Recent (Nov. 2024) BG City maps revision

[BloodRiot]

Agreed, let's end this silly compression. make sword coast large again. 1:1 roads from baldur's gate to soubar, candlekeep, nashkel and so on. After all i don't want to make the entire sword coast feel smaller than my town :p

[Steve]

Outlier? Immediately after two back-to-back posts in favor of the complexity?

I don’t mean to disregard those posts Dalo, but you should know very well that what Staff thinks is always of a higher value than when non-Staff thinks.

[Goat]

Baldur's Gate - Upper City

Major visual update.
All 3 districts have been harmonized with white cobblestones and promenades everywhere.
Terrain has been slightly darkened to avoid blinding effect.
A lot of terrain, texture, flying placeables coorections
Every door has been redone as per lore art from Wizards of the Coast
Seven Sun Mercantile had been moved to the Lower City as per lore
All houses and estate have been harmonized and updated.

Ashenie had done it before she left and it was pending in the changes, yes. But changing and adjusting the maps has always been a builder side. It was mostly something pending in. No updates went in for almost a month because of the transition of staff.

Some of the comments are unneeded to state, most of the changes were before I started as admin BUT there were a ton of complaints, she just didn't do it because she's doing it on a whim. And Sel for example is just trying to state why it was changed. I wouldn't say the lower city map changes are bad either, more clarity. I do think part of the reason why the minimap looks widely different is because of the actual change to the ground floor on the upper cities area. The wide looks like it took the bigger change on the top portion of the map. I don't exactly think the old wide map was bad. I assume the reason why it changed is because most people were complaining about the difficulty on navigation though, which is probably why she changed it.

Again, I don't really think the minimap does it justice, because the original ground made the minimap more of a better blend. The current roads make the minimap stand out like a christmas tree, but in game they look quite fine. I will say that I liked the older wide marketplace more, but I don't think around the marketplace is worse. Though that's just my own preference looking at it.

I agree with Rinzler here. While it's a gift to have so many wonderfully designed and implemented Areas to game in—okay...a few not so great—I'd reckon only 505 of what is available currently is even used on a daily basis.

Don't get rid of the Areas. Just wipe the spawns and NPCs and leave them as DM maps for whenever the DM(s) want to throw a party.

But reducing has the possibility to bring players and PCs closer, and hopefully give rise to more/easier interaction.

I don't think the majority of areas need to be removed but there are some really pointless maps that aren't used. Though to merge both servers (as one spoke.) you technically 'don't' need to remove any areas if we didn't want, rotating the DM maps out would be enough (There are like 150 DM maps, apparently, could make a system to rotate in whatever maps we need/etc.).

Honestly, compressing/simplifying the game world would just make me less interested in contributing my time to the server.

Agreed. TBH there's a worrying trend in gamedev these years, where things are cut out of a game (sometimes before even being put into it), sanitized, just to make sure nobody is upset about not being able to understand and use it. Dumbed down, exchanging its heart and soul for a chance at mass appeal.

Agreed, let's end this silly compression. make sword coast large again. 1:1 roads from baldur's gate to soubar, candlekeep, nashkel and so on. After all i don't want to make the entire sword coast feel smaller than my town :p

What compression are we even talking about? BG has gotten quite big and there has been little compression to either the UD or the surface. In fact, it's gotten quite large. Has BG ever seen 'any' reduction? Most of the south is probably fine as it is really, I never seen the south being too bad (for the most case.). The north has quite a few strange maps though. Maybe the UD as well. Maybe some things don't need to be reduced, but they defo don't need to be bigger.

[BloodRiot]

I was being flippant on purpose in response to Dalo's comment about the bethesdification of games. if it wasn't clear then ill make now: no i do not think it's a good idea to have 100's of transitions between BG and CK to make the distance less compressed and give the feeling of expanse.

It's an argument about baldur's gate city. I don't think i have a dog in this race.

[Goat]

I was being flippant on purpose in response to Dalo's comment about the bethesdification of games. if it wasn't clear then ill make now: no i do not think it's a good idea to have 100's of transitions between BG and CK to make the distance less compressed and give the feeling of expanse.

It's an argument about baldur's gate city. I don't think i have a dog in this race.

Lmao fair enough

[whatsittoya]

This comment is not an opinion on anyone’s work, most of which is phenomenal, but from my perspective there is an overall theme of “too large” on the server based on the current player population. I understand and respect the majority of the counter arguments, but in my view there needs to be a balance between what is ideal vs. what is pragmatic. If we had 100 daily players, sure, go nuts. However, that is not the reality we find ourselves in.

The amount of questions in the “new-player” channel related to having no idea where to go has gotten considerably noticeable.

There probably isn’t a need to have two servers.

There definitely isn’t a need for four “hubs” in the Underdark.

If the ultimate goal is to recruit and retain new players, they’re most likely not going to stay because Baldur’s Gate is enormous. They’re going to stay if it’s easier to find other players to interact with. Finding your way to other players as a new player should be as seamless as possible.

I know it’s probably an unpopular opinion, but an overall condensing of areas is probably in the best interest of this community.

My 2 cents

Yep. Population density is key, not area density.

