I will agree with the general sentiment and add something more: for older players, speed is key. Traveling around and scrolling is not part of the fun, it’s making the game harder to play quickly when you need to.
FL is a more or less minimalist game when it come to gameply so even though the map is aesthetically fine, for me it clashed with the rest of the game -hard.
[quote=yetanotherone]Bringing up the travel map causes the main window vertical scrollbar to disappear (if there is one), which then makes all the the faded background content jerk to the right by as many pixels as the scrollbar was wide, and that is really annoying.[/quote]This is actually the default desktop situation for years already. :) Some libraries handled it better by measuring the scroll bar, but there are elements that are affected.
For those that can’t load the game, try and access it via https://www.fallenlondon.com/account
Don’t get your hopes high because the map loads there too, but it can get you closer to what you want to achieve.
Having read this thread before going to play this morning, I was expecting trouble. But in fact, the only small problem I had at first was being knocked out of the map when moving it across the screen. I worked out that "gripping" it at the edge got around that issue, so it’s all good for me.
I enjoy the time I take out (from work!) to play FL, so speed of getting around is not a problem.
And I love the map, it’s simply gorgeous. Brings the place so much more to life. And opens up spaces for so many more stories.
Incidentally, I am playing on an elderly computer (5 years old), but it was originally bought, equipped and set up for gaming, which may help. I also use Vivaldi for FL – a very low resource browser that can be finessed almost infinitely. I miss the convenience of the Firefox library, etc. but FF has not rendered FL properly for me for a while now.
I have gotten to the point that I cannot use Firefox for FL at all, so I have to open Chrome just to play (which caused me to play less as it is). No idea why such a popular browser such as Firefox still has problems.
More clicks is worse. Pretty, though. Is the loading bar underneath the “F” logo at the beginning new, or was it always there and the page just loaded too fast for it to show up until now?
I agree. The new map is pretty but harder to navigate. On my phone, it’s basically impossible to change locations.
Honestly, I wish I could just pull up a dropdown list of available locations. That would be less pretty but much easier to use.
I can no longer play on my phone, which makes me pretty unhappy honestly.
I’ve actually had this problem for the last few months, and I thought it was just me. Not sure what the issue is, but FL just won’t load in Firefox at all for me. It’s not a huge problem, Chrome starts quickly, but it’s still a little annoying.
[quote=Paflick]I’ve actually had this problem for the last few months, and I thought it was just me. Not sure what the issue is, but FL just won’t load in Firefox at all for me. It’s not a huge problem, Chrome starts quickly, but it’s still a little annoying.[/quote]While not the same, but related, Fallen London stopped working on Chrome on my phone about a month ago. So, basically the 50% of the time that I played the game on mobile… I can’t anymore. I emailed support and they said they were looking into it, but no luck yet. Ah well.
Visually map is just amazing, but extra clicks are annoing.
One strange and uncomfortable thing. While most storylets of “Riding the Savage Cobbles” are in “Concord square” now, “The Jack Case” - story, that allows to progress in Jack’s case with Savage Cobbles progress - resides in main “Ladybones road”. My alt is just doing here and it took me by surprise, when I couldn’t find this storylet in Concord. Dividing single carousel between 2 locations is … quite uncomfortable way to do things.
You may wish to try choosing the "Compatibility Map" (found in the Account Settings area) from your phone. I wasn’t able to play on my aged Android phone until I did so.
[quote=the old man]iiiii I’m in awe I love it its somewhat janky to navigate but I am not disappointed in the slightest
now let me look for all my property’s on the map
edited by the old man on 3/4/2020[/quote]
There is no "Lodgings" location on the map; that appears to have been a design choice. Instead, you access your Lodgings functions by using one of the three icons at the lower right of the map screen; the house (which is "Your Lodgings"); the bee ("Your Activities") and the thing that looks kind of like a bank building ("Your Social Engagements").
It’s got it’s pros and cons.
Pros:
-I’m able to access Doubt Street without using an action now! Hooray!
