The Two Big, Big Cities

[Gyges]

Have their names been revealed or are we still speculating wildly on which ones it will be? We should assume villages and castles/forts are likely precluded. Defiance Bay seems like a very likely candidate, given its historical significance.

 

The second big city was included in the 3,5 million stretch goal if you didn't know or remember.

I apologize in advance if this has already been covered, searching yielded few results.

 

Defiance Bay was already being worked on in update #62.

I suppose the real question is what is the second big city? Defiance Bay is the capitol of and the largest city in the Free Palatinate of Dyrwood, so a smaller city in the exact same country seems unlikely. If the Vailian Republics are next might it be Ozia?

 

Consult your map gentlemen.

Edited June 7, 2014 by Gyges

[Greensleeve]

Defiance Bay and Twin Elms are the two big cities. One of the past few updates (look for Twin Elms in the title or body of text or something) confirmed the second one. 

[Karkarov]

I am not sure how legit that map will be long term.  We need to wait for closer to release when they will release a map that is a little more indicative of the actual games size.

[Sensuki]

I can't remember when Twin Elms was first confirmed to be Big City #2 but it was later last year sometime. It's mentioned here in Update 68 and Update 70 anyway.

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/64667-update-68-art/

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/64964-update-70-new-year-project-update/

 

Twin Elms will be four maps large. Defiance Bay is 5 maps large.

[Bryy]

I am not sure how legit that map will be long term.  We need to wait for closer to release when they will release a map that is a little more indicative of the actual games size.

That map is most likely legit, but the game world will be much smaller.

[Sensuki]

That's a legit world map. The world map that the devs have been using was shown in Josh Sawyer's GDC presentation. It's just a temporary one with a Kaz mood drawing of the region as a background.

 

 

(btw the mspaint names are mine, I made this last year)

 

Unknown Cave Dungeon might be Cliaban Rilag. The W area on the beach north of Defiance Bay might be Anslog's Compass. The Outsource W area between Dyrford and Valley of Hector is likely this area and it's probably not Outsourced.

Edited June 8, 2014 by Sensuki

[Karkarov]

That's a legit world map. The world map that the devs have been using was shown in Josh Sawyer's GDC presentation. It's just a temporary one with a Kaz mood drawing of the region as a background.

 

 

(btw the mspaint names are mine, I made this last year)

 

Unknown Cave Dungeon might be Cliaban Rilag. The W area on the beach north of Defiance Bay might be Anslog's Compass. The Outsource W area between Dyrford and Valley of Hector is likely this area and it's probably not Outsourced.

Yeah I have seen this pic before and it is sort of terrible but it makes the game look like it will be 2 small towns, 2 big towns, and a bunch of wilderness with like maybe 2-3 actual non town dungeons.  In effect it looks really really tiny.  Hoping for something a little more "in between".

Edited June 8, 2014 by Karkarov

[Greensleeve]

 

That's a legit world map. The world map that the devs have been using was shown in Josh Sawyer's GDC presentation. It's just a temporary one with a Kaz mood drawing of the region as a background.

 

 

(btw the mspaint names are mine, I made this last year)

 

Unknown Cave Dungeon might be Cliaban Rilag. The W area on the beach north of Defiance Bay might be Anslog's Compass. The Outsource W area between Dyrford and Valley of Hector is likely this area and it's probably not Outsourced.

Yeah I have seen this pic before and it is sort of terrible but it makes the game look like it will be 2 small towns, 2 big towns, and a bunch of wilderness with like maybe 2-3 actual non town dungeons.  In effect it looks really really tiny.  Hoping for something a little more "in between".

 

 

I'm not sure why this is terrible. Baldur's Gate 2 had 1 big town (5 maps), 3 small town (Trademeet, Brynnlaw, Ust Natha), a few non-dungeon areas, and dungeons. We can make no judgement on dungeons based on this map, and it seems to have as many of the other types, at least. Judging the map as horrible isn't very useful at this early stage. 

 

I will, however, agree with that the map feels too cramped. Making the map larger would give us a better sense of scale, and it would make the world feel like a larger place, as opposed to a small neighbourhood you trek across in a day or so. 

[mstark]

I'm not sure why this is terrible. Baldur's Gate 2 had 1 big town (5 maps), 3 small town (Trademeet, Brynnlaw, Ust Natha), a few non-dungeon areas, and dungeons. We can make no judgement on dungeons based on this map, and it seems to have as many of the other types, at least. Judging the map as horrible isn't very useful at this early stage.

