OpenGeofiction
On the Replication of Real World Geographical Features
Posted by Litvania on 28 November 2016 in English.The OGF World is full of wonderful features such as this, this and these as well.
All of these have been accomplished using determination and effort, and have a really effective turnout.
@EMKLI mentioned this idea before!
However, it would be nice if we could take more inspiration from the real world. A good example of this would be the island stretching from Norðurland to ER137/138/139. They could stretch more, in fact why not have some sort of “Aleutian Islands” in that area. This would create a “Hesperic Ring of Fire”.
Or for example the South. Why not have a sort of Antarctica like land mass, that could be a collaborative territory, but basically that would make it divided by the different users’ countries.
Comment for more ideas!
(@eklas i am currently on a ‘virtual holiday’ in Letěnín😀)
Discussion
Comment from Yuanls on 28 November 2016 at 18:59
Thumbs up to the creators of such realistic coastlines!
If there is a landmass such as Antarctica, it wouldn’t be easy to map. Real world Antarctica is twice as large as Commonia, and look at the trouble we have there! I think it would be wiser to have a couple of smaller islands down south. Plus, what is there to map in Antarctica?
Most of the continent of Antarctica is ice and snow, broken by a few mountains or volcanoes, some barren rock and a dozen research stations. Only if we look further north do we get anything worthy of mapping. Antarctica is geologically and topographically unfamiliar to most users. The polar regions of the OGF planet seem to be rather sparsely mapped (with exceptions), and users that are up to the challenge of dealing with such large and unfamiliar landscapes might be hard to find. Real world Antarctica doesn’t appear to be well mapped either-there’s nothing there!
Don’t forget that geologically speaking, there does not have to be any major mass of land at the South Pole. The positions of land masses has always varied through earth’s history. The position the landmasses are in at any moment in time is more or less pure chance.
For now, my suggestion is for someone to create some smallish islands down near the South Pole, so that willing users can practice their arctic mapping techniques. If everything works, we can make larger and larger landmasses and develop the polar region. The last thing we need is another mass of unused land-we have AR120 and UL099 for that.
Comment from Ūdilugbulgidħū on 28 November 2016 at 19:15
Perhaps search the wiki for ‘Antarctica’? See also this diary entry.
It would be nice to have a scattering of polar or sub-polar islands. We did talk about this chain of islands stretching from Norðurland; I don’t think its a bad idea, but I struggle to think about the ‘new world’ at all, when it comes to it. Maybe we can add islands like this sometime in future, the OGF world lacks this realism.
Comment from Toadwart on 28 November 2016 at 19:30
I started to design an island (without uploading it). You can see a preview here. It sould be at about the Antarctic Circle. I’m not sure about the longitude, currently I placed it at 123°E.
I am still not sure if or when I should request the permission to build it.
Comment from isleño on 28 November 2016 at 19:40
On the flip side, some people would argue that our world replicates Earth too much, and adding in “the Aleutians” or a “Ring of Fire” or “Antarctica” would only contribute to that perception.
So instead of a southern polar continent, as Udi mentions, we have a vast ice mass in that region. A few small islands (as have been suggested before) might be a good idea… I’ll message the other admins about it. As for the island chain in the north, as was explained in the previous discussion, the gap exists on purpose, for now. And a volcanic zone that encircles an entire ocean may not be appreciated by mappers along its shores who don’t want to be part of it.
It is nice to see this kind of enthusiasm, but at the same time I would strongly urge new users to “start small” when they first join. Learn how to create beautiful natural features in your own territory. Learn how to draw realistic cities and countryside. Focus on studying the mapping you admire and developing great skills of your own.
Comment from Thunderbird on 28 November 2016 at 20:42
In a recent Geology class of mine, one thing we learned:
Earth has a lower sea level than it once did (in the late Cretaceous period). This means we have more more habitable land.
Millions of years ago as the continents shifted, the sea level was higher because there were no continents near the poles. As Antarctica moved toward the south pole and stayed there, it began to build up a large mass of ice. Over time, this lowered the sea level to where it is today.
Since the OGF world is similar but not the same as earth, I think it would be helpful to have some sort of landmass in the south.
Comment from eklas on 28 November 2016 at 21:01
I don’t really have a strong opinion on this, uh, let’s like get the giant icebergs or something? It’s definitely true we don’t need any more land.
Btw @Litvania, how do you like it in Letěnín so far? I haven’t done much yet since I’m currently working on Drahns’ suburbs, but there’s more details coming soon (as well as other towns.)
Comment from Ūdilugbulgidħū on 28 November 2016 at 21:19
Yes, the land masses have moved, real and imaginary, and sea levels have also fluctuated. A proportion of the real Antarctica is under (current) sea level. All of OGF Antarctica is under (current, imaginary) sea level.
But as well as being ‘similar but not the same’ Glacies Australis is a solution to a couple of issues - like there being an unknown total land area in OGF and there being a (probable) global climatic stability requirement for at least one large polar ice mass. The real Antarctica is not a landmass like other landmasses - if ice melted, the extent of land there is not easily to calculate, because it would be dependent on the relationship between land rising (isostatic rebound) and sea level rise through ice melt, plus other factors. With the OGF Glacies Australis there probably would be some land there, post-melt. But we don’t have to define that (yet). Is also an attempt to avoid some of the problems that fixing an important part of the world too soon would give us: because we don’t need to map the icemass - although it is there - we can hope to use it to compensate for the extra land area that OGF has compared to the real world. That could have (and probably would have) affected the way ice-ages affected OGF world compared to real world, in terms of sea level rises and falls - important in mapping many coastline features, cliffs, raised beaches etc. I don’t think either that it has to have any relationship to any small polar or sub-polar islands in OGF; these can be mapped totally independently, if that decision is made.
So Thinderbird in answer to your point - there may be a ‘landmass’ in the south of OGF world, but is (mostly, and probably) under current sea-level.
Comment from Yuanls on 28 November 2016 at 22:07
The Antarctic continent could be something similar to real-world Zealandia-a distorted continent fragment that only partially rests above the water.