that Retro consumerist look for Archtecture

[chriswebb2020.736]

Whoa, Night City is bigger than I thought. It'd be stupid to hope that it will be that big in the game right?

Well, The Witcher 3 open world map is supposed to be 20% bigger than the Skyrim map, so if CDPR can make the 2077 map a bit bigger than TW3 map I think it could be pretty damn big. Although they can basically miss out a good portion of the North East corner, what with a 2KT nuke going off there in 2024. But then there is also the wasteland outside the city...

 

[thewarsend]

Well, The Witcher 3 open world map is supposed to be 20% bigger than the Skyrim map, so if CDPR can make the 2077 map a bit bigger than TW3 map I think it could be pretty damn big. Although they can basically miss out a good portion of the North East corner, what with a 2KT nuke going off there in 2024. But then there is also the wasteland outside the city...

Nah.. Wake me up when they made a bigger world map than Daggerfall..


The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion -- 16 square miles
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind -- 6 square miles
The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall -- 62 square miles

That means Daggerfall is bigger than rest of the Elder Scroll titles combined... Hell yeah..

 

[chriswebb2020.736]

You got your number a little wrong buddy:

The Daggerfall map covered 62,000 square miles...

 

[thewarsend]

You got your number a little wrong buddy:

The Daggerfall map covered 62,000 square miles...

I copy&paste'd the number.. It is an error on original posters part..

Also my point was that Daggerfall, an old game, made with outdated technology, has outdone any modern game we ever know.. Thats something.. Nowadays gaming companies ask for a lot more money for a lot less content.. Bullshit if you ask me..

 

[Decatonkeil]

I copy&paste'd the number.. It is an error on original posters part..

Also my point was that Daggerfall, an old game, made with outdated technology, has outdone any modern game we ever know.. Thats something.. Nowadays gaming companies ask for a lot more money for a lot less content.. Bullshit if you ask me..

Uhm, weren't Daggerfall maps (at least when not in town, so, the fields and the dungeons) randomly generated? Isn't that cheating, or lazy? Or even worse, isn't that unrealistic and frustrating?

 

[LexiiO]

Uhm, weren't Daggerfall maps (at least when not in town, so, the fields and the dungeons) randomly generated? Isn't that cheating, or lazy? Or even worse, isn't that unrealistic and frustrating?

Most of all, it's not competitive and comparable to modern games that have real open worlds.

Daggerdull doesn't really count as a good example in any matter nowadays.

 

[thewarsend]

Uhm, weren't Daggerfall maps (at least when not in town, so, the fields and the dungeons) randomly generated? Isn't that cheating, or lazy? Or even worse, isn't that unrealistic and frustrating?

Considering that the game was released in 1996, it is still awesome even though they cheated a little.. (And hey, like i've said, they had very very limited technology, they are allowed to cheat) Also considering it got such a high score and there are some people who are still playing it suggests it is wasn't all that frustrating.. My point was, game was released 17 years ago and they still couldn't release a game that has a bigger map.. With or without cheating..

Most of all, it's not competitive and comparable to modern games that have real open worlds.

Daggerdull doesn't really count as a good example in any matter nowadays.

We are mostly talking about map size.. They should've reached about same size without cheating..

 

[Žymantūnas]

I wish you can be freelance policeman and solve strange crimes which involves some ex child stars vandalizing by spraying graffiti.

 

[presstheeject]

Daggerfall's large world was not it's strongest point. It was too big, you HAD to use fast travel to get anywhere in any reasonable amount of time or you could expect that it would take several real life hours (if not days) to reach your destination. It didn't really take that much to create it either since it was randomly generated.
Then again the world of Skyrim is WAY too small, barely bigger than my home town. There you didn't even need fast travel unless you had to stop playing too soon.

It would not be boring if the city was very very big in CP2077 since we got vehicles and public transportation (I hope) to get where we need to be. But resources might be running thin and the city's size would have to be compromised for the graphics gameplay and other content to be up to par.

 

[LexiiO]

strange crimes which involves some ex child stars vandalizing by spraying graffiti.

Wow, really exciting...

