Talk:Colonial Bay
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Grid Renovation: Ideas, Musings and Questions
Here are my thoughts relating renovating the grid. Please feel free to mark up sections with your comments. Sign and date things by including four tildes (~) in a row, so we know who said what when. -- Stephie 15:34, 25 August 2007 (EDT)
Situation of Colonial Bay
Though we follow in the great tradition of not quite placing our fictional city on the map, it can be useful to have some sense approximately where it is. Given it's clear that it's on the western coast of Chesapeake Bay, not too far from the ocean proper and presumably not near any real major city, I place it roughly on one of the peninsulas east of Richmond, and suggest that for purposes of calculating distances to other cities Kilmarnock VA is a reasonable appoximate spot to use. This puts Richmond at about 72 miles and Washington at about 137 by road. The local geography, however, does not correspond to any real world place (I considered Gwynn Island as Sandy Bottoms but the details are wrong).
General history of Colonial Bay (proposal)
The oldest parts of the city proper are the Main Street and East Colonial Heights areas - interesting because they're not coastal. I suggest this is because the eastern side of the city was originally marshy. The name Colonial Heights suggests a hill (if a low one: as far as I can make out the whole Chesapeake Bay region is low-lying) and hints that this was the first solid ground, with Main Street perhaps running down a ridge from it northwards. The sewers are interesting here: one drain runs from Colonial Height down Main Steet and thence to Courtland Way (away from the sea!) before running down a long pipe to the docks. This suggests to me that the original outlet was at Courtland Way into a hypothetical Harrisburg Creek, long since paved over. Harrisburg was a separate settlement (and fort) at the end of this creek, and Colonial College was probably on the creek too if its current site is its historic one. Sandy Bottoms Island had a fortification guarding the harbours and Chesapeake bay - the fortification later being turned into the prison and expanded.
The East Side and Waterfront I think was largely a nineteenth century development: draining the marshes, dredging a deeper harbour for larger ships, and importanly connecting to the railway. Until the railway one took goods as far as one could by boat; so the great economic expansion of Colonial Bay started at the point the railways became more efficent than ships. The new eastern side of town grew rapidly with new industries and immigrants (Chinatown dates from this time). This was of course also a time when beaches became popular, so the seafront development was to be expected.
The east side inevitable grew dirty with heavy industry then reduced to slums with the decline of such industries in the twentieth century. New developments were to the west side, in the vicinity of the now Stardancer Boulevard. The city became conurbated with Harrisburg, by that point a fashionable suburb as the city grew more dirty.
The prestige of alien first contact and the effect of alien technology revitalised the city in the twenty-first century. The eastside slums were cleared and the new Golden Sands developments replaced them - inevitably, though, the poor had to go somewhere, and low unfashionable Harrisburg suffered for it. The southern west side contined to thrive, however, with Via da Vance growing out toward also-expanding suburbs.
Sandy Bottoms Island and the Bridge
The bridge is perhaps what puzzles me most about Colonial Bay: it's an impressive and doubtless expensive bridge that leads nowhere. The island is in the centre of the bay, and appears to be uninhabited but for seabirds and transient tourists and beachgoers; the road doesn't go on anywhere.
So I propose there used to be a population on the island: a fishing village. The bridge was built largely with the help of a local rich philanthropist for the benefit of the fishing families (the cynical might not that he also owned most of the island and perhaps reckoned he could make his money back selling seaside properties effectively at the heart of the city). In the end, though, the philanthropist died heirless just after the bridge was built and the property developments never happened: indeed the land was willed to the city as a park. A few years later, a terrible storm swept much of the village into the sea and wrecked most of the boats, and the remaining inhabitants abandoned the settlement.
But by that point the people of Colonial Bay were fond of their bridge to the island park, and it had become a tourist attraction in itself, so the bridge is maintained despite its arguable extravagance. Most people maintain it's worth it for the tourist trade.
Proposed Grid Changes
The main purpose of the changes to the grid is to make the city feel it proper size: currently the rooms are given street names, meaning both that one feels one should take things to an RRP room if one goes to a back street and that the city seems to be far too small. So the streets are to be replaced with city districts instead, so more than one street is represented.
That said, I hope to keep the practical changes to the OOC geography minimal, and to avoid changes to IC geography entirely (except where the the existing grid contradicts itself). In many cases there will be a 1:1 correspondence between the old rooms and new, and seldom should it be more complicated than 1:2 or 2:1. (I speak of outdoor 'rooms'. Some of the indoor ones could perhaps do with simplifying more: the hospital, for instance, is unnecesarily complex for most RP purposes and might well be reduced more than 2:1 - but I'm not concerned with indoor rooms at this stage.) A few rooms will be added to represent missing districts: most likely residential and perhaps industrial districts, which are underrepresented currently compared with commercial ones due to the emphasis on the main roads. If there are any district rooms you think the grid sorely needs, please suggest them.
Virtual places are deprecated (or so I propose, as most people seem not to like them). In their place I propose to make standard that green highlight means +inspectable, which allows for indefinite amounts of expanded description with neither spamming everyone who enters the room nor the sometimes awkward constraints of the virtual places; virtual places in any room I convert with be appropriate converted.
Particular Changes by Region
The are the principal changes (non-1:1-ness) that I envisage for already existing rooms; I'll wait for feedback before proposing particular new rooms.
