Map Top Should be North...

It is very common in the modern world that all maps are depicted with the top pointing north, and Insurgency is basically the only game I can think of that goes against this universal method of presenting its map....

With the top of the map not pointing north, trying to communicate compass bearings is made seriously hard as your only source of reference to the compass, is the compass itself, and then you have to spend more time and energy you don't have in the middle of a firefight working out which way is N, S, E and W before you can even begin to identify where someone might be talking about a target you need to know, which probably by that time the target has already moved or shot you...

To put this into context, this is how a world map would probably be shown in Ins:
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And while it may look odd to look at now we are used to the map being the wrong way up, here is how the map "Farmhouse" should look, where before it had West at the top and now it has North as it should be.
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Seriously this is my biggest gripe with this game and I can see no logical reason why the maps shouldn't be the correct way up ingame.

Please up-vote and bump the topic if you agree as I have already made one topic on this subject in the past and it has gone even thou everyone appeared to agree with it, and this is the biggest thing I want to see changed in the game and I'm sure many others do too!

last edited by Rhino

I agree but it is by far not the most important!

I absolutely agree to your point to have the north on the top side !
Much easier orientation on any map when north is on top.
Anything else doesn´t make any sense.
That´s the way every human on this planet learns in schools how to read a map correct.

But to be honest, i never look at the minimap when somebody makes a call out for enemy contact.
Just have a look on the marker on your compass and you know where the threat is.
The call outs for enemy contact mostly refer to close and mid-ranges and therefore don´t need a look into the minimap.

Until now i never had the situation that ingame the commander or any other player wanted to attack/meet at a special point,
so that i had to look on the minimap where this location might be.

For me the minimap is absolutely unnecessary in Sandstorm !
This is not ARMA3 where you have to navigate through a very large area to reach your attack point.

But still the map orientation should be corrected for those who need the minimap for orientation or planning ( clanleaders who work on strategic plans with their clanmates )

last edited by GSG_9_LIGHTNING

@gsg_9_lightning said in Map Top Should be North...:

But to be honest, i never look at the minimap when somebody makes a call out for enemy contact.
Just have a look on the marker on your compass and you know where the threat is.
The call outs for enemy contact mostly refer to close and mid-ranges and therefore don´t need a look into the minimap.

Until now i never had the situation that ingame the commander or any other player wanted to attack/meet at a special point,
so that i had to look on the minimap where this location might be.

For me the minimap is absolutely unnecessary in Sandstorm !
This is not ARMA3 where you have to navigate through a very large area to reach your attack point.

I can see where you're coming from lightning and ye, for the ingame callout system that marks the direction on the compass itself looking at the map is pointless. But I'm talking about spotting targets over voice coms where someone might say "enemy RPG 50m west of my position", then the only way to find that target, is first finding where they are on the map (if they are a friend in your party they are finally a unique colour on the minimap, but they can also call out the cords of their location) and then extrapolating from there where the enemy is, which is pretty quick if you do not have to work out which way is north when looking at the map. I personally use the map a lot, even when not playing with friends and
just talking over the ingame voice comms with random pubbies to spot and receive target locations.
Many of my friends have even given up with the compass as a result of this and just say "let's flank far left", even thou in other games they always use compass directions, since even thou there is a chance of confusion from that, it is still far easier and quicker, and tbh less chance of confusion, than everyone trying to work out the compass directions they are on about if they use one.

So ye while many players may never use the map or compass to spot and identify target locations or w/e, I still feel they would benefit from the map being the right way up for the few times they may look and it and especially if they only very occasionally need to find a compass point from it, as without knowing the map is the wrong way up and slowly learning which way up each map is, putting avg players at even more of a disadvantage than competitive players who will learn each map's compass directions over time off by heart.

If someone says "enemy to the north" I automatically assume that there is an enemy above me on the mini-map, and I will always do.

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I think the map of a location should be static. By that I mean the cardinal directions would be arbitrary and would be the same for both security and insurgents. I'm also of the opinion that the map in game should be more land-nav grid style. I think it'd be cool and immersive if players had to think about their orientation and position in the greater sense of the whole map even during callouts.

last edited by thehappybub

north should be top, for sure

@rhino No shit. Felt like this was a no brainer but here we are......

For me holding a map with north pointing up is the equivalent of holding a book normally and would be a natural instint for quick navigation while looking at the compass simultaneously. Being able to flip the map around and have your setting saved would make it possible for everyone to decide what they found most helpful. A grid with more pronounced lines would be practical. What direction that is chosen as top of the map does not matter too much for me as long as there is a cardinal direction of North printed on the map in signal red colour.

@rhino Ironically enough, I think that the Farmhouse map actually looks cooler on its side with North up (as it should be) than the current map.

Wholeheartedly agree, though. This could clear up a lot of possible confusion in-game.

This map problem really cannot be impossible to fix.
The whole point is : Everybody ( in all countries on this planet ! ) learns in school ( mostly in high school in a geograpy lesson ) that on maps north is always on the top side, south on the bottom , etc. !

The NWI developer who was responsible for this confusion somehow did not remember what he learned in school or just was absent during geograpy lessons and therefore he might not know it better OR he just ignored his knowledge and thought that it would not matter....but hey !
IT DOES !

As we discuss this problem here, he or some other NWI developer should put some effort into his faulty work and fix that.

We as humans do a lot of errors in life, that is normal.
But totally ignoring the criticism of others, knowing that their arguments are absolutely correct is something i don´t like.

last edited by GSG_9_LIGHTNING

to be fair in programming directions aren't always as obvious, like 0,0 is usually top left.
that being said it should be an easy mistake to fix....

last edited by Zwenkwiel

@Zwenkwiel
You are correct and there is no law in physics that dictates north as top of map its just a standard commonly used in mapmaking. I look at probably a 1000 maps during a year both in work and when hiking, they all have north upwards though, so it kinda becomes an expectation=P

@zwenkwiel While yes this is true, most game engines force the top of the map to be north by default but Ins: Sandstorm doesn't follow this and from what I can tell, the way up the minimap is shown must be down to the mapper as while the right side of the map is North on some maps (like Farmhouse), some others have the left side of the map is north and so on. As such it shouldn't be that hard to either change the way up the minimap is shown, or at the very least change the compass so North is up on the way the minimap is shown now.

If there is a reason why it can't be changed it would be nice to hear what that reason is from NWI at the very least.

last edited by Rhino

There is no objectively correct orientation for "north" in the game - since there is no Earth beyond the map nor measurable magnetic fields and such.

Therefore, since flipping the map and changing the way player icons move on it would (I assume) take some work, why not just leave the tactical map as-is and change the compass display on the HUD to indicate north when pointing at what is currently "up" on the map? Seems like that should be an easy fix which accomplishes the same thing.

@maa_bunny Indeed, I had already mentioned that above and either way works. Although technically you would want the sun to be in the Southish somewhere depending on the time of day (and location in the world), not that I've checked the sun is in the south on the current maps but I care far more about the top of the map pointing north than the sun being in the south :face_with_stuck-out_tongue:

What i really find interesting is that this "technical problem" has not been passed on to the devs team by any of the community managers.
At least not confirmed here that they will do so 😉

@rhino Ha, I didn't think of of the Sun :smiling_face_with_open_mouth_smiling_eyes:

I can't say I've ever noticed which direction the Sun is coming from in the maps anyway.