Category: In-Game Maps

With the recent EverQuest update for hunters in some of the older expansions, I’ve returned to many of these zones to add information, throw around a little Song of Highsun to gate roamers back to their spawn locations, and polish up more maps.

Luckily, over the years, I had many of these mobs in my maps, but labeled as “Named”. I cleaned all this up, with hunters having the brown label with (Hunter) and the non-hunters with no designation and a regular black label. I also revised all the map legends.

A summary of changes is below, and includes something from almost every expansion. The big improvements are a completely new map for Fortress Mechanotus and large revisions to Lavaspinner’s Lair.

I’m also including some of my layer 3 maps which include collectables, trade skill markers (e.g. all the trees in Plane of Storms are in the layer 3 map marked with a “T”), and multiple zone line adjustments to make the line tight against the actual zone line.

Overall

• Added hunters for GoD, OoW, DoN, DoD, PoR, TSS, TBS, SoF, and Underfoot.
• Over the years, I had many of the hunter locations on my maps, labeled as “Named”. If a mob is listed as a Hunter, I flipped the color and the label accordingly.
• Now that all expansions have hunters, I took any remaing mobs that I had labeled as Named to just the name of the mob and flipped the label color to black.
• Removed “Named” from all map legends.
• Updated map legends to include hunter information and spawn information if known.
• For those that may not be aware, when I see a roaming hunter mob, I use the bard Song of Highsun to send it back to its spawn location. These are labelled with a HS at the end of the label.
• With the use of Highsun, I have well over 100 roaming hunters where their exact spawn location is shown. Should make it easier for those non-trackers to clear out areas and wait near the spawn location.

Original EQ

• The Liberated Citadel of Runnyeye – adjusted zone line to Misty Thicket.
• The Lavastorm Mountains – adjusted zone line to The Broodlands.

Planes of Power

• The Plane of Storms – – including my layer 3 map that shows all the trees (T). Useful for tradeskills.

Shadows of Luclin

• Grieg’s End – Geometry cleanup.

Gates of Discord

• Qinimi, Court of Nihilia – Added some missing buildings and stairs.
• Riwwi, Coliseum of Games – Clarified hunter pathing for the two roamers approaching the arena area.

Omens of War

• Catacombs of Dranik (C) – Added a few missing rooms not found on any map! Rooms were off a narrow hallway in SE area of zone.
• Harbinger’s Spire – adjusted zone line to Dranik`s Scar.

Dragons of Norrath

• The Broodlands – added zone connection to The Accursed Nest, adjusted zone line to Lavaspinner’s Lair.
• Lavaspinner’s Lair – completely remapped western portions of zone. Massive improvement.
• Lavaspinner’s Lair – added a secret hallway in NE part of zone!
• The Accursed Nest – clearly labeled all the teleports back to zone-in. Cleaned up and added details.

Depths of Darkhollow

• Dreadspire Keep – geometry cleanup at the base of the tower. Adjusted zone line to Dranik’s Scar.

Prophecy of Ro

• Theater of Blood – geometery cleanup.

The Serpent’s Spine

• Icefall Glacier – Song of Highsun on multiple roamers revealed how far some of these mobs travel. A HS in hunter label shows the spawn location.
• Stone Hive – clarified elevators.

The Buried Sea

• Katta Castrum – geometry cleanup.

Secrets of Faydwer

• Bloodmoon Keep – miscellaneous cleanup.
• Fortress Mechanotus – remapped almost entire zone. Significant improvement over original!
• Meldrath’s Majestic Mansion – spent a lot of time fixing geometry, doors, stairs, and much more.
• Meldrath’s Majestic Mansion – adjusted zone line to The Steam Factory.
• The Steam Factory – miscellaneous cleanup.

Underfoot

• Arthicrex – remapped zone line areas and teleport pads.
• Brell’s Rest – adjusted zones lines.
• Fungal Forest – adjusted zone lines and teleport pads. Added missing tunnel in SW area.
• Pellucid Grotto – Remapped zone-in and zone-out areas for clarity.

Veil of Alaris

• Erillion, City of Bronze – adjusted zone lines to other zones.
• Windsong Sanctuary – including my layer 3 map that shows all the trees (T). Useful for quests involving listening to trees

Claws of Velious

• Added additional hunter spawn locations.

With the release of Claws of Veeshan, I’ve folded all the maps into the main download and included other changes, including a massive remapping of Kernagir, the Shining City.

Original EQ
* North Karana – added farm on east side of zone.

Scars of Velious
* Cobalt Scar – added missing NPCs.
* Western Wastes – added hills on east side of zone.

Omens of War
* Riftseeker`s Sanctum – added a few missing NPCs.

Prophecy of Ro
* Skylance – clarified some geometry.

