Mapping out The City. - by Digital Nightfall
Grundbegriff on 22/3/2002 at 03:39
Quote:
Originally posted by 242 However, I agree that Garrett could change his apartment in T2 and his new apartment could be in New Quarter. But I tend to prefer the simplest interpretation.The idea that the area between the Lost City's entrance and the Red Door is immediately northwest of the area around Garrett's apartment in BUSH/COUR strains credulity. The transition in architectural styles is extremely abrupt. However, in addition to that problem, the change of scale is significant. Likewise, the engineering of the canals is radically different. Furthermore, all the BUSH/COUR transitional gates are of a type, and that type has nothing to do with the structure sporting the red door. Finally, the somewhat industrial, artisanal zoning of the area around Home Turf makes no sense relative to the zoning in the northwestern portion of the BUSH/COUR map.
The
simplest explanation -- the one that requires us to swallow the least amount of implausibility -- is that Garrett, notorious for his difficulties with rent, has relocated in order to stay one step ahead of the landlord.
242 on 9/12/2004 at 11:52
Bump.
Our history taffers, and some deep analysis.
Read and dread :)
deadman on 9/12/2004 at 18:54
Quote Posted by Grundbegriff
The idea ... of ... BUSH/COUR strains credulity. The transition ... is extremely abrupt. ... in addition to that problem, the change of scale is significant. Likewise, ... BUSH/COUR ... are ... nothing. Finally, the ... industrial ... zoning ... makes no sense relative to the zoning in ... BUSH/COUR.
The
simplest explanation -- the one that requires us to swallow the least amount of implausibility -- is that ... {BUSH/COUR} notorious for ... difficulties with rent, has relocated in order to stay one step ahead of the ... {law}
Man, I'm glad I didn't vote for Bush/Cour in '04! Those guys would've totally wrecked everything! Oh, damn, Bush/Cheney won, though... Not much better than the one-two Bush/Cour :nono: :laff:
deadman.
Solabusca on 10/12/2004 at 08:08
... whoa. Someone's practicing necromancy, and it ain't me.
.j.
str8g8 on 13/12/2004 at 09:44
Well I've been working on a new map of the city, which I was planning on posting, but I can't probably because I'm only a New Member ...
... so does anyone know how I can get this thing up, it's only a 60k png after all. I was hoping on reigniting the whole debate ...
straitgait
DarthMRN on 13/12/2004 at 13:29
Doesn't the map included in the TDS manual sort of destroy the whole point of this Map Project? Unless of course it is used as a foundation for a new map.
Sad to see such a long-standing idea go to waste though.
Mugla on 13/12/2004 at 14:14
StraightGate, use photobucket.com. You can insert images by their url, on the toolbar above posting (with the B I andU ).
Darth, the one in the manual barely shows the centrum on one side of the river, while the map-project tries to map a whole 1/8 of a planet. There's plenty place to explain the Old Quarter dilemma or interlock the quarters correctly, not to mention the overall size of the City (thus anyone can then derive the history, economy and culture more deeply from the size of the populus we are dealing with).
str8g8 on 13/12/2004 at 17:28
what he said, the city map in the manual (and in game) only shows about a quarter of the city, and is very selective anyway (only showing those districts that are in Thief_DS) ... my new map tries to bring together all the various strands from all 3 games, as well as the stirling work done on the community maps ...
and thanks mugla I'll try and get something up tomorrow
cheers
straitgait
str8g8 on 14/12/2004 at 09:49
(
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v621/str8g8/thief_city_map_str8g8_v1.png) new city map
This is my new take on the city
When I first played Thief_DS I was pleased to find a city map in there, but they didn’t really gel with the community maps. There were two explanations:
1. DS departed from the canon of the first 2 instalments
2. the community maps weren’t totally correct
Personally, I believe the community did a sterling job on the city maps, based on the information available, but the fact is there is new information now, and I don’t think we can just dismiss Thief_DS as “non-canon”. So I wanted to find some kind of continuity amongst the maps. This assumes there is continuity of course. But I believe there is.
