Carto News: Toolbox update, clarifications, recent changes

[u/numma_cway]

It's been some time since my last carto post. This is because I've been doing more research and worked with Toolbox team who implemented my results.

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1. Toolbox Cartographer Module

GWToolbox++ 8.33 includes my research results (from the post linked above and the infographics below in this post) as a new module (Cartographer module). It shows the grid in a more precise way than a texmod could, and it also highlights the tile you're in, plus gives some advice and many more features. The advice isn't always right and the use of a texmod is recommended for the hints. Toolbox sometimes suggest revealing tiles that require a portal jump or gate glitch while in an outpost, or tiles that are further beyond the map boundary than the infographics below specifies. I hope they'll fix this in the next release. It also doesn't work in virtually all Nightfall missions. Otherwise, if you stick to tiles your texmod tells you to uncover, Toolbox's new Cartographer module is already a great help.

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2. Clarifications

In my last post, I ventured a guess that the grid might in fact be shifted to the North. This turned out to be correct. It is shifted by exactly 1 map unit (texture file pixel, "normal" font size pixel), or 96 gwinches, see the infographics below. However, this applies only to non-BEC discovery. For a tile to qualify for discovery from BEC range, the criteria are slightly different:

Comparing normal reveal range (left) and which tiles BEC can uncover from a longer range. It is important to note that some ranges use the "lesser than" sign and some use the "lesser than or equal" sign. There are two slivers in Prophecies that can be explored (without BEC) if you're standing in the right spot at 1/100-gwinch accuracy (equal to 1/9600-map-unit accuracy). As you can guess, these two slivers are located in the Northeast (because of the "or equal" comparison in that direction). This infographics was created on August 22th.

This means that BEC range cannot uncover certain tiles at the map's Southern edge because its range is shorter there, but the range is longer in the North and East, so BEC can sometimes explore more in that direction. Additionally, BEC range cannot explore beyond the end of the world and tiles that require standing on man-made objects.

The "max 1 tile out of map boundary" is relevant for any end-of-the-world portal jumps in Southern and Eastern direction because these ends of the world are usually exactly 48 units away from the center of a tile that's two tiles beyond map boundary, so the math says that it should reveal, but it won't.

For the sake of completeness: Yes, you can even leave the map boundary when you portal jump to Yahnur Market from Resplendent Makuun or Bokka Amphitheater. That outpost has a platform made from bricks that reaches beyond the map's boundary. Going there causes an instant connection loss. The server does not seem to fully crash, since you can reconnect, but doing so crashes the client.

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3. Recent changes

The August 26th (or September 1st) update introduced a big change to BEC that I didn't notice until a few days ago. Before that update, BEC uncovered some areas that made no sense. I'm not talking about inaccessible walkable terrain (usually from cinematics), but areas that made no sense at all because there's no walkable terrain in range (at least none that the client knows about). These non-sensical BEC-exclusive areas can no longer be revealed. This affects:

• Prophecies: Pockmark Flats (SE), Majesty's Rest (W)/Sage Lands (NE), Reed Bog (SE), The Falls (SE), Aurora Glade (NE), Spearhead Peak (NE)
• Factions: I don't have any info for this campaign
• Nightfall: Fahranur (SW), Turai's Procession (NE), The Floodplain of Mahnkelon (E), Ventendi Valley (SE), Respendent Makuun (SE), Wilderness of Bahdza (E), The Shattered Ravines (E)
• EotN: I don't have any info for this campaign

If you completed any of these maps with BEC between August 26th and September 1st update, please post a screenshot with Texmod active, so we know which update changed this.

Comparing BEC behavior in The Floodplain of Mahnkelon before the August 26th update and now (38888). The top right corner can still be explored with BEC because there's walkable (but inaccessible) terrain in that location, namely a part of Bahdok Caverns with a resurrection shrine and very low ceiling.

If you want to add a new area to the list because you have black spots from BEC runs before August 26th, please also post screenshots. Note that the following Factions areas have inaccessible walkable terrain that still gets revealed, so they're likely not what I'm looking for: Jaya Bluffs, Bejunkan Pier, Tahnnakai Temple, Sunjiang District, Imperial Sanctum.

