WoW Atlas - Any good for RPG?

[Big Mac]

I've seen a few Atlas products for WoW and wonder if anyone who owns them thinks they could be useful for tabletop RPG games.

[Warwynd]

Pretty much ANY map can be used as the basis for a campaign world IMO. All it takes is work on your part to flesh out the territories/Kingdoms etc. and maybe history and so on and viola!! A new campaign world. Even a crappily drawn map can for the basis. There are plenty of Hex mapper programs out there that can help you flesh the world out more or to recreate a prettier version of the map.

[Big Mac]

Pretty much ANY map can be used as the basis for a campaign world IMO.

I get that, but I was thinking specifically of using Azeroth.

I think my two choices are using the WoW Atlas or hunting down maps on the Internet and printing them out. I was wondering if the Atlas would be a useful shortcut.

All it takes is work on your part to flesh out the territories/Kingdoms etc. and maybe history and so on and viola!! A new campaign world. Even a crappily drawn map can for the basis. There are plenty of Hex mapper programs out there that can help you flesh the world out more or to recreate a prettier version of the map.

I might take your advice on this sometime. I've been reading up on the "sandboxing" concept and a lot of the design process seems to be tied into designing a global map, an area map and then smaller local maps.

[Bonetti]

First, wowwiki has many maps (zone, major city, and instance). Here's a fan-based one which puts all the in-game zone maps into a single map (with suggested scale).

Second, mapwow.com has a google maps-based version of the world maps (taken from the in-game mini-map textures and quilted together).

Third, don't the RPG books contain some?

[Warwynd]

I've been reading up on the "sandboxing" concept and a lot of the design process seems to be tied into designing a global map, an area map and then smaller local maps.

Precisely what I was getting at. The maps for WoW are pretty and logical (as far as I recall) and therefore take most of the work out of what you want to do.

And Bonetti seems to have made your job that much easier yet. I could send you a copy of a freeware Hexmapper program that I use. It also has Thorf's updated graphics with it (well, some of them anyway, the colors are off and I think Thof has many more images then this program does, but...)

[Big Mac]

First, wowwiki has many maps (zone, major city, and instance).

True, they have a lot of maps. But I saw an out of date atlas for £0.90 (+ £2.75 postage) and figured that there has to be a "might as well give it a go" price for these sort of things. (The same out of book is being pushed for £80.00 by another seller - at that price I can only call them a bandit! )

Here's a fan-based one which puts all the in-game zone maps into a single map (with suggested scale).

This is brilliant. Shame it isn't at a higher resolution. Still, it looks good enough to be wrapped around a globe and used for Spelljammerish pictures.

Second, mapwow.com has a google maps-based version of the world maps (taken from the in-game mini-map textures and quilted together).

I love this. Shame all those ads get in the way.

Third, don't the RPG books contain some?

Maybe. I'm still at the "what do I need and can I get it cheap" stage.

[Hugin]

Second, mapwow.com has a google maps-based version of the world maps (taken from the in-game mini-map textures and quilted together).

That is one nifty map! I'd love to see that done with RPG world maps.

[Big Mac]

Second, mapwow.com has a google maps-based version of the world maps (taken from the in-game mini-map textures and quilted together).

That is one nifty map! I'd love to see that done with RPG world maps.

I'm kind of hoping that we can build up links to sets of tools that do just this sort of thing, as well as tutorials that allow more of us to follow in the steps of the more artistic Piazzaonians.

(From a Spelljammer point of view, I would love to be able to randomly generate worlds and then keep the good ones.)