City-17's location

this is really interesting, that would be cool if Moto-X_Pat really was on to something
 
EVIL said:
Exept in hl2 they are at the bottom on the dried up lake wich makes me believe that something drained down the river, or maby something is stealing all the earth's recources like water. who knows!

pretty interesting tho
Click to expand...

A river... interesting idea. If city 17 was far enough from the sea, and that was the dried up bed of a large river then there doesn't need to have been any water loss at all, the path of the river may just have been diverted, or dammed up.
Not particularly likely, but altenative explanations are always good. :)
 
That would be really cool if City17 was a Russian city that was basically developed for weapons research and stuff like that. I'm taking Forensics Science courses right now and alot of it deals with Bioterror. The Russians had so many labs throughout the USSR that were dedicated to germ warfare and all other types of weapons research. It would be really cool to see something like that in HL2. :D Nice research :D
 
Just found this thread. It is a good find you've made.

I did some (very) quick research on this and found two links with pictures of the area.
http://www.bellona.no/en/international/russia/navy/pacific/general/26645.html
an article about a ship and radiation or whatever.. I did'nt read the whole thing. :p Anyway, the top pic is from a part of the Zvezda harbor according to this:
http://www.nti.org/db/nisprofs/russia/naval/nucflt/pacflt/landysh.htm

found this link too.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/bolshoi-kamen.htm
apparantly Shkotovo-17 is called Fokino too?
a quick search later:
http://vn.vladnews***/Arch/2001/ISS273/News/News03.HTM
kinda looks like some of the archtecture weve seen of C17 so far, right?
what do you think?
 
beautiful information. thanks a dozen.
though i think city 17 isnt based on any single thing...
 
I remember this thread. I liked it the first time round, and I like it now when I've come back to check the information. I think this is the right city, even though when I tried the lat/long finder it screwed up :(

It says there is a city 17, city 22 and city 26 when I search in google.. How come there are only a few cities mentioned? Could we assume that there are at least 26 cities out there, 1, 2, 3, 4 running up to 23, 24, 25, 26?

Sorry for the bump, I just wanted to know, plus check to see if the idea raised in this thread still stands.
 
you people know that easten europe ends at the ural-mountains?
perhaps doug doesnt know the difference between asia and europe, but i doubt that.

the modern "living-buildings" in hl2 look similar to the buildings found in most european towns(built between the 50' and early 70', cheap, fast building times and ugly of course). the older ones are too old for ussr-building, style is around 1880's to 1920's(in a style common in most european cities too). just take a look at the elevators.

im very convinced that the position of city-17 is in south-eastern europe, somewhere on the balkan(yugoslavia!!!) near the mediterream or a little bit more to the eastern, near the blacksea.

on the other hand it could also be located at the baltic sea, riga for example maybe a nice candiate.

but for sure city-17 doesnt look like on of those fresh-founded-satelite-cities. a shipyard is not proof. cause they look nearly the same all over the world(okay, you find more f*cked up'ed yards in the former ussr, but the still look like every f*cked up'ed ship-yard around the globe).
 
A couple problems. The first is simple: The markings on the gas station dispensers are in Swedish as fasr as I can tell.

The second problem is more important. Let's look at this from a demographic perspective:

How many Asian people did you see in HL2? There may have been some, but honestly I don't remember any. Every citizen and resistance member is either white or black, plus they all speak American English. If this city was in Eastern Asia, I'd expect to see a lot more Asian-featured people around. In fact, pretty much everyone should be Asian.

I know HL2 is set in the future, but it can't be that far and that kind of racial/demographic shift would take a LONG time.

Plus.... is there a prison and a suspension bridge around that area?
 
I didnt read the 6 pages of posts. Look at the electrical outlets. Not the ones the force fields are plugged intto but the ones in the labs and such. They are regular 110 volt outlets like in the USA. As far as I know entire europe uses the 220v system which has a completely different outlet.
 
Wow I'll have to read this fully when I get home, looks great!
 
I think all of this would be solved if someone found out where the true location of that horse on the pedestal (column) in "Follow Freeman" is.
 
Punky said:
I didnt read the 6 pages of posts. Look at the electrical outlets. Not the ones the force fields are plugged intto but the ones in the labs and such. They are regular 110 volt outlets like in the USA. As far as I know entire europe uses the 220v system which has a completely different outlet.
Click to expand...

thats partially right; nevertheless do the outlets in european countries still differ from each other.
 
dude this town is city 17 plain and simple, if you look in raisng the bar the show a map of how the game was originally gonna play out were you take a ship and shit, but if you look at the map valve made were it shows the see and land you can see its exactly like russian city17, ill try and scan it our somethin but im positive this town is it.
 
Moto-x_Pat said:
I have also found a sattelite picture of the area formerly known as Shkotovo-17 (City-17)
Click to expand...

Dude! I think i saw a map in the game that looked exactly like that area!

I'll have to play the game again to reconfirm it.
 
