Guild City

[Falconius]

I think we should just divide the city into neighborhoods, but leave it open for people to do whatever sort of 'city' they want in there, just like the Guildworld was open for people to do what they want (Although I don't think anyone made a future setting except Waldronate and it was kind of a post apocalyptic fantasy setting). Also keep in mind that we might need it to be able to expand, so perhaps mapping out a core general layout to cover the initial participants, but keeping in mind we may need to tack more neighborhoods on if more people join in as does happen. Perhaps we could also have a list of important sites/buildings people also get along with their hood (could also be random pick). Such that someone might get a university, and someone might get a palace, and someone might get a town council building.

[Mouse]

We should put our heads together as mappers and try to come up with the coolest city design possible. We could make a thread dedicated to collecting the ideas of guildmembers and put them in a pot, boil for ten minutes, take it out, and mash and stir together to create the coolest-est (maybe another 'est') and unique-est city map ever design (now my words are getting all mixed up). After all, between all the amazing cartographers on here, we must be able to make something awesome together.

That's basically what we are trying to do right now, but not yet described so succinctly - thanks Josiah

The boiling pot is currently residing in comment 59, where I'm collecting place ideas as we go along - for J.Edward to use as a reference point for the minimum of what we want in the city Just add any new ideas to the end of the thread and I'll pick them up to add on the end. I expect there will also be lots more just spontaneously appearing in individual maps as we go along - adding the personality of all our individual imaginations to the city 'live'.

I think we should just divide the city into neighborhoods, but leave it open for people to do whatever sort of 'city' they want in there, just like the Guildworld was open for people to do what they want (Although I don't think anyone made a future setting except Waldronate and it was kind of a post apocalyptic fantasy setting). Also keep in mind that we might need it to be able to expand, so perhaps mapping out a core general layout to cover the initial participants, but keeping in mind we may need to tack more neighborhoods on if more people join in as does happen. Perhaps we could also have a list of important sites/buildings people also get along with their hood (could also be random pick). Such that someone might get a university, and someone might get a palace, and someone might get a town council building.

I think that's what J.Edward is considering in the odd moment between other things by the sound of what he's saying elsewhere in the thread.

In the UK, where we have many walled cities due to the tendency for our island to get repeatedly invaded down through the millennia, the usual growth and development is to place new suburbs outside the wall in an organic method. Of course, these suburbs would be vulnerable if another invasion occurred, but the people in them would be summoned to rush into the walled part of the city in that event, and join the resistance fighters...

I think I will add watch towers to the list.

EDIT: The list of important/interesting features is currently being kept on this thread at comment 59. It started there before things got really serious and we started to talk about levels and drains - and before we had over 20 potential participants.

I think J.Edward will probably take quite a few of them and put them in the basic plan already, but I've no doubt there will be quite a few left for us to fight over

[Falconius]

Ah ok, it's a long thread and I only saw it recently

[Redrobes]

So if I'm understanding this right, there are potentially four spacial dimensions, of sorts, to map: The obvious 2Ds of W-E and N-S, the level dimension which shows individual 'floors', and the zoom dimension as in elevation which is a coded feature.

We have the N.S.E.W. ground view map with gardens, walls, roads, roofs and what you would basically see from a drone or hot air balloon. The zoom is for in and out or the resolution so you can get more detail right up to practically the pixel resolution that it was mapped out to the whole city - like google maps. Then I can place down hot links. Those can be links to images or a URL. The URL can be another zoom map. So we can put in hot links on the ground level where there are man hole access hatches and link them all to the sewer zoom map. We can put in hot links at the doors to buildings to the attachment for the single map for inside that building. What I cant do is put in hot links on attachments. So all the hot links need to be on the zoomable layers of which there are going to be about 2 or 3 max (Ground, Sewer, something else). I can link the whole city zoomable map onto the Guildworld zoomable map at the point of "The Guild" in Robbies area - see earlier posts in this thread about that.

