Mapping out The City.

Beleg Cúthalion on 7/3/2013 at 21:00

They said that Garrett was away from the City for a long time, hence they are able to "reboot" some aspects (just getting enough distance from the original plot to not suffer from its constraints etc.), but not that it takes place elsewhere. His return to the City is explicitly mentioned and we have - woohoo - images of a river and a bridge. Heck, there was even talk about Stone Market!

Doc_Brown on 7/3/2013 at 21:38

Quote Posted by Beleg Cúthalion

They said that Garrett was away from the City for a long time, hence they are able to "reboot" some aspects [...]

Quoting from (http://www.gatheryourparty.com/articles/2013/03/05/thief-reboot-coming-in-2014/) this article, emphasis added:

"The new installment in the acclaimed stealth-based series is a complete reboot [...]"

I'm not saying it won't pull heavily from the previous entries, but the information we're hearing right now seems to indicate it isn't within the same continuity. That, and the fact that they're dropping the number from the title, points pretty heavily toward no direct connection 'twixt them (see also: Tomb Raider).

jtr7 on 8/3/2013 at 01:33

I wonder if he just starts out with that eye and scar, or if he earns it?

demagogue on 8/3/2013 at 02:56

The real answer IMO is, after we play the game we'll have a clear idea to what extent it's the "same City" vs. a completely new city and the same in name only. I personally had a lot of fun with the puzzles involved with the mapping project, so it could be fun to do it for this iteration too, I imagine. But whether it fits in the old map or requires starting a new map (even then I'm sure a lot would carry over), we don't have to decide that now.

jtr7 on 8/3/2013 at 03:18

Randy already admitted they didn't stick to their own map, so I wouldn't expect T4's City Map to clarify anything, if we even see one, unless they did their own version of the work like we did and made a bunch of best guesses. Maybe it won't be just a chunk of it this time. Maybe we'll see it in a media release before the game comes out.

It's easy to decide now if no one's going to start working for an indefinite period. If someone can work now, I'd rather that than waiting until sometime in 2014, and then finding out no one wants to do the work.

demagogue on 8/3/2013 at 03:29

You're thinking about it a bit backwards I think. They aren't "clarifying" anything, like some ideal map in reality or imagination. If it's canon, then they are "creating" open spaces in the City by the creation itself, and the map should accommodate that, filling those spaces in. (The game is the reality, not even the working map devs might use, IMO, except in the "typo" case like the compass issue in docks, then reason trumps.)

But then the question is if T4 is really the same canon as T1-3 to warrant that. If it's really a new canon, then it's not really "talking to" the old map when it wants to change things. (Like, e.g., T3 talked to T2 on the walled up old city).

Iceblade on 24/5/2013 at 14:17

I know this may be a little late to comment on, but after 33 pages of reading, I had a thought regarding the district layout.

Hightowne, Downtowne, and New Market could all be subdistricts of South Quarter. The mention of Old Quarter on the keeper map could then be a reference to another section of the city like we would reference an adjacent area in another state by the state name rather than label by the county name. Also remember that the OQ on keeper map in T1 didn't have any talismans in it when the devs originally created it, so there wouldn't be a mention of the subdistrict name. Another piece of evidence in support for this is that the font size on the assassins map for old quarter is larger than that of other areas mentioned. From the Assassin's map, you would think that all three areas are part of the Old Quarter until you see the Keeper map.

As a result, the Keeper map would fit in between the SQ, OQ, and Docks labels on the T3 map. I think then that the river with the wide segment in that area is actually the one referenced by those at Bafford's place such that Shalebridge is also located in SQ. Granted this places the ambush map right along the border between the Wayside and SQ, but it would mean that Rampone's could be very close to the Crippled Burrick.

I posit that the city was built mostly along the West side of the BFR (big freaking river) in its history resulting in the 4 quarters sectioning of the city with North, South, Olde and perhaps New on the west with subsequent expansion across the river resulting in the annexation of the Auldale and other rich areas including the Baron's Castle/Mansion/whatever with the recent (relative the city's age) construction of Dayport and Eastport. I further add that the Old Quarter incident caused subdistricts of that area to want to differentiate from the name Olde Quarter because of the negative associative with the sealed section, which is why Stonemarket is separate from the Old Quarter in T3.

Beleg Cúthalion on 25/5/2013 at 06:39

I don't have time now to check everything against Doc's documentation, but just this little note:

Quote Posted by Iceblade

[...] its history resulting in the 4 quarters sectioning of the city with North, South, Olde and perhaps New on the west with subsequent expansion across the river [...]

I very much like your thinking, but wouldn't it be more appropriate, if you found* a City next to a river, to build it right next to the river in order to profit from it? Why would you stay a bit away and only afterwards found a "new quarter" that actually uses the river? It might still work, though, if they were using one of the side branches beforehand. Then again, the whole layering thing of the City and its predecessors** could make this even more complicated.

* By "founding" I mean the slow building process, I'm just lazy right now.
** Why on earth is it "to precede" but "predecessor"?

jtr7 on 25/5/2013 at 07:05

Pre + cede vs. Pre + de + cede. Cede is the Big Friggin' River, and de- is an anabranch of language, involving a person in an official position.

demagogue on 26/5/2013 at 13:23

Quote Posted by Iceblade

The way the map is now if you look at the last version, Downtowne is already a subdistrict of Old Q, and and New Market is a subdistrict of Hightowne which is in the far NW fringe of the map (at the top of the valley looking down on the rest of the City), which is pushing beyond credibly calling it "South" Quarter anymore, and similar to your own reasoning seems to be a new addition beyond the original quarters.

The New Quarter like you say is basically the East side of the river, with the North Quarter being its northern area. But the City is divided into four grand quarters like you're saying -- Old, South, New, and North -- with the other areas filling in as sub-districts.

Thanks for the comments.