@Thenomain said:
@silentsophia said:
Zafirah
The mysteries continues to fall into place. All the people I thought were cool are, indeed, cool
Its funny. I think this is the first place where I've listed the characters I've played and been able to reconnect with folks. We should've done this over at WORA too. Then again, maybe not. The vibe seems more chill here.
@Miss-Demeanor said:
GUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUS!
You are missed!
Heh. I tried to log in as Gus but no, not as a Brood.
@Thenomain said:
@Creepy said:
- Tori: Summer Manikin Elemental (killbot)
And now we know. And knowing is half the murderous prostitute.
Awww. Miss you Kill-Mommy. 
I base it on how big you want the player base to be, and what sort of stuff you want to include. As an example, when I built the grid for The Reach, we knew (or hoped anyway) it was going to be a big player base so that necessitated plenty of rooms. The grid's skeleton was sorta in place when I took over the pre-launch build so I left the street names intact and expanded outwards. Diversity of the environment was important, so I added swampy wilderness areas for a more rural character base, added some underground caves, expanded the cemetery, etc. Basically, I thought to myself, HiD/Gangrels need wilderness, Bone Shadows need cemeteries, etc. Financial/crime levels played into the design as well. We wanted some high crime, impoverished areas, and we wanted some wealthy areas.
As far as mapping goes, modeling after an existing city's general structure, then filling in the gaps with your custom content is a good way to go. You can search for things like "city-name neighborhoods" or "voting districts" or "crime rate map" to broadly divide the city into large chunks, then drill down from there.
The setting's geography plays a big role too in how you lay out the grid. So does the age of the city you're looking to copy/emulate.
GoogleEarth was helpful with some of the stuff I did on HM. Mozart sent me the Earth files with the grid breakdown and I could see how they'd separated everything based on the major streets.
Haunted Memories: There were several. My most memorable characters included:
The Reach:
CoFaB: Briefly
Reno: Started playing here but had some serious health issues.
I'm sure there are more. I tend to sorta shut down when RL gets crushing so I've walked away to focus on home issues many times over the years.
I can see your points and understand where you're coming from. I think the main translation issue is a matter of visually wrapping one's head around the size and scope of the grid, in comparison to a real life representation.
Based on the wiki data present, the city has a Total Metro Land Area of 73.5 sq. mi with a Metro Population of 732,521.
That's double the land area of Manhattan (33.77 sq miles, not counting the boroughs) with a little less than half its population (1.6 million). So the scale of Eldritch, physically, isn't huge but I wonder if the available space would really equate to such a compact demographic. I suppose it does, depending on the historical development as various ethnic groups arrived and pretty much "found space where they could".
BTW, the setting places Detroit's population into Savannah's footprint. I think its a good mix to allow for a large diversity without a sprawling grid. Makes sense with your focus on claiming turf and struggling to keep it. Thought there's something to be said for having a large grid. Plenty of discussions regarding that topic to be had outside this thread though.
I did a read-though of the wiki content thus far, including the news files. This looks like it will be an excellent and well thought out setting, pending Werewolf additions once the new core is released. I have my fingers crossed that they (they being Onyx, not you folks) don't wreck WtF overly much.
The neighborhood system is very interesting. Given the soft opening (or whatever else you'd like to call it) and initial player disorganization, do you intend to uphold the "3 players to claim a neighborhood" or will you allow smaller units to pitch ideas for neighborhoods without owning them?
I noticed in a few of the grid-square descriptions, notably MW1 and MW2, that there is a Pan-Asian, Eastern European, and Middle Eastern component. That's a pretty huge and diverse ethnic and religious spread. Would my assumption that you intend the neighborhood system to allow for some narrow focus ethnic communities (Chinatown, Little Albania, etc.) be correct or did you want those areas to be a general ethnic mishmash?
"The Mob" seems to be a general clumping of organized crime that isn't Triad or Mexican Cartel. Do you intend to flesh out some sort of overall, loose structure that portrays how all the various mobs (Russian, Irish, Amish, Albanian, etc.) work together under this framework? Will players take a general Status-Mob merit or will they focus on their Status-Amish Mafia specification?
How involved in the God-Machine happenings will players from the non-Demon spheres be? How rare will knowledge of its existence be for the general supernatural population?
Great start guys. Looking forward to playing there.
