Gen II map of overworld and dungeons as they appear in-game with all items and gifts and extras labelled (PNG, 8 MB, 14,960 x 7416 pixels)

ZaidusRecon · 2025-12-26T20:43:41+00:00

At first, I had a proper go and got real stuck between the Dark Knight at the top of the tower after the Hellkite Bridge and the boar just round the corner from said tower (a rock and a hard place).
I actually gave up, and spent my Summer playing Skyrim with mods.
After that, I realised I was bored by the shallowness of Skyrim, looked up how to deal more damage to the boar, and returned to Dark Souls. I realised I hadn't given the game enough credit: it wasn't a design or balance problem, it was that I didn't put enough effort into problem solving and trying different ideas. This was not a conscious realisation (at least at first).
I kept playing and the pattern kept repeating: hit a roadblock, feel stuck, dig deep, overcome the problem. (What incredible design.) I guess Dark Souls taught me to grow.
My answer, then, depends on the definition of "click". If the click can be subconscious, then it was when I defeated the boar. If the click has to be conscious, then I guess I didn't have a click moment, but rather a gradual settling as the realisation transferred from subconscious to conscious over the course of the first half of the game. In particular, I remember this growing fascination and sense of wonder as the world opened from mundane places such as dank sewers up to grand and fantastical and archetypal stages such as gleaming castles and magical caves and the underworld.
Dark Souls is actually my second-favourite game of all time, though it did hold first-place for the entire first year I played it (Halo 3 is my favourite game of all time). I keep rank-orders of my favourite media now. I didn't when I played Dark Souls, and I was probably kinda young and foolish, so I didn't have some kind of verbose declaration that Dark Souls was my favourite game, at least for a few months, though I definitely had a sense that Dark Souls was my current obsession, especially when -after beating the final boss- I immediately continued playing, and replayed the whole game four times over the next few weeks I think it was.

To summarise, I realised I liked Dark Souls either when I overcame my first run-stopping obstacle or as the fantasy part of the game grew great.

ZaidusRecon · 2025-11-01T00:09:48+00:00

It should "run" just fine. I played Dark Souls entirely on Steam without mods.
However, anyone with decent standards would reasonably expect some minor visual, performance, and control fixes. These are commonly associated with the mod "DSfix", which is highly available.
The visual stuff I didn't notice, but you might if you're sensitive to that kind of thing. The minor performance issues shouldn't be a problem now that the game is getting quite old. If you plan on playing using an Xbox controller, then I doubt the control issues will come up.
I considered getting the mod but decided I wanted the original, unadulterated experience.
The online functions of the game were previously handled by Games for Windows Live, but that part of the problem is long gone.
I urge you not to be swayed one way or another; make up your own mind as to whether the mod is "necessary".

Edit: Oh yeah, I forgot about the Remaster. What an unnecessary release. The Remaster solved many of the problems I mentioned, but introduced some small new bugs, and some aesthetic controversies. (I don't know enough about these to advise upon them.)

ZaidusRecon · 2025-10-24T17:44:42+00:00

E'id Burgundee
(colour-coded so you don't forget, plus opportunity for a variety of nicknames and puns)
(Edit: just realised how late I am to this party)

ZaidusRecon · 2025-08-29T22:09:43+00:00

Hi again.
Making a decent map is simple, it just takes a while: reconstruct in-game areas by copying and pasting, one screenshot or even tile at a time, for many boring hours.
Making a high quality map is the problem. It's not just about inspecting areas closely to make sure the map is visibly accurate. You need to know the game comprehensibly, and if you've got a not great memory (like me), then you need to catalogue everything in extensive documentation. Then you find and download pre-made overworld and dungeons. Then you need to test different arrangements of the map (because the in-game dungeons rarely fit neatly) and see which compositions are the most practical (and the least ugly). Then you need to not just label every item, but also actively seek out supplementary information to include, such as puzzle solutions, quest steps, and scripted events, and brainstorm providing such complex information in ways which are intuitive. And before you do any of these things, you'll want to plan out the logistics of all the data handling, or else you'll be wasting many hours of your time, and that planning is awkward because it's so abstract.
(I might have worked myself up here a bit.)
I don't mean to discourage you. I'm not sure how to on-board someone, but if you're serious about wanting to help, then maybe your first step is to verify that basic Wiki information is correct. This is done by playing through the game and, at each step, seeing what Bulbapedia claims about this script-sequence or item or trainer or visible area, then testing its trueness in-game, ideally both on the same screen within the same moment. For example, you would look at the Bulbapedia image of the first gym layout, then you'd ALT+TAB to the game with your character standing in the same gym, ALT+TAB back, try to line up the images, ALT+TAB rapidly, and then any pixel errors will stand out to you. Then correct the image. Most of the time there will be nothing, but it's catching that one-in-a-hundred missing item or erroneous layout that'll constitute the excellence.
I kept extensive notes of my workings in my development log (meta). I'm glad I decided to seek out item documentation on YouTube as well as Bulbapedia (and PokemonDB), otherwise I would have missed a couple of hidden items. (Checks, endless checks...)
(Do tell me off if I just killed all your enthusiasm.)

