Gambit37 wrote:Dungeon Master is not wrong: compasses have *always* worked this way.
The mistake most people make is that they think the red arrow points the direction you're facing, relative to North, and assuming that North is always "straight up & forwards" in context of the game screen. That's not how compasses work. The red arrow ALWAYS POINTS NORTH, the direction you're facing is RELATIVE to that arrow:
* If the party is facing
East, then North is now on their
left, so the red arrow points
left to show where North is.
* If the party is facing
West, then North is now on their
right, so the red arrow points
right to show where North is.
* If the party is facing
South, then North is now
180 degrees behind them, so the arrow points
down to show where North is.
This is all correct behaviour and the game has always got it correct - there are no bugs with either the arrow direction, nor the text.
If you don't believe us, go and get a real compass and try it out
I happen to have a read compass and did a little experiment with it, and this behavior is actually technically correct. However, in real life a good compass actually consists of 3 main components:
- an arrow that points in a fixed direction
- an arrow on a swivel that can be manually rotated
- a magnetic arrow that points towards the strongest magnet in the area, typically Earth's North Magnetic Pole
How the compass works is you point the fixed position arrow at a landmark or location you want to do to, then rotate the manual arrow so it lines up with the magnetic arrow. Then as you are heading towards your destination, you take compass sightings by pointing the fixed arrow straight ahead of you and turning yourself until the manually rotated arrow and the magnetic arrow are both pointing in the same direction, and whatever the fixed arrow is pointing at is the direction you need to go in to find your destination or landmark.
However, for the purposes of a game like dungeon master, the compass is intended to show what direction the party is actually facing in, so when the red arrow points west side of the compass when the party turns east this gets confusing. When mapping a complex part of a dungeon master type dungeon, the map is oriented to north is to the top of the page, south is to the bottom, east is to the left and west is to the right. So when the party turns east, but the compass arrow is pointing to the right (west on the map) this causes confusion.
So although the compass behavior may be technically right, it is still confusing and incorrect for the purposes of a game where it is simply meant to point to what direction the party is facing in. This is exactly what the DM2: Skullkeep compass does. It is important to remember that there is a distinction between real life and a game. Sometimes it is best to put realism aside in favor of ease of playability when designing for a game. Also, if a compass is a more basic compass that doesn't have the extra arrow for direction, it often still has a fixed arrow designed to point to the magnetic north (ie if you're facing north, the magnetic arrow and fixed north pointing arrow will both be perfectly aligned. Whereas if you turn west, while the magnetic arrow will be pointing to the right, the fixed arrow will be lined up over the direction you are actually facing in, cardinal west in this case.
)
designed to confuse and get parties lost IMO. 
i know why they've added auto-map for "that" new generation...
you do make it sound rather funny when you put it that way 
