Reply With QuoteI think he meant...let me see if I can explain. Compared to other maps here it is very elaborately decorated. I also think it's over the top but I think this a good thing. It really makes the map stand out (and fires up my imagination).
@moskva: Yeah, I was afraid of that, but the names (particularly for the bodies of water) really didn't look right and didn't convey the right information when they were just one line, so I felt it was best if I split them on two. I suppose this means that the people of the Babbage Technocracy speak "almost Dutch" instead of real Dutch.
@nichollsr: I'm glad you like it. I'm curious, though - what do you mean by over the top?
I think he meant...let me see if I can explain. Compared to other maps here it is very elaborately decorated. I also think it's over the top but I think this a good thing. It really makes the map stand out (and fires up my imagination).
Ah, good. I was hoping for that sort of reaction. I want the map to inspire my players to want to explore the world I've created, and I'm glad that it seems to be doing its job.
It's fair enough that the language be near-Dutch, since you aren't depicting, say, a colony descended from Earth's Netherlands. No more than a random fantasy land should have precise English as its language - such congruence is convenience (reader's language) or (other languages) meant to evoke an echo of the place or people you're borrowing from, or even just to show there are widely variant cultures afoot. Mind you I too am compulsive enough to try to get things 'right' when I borrow.
Maybe it would be enough to put in tiny print or in your WIP thread a disclaimer like at the start of novels : "This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, languages, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental." :-)
REALLY nice map, by the way.
I don't think we should be nit picking about language on his map.
I don't mind. I agree completely with jbgibson's comments about using language, and have used it as such. That said, it does bother me that I haven't gotten it totally right, so I'm happy for corrections from native speakers.
Really nice map ! I would like to point out some minor details : firstly, there are some ugly pixels here and there, I believe it's due to compression problems but I suggest that, in the final picture, you use a non-destructive format such as .png. Also, more language issues : Gris Rivière would be Rivière Grise, and Vertbois Rivière would be Rivière Vertbois (or Rivière du Bois Vert, I think it's nicer but not as close to the name you chose as the former).
About the pictures you put in the corners, it's a great idea but the color difference between them and the map bothers me a bit.
Last edited by Arylaya; 08-20-2012 at 12:14 PM.
Vous avez riason, bien sur, a propos des noms; je ne peut pas croire que j'ai fait une faute si facile! As for the pixels, that's because I had to use an enormous compression factor when converting the file from .xcf to .jpeg - the uncompressed .jpeg file was almost four times larger that the max site upload limit! If you want to see what the uncompressed map looks like, the original post has a link to the thread in the finished maps sections, which has the map uploaded in quarters. However, the version of the map in the finished maps section is unfortunately somewhat out of date; a number of minor issues there remain unresolved (ie: the Dutch City names, and a variety of small fixes I didn't bother to mention on this thread). As for the corner pictures, I know what you mean. They somewhat compete with the map for attention - perhaps I could decrease the opacity subtly, or desaturate them so that the map appears more interesting.
After thinking about what Arylaya said, I decided to experiment with the color balance of the borders a little to make them demand less visual attention than the map. Below is what I came up with. What do you guys think? Better, worse, practically no different?
nice to see where al the ships ended up!
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