 

Athkatla was 8 areas:

 

 

 

I'm kind of expecting Defiance Bay + Twin Elms to, together, have about as much content as Athkatla did in BG2. Josh talked quite a bit about how he likes the idea of 2 content hubs, as opposed to a single one. I'm guessing Twin Elms is reached about halfway through the game, similarly to how the protagonist can return to Athkatla towards the end of BG2.

 

I will, however, agree with that the map feels too cramped. Making the map larger would give us a better sense of scale, and it would make the world feel like a larger place, as opposed to a small neighbourhood you trek across in a day or so.

Completely agree. Edited June 8, 2014 by mstark

[Gyges]

I will, however, agree with that the map feels too cramped. Making the map larger would give us a better sense of scale, and it would make the world feel like a larger place, as opposed to a small neighbourhood you trek across in a day or so. 

 

 

I agree, but the cities are obviously oversized compared to the geography in the picture, which is what makes it feel cramped. I mean, look at the mountains in the background and compare it to the cave opening.

Edited June 8, 2014 by Gyges

[Sensuki]

I too hope there's more physical locations on the world map than that. That may have been just how many they had at that time in Development, considering that Twin Elms was just a one-map stub.

[Messier-31]

I agree, but the cities are obviously oversized compared to the geography in the picture, which is what makes it feel cramped. I mean, look at the mountains in the background and compare it to the cave opening.

 

Mate, these are just work in progres placeholders, like big icons on your desktop. Every location on that map is significantly taller than the trees, ffs.

[Karkarov]

I will, however, agree with that the map feels too cramped. Making the map larger would give us a better sense of scale, and it would make the world feel like a larger place, as opposed to a small neighbourhood you trek across in a day or so. 

Yeah that's my point.  The way the map is laid out it looks like two decent size cities and a couple small villages that would take a day, maybe two to travel across.  It doesn't look like a "country" or a "region".  It looks more like one or two counties.  I am sure as we get closer to release the map will become more fleshed out and start considering some of that "scale" it has crossed out.

[Elerond]

 

I will, however, agree with that the map feels too cramped. Making the map larger would give us a better sense of scale, and it would make the world feel like a larger place, as opposed to a small neighbourhood you trek across in a day or so. 

Yeah that's my point.  The way the map is laid out it looks like two decent size cities and a couple small villages that would take a day, maybe two to travel across.  It doesn't look like a "country" or a "region".  It looks more like one or two counties.  I am sure as we get closer to release the map will become more fleshed out and start considering some of that "scale" it has crossed out.

 

 

That map is only small portion of Dyrwood, which in my understanding is region size of Spain.

 

Map of Dyrwood from kickstarter page. 

 

It seem that as Stronghold should actually be Twin Elms that that map don't yet have all the hubs in place or hub icons aren't up to date.

Edited June 9, 2014 by Elerond

[Gyges]

 

I agree, but the cities are obviously oversized compared to the geography in the picture, which is what makes it feel cramped. I mean, look at the mountains in the background and compare it to the cave opening.

 

Mate, these are just work in progres placeholders, like big icons on your desktop. Every location on that map is significantly taller than the trees, ffs.

 

 

That's exactly what i was pointing out.

[Greensleeve]

 

 

I will, however, agree with that the map feels too cramped. Making the map larger would give us a better sense of scale, and it would make the world feel like a larger place, as opposed to a small neighbourhood you trek across in a day or so. 

Yeah that's my point.  The way the map is laid out it looks like two decent size cities and a couple small villages that would take a day, maybe two to travel across.  It doesn't look like a "country" or a "region".  It looks more like one or two counties.  I am sure as we get closer to release the map will become more fleshed out and start considering some of that "scale" it has crossed out.

 

 

That map is only small portion of Dyrwood, which in my understanding is region size of Spain.

 

Map of Dyrwood from kickstarter page. 

 

It seem that as Stronghold should actually be Twin Elms that that map don't yet have all the hubs in place or hub icons aren't up to date.

 

 

Even if the map is only part of the region, it's still between 35-50% of a region the size of Spain. Spain is the second largest country in Europe (in area at least) and the region shown should feel much larger than the current state. 

[Elerond]

 

 

 

 

I will, however, agree with that the map feels too cramped. Making the map larger would give us a better sense of scale, and it would make the world feel like a larger place, as opposed to a small neighbourhood you trek across in a day or so.

Yeah that's my point.  The way the map is laid out it looks like two decent size cities and a couple small villages that would take a day, maybe two to travel across.  It doesn't look like a "country" or a "region".  It looks more like one or two counties.  I am sure as we get closer to release the map will become more fleshed out and start considering some of that "scale" it has crossed out.

