What does it all mean?

[Animalman]

Annotated Maps!

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3009624857

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3009624969

What does it tell me? It ends here? The guy went on a rampage?
Disappear into the forest, they will come! What does it mean>?

Does it mean the forest has spawned low zombies?
I am on Insane 4x4 about to go get myself killed for this

What is the payoff like?
Any one actually ever succeeded with these?

[stevasaur]

I believe the bug-out bag is an actual duffel bag item left on the floor.
I remember the loot being disappointing: it was, like, a hammer and a box of nails.

[Animalman]

Originally posted by stevasaur:

I believe the bug-out bag is an actual duffel bag item left on the floor.
I remember the loot being disappointing: it was, like, a hammer and a box of nails.

I went there and didnt have enough time to search properly, Luckily that building is the Inn, and the Inn has a front corner room, and i managed to hide in there from ridiculous horde, slept twice and nearly starved, took there risk jump out of the window and manage to escape and return to my vehicle.
I entered from forest side wehre it said there would be no zombies, and i tell you there was zombies lol

I cant hit the gun house. So it will always be a wonder for me until i do it on normal settings.

I hoping the pay off is worth it. Didn;t even have time to grab a bourbon to make a molotov

[Greb]

Wish I knew how these annotated notes work. They don't seem randomised, always pointing to specific places in the game world, I've seen a few of them multiple times in different games. Not sure if those places are always guaranteed to be interesting, or if they're generated upon the map spawning as loot, or when you first read the annotated map or something.

Maybe they're just meant as a way for the devs to lead players to cool things they put on the map, and not something that (at the moment) generates like stories or something, for a different experience every time?

The loot has never really been remarkable, so I guess you follow these maps for the journey, lol.

[Animalman]

Question is does the stuff exist that way pre-determined before the maps? Or does the map trigger something undiscovered every time?

[Animalman]

Originally posted by Cat Supremacist SM:

Note : Not all the maps will do this.
They cause extra loot to spawn at the locations marked. It shows in many forms from a hidden stash, to a duffel bag, or even just extra items in the existing kitchen/bathroom/closet containers. The items that spawned I believe are dependent on if the map notes tools or guns there, sometimes they'll spawn a bit of an event or Easter egg as well. One of my favorites was when the map pointed to a cure and there was just a body with a shotgun there.

interesting to know, so it could happen some place you've already visited or do you think it picks from a random unseen house list?

[Animalman]

Originally posted by Cat Supremacist SM:

Originally posted by Animalman:

interesting to know, so it could happen some place you've already visited or do you think it picks from a random unseen house list?

I'm not sure how it picks the homes, but they can happen in places you've visited. Last time I checked out a map it was in a house nearby an old base of mine on that save. Definitely looted it beforehand.

So actually even if you looted all the map of all weapons every shop, and then scouted every survivor home for as long as zombies respawn you may always get additional loot chances from those annotated maps.

[Animalman]

Originally posted by Cat Supremacist SM:

Originally posted by Animalman:

So actually even if you looted all the map of all weapons every shop, and then scouted every survivor home for as long as zombies respawn you may always get additional loot chances from those annotated maps.

afaik that's how it works, but I don't think they regenerate themselves

So you reckon that the same house couldn't pop up twice with two differing annotated events?
They seem specific like there would be a set number of events. A marked house for example some info and then some associated buildings with that event. But it is for sure limited to the houses from the original paper maps. And so no tthe whole map is covered anyway.

[Shurenai]

I would swear I once saw a video that covers every single annotated map and random event, can't find it though. Did stumble across these while searching for it, which may have been what I watched maybe? It's not every map, but, most of em. Anywho:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_HNJ2U2Yi8&ab_channel=TheBacklog
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRWMrucjgsY&ab_channel=TheBacklog
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRJhImR2iPY&ab_channel=TheBacklog
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZymXoigBzc&ab_channel=TheBacklog

I think he covers muldraugh somewhere in his video list, and he has 'Hidden Stash Story and Exploration' videos for West Point in his field guides too. So you can see what MOST of the annotated maps are.

But, It's a lot more fun to go and discover the story yourself. For the most part annotated markings are obvious, either "Go here" or "Dont go here" with very little inbetween.

[Armagenesis]

Originally posted by Cat Supremacist SM:

Originally posted by Animalman:

So you reckon that the same house couldn't pop up twice with two differing annotated events?
They seem specific like there would be a set number of events. A marked house for example some info and then some associated buildings with that event. But it is for sure limited to the houses from the original paper maps. And so no tthe whole map is covered anyway.

I would reckon that they can't respawn twice but I don't know for sure, I've never had the chance to test it. I assume there are only so many annotated map variations though.

You can go to debug mode to see how many annotated maps there are in the game.
Rosewood has the least amount, 5 annotated maps if I recall. And Louisville has around 17.
And based on my experience, some of those maps won't appear if you have visited the location(s) affected by those maps (or maybe the cell, I'm not sure). So you won't likely to get the "special" loot on a specific place if you go to that place before you get the map.

[Another Mother's Son]

Originally posted by Animalman:

Annotated Maps!

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3009624857

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3009624969

What does it tell me? It ends here? The guy went on a rampage?
Disappear into the forest, they will come! What does it mean>?

Does it mean the forest has spawned low zombies?
I am on Insane 4x4 about to go get myself killed for this

What is the payoff like?
Any one actually ever succeeded with these?

I found this one in Riverside and it really hit me. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2924238065 I finally got up the XP and courage to go check... and there was no-body there. I was gutted!

[TheSuit]

It is famously known in the game industry as
"Flavor text"

It's purpose is just to add some lore but it has very little meaning ( right now ) - in the future they want to tie some events into it. But that is like 2+ years down the line

Right now the purpose of annotated maps is purely for to tell you where loot drop is.

ALSO SUPER RARE FACT 99% of new players are not aware.
There is secret floor panels. If you get a map showing you a house look for broken floor boards - right click there and you will most often find hidden loot inside.

Basically look for 1 wooden floor tile that doesn't look like rest with a bigger black spot that looks like bent wood.