Mapping out The City.

Szandor on 16/9/2005 at 22:56

Also, the ultimate goal of having a canonical map is not more important than the road to get there. Learning by doing, working together. It's democracy in progress! And some people claim computer games only incite violence and bad stuff...

theBlackman on 16/9/2005 at 23:19

Quote Posted by oDDity

Quite frankly, no one who worked at LGS could give a shit.

Until now, I have been rather gentle with you. But it is apparent that you really are an IGNORANT LITTLE SHIT.

You have no social graces, (not much of a life in the real world I suspect) are mentally handicapped, and probably smell bad.

If you survive to have children I pity the gene pool. Obviously the lifeguard was not on duty when you slipped into it.

Don't bother to respond, as you will just be talking to yourself (as usual) and I have more valuable garbage on the curb for pickup.

tje on 17/9/2005 at 01:20

This thread has more important things to do than to try to justify itself to people who are unprepared to listen.

oDDity on 17/9/2005 at 08:46

Well, you are giing to have to justify your final choice of placenames and meanings to everyone, otherwise they'll be defuct before they even leave this thread.

Quote Posted by Shadowcat

oDDity: Plenty of the folks at Looking Glass loved what they did as much as we did, so that's a pretty harsh statement.

They may be proud of what what they did, but they've moved on to new things now. I find it all rather embarrassing, like Tolkien fanatics who meet in pubs and converse in elvish. It's just plain weird.
Don't think I'm trying to put you off or anything.

MorbusG on 17/9/2005 at 09:51

Quote Posted by oDDity

Don't think I'm trying to put you off or anything.

I fail to see what else it could be you're trying to achieve. Be more precise.

Some chosen bits from this thread for all of you who haven't read through all of it:

Quote Posted by Randy

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. No, I'm not going to help, sorry, cuz what's the fun of that?

I will point out one major feature that you're lacking though, and it amuses me that never came up explicitly in T/T2. 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.

Keep up the good work. This kind of stuff is always useful to us. It can be hard to keep track of everything we have and have not said (yet).

- R

Quote Posted by Episkopos Stephanus

Triggered by str8g8's mention of Istanbul, I looked up Constantinople on Wikipedia and found this interesting bit of information:
Quote:
As the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire (now commonly known as the Byzantine Empire, an Enlightenment era namesake), the Greeks called Constantinople simply i Poli ("the City"), while throughout Europe it was known as the "Queen of Cities", the richest and largest city both culturally and economically.

Quote Posted by Snakeskin

Hey everyone!
As you may have noticed, i am workng on a Thief RPG in a nearby thread. I was planning on including your work with the map as how the city will look. What i am wondering is:

Does anyone here want to help me with descriptions of the different quarters, wealth, what important sites there are, and so on. The descriptions are preferably based on facts, but after that the info can be entirely fictional, the most important thing is that a beliavable description can be given for each area and making them interesting places to carry on adventures throughout the city. Since you guys have a lot more experience, and probable have these descriptions in your minds already, i would really appreciate the help

To Str8g8: Do you want to make a "fictional" version of your map, filling out the emptier sections a little more, and perhaps adding locations for places we know exist in The City? Basically The City like you would want it to be, based on the progress you guys have made here?

EDIT: Descriptions and stories, which set the mood for the city is also welcome!

Quote Posted by potterr

As a test concept for a tool in GarrettLoader I knocked up this standalone exe.
(http://www.potterdevelopments.org.u...pl?DLID=2224431)

The exe is simply str8g8's map in a scrollable window (and its far from complete or perfect).
The idea is that it will effectively contain a kind of plan of the city that will help FM authors to decide where to base their FM's.
The tool will allow map and screenshots to be downloaded and added in as well as upgrading the map itself.
NOTE: the UPGRADE menu item does nothing, and the right hand side and bottom of the map get large gray areas if you resize the map after scrolling.
Anyway its just an idea and helps put all your work to use. If you don't think its worth persuing I wont (as it will be a massive amount of work ).

So, as a project of making the whole Thief world seem more real, realistic, immersive, credible, etc., you have every right for an opinion in this discussion as you can use it in TDM for a new Thief gaming experience for the whole Thief community. Well, ofcourse, but I mean that before this flaming gets any further, I ask you to be more precise.
What is off in your opinion?

oDDity on 17/9/2005 at 10:41

The problem is, that whatever you guys come up with, no one has any reason to accept. Everyone has the perfect right to say 'who the hell do they think they are?'

