City 17 is on the east shore of the Baltic Sea

[NJspeed]

On Follow Freeman, you clearly pass a wrecked cafe called "Cafe Baltic". You can even go in there and get some health and ammo. It's right after the strider you can't kill because theres no missles around, so you run under its legs, down through a little tunnel below the street, and up on the other side. Cafe Baltic is right in front of you. That means City 17 HAS to be on or right by the Baltic Sea. I live in NJ and I wouldn't name my shop Cafe Pacific, or Cafe Michigan, but if we lived ON the Baltic Sea, I might just name it Cafe Baltic. If I lived inland, it would be innappropriate to name it Cafe Baltic, as the Baltic would be nowhere nearby. I think this is the best clue in the whole game.

Take into account the Russian and Czech words, posters, etc, I'm saying City 17 is on the east side of the Baltic Sea.

Check out this map:

http://vitalgraphics.grida.no/balticmap/

Remember Nova Prospekt means New Prospect in Russian. And its on the ocean. You can hear waves at times, theres no waves on the Baltic Sea. I'm guessing we headed north or east out of City 17.

I also took screen shots of the maps from Water Hazard, when you get the gun. Theres two big maps on the wall. One looks kind of like Italy but the bottom is warped, so you can tell it probably isn't. However the Combine did drain a lot of the ocean, maybe making more land exposed. The problem here is we don't know the scale of the maps, for all I know, that map could be showing 10 miles worth of area, not 1000. However if you look closely, you can see one has an arrow pointing South, one has an Arrow pointing North. The wierd thing is that the maps aren't on the wall like we'd put them, north being up and south being down. They are sideways. Anyway no matches with them yet.

The thing I haven't had a chance to check out is whether or not the maps they show you of Route 17 show north/south/east/west. I'm guessing that like the other maps I've seen, this map could have been sideways also. North doesn't necessarily mean up on the map. North can be down, and we can actually be heading south.

Let's talk about some other clues. This is one thing I think we can figure out the most of, not like guessing who the G-man is. There are real clues in the game for this.

 

[azz0r]

Its a game.

 

[NJspeed]

Its a game.

OMG!!! IS IT REALLY!!

Thanks genius. This is the rumors and speculation forum for that game. Loser.

 

[azz0r]

Nice attitude you got there.

 

[Jintor]

You're not helping, and he's right, this be a rumours and speculation thread.

I'll have to look over Water Hazard's maps again, to make sure.

Nice work though!

 

[The Monkey]

It could be in sweden, there's swedish gas pumps in the coast level. Proof

 

[lord dubu]

Got a hole in the theory though...

Here in Chicago we've got a sushi bar called "Bistro Pacific". A galbi place called "San soo gab san" (the name of a mountain in north Korea.) And a coffee shop called "DMZ"... Chicago is not within a 1000 miles of any of these things.

That being said... I'm pretty sure the game isn't supposed to take place in any one specific area... the general consensus is that City 17 is somewhere in eastern europe. I sincerely doubt the programmers went any further in concept than that.

 

[Asknoone]

Its been mentioned about the baltic cafe several times over, but still, proves interesting.

I honestly do not think City 17 is anywhere its just a combination of eastern european architecture.

 

[cabbs]

Nice, i spotted the cafe, but didnt make the link.

Unfortunately, eastern europe/russia has a large history of oppression and war, so that would seem the logical place for the Combine and Breen to beat us into mental submission.

Its a game.

2000 posts!! jesus, youve been here long enough to realise that the fact it didnt happen wont make a blind bit of difference.

Although i admit that your post was probably a spur-of-the-moment thing, looked at any headrcrab threads lately? :|

 

[sfc_hoot]

Its a game.

I have to agree with everyone else. You're really not helping anyone with rediculous posts like that. We are here to discuss Half-Life 2, and going around saying "oh, it's just a game" really doesn't get you anywhere.

Anyway, about the City 17 location. It would be really hard to locate City 17 on a map of Europe, because there's so many different cultures in it. We can see the Swedish Gas Pumps, then we also see English and Cyrillic text, and Cafe Baltic as well. Plus the architecture is largely Romanian and Bulgarian. There's also a city in Ukraine called "Odessa", thus New Little Odessa.

 

[TheMtR]

You say near baltic sea??
Perfect!! I live in latvia, so i can go out and smell "real" city 17 air.... :thumbs:

 

[NJspeed]

Couple interesting tidbits I've discovered.

