Mapping out The City.

[jtr7]

wayside
n.
the edge of a road; area close to the side of a road
adj.
on, near, or along the side of a road

I believe the gate at the "North" side of the Map should lead out to Winston Avenue.

"1369 Winston Avenue
Wayside Dock District"

Anyway, given that the area of the Docks is on hilly ground and Wayside is flat and neither have any evidence of brothel activity, I don't have a problem with separate areas as long as they are within the same district, even only roughly. Also, at Wayside you can't see a lighthouse or an island. And where are those Dockside whores?

[Solabusca]

Anyway, given that the area of the Docks is on hilly ground and Wayside is flat and neither have any evidence of brothel activity, I don't have a problem with separate areas as long as they are within the same district, even only roughly. Also, at Wayside you can't see a lighthouse or an island. And where are those Dockside whores?

I'm not sure if you mean that the gate at the north of the Docks map should open up into Winston Avenue (more logical to me) or that the map at the north of the City should...

Anyways, I see the Wayside Docks district encompassing the entire western shore of the City; there may be a similar area on the Eastern shore, but the port sections seem to have been 'gentrified', at least in Dayport.

Don't forget, the portion of the Wayside Docks that we see in Shipping... and Receiving all seem to be part of the same warehouse complex (Rampone Dockside Shipping) - one sealed off from the rest of the district after hours. It's unlikely we'd see any bordello's inside a warehouse complex.

Really, the commentary about "dockside whorekeeps" comes from a snippet of in-game dialogue, and from the 'historical' tendency of such establishments to spring up wherever ships reach port.

Just some idle commentary on your post.

[jtr7]

I'm not sure if you mean that the gate at the north of the Docks map should open up into Winston Avenue (more logical to me)

Si Señor. 'Twas what I meant.
---
Of course the after-hours business on the 2nd floor of Lord Porter's tenement is nearly a brothel, and I don't think they're the ones being referenced. Winston Avenue could be the red-light area, entertaining sailors entering The City. If the prostitute had hit on Benny in Wayside instead....

[str8g8]

Well that's pretty awesome, and is a good deal clearer than the map we working with before, so well done Sxerks. You have achieved quite a monumental task and I think laid the issue of scale to rest (at last).

However, a couple of things I'd like to flag:

1. The old Dayport\Eastport switcheroo - didn't we come down on the other side of that particular problem?

2. The Wayside\Docks split. Wayside and the Docks and Wayside Docks seem to be used pretty much interchangeably by NPCs. My take on it is this - Wayside is the District, Docks isn't a district but just loosely refers to the waterfront area of Wayside. So it can be labelled on the map, but doesn't need a district boundary, colour etc.

3. Truart mansion in Hightowne - not necessarily wrong, but different from the working map. However, I still think the large grounds might indicate it should be nudged nearer the edge of the City.

Other than that, it's all good

[Sxerks]

@Mugla
-I didn't really seperate Wayside from the Docks, I was just playing with the idea that it might be a subsection or district of the Docks. Much like how Shalebridge, Downtowne, and maybe even Stonemarket would be districts of the Old Quarter.
And the dot is the Docks lighthouse, 100ft tall,40ft wide at that distance, or 50ft tall,20ft wide at half the distnace from the Docks.

@demagogue
-Do you mean you like the scale as it is now or that it should be smaller?

@jtr7
-"can't see a lighthouse or an island" those came in T3 so they wouldn't be in any T2 map. And you can't really go by the generic skybox fill-ins from T1,T2.

@str8g8
1- (E/D)Someone thought it would be to far for the guard to walk from his home in Eastport to his job at the Wayside, so after your T3FM was made Shalebridge moved across the river to be the guards home(S/D/E). But with this scale it would be less than a mile and also keep Shalebridge back over in the OQ. It was a messy couple of pages to go through and not much of a debate, with most people saying it didn't matter either way.
3- that is the Masks map in hightowne, Truart's is east of North Quarter with the other estate.

[all]

Doc_Brown vs. Sxerks

... FIGHT!

[Solabusca]

1. The old Dayport\Eastport switcheroo - didn't we come down on the other side of that particular problem?

I'm actually pretty certain that with the decision to base the speaking guard in SAR in Shalebridge, it was Dayport in the west, and Eastport further east. So yeah, you're right. (ie, going east it's Shalebridge -> Dayport -> Eastport -> The View in Question)

2. The Wayside\Docks split. Wayside and the Docks and Wayside Docks seem to be used pretty much interchangeably by NPCs. My take on it is this - Wayside is the District, Docks isn't a district but just loosely refers to the waterfront area of Wayside. So it can be labelled on the map, but doesn't need a district boundary, colour etc.

