HEY HEY JAY RAY #1: World Maps

[DerVVulfman]

Saying that there is a singular world map in a Bethesda Soft's 'Elder Scrolls' game is understandable, but actually a misnomer. In fact, it is very much like your regional map concept where the player crosses one map border to enter another, except they did it brilliantly so you wouldn't see the borders. They must use a form of buffering, loading the map data of the one the player is approaching, just to begin rendering. I can't help seeing 'loading map' once and a while.

Actually, you COULD do that with any RPGMaker (or virtually any other) map editor, just by duplicating sufficient sides of one map into another and use a teleport system in a way the player would not be aware.

Code:

As the player walks to
the east edge of the map....
------------------------+       +------------------------
         *      ^   ,   |       |  *      ^   ,
                        |       |
              .     -->X|       |        .       (X)
                        |       |
                        |       |
                  *     |       |           *    
         . .            |       |  . .            
------------------------+       +------------------------
                                He is teleported to the
                                right edge of another
                                with the same edge contents.

Of course, this is being simplistic for an example, and you would want to use a much better form of teleport control so the player not only goes to the next map, but a location based on his previous X/Y position on the previous. AND the person playing the game may notice the player character suddenly refreshed... his movement pattern resetting... unless that too is handled.