Author Topic: November 17th stream + map downloads for Paragon Chat!  (Read 17863 times)

spindisc

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Re: November 17th stream + map downloads for Paragon Chat!
« Reply #20 on: November 20, 2018, 04:12:25 PM »
Impressive work!

Tahquitz

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Re: November 17th stream + map downloads for Paragon Chat!
« Reply #21 on: November 22, 2018, 06:33:07 AM »
A visual guide to help users install the add-on pack to their Paragon Chat is available in the "Add Ons and Modifications" forum: https://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php?topic=13154.msg229042#msg229042
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Dyne

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Re: November 17th stream + map downloads for Paragon Chat!
« Reply #22 on: November 23, 2018, 09:24:52 PM »
Someone asked on stream where KW is in relation of the other city zones. While we don't know the official canon answer, I place it between IP and SC, and I made a map with it in that location:

Quote
You will notice that the map has an extra stop in Independence Port south as well. That's one of the early map modifications I did to make the zone faster to navigate, but it was never published anywhere, so that makes the map slightly inaccurate. My map also moves Eden slightly and connects it to The Hive, because it always bugged me that The Hive was missing from the city map.

Back in August, I returned to an old idea that I'd had: "What if Paragon City actually had gone zoneless?  How would the in-game zones relate to each other if they all had to appear in the same contiguous world?"  I started going through every. single. major. (Paragon City.) zone. working out the actual, in-game, warwall-to-warwall size of each with /loc.  Then I scaled each zone's 2D map in inkscape to match its true in-game dimensions (1 inkscape unit = 1 CoH unit = 1 foot).

I also resized the city map (like the one you modified) to match the in-game sizes, so that I could work on the zone placement relative to the features of the landscape (see the notes at the bottom on how.)  Along the way I had to puzzle over numerous practical issues.

See, the city map foregoes niceties such as "zones share a consistent scale", so something is always going to be wrong if you adhere slavishly to it.  Some zones will end up too big, others too small -- sometimes by quite a noticeable factor.  IP, Terra Volta, and the Hollows are among the worst offenders here, but it affects a lot of zones to some degree.  Some zones aren't proportioned correctly (Atlas Park), shaped correctly (Brickstown), or oriented correctly (Siren's Call, see notes).

And then there were the logical issues, such as my favorite anomaly: the body of water in Galaxy City's Gemini Park allegedly being connected to "Eastgate Bay" despite Galaxy City being on the western, inland side of the city and having Perez Park and Atlas Park between it and The Hollows (Eastgate).  The Hollows doesn't contain a bay, but it does contain a river that leads to a set of war wall doors on the western side, facing Galaxy City.  Unfortunately, that river is called the Red River ... which is also the name of the one that flows north into Founders Falls.  I can see a river south of Perez and AP that connects Galaxy and the Hollows between warwalls, but an entire bay?

Some decisions were a bit arbitrary, such as exact spacing and alignment between the war walls.  Some were not so arbitrary; inserting the Hive pretty much requires moving things around, as you discovered, especially if you believe it should be adjacent to Eden as I do.  Forcing all of the zones into the same scale exacerbates this.  Ultimately, I tweaked the landscape to match the re-positioned zones a bit better.



This map is by no means "finished".  There are lots of things to add/tweak.  Most relevant to this thread, I haven't really tried to place KW on it yet because there is no 2D map for me to use as a guide for landscape adjustments.  But I do know its dimensions, at least for the versions that were in Paragon Chat back in August: 7320 east-west x 6496 north-south.  That's the cyan box.  (KW is only a few hundred feet shorter in each dimension than Boomtown's bounding box, which is 7708 x 6940.)

While it wouldn't be easy to place something that large between Steel and IP in a sensible way, it could probably be done with a little judicious rearrangement of IP and the canal.  IP has a lot of "wiggle room" because the city map's footprint is 50% taller than and double the width of the real zone.


Random notes:
If you are curious, I sized the City Map by making the North-South extent of its version of Atlas Park match the in-game version of the same dimension.  This seems to maximize the number of zones that look roughly correct.

The zone off to the left is Terra Volta, which does not fit inside of Independence Port at all, much less within the war walls on Power Island.

That's Siren's Call east of Boomtown.  Siren's Call isn't actually oriented the way that the official city map depicts it, so it doesn't really work on a northeastern shore (the city map has rotated it 90 degrees counter-clockwise).

The zone southwest of Galaxy City is my most recent placement for Outbreak.  I haven't decided if I like it there or not.
« Last Edit: November 24, 2018, 08:25:19 AM by Dyne »
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Tipsy

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Re: November 17th stream + map downloads for Paragon Chat!
« Reply #23 on: November 23, 2018, 09:33:51 PM »
Dyne, is it your intention to some day offer this mega map in Paragon Chat?  This is a very intriguing project.