Y'know, I can live with that.

3. Truart mansion in Hightowne - not necessarily wrong, but different from the working map. However, I still think the large grounds might indicate it should be nudged nearer the edge of the City.

Definitely agreed on this one.

.j.

[jtr7]

I'm not worried about the whole docks thing, personally, I just like to share my thoughts and let the experts take it or leave it.

If only the shipping label had a single comma added, and read thusly:
"Wayside, Docks District"

...things would be easier. But that comma's not there, so I agree, Wayside is the district.

[jtr7]

A quasi-bump, as well....

This guy must be a child of the sea, eh?

Webster
Warden of Docks, Eastport, Dayport.

A postal address:

1369 Winston Avenue
Wayside Dock District

TDS description with plot points removed:

The Docks...the poor part of town...full of cramped tenements and surly residents. I wouldn’t come here looking for a helping hand, but it’s the right place to hire a few murderous thugs. Or for those who’re in the market for something rare and exotic, precious imports from ships are stored here until they’re moved to more wealthy districts. So the Docks can be a good place to rob...as long as you keep an eye out for fishy characters and, of course, the City Watch. ...the Docks [can be] cut off from the other districts...[by] the gates. If the Keepers are right, and there’s a dark age coming...then Docks is where to start searching for it. It’s about as dark as this city gets.

[Mugla]

Tried to look at the Docks from a few angles, and as long as the district is named "Wayside" somehow (not only "Docks"), we should be on clear waters (...opaque the least).

What jtr7 said about Winston Av. is interesting. Think we should grab one of those powerlines from T:ds manual map again... Forgot which ones were used again...

@demagogue; I think this scale goes about right now. Soulforge is a bit imposing now, true, but so would be an airport in a modern city. Some things take space.

[demagogue]

@demagogue; I think this scale goes about right now. Soulforge is a bit imposing now, true, but so would be an airport in a modern city. Some things take space.

I'm a little confused by your first sentence, but I think I get the gist of it.

BTW, just to be clear what I meant in referencing Soulforge. I was referring to this older version and its scale: http://img248.imageshack.us/my.php?i...ewego19vc7.gif

... where it seems to me that Soulforge is ludicrously big. So my last post just meant to say that that observation really hit home to me how much better the current scale (in the two most recent maps) is than that previous one ... because Soulforge is actually much more reasonably sized in comparison. I'm not worried that it's airport sized because it really is big; it just looked silly to see it take up an entire district to itself. The point is I'm happy with the more recent scale.

[Doc_Brown]

Second, we need the legend. The explanations, reasonings and evidence we already discussed along the way.

I'm willing to tackle number two.

Oh. My. God.

What have I gotten myself into? Let's just say this is proving more difficult than I anticipated...

[jtr7]

Hang in there Doc! Are you askin' for help? What needs delegatin'?

Do you just need lots more time?

Have you formulated a way to do it, but it's still a massive endeavor?

[Doc_Brown]

The scope's definately a part of it. We're trying to summarize a thread that's been going on for years now, encompassing sixty-plus pages and over 1600 comments. And yet, summarizing isn't exactly the correct term, either. This has been a highly amorphous endeavor, in which we've tried numerous unsuccessful approaches to get where we are. A straight summary would itself be massive.

What I'm struggling with is finding a way to jump right to the explanation of the way it has to be, but without having to go through every single dead-end we ran into, in order to justify it. In other words, I cannot approach the legend the same way we've approached the project, which in a way is like starting all over again. It's daunting, to say the least.

I suppose I'm just stressing out over nothing. I expected, perhaps foolishly, that now that we've got her mostly figured out it would be relatively easy to explain. Ah, how wrong I was. Still, now that I'm knee deep it occurs to me to ask whether you all think I should tackle this by myself and then submit it for approval, or if it should, like the map itself, be a communal activity...?

[jtr7]

Ah. This is why I used the term "formula". If we could have a systemic approach--a template, perhaps--to collect the data into consistently understandable and specific packages of small-ish size, it may facilitate delegation to take the pressure off of you. You could then work at a preferred pace and guide the process as issues make themselves known.

I vote that you shouldn't take it all on yourself, unless you'd like the rest of us to just step back and let you take all the time you feel is necessary. We can watch your back, in the meantime, if you'd prefer.

If anybody here has a suggestion for streamlining the process, or can provide a template, I'd say please share....

We've pressured Sxerks with our "Hey! Where's Sxerks? Where's the rest of the maps he was doing?" We've pressured Doc_Brown to be not only the Project Lead, but the guy doing most, if not all the compiling, even though Sxerks nearly lost a limb for the cause by making the latest list. Sxerks has greatly contributed and deserves not only a break, but to see the conclusion of this endeavor. Doc...what is your heart on this matter?

