Fictional Worlds

[Dark Horse]

As i had mentioned in EC's thread i had been working on a fictional world, getting ready for v7. EC response encouraged me to post it. i've finished the map now. Actually it's two maps, one shows the cities and railways. The other shows the terrain and the major roads. It was too much to put on one map. If someone could lend the webspace i'd post 'em. i'm not sure i'll be able to attach them. The city map is 135 kb and the terrain map is 350 kb.

Anyway, the idea i got from reading the responses from EC's thread was to have some fictional worlds where the graphics community lended their expertise and then we set on one of the tools sites (Big City?, Joe Rock?, etc). That way if some one wants to play in a fictional world, they can jump right in and start playing.

For some of us half the fun is in the creating anyway. And the board has at least a dozen really good logo designers. About a half dozen good stadium designers and another half dozen or so uniform designers. Why not put the best into one world?

Anyway it's an idea. Like i said the maps are ready. If i can find a sponsor i'll post 'em. i'm working on the back story.

[Jeremy Weimer]

I can post them on my site if you wanna send them to me.

[Eugene Church]

Dark Horse, I am looking forward to perusing your fictional league.

Let us know when it is ready.

Mine will take a lot more time. I still have to write up features on each town in my league...40 teams...2 leagues...detailing history, heritage, culture, industry, demographics...then get uniforms designed (I hope)...got great stadiums, logos and photos already.

DreamTeams gave me a good tip on sources for demographics and industry...just look up cities on the internet and plagiarize their descriptions of life in their city and apply it to my towns.

I found this on Charlotte's website: The Charlotte metropolitan area is a thriving and exciting center that lives up to its designation as "Queen City". Complete with a stunning skyline, residents within this downtown complex hasve easy access to an array of shopping, dining, performing arts, cultural events, thrilling nightlife and professional sports. This world-class city is booming with vitality.

[Dark Horse]

Originally Posted by Jeremy Weimer

I can post them on my site if you wanna send them to me.

Thanks for the offer, Jeremy. i'll get those maps to you this week. Good to hear from an old LBAer. Do you still have your old hotmail account?

Originally Posted by Eugene Church

Dark Horse, I am looking forward to perusing your fictional league.

Let us know when it is ready.

Mine will take a lot more time. I still have to write up features on each town in my league...40 teams...2 leagues...detailing history, heritage, culture, industry, demographics...then get uniforms designed (I hope)...got great stadiums, logos and photos already.

i'm still working on the backstory and the cities' histories and description. i'm really considering making this a community thing. Whoever wants to run with it can. This map has sixty cities. That way you have enough to have more than one league. Or to have expansion or whatever.

Originally Posted by Eugene Church

DreamTeams gave me a good tip on sources for demographics and industry...just look up cities on the internet and plagiarize their descriptions of life in their city and apply it to my towns.

Hey that's a good tip. Thanks. i'll use this to put the final touches on the cities. i found this on Wikipedia, it might save you some searches.

[Eugene Church]

Dark Horse, thanks for the links to the cities...it will help.

Here is a link for maps....including blank outlines...see first link on the top left of the page for World Maps.

Click on the state you want...then it will give you a choice of putting cities on the map...or having only the blank outline.

I think you had said you wished you could just get map outlines with no cities.

http://geography.about.com/library/maps/blusx.htm

[alinkens]

If you want to send me the maps I will post them.

[Dark Horse]

i finally got these maps uploaded. i need to update the equipment at home.
[EDIT: i forgot to say thanks for Jeremy and Alinkens for offering to post these for me. i wasn't ignoring you guys. But i wasn't going to be able to plan when i'd be sending these since i couldn't do them at home. i'll still need a place to put the whole project if it gets off the ground.]

This first map is the map of the cities.


The different colored cities are for the three different groups that inhabit the land. (i'll do the back story later.) The double lines connecting many of the cities are railways.

The second map is the topographical map.


The other lines that connect some of the cities are major roads/highways. The topography really was made to help me with the city descriptions. But it may interest some, too.

i'll do a backstory to set the land up. Then my next plan is to do backrground for each of the cities. When i do that, i hope to get the assistance of the great logo makers, uniform designers and stadium builders.

