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[Area Maps] Make Baldur's Gate one large area

DeeDee Member Posts: 10,447
One of the most annoying things about the city of Baldur's Gate is the fact that it's arbitrarily divided into nine sections. In 1998, this was because it would have been too big to support all at once; but today, there's no reason why the game couldn't handle it.

I'm proposing that the nine maps of Baldur's Gate be merged into a single super-map.

It would require some renaming of areas and the relevant spots in each, but I think it would be worth it.
elminsterajwzAnton[Deleted User]IecerintAkerhonAedanJuliusBorisovDJKajuru

Comments

  • kybishopkybishop Member Posts: 4
    You'd rather a larger city map than fast travel? Is it really all that inconvenient to see a blip of a loading screen between areas?
  • elminsterelminster Member, Developer Posts: 16,315
    Aosaw said:

    Actually, there's no loading screen at all now. :)

    But there are two facets of it: first, if you make it one big map, you'll get more of a feeling that this is an enormous place; and second, it will make pathfinding easier, because you won't get stuck behind a wall trying to get to the center district from the south.

    I think it may have to be a mod. I mean given that the game is going on android and ipad devices with wide ranging capabilities I don't know if they could handle 9 maps at once. I could be wrong on that.
    Dee
  • bigdogchrisbigdogchris Member Posts: 1,336
    I don't think it's just about a technical limitation. I think they may of wanted to keep it separate for story telling reasons.
  • DeeDee Member Posts: 10,447
    A mod might work. @bigdogchris also might be right about it being important for story reasons, although I don't know what those would be.
  • SFischSFisch Member Posts: 59
    edited November 2012
    I think it's an engine limitation, not necessarily a technology limitation. The game can only show areas as large as 80 x 60 "tiles" (Each tile is a square 64 x 64 pixels). The area art is therefore 5120 x 3840 px at its largest.
  • DeeDee Member Posts: 10,447
    Right--so the engine's capabilities would have to be expanded before any mod could be created.
  • HexHammerHexHammer Member Posts: 288
    Can't remember how it was in BG I, but in BG II I liked how it was divided for quest purpose.
  • DeeDee Member Posts: 10,447
    @HexHammer True, although in BG2 there was a much clearer distinction between the districts. In BG1, it's literally a 3x3 grid that's broken up simply because it would be too large otherwise.
    DiscoCat
  • HexHammerHexHammer Member Posts: 288
    Aosaw said:

    @HexHammer True, although in BG2 there was a much clearer distinction between the districts. In BG1, it's literally a 3x3 grid that's broken up simply because it would be too large otherwise.

    Think I vaguely remember some areas was quite awkwardly divided in illogically grids. So maybe it would be better with 1 big zone, but have some kind of quick travel feature, walking is very boring!!!


    Dee
  • DeeDee Member Posts: 10,447
    Maybe you could use the map to travel to a specific "grid location" when you go to Baldur's Gate, but once you're there you have to walk?
  • HexHammerHexHammer Member Posts: 288
    Walking is bad! Fast travel option in city, must have! ..death to walking!!
    [Deleted User]Grammarsalad
  • ZeckulZeckul Member Posts: 1,036
    edited November 2012
    This is an interesting idea, although it would have the counterproductive effect of making it take longer to get from one end of the city to the other. The borders currently act as fast-travel waypoints, if you remove them the player has to walk everywhere. (edit: well, others already said that, silly me.)
  • DeeDee Member Posts: 10,447
    Maybe include "waypoints" in each section that allow you to quickly travel to any of the nine quarters?
    [Deleted User]
  • AntonAnton Member, Moderator, Mobile Tester Posts: 513
    Great idea.
    Although there could be some issues with event triggers.
    Anduin
  • ajwzajwz Member Posts: 4,122
    This might end up being the dumbest request ever made, and if so, feel free to ignore.

    It seems to me that the area art for the entirety of Baldur's gate city could easily be repartitioned together to form just 1 giant mega city map.

    Now as far as I am aware there is no hard coded maximum map size limit for and area (or I might have dreamt this, whatever, I'll go with it for now). I don't know why the city was originally partitioned, so I'm just going to guess it was due to some hardware limitation which would no longer be relevant on modern machines.

    So I see no reason that it *couldn't* happen.
    Not only would it be a bad-ass feature or mod in its own right, it would also make ch7 a heck of a lot more interesting.
  • AnduinAnduin Member Posts: 5,745
    I would love this to be implemented... But how would the triggers work for NPCs to appear when you go off map to reappear on another map?

    It would make the game easier for low parties as they would only have one set of flaming fist enforcers after them...

    I could be wrong all this could happen outside the fog of war... Please let the triggers be not related to moving between maps!
  • CamDawgCamDawg Member, Developer Posts: 3,438
    Yeah, I think I saw this in the feature request forum a few days ago.

    From a map perspective it could be done, though we'd need to adjust a lot of names of doors/containers/etc. to keep them unique when combined. Where it falls down are the area scripts and all of the various area checks that would now fail--that's a much trickier problem to solve.

    Also, the mini-map would be tiny as hell.
    Anduinelminster
  • The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • This seems nice. You could drag the mini-map camdawhatever.
  • BlakeDrapetaBlakeDrapeta Member Posts: 21
    edited July 2013
    SFisch said:

    I think it's an engine limitation, not necessarily a technology limitation. The game can only show areas as large as 80 x 60 "tiles" (Each tile is a square 64 x 64 pixels). The area art is therefore 5120 x 3840 px at its largest.

    The engine could definitely use some improvements. With modern processors and memory capacity, using 64x64 pixel .til chunks isn't really necessary. It makes more sense to use higher resolution images, since going through four 64x64 pixel images is more work than going through one 128x128 pixel image, though I can't say I actually know how the engine handles .til files.

    Another option would be to use a whole new engine, like Ogre3D. Using an isometric camera and a mix of 3D and 2D assets, you can create a scene which retains the old school look (albeit improved, because why not) while at the same time having dynamic lighting. You can actually pack in more detail using this method over traditional scenes where games use a perspective camera, since you don't need to worry about what players can't see in the isometric view.
    kybishop said:

    You'd rather a larger city map than fast travel? Is it really all that inconvenient to see a blip of a loading screen between areas?

    Well, down the road perhaps Beamdog could add markers to the map screen where players can fast travel to districts they've visited, so that we won't need to reach the edge of an area anymore when fast travelling within places like Baldur's Gate.
  • TressetTresset Member, Moderator Posts: 8,262
    Hmm... It would be a bit difficult to run from the flaming fist patrols in chapter 7... Not to mention it would be really hard to find specific wandering NPCs... There are probably plenty of other implementation issues... Probably not a very good idea I'm thinking...
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  • elminsterelminster Member, Developer Posts: 16,315
    Apparently it was originally intended to be just one area

    TJ_HookerJuliusBorisov
  • beobeo Member Posts: 143
    edited July 2016
    Too bad this was not done, I lost lot of time going from one part to another, looking for a right place, etc. Useless and annoying.
  • TarlugnTarlugn Member Posts: 207
    The merging of sewers might have been good idea, too. Dunno why both Athkatla and Amkethran have only one map depicting sewers - maybe in the latter only temple district has sewers and paved streets, while in the former the city itself isn´t so big to begin with.
  • beobeo Member Posts: 143
    Tarlugn said:

    The merging of sewers might have been good idea, too.

    Yes, at least damn sewers :)
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