Mapping out The City. - by Digital Nightfall
jtr7 on 13/1/2005 at 21:49
The River is nice and wide, runs north to south, divides The City in half, and has three bridges running east and west. More later when I can have a look at the maps to answer my own questions:
1. Are the waterways in Ambush! and Trace the Courier labeled canals?
2. Doesn't the water in the Old Quarter run primarily east and west? And...
3. Doesn't it terminate within the map?
We've never seen The River in a mission (unless Deadly Shadows mocked it up). It's too wide. In Dark Project/Gold we see a great bridge and at least one ship navigating the water with plenty of room on either side to spare. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the water we see in Shipping... and Receiving the largest body of interactive water there is in a mission?
str8g8 on 14/1/2005 at 09:53
Yes, and what you say sounds reasonable. Maybe I'm being impatient? The thing is I set out to create a good high qaulity city map that could be used by the community in the production of FM and so on, to ground their work within the wider Thief universe, and minimise discrepencies and so on. I find it frsutrating that we cannot agree on a layout, because I want to get on with the actual illustration. :)
I wish I could. But final overwhelming proof may be hard to come by. For instance, I could argue that if you take another look at the keepr\grotto map
(
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v621/str8g8/TG_keeper_map.jpg) keeper map
you can see that it is not intended to be a canal, it is a natural organic flowing river. Further, you can see that it splits towards the bottom of the map into three of four seperate rivers, like a delta. As you know, deltas will form around large deep wide rivers near an estuary, they don't tend to form around where a small tributory meets a larger flow (as your theory suggests - any geoloists out there please correct me if I'm wrong). On the other hand, if you rotate the map then the delta becomes instead a confluence of rivers into the main river (and in fact forms the basis of my speculation about Shalebridge). I could also argue that being referred to as "The River" by inhabitants of the City means that there is only one major river in the City, otherwise they would have to differentiate between them. But at the end of the day, it cannot be proved.
Quote:
1. Are the waterways in Ambush! and Trace the Courier labeled canals?
I don't think they are labelled anything. On my layout they would be a series of canals near the confluence noted above.
The river in the cutscene you refer to is I think The River. Also, doesn't the final cutscene of ThiefDS show the city from above, and The River, with much the same layout as ThiefDS city map? The water in Shipping and Recieving is the ocean.
cheers
str8g8
(
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v621/str8g8/thief_city_map_str8g8_v1.png) new city map
jtr7 on 14/1/2005 at 20:24
Yes, I know the water in
Shipping is the ocean, but isn't it the largest body of water we see in-game? How does it compare to what we see on Markham's Isle?
Randy Smith, a major contributor to all of the Thief games was the one who said, on page four of this thread:
Quote:
There's a big friggin' river in the city. It runs N-S and splits the city in 2. It joins the ocean to the south.
With the addition of Deadly Shadows, we now have a cutscene and a briefing showing The River, it's relative size, and at least one bridge. The map in the Deadly Shadows manual shows all of The River we've ever seen and matches the Deadly Shadows cutscene.
In the Old Quarter, what texture(s) is/are used for the lining of the water channels? If it's a dirt texture, the argument for a natural flowing creek increases, while brick, stone, or concrete suggest man-made.
We know there are plenty of hills and mountains around, with snowcaps around Cragscleft. There would be plenty of smaller rivers, creeks, brooks, springs, etc. feeding into The River.
Doc_Brown on 16/1/2005 at 06:25
I've been running low on time, but I wanted to post this instead of continually putting it off. I'll be back later to add more in depth analysis and interpretation.
Resolving the River IssueOption #1: That's Not the RiverSimple enough solution, we just place the river as I did on my map and assume the Keeper map is showing us man-made canals.
Evidence: TDS, Good for SomethingThe TDS map shows us a very large, very straight river in that part of the City. The Keeper map shows us a smaller, branching river. One assumption would be that they're clearly not the same.
Dilemma: Keeper's Never ProsperWe ignore the possibility that the river in the Keeper's map was intended to be the actual river by Looking Glass, and that Ion Storm altered the layout, which is a possibility.
Option #2: That is the RiverWe modify st8g8te's suggestion to make it work with both the TDS map and the Keeper map. You actually clued me in to this possibility accidentally when you posted the Keeper map above the TDS map. Take a look at them without the text separation:
Inline Image:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v621/str8g8/TG_keeper_map.jpgInline Image:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v621/str8g8/TDStextmap1.jpgNow, look at the three river branches at the very bottom. Take those, and merge them together in the intervening space to form the single, larger river we see in TDS.