Dyne

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Re: November 17th stream + map downloads for Paragon Chat!
« Reply #24 on: November 23, 2018, 10:21:44 PM »
Dyne, is it your intention to some day offer this mega map in Paragon Chat?  This is a very intriguing project.

It wasn't something I'd really thought about.  I can certainly export a higher-res version if someone wanted to try it, but it should probably wait until I add zones like KW.

The actual "pie in the sky" intent for the map was building a 1:1 mockup of Paragon City in UE4 using world composition.  I mean, not to the extent of replicating the buildings and other assets, but more like sculpting the terrain so that you could tell where (for example) the Faultline dam or the Atlas Statue should be, probably with the zone map overlaid on the relevant terrain.  I make mockups like that from time to time, simply because I like seeing how things relate spatially.

The UE4 thing is extremely unlikely to happen (too many other projects), but it was enough to motivate me to do a fair amount of research into the zones, figure out what the issues were, and nail down some of my personal solutions.  I've even looked into questions like "how much bigger would the sewer network need to be to stretch across all those city zones?" (quite a bit -- around 3.4x its current in-game north-to-south size to connect Boomtown and Skyway, for example).  At some point maybe I'll make a thread listing all the things I ran into and explaining why I addressed them in a particular way, but I've no idea where that would belong.
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GamingGlen

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Re: November 17th stream + map downloads for Paragon Chat!
« Reply #25 on: November 24, 2018, 02:28:16 AM »
Re: the unlisted items, such as the backhole construction machine.


Is it possible to list the ones found so I can place them in my Icon maps?  I assume they can be are spawned?


In a related note, I could not find if it was mentioned elsewhere, can base items also be spawned?

How about the bed in warehouse map:
MAPS/MISSIONS/UNIQUE/I21_UNIQUE_MAPS/FIRST_WARD/SHEPHERD_HAVEN/FW_SHEPHERD_HAVEN.TXT  (room coordinate: 600,0,300)?

slickriptide

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Re: November 17th stream + map downloads for Paragon Chat!
« Reply #26 on: November 24, 2018, 03:41:00 PM »
allegedly being connected to "Eastgate Bay despite Galaxy City being on the western, inland side of the city and having Perez Park and Atlas Park between it and The Hollows (Eastgate).  The Hollows doesn't contain a bay, but it does contain a river that leads to a set of war wall doors on the western side, facing Galaxy City.  Unfortunately, that river is called the Red River ... which is also the name of the one that flows north into Founders Falls.  I can see a river south of Perez and AP that connects Galaxy and the Hollows between warwalls, but an entire bay?

Lore-wise, yeah. Eastgate Bay contains the Seaview Project, an underwater laboratory/research station. If the underwater swimming/exploration concept had ever gone far enough to leap off of a white board into actual protoyping, we probably would have gotten a revised city map to accomodate it.

Of course, there are many of the unique mission maps that cause issues with the city map if you think about them very hard. The big Wheel of Destruction cemetary map or the Jacaranda Vista flooded city map, for instance. The overall landscape map was way overdue for an overhaul, IMO.

Tahquitz

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Re: November 17th stream + map downloads for Paragon Chat!
« Reply #27 on: November 24, 2018, 10:15:10 PM »
As a post-script, DemonHunter's moving fees are 100% covered, so he'll be back in the saddle soon!

https://www.gofundme.com/fund-the-dh-express

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GamingGlen

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Re: November 17th stream + map downloads for Paragon Chat!
« Reply #28 on: November 25, 2018, 12:52:14 AM »
As a post-script, DemonHunter's moving fees are 100% covered, so he'll be back in the saddle soon!

https://www.gofundme.com/fund-the-dh-express

Thanks to everyone who donated!

Yay!  Commence the rejoicing!

emperorsteele

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Re: November 17th stream + map downloads for Paragon Chat!
« Reply #29 on: November 25, 2018, 07:47:58 PM »
I always thought "Outbreak" was in Eastgate, but before before the Hollowing, given the location of the red pip on the Outbreak loading map.

Dyne

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Re: November 17th stream + map downloads for Paragon Chat!
« Reply #30 on: November 25, 2018, 09:20:13 PM »
I always thought "Outbreak" was in Eastgate, but before before the Hollowing, given the location of the red pip on the Outbreak loading map.



Good catch!  I haven't seen the original Outbreak screen in so long, I forgot it was even a thing.

