I've got some exciting news about X20 coming up soon. Not going to say much more than to keep an eye out for that when the time comes. :)
Anyhow, bus stop maps.
Throughout most of the game, the only difference between maps in a given hub is the difference in the location of the "You Are Here" text. Otherwise they're identical. With 16 maps and 4 hubs, that's an average of four maps per hub.
Some of you may be aware that I created new maps for the Unofficial Patch, which rotated Santa Monica so north was up, and showed some additional locations (Isaac Abrams' building wasn't even on the Hollywood map, let alone labeled!). I also wanted to add some graffiti, as though someone had physically drawn on the in-world bus stops with a marker, as you might expect to see in a city like LA. Wesp vetoed it, and it's his patch, so it's ultimately up to him what goes into it. There's admittedly a fine line between "let's make this map better" (a patch) and "let's make this map cooler" (a mod), and that kind of crossed the line.
But I couldn't let the idea go. And now that I'm putting together the X20 Mod, I realized it's the perfect opportunity to do what I wanted, but rather than just add graffiti, I went a little... overboard.
Every single bus stop map in the game is now unique, with marks you won't find on any other. One map might be completely clean, another might have something scratched into the plastic. Another might have something written on it with marker, or a sticker, or a bloody fingerprint.
There are three rough varieties of graffiti: environmental (like the fingerprint), lore-based (like the "Manishtusu Comes" graffiti in the image above), or subtle in-game hints (the $ above is on the parking garage Fat Larry sends you to). If this is your first time through the game and you can't find something, checking all of the bus stop maps in an area might yield a clue.
Of course, not all clues are obvious:
That weird mark might not mean anything to an average mortal, or even to a vampire. But to the Imbued hunters of Hunter: The Reckoning, it might be a warning.
You might also notice that these maps are easier to read than the ones included by default in Bloodlines, even the maps I made for the Unofficial Patch. Bloodlines' original maps were 512x256 images. These new maps have four times the pixel count, at a resolution of 1024x512.
These maps will be included in the next release of the X20 Mod. Hope you enjoy!
