Which settings (any game, any edition) have the best maps?

[Klaus]

In your opinion, which settings have the best maps? Links to on-line or fan-created ones are welcome, too!

On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being the barest scribbled map on a sheet of paper to 10 being a map that looks like a NASA sattelite image, where would you place your preference for fantasy maps?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Despite the beautiful full-color maps that are out there, I always keep coming back to the Judge's Guild maps from the AD&D era. Those sepia-toned maps were nicely detailed and HUGE. And the fact that they were sepia-tone made them look like something the PCs might actually have, which aided in immersion.

 

[jdrakeh]

HarnWorld has the best maps I've ever seen for an RPG setting, bar none. I'd say that the world/continent maps rate a perfect 10 and the localized maps (of cities and such) rate about 7.

 

[Hunter In Darkness]

I have this sweet cloth map that came with the 2e dark suns boxed set.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

Some of my favorites:

The old Judges Guild Wilderlands of High Fantasy maps
The World of Greyhawk map by Darlene
The I.C.E. Middle Earth maps
The maps Robert Conley has been doing (e.g. Points of Light)

 

[random.brown]

Second the Harnworld maps, they were great.

It's a bit off topic, but I loved the cloth world maps from Ultima III and V.

 

[Xyxox]

I'll go with Forgotten Realms.

Especially since I have the Forgotten Realms Interactive Atlas.

 

[Primal]

Golarion. The world map in 4E ECG also looks very good, but Paizo's APs have consistently had top-notch maps.

The worst maps I can recall were in 4E FRCG.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

My faves have already been noted.

The Dark Sun cloth map.
Hârnworld's every map.

I'm partial to Mystara's sticking with hex maps eternally. Something very pleasingly nostalgic about it.

Tangent: If I may offer a point about a trend in maps for settings I think is producing awful results. There are more and more maps that are done with computers that have been adding a 3d aspect to the maps. Unfortunately, the end result has created the uncanny valley of cartography. It tries to look realistic, comes close, but ends up looking far worse than had they just drawn it out with a pen and paper. The 4e Eberron poster map has this uncanny valley cartography. The closer it begins to look like an attempt at satellite/aerial photos, the more we expect things to really look like how a satellite/aerial photo should look.

Please, please, please. Fantasy cartographers of the world, resist the urge to CGI-up your drawings to feel like a satellite (hint: satellite photos of mountain terrain may look like random lumps to you, but they aren't, and your map's mountains shouldn't look like randomized pattern of bumps) if you can't do it right.

[/soapbox]

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I had forgotten the cloth maps that came with some of the old computer RPGs.

Alas, I gave mine away with the games they were boxed with when I got rid of the computer upon which they were played.

They sure were good, though.