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Newbie Joined: 07 Jul 2007 Posts: 4

I was wondering when the zexplorer is going to be updated with the latest info?

Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2008 9:51 pm

It's not going to support Mines of Moria. Back in Book 14, Turbine changed their map data format to prevent zExplorer from working. So support for LOTRO in zExplorer was discontinued at that time. Sorry...you can complain to Turbine if you are unhappy with them about this (like I am too...stop playing LOTRO myself because of this).

Novice Joined: 15 Nov 2001 Posts: 39

Well, I have been hunting around for data as to the new map format since you lost access, and while I haven't found much, someone seems to have.

The Arda Online group seems to be extracting the map info (maybe I'm misunderstanding what they're doing, but it seems like it) but their web-interface isn't anywhere as nice as zExplorer is. Anyways, they managed to add all the maps from the new areas in Mines of Moria.
http://www.arda-online.com/news.php

I still hope that zExplorer will support LotRO again, since I bought zExplorer for the single purpose of using with LotRO.

If nothing else, maybe you could screen-cap the missing areas from the Arda maps. (Since they got them from Turbine, I doubt they could complain). Or, ask them how they are extracting the maps. They might be willing to share.

Anyways, just some thoughts.

EDIT: They might just be screen-capping the in-game maps and stitching them together... but if so, it seems to provide a decent result.

Novice Joined: 15 Nov 2001 Posts: 39

Found out how they are building their map. They wrote a little utility that screen-caps the small radar map as you explorer, and builds the map from that. Since multiple people can run the utility, it's pretty easy for them to keep the map current.

Again, I think it's possible that they might let you use their map.

If not, perhaps similar functionality could be built into zExplorer in future, which would extend support to any game with a mini-map, given a small update to let it know how to recognize the map for that particular game. Then all zExplorer users would be mappers.