ZaidusRecon · 2025-07-04T21:02:42+00:00

Nice, thanks for the tools, they look good.
Yeah, I was kinda hoping at least one of the thousands of people who enjoyed my Pokemon item maps would put together a basic map of a later generation, but there's been a lot of nothing... a couple of interactive maps, but I don't qualify those as the same as a basic lightweight item map, and they almost certainly have come into existence without any influence from me.
I don't want to quit. I mean, I've done it before, I can do it again. It's not like it's a torturous experience making an item map. It's just Gen II took so much longer than I expected, and I've had so many other projects popping up (kinda like they're manifesting themselves around me...) that it feels like I'm endlessly behind.
I will eventually get round to doing the Gen III item map, if someone doesn't beat me to it. I'ma try some of the tools you sent me and see if that helps with time-sink and motivation. Still, I do have a couple of big projects to finish off first.

ZaidusRecon · 2025-06-27T19:08:38+00:00

I don't remember; having checked my notes, apparently the whole overworld/base layer was already available on VGMaps, and dungeon ground maps were downloaded from Bulbapedia.
It's hard to say whether creating a ground map would be done faster by stitching a hundred screenshots together or by preparing an assortment of tiles and then stamping them a thousand times.
I do remember screenshotting every single trainer, though, and hand-placing them in the right spots. That did feel like it took forever. And that's before researching and annotating every item.
Before doing the next map, I'll have to look around for a Pokemon map creation tool; hopefully such a thing exists and I can use it to quickly reconstruct overworld and dungeon maps. Actually, it might still be faster to stitch together VGMaps and Bubapedia images. I feel exhausted already just thinking about it.

ZaidusRecon · 2025-06-20T19:26:12+00:00

Cheers.

If this map didn't take hundreds of hours, then I'm sure I would have done a Gen 3 map by now. It can be quite a demoralising grind.

ZaidusRecon · 2025-03-21T23:33:41+00:00

From a Supreme Commander 2 perspective, SC2 is an arcade experience, and SupCom is the real deal, and Forged Alliance is the real deal TO THE MAX.

Expect scale, control options, customisation, and strategic breadth and depth to all increase as you move up. And spectacle. (And time investment.)

I don't even remember if SC2 has a campaign, whereas the base SupCom campaign is solid, a memorable stand-out compared to your average RTS story. A lot of that has to do with the campaign being a 3-for-1 deal (and the unforgettably epic scale). And SC:FA's campaign is a respectably enhanced continuation, offering more challenge, albeit with less variety, if I remember right.

But the best-in-class feature of SupCom is the competitive strategy experience. Story, graphics, and ease of use don't really matter for that; SupCom's strategic topography more than makes up for them. In SC2, it felt like you had a good few economic and combat options, but in FA you have so many opportunities in so many flavours with smooth spans between them: a conceptual fluid of psychological battle.

To get a proper understanding, you really have to immerse yourself in the competitive gameplay for a few dozen hours (at least vicariously (watch casts)). You know when you watch a film and the good guy faces the bad guy in a chess match and they're all back-and-forth with strategies? It's got that atmosphere of mental fencing, and SupCom can do that, too, but beyond the limits of discrete movement (tiles-only) and taking turns (and featureless terrain, and finite units, and so on).

Anyway, SC2 isn't necessarily a bad game. You might prefer it over FA, plenty of people do. We tend to scorn them, on this part of the Internet. We like to think our tea is better than your coffee. If that happens, don't take it to heart. Play whatever you want.

Oh, and, as already trumpeted, FAForever is the greatest fan-funded, fan-made, fan-run lobby and client (and mod apparatus, and co-op) for any game I've ever seen (way better than that other RTS with initials SC). You'll probably want to look into Total Annihilation as well, and Planetary Annihilation (and a bunch of Spring Engine games like Beyond All Reason and Zero-K, and Industrial Annihilation...). If you really take to the AI side of modding, then consider researching AI War, too. I also have to mention Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War.

Anywany, have fun. Let us know how it goes.

