OpenGeofiction
Hi folks, I have worked on the country “Riko” (previously “Qugia”) for a while now . Me and my partner Bananakorv want to make a so realistic country as possible. To do so we need help from you guys. We need help with names, placements and so on, as we are Norwegians trying to make an English/British inspired country. :-)
Discussion
Comment from stennes on 24 October 2015 at 12:32
Thanks for great response guys!
Comment from Demuth on 24 October 2015 at 22:02
Patience. It sometimes takes a little time before people respond.
Your question is pretty broad. I’m not sure what you mean by placements. As for names of places I would use East, West, North, South - a lot of place names end in things like -ton, -ham, -hill, -pool, -well, -field(s), -wick, -market. Street names after the shops and original done work there - Tailor, Butcher, Baker, Miller; trees and plants. That’s a start at least.
Varsågoda!
Comment from Luciano on 25 October 2015 at 00:14
First of all, I second Demuth’s point - please have patience. I don’t think sarcasm is always a great way to encourage positive input from others. We are all on our own schedules - I often have to go a few days without looking at OGF, and sometimes I just focus on my own projects (which are in JOSM) and don’t watch the main pages for a few days at a time, too.
RE placement, I will reiterate my advice to others: stop thinking about highways and towns, and think about rivers and mountains and vegetation. Work on the environment, and the placement “falls into place”. If I could give a single piece of advice to new users, at this point, it would be - “don’t draw any highways (town streets are OK) for your first year.”
RE names - I think it might help you to diversify your underlying culture. Imagine an interesting “native” culture beneath the Ingerish colonial culture, and this can be a source for names. A very large number of names in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc., come from other “underlying” cultures (half of US states have names from non-European sources). You don’t even have to decide what the names mean - you can use random strings of syllables (use some of the resources isleño has placed on the OGF:Resources for names page). I do this with my countries quite a bit, and others do too - Gobrassanya is a great example of the diversity that can be had just by using random strings of characters. Think in layers, and start with layers of cultures that lend their names to the later layers.
Comment from isleño on 25 October 2015 at 21:58
Very good advice from Demuth and Luciano. The wiki article on making realistic countries echoes Luciano’s point about starting with land features before placing cities, and placing cities before drawing the roads to connect them. It’s definitely worth looking at again:
http://opengeofiction.net/wiki/index.php/OGF:Making_realistic_countries
Creating an interesting indigenous culture is also a good idea. Names like “Riko” and “Qugna” certainly don’t sound English. Maybe these names came from the native people? Is there a pattern to their language? If the native names follow some kind of pattern then maybe they will be identifiable as “Riko-sounding” indigenous names.
At the same time, if you want your country to sound more “English” then you’ll probably want to mix in some more English-sounding names. An easy way to do this is look at a map of England and just combine different names, taking the front of one with the back of another: Lonchester, Staffingham, Presford, etc. These don’t always work, but a lot of times they do.
Bear in mind also that Riko is in a tropical climate zone. Where English speaking people have settled in warm weather areas, the names can often reflect a tropical flavor. Florida for example has Palm Beach and Coral Springs. Queensland has Sunshine Coast. California has a hundred places like Xxxxx Beach.
If you have other questions, don’t hesitate to ask. Just remember that we all have real lives outside OGF so sometimes you may need to wait a while for the response. :-)
Comment from isleño on 25 October 2015 at 22:11
Never thought of this before, but another great source for English names in OGF is the OGF country of Ingerland.
http://opengeofiction.net/#map=6/58.683/24.324
In real life, English colonists often named new places after the old places they left behind in England. The same could be true here in OGF.
Comment from anakes on 2 November 2015 at 22:43
another suggestion. (and hopefully not get me wrong).It is to use names north of Romance origin, such as Italian, Spanish, protuges or French, are several countries that are north of these languages, and are simple in their word, example (pueblo, villa, rancho, ville, chateu. your will then add cualqueir name you want as Villa Pink River) that go with the American colonies and Canadian real world. any doubt at least in nomblenclaturas north, let me know and I will answer them :)