logic. I was just agreeing with Jude, who I assume like me believes that man-made structures are enhanced by following some sort of (bearing in mind it is a fantasy game made in RM*) vaguely feasible plan. It's what separates wilderness areas from built-up areas. Everything doesn't need to make perfect sense, but I've always appreciated when games blend the real with the fantasy.
it's quite clearly overgrown and the path is covered by the grass; it doesn't 'change sizes', it's just that you can only see parts of it.

also, have you considered that they may be triumphal columns, erected at different times after the main construction?

all it takes is a bit of imagination.