Conquer Club

Evil DIMwit wrote:

john9blue wrote:Also, now that the jets are gone, you should center the "Classic".

Not necessarily. It looks pretty good in its current spot, entirely over ocean.

May I suggest something like this?
http://www.imagebam.com/image/c7d55952880534
This way we can keep the "CLASSIC" in the ocean and solve the symmetry issues.

My apologies for the poor photoshopping, this is just a draft I made in a couple minutes... It would look quite a bit better if the smoke trails were drawn properly, but that's beyond my skill

Edit: (off-topic) is there a way that I can post the image in the forum instead of having to link to it?

I'm sorry, I still don't like the jet. Besides, if you want the three trails to come from the one jet, there's no way they can be as intense on the right side of "Classic" as in your sketch. I'd keep the map as classy (no pun intended) as possible.

Both "bonuses" and "boni" are correct. The latter is the Latin plural, the former the regular English version and thus more often used. I'd keep "bonuses".

The compass looks nice. I disagree that you should change the green, both colours are very much in touch with everything else on the map. Maybe indeed tone it down, lose the shadow, and make it slighty transparent.
Someone dropped the idea a while ago to make the CC star in it the 2D version instead of 3D - that might help aswell if the rest isn't enough.

saaimen wrote:I'm sorry, I still don't like the jet. Besides, if you want the three trails to come from the one jet, there's no way they can be as intense on the right side of "Classic" as in your sketch. I'd keep the map as classy (no pun intended) as possible.

Both "bonuses" and "boni" are correct. The latter is the Latin plural, the former the regular English version and thus more often used. I'd keep "bonuses".

The compass looks nice. I disagree that you should change the green, both colours are very much in touch with everything else on the map. Maybe indeed tone it down, lose the shadow, and make it slighty transparent.
Someone dropped the idea a while ago to make the CC star in it the 2D version instead of 3D - that might help aswell if the rest isn't enough.

Of course, that'd have to be fixed by someone more skilled than me.

I'm fine with the compass overall, but I think the colors should be made (much) lighter.

Like the way this is looking, a good modernisation of the Classic map

Definitely think the compass needs to be toned down a bit and possibly shrunk a tad, and I agree with most , bring back the Sully face in the corner.. It was subtle and quite fun.

also it may be just me but the text for the Oz cities seems more blurry than the others, maybe its a color thing.

as for the jets I personally like them how about a change of the direction of the fade on the stripes and putting them going away from the title rather than towards it?

mibi wrote:The issue with the compass is mostly due to it's 'poison arrows' or sha chi.

See here, http://fengshui.about.com/od/glossaryof ... shachi.htm

Basically, the sharpness of its points create such a contrast with the rest of the map, being rather soft, that a disharmony is created because these elements are not in unison, design wise. It is psychologically inauspicious to several of the cities surrounding the compass. I'd suggest you find or create a compass without such menacing points, further more if you are using photoshop, you can set the entire layer to luminosity and it will blend in real nice with the ocean tones.

For the record, Feng Shui is half subconscious commonsense and half bullshit mysticism. Ditch the latter and you have something useful.

This is a most interesting post... I like the way you justify rationally all your design decisions, instead of relying on instinct ("gut feelings", as sully puts it)...

sully800 wrote:

lackattack wrote:I like the jets, but if you replace them how about putting something with the Conquer Club star in there? Or even a compass in the ocean à la original Classic, but with the CC star instead of a skull?

I've tried a couple of ways to work the logo into the title and they all looked bad to me. I tried the compass rose with the CC logo in this version. Thoughts?

I agree with others the compass as is is too much. If you keep it could you use the original CC star?

sully800 wrote:

lackattack wrote:If it doesn't clutter the artwork, I'd prefer to call the continents names like "African Cities" instead of "Africa" to distance Classic from other popular global domination game boards.

I think I said this earlier, but there is not enough room to put "cities" after each bonus region. Does the label "city bonuses" help at all? Or is that just unnecessary?

Fair enough. I don't think "city bonuses" helps much in terms of distancing.

The compass rose jumps out because it is the only 3D, drop-shadowed item on the map (apart from the title). Not even the continental land masses have any real depth, so why would the compass? Flatten it out, perhaps to the point of making it look stencilled on (nah, just normal four-colour printing would probably be better).

Or better yet, BRING BACK THE GLOBES. Sure the 3D rotation gimmick might be too much, but the pictorial legends are a clever construct. Maybe they should be flat hemisphere maps as well, then they might look less like clutter. Put the Western Hemisphere in the Pacific, the Eastern in the Indian Ocean, and your compass rose in the Atlantic.