I think it's time for a change in our approach. As always, I'm not a real contributor here and I'm currently in a cooling period from working on the Encyclopaedia of the Thief Universe project. I'm in the backseat, going on this ride with you all. The destination's gonna be great, but right now, maybe we need to pull over at the nearest rest stop and recoup.

[demagogue]

Just an idea by another interested non-contributor, but at least one part of the task (a labor intensive one, though) seems to just getting all the massive amount of information in order, to even get to the summarizing/ supporting/ reasoning part. Could you divide out the areas (by district and by mission, although a *note on that below) and then parcel them out to persons to just collect and bullet-point all the sorts of relevant evidence and reasoning and important debates going on specific to all the choices made dealing with that area ... but bullet-pointed as much as possible so you could just read down the list and quickly get what went on. Divide and conquer one necessary but very labor-intensive part. (*Note: It might be better if a person worked on a district and all the missions that ended up in it to do together, so whatever overlap there is could be better consolidated.)

And as for organizing that work, I suppose
Step 1. a list of the "evidence" relevant to that area (? maybe better to save it for when it's actually used?),
Step 2. One debate/choice involving that area, (e.g., a single "debate" is like for each district, "where it is located in the city", "its basic dimensions", "which missions it contains - by mission". And for each mission, "what district it's in (or outskirts)"; "what's its orientation", etc ... whatever was an actual decision, even if it was obvious. Some debates are more global and you could do independently, like the map scale, or river orientation).
a. the main specific alternatives involved in that debate, listed one by one.
b. For each alternative, and basic idea/evidence supporting it (doesn't have to completely repeat everything, just quick idea);
c. how it was resolved, which alternative "won" at least as far as the final map placement is concerned (don't need to worry beyond that) and roughly what kind of "win" (e.g., "apparent consensus", or "compromise", or "acquiescence" y to x, or "not resolved but weight is on x-side", or "unresolved" but x got in the end anyway, e.g., qwerty-effect, just put in that way and stuck), and then
d. the basic "reason" for that apparent resolution, as broadly as actually explains it, including not only the evidence but also the logic or value or idea that seemed to make this alternative win over the others (.mis > in-game map > readable; querty-effect; etc). Then
Step 3, repeat Step 2 for each of the major choices/debates involved for that area, until you've covered how everything actually got placed.

It doesn't have to be that extensive if each element is just bullet-pointed as a kind of label with links to the actual discussion. But I do think it'd be helpful to really keep everything organized in a kind of consistent outline form more or less like this.

This still isn't everything, but it might make doc's job a lot easier if a lot of that information were accessibly collected by-mission and by-district; it'd give you something to build off of, you'll probably want to organize much of the reasoning by-mission/district anyway, and it'd make the more global parts of the task more manageable with that stuff on-hand.

I guess one catch is finding enough knowledgeable and free people to make it work, and it might slow things down to wait for it all to trickle in, and even then the work might not be very commensurate and you might worry things could more easily get missed or confused. But then again, this is work that has to be done one way or another, and a lot of the sheer collecting part of it is sort of mechanical. So pros and cons. And my ideas about a possible template are there even apart from whether or how you might want to divide the work.

Anyway, I'm just throwing out some ideas as food for thought. I have faith that you guys will figure something out that will work well. You've done so much so far.

[Mugla]

Yes, some of the pieces are quite interrelated with eachother. As was suggested, it might be easier to extract the explanations straight from our heads by looking at the *map*, not the horrible primordial-soup of a thread this map evolved from.
I think I can remember the basic idea behind each placement, and think I read so do most of us. If we wait for the final work, which everyone gives their blessings, writing conclusive legends on each piece might be done collectively on the boards.

I'm experimenting on the fastest method to turn the latest Sxerks-map into a 2-color-map, which we can finally use for the artistic version. This is the part, where most of the problems we missed should arise. You'll see what I mean soon.

[all]

I prefer docs map

[Doc_Brown]

For the time being, actually, I'd like to keep at the legend on my own. I think I just hit a wall last night and needed to vent some frustration before pressing on. I'm making fairly good progress now, and should have something for group review before too long.

One thing that has become obvious, however, is that we still have yet to completely settle on some of the locations. The Dayport/Eastport relationship, for instance, and the locations of some of the more arbitrary missions, to name a few.

Which reminds me of something: Sxerks, on your latest map, I just noticed that you seem to have left off New Quarter entirely. Is there a reason for this, or is it just an oversight? While there a few other things I would contend about it, that strikes me as the one that most urgently needs addressing.