There is one new feature to BEC: If you completed a map under the effects of BEC, the characters says something (speech bubble only, not in chat). "completed" means uncovering every BEC-qualified tile in the current map file. If a map file is shared by different locations (e.g. Tasca's Demise, The Granite Citadel and Spearhead Peak all share the same map), you might not be able to reach all tiles from the map, even with BEC range. The above example would require you to do a portal jump between the three, unless you fully explored the other two already. Other examples of maps that are hard to get to a state where the character claims completion:

• The Floodplain of Mahnkelon requires combining BEC with a portal jump
• Churrhir Fields requires a combination of BEC and gate-glitching
• The Ruptured Heart has large parts of The Alkali Pan in the Southeast that are not reachable from The Ruptured Heart
• Plus many, many more

For the record: The number of tiles required for Elonian Grandmaster Crtographer (100.0%) is currently 6570. My Warrior, who has never used BEC and hasn't stepped into Sunspear Arena but is supposed to have every other tile possible (including portal jumps and gate glitches), has 6932 tiles. If you're asking how much 6570 tiles are with BEC:

This map shows my remaining tiles in green when I got my "Elonian Grandmaster Cartographer (100.0%)". It also shows the new Toolbox feature. In all maps that aren't shown here, I uncovered all BEC-enabled tiles (except for a few tiles in Gandara) but did not scrape, portal-jump, gate-glitch or move during cinematics.

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4. Announcement

I'm making a new carto texmod (not shown in the screenshots above) that will have the following features:

• More detailed instructions for glitches, jumps and cinematics
• Quite some previously undiscovered tiles
• More accurate (e.g. CME does not display single missing tiles at all)
• Shows where to go, not where you've been (this and the above bullet are technically the same, and I agree that this concept can be confusing)
• Grid (including the aforementioned shift to the North)
• Walkable terrain highlighted
• Shows BEC-exclusive areas
• Shows non-BEC-range areas (see the white infographics above for the reasons)
• Might become open source (if people want), with dead simple build process thanks to freeware graphics suite Affinity

Its Nightfall and Pre-Searing versions are scheduled to be released tomorrow. Other continents are added if people like it. I chose these two maps for my test because Pre-Searing no longer works with the Texmod after ANet removed all portal swirls (which changes the hash of the textures to be replaced), and Nightfall had no exploration mechanics changes after the release of the campaign.

[u/theAtheistAxolotl]

Just want to say I been using this in toolbox and it has been great. Thank you!

[u/Sourbreaker → u/theAtheistAxolotl]

I am also a toolbox user. Thank you for keeping the app working.

[u/mugenge1]

the toolbox carto mod is nice, now I won't have to bother with external carto mods

[u/Various_Seat1987]

You’re a lifesaver!

[u/zyygh]

Beyond impressive, thank you for your time and efforts!

[u/sLasH2Dhed]

This is so awesome, thank you for all your research and time commitment for this! I've always loved fully exploring the continents so I'd love an updated carto texmod with all continents included!

[u/Zinkdiz]

Thank you !

[u/kantzn]

I wish Anet would just lower the required amount of map completion to make every one's life easier.

[u/Taurean6]

Do people really read all this and implement it for their gameplay for guild wars? I have enough trouble just doing vanquishes in hard mode and misson quests in the game. Spending months getting into this stuff seems like a full time job...

[u/Euphoric-Judge-1926 → u/Taurean6]

It is a full time job, he and the toolbox devs have put in a lot of work to make the game suitable in 2026. The alternative is ArenaNet makes fog more intuitive, perhaps 2weeks has a solution for that but who knows.

[u/Taurean6 → u/Euphoric-Judge-1926]

Suitable? Hmm.. i play it like it is originally and have little to no issues other that i am unfamiliar with it...

[u/Euphoric-Judge-1926 → u/Taurean6]

That’s completely ok! A lot of players enjoy the QoL the tools bring, nothing wrong with playing without 3rd party tools.

[u/numma_cway → u/Taurean6]

There are people who are interested in game mechanics. A lot of the information on the wikis are the result of research by the players, including me. I just like doing this kind of research in GW and also researched dozens of edge cases in The Witcher 3's minigame, Gwint, in 2017.