Do you ever map by hand?

[Mac Addict]

Just curious for all DM players old and new...

Have you ever had to sit down and create a map by hand (pencil and paper) to keep track of where you're going so you don't get lost (assuming you don't have a magic map like the one in CSB - but even then the magic map only shows you the surrounding area). DM is a fairly linear game, so I guess I'm thinking more about custom dungeons that have been made so far.

If you think about it, when you're in game, you covering a lot ground and in your mind you're creating a mental map on the fly. I've always been surprised at how easy it is for me to retrace my steps without a map. Perhaps this is a testament to our brain capacities? I seldom get lost in a dungeon. How about you?

[Rasmus]

I always get lost in the dungeon. What does that say about me?

[zoom]

It depends. When you run all over the place over and over, eventually you know where things are etc.But if you try to explore a level and want to find secret doors or when there are teleporters and spinners you get lost very quickly. Often in older games the walls do not give any hint apart from the viewport layout where you are . everything looks alike. Some Tiles are darkness areas and so forth. Sometimes mapping is needed. You can rely on pre - made maps, but e.g. the dm maps I used back then were incomplete . As an afterthought quite nice, the 2nd level or 4 th level had many secret walls not noted down.
So you get orientation and nevertheless can explore and be payed out.
Sometimes I think I got a good sense of orientation compared to other people, in RL. I´d say it depends on the dungeon whether you need or can scrape maps. And of course your own habit or desire to make or have one.

[Jan]

I still have my old paper maps of DM and CSB somewhere - gosh, they're 20 years old! I certainly didn't need a map to finish DM, but I still loved to make it, and then look at it and admire it and so on (I'm a geographer, you know - it's an obsession). But, come one, I don't know anyone who finished CSB without drawing a paper map! I simply had to make a map to understand the system of the dungeon.

Nowadays, when playing various custom dungeons, I only make maps of some particularly difficult places, like mazes, etc. Still, map-making is my hobby. It's a dull world full of GPS - but a map can be a piece of art!

[Gambit37]

I mapped the originals by hand, and I also mapped Conflux 2, Surgical Strike and Sukumvit 2 by hand. For these complex games, that's a big part of the enjoyment for me

[oh_brother]

My brother and I made an attempt to map the DM dungeon for awhile, mainly because of the very obvious hint from Nabi in the background story.

It did not last long, I just felt it slowed down the game. So ideally I would not like to have to make maps. Maybe that is why I only finished CSB last year...

[Simon]

When I was a kid I used to watch my father play Dungeon Master all the time. He drew maps for every level. It fascinated me!

[Hajo]

I had full hand drawn maps of DM dungeons and CSB dungeons. Also a lot of hand drawn maps for other games. It was part of the experience.

Nowadays I expect games to come with an automap. What I often miss though, is an in-game diary where I can take notes of my discoveries in the game. So I still have a pile of paper with notes.

[Ameena]

I've never been one for making maps of games - I just pick up where I am and work stuff out in my head, eventually learning my way round by noting various landmarks or whatever (in the case of DM this would be puddles on the floor, slime on the walls, teh various bits of scenery that break up the greyness of everything else). Usually I can keep my orientation in my head by keeping a mental track of which direction something significant lies in, for example a stairway or something. I think I'm better at that in games that have more wide open spaces, set outdoors, where stuff is easier to follow. I tend to try and explore stuff systematically rather than just charging down a random corridor and not keeping track of where I've been - my dad does that and he's rubbish and finding his way around .
It can, of course, all go tits up when I find the need to run away from something - then I can be prone to taking a wrong turning and getting myself a bit fooked. It's a relief when I find I've gone the right way and can escape successfully .

[Paul Stevens]

There are some games that I could never have
finished without drawing maps. Ultima:Quest
of the Avatar comes to mind. The dungeons
were simply impossible for me to complete
without a map.

They were even tough to MAP!!

[beowuuf]

I drew maps back n the old days, but these days I just tend to get lost alot in large dungeons. I only map if I really need to for a puzzle, as OB says it takes such time!

[Trantor]

I hate mapping with a passion. The only time I ever did it was for Bloodwych. A friend of mine started mapping the game, and I continued his map a bit, but quickly gave up because it was so tedious and slow. I never drew a single map for anything in the DM universe and rely solely on my sense of direction.

