Recent (Nov. 2024) BG City maps revision

[Steve]

Hello!

I'd like to start a discussion about the map revisions of Baldur's Gate city made around or on Nov. 11th, 2024.

I know someone worked very hard to create these revisions, but I'd like to offer some feedback.

1) There are broken transitions.
2) The widened streets leave the city feeling very dead, because the streets are very empty.
3) Whatever "old world" feel that the city maps had, has been replaced by something else. RL old world cities are very close together, and the previous version of the BG city gave a bit of that feel, and in my humble opinion, it is now very much gone. Obviously some aesthetic choice was made, but I'd be happy to make a far greater argument that what has replaced it lacks...character.
4) Why was this change made in the first place?

Cheers.

[Goat]

Hello!

I'd like to start a discussion about the map revisions of Baldur's Gate city made around or on Nov. 11th, 2024.

I know someone worked very hard to create these revisions, but I'd like to offer some feedback.

1) There are broken transitions.
2) The widened streets leave the city feeling very dead, because the streets are very empty.
3) Whatever "old world" feel that the city maps had, has been replaced by something else. RL old world cities are very close together, and the previous version of the BG city gave a bit of that feel, and in my humble opinion, it is now very much gone. Obviously some aesthetic choice was made, but I'd be happy to make a far greater argument that what has replaced it lacks...character.
4) Why was this change made in the first place?

Cheers.

Do you mean the old map from a year ago vs now? I know there were some minor changes, and yeah, some transitions are still being fixed. I know a couple things were adjusted yesterday but they were pending updates from a bit ago via Ashenie adjusting/improving the map to be more accurate.

The problem I have of course is that the map is huge compared to the population. A lot of new players get lost and it's more difficult to navigate. It's a very beautiful map, but I could of gone with the old original 3 maps, revamp those, and then add another for additional housing/etc that needed to be. It's very lore accurate now I believe, and it's pretty, specially with the height map adjustments etc.

I assume it was changed for lore related reasons. I'm not sure what you mean by old world though/widened streets though perhaps you can clarify. I would think the very old maps have less streets and were far wider/etc.

[Steve]

I don’t think I’m going crazy. There are many BG city maps that have had a recent change in the last update (or two).

Streets are wider.
Buildings are smaller.
Locations are slightly rearranged.
Map points/dots have strange or incorrect labels.

Is it that Ashenie made some changes before quitting BGTSCC, and we are just now seeing it? And why did they do it?

[JustAnotherGuy]

Hidden: show

Hello!

I'd like to start a discussion about the map revisions of Baldur's Gate city made around or on Nov. 11th, 2024.

I know someone worked very hard to create these revisions, but I'd like to offer some feedback.

1) There are broken transitions.
2) The widened streets leave the city feeling very dead, because the streets are very empty.
3) Whatever "old world" feel that the city maps had, has been replaced by something else. RL old world cities are very close together, and the previous version of the BG city gave a bit of that feel, and in my humble opinion, it is now very much gone. Obviously some aesthetic choice was made, but I'd be happy to make a far greater argument that what has replaced it lacks...character.
4) Why was this change made in the first place?

Cheers.

Do you mean the old map from a year ago vs now? I know there were some minor changes, and yeah, some transitions are still being fixed. I know a couple things were adjusted yesterday but they were pending updates from a bit ago via Ashenie adjusting/improving the map to be more accurate.

The problem I have of course is that the map is huge compared to the population. A lot of new players get lost and it's more difficult to navigate. It's a very beautiful map, but I could of gone with the old original 3 maps, revamp those, and then add another for additional housing/etc that needed to be. It's very lore accurate now I believe, and it's pretty, specially with the height map adjustments etc.

I assume it was changed for lore related reasons. I'm not sure what you mean by old world though/widened streets though perhaps you can clarify. I would think the very old maps have less streets and were far wider/etc.

