Mapping Games - Ultima VII

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The rise of simple to use geographic information systems such as Google Maps and Microsoft's Virtual Earth are making it increasingly easy to map any information which is geographically organised. As such maps do not have to link to the real world, virtual and game space can also be mapped and displayed using the same set of tools.

To date we have looked at Mapping Second Life and Lord of the Rings Online, the latest in our series of posts on Mapping Games looks at Ultima VII. Ultima VII, released in two parts, Ultima VII: The Black Gate (1992), and Ultima VII Part Two: Serpent Isle (1993) is an interesting choice to map and display online due in part to its age and therefore level of graphic resolution.

Previous to the ability to create tiles in geographical space and display them via Google or Microsoft technologies maps of games often took on a 'overview' structure to simply communicate location.

The image below illustrates such an example:



Using Exult to extract image tiles, Nikolai Faaland has taken mapping Ultima VII a stage further and ported it into Virtual Earth:


The map can viewed in both 2D mode as pictured above and 3D:


Mapping games such as Ultima VII is an interesting use of Virtual Earth and one that we will be covering further in future posts.

Click here to see the map in Virtual Earth

Mapping Games - Lord of the Rings Online

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Lord of the Rings Online is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) set in the world of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Released for the PC by definition being a MMORPG Lord of the Rings Online allows thousands of players to occupy the game space, essentially creating a living environment.

The trailer below provides an insight into the game:



MMORPG's require large amounts of virtual land to both accommodate the number of players and to create a varied environment - as such they lend themselves to mapping. Games have long been mapped to provide a path through the various environments, often to be printed as part of 'walkthrough's' in magazines (see our post on Ant Attack for the ZX Spectrum). With Web 2.0 it is becoming increasingly easy to provide maps of games as if they were real world locations.

As such Lord of the Rings Online has been mapped using the Google Maps API. The overview map is pictured at the top of the post, of interest are both the geographic features of the game and the level of functionality of the mapping interface. The inclusion of layers and levels of selection approaches a MMOPRG Geographic Information System - an interesting development in the mapping of games.

Take a look at the Lord of the Rings Mapping Tool.

More information on the game can be found on the developers site.

Mapping Games looks like becoming a regular series of posts in a similar vein to our Cities in Games Thread.