City17 is actually...

R

Regressor

Guest
I know that there were other such threads before, but I don't know if this I'm going to mention has been said. I know that the main designer is a Bulgarian. I can't remember his name, but if you run the credits, the first name you see is his. He took the decision to place the game in a Eastern-European post - communistic setting, inspired by the place he had spent his childhood. More over the scenes from c17 are 1:1 with Bulgaria's capital SOFIA. I don't live exactly i n Sofia but I'm from Bulgaria and I can tell you that lots of the backround is only natural for Bulgaria. Some of the building are copied from actual famous buildings. And besides-the seashore scenes- they have to be taken from the Bulgarian coasts (for potential tourists the resourts don't all look like that in Bulgaria.). You can see lot's of old cars in there, escpecially Lot's of TRABANTS - they're everywhere and some writing in Cyrilic like for intance there is CEMENT in Bulgarian written somewhere.
If it hadn't been for him the came would be set as I geard in a abandoned minning city - which probably means that hte whole game would take action in Ravenholm. Now that would be bouring, wouldn't it.
 
whoa, nice- that second pic looks like the nexus building from the dome shaped roof... just one question, where the hell is Sofia? :dozey:
 
Rafa 5.0 said:
whoa, nice- that second pic looks like the nexus building from the dome shaped roof... just one question, where the hell is Sofia? :dozey:
Click to expand...
It's the capital of Bulgaria.
 
Rafa 5.0 said:
just one question, where the hell is Sofia? :dozey:
Click to expand...

Bulgaria?

The style of the buildings is common for a lot of places in europe, I think eastern european setting, was a generic term for the area.
 
I don't think its set anywhere. Just easterm europe architecture, little more.
 
Sofia%20AlNevski.jpg

-The Church in Ravenholm
Here is another picture os the city:
Street%20and%20streetcar.jpg

Yeah c17 isn't Sofia but t's based ON Sofia!
The city has taken sites from Sofia as a model - that's sure Because as I said the main designer is form Bulgaria.

another interesting thing
Here it is - the product of The Democratic Republic of Germany's engeneering thought - The Trabant you can see it all over the game, it's even put into some CS maps like "Dust" for instance.
 
trabant.jpg
TrabantPower.jpg

trabant.jpg

And another thing I forgot. In some areas you can see clearly some mountains in the background. That's clearly Vitosha- a little mountain near Sofia.

And something else. I didn't get why the setting was in Eastern - European city and so many of the citizens were black. If you don't know there is a lot of african population in estern europe. I know the said in the beginning they were transfered from somewhere else, but how come so many of the people in the city tun out to be afroamericans?
 
I'm not sure I see the point in all this. City 17 is based on some European architecture, so what? How many threads have we had about the location of City 17?

Some parts of the game look like hundreds of European cities; London, Paris, Sofia... Would we have to go through all of this if it was set in someplace that looked like New York or Washington?

Didn't think so.
 
There is a resemblance because it is in eastern europe, the game is made up of pieces from each city/countryside...whatever. It is in no specific place.
 
If you read the original post, the guy never claimed it WAS Sofia, just that he thinks some specific things are based on it. Looks like it to me! Very cool find :D
 
Two reasons why this is interesting:

1) The city 17 designers must have used *1 city* for insperation in order for nothing to seem out of place.

2) It adds to the story. Since Black Mesa was set somewhere in a real world location (some where in the desert of new Mexico) it only follows story wise the City 17 must be in a real world city that has been renamed to City 17.
 
Plug said:
If you read the original post, the guy never claimed it WAS Sofia, just that he thinks some specific things are based on it. Looks like it to me! Very cool find :D
Click to expand...

Well yeah, thats pretty much what Valve did.
 
Yes but the horse statue is that of a St. Petersburg landmark.
 
Stop arguing!
The Second name (after Gabe)
Viktor is a Bulgarian, and he based the game on his home city! It's not Praga, it's not Budapesta, it's not Moskaw or any other !!! And that is that! This should be the end of all quarells!!!
 
It is not based in any particular place, but an mixture of many Eastern Ruropean cities, to say it is X city or Y city is just stupid.
 
Its said in Raising bar, they took inspiration from many place and one of them was bulgaria, but it is not anywhere specific.
 
Cut the crap, now would you. Viktor Atanasov is a Bulgarian and he is responsoble for the "looks" of the game. This is just an idea he had, if it wasn't for him, it wouldn't heve looked a bit like that! Many people here know it ofcource. I even saw an HL2 advertisment in a mazaginne soon, saying that city17 was based on Sofia. It's not something that can be argued with!!!
Now that doesn't mean that c17 IS sofia!!! c17 is an meant to be a place that doesn't exist. Although it based on one city all of the charachters look like Americans, (as I specified there are alot of Afro-Americans) or western type at least. It's just the THAT ALMOUST ALL OF THE GAME IS ACTUAL PLACES AND SIGHTS FROM SOFIA. Or maybe you're suggesting that the staff was running all around Europe, taking pictures of whatever came in their sight and then integrating it in the game? Thier goal wasn't to make the game have a post-communistic vibe, it's just that Sofia look very ... Post Apocalyptic (although I don't make such a big difference bethwween the two.).
Even if you recodnise building and sites from your own town it doesn't mean that in some other city there couldn't be a place that looked the same way.

Here is a thread where some guy says that he has noticed that the registratio numbers on the cars were from the Sofian region. He also points out that the church in Ravenholm was in a Russian Ortodox style, not in Bulgarian. Then it hit me the picture I showed you wasn't actually the church from HL2. I did some searchin and I found the real church - "St. Nikolay". It's really build in a russian ortodox style, ot's even reffered to as the "Russian Chruch".
03.jpg
Ruska_Cyrkva.jpg

You can see it's exactly the same.
 
call me crazy but i would love to go trail bike riding in the new mexico desert im sure you would find a goverment facility out there... u might even see gordan on hes way to work :)
 
Still good.

I like all the theories.
 
*shrugs* It'll be based on a lot of different cities. I went to Riga (capital of Latvia) a few months ago and a lot of areas reminded me of HL2, especially the outskirts of the city
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Krynn72
You guys, what the **** is up.
Replies
11
Views
2K
Tollbooth Willie
Tollbooth Willie
Hectic Glenn
Kerbal Developers Depart Valve
Replies
4
Views
27K
Tollbooth Willie
Tollbooth Willie
MFL
Fascinating look at the ongoing psychological evolution of flat hieirarchies.
Replies
2
Views
2K
Tollbooth Willie
Tollbooth Willie
B
Dr. Rosenberg's cut appearance in Half-Life: Blue Shift
Replies
0
Views
5K
Barnz
B
W
How to load in custom model files?
Replies
0
Views
4K
wantotry
W
Back
Top