C-O-N-Spiracy said:
Dude! I think i saw a map in the game that looked exactly like that area!

I'll have to play the game again to reconfirm it.
Click to expand...

Yes, indeed!
 
Sorry to bump this thread up, but I found a program that let's me acces Landsat7 imagery. I took some pics of Shkotovo-17 for ye all. They're not that detailed but I thought they would be cool to look at.

http://koti.mbnet.fi/maxikana/Shkotovo/
 
I dont think City 17 is a real location... it's more like a combination of a couple of real places.

I think Sofia(Bulgaria), where I live, has made a big influance over a City 17.Why?Here's why:

- The whole game interrior is just like here - the buildings, the cars, the strets...

- The cyrilic graffits on the walls>OK that can be russian too.

- The signs that says "техника" or "порта".That means "technique" and "gate".About the gate I am not sure, it can be russian word too, but about the tecnique I am pretty sure it's bulgarian.The russian word is something like "техникь".

- The level after the one with the car, there is a general that explains you something on a map.And on that map you can see a location marked with "N.L.O." wich is the latinic version of cyrilic letters "H.Л.O." wich is "Hеидентифициран Летящ Oбект" wich is U.F.O. - Unidentified Flying Object.And that is 100% in bulgarian language.

- A friend of mine found somewhere in the game a washing machine named "перла", wich is bulgarian mark.

- The start of the level with the boat, with the blocks left of the reaver, on the hill, is really like the a city located 20km south of Sofia.When you travel pss this city, the view is almoust the same.And after that the industrial zone... just like the boat level.Except instead of reaver here we have a road.Of course this can be just coincidence :).

- One of the main Valve designers is Bulgarian - Viktor Antonov.And he has growth up in Sofia.
 
Sorry for digging that old posts ;)
I had lot of fun reading all of these :D But decided to bring more info into it.
Down to truth:
Shkotovo-17 is known due to some issues during reactor recharge - small explosion (1985 or 1986?). All of it happend in Chazhma shipyard (see here: http://www.nti.org/db/nisprofs/maps/primmap.htm )
Zavod Zvezda is located in Bolshoy Kamen - so there is a big difference among them.
I've never found any info about Shkotovo-17 and what it is in real, but it is definetley located in Chazhma bay, because there a not only shipyard... you understand ;)
 
On some levelthere as a "Cafe Baltic" That seems the city is over the baltic! Might be mu homeland POLAND.
 
Maybe we had a big nuclear war and global warming and all that fear stuff that I hear when I turn on the news, then the tectonic plates shifted and pushed Poland, Bulgaria, Russia and America into one tight little City-17...

That'd just about explain everything... except for Gordon's lack of tongue

Or better yet maybe not...:cheers:
 
mi6o said:
I dont think City 17 is a real location... it's more like a combination of a couple of real places.

- The whole game interrior is just like here - the buildings, the cars, the strets...

[...]

- The level after the one with the car, there is a general that explains you something on a map.And on that map you can see a location marked with "N.L.O." wich is the latinic version of cyrilic letters "H.Л.O." wich is "Hеидентифициран Летящ Oбект" wich is U.F.O. - Unidentified Flying Object.And that is 100% in bulgarian language.

[...]
Click to expand...

Ha ha! I loughed about that N.L.O. thing. Did you knew that in latvian language N.L.O. means "Nezināms Lidojošs Objekts" which is the same as UFO.

"- The whole game interrior is just like here - the buildings, the cars, the strets..." - did you know that game interior is just like here - Latvia? It's freakin' eastern europe. Well I agree on "I dont think City 17 is a real location... it's more like a combination of a couple of real places."


Quak_66 said:
On some levelthere as a "Cafe Baltic" That seems the city is over the baltic! Might be mu homeland POLAND.
Click to expand...

Or it could be my homeland - Latvia. Because we (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) are the Baltic States - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltics.
 
I think he's Onto something here...

theres another thread floating around these forums somewhere discussing the map of Freemans entire journey. The Map has been compiled & it shows that city 17 & its surroundings are on a peninsula or headland. After cunsulting my trusty Google Earth, Turns out that this 'Shkotovo' is a peninsula, with its own city that for some reasonisnt marked, (not to mention the small village that could play host to ravenholm later on) 13.6 miles South of 'Shkovoto-17' is the Zveda shipyard, & further south of that is some jagged coastline that looks to similar the the waterworks map to be coincidental.

Iv'e marked this all out on a google earth map. here- [img=http://img355.imageshack.us/img355/8793/city171ds.png]
 
Show us where that Bridge is and all those Tunnels :cheers:

And I don't see a big spiralling tower in the middle of City-17 on that map...
 
kaf11 said:
good work. valve may have been inspired by that city, and taken its principle and placed their city-17 in eastern europe. i remember reading something from valve in which they said they were blown away by how cool their art department made use of eastern european designs. they probably used a lot of europe as inspiration, and this city seems like a good place for them to start.
Click to expand...