I did a google search for "horse statue city square baltic". Every link I found pointed towards Saint Petersburg! There were also numerous mentions of the word "Prospekt". It turns out that Nevsky Prospekt is the main street in Saint Petersburg, so I did a google for "horse statue city square prospekt".

The links that come up on both searches are for one city only: Saint Petersburg.

Turns out that Saint Petersburg is also right on the Baltic Sea!

Doing some further research it seems that Saint Petersburg has NUMEROUS horse statues throughout.

Apparently Saint Petersburg also has numerous canals and waterways! I also saw pictures of canals that reminded me of the ones in the game.. like one in the beginning when you first get the gun.. and I saw a good picture that looked almost exactly like the one you cross right after Alyx is kidnapped. Remember the bridge across is blown out, the canal is drained, so you drop down into it... Do a google search they are easy to find.

Theres also an area called Palace Square that looks similar to the building you infiltrate in Follow Freeman. Almost exactly the same only it would probably be too massive to create the whole thing in the game. The building in the game looks like a compressed version of some of the buildings you see in Palace Square. Here is also a good quote on Palace Square!:

"Historic Palace Square has seen the birth of revolutions that shook the world." <---Ring any bells??

If you do a google for just "prospekt" practically every link that comes back refers to Saint Petersburg. It's interesting in the beginning of the game that your about to be put on a train to Nova Prospekt. The word Prospekt has some affiliation only to Saint Petersburg.

Could Valve originally have chosen Saint Petersburg as the model for City 17? I think it's very very possible.

 

[MuToiD_MaN]

I'm sure that the creative artists at Valve were not basing C17 on any city in particular. The Saint Petersburg statue and the Cyrillic characters were probably there to add the iron-curtain-oppression-and-propaganda feel, and they wanted some place coastal, so it's obvious what area of the world they wanted to shoot for.

 

[NJspeed]

I just feel they had to get their inspiration from SOMEWHERE. You can't just go and draw up an "eastern european" city, unless you know something about eastern european cities. Meaning yes they definately looked at certain real cities for ideas. Thats pretty undeniable I think. The point of my posts isn't to say "City 17 is DEFINATELY St. Petersburg", but more along the lines of discovering where Valve got their inspiration.. not just generically saying "eastern european", I'm using clues in the game to delve a little deeper than that. Yeah C17 can be any city or none at all, but theres numerous clues pointing towards Saint Petersburg being their inspiration. Do the google searches I laid out and it's hard to deny what I've said. It would be pretty easy for them to use St. Petersburg as a model, build City 17, and then add some writing from other languages to throw people off. BTW if you look at a map of europe, you'll see that St. Petersburg is centrally located to all the areas and languages that people are saying are in the game.

 

[DarkStar]

I think its pretty clear at this point that Valve took bits and pieces from all sorts of places in Eastern Europe and came up with an amalgamation called "City 17."

It is not a real location and the events in HL2 do not transpire in any place that is pin-pointable geographically.

 

[NJspeed]

I think its pretty clear at this point that Valve took bits and pieces from all sorts of places in Eastern Europe and came up with an amalgamation called "City 17."

It is not a real location and the events in HL2 do not transpire in any place that is pin-pointable geographically.

Thanks for telling us something we don't know! Read my posts before you post nonsense, I've already said I don't think its pinpointable, and I know it's not a real location! WTF do you guys keep posting stupid crap for? This is the SPECULATION forum. If you have something to contribute towards the name of this thread, help out. Don't come in here and tell me something I already knew way before I started this thread. It's no wonder every basher has 2000+ posts, all you guys do is go around to every thread and state the obvious about topics that have already been covered 1000 times. Go find a G-man thread and make sure your posts tell everyone that "Nobody really knows who the G-man is." That will get you a lot of posts I'm sure and waste some more of your time. Oh wait I'm sure you already got 200 of your 2000 posts from doing that. This goes for every one of you guys that has nothing constructive to say about this topic, click back, and read another one. Let this topic die if nobody is interested, I don't care, but I'm sick of people coming in here, not even reading the posts, and then telling me stuff I've known for 2 months!

I just feel they had to get their inspiration from SOMEWHERE. You can't just go and draw up an "eastern european" city, unless you know something about eastern european cities. Meaning yes they definately looked at certain real cities for ideas. Thats pretty undeniable I think. The point of my posts isn't to say "City 17 is DEFINATELY St. Petersburg", but more along the lines of discovering where Valve got their inspiration.. not just generically saying "eastern european", I'm using clues in the game to delve a little deeper than that.