It's not just new players that get lost. I've been on this server a total of 8 years, and when I go into the Gate, I get lost. I am assuming that those who spend most/all their time in there learn the maps, but for those of us who aren't in there too often, it's pretty difficult to navigate. Add in that there's so many streets and alleys, and even if you see your destination on the map, it's hard to find out how to get there.

[selhan]

The last time Ashenie had returned to the Dev team, it was to help me out because I was at a point thee only active builder at the time and I was still the FNG / Freaking New Guy. All the experienced builders were retired or left or inactive for whatever reasons. Small things I could manage, bigger things I could not. And I will always appreciate her for returning to help me. In regards to the BG City map, she had asked me where could she help me at. I brought up the ideal of Visual Optimizations with the BG City map. She was the original creator of the map, and there was unfinished work, as well as unfinish fixes.

She had focused on correcting bugs, fixes, improving visual, and most of all reducing framerates. In our investigation, we found the source of why some things were causing high spike in frames. One of those were the actual buildings. Some have higher quality textures, we replaced most with a more generic looking buildings. Walkmeshes, walkways, pathways, we had improved by making them cleaner and wider.

Something to understand about the Author of the map:
She was strong on following Lore. That set a foundation when it came to her building or even when she was the Lead Builder. She used the actual BG City Lore Map, and tried to follow it as close as she could possible. Now we do understand the population of NWN2 and our Server is surely not what it was, but her initial work on the revised map took a whole year in the making. That is a whole lot of work.

So in her view, which I can only suspect, chopping the map down would had been difficult when trying to follow the representation of the actual map. Now after her recent work of fixing everything and improving visual, everything was working fine. I know because I spent many nights testing the areas myself. Any transition issues "Were" fixed. However between the time of her recent departure and previous patch updates, something went broke. NPC's wasnt working, some scripts wasnt working, and some transitions wasnt working.

Now one other thing to keep in mind, a Builder taking up a project with passion, will go through lengths with the project. Those that do a project without the passion, well your going to get a bland result. In time, when the passion prevents itself, or the interest and motivation is present, they would often revisit those bland projects and improve it. I know this from experience. Go to the Broken Goblet, and you will see I paid a lot of attention to details, but visit the Three Kegs, and you would know, I simply just followed lore lacking love.

The Toolset is not all that nice. Sometimes we spend hours, if not days and weeks on a project then a bad crash causing you to lose all of your work. Its very demotivating.

But back on point, the revision of the city was to improve the map, by visual and performance while sticking to the Lore. Far as it being dead, in my opinion I point fingers at player base activity. When I made a City Watch character, no one can say there wasnt any activity in the city. When Ashenie was still on our server, no one can say she wasnt active in the city. Players like Netanya continue to show presence. How the activity is seen is by result of players. There wasnt a day my City Watch didnt find Rp. In fact it got to a point I had to pull the hand breaks because he was getting far more attention then my main character. Even DM's was needing me to use my City Watchman for certain plots and events. Yes the city is Big, to me its very nice and much better now. The only thing left is gain more activity inside it. Which can happen if ones determined. I've proven that many times over in different areas. Im not one that "Goes to where the Rp is at". Instead I create Rp "Where Im at".

[Steve]

Lordy lordy...what did I start?!?!

@Selhan: Thank you for your response. I'm very aware of what it takes for Builders and I'm also the #1 fan of builders on this Server. But what I'm talking about here is much simpler.

So here's what I think happened: someone or somebodies—who are essentially in a position of power on the Server—decided that based on their subjective opinion, thought the BG city maps were too big/confusing/cluttered/bad and asked or even requested that this would be made "better."

But such revamp of the City was never proposed to the community at large, where it could be discussed and perhaps a "happy medium" could have been established.

And thus, what was essentially a work of art has now been "reduced" to a functional—and dare I say it boring—edition. Come holla' at me.

So here I am requesting that it be put back to how it was before the most recent update, AND, that there is a public discussion on who perhaps some changes should be made (for sake of either sanity or just being kind to X number of community members that literally can't seem to adjust).

