Top 5 Video Game Maps

Sacred Maps

Ancaria is a magical continent populated by various races of dark elf, wood elf and vampires. Luckily teams of cartographers have now traversed and mapped the vast desert and lava-ridden plains in the south and the mountains of the north.

Sacred is an action role-playing game for Microsoft Windows. Using Google Maps and some custom map tiles someone has created two Google Maps mashups of the game world.

The Google Maps API v2 Map of Ancaria includes map markers showing the locations of employees in the game. The new Google Maps API v3 Map of Anacaria shows the locations of all the game dungeons.

Hat-tip: Mapperz

The Elder Scrolls Maps

Fans of the The Elder Scrolls game series will love these two Google Maps:

• Shivering Isles Map
• Cyrodil Map

The maps show the locations of camps, caves, cities and many other game elements.

Grand Theft Auto Google Map

IGN entertainment have created this Google Map of Liberty City for Grand Theft Auto.

IGN have used image tiles from the static GTA IV Liberty City map to create an interactive map using the Google Maps API. The map includes a large number of selectable layers organised into different categories; Points Of Interest, Restaurants, Shopping, Services, Entertainment and Nightlife, Emergency Services, Missions, Items, Vehicles, Secrets, Multiplayer and NPCs.

Registered users of the site are able to add markers to the map by right clicking on the map and logging in. This should mean that the map will become more and more detailed over time.


World of Warcraft Map

This Google Map created for World of Warcraft includes quick links to common locations and options to show the locations of herbs, treasure, ore and other game elements.

Viwogeo

Viwogeo is an interesting idea to let you explore Second Life locations via a Google Map. Many of the locations on Second Life are recreations of real world places and Viwogeo makes use of this fact to geo-tag these Second Life locations on a Google Map.

Clicking on one of the map markers opens an information window with links to that location on Gridaverse (see below) and a link that will teleport you straight to the location on Second Life.

Via: Ogle Earth

Gridaverse

Gridaverse is a set of interactive maps that use the Google Maps API to present maps of Second Life.

Using the maps it is possible to search for sims, land for sale and easily create GVURLs (a link that will transport you to a location on Second Life).

Apparently there are a lot more features coming soon, including GPS and short GVURLs, with the ultimate goal of creating a search engine for all the different Metaverses on Second Life.

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Create Your Own Twitter Map

The Google Geo Developers Blog has just published links to a number of articles on developing with Google Maps:

• Fun with MVC Objects
• Geocoding Strategies
• Using Google Sites to Host Your KML
• Developing for Mobile Devices

So far I have only managed to browse through the Fun with MVC Objects article. The article is a step by step guide to creating an adjustable radius tool. You can see the tool in use on this great Twitter Map.



Basically the Twitter Map uses the radius tool to let the user define the region within which they wish to search. The article has other suggestions about how you might use the tool.

I'm sure the other articles are just as good and just as useful.

Via: Google Geo Developers Blog

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Wage Negotiations with Google Maps

Mitt Mått

During the next year a new period of negotiations for a collective wage agreement will take place in Sweden. This Google Map from Almega, a Swedish employers' organisation is designed to raise the debate about wages and how people think work should be valued.

Anybody can share their opinions and experiences of wage negotiations with the website and they will appear on the map. Users can also take a simple test which will show which of four criteria – experience, development, engagement or achievement – is valued the most. Users can also share stories about the wage negotiation process.

Each test result and story is added as a marker on the map depending on where the user lives. There is also the possibility of commenting on other user's test results or stories.

The map is the creation of StoryLabs and Sthlm Connection. Sthlm Connection are writing a series of posts on how they created the map. There are three tutorials, the first of which is Creative Google Maps I: Taking control of the location.

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The Tour de France Real-Time Tracking

Follow Team HTC

Last week I reported that Google and the HTC/Columbia Professional Cycling team were releasing a Tour de France API. The API allows you to grab real-time data of the nine riders from Team HTC - Columbia and see their exact locations and real-time telemetry data.

Google have put together an example Google Map of what you can create with the data. The Google Map shows the real-time location of all nine riders. You can select any of the nine riders and track them individually on the map. You can also view real-time speed, power, cadence and heart rate.

Ubilabs - Tour de France 2010

Don't forget you can also track the riders in real-time using Ubilabs Tour de France Google Map. This year the map works with the iPhone, Android phones and the iPad, so now you can get race updates where ever you are.

Via: Official Google Blog

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Toronto Google Maps Mashup Round-up

Toronto Star: Map of the Week - Car Ownership

This week's Toronto Star Google Maps mashup is a map that shows car ownership in the Greater Toronto Area (although the title of the map, 'GTA Car Ownership Map', did make me wonder if it was a map of people who owned stolen cars).

The map is a heat map of car ownership as a percentage of households, using data from the 2006 census. The Map of the Week blog has an interesting analysis of the data. The analysis show a correlation between car ownership and income. The map also show some correlation between good public transportation links and low car ownership.

Rent Compass

Rent Compass can help you find properties to rent in Toronto and other Canadian cities.

You can search for properties by price, property type and by location. The results of your search are handily displayed on a Google Map. The map uses different map markers to show whether the properties are houses for rent or apartments.

If you click on the 'more details' link in a property's map marker a lightbox style window opens with the full details. If you want to be able to search for rental properties whilst on the move Rent Compass is also available for the iPhone.

Bring My Own Wine
This Google Maps mashup shows the location of bring your own wine restaurants in Toronto.

If you click on a map marker you can get the address of the restaurant and the corkage fee. The restaurants are also listed under the map.

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Australian Art Projects on Google Maps

Arts on the Map

The Australia Council for the Arts is currently funding nearly 200 companies in Australia. Arts on the Map provides a Google Maps and Google Earth browser plug-in portal to explore the different projects.

To explore the map you first select the type of art project you wish to explore and then the region of Australia that you are interested in. The relevant art projects for your search are displayed on the map with red kangaroo map markers.

An innovative feature of the map is the 'tour' feature. If you select the tour option the map will animate through your search results one by one.

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New York Stories on Google Maps

Mr Beller's Neighborhood

Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood is a local 'magazine with a map' in and about New York City. The magazine publishes reports, personal essays, urban sketches or any piece of writing that might illuminate a corner of life in the Big Apple and, thanks to Google Maps, you can browse the magazine by location.

The Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood map uses clustered map markers to show you the location of stories, reports and essays published on the site. You can pan the map and zoom in on any location to find contributions from local neighborhood's in New York. Alternatively, you can use the drop-down menu to zoom in quickly on a particular area.

If you click on any of the map markers you can read the story's headline, a brief snippet and the story's tags. There is of course also a link to read the article in full.

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