Users' Diaries

Recent diary entries

Hello OGF people! Recently I have obtained a territory in Archanta (thank you for that to admin) called Kingdom of Déserts, mostly covered by desert and then I started to develop the first city, called Argomikos. I have left the coordinates for you to give me your honest opinion; can you tell me if it’s unrealistic or if it’s alright? I am looking forward to your response, Mapping Expert

Location: AR058
Posted by eklas on 3 March 2019 in English.

yup

Based on the success of the February City Sprint, I’m proposing a new challenge for the months of March, April and May: the Spring Cleanup.

Do you know people obsessively vacuum every corner of the house, change the sheets and wash the windows every spring season? Imagine something like that, but on the OGF wiki. The main objective is to go through your contributions and decide - are these pages and files necessary or can they be deleted? The side task would then be to organize the content you would like to keep into categories.

More information in related forum post.

Embedded image for attention.

Posted by AustinBoath on 2 March 2019 in English.

I am working on a city in West Commonia and want to build it up and make it as realistic as possible at the moment. The City is called Taimatsu. It is a Japanese city with western developments. This city started in the 1950s and due to low budget in the early days, all they had was a few stores near the ocean and a Bull Track to take goods to the stores and for people to walk on. I want to make the city suitable for 250,000 people. At the moment it only fits about 30,000. (and also has a restaurant that scams little kids by starting up outside the main primary school so kids sneak out of school to grab a burger instead of going to the cafeteria, but that’s for another time) So could you please do some development of the city, I need more built up areas. Also, how do I get my dot for the city larger?

Thanks, Tyrone xD

Location: 5.702, 127.640
Posted by UN1TY on 2 March 2019 in English.

This post is for native Spanish speakers.

I’m currently working on Castellabájo (Xʌшtaııʌҕʎɔo), a language based on Castellanese for San Basílio state in Unesia. Spanish is not my first language, so I’m not sure how it would seem to a native speaker.

I’m currently deciding between two different historical narratives as to how the language and script developed. Knowing how close or how far the language is from the original will help me determine which story I’ll go with.

What are your thoughts, based on what I’ve mapped [here] (https://opengeofiction.net/#map=14/-31.5302/165.7941)?

Are you able to decipher the transliterations? Are the contracted words potentially confusing? Aside from the written script, would you consider this to be a separate language or a dialect?

Gracias!

Posted by louis_walker on 1 March 2019 in English.

I didn’t want to let it pass without some kind of mention: as of today, the OGF City Sprint is officially over! It was a lot of fun watching the progress across all four continents. Big thanks to the more than three-dozen (!) mappers who signed up, and the dedicated folks who kept at it all the way to the end.

I’m planning to do something in the near future with the Daily Dose of Mapping Mojo posts, perhaps creating a kind of toolkit for breaking through mappers’ block. It would be really great to hear from the community about what your favorite resources were, and if you actually found some of the links that were shared helpful in thinking about your city in new ways.

=====

On a personal note, I first floated the idea of a city sprint because I wanted to hit fastfoward on mapping my capital city, and on that front it was a rousing success! I set a personal goal of mapping 100,000 objects in a month, and ultimately mapped a grand total of 103,636 nodes, ways, and polygons during the 28 days of February. I’m planning to write a post introducing Canan-Yar to the world over the weekend, so more to come. I definitely would not have had the momentum to do it without all of the sprinters! :D

Posted by refried sushi on 1 March 2019 in English.

Some of you may remember my handle from years past; I was mapping the Island of Mallorjhe in southern TA for some time before life… you know, happens (births, deaths, new jobs, all that stuff.) Long story short I have been inactive for about a year and I see no real likelihood of my coming back any time soon, much as I would have it otherwise. Perhaps one day, but not soon.

As ways to waste time with a computer go, OGF is among the best. I’m sorry to leave it, though hopefully I leave it slightly more interesting than when I started? Thats all we can hope for I think. It was fun, it was difficult, and I will miss it. See you around someday, hopefully. Until then-

Good Luck and Happy Mapping, R.S.

Location: Déparmente Ganq, Qarkouth, Airannia

Hello, there, I map the Free Kingdom of Sudharka (TA097b, in northern Tarephia). Because I took my inspiration mostly from the kingdom of Sarawak, in Borneo, I decided to make it an asian-like country, using what I think to be asian-like names. But I consider changing this location, and turn it either to a northern-Africa-like country, or to a south-american-like one. I would nonetheless ask there if anybody could tell me what this part of the continent is really supposed to look like. I didn’t find a lot of geographical information on the wiki, and, tough the latitude and longitude corresponds, if I remember well, to somewhere in southern Asia, OGF geography may differ from Earth’s.

I hope someone have information on this subject.

Location: L'Albiach, Argal, Mesània
Posted by premier_377 on 27 February 2019 in English.

So, yesterday I successfully claimed territory AN150i. I am grateful to be able create a country.

So with that in mind, the city along the newly named Crystal Lake will be all but gutted for the purpose of rebuilding, as it will serve as the capital. For the most part, I did not like how the grid is. Connection to other cities will also be forthcoming for this purpose.

Another thing is to get the name of my country recognized on the OGF map, so I may need help on that department.

