Hello User Diary users! This was originally announced in the forums, but I wanted to include a message here for those who may not have seen it.

During the month of February, we’re running the first OGF City Sprint. Users are choosing a city to focus their mapping on intensely for one month.

More info & updates will be posted on this sandbox page throughout the month.

If you’d like to participate, add your name and selected city to the list on the page linked above. Then, starting Friday, map away! You can take a city that’s just a dot on the map and build it from scratch, or go into a city you’ve worked on before but want to add lots of rich detail to. It’s 100% open and flexible. The goal is just to map as much of your city as possible, at the highest possible quality, over the span of just one month. No prizes, no rules, nothing formal or fancy—just a fun community event that should produce some great new mapping.

Happy mapping to all!

Somebody Please Fix A Flood In UL208

I am mapping the northern area of Giliarca, where I dedicated an avenue to Antigo, since it was one of the great cities that were missing in the toponymy of my city.

But then I started to think again… does a name like that meet the criteria of likelihood? Is it normal for the capital of a democratic republic to dedicate an avenue to the capital of a totalitarian regime? Isn’t it a bit like there’s “Pyongyang Avenue” in New York?

mmmhhhh… I don’t know… I think that OGF guidelines require me to change the name of this avenue… I don’t know what you think about it.

I just read yesterday’s article “No time for OGF, what future for my countries” by joschi81, and this has raised a few questions to me.

I have been thinking about the question of “lost countries” and also about those undocumented reserved territories (white on the territory map ) that create a breach in the logic of the map since they’re kept untouched on the map, but on the wiki pages they say “yeah, don’t talk about lost countries, they don’t exist and never existed”, not mentioning when they don’t even have pages at all.

And this is something I would like to ask admins about.

But if you regular users want to add comments, feel free.

Border issues with lost countries

For example: I (Älved) have a western border with what used to be Zanyzzix (now UL079), an almost empty country with some badly designed bits, and an eastern border with Latania, a “lost country” with very good mapping on its whole territory. I suppose Latania is kept “in memoriam” of the mapper, but it isn’t neither collaborative nor has a contact person.

Zanyzzix has been turned to green and I suppose will be erased forever, but Latania is kept.

There is a ~ 30 km gap where it would be good to join the roads between Latania and Älved, but “Latania doesn’t exist and never existed” although we keep it on the map.

Countries with undocumented status

… See full entry

For some reason or another, I am debating whether or not to create another city in the blue territories, since territory requests are on hold.

When I started in September, I created St. Charles in Commonia, and through time, I expanded it. But as much as I want to continue developing it, I have to create something different.

So, while territory requests are still in limbo, combined with the fact that I am reluctant to map in a purple territory while the matter is being settled, should I continue to develop St. Charles, or is it time to move on to better things and create a whole new community?

Hi all,

Some of the “older” users may have noticed that I practically do not make any progress in developing my countries of Kalm, Garlis, Ísztianország, Erfeldia, and Ventria in OGF. The main reason for this is that due to family life I have much less time for my hobbies since the end of 2017. Also, when I have free time (which I still have, of course, fortunately) I try to be “AFK” as much as possible. My whole professional life I spend in front of the computer and my geofiction work is also focused on digital work since 2009 (before that, I spent hours and hours to create hand-drawn fictional maps).

I love the idea of using WebGIS technologies (and especially OSM tools) to create and represent fictional maps. But I have the strong feeling that it makes me “unhappy” to spent my free time in front of the computer, so that the only difference between “professional” and “free time” work is to switch from my professional to my private profile (I’m a freelancer and I work at home). I tend to use my free time (or, more precisely: the part of my free time that is not “family and friends” time) for things that feel more “worthy” to me like reading, making music, drawing, writing…

To make it short: To be consequent, I would have to leave the OGF community and close all my countries. But on the other hand I know that it would be a pity to disctontinue my work in OGF.

What options do I have?