 

[Alieni²]

It could be in sweden, there's swedish gas pumps in the coast level. Proof

Just to point out theres only finnish in that pic. "Summa" means "amount" and it reads in every gaspump in finland. BUT theres also estonian language in the pump. As an result id say City-17 and other maps in the game are just combined european countrys.

 

[Eejit]

I think during the 1st hl2.net test from Valve someone discovered that the password corresponded pretty well to map co-ordinate for some place near the Baltic.
fyi.

 

[OD-Black_Fire]

I swore I saw some german writing. I freaking swear.

 

[Pai-Mei]

I looked at the maps in the tunnel (where you meet your first Vortigaunt) and couldn't place any of them to St. Petersburg. Although, the one map that Mapquest had of St. Petersburg was extremely unfrefined... all kinds of "NO MAP DATA YET" spaces... and, of course, we can't account for the drained sea, although it looks like the drained sea hasn't affected coastlines too much... maybe making them 1/4 of a mile at best in some places.

 

[gurra]

Just to point out theres only finnish in that pic. "Summa" means "amount" and it reads in every gaspump in finland. BUT theres also estonian language in the pump. As an result id say City-17 and other maps in the game are just combined european countrys.

It has the same meaning in swedish. The pump also reads:
- "kronor", swedish currency
- "volym", volume
- "liter", litre

Although it's clearly swedish there's no reason to believe city 17 would be in Sweden IMHO.

 

[NJspeed]

Sweden is right on the Baltic.

 

[sfc_hoot]

I looked at the maps in the tunnel (where you meet your first Vortigaunt) and couldn't place any of them to St. Petersburg.

That's a map of a section of the canals. The first lambda symbol is the resistance point where you get the airboat gun, and the second lambda symbol is Black Mesa East. The map matches perfectly to the levels.

 

[kotik112]

It could be in sweden, there's swedish gas pumps in the coast level. Proof

That is true. But it could be Norway too. Not sure if they have the same names for "volym" and the whole nine yards.

 

[GiaOmerta]

I honestly do not think City 17 is anywhere its just a combination of eastern european architecture.

The developers did their research and swirled together what they found and they got City 17.

 

[NJspeed]

The developers did their research and swirled together what they found and they got City 17.

OMG yet another post stating the obvious.

Please read the posts here my friend, we understand this. I know you didn't read all the posts.

 

[Randomner]

I always thought that the whole story of Half-Life took place in south-western US. From what I remember of the first Half-Life, in the beginning, the voice says something about how its over a hundred degrees on the surface. I imagine a temperature like that would occur in places like Arizona, US. Especially since Black Mesa is a name in English and mesa landmasses occur in places like the Grand Canyon.

I figured the Black Mesa was like an Area 51.

 

[furiousV]

Black Mesa Research Facility was in New Mexico, and they were using Farenheit on the train ride.

 

[Randomner]

Yes. And, wasn't City 17 near Black Mesa?

 

[ríomhaire]

Black Mesa is like area 51. The scientists named the place Black Mesa East for a more homey fell. 2 places can have the same placename. There is a Boston in Ireland.

 

[Maxi]

I live in Finland... and i'd have to respectfully decline...

 

[NJspeed]

HL1 did take place in the southwest United States.

HL2 takes place in Europe.

 

[Dukembg]

everyone in the game speaks english.

 

[Randomner]

Answers to everyone whom replied to my posts:

To furiousV:
I know fahrenheit was being used; can it really be over a hundred degrees celsius anywhere on the surface of Earth?

To riomhaire:
I figured "Black Mesa East" was the name given to the eastern part of the original Black Mesa. I thought that Black Mesa was so large it was divided into different sections. Also, I didn't think anyone would be given a chance to build a Black Mesa East in Europe after the Portal Storms. Furthermore, why would Wallace Breen, Eli Vance, Alyx Vance, and all the others be in Europe? Why didn't they stay where it all started? Why City 17 there, why did the Combine go there, and why was Black Mesa East built near the Citadel? Finally, I didn't think all of Black Mesa could've been destroyed. Seeing as to how large it was.

To NJspeed:
What I meant by the entire story of Half-Life taking place in the US, was, the entire saga of Half-Life, meaning, both Half-Life and Half-Life 2.

