Everquest Cartography System (Maps)

Everquests cartography system was implemented during Gates of Discord. What this allows you to do is make and edit your own maps for each zone. Everyone starts out with a list of basic maps, but players are required to make the other ones. Luckily YOU are not required to make them and you can download maps from mapfiend.net. (I'll get into download and installing maps more below).

To bring up your map hit "M" or "Backspace" at any time. You'll see your map, and two tabs when you bring up the map window. One tab says Map and the other says Atlas. The Atlas tab will show you a picture of the game world where you can freely see the maps for any zone you want. On the right hand side of the map window you'll notice a bunch of buttons, these are explained below.

Arrow Keys: In the upper right hand corner of the map you'll have the map movement buttons. You'll see and Up, down, left and right arrow. You'll also see a button in the center of all of them. The Arrows will allow you to move your map up and down and left to right. You can also move your map around by left clicking on it and dragging it around.

Zoom Functions: Below the arrow keys you'll notice the + and - signs with lines above or below them. These allow you to zoom in or out. You, like me, may find it easier to use the mouse wheel to zoom in and out. Below the zoom functions you'll see the following;

Group: This button will allow you to see where you group members are on the map. They will appear as a little Green X.

Base: This will allow you to see different layers on the map, depending on who made it they may have used different Bases. If you disable one, some stuff may disappear off the map and make it easier for you to find your location.

Active: Similar to base, if you switch the active numbers certain things may change on your map.

Labels: If you turn this off all labels on your map will vanish. Only do this if you need to see just the map to get where you are going.

Height Filter: If you turn this on everything below or above your current altitude on the map will be invisible. This is very handy if you just want to see one floor of a dungeon at a time.

Low and High: These deal with making a map. They allow lines to be drawn further in front or behind you when making a map.

Current: Current will Re-center your map and place it in your zone.

Clothes Pin: The little icon below Current will bring up the window you use to create and edit maps.

Downloading Maps

As promised a quick walkthrough on how to download and install maps. Go here: tinyurl.com/eqmappack - that's a google drive where you can download the most updated maps. Mapfiend is severely out of date and I can't recommend you use it anymore, this has up to date maps for all zones, including new zones, fixes old hard to see maps and adds much more detail to older maps.

Save the file to your desktop, then extract the file to "Program Files > Sony > Everquest > maps". If you where logged in when you did this, log fully out of the game for it to acknowledge the maps being put in the folder then re-enter the game.