Or a single whole earth map form like [player]NemesisChild[/player]suggested a week ago, or any other projection you like (even the one the actual map is based on). The text legend has no pizzazz.

flat hemisphere maps would sound pretty kick ass actually

Here we go!

• Back to globe bonuses, because I greatly prefer them over the plain list and most posters seem to feel the same way.
• Removed the bonus region labels, because they can be easily determined based on the XML. Anyone who can read the site instructions can figure out the names on the bonus regions from the game log, and that dramatically reduces the cramping problem around the globes
• Compass is flattened, dimmed and the points have been rounded a bit. Let me know if this fits better!
• The outer glow on the orange is a little darker to make it more legible. The outer glow on the yellow/brown is darker still to differentiate it from the orange.
• Ghost Sulley is back due to popular demand. Label has been dimmed but should still be legible.

To do: Look more into color blindness comparisons to come up with the optimum color organization (instead of just following the scheme from Shapes).

EDIT: And here's one with a light outer glow on the compass to match the globes better.

You are still going to need the bonus groups names won't you?

I say go back to this globe style

WidowMakers wrote:You are still going to need the bonus groups names won't you?

I'm hoping not. The only purpose those labels serve is to identify the bonus regions by the name they are called in the XML (so when a person gets 5 for holding North America they know what "North America" is referring to). In this case, since everyone who can read English already knows the names of the bonus regions labeling them seems to be unnecessary. And those who can't read English don't gain much new understanding by seeing the labels, and are a small minority on this site I'm sure.

Map for the new page:

EXCELLENT Sully....

Simply EXCELLENT!



As for the compass,
i still think it would look better if it was just the CC star contained in a circle,
with thin lines for the direction...

Like this... except with the CC star in the middle

The less obvious compass sticks out less. Since it is appended, keeping the focus on the gamespace is more important. I also concur that continents are obvious.

This map will be infinitely better than shapes. However, have staff approached Hasbro with this design? If their legal team swoops in months from now when everyone gorges on this revamp, it would be a mighty blow.

Robinette wrote:EXCELLENT Sully....

Simply EXCELLENT!



As for the compass,
i still think it would look better if it was just the CC star contained in a circle,
with thin lines for the direction...

Like this... except with the CC star in the middle

she speaks the truth. right now it looks like south america is a continental shift away from being deflated against that big spikey compass thing.

I am not a fan of the globes but if you have to use them, i would add the labels in there. in my experience making maps here, assumptions about what people can understand can be dangerous.

The shading on the compass makes it look like the spikes are askew.

much better any would be better nice work

The compass is best with the glow. Not necessarily because of the glow, but because you lost the shadow. It shouldn't be the lost Atlantis floating on the ocean (But how cool would that be? Atlantis with a CC star as central court!... Ok, back to the real world.)
I think it fits the map a lot better now, it's less of an eye-catcher. Nice job.
Mini-maps look great aswell. I agree we don't need continent names, unless CC regulations tell us we do.
Nice work! Looking forward to playing on this map.

Personally I like the plain text better than the globes.

What are the names of the bonus zones ? I was under the impression they have to named even with a minimap-- for obvious reasons.

Scott-Land wrote:What are the names of the bonus zones ? I was under the impression they have to named even with a minimap-- for obvious reasons.

Well we can see what lack or Mr Benn thinks about that. I personally think it is worth reducing the clutter because you can look at the map and know the names of the bonus regions. For maps where everyone doesn't know those names at the beginning, I'd agree with you that labeling is necessary.

I agree, I tried the same for my map and was told it was required so I switched back to the 'old legend.' Certain you will need names for the xml, bob text maps and such but hopefully you won't have to display it on the map itself. Thought you may want to start considering names for them as you're pretty close to completion.

Much much nicer title btw-- nice clean look.

Obviously, the globes are better. Consider the illiterate!

I love it how it currently is
I also like the compass how it is, except for one tiny, miniscule change. Could the arrow poinitng north on it be a little longer?
And Ewwwwwww.... Perth. but there is no viable way of changing that, unless New Zealand is added, and i belive that has been discussed.

Sweet! I'm glad you guys are doing this, and it looks great I agree with the suggestion that the compass shouldn't stand out as much, however.

perhaps the 'troop city disks' could be 'troop city domes', in keeping with the globe legends.