Incredible Fake Map

24
Aug
2004
By Cryptecks | 24th Aug 2004 at 01:38 GMT in San Andreas | 43 Comments

Sitting in my inbox today I found a non-expected, but great email from someone calling themself tnk. This tnk said that he looked around at all of the rough map sketches that various magazines had drawn, and created his own, taking small ideas from all the others. Add to this the fact that the town of Blueberry is supposed to be situated in the center of the map. All of this together leads to the following, which I think is one of the best and most accurate fan map drawn on the new info released. Goto the Fanart page or just click the following image to see this map.

SAmap_tnk_th.jpg

Submitted by tnk

Cryptecks's photo
Cryptecks 24th August, 2004 @ 02:16 - Permalink

And yes I did notice one small slipup where Angel Pine is supposed to be at the base of Chilliad, but isn't on this map.

smartboy4's photo
smartboy4 24th August, 2004 @ 07:20 - Permalink

Yeah that's the coolest piece i ever seen :D

Chris's photo
Chris 24th August, 2004 @ 12:57 - Permalink

thats awesome, it looks so realistic

Precision's photo
Precision 24th August, 2004 @ 15:19 - Permalink

San Fierro is supposed to be on the right, not on the left, that is, if they want it to be realistic.

tnk's photo
tnk 24th August, 2004 @ 16:34 - Permalink

Actually, if we follow REAL geography San Fierro would be Northwest, Las Venturas to the east, and Los Santos to the Southwest.

I was going primarily based on what the lastes PS2 UK magazine showed, although they admit thier glimpse was brief and could be wrong.

Most sources do agree that Los Santos is in the lower right of the screen, and of course that section is accurate on the map I made.

As for Angel Pine, I didn't know how to rectify that problem. I know the first mission takes you there, so it would seem it is close to Los Santos, and yet Red County, the closest countryside to Los Santos doesn't contain Mt. Chilliad or Angel Pine.

I'd be more than happy to make a new version if you guys want to help figure out locations.

TimedOUt's photo
TimedOUt 25th August, 2004 @ 02:53 - Permalink

Great lookin map, excellent work but from the official site Las Venturas should be to the north as Hanky Panky Point looks out toward the city, so this would put San Fierro to the west.

Also I didn't know Mt. Chilliad was on a seperate island.

supremeradness's photo
supremeradness 25th August, 2004 @ 03:38 - Permalink

From what I have heard, the basic consensus of how you are originally able to drive is that you can drive from Los Santos, through the countryside, up a mountain and into San Fierro, then through the desert to Las Ventura. PSM also stated something about how East and West were switched in this version of that portion of America. Their idea of what the map was (they actually saw it for about five seconds) is seen here: http://img10.exs.cx/img10/354/psm2_07.jpg

Also, Blueberry is indeed the center of the map, but the size of the covered map area on the official website also leads me to believe that the map is more of a rectangle, a little wider than how tall it is. The game is supposed to let you go to new areas progressively, starting in Los Santos and ending in Las Venturas. You can already see that in the official submaps, a bridge going towards the west where Las Venturas is is completely broken. If San Fierro is a separate island from Flint County, then you could go to the mountain in an early mission and only unlock that area. A waterway there would also allow the Gant and Garden bridges to have an actual use. My suspicion is that the portion of the map a little NW of Blueberry is all water, maybe with a small island (Alcatraz) in the middle. Also, maybe the different areas in their respective islands all circle around this central body of water. Maybe one bridge (Gant)allows passage from Flint County's mountain area to San Fierro, and then the other bridge (Garden) crosses to land that goes from countryside to desert, with Las Venturas on the complete western (opposite of real geography) side of the map. The cities need to be farther apart to be realistic, and realism is exactly what Rockstar is trying to do here.

supremeradness's photo
supremeradness 25th August, 2004 @ 03:50 - Permalink

TimedOut, I also thought the same thing too. But the buildings seen from the Hanky Panky Point picture on the official website look suspiciously like some in Los Santos, this disagrees with every other hunch anyone has had about where the cities are, Las Venturas would be much to close to Los Santos as seen there (within swimming distance maybe), and the sky is much too smoggy around those buildings. Rockstar's page never tells you that it is Las Venturas either.

Blueberry's page also speaks of how the Panopticon has a view of both Bone and Flint counties, and also the San Fierro airport. This could mean the cities could be in either direction. I just don't think the Hanky Panky Point picture is that important to our guesses.

Basically, we don't know.

