Since it's post-apoc, redraw the US map

[sdlotu]

All of the ideas I have read so far, with the exception of California as islands, pretty much assume that the US continent will be fundamentally unchanged after the apocalypse. I would suggest that the inevitable climate effects would possibly raise the sea level thus changing the coastlines and climate regions across the continent. The event could also redraw river channels, relocate fresh water basins (lakes, bayous, swamps and such), create new oases and deserts, and generally mess with the whole notion of 'let's get out that pre-war map and just go to where everything was before!'

Larger features would remain the same, but there could be enough difference that were the staring location someplace like Needles, CA, the terrain might be just recognizable (same big river near by), but enough different (natural lake from a collapsed watercourse, green belt around the lake, and so on) that you're really emerging into a new world again. This has the benefit of giving the design team a lot more freedom to alter the world significantly, but still rationally.

My hope is that, by incorporating this kind of overhaul of the known world, I will have the experience of discovering the places I thought I already knew, learning about what was changed and what remained the same, not just in the form of buildings, population and social order, but also about terrain, wildlife and natural resources. This, more than some other parts of Wasteland and Fallout 1/2, were what kept me playing and exploring.

A world changed just enough to be unpredictable, but hauntingly familiar, is just the world I hope to explore.

[Ausir]

Florida actually became an island in Fountain of Dreams, the unofficial sequel to Wasteland.

[PiPboy]

Well thats an intresting point.

1. But considering current generations geographic knowledge, even if its the exact same, they probably wouldn't know if it was there or not, unless they lived in that area. So it would be "brand new" to a majority of people
Some people still think California is the biggest state in U.S.A......

2. They would probably only go as far as having geographic names but I doubt the areas it such would be a photographic replica of those areas in the 80's

To put it more to the point, there were 2 wannabe presidental candidates who didn't know where IRAN was. Yet they wanted to run a country. I hope they knew at least which country they wanted to be president of and what it looks like.

[jurbanek]

I love this. I remember my old Gamma World Map of the US

[sdlotu]

That map does at least begin to show the changes I think would be interesting in the game. Most of the non-coastal terrain appears to be pretty similar, but it is amusing to see San Jose where Stockton should be. I envision even more radical redrawing of the region, but I'd be happy if some climatic change effects were taken into consideration.

Maybe the weather changes brought on by the bombs revealed the Mother Lode? A new aquifer under the Great Basin? River redirection resulted in a freshwater lake the size of the Salton Sea? Where there's water and resources people will gather, and conflicts will arise...

[Woolfe]

HELL-O....

Global Warming anyone.... Suddenly everything changes

[Drool]

...countered by the nuclear winter?

[Woolfe]

Even better Water rises, then lowers further changing the shape and landscape.... WIN WIN