A remade BG city - suggestions welcome

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tfunke
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A remade BG city - suggestions welcome

Unread post by tfunke »

I'm coming out of retirement to take a crack at remaking the city, as I have spare time on my hands and Lisa managed to find the old file I had begun of this back in early 2016. This will allow me to continue, as I wouldn't have started again making a city a 3rd time ;)

If you could describe in a few words, what you would like to see improved in a new version, it might help me or at least give me insights as I go about building it. Any and all suggestions welcomed, big or small. I'm particularly looking for descriptive words, rather than "landmarks you would like to see".

Thanks.
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Re: A remade BG city - suggestions welcome

Unread post by Planehopper »

Awesome! Glad to have you back, and may this be a gateway drug to your continued presence (fingers crossed):

A bustling marketplace, shrine (or better yet a temple) to Waukeen

Communal gathering point(s)

A contrast of rich/poor clean/hardscrabble affluence/slums

A more tech-gond-steam feel around the docks

Some urban spillage outside of the gates
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Steve
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Re: A remade BG city - suggestions welcome

Unread post by Steve »

Hey tfunke!

If we can't get you IG on a new Character, then this is pretty damn good option #2. 8-)

A word that I'd like to see manifested in a new interpretation of the "real" Baldur's Gate, is: denser (see map below).
Image
From Volo's Guide to the Sword Coast:

"Baldur's Gate curves like a great hand or crescent moon around its harbor. Crescent moon is the term used by its resident minstrels, who tend to be brassy-voiced tenors and delightfully smoky altos, depending on their gender, but hand describes it better. The fingers of the hand are the many docks and wharves that jut out into the harbor. A bridge from the western shore links the mainland with a rocky islet on which perches the old, massive Seatower of Balduran, which is used as a barracks, naval base, dungeon, and fortress. It has a full armory and catapults to battle hostile ships, and a massive chain can be stretched from it to the outermost wharf on the east side to bar the harbor to invaders.

The harbor boasts no less than four dry-dock slips for boat building and repair, complete with ox-driven pumps. The shipping facilities, I'm told, are among the best in all Faerûn. They feature modern warehouses, movable lamps and cranes, and tight security.

Around the harbor rises a crowded, but clean and prosperous, city. Everything is of stone and is usually wet with either rain, sleet, or fog, depending on the time of day and season. This makes the streets slippery, makes the musk and mushrooms Baldurians grow in their cellars flourish, keeps the flowers and plants that are grown in hanging baskets everywhere green and makes mildew and mold a constant problem."

Buildings in Baldur's Gate tend to be tall and narrow, with slit windows located high up and covered with shutters to block winter winds and nesting seabirds alike. Tall among them rises the grandly spired ducal palace of the four ruling Grand Dukes, known as the High Hall. A place for feasts, court hearings, and administrative business, it boasts a dozen meeting rooms that all citizens can wander in and use to conduct business—unless someone else is already using them. To discourage the miserly from using these as permanent places of business, there's a rule forbidding anyone who entered one of the rooms today from using it tomorrow.

Not far from the palace stands the High House of Wonders, consecrated to Gond. It is the largest of the Gate's three temples. It is a perilous place for the curious; it has been the site of many an explosion and violent self-disassembly of sacred artifacts (which the faithful call apparati). Its spreading eastern wings face the Hall of Wonders, also on Windspell Street, where the more successful of Gond's inventions are displayed to the public.

The wrist of the gigantic hand that is Baldur's Gate is marked by the Black Dragon Gate, or Landward Gate, and its surrounding sprawl of slums, paddocks, cut-rate inns, and stockyards, all of which lie outside the city walls. Not far from the Hall of Wonders, near the Black Dragon Gate, and so near the wrist of Baldur's Gate, is the Wide. This huge open space is the Gate's market. It bustles by day and night, and is usually open spacewise only in the sense that there are no buildings. Temporary stalls, bins, sale tables, and the shoppers thronging to them usually crowd shoulder to shoulder. Deliveries here are often made by tall, strong folk striding through the crowds with tall poles strapped to their chests or backs at the top of which, over an adult human's height aloft, are cribs and crates full of goods.

Outside the Wide, Baldur's Gate lacks colorful landmarks. The everpresent damp discourages the use of banners, open shops, and the like. Windowboxes support trailing flowers of all sorts. Strolling minstrels, consisting usually of a singer playing a lute or hand harp accompanied by a flutist who also carries a hand drum and occasionally joins in on a chorus, provide another source of color.

Baldur's Gate is otherwise a pleasant but unremarkable city to stroll about in. Cats are everywhere—raised to keep down the shipborne vermin—but there's nary a dog to be seen. Livestock and mounts are kept outside the city in order to ensure maximum cleanliness."

0:)

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tfunke
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Re: A remade BG city - suggestions welcome

Unread post by tfunke »

Steve wrote: Sat Oct 19, 2019 12:15 pm Hey tfunke!

If we can't get you IG on a new Character, then this is pretty damn good option #2. 8-)

A word that I'd like to see manifested in a new interpretation of the "real" Baldur's Gate, is: denser (see map below).
Image
G'day Steve, you know what? Once I do this city, I will make a character and jump in and try the server out again after all these years. I still never got to play so much of what I made. Now it's not fresh in my mind, could be fun.

