Let's discuss the RE15 Sewers ....

[Guest]

Well, the same is true for either scenario. What I meant was that L Tunnel and Drains can not be the only sewer level because it simply doesn't fit, either way we try and work it, it still requires more rooms to connect one of the access points to L Tunnel, so there has to at least be more to the sewers than is presented in the Drains, further supporting the inclusion of the green sewers. I like what you're suggesting, if we consider that RPD B2 and Drains B2 are on the same level, it will make any B1 level of the sewers easier to conceptualize and map since it can't conflict with the RPD B1 and must connect somehow to the Drains.

[Enigmatism415]

L Tunnel and Drains can not be the only sewer level because it simply doesn't fit, either way we try and work it, it still requires more rooms to connect one of the access points to L Tunnel, so there has to at least be more to the sewers than is presented in the Drains, further supporting the inclusion of the green sewers.

Right; the green sewer may indeed be the missing link. Interestingly, IGAS has openly stated that the connections between the manholes and their corresponding ladders are direct (the quote is buried around here somewhere). I wonder if they actually know for sure, however; perhaps they are only citing the raw PSM build's portal assignments, or perhaps they have relevant information from the final build. It'll be a cold day in hell before IGAS posts on a thread like this, but maybe we'll hear more from them on the matter in the main thread.

if we consider that RPD B2 and Drains B2 are on the same level, it will make any B1 level of the sewers easier to conceptualize and map since it can't conflict with the RPD B1 and must connect somehow to the Drains.

Precisely; with the outline of RPD B1 serving as a concrete boundary, along with the relative location of the appropriate L Corridor ladder, the basic framework of your green sewer map (as Drains B1) is already established.

[Guest]

I think I'm going to stick with your scenario for now and work with that, right now it makes the most sense. Here's my contribution for tonight, near 1:1 maps for each sewer room in the MZD build. For scale I counted the number of foot steps from wall to wall and allocated each footstep to 1 pixel, I then up-scaled each map by 400% and edited them accordingly. The first four maps are very, very near 1:1, I used the information learned to make educated guesses as to the size and dimensions of ROOM 201. 201 is not perfect, some bits may be off by one or two foot steps, but it's the best guess I can give right now without actually playing inside the room. I didn't bother changing the orientation of the green sewer rooms since right now we he have no idea what the orientation should be, so I just left it as I drew it.



To finish off here's an interesting sewer fact! As Capcom left it (or as IGAS left it) (confirmed by Dark Biohazard), in ROOM 203, the door is linked to Site A!

[Enigmatism415]

Excellent work! It looks like we have a game of Tetris ahead of us...

[Dark Biohazard]

Good work geluda!

[RMandel]

Yes, those manhole connections were direct in the original MZD build - leastways the two that worked. It was probably the same in the PVB - the 40% raw untouched "plain vanilla build." There's not a lot of evidence to suggest the Team was changing room links willy-nilly, save the ones they needed for their new rooms. So that we can "fix" as a fact and move on. Doesn't mean a thing - that Lobby Roof drop link might have been convenient for playtesting/demo purposes, like some of the others. They WERE direct, though, in the original MZD buld - and the Team hasn't lied to us about anything they've done. I seem to recall you guys (or someone else) having issues with that particular manhole in the past - and for pretty much the same reasons. Probably safe to say that if there's anything funny going on with the Sewers - like the problem of the "green" sewers - that might be the second best place to take a little detour from the known map. The only other place is the little L-hall in the Baby Gator Room, and ... well ... we've already been through that.

There WAS a working door at the other end of ROOM 203. I've brought this up before. Takes you right to where the West Tank upper deck and Control Room is supposed to be. Nothing there, of course - the RDT doesn't exist in the MZD build. DB's taken that out in his later patches; you'll have to look at his early ones, right after he got that room working. Just bringing that up for the new people in this discussion.

I just happened to notice this the other day, when was archiving my proposed "Sewers Green" map. The way I have those rooms hooked up - and I know it isn't right, just convenient - you can play them in the order they were created. You'd come in from the east (left) and "start" in the Leon Jacket Tunnel, then move through the "lost" LTUNNEL2, then Keiji's Corridor, then wind up inside the Spider Tunnel. At least that way folks would have a guided tour of the Sewers' early days, eh?

Keep up the good work, geluda.

[Guest]

I've found a problem with mapping the sewers that I don't know if I should be paying attention to or not. The more I pay attention to the game in order to get clues as to the location of the green sewers, I've came to realize that not one of the ladder shafts connecting the RPD to the Drains actually matches. The compass always points the same way and the orientation of the maps remain the same but the ladder shafts don't correspond to one another. Perhaps this is circumstantial evidence and not something the devs were particularly worried about, but it strikes me as being curious. Take a look.









They're all facing different directions apart from two. Unless we change the orientation of the maps only one combination works if we want the RPD to connect to the Drains and it's one of the worst possible combinations you can imagine.



Not only does B2 not fit the map, but it reverses the scenario to what we've come to know in era 4.



Even if we change the orientation of the sewers Outdoor A still doesn't fit.

My map of the Drains isn't perfect but it's pretty close.



This is the only possible way I see of everything matching together. It looks pretty and does what we want it to, but it's not practical for the scenario in any way. Am I looking too deeply here? Or is this actually a problem with the sewers that needs/needed addressing? Either Capcom didn't care about consistency and the orientation of the ladders, or the Outdoor A manhole can't lead to the Drains and the Drains isn't orientated the right way. Perhaps I'm taking things too literally... How about other PSX era RE games such as BIO1, did Capcom pay close attention to detail and made sure that ladders and map orientations always matched? 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.

[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.

[Darkness]

which room is keiji's corridor, mandel?

[Guest]

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.

[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.

[Guest]

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]

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.

[Guest]

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!

[Dark Biohazard]

Good work in the maps geluda, I like it!