Users' Diaries

Recent diary entries

Hello, everyone!

It’s February, and things are heating up in our OGF world. There was some creative and really well-done work on the last challenge with landuse types. If you requested feedback during the last couple weeks, I have replied and tried to offer a couple thoughts.

For this month, the challenge is simple: participate in the City Sprint. Louis has done an amazing job getting things rolling, so please send some acknowledgements his way for his hard work. Given the success and enthusiasm, it was decided to role the monthly challenge right into the sprint. Best of all—it’s a create-your-own-adventure-type challenge. The goal is to map as much as you can, as often as you can, and at the highest quality you can all in a single location. You can read more about it on the wiki page (linked above) and the corresponding discussion page. Oh, and for those on the wiki, PortCal has created a cool template to keep track of your work.

Best of luck to everyone! Happy mapping.

Posted by ImmortalHawk on 1 February 2019 in English.

So I’ve been expanding my city to a decent size than before, and I was wondering if I should start doing the details. I realize that the city blocks are way smaller than regular… maybe I should fix that some time in the future. Just wondering what I should do next and what to start with…

Thanks

Location: Kinsky, Saint-Cainan-Cavelier, Paroisse de Cavelier, Tsahac, Ooayatais, Ardencia
Posted by sortofjack on 31 January 2019 in English. Last updated on 1 February 2019.

Hello everyone,

I’ve been mapping in my territory Ablecia for a little while now. My main area of focus has been the city of Newbyford in the North West of the country, along with some smaller towns and villages I have created between the city and the Montgomery Wood area.

Anyone with a few minutes to spare, I would happily take on any feedback about my mapping, along with any constructive criticisms you may have!

Many thanks :)

Location: Algert, Madische Union
Posted by Sarepava on 31 January 2019 in English.

The Mappers Challenge got buried under a long list of newer diary entries, so as today is the 31st Jan I will post about my contribution here:

My land area is part of the Majos Valley, the flood plain of the biggest river in Karolia and two national parks: https://opengeofiction.net/#map=14/51.7633/111.7834

The peaceful landscape is largely grassland [landuse: check] and has only a few gentle hills which the river meanders around. On the higher ground the grasses become heathland [landuse: check]. The river has shifted course a lot in its history and many oxbow lakes and ponds exist [landuse: check], as well as extensive reed beds [check] and wet meadows [check]. Some of the watercourses are man-made, from attempts to farm aquatic produce and fish, as well as manage the drainage off the land.

‘Limited infrastructure’ means few roads. Instead the railway and long-distance cycle and footpaths are the access to this area. These run on boardwalks over the marshy ground, and also on a special bridge over the railway line. This wasn’t strictly necessary as traffic is light enough for a level crossing, but it was built to allow a view and information displays about the grasslands towards Majoslinna, the town built on a kopje (an eccentric thrust of hard rock). Cycle route K1 is a high-quality dedicated path that runs right up Karolia from Santjana to the mountains and visits important sites and cities. On this branch line, trains have cycle spaces installed to facilitate day trips and cycle tourism. It’s considered important to make alternatives to car use more attractive here to protect the environment in this landscape hence the lack of roads. Numerous species of water birds, aquatic reptiles and insects live here. Very occasionally river dolphins swim this far north from the coast, hunting fish.

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!

Posted by eleinads on 29 January 2019 in English. Last updated on 30 January 2019.

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.

Location: Città di Gardensa, Gardensa City, Plevia

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

Location: Bialoladnie ag Rowinie, Boscunis
Posted by premier_377 on 28 January 2019 in English.

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

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.

Location: AN123
Posted by superleaf1995 on 26 January 2019 in English.

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.

Posted by mrpeanuts on 25 January 2019 in English.

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