Hello everybody,

My idea of making Kalm (and my neighbouring countries) a “strictly controlled” collaborative territory does not seem to work so far. I am thankful for the positive feedback for this idea and also for the work that has done and the porposals that have been made for Kalm. But this is a reminder: If you’re interested in working with me in my territoires, just let me know and see this diary entry.

Family and work still don’t leave much time for OGF.

For the moment I try to find 1-2 hours per week to continue my work in Tarott. For example, there is Neubunsort, a strictly car-free artificial island under construction. And I work on two long planned railway connections: The east-west connection under the harbour (now open!) and the new north-south tunnel (via Kulzertor station, now finally under construction). By the way, the current Hauptbahnhof (main station) in Tarott (the former “Viaduktbahnhof”) is in “interim solution” introduced in 1991, but due to many delay it will last until at least 2027!

Kind regards
Johannes

This is a follow-up on this diary entry.

Hi OGF community,

I wish you all a happy and successful year 2021 - with much time for OGF, not only because of COVID19.

Unfortunately, the current situation has not left any gap for OGF during the past months. I’m looking forward to a new gap to continue drawing Nerschach, the Kalmish capital.

I also did not have time to prepare the collaborative status of my countries any further. However, you can just contact me with any collaboration proposals, if you’re interested in working in a specific part of my countries.

How to participate in mapping Erfeldia, Garlis, Kalm, and Ventria?

FIRST OF ALL: Please do not start mapping in my countries before you have my “official” go.

1. Select a region, a mapping subject, and a level of detail for the part of one of my countries you’re interested in
2. Send me a PM referencing your mapping work in your own country or in a blue/collaborative territory in OGF. Also, please tell me a bit of yourself and about your opinion about your own mapping skills and specific mapping interests.
3. I will give you as much info as I can about my own ideas for the respetive region.
4. We will discuss the process of your mapping developments, so that it meets both your wish to be create in maaping own ideas and my wish to keep everything approximately in accordance with the ideas I have in mind for the respetive region.
5. Start mapping, send me a PM with the first mapping results. You can be sure, that I will like many parts of it - but also that I will have some remarks for necessary changes.

Kind regards
Johannes

IMPORTANT: THIS IS ABOUT A FUTURE COLLABORATION STATUS. NO WORK OF OTHER USERS WITHIN THE MENTIONED COUNTRIES IS PERMITTED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE!

Dear mappers,

I recently took the decision to turn my countries into a well-coordinated collaborative status in the beginning of 2021. I have to much land and by far not enough time.

As the wiki is not loading here, I can’t create a wiki page for that right now. But here are some important points.

• I have many ideas for many parts of the country, that are not yet mapped. So in any case, any cooperation would require the willingness of the respective user to discuss things in advance and to adapt things if they don’t fit into my “mental map” of the respective country.
• Every region has a different mapping status, so there are regions where I still would have to outline some basic features before someone can work there. This also results in the allowance to map only general features in a smaller zoom level or only detailed features in a larger zoom level.
• There will be a very strict application procedure for interested users, e.g. the need to create some examples of mapping that fits into the respective country in a selected “testing area” (where it might be removed if it doesn’t reach the needed standards). There will be a testing phase and a well regulated approval procedure of changes.
• [tbc]

In a dedicated section of my user page in the wiki I will present some tasks where people apply to. Examples:

• Motorway/national road numbers for Kalm
• More natural looking waterway connection between the Hesperic Ocean and the Vinn Sea
• Create a nice and natural looking coastline
• Help with mountainous regions (I’m not very god at it)
• Help with other natural features (nice looking rivers, lakes, etc.)
• Map the city of Herlenz
• Continue the work on the Kelmtal region, Kalm’s Ruhr area
• …

… See full entry

Dear mappers,

I am astonished that “suddenly” (maybe not really, I have not been active in OGF for several weeks) some neighbouring countries of Kalm disappeared: Vinnmark and the old western part of Pretany.

