Friday Dev Update: Cartography

11:09 AM Unknown 12 Comments





Progress Report

Cartography





Progress this week has gone very well. I finished up a new friendly NPC, his quest line, and items associated with that. I also worked on a new enemy, and some of its associated content. One of the new items created is the first upgradeable item in the game, meaning after you get it, you can do something to make it better. It represents one of the first fruitful results of the change to the way items were saved internally in update 1.5. Previously, there was no support to save additional special data about a specific items. After the changes that we made in 1.5, however, we can save all kinds of data on them. Our primary goal for that change was for the possibility of upgradable items like this one.As the content of this patch is flowing nicely, and we are getting closer and closer to its release, we have also been brainstorming what would be best to work on for the next patch. One strong contender is a cartography / mapping system, so I would like to take a moment to discuss that.First of all, here is the general vision. I envision the core joy of the system to be in filling out the map, and the reward of being able to use the map that you worked to create. The process of filling it out should be somewhat manual and fun. Perhaps it can be a blank grid system where the player is free to mark the locations of islands as he or she sees fit.I would also like the ability to somehow take note additional information on the map, such as marking where you found a pirate captain and so forth. I personally would find that extremely handy and satisfying.Additionally, I could add in some items in the game that would make the cartography system a little easier for those who put forth the effort to seek them out. For instance, say to mark an island on your map, you have to open up your map interface, and click on a square to mark it. I could add in an item that you could hotkey that would automatically mark what is at your current location on the map so all you have to do is land on the island and hit that hotkey for it to be marked. I’m sure there are a lot of other cartography-associated item ideas that I haven’t thought about yet.I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas on the matter of cartography in Salt. It’s absence really stands out in such a large world, and I can’t wait to remedy that.- John Gamble (Lead Developer)