To Dukembg:
I have a feeling that people are going to say that the reason everyone in Half-Life speaks English, would be because the game is mostly played by people who speak English, and to understand the game, the speech must be English. Moreover, I believe that since Black Mesa, City 17, Highway 17, are all places named in English, that everything would've taken place in the US. Of course, places like Highway 17 are far from Black Mesa, Black Mesa being in a desert, and Highway 17 being near the ocean, that the rest of the story beyond Black Mesa would be at the coastlines of the US.

 

[Pai-Mei]

I figured "Black Mesa East" was the name given to the eastern part of the original Black Mesa. I thought that Black Mesa was so large it was divided into different sections. Also, I didn't think anyone would be given a chance to build a Black Mesa East in Europe after the Portal Storms. Furthermore, why would Wallace Breen, Eli Vance, Alyx Vance, and all the others be in Europe? Why didn't they stay where it all started? Why City 17 there, why did the Combine go there, and why was Black Mesa East built near the Citadel? Finally, I didn't think all of Black Mesa could've been destroyed.

Geez....

Look. Black Mesa is CLEARLY in the Southeast USA. If you don't believe the background that you see in Surface Tension (an environment found only in the Southeast USA and definitly NOT in Europe), at least look at the Globe in On a Rail where the star is in SouthWest USA.

So you're wondering why everyone is in City 17? Well, during all of the Portal Storms we know that a shitload of Xen Wildlife were transported to Earth. People fled the countrysides and grouped together in cities for safety. "It's Safer Here." Combine comes in, invades in the 7 hour war, and takes over. It renames the Cities City 1, City 2, City 3, etc...

They decide to establish their home Citadel, the base of operations, in City 17, which is definitly in Eastern Europe. Notice all of the wierd languages and whatnot? Everyone speaks english probably because thats become the standard over the past 10 years of combine control. Why put the citadel in City 17? I don't know... maybe it was the largest or most secure city, maybe it was the easiest to teleport to... who knows. But I imagine that Eli, Kliner and Barney all came to City 17 AFTER the Citadel arrived, in order to establish a base of operations close to the enemy and so they could remain together, close enough to correlate their research.

Black Mesa East is most likely just an honorary title given to the lab in City 17. It is pretty high tech and seems to be researching a thing or two similar to what BMRF was researching. It is most definitly nowhere near the original Black Mesa. It is called East most likely because it is a lot further East than the original BMRF, ie Eastern Europer and Western USA. I doubt it existed during the events of the original Black Mesa, and has only been in service since the Combine's occupation.

 

[Randomner]

Geez....

Look. Black Mesa is CLEARLY in the Southeast USA. If you don't believe the background that you see in Surface Tension (an environment found only in the Southeast USA and definitly NOT in Europe), at least look at the Globe in On a Rail where the star is in SouthWest USA.

...I never said Black Mesa wasn't in Southeast USA. I only said that both Black Mesa and Black Mesa East are located in the US. If you don't believe me, look at this quote from a previous post on this thread:

I always thought that the whole story of Half-Life took place in south-western US. From what I remember of the first Half-Life, in the beginning, the voice says something about how its over a hundred degrees on the surface. I imagine a temperature like that would occur in places like Arizona, US. Especially since Black Mesa is a name in English and mesa landmasses occur in places like the Grand Canyon.

I figured the Black Mesa was like an Area 51

So you're wondering why everyone is in City 17? Well, during all of the Portal Storms we know that a shitload of Xen Wildlife were transported to Earth. People fled the countrysides and grouped together in cities for safety. "It's Safer Here." Combine comes in, invades in the 7 hour war, and takes over. It renames the Cities City 1, City 2, City 3, etc...

I was wondering why City 17 would be in Europe and not in the US. Seeing as to the whole thing started in the US. If you don't believe me that this is what I meant look at this quote:

Why City 17 there

That question was, "Why would City 17 be in Europe?"

They decide to establish their home Citadel, the base of operations, in City 17, which is definitly in Eastern Europe. Notice all of the wierd languages and whatnot? Everyone speaks english probably because thats become the standard over the past 10 years of combine control. Why put the citadel in City 17? I don't know... maybe it was the largest or most secure city, maybe it was the easiest to teleport to... who knows. But I imagine that Eli, Kliner and Barney all came to City 17 AFTER the Citadel arrived, in order to establish a base of operations close to the enemy and so they could remain together, close enough to correlate their research.

