The New Map · 5:28pm Aug 4th, 2017
So, many of you have probably seen the new world map for MLP.
I'll be honest, I actually don't like it. And here's why:
It feels cheap. All the new additions do. Here, just for a moment, take a look at the original map the series had. Just ... look at it for a moment.
Now go back and look at the new one, and eyeball all the new additions. Feel a little jarring?
See, the old map actually felt like a map. Things were laid out in a fairly consistent manner. Mountains were in lines that made sense, railways were spread out in a pretty sensible design, etc. This map was made by someone who sat down and said "Yeah, if there's a town here ..."
But the new map ... doesn't feel like that. Instead of small swaths of fading environments, the new stuff looks like it was almost cut-and-pasted in, like everything new is in a little self-contained block that's not connected with anything around it. Look at the new design to the south. It looks like someone thought "Well, we had episodes about these things, so let's just slap them down in little boxes next to one another." We need a desert? Let's just put that there, in a nice, equal line, right above the rainforest line.
It feels slapdash. Cheap. Sands, they haven't even accounted for the show's travel time, so places that are next to one another travel-time-wise in the show are on opposite ends of the map, while places shown as being long distances apart are right next to one another.
Does this change anything? No. And the rest of the Dusk Guard stories will persist with using the original series map, before all the retcons, anyway. But it is a facet of the show's world I wish hadn't been "cheapened" for lack of a better word. The old map looked more like a real place. The old map felt like something that someone had spent time working on.
The new one really doesn't.
It makes no sense that a whole new landmass is now a part of Equestria's west region.
Hey, where the hell is Appleloosa on the new map. Did who ever draw it decide to erase Braeburn the town and all the Buffalo from exitances. Because the town was south west of Ponyville in the desert.
4623837
Yeah, the amount of massive changes from map to map is jarring. Whole continents popping into existence where none existed before.
And people still claim it's not retconning the map.
4623847
There's probably a quick, easy meta story there. Braeburn wakes up to find the whole of Appleloosa vanishing as the world is rewritten. Fading from existence forever.
4623847 4623848
... Appleloosa's, uh, right where you'd expect it to be? The first rail stop south of Ponyville, slightly
westeast of due south from it, in the desert.It might be throwing you that they've got the giant apple orchards which the Appleloosa episode established they were setting up, I guess?
4623867
I think it threw me because it's unlabeled and they changed the terrain around it.
4623867
First off if you knew how to read a map you would see that place is south east of Ponyville not west and the second thing is it was west of The Pie Family Rock Farm.
Y'know, there's a Watsonian way to justify it that could be pretty interesting. We could explain it away as saying that this is an in-universe map, drawn by Equestrians who have very well-surveyed the lands closest to Canterlot, but as you get farther away there's less information to go on until they're just like "yeah, there's deserts to the South somewhere. No, we don't have records for the borders; just draw a line somewhere around there." Like how maps of Europe circa 1600 were probably pretty decent, but maps of the Orient or the Americas in England probably looked hella weird.
4623920
That would suggest that the country is pretty isolationist though. That or the Royal Carriers Cartographers need to be fired.
4623886
I stand corrected on west/east; I had a momentary left-right mixup. No need to be rude about it.
But my point was, Appleloosa's been in the exact same place in every iteration of the map. This is from 2015. This is from 2013.
That's not true in either of the earlier maps I linked (and in fact the rock farm is a later addition: you can see it in 2015 and not 2013). Where in canon is it stated that Appleloosa is west of the rock farm?
4623875
Incidentally, it looks like several of the changes you complain about were in the 2015 map, too, so this isn't so much the-movie-ruined-everything as it is changes-you-dislike-over-time.
4623935
I've not brought up the movie anywhere. I voiced my displeasure about the 2015 map revision making major changes as well when it happened.
However, it's easy to see the jarring differences between that revision and the new one. The 2015 revision did, at least, attempt to keep the same style of looking somewhat natural across the map (but still retconned) while the new one still commits the crime of simply plopping down territories without regard for what's around them in box-like areas.
4623947
Fair enough.
No labels. No scale. Main point on the compass rose points to the right, with!! wait for it NO LABLE. This looks like one of those throw away tourist maps to Disney World except this is not as accurate.
I think I would like it more if they labelled all the towns and cities they added. As it is, I can't find anything.
...Wow, that is really pitiful. It's really sad how things have gone to shit over the years. The show went from Faust's dream and a labor of love to this mountain of money grubbing garbage, and the characters have gone from amazing, vibrant people to lazy caricatures.
4623848
Yeah, the cognitive dissonance and outright aggression towards anyone who criticizes the show in the fanbase is mind boggling.
The old map that you linked to is just a thumbnail.
4624476
I don't know why it keeps doing that. I've changed the link ...
Something to do with where the link comes from, maybe.
4624486
It is still a thumbnail for me.
4624502
I got nothing. Google should bring the old one up fast.
4624510
Try this one. https://derpibooru.org/287103
I find it odd that there are no labels, doesn't even seem intentional. Note how the arrow pointing to the east by the ocean is still there, only it's useless now since they removed the label saying what it's pointing at.
4624696
Updated. Thanks. Still don't know what was up with that link going to a thumbnail when it was coming from Fimfic.
4623886 It's in exactly the same place on both maps, and southeast of Ponyville on both maps.