Let's discuss the RE15 Sewers ....

It's got my head in stitches I can say that much! I've got one last idea that's reay worth thinking about, I'll post something a bit later on. Out of curiosity, what was yours and enigmas proposal?

I see in the first post maps I was just about to create. There's one thing I find interesting and quite positive, it's the fact that after looking at it for long enough we've all pretty much came to the same conclusion!

[RMandel]

Well ... that last map about sums it up, geluda. We're right back where we started.

At least we've come up with various things for the Team to experiment with, once they get this far - especially you, geluda. They've got my kludged map if they don't want to go that far out, and they've got Enig and bio's original proposal as a sort of "ultimate" fallback position. What they will do in the final analysis is up to them, of course.

Still, I've think we've done a good job of exploring most (if not all) of the really good possibilities regarding the Sewers. There's more, of course, but I think these are the best of the lot.

Y'know, perhaps we ought to pin this thread and call it a day. We can always start a new one if something else comes up worth considering.

[Deathlygasm]

This topic is too confusing for me damn

So I've just been thinking. Perhaps we could consider that there are two levels of B2 where sewer tunnels could potentially exist? If we look at some rooms, such as the Alligator tank for example, there is a ladder leading up to a platform, surely that platform can't be B1 just because there's a ladder leading you up there? Could the same be said for the rest of the ladder shafts? Perhaps there is a series of rooms directly above L Tunnel that is still part of B2 that is parallel to the upper tiers of the Drains. For instance, the ladder at the most northern end of L Tunnel, perhaps there is a short ladder no longer than the one in the Alligator tank leading to a room directly above which is still considered part of B2. Just like there are two sets of stairs leading to the base of B1, perhaps there are "two sets of stairs" leading to the base of B2 as well, however the last "set of stairs" is actually a ladder shaft and not a climbable set of stars. This would mean that the base of the Drains is not parallel with RPD B2 but in fact just slightly below, what would be parallel to RPD B2 would be those few upper tier rooms of the Drains.

So instead imagine it like this:


[B1 - RPD foundation]
[B2 - Basement 1 floor]
{B3 - Basement 2 floor, green access tunnels and upper tier of the Drains}
{B4 - Lower tier of the Drains}











Opinions? This is the kind of solution needed to make things fit, this would allow RPD B2 and the green sewers to sit with the Drains without having to play games of Tetris to find some clever way to make the Drains and RPD B2 interlock with each other, because the only rooms that would interfere would be those few rooms in the Drains with upper tier levels.

Saying that I don't think this is going to work with ROOM 201 either, the game of Tetris is just as bad.



Something I've been using to try and help visualize.

Thanks for the comments! Unfortunately I don't think there's much else to explore with the maps without making up too much stuff. The last thing I feel to consider really is whether these rooms were even part of the era 4 RPD at all, i.e. Outdoor A and Garage B. The presence and dominance of the Drains in later eras really complicates things if we try and include ROOM 201 in the mix; I don't feel it's possible to make things fit and make things flow without making dramatic changes to the scenarios which would by all means be a figment of imagination rather than making estimated guesses on actual material.



If you take this image for instance it all makes sense from an orientation perspective, however it requires too many made up rooms to try and connect everything together, and most of those doorways appear to go off in all sorts of different directions. The question of "why would Leon ever need to be in the green sewers?" is one that bugs me a lot and leads me to believe this is not the right way of looking at things. The end conclusion for me is that either way we are missing secondary access routes into the sewer system, ones which lead us to the Drains from both ladder shafts and something I haven't gave much thought about as of yet. It's the only way to make the Drains fit properly and whether ROOM 201 is part of that system, I don't know, it could be although I haven't seen anything yet that would make it work without giving the scenario or map layout problems.

Both characters would need an access point into the green sewers, potentially ROOM 201/207, and both characters would need another access point into the Drains. Both sections would need to be in similar in size and allow both scenarios to end in a similar way without making one more overly complicated than the other, such as back tracking, etc, and both would not have to conflict with the other maps. Finding a solution to include everything is difficult, something I'm still slowly trying to work on.