Chris's photo
Chris 25th August, 2004 @ 08:08 - Permalink

so why exactly did you bother posting all that?

you didnt even break it up with paragraphs, how do you expect anybody to read it

qwerty_ca's photo
qwerty_ca 25th August, 2004 @ 09:54 - Permalink

Hmm... supermadness, you're right, I too remember reading that you to get to SF from LS you need to go out into the country side, climb a mountain and then go some more in the countryside before you get to SF. However, I remember this being A mountain, not necessarily THE mountain (mt chilliad). So it could be the Vinewood mountains, or "Fern Ridge" on tnks map if fern ridge is indeed a mountain-chain.

At R*'s official website, the photo of Hanky Panky Point looks onto some remarkably tall buildings - however, neither some miniscule redneck -----hole like Palomino Creek nor its cousin Leafy Hollow across the water (according to tnks map) are big enough to hold such huge buildings - which means that we could only be looking at one of the 3 major cities. So unless the pic on R* is taken from some really weird angle and looks back at LS to the south which is weird because there is clearly some sort of concrete barrier in between the HP point cars and the buildings in the distance, and such a barrier could only mean either fencing against a cliff or a highway, but there's no highway just to the south of HP point that would be close enough to LS to have the buildings to close.

This means that either LS has some pretty gigantic buildings even in its extreme-most suburbs, or tnk's map is wrong and SF is actually located on the south side of the island it's on. rather than the north as he's depicted. That would explain a number of other things as well - the gant and garden bridges could join the LS island to the SF island (indeed, this picture shows that atleast one side of the bridge is connected to greenery rather than urban terrain). The SF airport would be located on the westernmost edge of SF (hence in the southwest of SF island). This would place it pretty close to the panopticon so it could be seen from there. Bone county (I'm assuming from the name) would be the desert area leading to LV and Flint county (again from the name) could be the Island/area that Mt Chilliad is on. It would also solve the problem of large bldgs being visible from hanky panky point, because these would be on the eastern external edge of SF if it were on the south coast of SF island. And it could be that the SF buildings are enveloped in fog (as they often are in real life) rather than smog as supermadness claims.

I hope that solves the SF/LS/Hanky Panky Bldgs/Panopticon Airport problems.

I have no idea where to begin on solving the Chiliad/Angel Pine issue.

Where does it say that the first mission takes you to Angel Pine btw? For all I could find, the first couple of missions are sort of a tutorial (just like the first few missions in GTA3 - such as picking up and dropping off Misty were tutorials). There is a "Mission X" at gtadomain.gtagaming.com which says you need to go into the countryside for various reasons, but at what point in the game you have to do it is unknown. In any case, I think its HIGHLY unlikely that you will be sent out into the wilderness withing only a few missions of the start - at the very least, a n00b needs to have learned how to drive, shoot and operate the controls before he's sent into the countryside.

Unfortunately, the only pictures of Mt Chiliad I could find offer absolutely no clue where it is in relation to any city, or even if its on its own island. And where does it say Angel Pine is at Chilliads base? Any comments on this would be highly helpful!

Oh and tnk, excellent job, even more so if you did this by hand and using your imagination - unfortunately you forgot to include an airport for LV - maybe in the next version of the map.

illitrate23's photo
illitrate23 25th August, 2004 @ 10:30 - Permalink
SF is actually located on the south side of the island it's on. rather than the north as he's depicted.

that would also explain the City Limits line that is visible on the very top right edge of the map on the R* site. it's not Los Santos' City Limits, cos that's in the middle of the R* map

but i agree - awesome work by tnk - very impressed with the way he's put it all together and kept it in the same style. there does seem to be helluva lot of water around though - i wasn't expecting there to be so much in san andreas

smartboy4's photo
smartboy4 25th August, 2004 @ 10:44 - Permalink

These guys are awesome, no, mad. They had the time to post all this loads of 'useful' information. I can't for sure. Haha.

illitrate23's photo
illitrate23 25th August, 2004 @ 10:56 - Permalink

ah, well i have a good excuse - my company is in the middle of making 90% of us redundant - so we've nothing to do but surf teh web all day. well, we've work to do - but for some reason we all seem to lost interest in doing any of that :-)

perfect timing too - hopefully i'll be out of this place in time for GTA:SA and then i can spend all day every day cruising the streets of san andreas :-)

but the other guys that post this stuff and have other proper stuff to do - it's just a sign of pure dedication :-)

smartboy4's photo
smartboy4 25th August, 2004 @ 11:15 - Permalink

Anyway just stay real active on the forum, we need more members. Then we'll discuss about SA when it's released :D

tnk's photo
tnk 25th August, 2004 @ 16:59 - Permalink

This is all super helpful!