[Eugene Church]

Dark Horse, glad to see you are making progress...your maps look good...looking forward to you getting your project completed.

I wish I had given my map a little more thought...I like the way your lakes are created and are connected...I would have added more lakes, too...I wish I had been able to put the rivers on it...but I just didn't have the skill to do it...plus there wasn't much room left on the map after putting the towns.

The use of blue for the oceans and lakes is excellent.

I may have told you before...not sure if I did...but I doubt you will get stadiums created...they apparently take a lot of skill and a lot of time.

What I did was find the stadiums first and then create cities to fit the stadiums.

I have written up a story about each town in my leagues...40 of them...if you would like, I'll post a few just to give you some idea of what I did...forgive me, some are kind of cornball and semi-beyond reality.

I'll post the stadium if it is not too big for this forum.

I couldn't do the stadium, but here is the town tour:

[Bobble]

DH, great world you've created. I like the natural borders you've made and the detail you've put into it. That's the kind of stuff that I think can really draw you into a league and make it good. One of the best features of OOTP is that you can do this kind of thing.

[scuffleball]

Hey everyone!

I love these fictional world settings. I'm working on one of my own in preparation for OOTP 7, set on the fictional world of Eshraval in the nation of Azaria. This is a continuation of a previous idea I had for an online league that fell through.

Here's a link to the national map I am developing:
Nation of Azaria

A word of caution: the map is approximately 350 KB in size, so it may take a while to load if you're using a modem. I haven't decided on what cities are in the league yet, but that's half the fun! I'm working up logos and stadiums now and I want to get everything ready in preparation of the fall release. I am probably going to go with two "leagues" of 6-8 teams each.

I am also developing my own name files, so all the players will have original names specific to the setting. Should be very, very cool. I have about 25,000 last names right now and it's growing as I develop more. I plan on having at least three 'ethnic' groups in the league (Aphilian, Neopanic, Chari) - each with specific name files.

[Eugene Church]

Sounds like a fine project...and a massive one, too.

Good job on the map.

[Bobble]

Originally Posted by scuffleball

I am also developing my own name files, so all the players will have original names specific to the setting. Should be very, very cool. I have about 25,000 last names right now and it's growing as I develop more. I plan on having at least three 'ethnic' groups in the league (Aphilian, Neopanic, Chari) - each with specific name files.

There are some name generating softwares out there for roleplaying games. Everchanging Book of Names is one that comes to mind. You might try one out.

[Jestor]

Reading this thread makes me tempted to try cracking out a fictional world

[scuffleball]

Originally Posted by Bobble

There are some name generating softwares out there for roleplaying games. Everchanging Book of Names is one that comes to mind. You might try one out.

Yeah, I've played with them a bit. But I'm also a closet 'conlanger', meaning I like to invent languages. So I have the whole language created and I'm developing the names as they would actually develop if the language was used.

I've also developed a XLS spreadsheet program that creates 1,012 names for each derivational root (both given and surnames). So once I know a root, I have 1,012 names automatically. I have just over 500 roots right now with the goal of 1,000 roots. I then have a frequency modifier which rates each name by the OOTP frequency - that may change however in the newer version so I just have them listed in a spreadsheet format right now until I see how it's handled in the new version of the game.

But thanks for the suggestion

[Bobble]

I've dabbled in that kind of thing as well (creating names). I can't figure out why I like it but I do.

Does your spreadsheet combine random syllables (similar to EBoN) or do you have another methodology?

[scuffleball]

Originally Posted by Bobble

I've dabbled in that kind of thing as well (creating names). I can't figure out why I like it but I do.

Does your spreadsheet combine random syllables (similar to EBoN) or do you have another methodology?

My XLS combines word roots as opposed to syllables.

The basic setup is like this:

I create the derivational roots for the language which is used to actually derive the words and their meanings. I then developed common endings for personal names, like for example -an, -aht, -ahl, etc. Then I simply combine the roots with the common name roots to form completed names (given or surnames). It's not real complicated because I don't know too much about programming, etc.