Here is a map I did of some nature reserves. If you zoom in you should get up close to the point it adds hot links to the photos.
http://www.hawkandowl-shapwick.org/A...hesMap/Map.htm
(If you go to the "wick" part of Shapwick Moor in bottom left Hawk and Owl region, there is a URL link there to their main website. So if that URL was the guilds other zoomable map then you would see the next zoomable layer there)

I do hope that we can do hyperlinked stuff where you could go to, say, a perspective of a building and a floor map for it.
Maybe even to a room and/or items in a room. This all depends on the desire of Redrobes to do all the linking.

The linking is not too hard to do. I had a script where I put in all the positions and targets and I run it and it generates all the javascript for it. Its a bit of work to initially set it up but once done its easier to keep up to date and I just have to upload the one javascript file. Everyone should note however that whilst its fairly easy to keep a single image view of the whole city up to date, I have to upload tons of files for the zoomable layers. So they will be out of date as the map progresses. This is why my old ViewingDale made that easy and that its hard to do with HTML / Javascript - it was the whole point in why I wrote that app as it could have done those updates in real time as it never baked all of the maps into one giant bitmap to upload and dynamically generated that zoom map on the fly.

I should also add: Perspective view - yes, Room plan - Yes, Items in room - no, as the hot link needs to be on the ground view zoomable map. We used to have a wiki for the old cwbp but it got spammed to high heaven. I dont think anyone is keen on reinstating one for all of the description / text etc. But we could link to another forum thread for it and maybe have the room plan, description and items all in there.

[Mouse]

@ Falconius - Its grown a bit bigger than expected! LOL! I've had to start putting links in to find my own way around.

Add what you want in a new comment and I'll go add it to the list for you

I'd start a new thread specially for it, only I don't know if we are staying in this forum or moving over to the Guildcity forum just yet

[Wingshaw]

Wow, a lot happened on this thread in the last 24 hours!

Happily (for me) Adelaide isn't as much of an internet blackhole as I had suspected... So, I'm back and keen to put my knowledge at service.

Here are a few comments and thoughts of my own:

Time Period
I've seen some people suggest medieval, others say modern, and a few sci-fi or post-apocalyptic. Personally, I think cartography leans closely towards steampunk, so I think an 18th-19th century setting would be cool, and could be a nice compromise between medieval and modern.

City Form
Once again, I think a compromise is possible. There is no such thing as a totally planned or totally unplanned city. What if this city began its existence as an unplanned city, but then an element of planning was introduced at a later stage. Or vice versa. Here's an example of how that might have come about: a handful of scattered villages grow to the point that they merge into a town, and at that point a local lord/king/emperor/madman decides to make it his/her new capital and lay down major roads, districts, walls etc. Later, said madman (who may or may not be called Robbie...) disappears (I think he/she is sitting in a corner of the castle, mumbling incoherently about bumblebees) and so the organisation starts to crumble and it returns to a disorganised mess.

Setting/Location
For the sake of plausibility, I think a few things need to be considered:
--where does the city get its water from? I think a water-source like a river or lake is necessary. Other options include an oasis, aquifer, canal systems etc. but each of these has implications for the climate/countryside around the city.
--what natural defenses does the city have? Historically, many early settlers needed to make the decision between settling in a protected location (hilltop, plateau) or in a place that has natural resources (valley bottoms tend to have better arable land than hillsides) or good access (riverways and traffic routes). If this settlement began in a place that was threatened, they would prioritise defensive locations. If it was relatively safe, they might favour a less protected but more connected or fertile site.
--why did the town begin/grow? Most villages never become more than villages. The point I am getting at with this question is: did the town grow from farming communities, merchants, soldiers (encampments/fortresses), bandits, refugees, fishermen... The history of a town has a huge role to play in its later development.