I understand that a collaborative project like OGF is in a constant change and that mappers leave the project—and thus their countries are “lost”. In the case of Pretany this is not very relevant for me, as (unfortunately) I did not work very much within “my” regions next to its former western border.

With Vinnmark, the situation is much different: The former owner once asked if other people would help him to map his country. I offered my help and so I put much effort into designing the general layout of the southern part of the country next to Kalm and Ventria. Now, all this work suddenly disappeared from the map. I’m sad and even angry.

Don’t misunderstand me: Of course such a step might be necessary from time to time in OGF. And I’m sure that I will find a good solution in cooperation with the new owner of Lentia. But: At least the owners of neighbouring countries should be contacted before such an important step of replacing a whole country (or removing a large part of it, in the case of Pretany) is being taken. Even though there may be one specific owner of the country, the respective mapping might have been developed in close cooperation with the owners of neighbouring countries.

I hope that we will find a good solution in this case—and that for future cases there will be a better communication of such steps.

Happy mapping!
Johannes

Hi all,

some of you may have noticed that there is a new natural waterway connection between the ocean and the Vinn Sea through the north-western part of Kalm. Ūdilugbulgidħū asked me (already in September last year) if I would agree to create such a connection as a result of discussions regarding the “logic” of the OGF history in this part of our world.

I completely agreed to his arguments. And I liked the idea, also because it makes the geography not only of this part of Kalm but also of western Uletha even more interesting and inspiring in my point of view.

So I sketched a first version (directly in OGF) and even a second and a third one (as a constant progress, not as separate alternatives). However, I suffer from a massive lack of time for being active in OGF (my OGF time of past days is now mostly family time).

So: Yes, there is and “always” will be such a waterway connection and you can include this fact in wiki articles where it seems relevant. You can add shipping lines using it if you want. (Don’t worry: I will correct/move them once I change the layout of the waterway connection in case they don’t fit anymore.)

But the current layout is not the final one. There will, for example, be a new waterway connection between Ernleben and Woltershafen/Porto João (which I design in coordination with Andy, of course), turning the peninsula of Kettholm into an island.

Sorry for this unfinished project with great importance. I will continue as soon as possible.

Happy mapping!
Johannes

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

Darsons in Commonia was a small college city with a population of around 150,000 when I created it a few years ago.

(By the way: It way created for two guys from the US who wanted to have a “playground” for their own zombie novels. And I thought that as look as this “zombie stuff” does not appear on the map, it still fits into OGF. I never heard of them again and the city that is called “Lincoln” in their novels was renamed to “Darsons”, a name that I had selected before they told me that the wanted it to be called “Lincoln”.)

What happened since then? It has been relocated to the northern part of Commonia and turned by about 130 degrees (this is why there still are some “East” and “West” errors…). And it has been heavily modified by other people (which is allowed, of course, as we’re in a community territory).

But: The goal is always to create realistic places. And Darsons is no longer realistic! Some “motorway maniacs” put too many freeways around this small town. And “puplic transit maniacs” set up a light rail network that is much too large for a city of that size. There is a large metropolis only 20km from Darsons: Thompson. There, a heavy freeway network would be justified, as well as a light rail/metro network. There is an international airport for Thompson. So why did someone creat another one for the small city of Darsons? I know, it is Commonia - but it simply annoys me that a nice city has been destroyed in such a “childish” way.

What do you think? Should I just let it stay as it is, modified by “Commonia effects” and as “unrealistic” as many other places in Commonia? Or do I have the “right” to delete some stuff that certainly does not fit to this city? Thanks for your feedback!

joschi81

Hi everybody,

somehow and never manage to finish my “sub-projects” in OGF. During my parental break I found some smaller time slots to start the Tarott region public transt network map. I managed to draw a large part of it, but soon I realized that it’s too much work to finish before I have to go back to work.

Thus, as I don’t know if i can finish it soon, I decided to publish a preview of the current progress here:

Tarott public transit network map [work in progress] (PNG)

Tarott public transit network map [work in progress] (SVG)

Also, the EXPOMONDIALE 2018 is officially open since May 19, 2018 (and here as well, due to the lack of time I could not bring the mapping as far as I wanted before the start of the world expo):

Tarott EXPOMONDIALE 2018

I will try to map a little bit further during the coming months, but I don’t know if there will be much time for it.

