First off, even my now reduced from 250 to 200 miles per hex while it may be realistic from a size perspective, is too big and sprawling for a gameplay one, or the amount of notable settlements. I think I may drop it down even further to 100 miles per hex. That's still over 1200 miles north to south. An utterly MASSIVE region by hobby gaming standards, but still big enough to feel like a real continent. The big river will still be massive, and the smaller one is like 300 miles. If you figure around 50 miles of river travel per day, that's 6 days from the lake to the ocean. The other river is 12. Realistically, there will be other things slowing you down on the way. If we figure about 25 miles of land travel a day, each hex at 100 miles takes 4 days to traverse.
Another thing is making the map more legible, and labeling everything. Its one reason I chose not to do the Holk's Pride/Camp Adamant regions. I didn't feel like going from my updates to make sure I keep the names the same.
So I have to decide: Find a better Mac capable map program than the old AD&D Core Rules 2.0 and possibly break it into the 3-4 regional areas? (Figuring that these 4 maps would have 1 of those big hexes containing 7 hexes on the new scale.) Should I use Comic Life and just make pretty labels on the old one?
This is the sort of work that goes into making a good world to adventure on. You need a mixture of realistic feel, yet with concessions made to playability.
Work continues!
Update: Thanks to Silverlion on #therpgsite IRC channel on Magicstar.net, I found a nifty little Java app that makes some nice Basic D&D era hex maps similar to what Thorf's Mystara website has, albeit a little less professional looking.
http://inkwellideas.com/?page_id=160
I only spent a little time playing with it, but quickly had a basic version of An Rikod made in a matter of minutes after opening the program. It may be a thing where making the basic core map, saving it as its image file option, then cleaning it up in an actual image editing program like Photoshop or Gimp is the best solution.
As you can currently see, I have the continent pretty much the same as the Core Rules 2.0 map maker, but with more precise terrain placement than the large element icons CR2.0 had. Obviously I will need to do more work and learn to use the new map program a bit better to get its total potential, but I think a mixture of both programs will suit my needs the best.
CR2.0 for general world maps the PCs might see, and the Inkwell Ideas program for a more structured DM friendly map.
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