Quote:
“Foolish non-believers. You underestimate our powers of anal-retention. We've been working with the same map of The City for 3 games now. It was already there in 1997 when I joined The Dark Project.
To be fair, I'm not sure how religiously everyone's been sticking to it over the years. (Mostly, I think, though.) And there has, of course, been a fair amount of deliberate misinformation in the dialog and text from T/T2. You can't trust everyone in the city. Sometimes they are either dumb or on their own agenda. So, between these 2 things, I can see how your map isn't perfect.
Anyway, your map is pretty good, impressive, really, but it's off.”
(From Randy Smith in one of the threads)
There was enough ex-looking glass people working on Thief_DS to ensure that they would carry on using the map Randy mentions. On the other hand, he makes clear that not everything in the games can be trusted.
So I used as primary evidence the visual maps used in all three games and rather than try and visualise all this stuff in my head, as you are forced to when reading through the excellent threads on the matter, I decided to take the actual maps themselves, from all three games, and overlay them in photoshop. I took the Thief_DS city map as the first point of reference, simply because it is the most overt manifestation yet of the overall design of the city, as intended by the developers.
Second only to this is the keeper map from Thief_TDP. Now this map is very interesting as it formed the basis of all the community maps, and yet lacked cricial information – most importantly a compass star, and the ocean.
What I found was that the keeper map does not line up with the T3 city map, until that is you rotate the keeper map approx 180 degrees. Basically what I’m saying is the keeper map (and consequently all community maps) are upside down.
Also, I have purposefully avoided putting definitive boundaries around districts, ie lines on the map, because I believe this is more appropriate for a medieval-type city – typically districts run into one other with a kind of grey area between them. I think it was only later, with post codes (or zip codes) that cities were carved up so precisely.
Everything else then flowed from this. There are however several other leaps of faith in this map, namely:
Downtowne and Hightowne, which are used a lot in T1 and T2, but not so much in T3, I propose are meant to be kind of umbrella terms (like West End and East End in London) so that Downtowne is the generic term for the left bank, older, poorer districts of the city, and Hightowne is the generic term for the right bank, richer, new districts.
Shalebridge also creates all kinds of problems in terms of layout. In the end, I decided use extrapolate the scanty evidence as follows: the note on the T2 new quarter map points to Shalebridge as north east of Newmarket. But on the other hand, Shalebridge is supposed to be a poor district, and kind of belongs on the left bank. Additionally, on the keeper map, there is suggested a confluence of several rivers into the main river; and finally the name its left, that suggests a kind of land bridge, or shallow part of the river, according to some dialogue, could almost be walked across when the tide was low. Putting all this together, I made Shalebridge an area around the confluence of the rivers, criss-crossed by many bridges, because the rivers are narrower there (as opposed to downriver, where the bridges would be less numerous and more prestigious).
The road layout as depicted is a result of combining the main routes of the T3 city map with the layouts of more detailed city section maps from all 3 games. Obviously there is a great deal of leeway in the precise placement of these areas.
Also, I don’t like where the city walls end up; they don’t seem to make much sense to me – they should in theory mark the boundaries of the old city, before some later expansion, but as depicted on the keeper map, they don’t really do this.
Other problems include the relative placement of key features such as the abandoned section of the old quarter, we know it is in the Old Quarter, but there is not much else to go on, as well as the placement of other sites within the overall structure, which is the next stage, which will include the ability to start putting in street names, and so on.
I guess the ultimate point of all this is that when the editors and toolset arrives, the community needs a good map of the city, so that it can have more continuity and consistency, much like the developers themselves, and as some have pointed out, possibly link up various sections of city in a meaningful way.
Anyway, I would appreciate any and all feedback on this new layout, as well as any clues as to the specific placement of more detailed areas and sites within the city. Also, if anyone has a hi-res version of scumbles map, I would love to see it, as in the one I had I couldn’t read the text.
Whew, long post! :p