Happy mapping!

joschi81

Hi OGF mappers,

I noticed that some of you use capital=yes even for capital cities on sub-national level (examples: Pretany and Suriya). I think we could achieve a better OGF map display in smaller zoom levels if everyone sticks to the correct capital tagging principle: capital=yes only for the capital on national level, other capitals on sub-national level tagged capital=4 or capital=[other admin level]. Thank you!

Kind regards and happy mapping

joschi81

Hi there,

in March there was a first call for participation in the Tarott EXPOMONDIALE 2018 world exhibition, see here: Tarott EXPOMONDIALE 2018 world exhibition - Choose a parcel of land for your nation’s pavillon (please note the the list of participating countries isn’t 100% complete anymore).

So here’s a second call. Just apply for your favourite plot and give a theme for your nation’s pavillon (see link to first call above for details).

Also, I’m looking for a designer of the overall exposition ground concept. If you want to apply, just send me a private message and link to a comparable area (exposition/fair ground etc.) that you have developed in OGF. Looking forward to receive your applications! If I get interesting applications by then, I will choose the EXPOMONDIALE 2018 masterplan designer before Christmas.

Happy mapping!

joschi81

PS: If there are more applications for plots at the expo grounds than parcels currently available, I will add more plots by extending the expo area.

It was my goal to finish the city of Siuvna in Garlis before mid-october, the whole city and suburban area up to the “everything-but-buildings” level of detail. That’s because this is the start of a period where I have only very little time for OGF. However, I did not succeed. But that’s not too bad, I like the city very much so far (not everything, but the majority). What do you think?

There’s one important language issue: Garlis was supposed to be Romanian-speaking, but things developed a bit differently and it seemed more logical that the “homeland” of Romanian in OGF is Antharia. So user @stjur supposed that the Garlian language, which is his creation, might be some type of “Proto-Romanian” - and I liked this idea very much. The problem was (and still is) that I don’t speak Romanian and I’m also not good at imagining a “proto-Romanian” language, due to my missing knowledge of Romanian language evolution. So here I want to thank @stjur for his help with naming streets and squares and all the hints he gave me for the language. At least the place names (towns, cities, villages, suburbs) are almost all my own creations.

I have to reduce my mapping time in OGF during the next months, but I hope that I can spent an hour or two from time to time.

Happy mapping!

Johannes

(Don’t mix this up with the “real history” of the name “Uletha”. I have no idea about that yet, or is there something written in the Wiki?)

When did the name “Uletha” come up? Already in 2010 I imagined the continent around Kalm, where the cities of Forberg (the first city I developed in Kalm) and Tarott are located. It took a while until it got its name, but it must have been at some time in summer 2010 that I found the name, together with a good friend of mine. We wanted to find a nice name, starting with a voal, but not with A or E (and yes, maybe also not O) :) and we both liked “Uletha” as a continent name. “Ulethaplatz” metro station of U7 metro line in Tarott was the first appearance of the name on the map, before the start of OGF. (See also this very old and bad quality version of the original Tarott map). Later, I called the old harbour re-development area around Ulethaplatz “Ulethastadt”.

In summer 2013 I sketched the first version of the Uletha outline in OGF, and Thilo did the other continents of the old world (I liked his ones a bit more, Uletha is in some points a bit too close to “Eurasia”). Before the OGF Uletha outline sketch I only had had a very rough idea of the north-western part of the continent.

(By the way: At the time I imagined the harbour of Tarott, I also imagined the name of one of the continents of the so “new world” in OGF: Ereva and one of the harbour bassins got the name “Erevahafen”. I did not name it in the OGF map yet, but you can see it on this old original Tarott map (at Q10). Later I was happy, because the name was chosen for the respective continent in an OGF continent naming competition.)

