River Police

[FarsightX3]

You know, one thing that stings me is when the "River Police" come down and knock your rivers. I understand that everyone gets confused of the general structure of a river. But what gets me is, when they harp on "rivers don't flow" north. They usually pick on little curves in the river that the designer made that go northward instead of south. I'd like to point out that the Nile River flows northward. If you look at the Ohio River Map, you can clearly see in some areas that the river flows northward. Will the River Police pick on that natural state?

Example: http://roble.pntic.mec.es/rmac0040/i...sippiRiver.gif

[Juggernaut1981]

Well to be fair... rivers flow towards the equator... So us "Other Hemisphere" people are used to north-flowing rivers.

It's about "in general" rather than "all and every". In General, rivers flow to the equator. In General, lakes have single outflows and unify (rather than divide). In General, rivers avoid higher-levels-above-sea-level.

So, yeah they'll tell you the rivers should be heading south, because in general that's where they should go. The Nile probably has fair reasons for being the exception (I'd assume there are mountainous or higher-level-above-sea lands to the south)... but it's not just because "I want one that goes north". Unless you have really quite specific reasons for 'not following the general rule'.

[RobA]

Not sure what either of you are talking about. Rivers flow from high ground to low ground, usually stopping when they hit the sea.

If someone has been criticizing rivers because of their cardinal directionality then we need to have a little discussion. Can't have deputies tromping all over the place willy-nilly.

-Rob A>

[Redrobes]

I have to admit if there is a rule that said rivers run towards the equator then I had never heard of it. From what I have seen, if you had a circular island then the rivers would run radially out towards the sea - assuming that the middle of the island is the high ground. I would be somewhat confident that all the rivers on the north African coast would be northerly as would those of Norway and the northern realms of Germany and France.

Need links to quoted posts here...

[mmmmmpig]

heck if you have a conic volcanic structure the drainage pattern is a radial drainage pattern.... but eventually the radial streams will coalesce into one drainage feature. Rivers flow downhill regardless of the direction downhill. The big "no-no" that is consistently viewed with rivers is the branching and eventually reconnecting haphazardly, and that doesn't happen in nature except in river deltas and the braided stream areas in a glacial outwash plain. The second worse violation is rivers flowing past each other into different large bodies of water... there has to be some kind of continental divide and drainage basin setup going on with drainage patterns, since all water flows downhill rivers shouldn't flow past each other without some major elevation change in between them.

Have I forgotten any major river police rules?

[Greason Wolfe]

Have to agree with Redrobes, here. Rivers flow from high to low regardless of the cardinal direction, as evidenced by the Willamette, John Day, Deschutes and Snake rivers all of which have a mostly northern flow while being in the northern hemisphere. Of particular note would be the John Day river, which is the third longest free-flowing river (no dams) in the conterminous U.S.

Just my two and a half cents.

GW

[Talroth]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_divide


Take a look at that page.

The coloured lines on the map show the 'high points', and from there rivers flow in the general direction of the nearest ocean that doesn't cross one of the lines.

[Ascension]

Obviously he's been chewing on this cud for quite some time and is still angry with Bartmoss for saying that he'd have trouble suspending his disbelief to accept "rivers as veins" and just about everyone here would back Bart up on that. The "offending" post is two months old so it's time for Farsight to drop that and get over it. Not everyone is going to accept your "veins" idea - the physics doesn't support it and the magic excuse stretches our beliefs and knowledge of the subject. Lashing out and saying that other maps with bad rivers don't get policed is flat out wrong and childish as we always point out those things. It's our job to help folks get their rivers correct; whether they accept it or not we point it out. Every map gets seen by us and sometimes one thing might slip through but 99% don't. Most of the time people get mad at us as well so you're not alone there. They also start trying to throw out every unnatural thing they can find on wikipedia to support their claims only to be pointed in the direction of what actually forms that unnatural thing and how their thing is different. Usually this is lakes with multiple outflows (it happens but only for a short time) or lakes having no outflow (these are lakes below sea level so water can't flow uphill to get out) or rivers connecting two oceans (only via man-made canals) or rivers splitting and not reconnecting (not going to happen outside of a delta). Lastly, no one ever said anything about rivers flowing north - you put that into your reply to Bart so your supporting evidence of the Mississippi River does nothing but support an offense that you, yourself, created in your own mind...go back and read the posts. Bottom line, learn to accept criticism like a grown-up...keep the rivers the way you want them but accept the fact that people in the know won't accept them the way that they are. It's your world so do with it as you will. Many folks who know nothing of this matter will accept your rivers without question and will think you to be elite or whatever slang is the new cool. Stomp around, break stuff, and get huffy but then read up on the subject and you'll calm down and maybe someday get to be a deputy. For what it's worth, the rest of the map looks okay (the climates are off but if the rivers are going to use the magic cop-out then so can the climates). I'm sure that I'm offending you as well but I know that I'll get over it...will you?

[Mark Oliva]

Well to be fair... rivers flow towards the equator... So us "Other Hemisphere" people are used to north-flowing rivers.

It's about "in general" rather than "all and every". In General, rivers flow to the equator. In General, lakes have single outflows and unify (rather than divide). In General, rivers avoid higher-levels-above-sea-level.

Some of this is pure myth. Two of Europe's biggest rivers - the Rhine and Elbe as examples - flow northward, i.e. away from the equator. If rivers avoided higher levels above sea level they wouldn't be able to flow down to the sea (not that all rivers do that). They'd have to flow up to it.

[bartmoss]

Who?

What?

Me?

I take this badge seriously, Sirs, very seriously indeed, and I'd never unfairly critize a river. Thank you for backing me up.

As for the veins, and addressed at Farsight, well obviously everybody is free to draw maps the way they want, but isn't half the reason to post on these forums to get feedback in the hopes of making all our world designs and maps better?

I certainly hope that if I mess up a river, or bodge some other fundamental in a glaring way, then you guys would step in and call me out on it... and then my v2 of that map will be the better for it.