Yes,

I think they may have taken the name inspiration of numbered cities, but the city is most likely to be in eastern europe.

I personally believe that it is set in the ukraine. A former soviet republic, with its own language, the russian the soviets left behind and english which they recently use.
I am not sure to its exact location, afterall it is a fictional city, but i believe it is on the coast of the black sea and is more or less where the ukrainian city of Odessa is.

I think a clue to this might be the fact that on your travels as Gordon you on the highway 17 part, you go along a coast line alot like this. There are much oil industry and shipping yards, in this part of the game alot like in that part of the ukraine. Also, most importantly , you come across a rebel base called New little odessa. I think this was the biggest clue, as the city and part of the world is easter european, by old architecture, and communist apartment blocks. It has this coastal feel to the city and is on the coast. And that fact that a rebel base being called new little odessa is the biggest clue as to more or less where this fictional place would be in real life.

Indeed, this maybe what the rebels call thier base as it is close to a place which was called odessa in that area. I think the most plausible explanatinon would be that c17 is/used to be odessa. That is until the combine regime re-named it.

Here is a link to the area in which i mean. Its eastern europe of course, actually has architecture and old ex-soviet builing like in the game and is in that cooastal region:

http://encarta.msn.com/map_701515286/Odesa.html

It also has extensive harbours and docks historically. Also alot of the areas like in hl2 with sandy beaches and then cliff faces, uneven coastline and harbours/inlets and small estuaries. i.e. many features like in the coast of hl2.

This region also is supported by the fact that it is of eastern euopean orthodox christain religion. Which is supported by the encountwer of father gregori and the orthox style church in ravenholm. And many churches and spires that you may see on the horizons of arease of the game.

On another note i would like to say that; this al makes perfect sense from the combine/breens world control point of view. Aparrently in the end of hl1 and the seven hour war , america is supossed to be mostly destroyed whether by the excessive warp storms or the united states nuclear bombing its own soil in order to stave off the invaders.
Having his main base, the citadel of master control located here in c17, if it is odessa, would enable him to be located at the heart of what remains of human civilisation.

With the united states destroyed. the areas left would need controlling, and exterminating. Its people of inteligent europe would be a prime target for the combine to kill. also which its geographical position of being situated almost perfectly central in the biggest continent on earth, and over all of the rest of the human is perfect location for its centre of control. Not just because of the immediate area it sits on but also because it is centrally located in the whole of the eurasian continent, with access to the whole of the earths land surface basically. It ofcourse has access o all major oceans, but this is not an essential, i suspect the combine transports most of its machinery of oppression around on the railways like we see, across the vast land areas.
The soviets and nazis also used this strategy.
 
ríomhaire said:
NLO is New Little Odessa. Odessa is a city.
Click to expand...

Odesa is the correct spelling of the Ukraini city, 'Odessa' is a city in the middle of Texas, which is near New Mexico. And we all know what secret base is in the middle of new mexico now dont we?
 
But anyway - there are not much real things. Especially some submarine I saw among screenshots - it was definetley Amercan type submarine because of the wings on deck-cabin. There are no submarines in russia with such design, all wings on main body only.
 
LIST OF POSSIBLE CITY 17's

*Sofia- Bulgaria
*Prague- Czech Republic
*Shkotovo 17- U.S.S.R
*Odesa- Ukraine

What evidence do we have to support these locations? perhaps we can ave a represtative for each? lol
 
ríomhaire said:
Sofia and Prague are both inland.
Click to expand...

I guess so, but both cities feature a lot of Tsarist russian architecture.

I got this from wikipedia-

City 17 is visually described as a large Eastern European city, featuring mostly Eastern European architecture dating from pre-World War II Neoclassicism, to post-war revival of classical designs, Soviet modernism, and post-Soviet contemporary designs. In addition, many abandoned and unused vehicle scattered throughout City 17 are based on Soviet-marketed Moskvitchs and Volgas, dating back to the 1960s and 1970s; such vehicles were commonly seen in many Soviet occupied Eastern European countries and cities.

Bulgaria & The Czech republic were both Soviet occupied countries until their independance. But their layouts dont match. In the 'Dark Energy' chapter, you catch glimpses of the city from the top of the Citadel. It's quite apparent that the layout of the city is something like this.

http://img360.imageshack.us/img360/8112/ascii2el.png

(I'm sure i saw a screenshot from the Citadel somewhere on these forums)

theres obviously no rivers or such near Pruage or sofia. But what is interesting is the similarities between the layout of Cty 17 & Oesa/shcotovo

Apocalypse89 said:
I think St. Petersburg is also a possible candidate.
Click to expand...

Could well be, St. Petersburg's layout looks very similar to City 17's...
 
And the horse statue is from St Petersburg I think. BTW, what's Stalingrad called now?
 
I don't think it's mean to be any specific city. More of an algamation of several different cities of the same style to create a sort of archetypal Eastern European/Russian city.
 
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