So, this is how the name developed. I just wanted to give you some details here.

Happy mapping!

joschi81

Hi all,

Surprisingly I was the winner of last week’s “Weekly Word” challenge, although “military” is not really a subject I focus on in OGF. As niels20020 mentioned, the winner will from now on have the right to announce the next weekly word.

The new Weekly Word is

Electricity

Looking forward to receiving your entries. Please comment and mention your creations that in your point of view fit to the subject. Deadline is next Saturday 18:00 GMT.

Johannes

PS: @niels20020: The Weekly Word “mini challenge” is a very nice idea, in my point of view. Thank you!

Hi everybody!

Like other people, I sometimes struggle with problems in my imaginary countries that lead to the question: Is it already definite or can I still change something? Normally, when I have drawn an area up to a very high level of detail, I leave it as it is, of course. But what with roughly sketched structures that were only definite in my head but did not appear on the map yet? I allow myself to change them, even heavily, if there’s a special need.

For Tarott (map) I definetily saw the need to change something very elementary. As it is an old city that survived many wars (even after heavy destructions) and as it was founded thousand years ago (maybe even more), it needs to be in a protected location. An open bay directly at the West Sea did not seem logical at all, finally.

So, I dared to rethink Tarott bay and - although it has only been outlined very rougly so far - I’m satisfied with the result:

Tarott Bay, March 2017

(To be honest, although not being a motorway enthusiast, I always wanted a western bypass for Tarott to release traffic congestion at the central trunk road in Tarott and at the eastern motorway rings - there is going to be an outer ring in the east as well.)

This is how the open Tarott Bay looked before:

“old” Tarott bay

It feels much better now. :) And at crucial points, I’m going to build some old fortifications (or ruins of fortifications).

Happy mapping!

Johannes

Hello everybody,

only a bit more than one year left until the Tarott EXPOMONDIALE 2018 world exposition will open! The nation of Kalm and the city of Tarott are glad to host this international event and to welcome all other nations of the world with their own pavillons and exhibitions.

The motto of the world exposition will be “Smart digital and analogue future of our world”. Participating nation’s are invited to present concepts showing newest oder planned digital solutions in any interesting domain for their nation, but also to answer the question how people can participate in daily life in the future without being dependent of their own digital devices.

So, choose a spot for your nation’s pavillon:

1) See the map of EXPOMONDIALE 2018 Tarott exposition grounds here

2) Zoom in to see the names of the depicted parcels of land (“TEM18 - A1” etc.)

3) Then send me a private message, mention:

• your country’s name (resp. names if you have more than one in OGF)

• EITHER: the shortcut of your three favourite TEM18 plots (character and number in the end of the name)

• OR: if any plot of land is okay for you, just write something like “any plot is ok”

• OR (EDIT 27/03/2017): If you think your country is to small or doesn’t have the money for an own pavillon, consider having a smaller exhibition in a shared pavillon and just write “shared pavillon”

• OPTIONAL: the planned title for your nation’s exhibition.

I will collect all wishes and publish a list of selected plots of land around easter. Afterwards I invite you to build your pavillon in the respective plot (or I will build it myself, in case you prefer it).

If there is more demand than parcels of land prepared at the moment, the area will be extended.

Looking forward to bringing the EXPOMONDIALE to “international” life.

Happy mapping

Johannes

---

1st EDIT 27/03/2017

2nd EDIT 08/04/2017

Here’s a list of applications as of today:

… See full entry

This diary entry by tule00 (@tule00: Thank you!) led to my detailed reflection of how to find good names for large cities in Kalmish (= German) language.

The most dificult thing is always to find out what names “sound” like names for large cities in a specific language. For example “Hamburg” is Germany’s second largest city, but “-burg” suffix can be found in village, town, and (large) city names. So, with “-burg” names you’re on a quite safe side when naming large cities or small towns in “Kalmish” (German) language. But what about “-dorf”? It means “village”. So, it is used for villages and small towns only. With (at least) one exception: “Düsseldorf”. Everyone in Germany has a large city in mind (capital city of North Rine-Westfalia) when hearing this name, although if you look closely, it is the name for a village. :) What about “Berlin”? In fact, the name of Germany’s largest city, but there are countless smallest villages in Germany with “-in” suffix. Same with “München” (=Munich”), Germany’s third largest city.