But one curious thought this has left me with is that the sewers is exactly what lead them to scrap this game. I honestly think they messed up, they made a big mistake in the sewers by switching to the Drains design and got so far through development that they didn't know how to fix it, didn't know whether it was worth trying to recover it and ended up just reworking the whole thing. Nothing fits, that's the problem and the more you try and make it fit, the more strain it puts on the scenario, something again that was met with criticism by the developers. This is further apparent by the fact that in BIO2 they went straight back to the green sewer concept, the Drains was written off entirely likely because it was unrecoverable and part of the very problem that needed fixing.

I believe Enigmatism made mention of this a while back. If you'll notice:

1. The RPD building sits on a 1m foundation. Go to Oudoor A and notice how the window beside the metal drums is actually located way higher than where it should be (compared with the window on the 2f). That's because the wall trim is actually a foundation for the building, which would mean that there's a short flight of entrance steps leading up to the lobby.
2. B1 level is actually taller than B2 level thanks to the height of the garage.

It seems like the team actually took these two things in consideration when building their recreation of the basement stairwell, since 1F > B1 takes two flights of stairs, whereas B1 > B2 only takes one.
And if I remember correctly, the western side of the 2F is actually 0.25m shorter than the 1F's if you overlay the maps, but that is probably just an error on the part of the pixel artist who made the maps.
Also, it's worth noting that the Outdoor A & B areas accurately reflects the location of the windows (or lack of them) seen in the interiors of the building. The window on the northern side of Chief Iron's office is actually visible in Outdoor B.

Does this mean Outdoor A could actually closer to a level of B1 than 1F?

[RMandel]

Now that I've had a week or so to think about this, I'm more convinced than ever that geluda is on the right track. I think I also know a way that at least part of his theories can be confirmed. It means asking the Team a favor, though. Can you guys tell us when the backgrounds for all of the Sewers rooms were created? Or if that's asking too much, then in what order they were created? This directory rebuilder we have out here for the MZD build doesn't restore the original date stamps for the files. I think if we had that info, it would go a long way in proving or disproving your ideas, geluda. Thanks, Team, whatever you decide to do to help - or if you can.

[RMandel]

By Jove, I think he's got it! Better not let the Church know ... they'll be bringing in the Inquisition for sure.

"NO ONE EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!"

[Dark Biohazard]

Good work in the maps geluda, I like it!

Indeed! It was just convenient for me to do so. However there was one thing I did consider and that's if they were ever playable it's likey they went through various stages of development, incomplete renders, partially complete renders, design changes, etc. My proposal is that the bar design to the doors in the alpha tunnel is an old "alpha" design similar to how most of the RPD went through design changes in its early stages, unlike the grate design we see now. It was just convenient for me to use that room as if I positioned the doors together floor to floor it coincidentally took me in the right direction around and down towards the South which then allowed me to head round the RPD towards the Outdoor A manhole. Essentially it took me in the right direction which I was happy enough with to include it in the design, although it is deffinately questionable as to whether that was its actual location.

ROOM 203 on the other hand I'm pretty confident is supposed to be in that location. Not only do the door position and boundaries match, if you take into consideration all the rooms connecting to ROOM 201, you would expect ROOM 200, ROOM 202, ROOM 203, ROOM 204, etc. The door below the shutter could be 202, door above could be 204, the door along the corridor is 203 and the door with the key card reader could be ROOM 200, which if it was an alpha map from early development as I've put it would make the most sense to have a room allocation like that, connected to ROOM 201. And ROOM 203 warps us to Site A, if it tells us anything, it tells us that's where it was intended to lead and was the end as far as development went (or needed to go in alpha stages) in that section of the game. This was pretty much my reasoning, still not anything concrete but the best explination I can give for now.