1) Turn all my countries into “collaborative” territory

Interesting, but many of my cities and regions are finished in my had (and a bit on paper), so opening it all up to the community would not feel good for me. It would mean that I would have to create collaborative territories with “very strict rules” and that I would have to spend much time in coordinating other users’ work to fit into my “plan” for the countries.

2) Give up some of my territories to have a smaller amount of land to deal with

… See full entry

Given the fact that a notable number of users, especially newbies, have decided to come over to Antigo, I decided to write this entry to standardise the different styles of mapping so far in Antigo.

… See full entry

Hello guys,

I will take a little brake after this update, so this time we step out the palace and take a short trip at the old city.

Urban design of ancient China varies in different kind, the best example was Si’an City (西安) in Tang Dynasty (唐代). The whole city was divided into small square blocks just like NYC or Chicago nowadays. Some are built along a main river and planned according to the natural landscape. These capital cities will be well defensed as they guarded by water and mountain, streets are in irregular pattern but user oriented so business was well developed. Loyang(洛陽), Nanking(南京) and Hangchow(杭州) are the examples. I had chosen the Hangchow style for my fictional capital.

I shall say the old town is yet finished but you could see what it will be like. Streets are narrow and cut the neighborhood in small pieces, Those houses maybe built for hundred years so they were protected. However people still living there, perhaps there is gentrification. Ancient Six Ministries office (六部衙門) located on the axis of the capital, now they were tourist attractions. [Text]https://opengeofiction.net/#map=18/-28.25461/43.18278

And one more fun thing, I put a high value residence near the right down corner of the palace, as the link shows [Text]https://opengeofiction.net/#map=18/-28.26083/43.19203 This is a product of urban renewal but some government officials were bribed so you see a strange planning here, It is not a single case for North East Asian cities of real world.

Ima take a long rest from mapping: ima enter in circuit buildings and programming in C/C++ and C#.

I would edit, but not as much as before, but after i finish doing my thingys in C/C++/C#/Ardunio/ASM i will edit as i did before (more possibly in June or July).

Ima be programming and reading books most of the time, im only on discord, and sometimes i will read OGF inbox. So if you need anything just DM/Mail me trough any of them.

Geofiction is still my passion, but i want to improve in some other areas too.

Im really new , own a nation ( called Club ) and it is large-scale so making highways are really hard . it takes me ages to do them. Any Solutions?

Short on time or can’t be bothered to read the wall of text? Skip to the tl;dr version at the bottom of this entry

I joined OGF late in 2017. Since acquiring my own territory of New Austland, I have been working primarily on its capital city, Myola.

During research for this project I had a look around the rest of the OGF world at existing settlements and countries. There are many examples of great work by dedicated users. However, there are also many examples of otherwise well-designed projects that are let down by their transport network design and layout - in particular roads.

Others have written good content about this before so I won’t repeat everything, but I do feel that I can add to this existing information by focusing specifically on roads.

This has motivated me to write a summary of my recommendations and tips on the subject. I hope that this post can serve as a guide to help people develop networks of roads, streets and highways that reflect a more realistic depiction of the ‘real world’.

Who do you think you are??

Before beginning I feel that I should briefly explain my background. In my day job, I work to understand, fix and improve cities. Dealing with transport networks and systems is a large part of my daily work and ongoing projects.

This may or may not make it more likely that you will heed my advice, but just putting it out there for now!

Principles

Consider the overarching vision of OGF - ‘Verisimilitude’ (like real). The recommended way to achieve this is to look at existing ‘real world’ settlements and study their layouts. There is an excellent guide on this subject which may be found here.

The same principles should be applied to road networks.

… See full entry

I have a question- How do I get administrative areas to show up on the map? I notice other countries have them shown, but I followed the instructions on the wiki post and still nothing. Any help? Is it because my country is too small?

Maybe I should retry….

As I try to edit, the edits work fine, until I try and save. When I click save, then it only shows a changelog text box. Nothing to let me upload and changed. I spent 30 minutes creating areas. Now I can’t save it. Anything on the forums?

Suggestions? Please help me!!!

oof

Hi everyone,

Brennland is slowly taking shape, and being a mostly mountainous country, ski resorts are of course one of the main features on map!

