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eiekal
Novice


Joined: 15 Dec 2000
Posts: 37
Location: USA

PostPosted: Thu Nov 14, 2002 3:24 am   

Users, how do you like the zmapper so far?
 
I have zmud 6.16 and use the map for the mud I play all the time. I'm in the process of looking at zmapper history to see if it speeds up room recognition so that if I'm in a fast moving group, the mapper can keep up and follow without lag. I'm hoping the zmapper speeds up things. Before I go look at the history, how are you guys enjoying the zmapper for mudding? Was it worth the purchase?
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Castaway
GURU


Joined: 10 Oct 2000
Posts: 793
Location: Swindon, England

PostPosted: Thu Nov 14, 2002 6:50 pm   
 
Just to clear some things.

The zMapper does _not_ make recognising/creating rooms in zMUD faster. That code is still in zMUD itself (and hasn't been much changed since 6.16, as far as I know). (Oops, creating rooms be faster, recogising is the same.. see the beta forum for discussions about this)

The difference between the zMUD internal mapper and zMapper, is that with zMapper you can do much more (and prettier) things with your map (like getting rid of the 'links' on the display and putting pics in the room, see the tutorial/samples). These things will be shown in zMud if you have zMapper installed as a plugin, else you dont see them. zMapper is meant to be used as a Mapper not just for muds, but also for (say) role-playing games and such, which you can create maps for and print them out..

Im not using my zMapper for anything special at the moment (I'd like to use it to recreate my 'eye of the beholder' maps and such when I have the time)

Lady C.

(Giving Zugg $10 is always worth it :)
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knuffel
Wanderer


Joined: 12 Jul 2002
Posts: 73

PostPosted: Sat Nov 16, 2002 9:52 am   
 
Hi,
Can't agree more with Lady C.

The features zMapper has are very nice and I have some longterm plans in turning my practical maps in nice looking maps that look like ancient maps, but it is longterm plans ...
Until now, all basic features are available within zMud but paying for the zMapper was more of a supportive idea ... so yuppppzzz go ahead and cash up ...

Greetz
Knuff
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rdodge
Apprentice


Joined: 29 Dec 2001
Posts: 108
Location: USA

PostPosted: Sat Nov 23, 2002 10:20 am   
 
My initial response to the use of zMapper is for the most part pretty good, but I seem to be having a bit of an issue with how the bitmap transfere onto the room itself. I have tried various things and I thought it worked out fine at first with adjusting the transparent, room apparence color (zMUD setting), and using the other colors of the zMapper for the bitmap, but not all of the bits transferred entirely onto the room. Even when the transparent is off, the middle part of all colors transferred, but not so much around the edges of the room. I have even unclicked off the room and attempted to scroll through the Zone and go back to it to see if that refreshed it, and still to no avail.

Ronald Dodge
Production Statistician
Master MOUS 2000
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Zugg
MASTER


Joined: 25 Sep 2000
Posts: 23379
Location: Colorado, USA

PostPosted: Sun Nov 24, 2002 9:15 pm   
 
Yep, there are some major issues with bitmaps and shapes getting attached to the wrong rooms or editing the wrong ones. I'm a bit surprised actually at how flaky it really is now that I've tried to use it for some major map projects.

But, I've identified these issues and hope to have them fixed in the next version. zMapper is definitely still a BETA product.

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Talahaski
Enchanter


Joined: 10 Oct 2000
Posts: 656
Location: USA

PostPosted: Wed Dec 04, 2002 11:48 pm   
 
Zugg,

So far I think the Mapper is awsome. The ability to create and map hex rooms makes zmapper very unique.

I've used some other manual mapping tools in the past, but none even compare to how easily it is to create and customize hex and non-hex maps with zmapper.

Personally, I don't really use the auto-mapper feature, which is why I love the new mapper so much. Manually creating maps is so much easier. Not only for mudding use, but also for non-mud RP games.

Keep up the good work.