I think it's better to let FM authors come up with their own names and places to fit their stories, than try to force your names on them.
You may as well try to come up with the names and addresses of everyone who lives in the city, instead of let FM authors choose their own characters.

MorbusG on 17/9/2005 at 11:31

Quote Posted by oDDity

The problem is, that whatever you guys come up with, no one has any reason to accept. Everyone has the perfect right to say 'who the hell do they think they are?'

This is self-evident.

Quote Posted by oDDity

I think it's better to let FM authors come up with their own names and places to fit their stories, than try to force your names on them.
You may as well try to come up with the names and addresses of everyone who lives in the city, instead of let FM authors choose their own characters.

As far as I can see, there hasn't been any restrictions in that way. Ie. There's plenty of room for FM districts/quarters/areas. What we're trying to do is put together the original games info in such a way that everyone can accept. And indeed, whoever doesn't accept it is free to pop in and tell their opinions. It's not like this thread is forbidden to but a few people.

I can't see when there has been forcing of names. Sola mentioned something about Calendra missions location in Old quarter I think. Is that what you meant? I agree with you that it should be left to FM authors where to put their missions, *after* there has been agreement with the original game data so there is at least some kind of map to present them with.
If you mean the potterr's GarrettLoader, then you might see that this thread doesn't have anything to do with it directly, and you should contact him with your opinion rather than this thread.

Mugla on 17/9/2005 at 11:44

Alright, I'm back. Again... Let's get this thread back on trail, 'kay? ;)

To clarify things a bit, here's where we are currently:

Even though the thread started as a simple list of the districts in the City, it has since expanded into a full-scale map-project.
I think first and foremost, we should do a completely canon map, of which anyone can then derive/add to a map of their liking. If we leave/alter some crucial evidence behind, someone will complain, and the map wont serve the full of the community.
Since Krypt tipped in, it has been clear that the dev-team didn't stick to the map 100% of the time. This can be seen from the earlier inconsistencies too. So, all we can do is try to sticth the thing as best we can, and as a last resort as I've suggested already, make a few 'alternatives' visible in the end-product (.pdf layers that show where for example Garrett's home could be located).
The speculations on location-names will be a mere frosting on the cake (an optional "frosting"-layer in the .pdf), if they wont interfere with the actual canon.

So, back to the map, then.
str8g8: I meant the second-latest map , the one just before you dropped Ambush! down to the docks.

I think we are again in a turning point here. All the evidence might atlast be present, and the most obvious intepretations/versions have been discovered. To find out which version(s) plays out the best, we need a full-scale representation of each, taking all the evidence into account.

If we'd have a raw map with all the district/street/house -names and the connections between places (Newmarket-Shalebridge connection from the peasant conversation for ex.), then everyone could show their versions of the map.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v621/str8g8/city_map.png) This one seems to be in small, transferrable bits, but lacks some of the latest additions.

What do you think? After this we could atlast start fine-tuning the map, and decide how to represent it. For example, we could add the aforementioned speculations layer and the alternatives layers, with due explanations on each case, and fan-mission layer that then shows where each thought their areas would be.

EDIT: I think MorbusG hit the spot better than I did in his above post. We do what we can, and people use it as they please. Atleast we did something they can build their own work upon.

MorbusG on 17/9/2005 at 12:29

Quote Posted by Mugla

If we'd have a raw map with all the district/street/house -names and the connections between places (Newmarket-Shalebridge connection from the peasant conversation for ex.), then everyone could show their versions of the map.

Seeing my version eventually became very much like str8g8's, I don't see a reason presenting it.
I'm giving green light for the river bending and shalebridge location as long as there is the shalebridge road connection, which there is ATM.

I would have one question :angel:
I could have missed the reasoning behind it (and if so, sorry!), but why are eastport & dayport so, that dayport isn't more to east? (angelwatch conversation in S&R: "view of the mountains, watch the sunrise")

Mugla on 17/9/2005 at 14:05

Well, at the time when we chose those placings, Dayport had two alternatives; west of Wayside, and where it is now.

Of the two, the current one is indeed closer. Why it isn't even beyond Eastport, well... We can see mountains already in some cutscenes from the west-side pretty clearly, and with the current layout, Eastport is indeed more east, allowing more playground with the history (we would have to come up with excuses and explanations for the origin of Eastport and why is it the nexus of the new-found mechanist order. The idea was that the industrial revolution that Karras sprung expanded the City east-wards, away from the old center of the hammerite-power, the centrum.)

These are somewhat vague points in my opinion, so in a way, no reason at all. Convenience on the other hand...