And last, but not least (for the time being), I am making the flag and coat of arms for the country.

Effective today, February 27, applications are being accepted for territories in South Archanta. This is one day sooner than initially expected.

See requirements at:

https://wiki.opengeofiction.net/wiki/index.php/OGF:Admin_regions#South_Archanta

Send request messages to admin, not to Luciano’s private inbox.

Happy mapping

Luciano - for OGF Admin team

Posted by eleinads on 26 February 2019 in English.

Dear colleagues mappers,

I give you a few updates on my progress, and then I’ll ask you a very important question. With the city of Giliarca, I have now entered the final phase of the mapping. I have finished mapping the details of the northern area, and now I only have the southern suburbs, which will be mainly commercial and industrial.

Now, then, I will finally write the Wiki page on Giliarca (which, incidentally, will also be an opportunity to explain the reasons for some particular aspects of the city, such as its particular location or its historic center, but we will talk about this on another occasion).

The final question I have to ask you is another: do you help me to quantify the population of Giliarca? (Consider that the area to be mapped will not be residential, so what you see now already allows you to do so).

That is: in your opinion, when you see the map of the city, what is the most realistic number of inhabitants to attribute to it? (the city, not the country) I will don’t tell you what I think about it, in order not to condition you: tell me your evaluations.

Location: Quartiere Memoria, Città di Gardensa, Gardensa City, Plevia

Hey mappers,

It’s not new that people tend to add lots of highways and unrealistically dense cities to blue countries, but it’s become very frustrating for me, and I think I’m not the only one.

Namely, more than a year ago, I started the initative to help Midistland become a more realistic country. Since East Uletha is supposed to resemble Europe and somewhat Asia, Midistland has become a country with mixed German and Spanish influences. Of course, it can’t be perfect, but with combined efforts, we can help it look at least decently realistic. Its capital city, Bend, is supposed to have a million - maximum 2 million inhabitants, and to somewhat resemble Amsterdam (because of its topography). It started out well, we had one outer ring road and one inner partial ring road, but now it looks like [this] (https://opengeofiction.net/#map=10/38.8206/98.5483).

Bend is now full of “freeways”, “parkways” and other unnecessary highways that don’t fit the infrastructure of a European-styled city.

Of course, it’s not an isolated case. There are many more - Breassau, Termápolis, Tengah.

They are not entirely unrealistic on their own - but they do not suit the topography, infrastructure or culture of a country like Midistland.

Unfortunately, many members give up on new countries because of this.

So, my message to all members who map in blue countries: first look where you are mapping, then decide what you are mapping. Some countries - like USA - have gave less mass transit and they need more highways. That’s not unrealistic. But that’s not for Midistland. That belongs in, for example, Federal States of Archanta.

Please, especially new members, have in mind where and why you’re mapping something. I am not the most experienced mapper - I still have a lot to learn - but this is something very important that I learned on OGF.

Do not take this as a form of shaming or call-out - this is just a sincere piece of advice.

Thanks for your attention, and happy mapping.

Posted by Yuanls on 24 February 2019 in English.

I need a change of scenery, as I’ve been mapping literally house to house in Thoole for the past week and it’s getting dreary. I plan to take an island in Commonia and map it to the best of my ability.

For this cartographical ‘holiday’ I choose Lauguar Island because it is a sizeable, defined chunk landmass that is relatively unmapped. I’ve done a large scale sketch of the area here.

I see it as your run of the mill, Commonian island. A very agrarian tropical island, medium living standards, ruled by a National-Bolshevist milita with links to West Commonia, with a small AN observation base in the south. I’m a bit in the dark about language, however, as I am reluctant to map in English for this case but…what other options are there?

Before I begin, does anybody have any advice or objections, or would like to rip me to shreds for attempting to map well in Commonia?

Happy mapping!

Yuanls

Posted by admin on 21 February 2019 in English.

Finally, the admin team will be able to handle territory claims again soon. However, we made two decisions about the assignment process.

First, we decided not to work through the backlog of messages received during the recent months, but ask everyone to submit their application again. We will however try to give precedence to older claims as much as possible, using the received messages for verification.

Second, we divided the OGF planet into several regions, each being administered by a different team member. These regions will have different rules, and also might not start accepting territory claims before early March.

Before submitting any territory claim, please read the detailed descriptions about the new assignment process and the different regions.

Posted by FictiveJ on 21 February 2019 in English.

So, I am currently mapping the area of Babelictown (OGF version of Chinatown) in Xenica. This has required me to move some buildings and start over in a new section of town.

The main architectural component of Babelictown (an area settled in the 1950s-60s by Babelic immigrants from Commonia, possibly Meilanese ones too) is the shophouses. These are somewhat inspired by the row house architecture in Malaysia and Singapore, and indeed when I’ve been mapping this, I’ve been using Singapore’s Chinatown as my base. If you want to imagine what these would look like, they have a narrow front, and usually two floors, with the first floor being a business, and the second floor being a living area (however, many of these in Xenica are no longer inhabited).

So, building row houses requires long rectangular built-up blocks. However, I feel that I have not got the dimensions quite right, or that it is not straight enough / parallel to the road. How would I fix this?

[zoom in to Level 19 to see the architecture]

Location: TA224