It's 2014, why do we have grid based towns?

I know you are using Unity, and have limited funds, but the grid based towns feel so out of place now that the graphics fidelity is much higher than Ultima 7... come to think of it, Ultima 9 wasn't that grid based either...

Perhaps the starting town is not at all a good representation of what a "proper" town will look like when the game is released, but this is where you chose to start us off and I'm posting my impressions of what I see.

I mean, is it REALLY so important to have so much player housing? Won't the people who wants that go and play Everquest Next or Landmark instead, which has crazy amounts of flexibility compared to this. Who wants a house in what looks like an American suburban neighborhood anyway? (Yes, I'm European... even our modern cities are more organic than what I saw in this alpha.)

Perhaps its just me, but I was looking forward to a new Ultima, with a detail rich believable world with inhabitants that have schedules and react to weather and where you can pick up and manipulate every little thing... this right now feels more like The Sims.

Here's hoping for some more Ultima in Release 3!

 

It's pre alpha ... give it a little more time -

Many folks have raised the issue of enhancing the look and feel of the towns/cities ... it would be more useful to provide suggestions

In terms of housing, yes it is important , when players move it, they will change the look of the city through decorations, role playing and look (due to housing choices)

"Grid based system looked like an American suburban neighborhood" ... they actually don't look like that (American Suburban neighborhoods ) and a lot of the ideas of city planning were inspired/borrowed from Europe (American tows and such)


Some suggestions folks have mentioned is .... narrowing the streets, adding natural curvature, incorporating town into the landscape, allowing the ability to configure house placement

Did you get the chance to visit Kingsport?

 

As I've said, they can sculpt the center of town, but at some point they need a fractal patten (grid, concentric circles, etc.) to allow for sprawling expansions.

 

I'll agree whit the last part of your post. The reason i pledged ,was the fact this was said to be just that, a new Ultima with a rich believable game play,where you could manipulate, pick up or drop what ever in game items.
Housing is a huge part to me but not everything, I enjoy my homes in every game i play for any time. Not much point in getting or having eye candy if i can't show it off. If WOW would have had houses i probably still be there today. If Ultima would have stopped at say, just before trammel and had the 3d Unity , behind camera, know i still be there as well. loved it till they got stupid.
There has never been a game like[Ultima] after, with so much one could do.Even in this year 2014 the vast majority are still looking and wanting the early days of Ultima in a game.

 

It's 2014. Why do we have GRID BASED CITIES IN REAL LIFE?

Edit: Clarification, every city in the real world is laid out on a grid. That's probably why.

 

You must be American.

 

... "as if millions of surveyors suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced" ...

The grid is a lie. There is no grid.

 

@OP: I felt the same way when I first viewed the early arial screen shots of towns. Then when I saw the screenshots of player housing and videos, I began to be even more concerned with the grid like lots. However after playing R2 I'm far less concerned. I think it works very well.

Still it would be nice to get more variety. I would be in favor of player housing have the same square footage but having different shaped lots. I think that would serve the community best in the long run.

 

Eobet, there have been multiple threads on this already. The one below is the most recent and best. Do the developers actually read these and care? I have no idea. But for what it's worth...

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...-possible-with-current-system-solutions.5822/

 

I think we'll see more variety in town layouts, the issue though is they have certain lot sizes they have to use, and people are going to want good locations in/near town, which means cramming them in, which leads to grid looks. I'm not sure if they'll attempt to figure out some different lot layouts, archs, circles, to make a less structured looking area. Also they've said we'd be able to change fences out, so we can hope it wont look so structured too in some areas.

We have some early town layouts floating around somewhere from an early video, those had rows of houses that aren't looking like such a grid, so maybe making the fences not straight will also help with making houses follow rivers/hills.

 

That's a good point. The way we mapped out territories in the USA was developed much later than the founding of most European cities. we had the chance to do it right. European towns are much more organic, and you might find really thin streets etc. European cities have existed for many hundreds of years whereas we in the USA very recently had a lot of open space that required a system to be able to determine who settles what, and where the borders are. They decided that they should map it out on grids and it worked out quite well. Also many of our towns were still evolving by the time the automobile was invented so most cities in the USA have roads that can accommodate trucks and cars. We also built our cities with telephones and powerlines in mind. Not many European cities had that luxury since they were founded many hundreds of years before the invention of the telephone.

 

It really depends on the town you live in in the US. Railroad towns are what really spawned the grid type systems, the engineers designed the towns. You can find towns out west that weren't railroad towns and see how, especially near downtown/older areas they have really odd layouts, you'll see more spoke style setups, This is very obvious in Montana, more-so than other areas. The difference is very noticeable I know right away if a town has a railroad or not. For an Example I know of in AZ, take the diffference between Flagstaff, AZ and Sedona, AZ. You can even check out their layouts on google maps.

 

It would be on my wild wish list to not only do away with the majority of player housing in the areas right around the towns, but to somehow start meshing all the areas together so you can walk from one town to another, much like most other Ultima games.

/p

 

Building our cities around the automobile was a huge mistake. One that needs not be duplicated in this game.

 

Roman towns (those built as the empire expanded) were often built on a grid. You see examples of this throughout Europe.

That noted, i would love to see more building variety myself. We should strive to be fair here though, it is pretty dang impressive given both the budget and the very early nature of these builds that there are so many different player structures. It might be worth remembering they are sharing the state of this game with us far earlier than what we would normally see.

 

Another major shift occurred with the mass distribution of cars - specially when they became affordable: and that's when the "American Suburbs" as many people refer to them "now" began to be created; and in fact many where attempts to move away from a grid base system ... ideas like the garden cities where tried to be implemented and the new influx of parks in cities where created as well (this was a reaction to factories, work conditions and what we refer to "Urban Sprawl" which today means something completely different)

The evolution of city planning and development in US is pretty unique and interesting, primarily because they did have examples to look at ... however it does not mean they got it right either ... lot's of mistakes and unintended consequences, in particularly in "how" space is utilized

 

I could also be from ancient Rome.
Where are you from? Cul-de-sac island?

 

In addition, For those who think that NA cities are all grid based, you should visit Halifax (NS) or St-John's (NL) for old organic cities in NA. Good luck finding your way around.

 

I really do hope to see much more variation in town layouts as they continue to build out the world. Aside from the grid layout, the ratio of NPC buildings vs player lots will always be small. While they could strive to strike a balance, it comes at a greater cost to build and populate them with interesting NPCs which means dialog trees and quests and whatnot. It's hoped that the existing player homes will be interesting social spaces in place of that. I'd hate to see housing simply be used as storage containers, because that would be a boring world. Perhaps once they finish the core game systems, they can concentrate on filling the towns with interesting content and local flavor.

 

cannot "like" your post enough!! Love Boston, hate the roads!
Many older New England cities have that English "organic design" to them...