My biggest mistake was probably assuming it has anything to do with the B1 level and leads off in a particular direction, as if we discontinue the Drains we have nothing in our way to prevent us from going nuts with the design, it could quite happily be B2 and lead off in all kinds of directions. But doing it like this made it incredibly simple and for something that in an alpha state, something simple is probably better.

In fact I actually think I know how all this works and I've already thought of a few different ways in which it could work, this was just what I have and what made most sense for now. When I finish my next map I'll go into it!

[Enigmatism415]

Looks good, but be careful in your consideration of the wall areas surrounding the doors in the "Alpha Tunnel". Each terminus of this corridor features a wall of bars surrounding its corresponding door–bars which do not match the door frame in Room 203 to which one of these doors is assigned in your proposed layout.

This may be the answer; I'd go with this for the sake of balanced scenarios and adherence to the correct ladder orientations.

Indeed, this is what I'm inclined to believe, for this era of development anyway. However I don't believe there are two central hubs in the late eras of development i.e. Drains L Tunnel and ROOM 201, as much as I would like both to be there, the scenario and evidence thanks to the likes of Inflames currently doesn't support it. In early eras of development, possibly era 3 and earlier, I don't think the Drains was there at all and there was an entirely different sewer network planned which did involve ROOM 201 as we all originally assumed. Here's my proposed pre era 4 (pre Drains) alpha map:



I base this on a few things. With this configuration many things were possible. While textures appear to be different (possibly a result of old an new source material?) and the ladders aren't orientated correctly (B1 probably wasn't even fully rendered at this point), boundaries match, door placements match, sewer floor levels match, door warps match (Dark Biohazard confirmed ROOM 203 warp is native to the MZD build), the location of the Factory matches and it all fits together with very few problems besides rooms missing in between. It allows both characters to enter the sewer system from two different points, have two opposite objectives and both leave through the same route to the North-East. Regardless of ladder orientation I seem to find some sort of balance to a scenario like this, which is why I personally prefer it and decided to spend more time on it. Using Outdoor A as the access point to ROOM 201 makes it much harder to map out the green sewers with current public material, it makes it much more complicated and disjointed, in my opinion something that is simple to map is the most likely scenario of the two. It isn't an attempt to explain the whole game as it is, simply offer an idea on what an alternate sewer system might have been like had the Drains not been incorporated into the game.

We can learn a few interesting things by messing around with Elza's scenario. Firstly Elza makes her way down through the RPD into the basement (where we can notice the lights are already on) and discovers that the Door to Garage B is locked. We can't change the camera angle to see inside, but thanks to the JUMP menu we can warp to L Tunnel and use the access shaft to climb back up. We can see the steel container is there (interestingly the dialogue still triggers but on the opposite side of the crate) and that the door is still locked. Elza goes about her way, meeting John and completing various objectives and rendezvous with him on the roof. They make their way down the roof passage to outdoor A and into the sewers.

Ignore for a moment that I'm in the Drains, I just want to demonstrate something in Garage B for reference sake. Interestingly where era 4 is concerned, if we make out way back up into Garage B after our meeting with John we can see the steel container is gone, not only that but the door is now actually open allowing Elza to get back into the RPD. I honestly didn't think there were any flags in this game but it appears so, once meeting with John on the roof the steel container is moved and the door is open, I don't think this is random, this is flagged as an intended feature of the scenario.

Anyway, back to the alpha sewers, here's how I see things. In the pre (era 3) Drains era Elza makes her way down Outside A into an unknown section of the sewers where she navigates various rooms and corridors where she reaches the Spider Tunnel. The crate puzzle here is synonymous with the crate puzzle on the other end in ROOM 201. Her objective is to head North East towards the factory, where she carries on through unknown rooms, past the ALPHA SEWER, into ROOM 201 and eventually up into ROOM 203 after completing her objective. We can see that in ROOM 203 the door is programmed to warp to Site A (Dark Biohazard confirmed this is native) further supporting the idea that it's situated in the North East and was intended to lead the player in that direction.