 

[chriswebb2020.736]

Back to actual Architecture:

Quite a few people are looking forward to seeing the three dimentional properties of the map. Games like Skyrim have fairly large maps, but they also tend to focus on a single 'level' as it were. Sure there are towers and dungeons, but they are few and far between by comparrison. Night City should not be like that at all. When space becomes a valuable commodity, people start building up. It's worked that way for millenia. Göbekli Tepe proves that people were building large groups of multi-storey buildings in stone from at least 9,000 BC. As we build higher, it becomes less and less practical to travel all the way to the bottom of the building to get around.

I want to see walkways, gantries and balconies. I want to see raised highways and maglev lines. I want to see dedicated holographic AV routes picked out to direct the, (hopefully increased,) ariel traffic. In 2020, Night City didn't have a subway, I don't see that changing, (but I have no issue if it somehow does - as long as there is a good reason and explanation.) People should need to get around above the street level.

Lets take a look at Total Recall (2012):

As you can see from the two images, the cities operate on multiple levels. Many buildings are connected at various levels making transit and access much easier in the densely populated urban environment.


I am also a big fan of Gothic and Deco architecture. I would love to see an updated style influenced by these styles.

 

[A T Ś]

I hope some of the inspiration for the street views of the lower income areas of NC come from images like this:

Very nice artwork indeed. Great find Chris - the colours, the composition and that feel... Gooood

Back to actual Architecture:

Quite a few people are looking forward to seeing the three dimentional properties of the map. Games like Skyrim have fairly large maps, but they also tend to focus on a single 'level' as it were. Sure there are towers and dungeons, but they are few and far between by comparrison. Night City should not be like that at all. When space becomes a valuable commodity, people start building up. It's worked that way for millenia. Göbekli Tepe proves that people were building large groups of multi-storey buildings in stone from at least 9,000 BC. As we build higher, it becomes less and less practical to travel all the way to the bottom of the building to get around.

I want to see walkways, gantries and balconies. I want to see raised highways and maglev lines. I want to see dedicated holographic AV routes picked out to direct the, (hopefully increased,) ariel traffic. In 2020, Night City didn't have a subway, I don't see that changing, (but I have no issue if it somehow does - as long as there is a good reason and explanation.) People should need to get around above the street level.

Lets take a look at Total Recall (2012):

As you can see from the two images, the cities operate on multiple levels. Many buildings are connected at various levels making transit and access much easier in the densely populated urban environment.


I am also a big fan of Gothic and Deco architecture. I would love to see an updated style influenced by these styles.

I had written like 1000 words in response clicked submit and then my connection crashed

That is why I'll try to summarize

Chris I'm so happy for the things you wrote here, like you read my mind.

To the vertical zoning - it is really nothing new. Originated from the american city model and reffering mainly to the very downtowns of the cities since 1920s/30s. It hasn't really changed that much since the first high-rises in Chicago were erected. And by the vertical zoning I do not mean simple land value mechanics and PLVI(Peak Land value intersection) which to put very simple have risen the competition for space in the city downtown and made bulding higher cheaper in result. It is waaay different for most of the european cities and quite similar or even extrapolated in SE Asia,Japan and China were the urbaniztion rates or so ridiculously high that the effect is 10 000 more intense and in effect we multiple CBDs and multiple PLVIs etc. etc.

The thing is that the vertical zoning is the phenomenon which defines functions and property ownership. And so pretty much since 1920s in Chicago first high rises ground levels hosted commercial functions and were semi public nowadays big malls and big shops with walkways and all are pretty much public. Higher were offices and flats so semi public and private spaces. Up today nothing has really changed that dramatically.

Therefore we want something NEW. A city (RE-D)E-FINED all of it... Give new zoning new styles new infrastructure not always new=better ofc.

about styles in architecture. again remnants of the gothic or rather neo-gothic/art deco/classical/palladio/art-nouveau arch YES!
new refferences in future arch to the 'old' styles neo futuro gothic? cyber deco? ofcourse!

futurism and metabolism redefined CHECK!( nice example also present in the Deus Ex of the Japanese minimal dwellings...like cells....veery fuckin cool - and we want it MORE CDPR in CP'77 !)

but all this should go even further in my opinion: bio-mimcry but more! spider web like structures etc (its been recently discovered that if the gene which is responsible for the making of the web by spiders could be somehow synthesised and translated into construction machinery we would be able to build things no one of us has fuckin ever dreamt of)

and what the fuck is retro consumerist look of arch?


