Bombur8 said:

I'm both happy and very sad about the reboot of Pelargir. Happy beacause I always thought the city was too large compared to Osgiliath and the new one seems a bit smaller. But more sad because I love so much the design that was used for the first one, with half circle walls, the triangle thing and the central tower. In my opinion, the new one is by far less interesting. If I understand, it have been changed because Tolkien compared somewhere the city to Venise, but I really don't see what prevent us to make the first design look like the italian city. The outer "round part" ould be left like that (a bit smaller though), but the central triangles could be maked like Venise.

I think that could be a very good mix of the best of both designs .


A link to Project Pelargir (never finished), a greatly impressive modelling project using that design :
http://wiki.lindefirion.net/ProjectPelargir

A map of the old design, the colored parts are the ones that should be "venisified" :

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Ye, maybe the general design isn't that exiting then the one made by ma5 but the project is still in early stages so we dont know what wod and cre come up with. I wouldn't say it will be less interesting, because the house style is something completly new in gondor and even the whole server. And tbh i didn't like the ones ma5 made so for me its a win, win. I think the design will make a beautifull picture at the end.

Couple of thing that gives a different outlook on pelargir:

- the maps that a lot of people bring up are mostly if not all from merp. Not the skyrim mod community for a middle earth in skyrim but a boardgame that got made by a seperate company back in the 80's. This company doesn't exist anymore and I doubt anyone plays the game after that. To be fit for playing enjoyement, the makers put a lot of non-lore stuff in, like hobbits doing magic and adding a lot of info on places that had gaps in the lore. Pelargir is one of those maps. Am I saying that we can't use that for our maps? No, but we should be careful of contradicting info and doublecheck our sources when it comes to lore. In this case Tolkien imagines a very medieval naval supperiour city for pelargir which in real life was venice. This city design of merp does look pretty good but some aspects don't fit in well in terms of realism (and thus making a convincing build). For one, the blueprint design doesn't match the way they would construct cities in medieval days even with the help of fantasy aspects of middle earth. Although it isn't a big deal, it's something to think about when constructing atmospheric builds.

-another thing is fitting in the feel of epicness within our scale of the map. If we want to make the city convincing and touch the wow-factor within people, we would have to make pretty wide canals and with the anduin closeby, it would not be pretty realistic at certain points. Fot those of you that haven't tried constructing major cities, you would think this is no big deal, but it does require some planning and fiddling.

-another thing is that we like to implement our style to builds and make something unique out of everything. We had a lot of help from the movies but when you step into undiscovered terrain like pelargir, it isn't easy to make it equally good as the other stuff. That and the fact that we sort of want every city to have it's own personality forces us a little to come up with something different. I am not saying that the triangle design would force uw reusing the same style, but it is a very ordered and straight design which would lean towards the use of our previous straight and static designing of builds. Again sort of hard to imagine if you haven't been on the drawing board of a lot of builds.

-you also don't know how the ultimate plan will look like cause it hasn't been designed yet. It would be cool of some would get together and make a very crude concept of the venitian style with a part of the triangle plan to see if it works or not. So contacting the project leaders and talking about it would benefit the ideas more than a flood of input from a lot of players on a single forum post. Testing stuff out is a bit more constructive in that matter than talking about doing stuff. Like I said this doesn't have to be vry detailed things, just crude concepts and test to see if it would work.

-thinking of the last point, it could be that the project leaders will use bits and pieces of the map, however you will have to ask them to be sure. I think it would clash with the current ideas a little to much but that's just my opinion.

Like I said before, these points aren't set into stone but just ways to give a different point of view and a better understanding of peoples actions and opinions. If anything remains unclear, feel free to approach me to talk about it.

The leaders are @Credoo and @wodleth .

Bombur8 said:

In my opinion, Minas Tirith or any dwarven/many elvish settlement are far more unrealisctic...

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I agree, I think that if our society tried, we could easily build Pelargir. However, building Barad-dur or Moria would be a whole lot harder IMO.

I would also note that some parts of venice are pretty organised, like l'arsinale and il pallazzo di doge (with it's surroundings). But that doesn't really matter.