Just a couple thoughts I had--

I consciusly put LV and SF at the edges of the map. It just didn't seam logical to me that another city would be just over that river from Red County. It seems to close to LS. Everything we have been led to belive has said you have to drive some seriosu country between the cities, and that sometimes it is even easier to fly. Red County doesn't look like it would take too long to cross, especially on that straight freeway, so I think there HAS to be more countryside on the other side of that river.

I feel like a tool for missing the comment about LV being seen from hank panky point, but it could work still. I think the images shown are looking south to LS. BUT, if the country side to the north is a desert it would likely be very flat, so it is possible that you can see a very far distance to see the city.

I put Mt. Chilliad on a mountain of it's own simply because I can't imagine they would leave a huge empty space of just water in the upper left corner. seems like a waste fo space.

I also feel dumb for missing that obvious bridge off of Rodeo that goes to the west.

Didn't know about "Bone County." That totally sounds like a desert.

And for the curious- I made the map in photoshop, and everything is just repeated bits and chunks from los Santos. It's all in layers so I can make a new version fairly easily, and I plan too.. so keep suggestions coming!

Cryptecks's photo
Cryptecks 25th August, 2004 @ 17:10 - Permalink

Still a great job tnk, and if you can make any sense out of all the suggestions you've been told, it would be awesome to get a new version. Also, you might want to look at the comments about it on http://www.gta-sanandreas.com. Some of them are jackasses that don't believe anything, but some of them make legitimate points.

Great work again, and I'm looking foward to a new version!

GTADork's photo
GTADork 25th August, 2004 @ 17:12 - Permalink

Yes, and could you spell "Las Venturas" correctly? Not to be a bother, but that is really bugging me :P

Otherwise, my EGM does specifically state that Angel Pine is at the base of Chiliad.

GTADork's photo
GTADork 25th August, 2004 @ 17:25 - Permalink

Oh, also I was thinking: if San An is a state, then will it actually be an island or series of islands? It seems odd to have San Andreas being essentially Rhode Island-sized. I think that maybe some part of the barrier in the game will be landlocked, unlike in previous GTA's.

supremeradness's photo
supremeradness 25th August, 2004 @ 17:44 - Permalink

illiterate's point about the city limit lines, seen here: http://gtadomain.gtagaming.com/images/sa/offmaplossantos.jpg

is the best one so far. indeed, a city does occupy the top right part of the map, and could be seen from Hanky Panky Point.

Also, another piece of information learned from that is that no city is found in the visible portion of the island to the west. This means that if further country is supposed to separate LS and SF, it must be to the west of LS. There is only one bridge crossing towards where Las Venturas must be, making it much easier to block off for more of the game.

Also, the flat line of coast on the SF island right next to the Panopticon looks suspicously like the edge of a runway bordering water. This places the airport far away from most of the bridges, but still close to the panopticon.

If the airport is there, the Panopticon can look towards Bone County to the north (to the west of Las Venturas, maybe extending most of the way towards the western edge of the map), Flint County to the south/southwest, and the airport.

I remember this piece of information none of us can find the original source of saying that you can drive "up a mountain" and "into" SF. So, the way to make you drive longer through Flint County (sounds like mining and stuff so fits mountains) would be a whole range of mountains/hills/cliffs surrounding the city and airport, and you would have to drive far west after leaving LS to go north past/through the mountains into SF. SF may sit on both sides of a river as tnk originally thought, and on the next body of land that SF's north side sits on, it slowly transitions from green to desert, becoming Bone County, which would extend far east until LV is reached. Now, this leaves Mount Chilliad anywhere in the southwest quarter of the map, which is all country, giving it plenty of space to sit byitself in the middle of nowhere as it does in this picture:

http://gtadomain.gtagaming.com/images/sa/screens/54.jpg

Also, to discount PSM's ideas of where everything is, they also mentioned that the entire map is green, just as the map of LS that Rockstar already released is. That means they could of looked at where the roads were centralized and just guessed which city was which.

I still have no idea how the land right around SF looks, here are some examples.

picture of gant bridge:

http://img78.photobucket.com/albums/v258/t...t/Unknown/8.jpg

another picture of gant bridge proving nonmountainous terrain is on either side of that bridge:

http://gtadomain.gtagaming.com/images/sa/screens/129.jpg

another one that confuses everything:

http://gtadomain.gtagaming.com/images/sa/screens/199.jpg

tnk's photo
tnk 25th August, 2004 @ 17:51 - Permalink

Heh.. some of the people at gta-sanandreas ARE tools.. but yeah, some more insight there.