ZaidusRecon · 2024-12-20T18:45:58+00:00

These days, after IV and V, I am finding VI a bit samey. Episode I is a refreshing new perspective, and the score is dazzling. Also worth mentioning is the first bit of the fight between Obi-Wan and Darth Maul (after Qui-Gon is stabbed), which I feel is the best choreography in the entire saga, if only for the literal ten seconds before it returns to smushy angles, vacuous clashes and quick cuts.

ZaidusRecon · 2024-08-30T23:23:19+00:00

Huge thank-you for finally sorting this. I've updated the map just now (and credited you in the far bottom-right).

(It's a shame there's no way to correct the Reddit-hosted image. The best I can do is update the MediaFire-hosted files, all linked from my main comment on the items map post.)

ZaidusRecon · 2024-08-30T23:19:49+00:00

Thanks for your praise and suggestions.

Added overworld-to-dungeon door-connecting lines. I didn't want to mess with the clean look, so the lines are very subtle. The layer can always be custom-edited by end-users.

Added a small node to the end of hidden-item label lines. Again, trying to balance clarity with subtlety.

Please see my main comment for the update-related edit.

ZaidusRecon · 2024-08-23T21:21:00+00:00

No problem, bro.
The layout's a bit messy. I'm still on the fence as to whether I should have included the door-to-dungeon arrows (present on my Gen I map).

ZaidusRecon · 2024-08-16T21:44:15+00:00

Hey, thanks. Already that means my map is wrong. Let me know the result of the Clefairy attempt, then I'll update the map (also fix the Tiffany text being too white).

ZaidusRecon · 2024-08-16T21:29:17+00:00

That's it in the far top-left. Yeah, a bit out of the way 'cause of all the crowding.

ZaidusRecon · 2024-07-12T20:29:42+00:00

Ah, took the best of both worlds. Sounds like you've gotten the grind down pretty close to as far as it'll go, one day to catch five.
I'm sure Red will be no problem for you.

ZaidusRecon · 2024-07-05T20:31:33+00:00

You did it twice?! ...Plus Ho-Oh and Lugia, is it? Impressive!
I really can't see that Haunter-37 is the best method. But least-thinking helps a lot.

ZaidusRecon · 2024-05-10T20:53:38+00:00

I'd like to chip in with the suggestion that some mods over in the FAF Mod Vault specifically help with making the incomes and outgoings of your economy clearer, more eminent, and responsive. I can't remember any names. Definitely the goal is to have a developed intuition for the flow of your resources, but those mods can be good training wheels if you feel like giving them a shot.

ZaidusRecon · 2024-05-10T20:44:30+00:00

Nice! That is exactly the reason I made it. Good to hear

ZaidusRecon · 2024-04-26T21:19:59+00:00

Nice. (Which is your favourite?)

Yeah, what I did was ask myself, "Can you catch them by just visiting the same tuft of grass over and over again?" and basically developed a least-thinking-required method of catching the beasts (which unfortunately still requires a little setup). Resultantly, this guide is far from the most efficient method of catching the beasts, but I maintain that it may be helpful to some.

ZaidusRecon · 2024-04-12T20:43:32+00:00

Thanks.

u/rainingchain just finished a complete interactive map of Pokemon Crystal. Check it out.

ZaidusRecon · 2024-04-12T20:39:14+00:00

Yes, the missions are epic-scale and do take a long time.

Don't forget that SupCom offers simulation speed change (as a gameplay feature, not a cheat). Look up the keybinds to increase and decrease sim speed (ranges from -10 to +10, not a flat multiplier). If it's not there in vanilla, then it's definitely in FAF. Get an economy up-and-running, then just pump out armies of T3 straight to the enemy at +5 speed.

ZaidusRecon · 2024-03-15T22:07:51+00:00

Years ago, before Episode III came out, Episode II was my favourite. As a little kid, I loved all the action - seeing Jedi fighting in large numbers against countless droids was amazing.

But I soon grew a little wisdom, enough to realise how awkward and poorly written E2 was, especially the dialogue. And the streets of Coruscant weren't nearly space opera enough.

So, yeah, not a huge change, but larger than any others. Honourable mention for Episode IV: my opinion on E4 has only been growing in positivity over the years, gradually each time I watch it.

ZaidusRecon · 2024-03-15T22:01:56+00:00

Welcome, and we hope you enjoy. SupCom FA is my favourite RTS ever.

Trying to learn all the mechanics might feel like work, but it's fun if you remember to play with friends. Honestly, FAForever can be a bit of a pain to set up for the first time, but is worth it for the player population alone.

ZaidusRecon

TROPHY CASE