[Snarfy]

Appearance changes aside, the removal of the two miscellaneous NPC merchants from The Wide definitely isn't doing the city any favors. For myself, and I suspect for many others, those merchants were a necessary go-to for stocking up on the rarer consumables. Now the options for that are severely limited... as in Outskirts of BG(the npc rarely has anything useful), or the FAI dwarf. The dwindling of the crafter population isn't helping here either.

As it stands, there is little to no reason for many to visit the city: RP is scarce to non-existent, the districts are tedious to traverse even for quest runs, and the merchant inventories that are(with the exception of the epic merchant) copy-pasted around the Coast in zones that are more convenient to get to make BG more unnecessarily time consuming to visit regularly.

[Steve]

... most of the changes were before I started as admin BUT there were a ton of complaints, she just didn't do it because she's doing it on a whim.

I've been thinking about this comment for weeks now. It has bothered me, and so I'm going to air my frustration over it.

(oh...and this isn't a personal cut against Goat)

Maybe there were a "ton of complaints." But there was also a ton of love for the BG revamp (pre- the latest additions prompted by said "ton of complaints").

What bothers me is there was no asking of the community at large, if there should be "fixes." That some public debate could have been had. Because then, I could and would have written a "love letter" to how it currently existed, and the what pros outweighed the cons. At least, maybe that would have been worth it, or, some form of "middle road" of changes could have been enacted.

I hate to think that it's simply that if you complain a lot, that in and of itself convinces the situation to change. There should, at times, be a larger discussion. Good arguments should have greater weight and merit in what changes have a wide ranging effect on the general playerbase.

Cheers.

[Ashenie]

Hello Steve,

It has been some time, and I am touched by your love for the maps. Thank you.

I can't answer shortly to all your objections. I understand them. I would like to say "Welcome to the nightmare of building, where whatever you do, people are going to be disappointed." It's not you. It's everyone having an idea of what is better, and as the designer of the map, it was ultimately my call to make a decision. I am sorry it disappointed you. I have been told, over the years, to change countless details over these maps. I held firm on some, I changed what seemed necessary, and I tried to keep a kind of harmony. Mostly, I promoted creative and collective building, where players could suggest a lot. I have always been available for this. I would have loved to work with your suggestions.

There were more reasons to change maps than what was brought up. There were complaints indeed, about this and that. To be honest, the list is too long to summarize, and I might have forgotten half of it. It's not always shown, but Sel can tell—our work on the maps is a work of details. Every placeable, every element, we try to review countless times. And I edited a lot, a lot, a lot of them. So, why the change? Here is a short list:

1. Elements of the maps were badly designed—flying placeables, wrong terrains, broken tiles. In fixing them, we had to fix other elements, and so on. Once you begin touching a map, it can disturb everything. This is partly what happened.

2. Lore accuracy. There were elements that were wrong and not well-blended with what lore says. It may seem trivial, but I believe lore is what unites us. If we begin to accommodate lore, it means we can accommodate everything, even characters, thus creating issues on a larger scale. I welcome disagreements on this point. I'm not saying it's the best view, but it was mine at the time.

3. Walkpath issues. One of the purposes of the visual upgrade was to solve (many, many) issues with walkpaths.

4. Visual harmony. We wanted to create a more medieval harmony with inspiration coming from artwork representing Baldur's Gate. You can contact me privately, and I could send you the pictures. We're closer now than we were before.

5. Technical issues. Some maps were not available in the toolset for some builders, a strange issue we tried to correct. This necessarily involved changing placeables, as it allowed us to greatly diminish their number. In addition, we tried to improve framerates.

What you suggest is great about reaching the community, and I would have loved to be able to do it. But I realized it's impossible. Because there are too many divided opinions, we end up not solving the core issues because someone would dislike the change. And you know me, I'm ill-suited for conflict and confrontation. Instead, I promoted a culture where people could reach me with ideas. I found that better over the years. I think the issue here is that I left while there was still work to be done, for which I apologize. I sadly can't remain on the server due to decisions I perceive as highly unfair regarding real-life legal accusations. Another difficulty with this is fairness. Doing it for Baldur's Gate means, for me, doing it for all changes we did on every map. It's ultimately a nightmare. You might say, I was not forced to do it for other maps. But it's unfair then. Some can tell, I tried to be as fair as possible when touching maps while respecting processes. It's not perfect but I felt like it helped.

To be honest, we also worked with what we had. I tried to get help on many points, but a lot of ideas were denied or turned down because adding more placeables, more scripts, or more creative elements was impossible for various reasons. This is to say, it’s very hard to get anything done, and we tried to go around difficulties by solving them the best we could with whatever means we had. It's not ideal, I agree, and has side effects.

If I were still on the team, I would have worked on the elements that are lacking in the new version now. From what I see, your suggestions are fair, and it doesn't seem hard to improve the map without undoing all the work previously mentioned.

I don't write this to say it’s wrong or right but to explain. When there is an explanation, it’s often somehow easier to understand. Yes, there were complaints. But there were also big issues to solve. So, we decided to solve everything. Ultimately, there is still room for improvement, I am sure, and it's within the hands of competent builders now.

I hope this helps. Contact me if I can help with more in-depth explanations.

Cheers,

Ashenie