Has anyone tried to use the program called "Where Are We"?

[neveroddoreven 0]

Good Morning to everyone!! I was in a forum on Reddit talking with some other users about a few games that I am interested in playing, one being the game "Might and Magic II: Gates to Another World". That said, one user in the conversation mentioned a program called "Where Are We". From what I understand, it has a few features, in-game mapping being one of them. Has anyone on this website used it? I wanted to look into this before I commit and download the program. If anyone has used "Where Are We", I would like to hear about your experience with it. Thanks!!

[romatthe 1]

I have used it before, though this was admittedly a long time ago. From what I remember, it works just fine and does exactly what it says on the tin. In many respects, it is very similar to other tools like Gold Box Companion, Ultimapper 5 and The All-Seeing Eye, if you've used one of those before.

Whether you want to use it or not largely depends on whether or not you want to experience the game like it was on release or if you don't mind having the extra assistance of the tools. Where Are We comes out of the box with lots of different tools. You might want to think about which one of the tools is acceptable to you, and which ones aren't. For example, you might want to use the automapping tool, but set it to the proper mode so that it doesn't give you TOO much information. You also might want to choose if you want to use the quest tracker or not, or the enhanced party overview etc. If you go into one of the supported games with all tools enabled, you might find it hard to stop using them once you've started, and maybe you'll regret that.

Personally, I think M&M2 is relatively playable without Where Are We, but some of the tools are certainly welcome. It certainly provides you with a lot more information at a glance, since old DOS games like this often have terrible UI. On the other hand, I personally never play any of the Gold Box games without Gold Box Companion. It's just too valuable.

Here's one tip I will give you: if you're ONLY looking for a tool to assist you in mapping, maybe think about using a tool specifically for mapping. The two I know of are Grid Cartopher and Gridmonger. Of those, only Gridmonger is free and open source (it's made by John Novak, who frequently contributes to the dosbox-staging project). Gridmonger works on Windows/Mac/Linux but Grid Cartographer is Windows only these days. Both tools are really great, and both authors are very nice and helpful people.

Lastly, I'm fairly sure Where Are We (and similar tools) only works with Dosbox 0.74, I believe. All these applications work by directly reading memory from the dosbox process, and so different versions of Dosbox (or compiled with different compilers) could result in incompatibilities. I haven't tested this myself, but I think this is the case. That's a bit of a shame, because I personally like to use the latest stable version of Dosbox Staging.

[neveroddoreven 0]

Thanks for getting back to me!! First question... what are the other features of the "WhereAreWe" program? And what different levels of detail can go into the map of a game? How would I toggle these settings? What games would "WhereAreWe" support? How do I determine my version of DosBox? You said that the program supports nothing later than 0.74, but you were also unsure about that. What other information can you give me about "WhereAreWe"? Any and all help is appreciated!!!

[pawanihimaya 0]

Wait, is it a video game?

[romatthe 1]

On 6/19/2024 at 3:46 AM, pawanihimaya said:

Wait, is it a video game?

No, it's an application to support the playing of certain older dungeon crawlers. See here: https://www.eskimo.com/~edv/lockscroll/WhereAreWe/

[romatthe 1]

On 5/9/2024 at 9:05 PM, neveroddoreven said:

Thanks for getting back to me!! First question... what are the other features of the "WhereAreWe" program? And what different levels of detail can go into the map of a game? How would I toggle these settings? What games would "WhereAreWe" support? How do I determine my version of DosBox? You said that the program supports nothing later than 0.74, but you were also unsure about that. What other information can you give me about "WhereAreWe"? Any and all help is appreciated!!!

There's a mapper, a party overview screen, a quest log, a status overview screen, a screen to help you track combat, etc.

The application comes with a manual (annoyingly it's a word doc, but it's there). You can read more about it there. If you need more info, either read the manual, or just try the application out for yourself. It's free.

You can check your version of DOSBox more or less like how you'd check any other piece of software you use. First off, by checking what version you're actually downloading from the official DOSBox sources. Second, it undoubtedly comes with a readme file that will indicate the version. Third, it's displayed in the title bar of the application. Fourth, it's displayed on the main screen as soon as you open DOSBox. And I'm sure there's an about screen somewhere that lists it somewhere.

This is really basic stuff.

Also, DOSBox 0.74-3 is the last release cut by the original DOSBox team. It hasn't had a new release for years. So if you're just using the original vanilla DOSBox, that's likely the version you're using.