EDIT: Oh and by the way I wrote it all pretty much here and there in various threads on the forums

 

[Kelkha]

It's hard to choose from these variations of Cyberpunk sets, but to keep it clean, the ones i like most are the Blade Runner, it really made me want to go to that precise location and time, the other one is Deus Ex - Human Revolution, of course it was cleaner than BR, but it also gave me the same feeling as BR, inside Deus EX - HR, Hengsha was the best representation of the Cyberpunk street level design, it was big in height, and beautifull in the arquitecture.

It also gave me the feel that the scale of the city was made in the best way to harbour as many people as it could, such as the sleeping pods at the market, very industrial like, made in number, also something that i'd like to have in CP2077, rentable sleeping pods.

 

[Žymantūnas]

Wow, really exciting...

yes indeed.

 

[presstheeject]

While I red through these posts something hit me. Did you guys play Batman Arkham City?
There was a place I think it was called "Old Gotham", where it was basically a couple of streets with buildings UNDER the ground. I thought that was really cool and it could work as the extreme slum and the one place to really disappear. Maybe some streets fell down or caved in or something from the nuke and they just built new stuff over it?

And in addition to building upwards, I found this and thought I'd share it.
I think it's really cool although a bit over the top.

 

[braindancer12]

really nice artworks here i am sure CD get a lot of inspiration...

 

[Poet_and_Gentleman.598]

Uhm, weren't Daggerfall maps (at least when not in town, so, the fields and the dungeons) randomly generated? Isn't that cheating, or lazy? Or even worse, isn't that unrealistic and frustrating?

lolol Daggerfall didn't cheat.


Back then games had much less to go with so they had to generate whole worlds from a few kbs or with much less staff. I don't think they would have had much better content if they drew by hand.

Procedural generation is the future because it is simply prohibitively expensive to make a huge world by hand. This is the only way that there will be "enter anywhere".

A huge part of the budget for games are artists.If studios could fire a whole bunch of them, the gaming world would be much better off for it.

It isn't "lazy", it is the smarter way to do things.

 

[chriswebb2020.736]

I've been watching a series on discovery called "Nextworld". It focuses on near future developments in technology. One of the episodes deals with buildings and housing. Two key elements that are really constant in the episode is conservation of space and 'smart' materials. That is the future of architecture.

I am particularly interested in the solar film for windows. This seems like a clever plan for the corp areas, minimising energy costs and all that. Imagine solar power film over bulletproof glass!

I imagine only the upper class areas would be spacious, while the further down the ladder you go, the more claustrophobic life would get.

 

[dekkarius]

I agree with Chris and echo what Spider was getting at. In 2077, the population will likely be even higher than in the skyscraper-dotted cityscape of Cyberpunk 2020. The use of a high tech way to fit more people, closer together should be strongly represented in some areas. Modular designs like the capsule tower, coffin motels or perhaps some other stackable, organically modifiable structure could be the norm for places where money can't be spared making things unique and different looking. Project housing in our world is damn repetitive.

The rich, however, would have more freedom to build truly unique structures requiring stronger materials than we think of as possible today. If we could perfect manufacturing of spider silk, or carbon fiber nanotubes, we could build an elevator to space. We could support untold amounts of weight in smaller spaces and be more free to design with less structural restraint than any current architectural style would show now. For the high end neighborhoods, I hope the artists go nuts a little bit and show us something truly impressive and beyond our current reach.

 

[chriswebb2020.736]

I like where Dekkarius is going.

I think we (the players,) often forget that 2020 was written 25 years ago and it's imagery was cutting edge.

It would be nice to see the development of styles through the architecture of areas of varying effluence. 2077 can keep some of the 2000s stuff, right up to the 2030s but the occupants would be the destitute and the lowlifes. The corporates will be looking at 2080+ for their architectural inspiration.