Hero Games Maps - What do YOU want to see?

[Legendsmiths]

Re: Hero Games Maps - What do YOU want to see?

 

Any plans to make digital maps available for purchase/download? The maps in FB are awesome, but if I have to hand draw them or scan them the quality is going to suffer greatly. We use digital mapping tools in my game, so having access to these maps would be incredible.

 

If the concern is for copyright, Adobe's new DRM component seems pretty solid and would help protect that. The value of having digital maps of this type would be huge.

[lazarus]

Re: Hero Games Maps - What do YOU want to see?

 

I would _love_ a hex-based digital product akin to Dirt Cheap whatevers. They look awesome, easy to put together. But they're square based.

 

I'd love to be able to use them as maps for my games.

 

and I'd buy it if it were HERO ...

 

Laz, really thinking of buying Dirt Cheap Keeps or Caverns or Dungeons or something

[zornwil]

Re: Hero Games Maps - What do YOU want to see?

 

Hmm, I should plug I put up a mapping resource site, contributions to realschluss@realschluss.org welcome.

 

http://www.realschluss.org/mapping_resources/index.html

[Super Squirrel]

Re: Hero Games Maps - What do YOU want to see?

 

Without looking into any posts yet, this is what I would want. They are all Champions genre:

 

Three Different Bank Maps

A Military Bunker

A Science Facility

An Ocean Freighter Map

Please for the love of all things good... a Warehouse Map.

An Offshore Drilling Platform map

 

Fantasy / Champions related:

A Decent Sewer System Map

[Legendsmiths]

Re: Hero Games Maps - What do YOU want to see?

 

I'll direct you guys to the Dundjinni site. I've been using this to make maps and it is fabulous. The user forums also sport some very fine maps for download.

 

Highly recommended.

[Legendsmiths]

Re: Hero Games Maps - What do YOU want to see?

 

Nice maps, Zornwil.

[arcady]

Re: Hero Games Maps - What do YOU want to see?

 

I know it will never happen but here's what I want:

 

1: Overlay a second square grid. An example of this can be found with the way Steve Jackson games did their cardboard tiles - making them both hex and square.

 

2: Make any interior scene work well with Dwarven Forge in terms of the layout. Dwarven Forge sets are pretty throurough, but do follow a few limits on curves and wall placement.

 

 

Herophiles have an obsession with hexes so I doubt they would even be willing to do a dual system, but if the above two were met it would make using some of the tools out there for miniatures play a lot easier.

[keithcurtis]

Re: Hero Games Maps - What do YOU want to see?

 

Please for the love of all things good... a Warehouse Map.

A Decent Sewer System Map

 

The former may be found in Champions Battlegrounds, while the latter is in Sharper than a Serpent's Tooth.

 

Serpent's Tooth also has a scientific laboratory. It has a barracks attached, but the whole east wing is easily ommitted to leave just the lab stuff.

 

Keith "The others are great suggestions, though" Curtis

[zornwil]

Re: Hero Games Maps - What do YOU want to see?

 

Nice maps' date=' Zornwil.[/quote']

Thanks, please note they're contributed by people here!

[LordGhee]

Re: Hero Games Maps - What do YOU want to see?

 

Fansty maps:

 

Stone Bridge arched and unarched. wood bridge big and small, ferry site. Wood path (go with old guys tree house) or road ( a nice stream) and enclosed field , woodend type.

 

Garden with stuff, abby sites temple or church

 

Dock with crain, galley plan, light house and multi storied wind mill (like in that musketeer movie) or water mill .

 

Gate house with draw bridge. castle wall. Wizards tower. keep and throne room .

 

altar area for evil sacrifices and rescuses .

 

and a scenic over look were the dark lord can be defeated

(oops that for my game )

 

and grave yard for those zombies

 

thanks for all the good work

 

Lord Ghee

[DoctorItron]

Re: Hero Games Maps - What do YOU want to see?

 

Have you looked into Shades of Black? The maps there are in postscript format, infinitely superior to jpegs for what you're talking about. The probelm with jpegs and GIFs is that they are not scaleable. If you print them larger, you just get larger pixels.

We went through great pains on SoB to make sure the art remained in a scaleable format. This meant dropping some things like transparency and patterns, but the maps should make clean printouts even if you could print them the size of a football field.

 

Keith "Adobe Illustrator is my friend" Curtis

 

I had a major problem with Shades of Black. The PDF is configured with copy & paste disabled. I wasn't able to copy an image, paste it into another program, and resize. I also couldn't clip the most important text to make a one page summary to reference while I was GMing. An email to Hero Games received a "yes, that's our formatting standard" reply. Shades of Black was sadly the last PDF product that I'll buy until I hear that the copy & paste policy changes, or someone lets me know about another way to do a copy.

 

I'm still baffled by the policy. It's doesn't do anything to prevent illegal distribution of the entire file.

 

So, Keith, if you could pass this along to the powers that be, I'd appreciate it. Or am I missing some other business need for the "no copy & paste" configuration?

 

Edit: Steve, I see you're reading this thread, too. Since you are "the powers that be", have I adequately explained how the current settings make your PDF products much less useful than they woukld otherwise be?

 

P.S. I'm not complaining about the excellent content of Shades of Black, just the one PDF security setting.

[keithcurtis]

Re: Hero Games Maps - What do YOU want to see?

 

I had a major problem with Shades of Black. The PDF is configured with copy & paste disabled. I wasn't able to copy an image, paste it into another program, and resize. I also couldn't clip the most important text to make a one page summary to reference while I was GMing. An email to Hero Games received a "yes, that's our formatting standard" reply. Shades of Black was sadly the last PDF product that I'll buy until I hear that the copy & paste policy changes, or someone lets me know about another way to do a copy.

 

I'm still baffled by the policy. It's doesn't do anything to prevent illegal distribution of the entire file.

 

So, Keith, if you could pass this along to the powers that be, I'd appreciate it. Or am I missing some other business need for the "no copy & paste" configuration?

 

TPTB probably monitor this thread. My personal theory (pure conjecture) as to why you would disable the copy and paste for copyright purposes is just as you said. A priate would be forced to distribute the file in its entirety, with all the DOJ tags and indicia. They could not pass it or any part of it off as an original work. It doesn't cut dwn on piracy perhaps, but it does cut down on plagiarism.

 

I was not aware you couldn't print an enlarged map in a multi-page printout. Perhaps it depends on if your printer driver gives you the proper options. A workaround might be found by enlarging the screen image to the proper scale and doing a number of screen captures and then piecing them together for your own battlemat. Really, I wanted people to be able to print out enlargements if possible. It was the main reason I kept the graphics in vector format.

 

Has anyone who bought SoB had success in doing it?

 

Keith "Maybe some experimentation is in order" Curtis

 

PS. Please remember that I am not an employee nor representative of Hero Games, and my wishes or intentions should not be construed as being a policy or position of Hero Games. So there.

[zornwil]

Re: Hero Games Maps - What do YOU want to see?

 

Lemming had to help me extract pics to use them out of SoB. I was put off by the difficulty involved.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: Hero Games Maps - What do YOU want to see?

 

I would _love_ a hex-based digital product akin to Dirt Cheap whatevers. They look awesome, easy to put together. But they're square based.

 

I'd love to be able to use them as maps for my games.

 

and I'd buy it if it were HERO ...

Though it's not germane to the original question of the post, I'll second this sentiment from a general "product question" standpoint.