Forum:Ardencia/Collab: Paroisse Bras-de-Takaou, Ooayatais, Ardence (AR045-04d2)
ALL OF BELOW IS A DRAFT. WITH FEEDBACK, THINGS MAY CHANGE.
Welcome to yet another annoying unofficial collab for OGF!
But this one is different, I swear.
I've long stated that I intend to open my francophone territory, Ooayatais (a province of Ardencia), to collaboration. One main reason for this is that my French sucks, and I'd love for actual francophone mappers to contribute. Also, I've wanted to test an idea I had when I first started doing topo work: what would it be like to complete the topo for an area and THEN invite people to collaborate? Could OGF mappers be induced to "follow the contours" in their map work? I'm actually not sure if this will work out, but I want to at least try.
Now, for a southeastern portion of Ooayatais I have completed topo, with a high level of detail. I've also done some extensive detail mapping, but in a spotty way, using my now typical "buildings first" style of urban mapping.
I am hereby inviting interested mappers to map, ONLY within the boundaries of the Paroisse Bras-de-Takaou (AR045-04d2 map link: https://opengeofiction.net/relation/426941).
I plan to adopt a mostly "map first, discuss later" approach - which is to say, I don't want to get bogged down in discussions about plans and ideas, because, as the proverb goes, "forgiveness is easier than permission." Deleting or altering bad mapping or mapping that breaks intentions or plans is easier than discussing things ahead of time. And many mappers might come up with things that are great ideas that I wouldn't necessarily comfortably approve, ahead of time. I look forward to the serendipity of seeing what appears. You do not need pre-approval to map. But mapping not following the rules will be deleted or reverted (or sometimes "fixed" if it has strong potential), without discussion.
That said, there will be some strict rules.
- No mapping outside the boundaries of the Paroisse Bras-de-Takaou (this is an Ardencian "county", admin_level=6, map link: https://opengeofiction.net/relation/426941)
- Please repect pre-existing mapping (no rearranging already-drawn objects)
- No new motorways (period!) - Ooayatais is meant to be Canada-like, and Canada (especially western), unlike the US or Europe, is actually a bit sparse on motorways). Grade separated trunk roads, with very sporadic limited access sections, are acceptable.
- RESPECT THE TOPO. This is one of the main points of the exercise. DO NOT MAP without having the ogf-topo layer in your background - you can see what the topography looks like, and your mapping must respect it. Creeks and streams follow valleys, forests cluster in "high slope" areas, agricultural land on the flats, highways max 6% grade, railroads max 2% grade, city streets max 10% grade. Grade is easy when you have contour lines - do the math!
- Real-world inspirations: Quebec (linguistic), British Columbia or Nova Scotia (physical geography), Newfoundland (climate)
- Substrate "native" culture is Haïde (Real world Haida, coastal BC and Alaska). "Native" names should be actual Haida vocabulary. If you're not comfortable using online resources to solve this, I have my handy Haida dictionary and can help with it.
- Detail, detail, detail! All those stores and bars and buildings need names and purposes - the whole of St-Raph is a bit schematic, so far, and sparse on details. But also, there's lots of suburbs and smaller towns that can be build "from scratch".
- Names! I personally DESPISE mapping that looks good and realistic but you realize nothing has names. EVERYTHING has names in the real world. An object that would have a name= tag in the real world must have a name on our map. St-Raph, despite looking sorta "done", actually falls quite short on this standard. I'm embrrassed by this. So this is an exercise for people who are comfortable naming things in a Quebecois-inspired manner: a) Quebecois French b) lots of non-French surnames (due to immigration) c) native names with idiosyncratic French spellings d) word-play and linguistic easter eggs are fine.
If this experiment is successful, Bras-de-Takaou will be turned blue (free to map, with these rules attached, similar to West Massodeya, maybe). Eventually, as I complete more topo work, the rest of the Province will turn blue, too.