Harrisburg
Harrisburg Lane is now split into poor (South) and poorer (North), with the oddity of the zoo, battlefield and power company being in with the poorer section. I envisage that these are actually just outside Harrisburg, where there's more land, and tourists can probably get there quite happily without experiencing too much of Harrisburg, so think they deserve their own room - it's a very different flavour. But should the other half of Harrisburg North then be merged with Harrisburg South? That it gets poorer as you go north is very easily worked into the desc and so argaubly one room will do, but probably Harrisburg is ICly a fair size and and it also sees a lot of play, so it may feel wrong to roll our poor/gang-ridden section of town into one room. Views? And if more than one room, should we give a more definite feel to the split, and if so, what?
Courtland Way/CBSU
I propose to simplify CBSU by having the campus bulding directly accessible from "University Grounds" without having to go into the quad first (except the stadium, which is explicitly not on the main campus and so should be moved to whatever Courtland Way is renamed). I envisage that between here and Harrisburg is largely cheap student housing; this can probably be worked into desc here rather than having a new room: if fits with the university-area theme.
Western Suburbs
The Western Roads description needs improving, not least because I'm sure before things get that desolate you have to pass through Richmond! The suburbs themselves perhaps should be expanded just to get the sense there are lots of them - this is the direction the city is mostly growing, too. Still, adding a room or tow just to get this feeling is unsatisfactory. Perhaps we should name and give at least some flavour to each of several suburbs?
Stardancer Boulevard
The two halves of Stardancer could be rolled into one - they're desced much the same anyway. And theoretically they're contiguuous, with Yorl Blvd interesecting them. "Alienville" - hm, we need a good name (preferably better than that!) for this sector of town.
Main Street
Arguably, Main Street (central) and Main Street South could be rolled into one since they're neardly identical, but they have a far number of exits each, and this is a significant part of town. It might be better to try to distinguish them in flavour a bit. (Alternatively, maybe combine them but put some hitherto unseen housing(?) behind them as a separare room - this is a case where the street really might be more just a street than a distict). Thoughts?
Golden Sands
There is going to be a new room off Golden Sands north and the Yacht Club, as an IC extension to the grid, largely of high-rent waterfront property - stay tuned! (Bayside Academy is in this room area, too.)
As for what's further down the coast and why the city doesn't extend that way: I have a sketch map which suggests it's largely exposed sand dunes which make for a poor place to build, though maybe a nice place to go for a walk. Also important to the shellfish industry and perhaps protected. Maybe a room for that will happen too.
Wharf Street and Beach Street
Here's an anomaly of the street-based grid: I'm pretty sure that Wharf Street North intersects Beach Street. Wharf Street is "parallel" to the coast line (and hence curved since it's a bay) Beach Street seems to be the continuation of Sea Breeze Blvd both in map and description, but it talks of seafront properties and proximity to the sea, and the mall is called Boardwalk Mall - I'm pretty sure that the mall is actually east of Wharf Street. In any case the simplest way to resolve this is simply to join Wharf Street North and Beach Street into the Beach District, which works quite nicely.
Ming Street
Arguably the two halves of Ming Street could be lumped (together with the surrounding streets) as Chinatown, particularly given the area seems to be geographically small. But again, this is a popular area RP-wise. But again, we often have the trouble of people waiting for the RP in the wrong half of Ming Street! Opinions?
Route 9 Exits
I wonder if the Coliseum should be made a proper room, since it's become a permanent feature.
The main trouble here is working out exactly where things lie, since the description doesn't say. To some extent I'll decide from my map and where things fit, but I'd like the opinion of the old-timers: is Hero Lane closer to the city or further away than the Transport Nexus? Both are (theorerically) on the MagLev, but I'd like to know in which order!
Actually, the ASCII map suggests a possible vague layout, which I used for the MagLev lines. -- Stephie 07:43, 26 August 2007 (EDT)
Ocean
Obviously this is a big catchall and we don't want to expand too much, but I think the first Ocean room should actually be called Chesapeake Bay.
Sky
I think the tree structure the sky currently has is fine, but it needs to open onto a few new rooms and the descs need to be individualised.
Sewers
The sewers don't really cover the whole city, which some might see as a design flaw. Perhaps they should be extended - or at least exits to more than one area be put in in existing tunnels.
MagLev
I'm planning to rework this as an ordinary room, but if possible to try to keep the sense that it's not just teleporting and there is a journey involved, even if you can get there quickly OOCly. I've a few ideas about how to do this and will decide once I know if the coolest is workable. :)
I have the MagLev system worked out now. As currently on the grid there are a few discrepancies: places where you can only get on it, and places where you can only get off it! -- Stephie 17:49, 27 August 2007 (EDT)
Mall
Is the Mega Mall really called Boardwalk Mall? It gives that name in the EVENTS, but since it's not on the boardwalk I can't help wondering is this is some older mall from before the time shift.
-- Stephie 05:58, 13 December 2006 (EST)
Making up names
I've found I've had to make up a lot of names for the purpose of creating links to future articles: e.g. I called the art museum the Colonial Bay Museum of Art. In all cases I've chosen similarly mundane names. If we want anything more colourful, it's probably best to come up with the names now before these links are expanded on!
-- Stephie 06:01, 13 December 2006 (EST)
Changes made to EVENTS text
In the EVENTS White Marsh appears in one place as What Marsh; I've corrected this.
In the history it mentions CBSU have 30,000 students (currently 40,000). Given that no date was attached to this number and that it's highly unlikely it was that large at its founding (which would be the implied date), I thought it best quietly to drop the number.
-- Stephie 06:04, 13 December 2006 (EST)
Suggested changes
Probably some of the things mentioned in the summary text (e.g. Serafino's) should be moved to Points of Interest (so far I've largely stuck to the orginal EVENTS structure). I envisage a section on the various areas of towns with links to streets and major features.
-- Stephie 06:07, 13 December 2006 (EST)