This makes a good case for moving it to that vicinity, but there are arguments against them being the same place (monorail, war walls, the general lack of reliability of the map which the splash screen is based on ... including the fact that while Outbreak almost fits where that dot is, the Hollows doesn't even come close -- not unless you prefer Salt Water Trolls to the regular kind).  Considering them the same place also costs us a zone that could flesh out the city.

As a general rule, I'm not really a fan of "permanently" destroying sections of the city, either.  (Especially not ones people are using.  I'm looking at you, Issue 21.  In most of my post Paragon Chat backstories, Atlas Park got smooshed by the Shivans while Galaxy City was just fine, thank you very much.)
« Last Edit: November 25, 2018, 09:28:42 PM by Dyne »
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slickriptide

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Re: November 17th stream + map downloads for Paragon Chat!
« Reply #31 on: November 25, 2018, 10:18:38 PM »
Let's face it, the devs didn't give much a flying fig about consistent lore; especially in regards to the city map. We're talking about people who either made either minimal effort to insure that lore bit A meshed with lore bit B, or who gave use "lore" like the Origin of Powers. Paragon Studios put dev creative satisfaction ahead of lore consistency pretty much all of the time.

The original devs were coming from a perspective where they expected players to act like Everquest players and basically ignore the lore in favor of killing everything in sight. Heck, you'll recall that the story missions originally gave almost no XP because the devs were AFRAID that players who got rewarded for playing stories might spend their time "indoors" doing missions instead of "outdoors" camping Perez Park where other players could see them.

Lore was just a thing to justify wearing spandex in the first place.

That attitude changed over time, but not to the extent that Cryptic Studio/Paragon Studios was ever a "lore first and foremost" kind of place. Lore always took a back seat to pretty much every other consideration.

TheDemonHunter

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Re: November 17th stream + map downloads for Paragon Chat!
« Reply #32 on: November 27, 2018, 06:29:39 AM »
As a post-script, DemonHunter's moving fees are 100% covered, so he'll be back in the saddle soon!

https://www.gofundme.com/fund-the-dh-express

Thanks to everyone who donated!

Yes, thanks to all for all the support, whether in donations or even just kind words for the work I've done. It means the world to me, and I can't wait to get back to work on more projects for Paragon Chat.

Thank you all!
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Leandro

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Re: November 17th stream + map downloads for Paragon Chat!
« Reply #33 on: November 27, 2018, 10:35:58 AM »
Most relevant to this thread, I haven't really tried to place KW on it yet because there is no 2D map for me to use as a guide for landscape adjustments.

You can use /ortho 1 in the game client in order to force it into 2D rendering mode to capture map data, but only if you have access level (using the dev_acces.key that Codewalker posted elsewhere). You then have to fly around the zone and stich a bunch of screenshots together to get your map. I just finished putting this one together:

« Last Edit: November 27, 2018, 11:04:25 AM by Leandro »

Leandro

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Re: November 17th stream + map downloads for Paragon Chat!
« Reply #34 on: November 27, 2018, 11:01:22 AM »
And then there were the logical issues, such as my favorite anomaly: the body of water in Galaxy City's Gemini Park allegedly being connected to "Eastgate Bay" despite Galaxy City being on the western, inland side of the city and having Perez Park and Atlas Park between it and The Hollows (Eastgate).

For early zones this can be chalked up to the city map changing considerably during early development. Galaxy City wasn't added until every other launch zone was in place; the Perez past west connection actually went to Kings Row, and you can still find the watch towers where the old hazard gate was in the Kings Row map.









MyriVerse

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Re: November 17th stream + map downloads for Paragon Chat!
« Reply #35 on: November 27, 2018, 12:15:29 PM »
You can use /ortho 1 in the game client in order to force it into 2D rendering mode to capture map data, but only if you have access level (using the dev_acces.key that Codewalker posted elsewhere). You then have to fly around the zone and stich a bunch of screenshots together to get your map. I just finished putting this one together:
Brilliant! Thank you.
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slickriptide

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Re: November 17th stream + map downloads for Paragon Chat!
« Reply #36 on: November 27, 2018, 03:38:19 PM »
You know, given that last map that Leandro posted, the anomalous "bay door" in Galaxy City makes perfect sense, IF Galaxy City was originally intended to slot into the space above Atlas Park. That's exactly the place where "Eastgate Bay" presumably exists in relation to The Hollows. Plus, that allows for Eastgate to then be this little neighborhood in precisely the spot where Outbreak is taking place, and for it to logically feed into both Galaxy City and Atlas Park. That whole corner of the map would be the newbie zone, basically, with Atlas Park newbies flowing naturally into Skyway City and Galaxy City newbies flowing naturally into Steel Canyon.

