Falsifying history is good business

Chapter 292 News of the Old Friend's Appearance
To integrate the world of Red Dead Redemption, the first thing to do is to solve the problem of the mismatch between the game map and the real world.

From Blackwater Town to Saint Denis, from the Snowy Mountains to the Swamp, after years of discussion, players have roughly found the real-life prototypes of the main cities and wild areas in the game. Now, Lin You only needs to use a quill pen to write the players' research results into the big world.

"First is Saint Denis, the only place on the map called a big city, and the most suitable as the coordinate origin." Lin You cast his gaze to the east. With his sensory ability that has reached the level of a Silver Saint, he can "see" the city outline of Saint Denis even across the Brandywine Lake.

Although the terrain is varied, due to the limitations of the hardware level of that era, the maps of the two generations of the "Red Dead Redemption" series are really not very big; the relatively larger second-generation map is less than 100 square kilometers, and any small town in China is more than this area.

That’s why there’s a ridiculous scene: the Van der Linde gang fled for several weeks because of the failed Blackwater robbery, and they can still see the crime scene by going to a high place with a telescope...

However, if you want to integrate into the big world, this kind of situation is not allowed to happen. Lin You splashed golden ink to determine a coordinate origin for rewriting the map.

"Saint Denis is a satellite city in the western suburbs of New Orleans. Because it is located at the intersection of the main stream of the Mississippi River and several downstream tributaries, it has become an important distribution center for the export of raw materials from inland areas, and therefore has become an important industrial area.

A large amount of primary processed goods and industrial products flow out of the factories here; they are either exported overseas through New Orleans or sold upstream to the interior. "

After this text was written, the location of Saint Denis in the real map was basically determined; using this as the coordinates, the locations of other towns and areas in the game map can be deduced one by one, making the structure clear and orderly.

Of course, this deduction process cannot be strictly based on the distance on the game map. Otherwise, the straight-line distance from Saint Denis to Blackwater Town is only three or five kilometers. How can it be compiled?
The Van der Linde gang committed such a big crime, but they only escaped a few kilometers away. Even with a telescope, they could see the fire in your camp, but they couldn't track them down for weeks and months? The Pinkerton detectives also have to save their face, okay?
To determine a reasonable distance, the Great Snow Mountain in the first chapter of the game is very suitable as the second coordinate point; if the two points of Plow Village and Saint Denis are in a straight line, the approximate scope covered by the entire story can be determined.

"The story begins in the village of Plowshare in the Ochita Mountains. The great blizzard of 1899 swept across the south-central United States and also affected this desolate mountainous area in Oklahoma.

Grizzlie, located in the mountains, is the intersection of Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma. It has become a favorite hiding place for many fugitives; here, when they face the police chasing them, they can immediately flee to a direction where the other party has no jurisdiction. "

Lin You downgraded Grizzlie, one of the five states in the game map, to a subordinate region lower than a county. According to the three-level division of "state, county, and county" commonly used in the United States, this is a three-level downgrade, and Grizzlie is not even enough to be a county.

But there is nothing we can do about it, since the game map is so small.
The Ochita Mountains are located in the southeastern part of Oklahoma, and Plowshares is located in the northwest corner of the game map; if you put Plowshares and Saint Denis in a straight line, the main plot of the second generation game takes place in the southeastern part of Oklahoma, southwestern Arkansas, eastern Texas, and even the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico.

It was roughly the size of a state, not small. It was normal to pursue a fugitive in such a vast area for several months without any results, and the Pinkerton detectives would not feel too ashamed.

Oh, and there is also the crucial place of Blackwater, the starting point of the Van der Linde gang’s decline.

The Blackwater Town in the game belongs to the West Elizabeth region and is directly adjacent to Grizzly; but it certainly cannot be designed this way when projected onto a real map.

In the game, it only takes five minutes to get from Blackwater to Plowshare, but the Van der Linde gang had been on the run for several days, so it should be at least two or three hundred miles, right? Considering that the prototype of Blackwater has some traces of Houston, Blackwater must be a town in Texas; judging from the straight-line distance, more than two hundred miles is probably the distance from Houston to the Oklahoma border.

So it is appropriate to identify Blackwater as a satellite town east of Houston, bordering the Gulf of Mexico.

As for the new Austin further west of Blackwater, there is no need to make any major changes, because there is an Austin in Texas, about 300 miles west of Houston. Since there is Austin, isn't it normal to have a "new" Austin a little further south?
Just think of it as the residents of Austin moving south to develop a new settlement.

After several important points were determined, the locations of the remaining scattered towns and farms actually had reference points to follow. The most effective reference point was the gang camps of different periods.

Anyone who has played the game knows that, starting from Plowshare Village, the Van der Linde gang had a total of five bases; as long as the distance between different bases is calculated, the locations of those towns, farms, mountains, and valleys can be roughly divided.

"Here, the first station, Plow Village, and the second station, 'Horseshoe Lookout', are the farthest; not only because of the straight-line distance on the map, but also because of the relatively long cutscenes that appear during the game." Lin You pondered in his mind.

Because the game map is so small, sometimes in order to show that two things or two places are far apart, the game makers have to use cutscenes to create psychological hints. The general meaning is: Look, the game character has traveled a long way, it's too far and it's not easy!

"Next, the distance from Horseshoe Overlook to the third station, Clemens Bay, is relatively close; while the distance from Clemens Bay to the fourth station, Shady Belle Manor, is the closest, probably only a dozen miles away, or even less. On the contrary, the last station, Beaver Cave, is far away, second only to the distance between Plowshare Village and Horseshoe Overlook."

These coordinate points, just like when Lin You first learned to write online articles in his previous life, prioritize the main story nodes; once these nodes are determined, you can fill in the secondary storylines between the nodes in sequence, and make sure that the related plots can lead to the nodes.

Seeing Lin You's skillful operation and his elegant and fluent writing style, Mr. Accountant couldn't help but admire him: "You are indeed a professional, Mr. Writer. In order to integrate the world, you must have done a very detailed study of this world, right?"

"Of course, you can say that we started researching it in the real dimension." Lin You said jokingly.

The accountant smiled and said, "That may not be enough. I have seen a god from the big world before. He is here to pave the way for you, right? Just to complete today's work?"

"Who are the gods of the big world?" Lin You asked nonchalantly; the gods of the big world like to run around in various story worlds, especially in a world like "Red Dead Redemption" where there are supernatural powers such as gods, but there is no clear pantheon to which they belong.

Just like the prospecting teams that explore everywhere in human society.

The accountant thought for a moment and replied, "He said his name is Ares. I remember that he should be the god of war in Olympus mythology, right? Is a god of war also responsible for this kind of research work?"

(End of this chapter)