All this is actually making sense.

THIS MAP Was also pointed out to me, and I think it's locations of things are probably much close to the truth and I amy adapt mine to resbemble it more It solves not only the city locations, but the Mt. Chillead / Angel Pine question too.

V2 is coming!

Mucho thanks to you guys for pointing out so much!

Chris's photo
Chris 25th August, 2004 @ 20:05 - Permalink

cool, v2 should be good.

make sure we get it first :P;)

tnk's photo
tnk 25th August, 2004 @ 20:08 - Permalink

I may be new, but I already have loyalty!

tnk's photo
tnk 25th August, 2004 @ 23:21 - Permalink

Okay... got the land shape and cities roughed in. No roads or towns or details yet, but does this sit a little better with you guys?

mapV2.jpg

supremeradness's photo
supremeradness 25th August, 2004 @ 23:47 - Permalink

Awesome! There are a few things that would make it more believable but take more time (i.e. representation of hills going up to SF, a little more land to the N and W), but this is a great representation and almost as close as anyone can get once you are finished. Keep it up, and just remember that the highways stretch all over SA, including inside the cities like in LS.

smartboy4's photo
smartboy4 26th August, 2004 @ 09:24 - Permalink

Yeah, you mean keys :D

qwerty_ca's photo
qwerty_ca 26th August, 2004 @ 10:34 - Permalink

Wow... the new version of the map clears up a LOT of the problems - and most importantly, it manages to solve both the Buildings-seen-from-Hanky-Panky and the Chillead-location problems at once.

OK, I'm making a checklist of all known info about the map... feel free to add to it or correct it. BUT PLEASE SOMEHOW MARK YOUR CHANGES FROM POST TO POST SO PPL CAN TRACK THEM EASILY. And remember to unmark other ppl's changes before you make yours.

01) Big Buildings seen from HP Point... check.

02) Lots of country between LS and SF... check.

03) Possiblity of mountain(s) between LS and SF... check.

04) Bone county (desert) visible from Panopticon... check.

05) Flint county (mountain) visible from Panopticon... check.

06) SF airport visible from Panopticon... check.

07) Atleast one SF bridge connects to non-urban area which may or may not be mountainous... check.

08) "America-shaped map" (I remember reading this somewhere)... not check.

09) Lots of open countryside for small towns... check.

10) Bridge from Rodeo going west... check.

11) "City Limit" north of Red County a possibility... check.

12) "City Limit" west of Rodeo a possibility... not check unless it refers to LS's city limits.

13) Map about 4-6 times > VC assuming LS = VC... check.

14) SF might straddle a river/sea/inlet/creek/bay etc... check.

15) Angel Pine near the base of Mt. Chilliad... check.

Yeah, so it fits everything we know so far and most of what we suspect so far... great job with the map tnk!

But just a bunch of questions I'd like to throw out...

Do you think you can fly/swim/drive to all cities outright so there will be no sectioning as in 3 and VC? If there is sectioning, what excuse will be given to block access? In 3 it was the explosion + construction delay, and in VC it was a hurricane warning.

Will you be able to fly a "Juank Air" plane or will you merely be able to ride it around from city to city like you do public transport?

crazychicken17's photo
crazychicken17 26th August, 2004 @ 11:25 - Permalink

I'm trying not to be completely overwhelmed by all the previews, hype and rumours. When I got GTA3 and VC, my only experience of them wa playing on them a couple of times at a friend's house - I didn't know anything about them, which meant I was completely blown away when I did play them.

Listen, what I'm saying is - what is the point in all this theorising? Does it really matter if you can 'guess' beforehand the layout of the cities? Is it too much trouble to wait a few months for the game to come out, then you can see the exact layout of the official map? This whole 'mappng SA' idea is complelety and utterly pointless.

GTADork's photo
GTADork 26th August, 2004 @ 11:30 - Permalink

Well, actually it is kind of interesting to see how close we can all get. I know it will still be a total shock to see the map. Besides, if you don't want to participate, go to another thread.

Cryptecks's photo
Cryptecks 26th August, 2004 @ 13:47 - Permalink
Well, actually it is kind of interesting to see how close we can all get. I know it will still be a total shock to see the map. Besides, if you don't want to participate, go to another thread.

Not a very smart way to talk to a Super Mod, but you're right, nonetheless.