The big doors in the War Walls are all there to be places where roads connect one zone to another through the walls. It never really made any sense for such a door to be placed near a park in the first place. I mean, I remember early in my exploration of Galaxy City asking myself, "What is this door even doing here?" I'd bet a dev asked the same question, and the badge came into existence as a hand-waving explanation for something that should have just not existed. (I mean, let's not even get into the the question of WHY you'd build a wall that's holding back flood waters and then put a big door in it that can let in those flood waters.)

Then a couple of iterations later, Galaxy City gets moved to the other side of the map so it can connect to Perez Park, and the Land Locked badge is suddenly an anachronism but nobody cares enough to change it. In fact, I'd be completely unsurprised if someone didn't shrug and say, "What's a comic book without a few anachronisms?"

Though, really, it's like I said before - The devs never really wasted much energy worrying about consistent lore.
« Last Edit: November 27, 2018, 09:52:38 PM by slickriptide »

Dyne

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Re: November 17th stream + map downloads for Paragon Chat!
« Reply #37 on: November 27, 2018, 07:30:36 PM »
For early zones this can be chalked up to the city map changing considerably during early development. Galaxy City wasn't added until every other launch zone was in place; the Perez past west connection actually went to Kings Row, and you can still find the watch towers where the old hazard gate was in the Kings Row map.

You mean these?



I probably saw those at some point on one of my few trips to that part of Kings Row early on, but never paid them much mind and rarely visited that area later on.  I did know Galaxy City was a late addition, though it was present well before I joined the game in June.

I hadn't seen those early maps, except maybe the last one.  Thanks for posting them. 

I wonder which zones are which on the third map (to the extent they were assigned).  I'm assuming that Talos is meant to be due south of Atlas Park, and IP is the zone east of Talos.

Which ... makes more sense geographically, and also helps the Atlas backstory.  You may recall that he prevented the Nazis from gaining a foothold much past IP.  Where would a Nazi attack be coming from?  The East, most likely.  Where is IP?  The West of the city.  That means they either took control of 90% of the city before he stopped them, or they bypassed 90% of it to attack the port first for some reason.  I know it's analogous to Pearl Harbor, but that was a military base, and this isn't.


Anyway, here's your KW map in my game scale city map:


KW is a body of water more like Talos or IP in scale.  It's clear that no matter where the zone is placed, there will have to be a fairly significant alteration of the landscape to accommodate it.  I wouldn't worry too much about picking an existing N-S river; none are large enough to make it look natural.  The zone more or less obliterates the river at the proposed spot.

If I could rotate KW 180 degrees, I'd put it somewhere on the Boomtown side of the canal.  As it stands, I'm tempted to sandwich it more between IP and Galaxy, as a sort of extended inlet to the Port.  Kinda like this:



The size of the zone and the placement of the monorail station are still odd, and it makes the IP - Kings Row path a bit nonsensical, but the biggest problem is really caused by the northern war walls.  They are going to protrude into the canal wherever KW intersects it, but this arrangement places them directly in the middle of the entrance to IP.  If I move KW further south, it makes the Kings Row gate even less sensible.  Hrm.


You know, given that last map that Leandro posted, the anomalous "bay door" in Galaxy City makes perfect sense, IF Galaxy City was originally intended to slot into the space above Atlas Park. That's exactly the place where "Eastgate Bay" presumably exists in relation to The Hollows.

I don't know if that was the original idea, but yeah, it does make a fair amount of sense.
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Leandro

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Re: November 17th stream + map downloads for Paragon Chat!
« Reply #38 on: November 27, 2018, 11:40:51 PM »
I wonder which zones are which on the third map (to the extent they were assigned).  I'm assuming that Talos is meant to be due south of Atlas Park, and IP is the zone east of Talos.

I dug up a bit furhter because I knew I had a version that showed the names -- nothing very exciting, though. Very early placeholder names.

« Last Edit: November 27, 2018, 11:46:45 PM by Leandro »

Codewalker

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Re: November 17th stream + map downloads for Paragon Chat!
« Reply #39 on: November 28, 2018, 04:56:21 AM »
Reminds me of the original Praetorian map, although that one was much closer to the final product:



Something that not many people - perhaps in the single digits - know: There is actually an untextured 3d previs mockup of the original Praetoria hidden away in the game files. Full scale, so if you assembled the pieces in a map file, you could fly around in it.

It includes very early versions of all of the zones, except together in a single map. It also includes an extra area south of the Keyes Island reactor (as seen on the map above) that looks to be what eventually became First Ward -- there is a graveyard and creepy looking hospital present.

One of the other interesting things that didn't make it into the final cut is a system of locks on the river for raising/lowering the water level so ships could pass. The geography isn't nearly as flat as the final version ended up being.

I'll have to see if I can dig up the notes I made about it, might make a fun addon to load into PChat for the curious.