Diary of a Sparkle Hunter - A Resource Mapping Project (was Follow

Diary of a Sparkle Hunter - A Resource Mapping Project

As soon as i saw it for the first time I was entraced. The flickering sparkles glimmering over the flora. In that moment I new my destiny. My fate to forever search for 'sparkle grass'. The thrill at seeing it from afar. The rush of expectation as I approched. The positioning and the summoning of the sythe of awesomeness. The smooth, deft movements as I harvest the earth's bounty. What joy!

But alas, my memory isn't all that good. i could never recall where all these spots were. So after locating a map of the black shroud, I opened Ye Old Failful MS Paint and began paining dots where these sources were found. Gradually I started expanding my findings to all kinds of sparkles, for botany, mining and fishing.

Now after quite a bit of work I am able to share the fruits of my labour. Originally I posted an image with the dots painted on but due to issues with the uploaded quality I chose to cancel it. I have since found a site called MapLib where you can post an image and using GoogleMap Technology you can add markers and descriptions. I have uploaded the maps of the 3 main regions and am working on inserting my findings onto these maps. Below is a link to my maps


The Black Shroud - http://www.maplib.net/map.php?id=10816

This map is just me adding dots as per my original edit. No new information has been added yet. At some point I will revisit the Black Shroud and hunt for more spots and flesh out information as per below.

Thanalan - http://www.maplib.net/map.php?id=10815

Partially Completed Grades 1-3

This map is more substantial. I have been adding the dots as I have been going along so I have been inlcuding my notes on what items drop from each point. If you click on the marker it will bring up a box where I list the items i have seen harvested. This list may not be complete as it is just one person's findings

Explanatory Notes:

Map Lib
Just to explain there are limitations in regards to MapLib hosting. For a free account that just anyone can sign up for, there is a limit to how many markers can be visible at one time on the map (40). Currently on the Black Shroud map I have around 170 markers so not all of them are visible.

To get around this I have created Categories for each of the resource types as well as for Cave Entrances and Aetherite Gates/Camps. In the top left of the map screen there is a box that says 'legend'. If you click this it opens up a screen with all the categories with check boxes next to them. If you uncheck a category it will remove from the map all markers assigned that category. So for example, you can remove all mining and quarrying or you could remove all resource points that are grade 3, 4 and 5 to only see the lower level ones.

Also on the side of the page there is a box with teh word 'Markers/Info/Share/Other' at the top. This box lists all the markers that your options currently have visible. At the bottom it shows how many pages there are, soif there is more than one page of markers then you won't see the others. If you click on the link for the next page, the view will change and show you the markers on the 2nd page

There is the ability to set up a Group and add members to that group. This means that I could give access to other people to add/edit markers on the map. However, as there is no backup function for MapLib, if I let the wrong person on they could in a few minutes potentially ruin what has been hours and hours and hours of work over the last few weeks. So for the time being I am not going to be adding just anyone to edit my resource maps. There is a comment box on all the maps, so you can leave a comment if you have more resource points or in you know of more resources that are not listed for certain points.

Oh and I am missing the markers for Spearfish 3-5 cause there is a monthly limit to how many marker images you can upload *shrugs*. Will fix it soon

Fishing
Unfortunately I don't have fishing. This means that a lot of the fishing and spearfish reference are guestimates. Maybe at some point in the future I will get fishing but at the moment I am contricted by time and inventory space to work on another class. If I cam find someone I trust to edit fishing resources I will consider adding them to a group.


Primary Tool Points:
Please note that just because there is a marker in a location does not mean that you will find a resource there. The harvesting locations can be exhausted (i.e. 'the deposit colapses' or 'the tree will yield no more'). When this happens, the resource point will move to another location. On several instances I have mined/chopped to have the point I am working on cease to sparkle. When I turn around and go back I find another resource point in a place I had already passed and it hadn't been there before. My hypothesis is that each harvesting node has a set of up to 3 locations that it cycles through when exhausted in one location. At some point in the future I would like to do further study on this and update the map with lines linking each resource to its sister points.

I will state that I don't beleive that I have all the possible resource points located at this time, or all the possible resources harvested from each one.

Grades:
The grade of a harvesting point is dependant on the location. For the most part it coincides with the difficulty rating of the nearby camps. I have read in the forums that Fishing grades up to level 8 have been found but for the time being I only have markers for 1-5 available.


Credits
Base Images
The Black Shroud -> http://ffxiv.wikia.com/wiki/File:The_Black_Shroud_Map.jpg
Thanalan -> whoops i forgot where i got it.
La Nocsea ->

Apart from that, all the work in putting this together is my own effort.

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Please note that this is a hobby of mine. I enjoy exploring and often when I am not leveing, crafting or grinding I will whip out my tools and run around the nearby area. So progress on updating these maps will be at my own discression based on my free time. I endeaver to work on the maps a little each week but as I am now being quite detailed in my research in Thanalan It may take a while.

Hope this helps you guys.



Edited, Nov 5th 2010 7:59am by Magnesium02

Awesome idea, this is exactly the sort of thing we need!

Can I make a suggestion, maybe make those dots a little bigger? and/or separate it into different maps for BOT, MIN and FSH? Perhaps even use dots, circles and crosses respectively? Just to make it clearer.

Alternatively, get together with someone tech savvy, and get them to make one of those fancy zoom in map they use on the rest of the site!

The idea is great though, I will be using this for sure

The image itself ia over 6000 pixels square. The web browser automaticlly resizes it. If you save it and open it and view it at 100% the dots are quite viewable.

And separating it into the difference DoL types is a good idea, though I would have to work on that later.

Awesome start on what will be a much used resource.

I just finished an hour long mining session at the grade 2 area. I count at least 4 primary mining points not shown on your map. And from memory and HOURS of mining at Grade 1, I count 7 or 8 points not shown.

Whats the best way to get them to you?

Also the image you've linked to for download is not 6000x6000 like the original but only 1024x1023 which does make it a little hard to view. I can zoom in with Picasa and see the points but it looks a little fuzzy.



Edited, Oct 9th 2010 10:25pm by rikkuotaku

More people need to see this. It is at least as important as a new I quit thread.

Think what you will, but we're not associated with RMT activity.

I wasn't talking about quests (not sure where you got that from!!) but actual valid primary mining points. There are quite a few missing and I was simply offering to help you locate all of them. I could probably add quite a few logging points as well.... lemme know!

Bump for update.

I have found a site called MapLib that can host an image I can then apply markers to. I have updated first post with information. Black Shroud map is the same as my original .PNG image I failed at uploading previously. Thanalan map is new and only partially completed