 

 

That map is only small portion of Dyrwood, which in my understanding is region size of Spain.

 

Map of Dyrwood from kickstarter page. 

 

It seem that as Stronghold should actually be Twin Elms that that map don't yet have all the hubs in place or hub icons aren't up to date.

 

 

 

Even if the map is only part of the region, it's still between 35-50% of a region the size of Spain. Spain is the second largest country in Europe (in area at least) and the region shown should feel much larger than the current state.

 

 

I would say that that is the area which that map covers, so it is much smaller than 35-50% of spain, more like 5-10%. which is about 25k - 50k square kilometers (100 km x 250 km - 500 km).

[Mor]

Lets not forget that this is a colonial area, that most of Ayder Empire --located westward across the ocean) cities are sprawled on the shoreline and are not included, while inland is the forest of Eir Glanfath, where two wars have been fought over trying to push in and were terrorized by mind hunters...

 

 

p.s. from what we gathered 'Free Palatine of Dyrwood' is at least twice as large as the area where the game would take place.

[Bryy]

 

 

 

 

 

I will, however, agree with that the map feels too cramped. Making the map larger would give us a better sense of scale, and it would make the world feel like a larger place, as opposed to a small neighbourhood you trek across in a day or so.

Yeah that's my point.  The way the map is laid out it looks like two decent size cities and a couple small villages that would take a day, maybe two to travel across.  It doesn't look like a "country" or a "region".  It looks more like one or two counties.  I am sure as we get closer to release the map will become more fleshed out and start considering some of that "scale" it has crossed out.

 

 

That map is only small portion of Dyrwood, which in my understanding is region size of Spain.

 

Map of Dyrwood from kickstarter page. 

 

It seem that as Stronghold should actually be Twin Elms that that map don't yet have all the hubs in place or hub icons aren't up to date.

 

 

 

Even if the map is only part of the region, it's still between 35-50% of a region the size of Spain. Spain is the second largest country in Europe (in area at least) and the region shown should feel much larger than the current state.

 

 

I would say that that is the area which that map covers, so it is much smaller than 35-50% of spain, more like 5-10%. which is about 25k - 50k square kilometers (100 km x 250 km - 500 km).

 

The expansions names?

 

Pillars of Eternity: Tales of the Pearl Coast.

[mstark]

The expansions names?

 

Pillars of Eternity: Tales of the Pearl Coast.

 

Nailed it.

[rjshae]

The cities may be big, but that doesn't necessarily mean the city game areas are going to be profuse. We'll probably see a few highlight areas and some adventuring locales in each city.

[Sensuki]

There's not actually that much content in Baldur's Gate (as in the city in Baldur's Gate 1). I did every available hand-placed encounter and quest bar two fetch quests in an evening the other night (and one of those was from Unfinished Business). That said I knew exactly where to go for all of them.

 

That also includes me doing Candlekeep Revisit and Chapter 7 stuff too. Took me maybe 6 hours or something, tops.

[Tuckey]

I'm wondering if there will be under city areas in each city. In bg2 you had sewers and catacombs. In Defiance Bay there will likely be a sunken city bit seeing as part of the city is submerged. Twin Elms probably has under-city ruins of the old city.

[Lephys]

You know... ruins always sink (realistically so), but, in a fantasy world (not necessarily PoE), I think it'd be interesting to have a previous civilization's ruins actually end up ABOVE the new civilization, due to some catastrophic alchemical/magical catastrophe.

 

So long as the setting involved a lack of altitude-exploring technology, it would be infeasible to reach these ruins for quite some time. Or maybe there are even remnants of towers that will get you up to them, but no one really goes up there because of the danger (just like with going downward into dangerous/infested subterranean ruins.)

[mstark]

You know... ruins always sink (realistically so), but, in a fantasy world (not necessarily PoE), I think it'd be interesting to have a previous civilization's ruins actually end up ABOVE the new civilization, due to some catastrophic alchemical/magical catastrophe.

 

So long as the setting involved a lack of altitude-exploring technology, it would be infeasible to reach these ruins for quite some time. Or maybe there are even remnants of towers that will get you up to them, but no one really goes up there because of the danger (just like with going downward into dangerous/infested subterranean ruins.)

It wouldn't be too infeasible to imagine older buildings ending up above newer ones in a treetop city, if Twin Elms is going to be anything like Suldanessellar. Edited June 11, 2014 by mstark