So, here are the first I’ve mapped, just take a look and maybe tell me what you think about them!

RIGGLBERG SKIPARADIES [https://opengeofiction.net/go/2T2AG3o–] This ski resort is the closest to the capital city Brig, so it can get very crowded during weekends; luckily there are modern lifts, and three access points: the Weisswand cable car from Aachten, the lifts from Riegl am Mittewald and the gondola connected with Rigglberg train station. The slopes run mainly through the Rigglberg forest, with only the highest ones being on open ground, just beneath the Hornegg peak (2057 m.)

RHEINERHORN SKIZENTRUM [https://opengeofiction.net/go/2T32yaG] One of the most loved ski resorts in the country, offers slopes for every level of skier, from the beginners to the most expert (just try the Burgstallberg black slope!). Slopes run both through woods and on open ground, depending on the elevation, of course, with the lowest point being at 1095m and the highest at 2600m, just beneath the towering Rheinerhorn. There’s even an Alpine Coaster just next to the starting point of the lifts on the Freienfeld versant.

PFELDERS-SCHOGGLERALM [https://opengeofiction.net/go/2T3~P42] One of the most renowed ski resorts in the country, thanks to the Hagner black slope, a very challenging track that hosts one of the most famous slaloms in the Alpine Ski World Cup. There’s a “ski stadion” at the end of the slope. The resort spreads on two versants, the one beneath Götschhorn and Pfeldererspitze (facing Pfelders), and the Schoggleralm side. They connect at the Naglersattel, reached by a funifor lift from the northern side and a gondola on the southern. Access to the slopes is possible directly from the town of Pfelders or from Lautal valley bottom, thanks to a cable car and a long gondola.

Hi everyone, as I was said, I’m writing a diary entry to inform you of my new name, Voivod (taken from a canadian band I love). Btw, I was Fazzstinson69.

So sooner or later, my city “The Premises” is going to grow to a decent size that is enough for me to make a wiki about it. The only problem is that I don’t own a territory (and I’m not really thinking about that until my city and surrounding area is completely finished). So how can I do this?

Maybe this is just a phase, but I’m not feeling as motivated as I used to be about my country, Basmia. A couple weeks ago I added some extra roads, but that felt more like something I had to do rather than wanted to do.

Honestly, I think the reason I’m feeling this way is because I’m stressing about my scale of things. Since I enjoy urban mapping more than rural or geographical, I tend to overlook rivers, coastlines and other natural features, so when I overhauled Basmia a few months back, I added some of those things based on a concept map I made, but I haven’t touched them since. When I worked on Basmia last, I realized that the Basmia River is way, way, WAY too big, and therefore out of scale. And of course, I just don’t feel motivated enough to edit it, putting it simply.

The hardest thing about OGF is getting started, because all you have is a huge, blank canvas and, in your own territory, nobody to tell you what to do. Maybe I should join a collaborative country, turn in Basmia, and start over for the second time in my OGF “career”.

If anybody owns one of these collaboratives, please let me know if you’re looking for new members.

–BillionPenny483

hello I have been developing ammirice in tarephia but I think I have not been doing everything right and in the wrong order, I wanted to know if someone could help clean up my territory (leave it blank) try to start the new one but this time in a good order and with better quality I would accept all the advice that you can give me and if a neighbor reads this, you can contact me

Hello everyone, Happy 2019!

Haven’t written a new diary for a while, so this time I’m gonna show something I made quite a long time ago, the Royal City of Cinasia.

I have been read some books about the ancient Chinese city planning, the wisdom of ancient people is so amazing.

The Royal City is inspired by the Forbidden City in Peking, and yes, the scale of both are similar, and they look similar too, but the details are different. I tried to obey the ancient Chinese law, all main buildings locate on an axis(中軸線), the front part of palace is the center of political activities and the back part is the living areas. Hope you guys like it.

Hilson~

I was able to get Congress to agree to build a border wall with the southern border. How to get this to render on the map? I used the line and wall functions under JOSM but nothing is showing up on any zoom level.