Talahaski
Processor PIII 1000
Memory 265MB
Video NVIDIA 64MB
Windows XP
Zmud Version 6.37a
Zmapper Version 1.14
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Maynard
Newbie


Joined: 27 Jun 2003
Posts: 2

PostPosted: Mon Jun 30, 2003 12:18 pm   
 
I have totally given up on Zmapper!! I got it to work semi corectly one time and one time only, IM not quite sure how?? It seems to me and everyone i have talked to about it, that it is a real pain in the arse! I sure would like to use it, but grafpaper and a good pencil are much easier.
Sure it has alot of features(that almost noone will ever use), But i just want to click the button and have it go, real simple.
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Rorso
Wizard


Joined: 14 Oct 2000
Posts: 1368

PostPosted: Mon Jun 30, 2003 12:36 pm   
 
quote:
Originally posted by Maynard

I have totally given up on Zmapper!! I got it to work semi corectly one time and one time only, IM not quite sure how?? It seems to me and everyone i have talked to about it, that it is a real pain in the arse! I sure would like to use it, but grafpaper and a good pencil are much easier.
Sure it has alot of features(that almost noone will ever use), But i just want to click the button and have it go, real simple.


I think Zugg makes one large mistake with zMapper and that is the e-license protection. As he said zMapper is in beta so it is a bad idea to buy it at the current time until it is released. The thing is that he locks users out.

What happened to me? I tried zMapper on Win98 a few months ago and it ate all system resources crashing the OS. The GDI of Windows was blamed but I have since then realized that the GDI cant be blamed. The reason is of course that if we could internet explorer would go havoc when surfing pages containing pictures.

So I gave up and uninstalled the faulty product realizing that I could probably code it better - I always realize that when I'm upset Very Happy. The point is that 30 days afterwards the bug could have been fixed but now you won't buy it because of the bad experience. Your ability to try the bug fixed version is also gone as e-license does not grant you the ability to try it again.

From my point of view it is in this situation pointless to buy zMapper. It is only a waste of time and work.

Why should my second experience be better than the first? An experience I have to pay for to see the product without the bugs I experienced made it useless. The beta should of course be open to a certain date where a new beta open for some time would be released until a public version gets out. Then when a first public version exists the e-license should be strenghten. I won't buy a product and then have to report bugs totally free for one which I tried that just kept crashing. No one should have to buy such a faulty product. No way.
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Zugg
MASTER


Joined: 25 Sep 2000
Posts: 23379
Location: Colorado, USA

PostPosted: Mon Jun 30, 2003 7:23 pm   
 
You forget that future updates are always free, and that there is always a 30-day refund policy. Also, as I have demonstrated in the past with zMUD, I often reset the 30-day trial with public versions of zMUD so that people who's trial has expired in the beta can try the public release.

And I don't mean to offend, but my past experience over doing software development like this for many years is that "free" users are not good beta testers. And right now I have plenty of people beta testing zMapper even with the eLicense system, so it doesn't seem to be causing too many people not to buy it.

Also keep in mind that the Beta price is lower than the planned public price. As with zMUD, you can buy zMapper now for $20 and get future updates for free. Or you can wait till the public version and then pay more for it.

I'm not forcing people to use zMUD. And yes, right now it's more geared for zMUD maps rather than general game maps (although I use zMapper myself to create the game maps used in zExplorer and it works fine). If you don't think you will ever use any of the features in zMapper, then the product is probably not for you.

Then again, when zMUD started 7 years ago, people had no idea they even wanted features like people demand now. You just have to remember that zMapper is at the beginning of development and that many years are planned for this product. I just haven't been able to spend much time with it lately because I was busy trying to get a stable public release of zMUD done. But you'll see a lot more progress in zMapper/zExplorer over the next 6 months.

Finally, I should mention that I have not yet decided which versions of Windows will be fully supported for zMapper. I'm afraid that given the bugs in Windows 98, zMapper might end up being a Windows2000/WindowsXP/etc product eventually. Since zMapper is not intended for "casual gamers", I don't feel like I should be spending a lot of effort trying to support a version of Windows that is 5 years old now and full of bugs that Microsoft isn't going to patch. But, like I said, I haven't decided yet, and except for the shape editor, zMapper works fine on Win98 right now.

Your comment about Internet Explorer and surfing is totally wrong. IE only displays bitmap images, and those work fine. The memory leaks in the GDI are in the METAFILE code which handles vector images, not bitmaps. These kind of images are NOT used in IE. Yes, there are complex workarounds for these bugs, so programs like Corel Draw are able to work on Win98. I'm just not convinced that I should kludge up the code just to handle bugs in older versions of Windows given the high percentage of gamers that are using Windows XP these days.

