[projectaon] Re: Outstanding Errata Sprint (Week 1)
- From: Simon Osborne <outspaced@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: projectaon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2011 15:14:34 +0100
Hi
Great stuff! Thanks for the feedback. I've trimmed this response back to
prevent unnecessary scrolling to get to my replies, but you definitely
make some good points. :-)
On 11/04/2011 07:50, Timothy Pederick wrote:
(ft) 17tdoi 213, 322: [so: Can we improve this puzzle for
partially-sighted readers?]
As near as I can tell, the map doesn't have any accessible alternative
(such as "alt" or "longdesc"). I propose the following:
[snip]
Gah! Should have linked to
<http://www.projectaon.org/test/en/xhtml/lw/17tdoi/map.htm> instead.
Here is the description I wrote:
"The frozen peninsula of Ixia juts westwards, barely linked to the
mainland of Northern Magnamund. Its northern coastline is perpetually
locked by pack ice, as is a small, unnamed island just off the north
coast, approximately 100 miles northwest of the city of Xaagon. Only the
westernmost tip of Ixia's northern coastline is open to the freezing sea
of Aztaregina. To the west of this point is the long, thin Gourstaz
Island, almost 100 miles due west of Xaagon.
"The city of Xaagon lies at the centre of the peninsula, close to the
southern coastline and is surrounded by mountains. South of the Ixian
peninsula is the Shakoz Bight, a tempestuous gulf of the Tozaz Sea
devoid of islands, where the waves crash against the beaches of
Tadatizaga—The Hardlands. The coastline sweeps in a jagged arc here
before leading west for some leagues and eventually turning south and
then southeast as the Gulf of Konkor eats away at the hilly wastelands.
At the northern point between the gulf and the Tozaz Sea lies Azgad
Island, about 250 miles southwest of Xaagon. Several lonely rivers flow
into this gulf—the Ezog, the Zegar, and the Lenag—none of which flow
past any Drakkarim settlements.
"Several hundred miles inland to the east of the Gulf of Konkor, the
hilly terrain gives way to the coniferous Konatadat Forest. Beyond this
lies the deep, cold waters of Lake Ghargon, devoid of even the smallest
islet. Hundreds of miles north of Lake Ghargon is the tundra of
Gourizaga, the most northwesterly area of the Darklands, just to the
east of the Ixian peninsula. The Shegtar Peaks lie here, alone in the
freezing north, where no one dwells."
I am happy to replace my description with yours if yours is preferred,
however. :-)
Aside from giving fairly complete coverage of the map, this is written
so as to make the puzzles solvable without necessarily being trivial (I
haven't directly said "there are no settlements in the Shegtar Peaks,
for instance). In fact I hope it's easier to be correct with this than
with the visual puzzle in 213, since the correct answer is "two islands
within 150 miles", yet there are clearly four or five!
* Gourstaz, and the roundish one on a line between Xaagon and the
"Aztaregina" label, are no doubt the "correct" islands.
* But there's one land mass northeast of Xaagon that runs off the
edge of the map; the reader could interpret it as part of the
mainland, or an island. (The map for 11tpot confirms that it is in
fact an island.)
* There's a tiny, but visible, island just off the southern tip of
that island, and another off the peninsula above the label "Shakoz
Bight".
Should we alter the wording to "...half the number of islands which can
be found within 150 miles of Xaagon"? If we do, this would require a
partial rewrite of my map-description if we were to use it.
Simon: OK, so the above two proposals are linked. To summarise, the
current links:
Of course the biggest argument for the status quo is that the fight you
get without Animal Kinship is much, much harder than the four fights you
get with it, put together. I for one would rather face four fights at CS
14 to 17, than one fight at CS 30!
Definitely food for thought. Despite being more battles, they are more
manageable.
(er) 03tcok 252: Loi-Kymar bridges the moat with creepers and
joins you on the platform. [jc: If you arrive here from section 213,
the bridge of herbs is still intact, however it is difficult to
solve, maybe footnote?]
Perhaps add one word: "bridges the moat with *more* creepers"? That sort
of implies a meaning in either case: if his first bridge of creepers was
destroyed, he makes more; if it wasn't, he adds more to reinforce his
first one (since an old man probably wants a more stable creeper-bridge
than a young Kai Lord).
I very much like this proposal! It's simple, elegant, and fixes a
continuity problem with just one word. :-) Project Aon definitely
benefits from being a team effort.
While we're here...
(er) 03tcok 252: the Cardonal ‘I'll not -> the Cardonal. ‘I'll not [tp:
Note the missing full stop.]
Fixed it (ne).
And I'm not getting involved in the
Torch-and-or-Tinderbox-but-what-about-the-Firesphere issue again. :-P
But...but...
;-)
--
Simon Osborne
Project Aon
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