My language currently has over 3,600 words, so I just pull out roots from those words, give them broad means (like aqua is a root for water-related things in English. This gives us words like aquarium, etc.).

Then I figure out some common endings (for example nata is the word for man in my language, so some roots are nat- and nata-. Now, combine the two roots above (aqua and nat-/nata-) to form some names.

Some names can be easily devised: Nataqua, Aquanata, Aquanat, Aqunat, Aqunata. You could use these as given (first) names or surnames. In any case, these names would all carry a similiar meaning or concept of "Water Man" or "Man of the Water" or something along those lines.

Going one step further, you could even say that this group of names originated among fisherman along the coasts of your fictional world, nation, continent. Or maybe one of them did and the others are just altered versions of that original name to distinquish different lineages, families, etc. That last part of development is not required obviously, but to me it's just fun to do.

That's basically how I do it. I find it enjoyable. I hope my explanation above was clear enough. I have a hard time sometimes explaining anything! A lot of real world names developed the same way. Almost all names have meanings or carry some significance.

[Bobble]

Cool. I've toyed around with something similar but I've never gone so far as to ensure that all my roots or syllables had a real meaning.

[Dark Horse]

EC thanks for the comments. It's coming along slowly. Everytime i seem to get on a roll RL gets in the way. Your city description is great. i really like the way you worked the story of Zorro into a Tycobbia legend. My city descriptions will be similar but different. i'll give some historical, cultural background and some baseball traditions of the area. But the setup is established like Goody did Laseron where a league is just about to be established.

Bobble it would be cool if someone wanted to take the map and make an online league out of it. Actually, i'm making it where several people can use it for online/solo leagues and all have different setups. That's why it put so many cities on it.

Scuffle, i like your map. What program did you use to create it? Your naming convention is great. i thought about creating a name file for a solo league i was playing around with; but i didn't want go thru switching back and forth between name files. Hopefully, it will be easier to do in v7. Actually, i used your way of creating names in reverse to create my city descriptions. i took my city names from a book of names. Then i used the meaning of the names to decide where to place the city. Eirlys means snow drop so i placed a city at the end of a river leading from a mountain range. Eunan means little horror, so that became the sight of that group's worst defeat in the war. Odile means wealthy so that became a business district.

Jestor, i used AutoRealm to create the map. Then i put the city names in with Paint Shop Pro. AutoRealm is freeware, you can google it and download. It's not that hard to use. i just played around with it until i figured out what stuff did.

Hopefully i'll be able to finish the backstory for the map by the end of the week. i have to remember i'm not writing a novel...

[scuffleball]

Originally Posted by Dark Horse

Scuffle, i like your map. What program did you use to create it? Your naming convention is great. i thought about creating a name file for a solo league i was playing around with; but i didn't want go thru switching back and forth between name files. Hopefully, it will be easier to do in v7. Actually, i used your way of creating names in reverse to create my city descriptions. i took my city names from a book of names. Then i used the meaning of the names to decide where to place the city. Eirlys means snow drop so i placed a city at the end of a river leading from a mountain range. Eunan means little horror, so that became the sight of that group's worst defeat in the war. Odile means wealthy so that became a business district.

I used Paint Shop Pro 7.34 to create the map. There's actually about 6 layers that you see. I'm not entirely finished with it yet. There are still more cities to add from theh 250,000-500,000 metro population range. I have about 215 cities/metro areas named and populated. I plan on using them all to create minor leagues, etc.

I like the way you named the cities. I have found in my own experience that it's much better for the long-haul to have a 'stake' in your creation. Taking the time initially to create things like you described will only serve to increase your interest in it as it grows and evolves. It will also serve to interest others who may happen by

I look forward to seeing more about everyone's creations and ideas

[Eugene Church]

All of you guys are amazing.

I hope you will share your creations and leagues with us.

I hope all of you post them in the Dynasty Forum.

Scuffleball, creating a language is really something...I majored in Russian and minored in German in college, so I found your post quite interesting.

I don't think I will create a language...about the nitpickiest (what is that in your pseudo-language?) I get is to match up photos with names in my leagues so that a Hispanic name has a Hispanic look...A Nordic name matches its photo...and so forth.