-Absolutely gorgeous.
-Lodgings no longer take up space.
Cons:
-So much clicking. This is London, not an autoclicker!
-Some areas could have been separate. The University and The Veilgarden are an example of this.
-It would have been cool to visit the named, but inaccessible, areas. Such as the bridges, bugsby’s marshes, and the Royal Bethlehem.
-The Foreign Office still doesn’t have it’s own route.
-Lodgings even being accessible from the map is a bit bad. I’d prefer them to be available as several sublocations that require you to have the right keys to access. It’d be pretty cool to see more lodgings-based content, honestly.
You may wish to try choosing the "Compatibility Map" (found in the Account Settings area) from your phone. I wasn’t able to play on my aged Android phone until I did so.[/quote]
And for those who like me didn’t have the compatibility mode, a solution could be to clear the browser cache on your phone. On my version of Android Chrome, that’s hidden under the three dots; Settings; Privacy.
Now to re-add all of my passwords…
It’s not ideal - the pages wouldn’t load a number of times, but refreshing the page finally got it up. Just hoping it’s not too data hungry…
I agree with most of the sentiments expressed here. (Very cool visually, too many clicks to adopt it for regular use.)
For me (a desktop + mouse user), one simple change would make the map usable on a daily basis: take me immediately to a location if I click directly on the text of the location at any zoom level. As it stands, if I’m zoomed all the way out and I click on a name, I get zoomed in, have to relocate the name, and then click on it again. Then when I next open the map, I’m still zoomed in, so I have scroll or zoom out to where I can select another named place. All of the in and out zooming or dragging is a bit tedious.
If clicking the text always took me to a location, then I could just leave the map fully zoomed out and get most places that I visit regularly.
Almost all of my casual travel is between the primary landing area of the classical named locations, so having those always accessible in one click is the key. For off-main locations like my base or a tavern or whatnot, I’m fine having to zoom in first to the region (by clicking offsides the text) and then locating the specific place, as we already had to do that anyway via stories in those location. (It is a bit of a drag that the University and the Labyrinth don’t show up at the outermost zoom, but I don’t actually use either much as a late gamer, so I’m fine with what is displayed.)
The compatibility map needs to be a bit larger too (on desktop) or at least zoomed out a bit as I can’t quite get The Forgotten Quarter and The Flit on map at the same time, so instead of the multiple clicks of the main map that one requires a drag and click, which is still a bit too much friction. So neither solution works terribly well for me at the moment.
I appreciate the work on the new map! I think it just needs a few usability tweaks, at least for my preferences and setup.
edited by Shaerys on 3/6/2020
I am curious: what is the use of splitting Lodgings and carousels in two or three pieces? It must have been assumed to serve a function, or it would not have been implemented.
Well I finally got the map to work on Firefoz. If I go into the account settings and then come back (no need to actually change anything) the map magically works! Unfortunately I seem to have to do this every time I log in. Quite annoying. The map is pretty enough, but I still don’t think it was worth all this bother. I would much rather they had spent some time bringing back “Who Else is Here?” Damn, I miss that.
I’m having trouble locating the labyrinth of tigers, the university and mahogany hall. It’s the same on safari and chrome, and I primarily play on mobile. Is anyone having the same problem as me?
Edit: it works now. The trick is, paradoxically, to zoom in and then scroll around the map. Somehow these three locations only appeared for me when zoomed in.
edited by navchaa on 3/6/2020
[quote=navchaa]I’m having trouble locating the labyrinth of tigers, the university and mahogany hall. It’s the same on safari and chrome, and I primarily play on mobile. Is anyone having the same problem as me?
Edit: it works now. The trick is, paradoxically, to zoom in and then scroll around the map. Somehow these three locations only appeared for me when zoomed in.
edited by navchaa on 3/6/2020[/quote]
I know its annoying that you have to zoom in to even see them
What would I need to be able to see the full interactive map? My MacAir on Chrome or Firefox only lets me access the map via compatibility mode. I’d love to see the whole thing.