Yeah, I know they arrived AFTER the Citadel arrived. I was just thinking that Black Mesa East would be too difficult to build AFTER the Citadel arrived. Thus, Black Mesa East already existed before the Citadel arrived, because Black Mesa East is a part of the original Black Mesa from the first Half-Life. Black Mesa was never completely destroyed due to its size as I said here:

Finally, I didn't think all of Black Mesa could've been destroyed. Seeing as to how large it was.

 

[Pai-Mei]

Fine. You wanna play the quote game.

...Mesa East is a part of the original Black Mesa from the first Half-Life.

Wait. I thought we went over that the original Black Mesa was in Arizona someplace. The landscape around City 17, and Black Mesa East, for that matter, doesn't look a damn thing like Arizona... it's right on an ocean... or at least a major body of water. Last I checked, Arizona, New Mexico, and Nevada are all landlocked... so Black Mesa would have to be the size of a small country to cover that much area.

As far as it being in the US is concerned, maybe it is. But somehow, cities in the US started adopting the Cyrrillic alphabet and whatnot, as well as a very Eastern Europesque style architecture. Lets face it... it doesn't exactly look like New York City. Or any American city, for that matter.

Thus, Black Mesa East already existed before the Citadel arrived, because Black Mesa East is a part of the original Black Mesa from the first Half-Life.

So what you're saying is that they fuc|<in airlifted a cubic mile worth of Black Mesa over to some other place near the Ocean?

Probably not, but you're conclusions don't fit with each other...

The way I see it is that Black Mesa East really isn't all that advanced. It looks something like an abandoned quarry mineshaft-turned Laboratory. Theres a few cots, a kitchen, some electrical pipes, and a little bit of small, jury rigged, experimental machinery. There's no huge antimass spectrometers taking up the whole room, no gigantic generators, no huge ass lasers, no retinal scanners... the equipment is small enough that it wouldn't be hard to smuggle even in City 17, especially back when security was probably a lot lower. I mean, come on, they're got a damn Vortigaunt powering one of the pieces of equipment! This is simply NOT BMRF quality and I see no evidence that it is part of the original BMRF other than the name, which I think is just an honorary title.

 

[DarkStar]

Thanks for telling us something we don't know! Read my posts before you post nonsense, I've already said I don't think its pinpointable, and I know it's not a real location! WTF do you guys keep posting stupid crap for? This is the SPECULATION forum. If you have something to contribute towards the name of this thread, help out. Don't come in here and tell me something I already knew way before I started this thread. It's no wonder every basher has 2000+ posts, all you guys do is go around to every thread and state the obvious about topics that have already been covered 1000 times. Go find a G-man thread and make sure your posts tell everyone that "Nobody really knows who the G-man is." That will get you a lot of posts I'm sure and waste some more of your time. Oh wait I'm sure you already got 200 of your 2000 posts from doing that. This goes for every one of you guys that has nothing constructive to say about this topic, click back, and read another one. Let this topic die if nobody is interested, I don't care, but I'm sick of people coming in here, not even reading the posts, and then telling me stuff I've known for 2 months!

Woah! Chill Winston!

Calm down man, I was just giving my opinion. I wasn't trying to impune your integrity in any way shape or form. And for your information, I've got a bunch of posts here because I registered at the beginning of July 2003. You've been registered for 2 months, but had you been around bit longer, perhaps you would have a bunch of posts too. It's not from me flaming people's ideas constantly or I would have been banned long ago.

Relax...........

 

[Duncan]

I don't think it's in America- the archetecture screams Eastern Europe, so do the cars.

 

[NJspeed]

Woah! Chill Winston!

Calm down man, I was just giving my opinion. I wasn't trying to impune your integrity in any way shape or form. And for your information, I've got a bunch of posts here because I registered at the beginning of July 2003. You've been registered for 2 months, but had you been around bit longer, perhaps you would have a bunch of posts too. It's not from me flaming people's ideas constantly or I would have been banned long ago.

Relax...........

Sorry to bug out on you then. It's just that what you stated was already prior discussed. As far as this thread goes you can see I've kind of been on the defensive since the beginning, with people posting negative things and in one post I just asked people not to post unless they had something new and worthwhile. I don't care anymore though.. your cool in my book..

As for people saying Black Mesa East is in the United States, your totally wrong.. I mean your just WRONG, theres nothing to argue about... It's an established fact that this game takes place in Europe, so if you want to debate that, start a new thread or go to another one please. This thread is for anyone who has new information or clues as to where in Europe the game takes place.. It's already established the game takes place in eastern Europe.. (probably near the Baltic)

I almost want this thread to die because we are just soo off topic.