I also think credoo and wod still have to come up with most of the general aspects which is why they haven't posted about it yet. Might have also forgot it a bit. But I would really like to see some tests before using ideas if I would be the project leader.

I know what you mean about the unreal minas builds and the likes but those have lore and in this case it doesn't. To make those builds convincing to the general public you got to consider the realism of it otherwise people wouldn't buy it.

On another note, I also think wod and credoo want to be original this time instead of the predecessors trying for the triangle build. It's all a matter of taste so there isn't always a better solution to do stuff.

Will_em said:

I would also note that some parts of venice are pretty organised, like l'arsinale and il pallazzo di doge (with it's surroundings). But that doesn't really matter.

I also think credoo and wod still have to come up with most of the general aspects which is why they haven't posted about it yet. Might have also forgot it a bit. But I would really like to see some tests before using ideas if I would be the project leader.

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Wait....if we are building this like Venice, will PLG be mostly supported on wood kinda like Laketown?

333478 said:

Wait....if we are building this like Venice, will PLG be mostly supported on wood kinda like Laketown?

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Venice is not constructed on wood, you know that right? It's not that we will also copy the city's blueprint rather the style. I heard wod and cred are basing the design on a drawing tolkien made himself.

Will_em said:

Venice is not constructed on wood, you know that right? It's not that we will also copy the city's blueprint rather the style. I heard wod and cred are basing the design on a drawing tolkien made himself.

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It IS supported in some sections by wood and mud underwater. That's why Venice is sinking, rotting wood platforms underneath.

333478 said:

It IS supported in some sections by wood and mud underwater. That's why Venice is sinking, rotting wood platforms underneath.

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Did not know that but again, style not construction. Sort of not the point in this topic.

Ps: the wood doesn't rot since it's submerged by water and mud and no oxygen can reach it. Instead it petrifies to a stonelike material. The sinking of venice is caused mainly by high tides and the rising of the sea level helps it occur more often.

I am also a project staff on this, just so ya know

While Moria or Minas Tirith are much more unrealistic than the triangle design of Pelargir, they are based in the lore. Pelargir's shape was never stated in the lore, so it seems like it would be reasonable to assume that it is realistic. Besides, the new Pelargir will be much more awesome in my opinion

This picture is what motivated us to change the shape (plus that the triangular + circle planning would be a pain in the butt):


And since Tolkien never described the actual layout of Pelargir, only that it was the chief port of Gondor and built by the Faithful. We decided it would be much cooler to do it like this ^

It's pretty much all about what you like, @Credoo and I ''fell in love'' with the concept above, very much like you and the triangular shape.

Always liked Homie's design much more than the triangle. Works better as an actual port that way as well.

I did not like the triangular layout ma5termind did. He took the map that you had as a reference and that would have made the Pela the biggest city we have build as of yet which was not something I would have wanted.

On another note it would not be efficient in terms of use of space. You might think why do you want to be efficient in building. But on diagonals you are almost forced to build diagonal otherwise you will lose allot of space (try fitting a square in a triangle). On paper it looks nice but when working with triangle shapes it tends to give an headache.
Also I like a more natural look.

Tolkien said in one of his letters after he visited Venice he imagined Pela to look similar to that. But anyway Pela is free game not allot of lore behind it and that allows us to allot of freedom in terms of general layout planning. And since i'm not a big fan of triangular shaded city's I tend to go with a similar plan that our famous Wookie made.

Will_em said:

Did not know that but again, style not construction. Sort of not the point in this topic.

Ps: the wood doesn't rot since it's submerged by water and mud and no oxygen can reach it. Instead it petrifies to a stonelike material. The sinking of venice is caused mainly by high tides and the rising of the sea level helps it occur more often.

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Nice job Will, you officially are better at history than my teacher! Thanks for the correction!

I just think the triangle just looks so unatural, I imagine some varied sized islands, with 3 main large ones scattered around the river with wooden bridges connected the islands that have important buildings and maybe some richer houses and inns and docks in either side of the river bank with poor housing closer to the docks graduallly turning into medium houses so that the line of districts is blurred much like a city is that has evolved over time before. the city walls. Can't really show my idea as an image right now as I'm on my phone.