Anyway, I hope that tnk is close to the real map simply for laughs and the occaisional, man tnk kicks ass!

GTADork's photo
GTADork 26th August, 2004 @ 15:30 - Permalink

Maybe, but the super-mod called out the Admin with his saying this was utterly pointless, so I figured I would stand behind the higher authority :-P

tnk's photo
tnk 26th August, 2004 @ 18:58 - Permalink

I agree it's KINDA a waste of time...

But i was bored at work, and mainly wanted to do it just to get an idea of size. But it was fun, and when everybody started pointing out other bits of evidence it was kind of a matter of pride to try and make it better!

qwerty_ca's photo
qwerty_ca 26th August, 2004 @ 19:30 - Permalink

Yo ppl ppl.....

We all know this "theorizing" is utterly pointless - but consider it a challange, to your deductive skills, to your logical reasoning and to your imagination (and also to tnk's Photoshop skills :P ).

It would be fun to reconstruct a map and find out the real one is exactly like what you calculated based on the clues, wouldn't it?

Ofcourse, you're not getting any prizes for it, but we're doing this merely for our own entertainment, cos I for one am going to be entirely bored until GTASA comes out on PC (which is estimated to be NEXT JUNE :( )

Already I've begun dreaming about what I'm gonna be doing the min I get the game.

Btw

1) what's a tool (as in ppl being tools)?

and

2) what's a super mod?

BTW is anyone who's gonna get SA on PC aware of what the reqs are gonna be? I'm gonna build a new PC soon, and I'm thinking of including the following

ATI All-In-Wonder 9600 Graphics Card (64 MB Ram)

1 GB DDR 333 MHz RAM

80 GB SATA Hard Drive

Plextor <some model number here> DVD Burner

AMD Athlon 2800 or 3200 64-Bit Processor

Gigabyte KNXP<something> VIA-based motherboard

I wanna be able to run SA at full speed with the highest possible graphics and all features including music etc and still have enough power left over to run a relatively intese app like MS Word or Kazaa. Does anyone know if the above PC will do it?

Should I post the reqs qn on another board?

GTADork's photo
GTADork 26th August, 2004 @ 20:16 - Permalink

No no... that definitely won't do... you better just scrap it... or better yet, give it to me.

qwerty_ca's photo
qwerty_ca 26th August, 2004 @ 21:59 - Permalink

OK, was that sarcasm or reality?

GTADork's photo
GTADork 27th August, 2004 @ 13:47 - Permalink

Sarcasm, that is more than enough I imagine.

Cryptecks's photo
Cryptecks 29th August, 2004 @ 17:13 - Permalink

Well for sure you are going to need a better GFX Card. 64mb isn't enough to run just about ANY new game on Medium Settings, let alone high. I would recommend a FX5200 128mb, it will at least last you for a few more games.

tnk's photo
tnk 29th August, 2004 @ 17:27 - Permalink

map2.jpg

Here it is,Version 2 just for you guys... until it gets oticed again...

smartboy4's photo
smartboy4 30th August, 2004 @ 06:20 - Permalink

Heh i'm not gonna care about fake maps/fanart. What's more important is the game

qwerty_ca's photo
qwerty_ca 30th August, 2004 @ 06:26 - Permalink
Well for sure you are going to need a better GFX Card. 64mb isn't enough to run just about ANY new game on Medium Settings, let alone high. I would recommend a FX5200 128mb, it will at least last you for a few more games.

yeah actually the card has 128 mb sry... and i really cant afford anything more at the moment, even if its not gonna work with games anymore... :(

btw how much ram does a ps2 have any idea?

qwerty_ca's photo
qwerty_ca 30th August, 2004 @ 06:29 - Permalink

And nice map tnk... tho i think SF airport is a bit closer to the panopticon than that.

BTW was "Edgar Dam" ur idea? Nice one, tho "Herbert Dam" is probably what it should have been ;-)

Oh and did u see the other post where the fellow who claims to have worked for R* says that its gonna take an HOUR of real time to drive b/n LS and SF in an infernus?

I can't even believe that... can any of u?

smartboy4's photo
smartboy4 30th August, 2004 @ 06:41 - Permalink

I've told you guys not to believe him but nobody cares.

Righty's photo
Righty 30th August, 2004 @ 14:02 - Permalink

That is a great map

qwerty_ca's photo
qwerty_ca 8th September, 2004 @ 22:37 - Permalink
I've told you guys not to believe him but nobody cares.

Why is it that you disbelive him though? Any reasons in particular?