Evidence: Home TurfWe've assumed, up until this point, that Garrett's comment on the Assassin's map meant South Quarter. We have not entertained the notion that he might consider his home turf in boundaries that don't necessarily match district lines... like, say, the areas we explore in TDS on the west bank.
Dilemma: The Old Quarter Discrepency, AgainWe're back to this problem, only now we have to resolve it with the Old Quarter not just split in two a great distance from one another, but on both sides of the river. Problematic, to say the least.
Bronze Griffin on 16/1/2005 at 17:01
Quote Posted by jtr7
In the Old Quarter, what texture(s) is/are used for the lining of the water channels? If it's a dirt texture, the argument for a natural flowing creek increases, while brick, stone, or concrete suggest man-made.
I used to live near a river with brick lining. A city or town will try and tame the river and with all the foundations of the buildings a natural bank would be a serious hazrad. I cannot see how a river or canal can be distinguised in the City.
Mugla on 17/1/2005 at 11:19
Well, basically the Old Quarter could be something that goes in a diagonal line around Auldale's North-West boundaries, and the small speck (T3) is the remainder of West Old Quarter, of which most got ...annihilated... westside of river is Hightowne, east Downtowne... Though that wouldnt match with the poor/rich -side theory/ideal...
Let's not forget G. has a safe-place in Shalebridge too (just conveniently north), and the one near that marketplace that he gets chased out (Ambush!)(is it Newmarket or Stonemarket or something? I had this picture it's Stonemarket from some pre-T3 time... :confused: ). He should have a few home-turfs just so that he can relocate...
Also if people go to vacation to Shalebridge (LotP), doesn't that mean that Shalebridge is almost a separate town, or atleast (as thought of before) *was*, before City expanded? This would add weight to Shalebridge road/waterway, there could easily be shales upriver near some sawmill/farmlands (and there would be no need for actual bridge, only the crossing point across the stream... A stream that is so divided that each can be easily crossed...?) etc., 'and' yes, that would considerably add size to the City... meh.
str8g8 on 17/1/2005 at 12:51
just for the record:
Option #2b - That is the river, but the keeper map is upside down:
Inline Image:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v621/str8g8/Thief3_city_keeper_merged.jpgthis overlay shows the basis of my original map, with the Old Quarter lining up nicely :)
(
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v621/str8g8/thief_city_map_str8g8_v1.png) new city map
Option #3 - There is no continuity between the city layout in ThiefDS and the Looking Glass games, and there was no intention for any by the devsI cannot in all honesty accept the idea of two Old Quarters, and the further away they get from each other the worse it becomes. It is of course possible to invent all kinds of explanations as to how something like this may have evolved, but at the end of the day it's just messy ... and even if it did happen like this then the city inhabitants would over time begin to distinguish between them, as say North Old Quarter and South Old Quarter, none of which, of course, we get in the City.
If everyone is so opposed to rotating the keeper map :grr: , then I would like to see a compromise where the river on the keeper map is just a tributory/canal but the Old Quarter isn't divided.
So that, we keep Doc Brown's basic layout, but the Old Quarter is not divided, and Stonemarket is simply a section of the Old Quarter - and Downtowne is a collective name for Old Quarter, South Quarter and the Docks - basically the seedy parts of town.
cheers
str8g8
Mugla on 17/1/2005 at 16:01
We shouldn't compromise just so that we can be polite to each other, cause that way it is the third party member who will have to pay, if the solution isn't the best possible... I straightly admit that I'm completely unsure as to which way this could be done the best, and yes, the option #3 would be the most correct ;) ...
The ideas I wrote were only possible theorems, just for the record of all the theorems that I've seen written. It might be time to start a new thread soon, after we have all the theories (or the ones with merit) gathered here; this one's getting messy as the OQ after the Cataclysm :( ...
You're doing good job, keep it up.
str8g8 on 17/1/2005 at 16:27
Quote:
We shouldn't compromise just so that we can be polite to each other, cause that way it is the third party member who will have to pay, if the solution isn't the best possible
But having worked through all the solutions, I hope we can find some concensus, after all ... we would like this to be the community map project, not just str8g8's map project or Doc_Brown's map project.
Quote:
It might be time to start a new thread soon, after we have all the theories (or the ones with merit) gathered here; this one's getting messy as the OQ after the Cataclysm
But this thread has so much history! A new thread just wouldn't be the same ;)
Hogwash on 17/1/2005 at 17:04
Can I just say that I really admire the time, effort and passion put in to the various mapping projects by you guys. It really brings the Thief world to an even greater level of immersion and realism.
Imagine when a final map set is agreed upon and we have a universal source of reference for FMs and campaigns. :)