As for your image above, cool! That's the one I used as a basis for the version I'm working on, minus such dense streets. The "docks" aren't quite as massive, to keep framerates at a manageable level. I also read in another guide somewhere, that the graveyard for BG actually exits near the southern wall by the river... on the map above you can see that. Not east of the eastern farmlands like we have now. This is up to the devs though, whether to change such a familiar location after all this time or not.
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Planehopper
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Re: A remade BG city - suggestions welcome

Unread post by Planehopper »

2nd edition source, but interesting content:

http://imgur.com/a/odW2W9u

Image


Image
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Re: A remade BG city - suggestions welcome

Unread post by DM Soulcatcher »

A shrine to Waukeen by the Wide would be nice.

also
Around the harbor rises a crowded, but clean and prosperous, city. Everything is of stone and is usually wet with either rain, sleet, or fog, depending on the time of day and season. This makes the streets slippery, makes the musk and mushrooms Baldurians grow in their cellars flourish, keeps the flowers and plants that are grown in hanging baskets everywhere green and makes mildew and mold a constant problem."
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Re: A remade BG city - suggestions welcome

Unread post by tfunke »

Cool as Soulcatcher.

As mentioned by Maecius, there's an interest in sharing the concept with the general population to see their thoughts as well.
It's been years since I started these areas and i had slightly forgotten about the way I went about it... hard to say whether good or bad now. I have divided the city up into 4 quarters, with players entering from the eastern farmlands, choosing to either enter into the NE (northeast) section, or the SE (southeast) section from the farmlands transition.

Here's the areamaps and I have placed them side by side to give an idea of where I'm at. I could probably make the southeast (east gate section) denser...

Thoughts?
Image

EDIT:
Image
#1 - East Gate entrance
#2 - North Gate entrance
#3 - Harbour to PD transition
#4 - The Wide
#5 - Thayan Enclave
#6 - The main Inn (forget its name)
#7 - Waterqueen temple
#8 - Palace
#9 - Hall of Wonders
#10 - Flaming Fist Headquarters

(all the other locations are there, I have just listed the above main points.)
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tfunke
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Re: A remade BG city - suggestions welcome

Unread post by tfunke »

Just edited above... (in case someone misses it)
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Re: A remade BG city - suggestions welcome

Unread post by Hoihe »

Personally, something that has the same social spirit as the FAI campfire/east farmlands campfire within the city would be great.



People arguing for inns and outdoor patios is all nice and dandy, but imagine:

You are drinking with your buddies and some stranger comes up to your table. They might be nice and friendly, but their intrusion will still likely piss you off and you want them to go away.

One does not go to people sitting around a table at a patio or inside a tavern without being exceedingly rude and lacking in social graces. It's not inviting.

If we instead have something of a bunch of benches/stools in a central cross-roads where you can somewhat stiltedly justify stopping to sit down for a while without it being a jerk-like intrusion, that could help generate RP.


It might be a me-thing, but I could never find myself justifying going to people sitting around the tables outside Elfsong as it'd have been exceedingly rude. Likewise for people sitting around random tables in taverns.
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Re: A remade BG city - suggestions welcome

Unread post by DM Soulcatcher »

East Gate could use being denser and the Wide has to be implemented- an open-air square with all the merchants with epic items that we have in there, now.
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Re: A remade BG city - suggestions welcome

Unread post by Snarfy »

I really like how these maps more closely resemble the Baldurs' Gate from the original games, especially around the waterfronts. I see the East Gate waterfront got carved into the Docks map, IMHO, I would almost prefer it to stay a part of East Gate, just to help keep that OG "feeling". Having buildings in their original locations, such as the Waterqueen temple, is very cool too.

My main concerns might be how much the player guildhouses/temple/Inn locations might need to be shuffled around(and the players of said guilds might get ruffled feathers... heavy consultation will likely be required), and, to a lesser degree, where all those merchant stalls will go. BG has a LOT of interiors you'll need to deal with(and by that I mean attaching a building to it's respective interior) ... you might have to use almost every building on the East Gate and Harbor maps just to squeeze them all in. Some of the Temples in East Gate might need to find a home in Palace District even, but it's difficult to tell. If I get some time, and if it helps, I'll jot down the names of all the interiors in those districts.
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Re: A remade BG city - suggestions welcome

Unread post by gedweyignasia »

I want to see some slums outside the walls and a seedy tavern that masked characters could frequent. It would be nice to have a "lawless" area where fights could break out without the guards bothering to investigate, players could buy illicit goods, etc.

(I'm so glad you're back!!)
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Steve
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Re: A remade BG city - suggestions welcome

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gedweyignasia wrote: Sun Oct 20, 2019 6:20 pm It would be nice to have a "lawless" area where fights could break out without the guards bothering to investigate, players could buy illicit goods, etc.
Blushing Mermaid tavern in Docks District.

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Re: A remade BG city - suggestions welcome

Unread post by gedweyignasia »

Steve wrote: Sun Oct 20, 2019 6:27 pm
gedweyignasia wrote: Sun Oct 20, 2019 6:20 pm It would be nice to have a "lawless" area where fights could break out without the guards bothering to investigate, players could buy illicit goods, etc.
Blushing Mermaid tavern in Docks District.
Certain races and guilds can't get into the city, and I don't think you're allowed to PvP anywhere within the walls without godmoding the guards. That's the idea, though!
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Re: A remade BG city - suggestions welcome

Unread post by LISA100595 »

Perhaps an apartment building in each district for player housing that we have been discussing for forever now lol :D
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