Anyway, the bottom line is that if you don't want to buy it, then don't. And if you just want to "click the button and go" then zMapper is definitely not for you yet. You'll want to wait for a Public release.
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Rainchild
Wizard


Joined: 10 Oct 2000
Posts: 1551
Location: Australia

PostPosted: Tue Jul 01, 2003 6:21 am   
 
See, I looked at it as an investment, I figured I probably wouldn't use Zmapper much until the public version, except I decided to buy while the price was low *grin* I've toyed around with it a bit and it surely has promise -- I'm looking forward to seeing what Zugg has in store for us in the next round of beta's leading up to the first public release :)

And as far as buggy Windowses go, get with the program and get a real OS :P The fact that Microsoft has discontinued the future of the 3.11/95/98/ME line, and shipped things like Pocket PC and the XBOX using modified NT/2000/XP kernels aught to be a hint :P
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Rorso
Wizard


Joined: 14 Oct 2000
Posts: 1368

PostPosted: Tue Jul 01, 2003 7:28 am   
 
quote:
Originally posted by Rainchild

See, I looked at it as an investment, I figured I probably wouldn't use Zmapper much until the public version, except I decided to buy while the price was low *grin* I've toyed around with it a bit and it surely has promise -- I'm looking forward to seeing what Zugg has in store for us in the next round of beta's leading up to the first public release :)

And as far as buggy Windowses go, get with the program and get a real OS :P The fact that Microsoft has discontinued the future of the 3.11/95/98/ME line, and shipped things like Pocket PC and the XBOX using modified NT/2000/XP kernels aught to be a hint :P


I'm actually using WinXP nowadays. The win98 example was to show how the lock-effect worked. I guess I should say I'm sorry for my previous post as I was in one of those bad moods Very Happy. The low activity on the zMUD forums reminds me that it is the same on many muds and even worse. After counting some on it I arrived that if all muds had equal amount of players we would have like 3-4 players online at any time which is pretty bad. There are too many muds and too few players.
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Zugg
MASTER


Joined: 25 Sep 2000
Posts: 23379
Location: Colorado, USA

PostPosted: Tue Jul 01, 2003 9:23 pm   
 
Actually, don't let the activity in the forums fool you. There is usually less activity when zMUD is more stable, like it is now. People often times only post when they are having a problem. When posts go down, it's usually more of an indication that people are happyily playing and that zMUD is working well. My email reflects this as well. The number that I look at to judge MUDding activity in general, other than the actual login logs of a MUD, are zMUD sales. zMUD sales have been fine and have increased since I added the Simutronic and Pueblo support. I don't see any drop at this time to indicate less people MUDding or anything like that.

Yes, there are lots of MUDs, but I think the larger MUDs are still just as healthy as ever before. Of course, someone actually in charge of a large MUD would be a better person to comment on that than I.

Perhaps someday I'll have eLicense run a report and tell me how many registered zMUD users are still actively using zMUD (by looking at their license expiration date). It would be interesting to know. Given how many old licenses I had to "fix" in this last release, I can say that there seems to be a very large percentage of people who have been actively using zMUD for many years. Remember that I only get zMUD sales from *new* users. So, looking at sales is a good way to see how many new people are playing MUDs, but doesn't show how many long-time users are still playing.
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Hakkman
Newbie


Joined: 05 Jul 2002
Posts: 4
Location: Canada

PostPosted: Fri Jul 11, 2003 1:20 am   
 
Thank you guys for the explanation of what zMapper does.

I thought that zMapper was an add-on to replace the buggy automapper, and while the products page mentioned its prettification features, I didnt understand that that was ALL it does.

Back to figuring out the built-in automapper.
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Burtimus
Newbie


Joined: 13 Jul 2003
Posts: 2
Location: USA

PostPosted: Sun Jul 13, 2003 2:34 am   
 
Well, gotta throw in my own two cents here. I've been running zMapper through its paces for a series of offline maps for a variety of projects, from starcharting in Starfire to reconstructing maps of pre-Arthurian Britain. The structure of the maps themselves, as well as the organization of data in them, varies greatly. As I get closer to completion of these projects, I may post them for review by interested parties.

While I will not go so far as to say that zMapper is entirely bug-free (something that even Zugg has acknowledged), the product is, of course, only in beta. And, even though some of the features are not intrinsically intuitive, the maps one creates can be -- the mark of a truly outstanding product.

For one, I feel the registration is a non-issue. A tool with this kind of flexibility -- with or without its connectivity to zMUD -- is a great boon to gamers. I certainly look forward to further developments, and am going to continue to push the envelope with my own little projects.
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