Isle of Tom

[SpottedShroom]

Assuming a similar map file format that will work with xolotl's editor, it'll be pretty hard to keep much a secret for long.

[IJBall]

Assuming a similar map file format that will work with xolotl's editor, it'll be pretty hard to keep much a secret for long.

True. But a "challenge" from BW would presumably include the proviso that you couldn't use xolotl's editor to find the "hidden secret", and/or an agreement that if you did xolotl's editor to find it that you wouldn't post that info to the forums or the front page...

[SpottedShroom]

But a "challenge" from BW would presumably include the proviso that you couldn't use xolotl's editor to find the "hidden secret", and/or an agreement that if you did xolotl's editor to find it that you wouldn't post that info to the forums or the front page... ;)

Well, I certainly won't tell. Anybody can use the editor, though, so we may find out if our community is small enough to be mostly troll-free.

[BasiliskWrangler]

Just because I don't encrypt all the maps doesn't mean I couldn't encrypt some of the maps. Certainly a clever hacker could eventually crack then encryption, but I would bet I could sneak 2 or 3 maps into Book III that would be encrypted and unreadable by any 3rd party map editor.

[KillingMoon]

Well, of course. But for me personally some places were already tricky to find anyway. Like the area just south of the cottage where you started, I didn't find that until I looked at the whole Eschalon map in the forums. And plenty of people will have had problems finding some of those hidden enclosures in Wolfenwood. I think the regular gamer already got his share of hidden areas. But you could think of other hidden things as well.

I remember Civilization III had a nice one. If it was the 8th of January - or you had set your computer to show the 8th of Jan - and you started up a game that uses a King unit, this unit would be replaced by Elvis - yeah, The King, born on Jan 8. Not every player immediately got the joke, and some sent in a bug report about it!

[SpottedShroom]

I wonder if there are any hidden maps in Book III...

Um, sort of?

[+] SPOILER

There's a map called ProjTest (ptest.map) included in the Book III distribution, but as far as I can tell it's inaccessible, and in any case not very interesting.

[IJBall]

I wonder if there are any hidden maps in Book III...

I dunno about "hidden maps", but there are definitely a few "unreachable places":

1. One of these is the "vent" from the Goblin Castle by the Sea dungeon - it is clearly visible on the Castle by the Sea map with high enough Cartography, and it's referenced in the dungeon itself, but there seems to be no way "up" from there to reach the surface.
2. There's also some islands just off coastlines (e.g. island north of Moonrise) that are "unreachable".

I wonder if BW really did put in a "super secret area" in Book III that none of us have discovered yet...