Thread: Graphic Maps
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Old 10-25-2002, 01:37 PM   #19
Molly
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Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Sweden
Home MUD: 4 Dimensions
Posts: 574
Molly will become famous soon enoughMolly will become famous soon enough
Mandrake;
The tool you describe sounds awesome, but it has one major drawback - the price. I sure as heck couldn't afford it, and I bet most of the people running free muds couldn't either.

So I use Paint. The crudest of all graphic tools, but it comes with the Windows package. No download and totally free of charge. And the maps I can make with it are good enough to fit my purposes.


My mud has oceans too, but you're missing one rather relevant point. In the old days water wasn't a barrier, it was the main way of transportation, the main route for all kinds of traffic and trade.

Think Old Greeks. Or think Vikings and Crusaders, if you want medieval period.

There are maps of seas too, those are called nautical charts. It stands to reason that those charts would be for sale in all harbour towns. They might not have been very accurate, but they would show the main location of continents, islands, harbour cities and known reefs. The seafarers of those periods knew well enough where they were going. They also knew how to navigate by the sun and the stars.  And no captain in his right mind would set out to sea without nautical charts.

Christopher Columbus sure didn't. The sea route to India was well known in his days. What he did was trying to find a faster sea route there, since by that time they'd realised that the world was round. Not a bad idea either, only America lay in the way. Why did you think the natives were named Indians by the explorer?

Sure serfs and peasants generally stayed their entire life in the same place. But how many of your players roleplay serfs or peasants? I bet most of them play the role of knights, noblemen, aventurers, high class clerics or thieves and Brigands. And those people got around. They were also most likely smart enough to check some maps before rushing headlong into danger.
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