[Sophia]

Unsurprisingly, I agree with Trantor. I don't map either, and that sort of explains why I get lost so much, I guess.

[Bit]

I loved mapping - until it came to Wizardry 8 (Crusaders of the Dark Savant).
This was simply too large. And I'll never forgive them that there was an important place which was nothing more than a simple square within the wilderness, just became important at an certain date. This one needed a walkthrough-solution.

[Paul Stevens]

Wizardry 8 (Crusaders

Hah! I have the 179-page hint book.
All the maps-all the puzzles-everything.
I still could never finish that game. That
isn't a game, it is a Master's thesis.

[zoom]

I guess that´s wizardry seven?
Maybe there is a correlation between to like mapping and to like training.
People who hate mapping hate training and vice versa! some how mapping is a meditative task.

[Chaos-Shaman]

ah yes, the days when a teleporter and a spinner would spoil yer map

[Trantor]

Yes, Crusaders of the Dark Savant is Wizardry 7.

Interestingly, I used to train quite a lot in DM back in the day. Whenever I reached the Screamer Room, I spent half an hour or so there to build up a few levels. Nowadays, I don't train anymore in DM, and rarely in Japanese RPGs. But I can definitely say that I don't mind training nearly as much as mapping.

[Qwerty]

Ah, CDS(Crusaders of the Dark Savant) is good and difficult game!!

I've drawn many maps by my hand when i was kid.(DM, Wizardry1-7,megami tensei and other retro 3DRPG...).
I dont' like mapping by hand so much because it is boring work and spent time to create map.
But, If I draw a map on my mind, I would forget my mental map while exploring dungeon.
Therefore, I couldn't finish these games unless draw a map or buy the hint book.

[Twiggy]

When I was younger mum and our neighbour (Who used to play together) went through and mapped the whole dungeon of DM1, along with item, monster and switch locations (And switch function). Still got them and use them whenever I blow the dust off of DM. We started doing maps for Chaos, but with the nature of the game and how it's laid it it was a bit harder...we wound up getting a "Cheat" guide/book of maps so that made things a bit easier for us.

Think the biggest issue for us with the maps in DM1, was that being in Australia in the very early 90's, it was hard finding stuff like that out here. There wasn't really an amazon or anything to ship it over either lol

[Archendrus]

Hi everyone! I'm new here. I've been on a mission to find and try all the classic games and game genres that I missed out on when I was a kid. So, I decided to try a genre I used to avoid like the plague when I was a kid, dungeon crawlers! I picked Dungeon Master 1 for my first one. Havin' a blast so far. I've been looking around for information on drawing maps, but with no luck. I was hopin' maybe some of you could share some tips and tricks : ) I mapped out the Hall of Champions as a test run, with only a handful of mistakes, but when I got 1/4 of the way through the first real level, my map ran off the paper : ( Are there any tricks to avoid this? (other than using HUGE graph paper, lol) Any advice, tips, or tricks about mapping that you guys could share would be awesome!

[Rasmus]

Welcome to the forum, and I am glad that you choosed Dungeon Master as first Dungeon Crawler game, you woun't be dissapointed
I never drawed any maps on Dungeon Master 1. But I can say that all maps are at a maximum 32 x 32 tiles, and the offset beetween the levels are at most 10x10 (I think). So if you find a staircase to the next level in the up right corner of your handdrawn map you should leave space for atleast 10x10 when start drawing next level in the up right corner.

[beowuuf]

All the walls are solid blocks, as are any features. So you always can simply shade around you as you move around. I'd recommend small square graph paper, starting in the centre.

If I recall correctly, The start of the dungeon by the door is almost at the top left hand corner of the dungeon, so leaving a few spaces at the edge, you should still be at the top left corner of the dungeon.

[Ameena]

Welcome to the forum Archendrus . Bleh, why map when you can have fun mooching about, running around randomly and getting lost? You may succeed at mapping the DM dungeon - at least it has a linear path to it, level by level, and you can at least keep track of where you are in terms of level number, since it's obvious when you change levels due to using stairs or a pit.
However, once you've finished DM, should you decide to then continue on into CSB (you can import your DM party through to CSB ), umm...well, if you manage to map that successfully, you'll wonder how you ever had any difficulty with DM, let me tell you that .
So, which characters have you taken on your first foray into the realms of DM?