For the fun of it I'm working on another map taking creative liberties and trying to come up with something more fleshed out. After thinking about it for a while now I think I have a good idea of what's going on and when I'm done I'll attempt to explain and hopefully add some depth to the alpha sewers. I honestly prefer them to the Drains, the Drains is pretty boring and not very exciting, it's only a handful of rooms, it has some interesting puzzles but nothing quite like the sewer network that the alpha sewers appears to be. The alpha sewers just looks very intimidating and seems like a complex of dark and dingy corridors more like retail, it's by far my favourite of the two.

[Enigmatism415]

The only other alternative solution is that neither Outdoor A nor Garage B lead to the Drains, they both lead to an alternate sewer network, however long or short, that both separately connect to the Drains.

This may be the answer; I'd go with this for the sake of balanced scenarios and adherence to the correct ladder orientations.

Otherwise, your latest map looks to be the most plausible by comparison, and if you ignore the troublesome ladder orientations, you could revert the Drains B2 map to its original orientation by rotating it 90 degrees anticlockwise.

which room is keiji's corridor, mandel?

ROOM 201.

That new map of yours, geluda, actually makes more sense - in the real world, that is - than any I've seen so far. Real world, that is. Remember where that logic led me last year, though ... God knows I've fought with those ladder orientations myself, back before we had the MZD build to play with.

Still, your solution is very attractive. It might explain where they got the idea for Sherry's and Ada's first side quests in RE2 - all that running around at the treatment plant. That part of the game has always seem disjointed to me - like it was something they stuck on as an afterthought. It also allows for BOTH routes into the Sewers itself without some fancy "A/B zapping" like we first thought.

Here's another ingredient to throw in the soup - in RE2, there are parts of the Sewers where you can see beyond, but you can't enter. They way is usally barred. It's open beyond, but you can't ever get back there - like that last storeroom in RECV, where the only part of it you can get to is the upper balcony. Perhaps some of those other ladders in LTUNNEL (1) are blocked? "There is something over the manhole. I can't push the lid up." Or something like that. And then there's that card reader door in Keiji's Corridor. What do we do with that?

Keep on chasin' this rabbit. He's looking pretty tasty.

Thanks! This is something I'm considering also, as this all stemmed from the thought of Sherry having some side quest in the sewers. Putting it all like this actually allows for that to happen and without Sherry having a side quest before meeting up with Elza and John. Although I don't really like the idea that Leon heads directly into the Drains and Elza has to side track through a different sewer network, because then what happens to Leon? Does he omit it entirely? Or does he have an alternate quest in which he has to go up the ladder and into the green sewers? That part doesn't make a lot of sense. As much as I like it I'm not sure that this way of looking at things is entirely correct, which I'll go into more detail a bit later on.

[Darkness]

which room is keiji's corridor, mandel?

[RMandel]

That new map of yours, geluda, actually makes more sense - in the real world, that is - than any I've seen so far. Real world, that is. Remember where that logic led me last year, though ... God knows I've fought with those ladder orientations myself, back before we had the MZD build to play with.

Still, your solution is very attractive. It might explain where they got the idea for Sherry's and Ada's first side quests in RE2 - all that running around at the treatment plant. That part of the game has always seem disjointed to me - like it was something they stuck on as an afterthought. It also allows for BOTH routes into the Sewers itself without some fancy "A/B zapping" like we first thought.

Here's another ingredient to throw in the soup - in RE2, there are parts of the Sewers where you can see beyond, but you can't enter. They way is usally barred. It's open beyond, but you can't ever get back there - like that last storeroom in RECV, where the only part of it you can get to is the upper balcony. Perhaps some of those other ladders in LTUNNEL (1) are blocked? "There is something over the manhole. I can't push the lid up." Or something like that. And then there's that card reader door in Keiji's Corridor. What do we do with that?

Keep on chasin' this rabbit. He's looking pretty tasty.