[jtr7]

Glad to see you "back", Doc!

Oh, and speaking of docks. A Wayside Dock is a type of plant, like the sorrel.

[Doc_Brown]

Inspired by Sxerks recent attempt, as well as the legend I'm working on, I've decided to do yet another version of the map: Clicky.

Some of the changes I've made have actual basis, while others I did simply to see what it would look like. One way or another, I intend to generate some discussion on the matter.

What's Changed:

• I moved the Ambush map in line with the major roadway after seeing it done that way on Sxerk's map and liking the result.
• Same goes for the locations of the Rutherford Castle and Blue Heron Inn. Fills in the empty space better, methinks.
• I moved Stonemarket into Downtowne proper, and in turn pulled Bafford's Manor into the enclosed area previously occupied by Stonemarket.
• I swapped the locations of North Quarter and New Quarter. The only mission that had to move because of this was Bank, but I also brought over the Rumford Estate as well. The missions left behind in what is now the new New Quarter all have a direct connection between them.
• The same is true of my move of Gervaisius' to New Quarter. To give the now otherwise empty Hightowne some character, I pulled over Constantine's from old North Quarter.
• There are a few other minor shifts in mission locations, though I feel I should note in particular Soulforge, which feels more appropriate near the City's center.
• The moving of Bafford's allowed me to pull back Old Quarter and claim the northernmost area as part of the new North Quarter. I did this to make all four Quarters some of the largest districts in The City. To this same end, I also expanded the size of New Quarter, which now sweeps down to claim the area to the east of Auldale and the north of Eastport.

[demagogue]

To me, I've always preferred the placement of North Quarter and New Quarter as you have it in the map you just posted.

It reminds me of traveling through both Istanbul and Budapest, where locals couldn't stop explaining to me why the "new district" of the city is always on the other side of the river from the beautiful old city (the Asian part of Istanbul, and the Pest part of Budapest) ... also Vienna now that I think about it, and Paris... And they always seemed to like to call it the "new" city. It also just looks more intuitive.

Also makes sense that Soulforge would be in the New Quarter as it was an upstart movement, champions of "modernizing" (their version of it), so it makes sense it'd be in the quarter with the most recent development. Also, if you've ever seen the new districts of old cities, the other side of the river, they are always industrial-blah compared to the old city side. The New Quarter label just fits the profile better IMO. It's the semi-pejorative kind of label that old-city-side people would use to snub their noses at all the money (& factories and noble manors) moving to the other side, but it being ugly.

As an added bonus, it makes the North Quarter actually the northern part of the city proper, and actually north of South Quarter. I was surprised when NoQ and NewQ were switched in a previous round, but am happy to see them placed back where I expected them to be.

Different issue: Are the two markets really that close?

(Sorry if I'm too out of the loop to be repeating things already thought of.)

[Beleg Cúthalion]

One little question: Since there have been numbers concerning length of the maps etc., would it be possible to add a little scale field or kind of measure information (sorry, the dictionary didn't tell me something I already knew) to the map...? At least a rough one?

[Mugla]

Seconded. I need some reassurance you've kept the scales between the missions the same Sxerks gave.

I'll delay the wireworks a bit, until we have settled on the positions. It went slow on the latest anyway, as the multicolored setting defied easy recoloring attempts.

We should line Ambush! so, that Old Gate/Shalebridge road could connect with the major one there. So that Shalebridge Road goes towards Shalebridge in some manner. Funny how we forgot that one again...

The other changes seem to move within their intended limits (for some it was "within City walls"), as far as I remember. The old position of New Quarter was to line it with New market, but nothing pointed it to be necessary (maybe the wardens' turfs' uniformity gets jinxed now?).

The Dayport/Eastport -bit seems to be a preference issue, no? Either the Angelwatch get's to be a shader closer to the mountains, or the guard walks more to get to his work. If it's only that, I'll go either way really.

[all]

We should line Ambush! so, that Old Gate/Shalebridge road could connect with the major one there. So that Shalebridge Road goes towards Shalebridge in some manner. Funny how we forgot that one again...

I don't agree on this point, unless we have concrete evidence somewhere (Ok once again, i'm introducing myself into a thread i haven't read enough to actually have the right to do so; so slap me if I deserve it)... Its just that I'm preoccupied about the facts. Do we learn anywhere that shalebridge road actually does go to shalebridge? Its not that obvious, and we easily find old cities with streets named after districts that are on the whole other side... I just think we should focus more about mission map locations rather than aligning streets. As an example, we see in Thief 2 the appearance of 'drives', 'avenues' and 'boulevards'... What if shalebridge road does not go to shalbridge, but shalebridge drive does??? We need more facts!