[Archendrus]

Ahh, ok knowing the appoximate grid size definitely helps, and I printed out some smaller grid paper : ) Thanks guys! And thanks for the welcome! Mapping is going a lot smoother after a couple hours of practice. It's true, I probably could get by without maps for DM1, but I think it's interesting and something I wanted to learn how to do. Especially for those games where I'm told it's absolutely necessary. It's funny, when I first tried dungeon crawler games as a kid, I got hopelessly lost and stayed away from the genre altogether. I never even considered drawing a map by hand as a strategy. I think it's the tile based, frame by frame movement and turning that get me so completely disoriented. I hardly have trouble in games with free movement. But now I'm lookin' for a challenge! : ) I tried to make a fairly diverse party, so I went with Iaido, Zed, Halk, and Gothmog. I've killed Iaido twice already lol

[Maven]

I did the same as with every other dungeon crawler game that had static maps. I'd start out just running around in the dungeon. After a while I'd get stuck somewhere or I'd decide I didn't want to miss anything important and I'd start over making a hand map. After a few levels, I'd get impatient and cheat. Usually by finding the data files with the maps and decoding them. (I still can't believe I actually took the time and brain power to figure out The Bard's Tale's Huffman map compression scheme.) Later I got even more lazy and just pulled them out of memory already decoded. Nowadays it's way too easy--I just pull them off the internet.

The bonus with writing the program to decode the data files was that I could choose at which level I wanted to cheat. Usually I'd just print out the basic wall layout, and leave all the specials off. Then I'd fill in the special squares by hand. Later, I'd go back and add the specials programatically. That way I could have the enjoyment of doing my own exploration, but still make sure I didn't miss anything cool.

Hmmm. Now that I think about it, I did the same thing with world conquering programs that had random maps for you to explore first. Games like Empire or Civilization. Built a cheat program that showed me the entire map. That way if I was getting my behind kicked too badly on Deity levels, I could peek at the world and try to win with just extra intel. It was just one more option for me.

Never did cheat on multiplayer games, though. I guess I got pwned by too many lamers in Diablo and didn't want to be them.

[Parallax]

I've mapped quite a few games ever since I was a kid, and I actually enjoy mapping. Yet, I did not map DM (I had a map provided by a friend by the time I got my hands on the game, several years after it first came out). I mapped Ishar II or III, the one with time travel. Most recently, I mapped Conflux III... using the RTC editor.

I am a completionist. When I like the game, I like to see all of it, especially the Easter eggs and obscure little nooks and crannies. If there's a fake wall somewhere with nothing behind it beyond 'Roy was here' scribbled on the wall, I want to see it, and put it on my map. Making a map if none is available (or checking the existing map for errors and omissions) satisfies my OCD tendencies like little else. On the other hand, I absolutely loathe training (grinding!) and especially resent games that force it. I find it to be a poor excuse for stretching mileage out of limited content.

[Archendrus]

I'm gettin' to like mapping alot : ) I think I have that same OCD tendancy. Sure, it takes forever, but I kinda like it that way. I play RPG's when I want a game that I relax with, so I'm in no rush. When I want a fast paced game I pop in Ninja Gaiden lol. RPG's, for me, are a time to kick back with a pot of coffee, a pack of Lucky's, and lately, a stack of graph paper and a pencil : )

[Ameena]

Heh yeah, some people just seem to think that rushing through a game as fast as possible is fun, or something. I tend to take quite a while to get through a game 'cause I insist on poking into every little corner, exploring everywhere and finding all the secret little hidden corners and stuff. Not just talking about DM or whatever here, just RPGs in general. I don't bother making maps, just remember my way around or reference the in-game map if there is one .

[Lee]

Mapping by hand rules! It's a lot of work and takes a lot of time usually so I'm not sure why it's so enjoyable, especially when it's rendered useless by the time your interest has worn off... but dammit, that was bloody marvelous fun all the same. I did it with other games too, especially the Bard's Tale series.