The Buried Sea
* Katta Castrum – clarified some geometry.
* Jewel of Atiiki – clarified some geometry.
* Solteris, the Throne of Ro – clarified some geometry.
* Zhisza, the Shissar Sanctuary – clarified some geomtery.

Underfoot
*Kernagir, the Shining City – remapped almost entire zone from scratch. Significant improvement.

Claws of Veeshan
* All maps folded in.

I finally managed to squeeze in enough time to clean up all the new CoV maps and get them to the level of detail I wanted. Temple of Veeshan took quite a bit of time with hallways and stairs. The only part I could not get to is a few tunnels in Dragon Necropolis where the rats see through rogue sneak.

CoV Maps

Another round of beta maps can be found below. I added significant amount of details to all the zones. Temple of Veeshan East wing is still a bit rough and I need to spend some time pulling it into 3d modeling program so I can copy/paste detailed geometry. Aside from getting past mobs that see through rogue sneak/hide, I’m mostly going to focus on cleaning up and running my line reducer.

CoV Maps

Cobalt Scar:

Dragon Necropolis

Western Wastes

Another evening of mapping completed. Based on what I’ve seen of the zones so far:
Cobalt Scar – different layout but with some similarities to original zone, with the addition of Siren’s Grotto. I remapped perimeter of new CS and bolted on the Grotto. I made a run-through and looks accurate. More details to come.
Dragon Necropolis – a complete nightmare of traps and see-everything mobs. I used a 115 rogue just to get past all the dracoliche’s, but the traps and bats in the tunnel killed me dozens of times.
Skyshrine Temple – appears to be same geometry as older zone, but doors and other extras are different.
Sleeper’s Tomb – even with a 115 rouge, I couldn’t get further in than the waist-high pile of corpses in the first room. Appears to be same geometry as original zone, but the ice has blocked and altered many areas.
The Temple of Veeshan – similar but but different. I remapped an enormous amount of the zone and cleaned up with my 3d modeling tools. I think it looks crude, but feedback has been very positive.
Western Wastes – similar to original zone, but different. I used by bard to quickly map the zone. Still rough for my standards.

I always relish the release of a new expansion. It is a chance to explore and record the journey. The first night of beta, I had to create and beta buff a character while waiting on my main, and while trying to map the Temple of Veeshan, I kept falling below the world. Even then, I managed to map swaths of Cobalt Scar including the splice with Siren’s Grotto. I am thankful I remapped SG a few year’s ago and had some excellent geometry to lock onto. I made a few passes through, and all my vertical tunnels appear spot-on.

Tonight, I focused on sections of The Temple of Veeshan. If I tried to map the northern area, I kept falling through the world, and instead, I started to focus on the Western wing.

I’ve included rough versions of the maps.

CoV Maps

With the upcoming beta of the latest EverQuest expansion, I am publishing my latest set of maps. This set has a bit of improvements from original release through the latest. The biggest improvements are in the Omens of War and The Buried Sea expansions where I remapped entire zones from scratch.

Original EQ
* The Warrens – added missing NPCs

Scars of Velious
* Cobalt Scar – added missing NPCs

Shadows of Luclin
* Shadeweaver’s Thicket – clarified labels
* Shadow Haven – clarified labels
* The Deep – clarified labels
* The Fungus Grove – added missing NPCs
*The Twilight Sea – added missing NPCs

Planes of Power
* Plane of Fire – clarified labels
* Plane of Tactics – clarified labels
* Plane of Time – clarified labels

Omens of War
* Anguish – remapped almost entire zone from scratch. Significant improvement
* Muramite Proving Grounds (A) through (F) – remapped from scratch. Significant improvement
* Wall of Slaughter – added missing NPCs

The Buried Sea
* Barren Coast – revised labels based on quest location descriptions
* Katta Castrum – some geometry cleanup
* The Open Sea (A) through (E) – remapped and created maps for all the ship-to-ship combat zones

Torment of Velious
* All zones – more hunter locations, labels, and more

Time for another set of map files. I spent some time chatting with a few players that were on EQ emulation servers and was asked if I could spend some time fixing some classic maps. Not knowing what I was really getting myself into, I agreed. I will confess that it wasn’t easy. On some of the servers, you could see the in-game map, but couldn’t edit. So, I wound up going back to using /loc and dusting off some very old code that could take the information from the log file and plot out a map. After that, it was just cleanup. Took a lot of time, but it was very nostalgic revisiting all the original zones.