Admin
So, there's been a lot of ideas so far, it seems like Mouse is--for the moment--spearheading the operation with J. Edward's help, but there's no executive decision-making going on. I'm not claiming any authority, but here's my thoughts:
--we could appoint a grand maestro of the Guild City who decides all of these things, creates (or commissions) a layout map that gets divided into neighbourhoods, and then everyone maps their respective districts...
--we could make it democratic, and have polls on time period, setting etc. This will take a lot longer to reach a decision. And then, in true local government style, we could have a committee to discuss the poll results. And a subcommittee to decide on the members of the committee. And a working group to determine the functions of the subcommittee... (Sorry, I got carried away there).

Personally, I want a grand maestro. And I want him/her to be called the grand maestro. Perhaps with a capital G and a capital M.

In terms of laying out the city, I'm happy to make a basic (i.e. very sketchy) layout which can then be put into a format that allows all participants to map the neighbourhood of their choice. At the moment, I think I only have time to make the sketchy layout.

Anyway, those are a couple of my thoughts so far. I like the other suggestions (eg. about the city's different levels, and different scales) but haven't got much to contribute to those discussions for the time being.

THW

[Abu Lafia]

Sounds like a great idea to start the new year with another community mapping project. Count me in! I think Robbie's narrative about the cosmopolitic meltingpot Azuredawn and "the Guild" were cartographers and other folks from all the different places around the Guildworld come together sounds perfect for such a city (given Robbie is ok with us "hijacking" the city ). From an aesthetical point of view, i 'd prefer a more organic outlook of the neighbourhoods (and the whole city) too.

[Jalerym]

Yikes, this is the first post I followed since I downloaded the tapatalk app. I was not prepared for the enthusiasm (which is not to say I am not happy about). I am a super long time lurker on these forums and this is probably my favorite mapping website. I would love to take part in a community project. Not only to be more involved in the community itself but I used to do a ton of mapping but lost almost all of my stuff when my hard drive crashed and want to get back into it.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using Tapatalk

[Mouse]

@ THW - oh my! That is just such a lot to take in all at once (me mouse - have simple brain). Forgive me for not quoting you!

Thank you so much for doing all this thinking stuff for us

I think some of what you are saying has already been covered in some form or other earlier I this very long thread... [EDIT: would you believe its only been 3 days since I started it!]. So far I am under the impression (misguided or not) that J.E might be able to give us at least a sketch of an organically segmented city and some kind of grid system to keep it in shape. I'm all for that, since he did such a splendid job of Guildworld. As to whether he's going to have time to actually do it I couldn't say.

The setting/location is 'as is' on the Guildworld map. J.E came up with a mindblowing Kast landscape idea a few comments ago, with a sink hole to a lake with lots of underground rivers around the place. The reason for the city would then be that it is the only watering place for hundreds of miles around, and therefore a very strategic point in the defence of the country as a whole.

All these things are still up for discussion though

As for the Grand Meastro - since it is Robbie's city maybe he should be the ultimate authority here. You know the sort - the overseer who comes by in his steampunk carriage every once in a while and gives a single nod or shake of his head, and everyone scuttles round doing his bidding for fear of being thrown in the castle dungeon... and you really don't want to end up down there with the Orcs Being as important as he is I would think he would choose a couple of suitable task masters to keep the rest of us in line

The thread has got so complicated now that I can't remember who said this [it was Falconius actually], but I'm slowly turning around towards a more liberal view that time period is really up to the person drawing the map. This is after all a fantasy/virtual city, so we could well have space age next to dark age. There might even have been some massive time machine accident way into the relative future that caused all the blocks to exist in different time periods, with the roads as planar portals between them.

I've probably not covered half your points at all, but that's me all over!

...

@ Abu - welcome on board

[Mouse]

Yikes, this is the first post I followed since I downloaded the tapatalk app. I was not prepared for the enthusiasm (which is not to say I am not happy about). I am a super long time lurker on these forums and this is probably my favorite mapping website. I would love to take part in a community project. Not only to be more involved in the community itself but I used to do a ton of mapping but lost almost all of my stuff when my hard drive crashed and want to get back into it.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using Tapatalk

Hello Jalerym. Welcome to the Guild

Do you want me to add your name to the list so that you can have a go at a segment of the city map, or are you more a spectator/supporter here?