In Kalm I used some suffixes from the real German language when naming large cities (e.g. Vennburg, Kemburg, Forberg). Then I invented some special Kalmish suffixes like “-rott” (Tarott, Bilrott) or “-ent” (Orlent, Korlent), which in my point of view sound like large cities.

… See full entry

Hi all,

I hope you will have (or had) a good start into the new year!

Here’s my last addition to OGF in 2016: The town of Henlauch in the south-western suburban region of Nerschach, the capital of Kalm.

Looking forward to many new places in OGF in 2017!

Happy mapping, joschi81

Inspired by Luciano’s Mapper’s Challenge #6 - September, 2016 - GETTING AROUND, I started creating the metro line (U-Bahn) relations for the city of Tarott. Well… I started, at least.

Mapping since more than two weeks now, up to a few hours almost every day, I only managed to finish the first part of U1 (the oldest metro line of Tarott, regarding the inner city section, and part of the small-profile network, details here). So I’m presenting an “intermediate” result to you now. Here’s how far I got:

Inbound southern part of U1 and outbound direction of the same section.

Why did I only get this far? The explanation is quite simple: Tarott, as some of you know, was imported from a “non-GIS” vector file right after the birth of OGF, a vector file that had been drawn only for graphical purposes in Adobe Illustrator. You can still see the annoying results in the largest part of Tarott. Along with drawing the metro line details, I decided to add the details (almost eveything important except residential buiildings) within the surrounding areas. This - I must admit - takes much longer than I thought. (Actually, it’s a pity that I had only drawn Tarott outside OGF in this “unprofessional” way since 2010 before OGF started, now I have to do all the work once again…)

But have a look at the result, compare the areas next to the mentioned part of the metro line to other regions and you see where I’m heading (at the speed of a tired snail). And see the Hattneypark details I added today instead of focusing on a continued U1 relation. :)

… See full entry

Ventria (Wiki and map) is a small land-locked state that I recently “cut out” of Estiansian territory and turned to a separate state.

In Tarott (Wiki and map - bad mapping quality due to old vector imports), Kalm, there is a large Ventrian community and also a “Ventrian quarter” (Ventrisches Viertel) that has its own S-Bahn (suburban rail) station. Tarott was designed before OGF started and I came up with some cultures surrounding Kalm. And now I found a place for the Ventrians.

But: I haven’t any names yet for cities and other geographical features - and I didn’t decide what official language Ventria has.

So my question is now: What language for Ventria? What is your opinion?

It is surrounded by many Ulethan (“European”) languages, Kalmish (German), Estiensian (Hungarian), Garlish (Romanian) a bit further away, Franquese and Vinnish in Vinnmark, Welsich (a bit like Dutch?) - there are many more, as you know can find out using the map.

I’m open for any language, but probably a Ulethan (“European”) one would be great. Of course, a fantasy language “between” other European languages could also be nice. Or Ventria could have an official language that is spoken in Europe but not the “main official” language of any country.

I’m looking forward to your suggestions.

Happy mapping!

joschi81

So, after many weeks or even months of almost no activity in OGF (lack of time, unfortunately) I came back now and continued drawing using my “mapping here and there” strategy. This time I focused on Borwald mountain region within Borwald-Oberstresien federal region. Although I wanted to stick to “zoom level 9 features” (forests, main roads and motorways, railways, rivers and other water bodies, town names), I finally added the whole general city structure for the city of Melonn with general landuses, main roads, railway stations, and the two-line tramway network.

I have the goal of filling up the whole country of Kalm with “zoom level 9 features” until the end of the year. I’ll see if I can manage, there’s still a long way to go, especially with my tendency of jumping into larger zoom levels at some point.

Here’s what I mapped: Borwald and the city of Melonn