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Now that I'm deep inside the mapper code, I'm finding some interesting things. For example, I just discovered why cross-zone speedwalking has been so flaky.

As you might know, the Master map stores the cross-zone link information. Each record in the master map link table points to a particular room in a particular zone and then points to another master link record for the destination of the link. Then, the exit record for the room would point to this master link record. Not the best data structure in the world, but it mostly worked.

Well, it turns out that when you'd delete a room on the map, if it had a zone link attached to it, the link record in the master map wasn't always removed. Then, in certain cases this master link record could get reused, but the Room field in the record wasn't updated to point to the new room...it still pointed to the old room.

So, basically, for people that have done lots of edits on their map, their master link list for zone links is probably totally corrupted! When the mapper draws the map, it doesn't check for consistency in this info...if the room points to a master link record, it draws it as a zone link, even if the info in the master link record isn't correct.

In the conversion to the new database format, this stuff is cleaned up. The inconsistent data is fixed whenever possible. In the case where more than one room point to the same master link record, two new links will be created. So, the new database should have everything fixed.

In the case where there is a zone link shown on the current map, but it actually points to a room that no longer exists, then this zone link will be removed and will not get added to the new database.

What a mess some of this old code is!!!

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