Thank you.

[selhan]

Some parts of the city was actually reduced. If your meaning revert to the previous before the last revision Ashenie did, then it would be bigger, with many bugs, errors, and walkmesh issues as well as many floating objects etc.

If your talking about back to when the moment you enter the East Gate and you see the Elfsong across your screen, then thats going to take someone willing to take up such a huge project. I personally like whats there now, could it be reduced more ? Yeah sure, I'd like the Upper City to be merged into one map, but thats not a project I'm willing to do. That kinda work, with the toolset experience I have which is on a noob level, and foreseeing all the crashing and headaches. Big projects like that happens when someone got the passion for it.

I was going to stop working on the surface and focus on the Underdark because in all seriousness, the UD gets Neglected far more. We had a plan but that went out the window when Ashenie left and sorry to say, I'm just not motivated on doing something big atm. I cant speak for others, that be on them.

[Rinzler]

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

[Steve]

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

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.

[Steve]

Okay, this is an illustration of what I'm getting at.

Below is a pic with a screenshot of the Area Map of the Wide from January 2023 (on the left) and November 2024 (on the right).

I'd say it's very obvious how things have changed!!



And here is the Eastway. Perhaps here we see less alterations, but still some parts got so cleaned up it seems over handed:

[selhan]

Image 1 : You see its been cleaned up, might even seem more basic, but in fact, frame rates was improved, walkmesh was cleaned up some, some generic texture buildings replaced high quality ones to help in regards to better frames.

Image 2 : You can clearly see the reduction of the map. Reduced amount of walkable areas, the Docks was improved big time. Before it was a very shitty experience walking around there, and it even looks closer to the map the Builder was working off of. One note to take with the Eastway, Ashenie didnt want to ruin the work of the original author of that map. I pushed her to reducing some areas because truth was, there was areas in Eastway people just dont even go too, not even to pass by. It may not appear reduced but thats the ideal, You can only walk where you can walk. Rest is just background

Overall I can say for a fact, the city gets regular activity seen and unseen. Theres many other areas that dont, for a fact I know because I spent months observing. To bad a certain staff member retired, or those dead maps would have been long gone.


If we want to start looking at reducing area maps, I can point out quite a good few dozens of maps all over the server from Surface to Underdark areas. Theres areas that dont even see a single player in them at all much less pass through. I myself have been personally waiting for that greenlight, once do, I will go on a purge spree. Dead Guild Halls would come next.

Far as new player experience, thats simple. The Quests needs to be reworked. How many mmos out there with far more complex starter areas etc? Every new player experiences getting lost. But thats what Introduction quests are for. Helps them show them around, to get familiar. Our Quests hasnt been touched in years. But nope, most rather request for improvement in builds/Loot/game economy/mechanics and toss out their complaints and ideals when they feel like it.

[InTheFlesh]

Honestly, compressing/simplifying the game world would just make me less interested in contributing my time to the server. I WANT a city to feel like a CITY, not a Bethesda settlement.

[DaloLorn]

Honestly, compressing/simplifying the game world would just make me less interested in contributing my time to the server. I WANT a city to feel like a CITY, not a Bethesda settlement.

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.

There's a reason remasters are managing to keep up with and even outpace their competition (take AoE2DE versus AoE4): Instead of rebuilding what never needed rebuilding, they've been polishing and refining it to greater heights.

[Steve]

Well, it's hard to admit, but I'm gonna give up on this now. Obviously, I'm an outlier who saw and appreciated the revamped BG maps as Ashenie first placed them in-game. I fully enjoyed the complexity, having to (re)learn the city, the layout, the secret areas. All in anticipation of more attention and use of the City, overall, by the community.

But I was wrong. But also, I'm now less enthused to actually make the BG City my main area of game play. That's not said as leverage, but just honesty as a player interested and sensitive to the graphical environment I spend my RL time engaging in.

Thanks for the responses.

[DaloLorn]

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