Maps for those on EQ emulation servers:
East Commonlands
East Freeport
Highpass Hold
Innothule Swamp
Kerra Ridge
Nektulos Forest
North Desert of Ro
Oasis of Marr
Misty Thicket
South Desert of Ro
The Steamfont Mountains
The Lavastorm Mountains
The Ocean of Tears
Toxxulia Forest
West Commonlands
West Freeport

Ruins of Kunark
* City of Mist – Added NPCs and groundspawns.
* Emerald Jungle – Added missing ruins throughout entire zone. Massive improvement!
* Firiona Vie – Added missing ruins.
* Swamp of No Hope – Added missing ruins. Added missing NPCs. Remapped & added paths.
* The Field of Bone – Added missing NPCs
* The Overthere – cleaned up ruins throughout zone.
* Trakanon’s Teeth – Remapped ruins in SW area. Cleaned up ruins near The Ruins of Sebilis

Torment of Velious
* Tower of Frozen Shadow – very clean & detailed map
* Added & clarified hunters
* Added legends with collection & hunter information

Indeed! Arrived home this evening eager to get back to validating my latest map of the ToFS, but servers are down. I will release the maps, sans-final-in-game-version-unseen. [your skill in hyphenations has increased +10].

This batch of maps includes final maps of all of ToV, including map legends . Hunter PH’s and my final detailed maps of ToFS.

Enjoy these maps!

Brewall

In year’s past, by this stage in beta I would still be struggling to complete the first few zones. I am very pleased to say that my maps for ToV are essentially finalized. The ports directly to any of the zones from Old Man Thorren allowed me to focus on getting all the maps done, versus working on progression to get access to the zones.

For this expansion’s ToV maps, I am very pleased with the results. I spent quite a bit of time 3d modelling the geometry and the additional time in beta helped quite considerably.

Since late October, I have made repeated visits to all the zones and pleased with the quality of the maps. I continue to work on hunters/collections, but I will tip my lute to the EQResource folks for sleuthing the spawns.

Click here for: Torment of Velious Maps (Work in Progress)

2019.12.01
* Kael Drakkal – added secret area on western side of zone and the way in. Also added considerable amount of rocks and ice giving the zone a bit more ambiance. Cleaned up NPC’s.
* The Eastern Wastes – Added some hunters. Cleaned up NPC’s.
* The Great Divide – cleaned up some of the caves. Added some hunters. Cleaned up NPC’s.
* Velketor’s Labyrinth – added some hunters.

2019.11.04 24:00 EST
* No updates since 10/26. Maps still look great.

2019.10.26 23:45 EST
* Overall, only thing left to map are the upper floors of Tower of Frozen Shadow.
* Crystal Caverns – final map. Very pleased with details and how the layers are colored to help find around the zone.
* Ry`Gorr Mines – minor touch-ups.
* The Great Divide – minor touch-ups.
* Velketor`s Labyrinth – spent quite a bit of time cleaning up geometry and modifications for this version of the zone. Many of the icy areas had moved and some of the ramps and bridges were altered slightly. Final version of map is included that takes all the changes into account and I walked it multiple times for accuracy.

2019.10.23 8:00 EST
* Crystal Caverns – almost finished with Coldain city at the heart of the zone. Very pleased with color scheme splitting the city levels and tying it into the matching caves. The geometry is dwarf size and difficult to get straight lines and I’m having to spend quite a bit of time cleaning up the in-game mapping. Hoping to have this zone wrapped up in a couple days.

2019.10.21 17:20 EST
* Ry`Gorr Mines recolored. Top level has black walls. If you are in a black hallway, it leads to the exit. Green is layer below, and Cyan below that. Blue leads to dead end hallways. Dark green and dark blue layers at bottom leading to Crystal Caverns. So, if at bottom: Cyan > Green > Black.

2019.10.21 9:30 EST:
* Great Divide – added Coldain mine in SE corner. Spent way too much time doing it, but very high quality.
* Ry`Gorr Mines – mostly complete. I’m going to clean it up a bit more and recolor the layers to get them to make more sense for the directionally impaired
* The Eastern Wastes – added more details
* Tower of Frozen Shadow – Entrance level at high quality.

2019.10.20 11:40 EST:
* Crystal Caverns – partial zone map.
* Great Divide – more details. Quest/Raid NPC’s added. Line optimizer took file from 15,656 lines down to 2,688.
* Ry`Gorr Mines – partial zone map.
* The Eastern Wastes – more details. Quest/Raid NPC’s added. Added the ring patches coming out from Sleeper’s Tomb area. These areas usually contain see-invis Dracoliches. Line optimizer took file from 12,590 lines down to 2,706. Number will go back up as I add houses and other fixed features.

2019.10.19
* Great Divide – outline of zone and various caves.
* Kael Drakkal – first draft of zone.
* The Eastern Wastes – outline of zone.
* Velketor`s Labyrinth – same geometry as prior zone. Glad I cleaned it up a few years ago.