Hello everyone !
TL&DR at the end of this long post !
I would like to lead the ending of the spawn renewal project, and first of all be thankful that:
-Obviously, everyone here considers the spawn strip mines filling and the rest of the building-part are two separate projects.
-Stuff are finally being decided collectively, and not just waited out.
-Even Rhalyon now makes pretty “MS Paint” plans. All praise MS Paint. (I actually use Photoshop.)
I also want to point out everyone should feel threatened and discouraged for putting their name in the mix. This is a community, but if you aren’t one of the main regulars or a staffer, it usually means your voice doesn’t matter! (haha, satire.)
This is my plan. I call it the “Let’s look at what we have and end this splawn renewal that is taking too much goddamn time”.
As a general rule for spawn cleaning (and additionally updating, but it’s no one’s fault.), I give you this meme:
Clicky clicky
As well as this magnificent plan:
I- The Farms:
We keep those we have now.
They are extensive, they are ok-looking (and that can be improved), they are purposeful. We have a lot of space, we used it. Only improvement we can give is making the pathways prettier and lighting up the farms, although since they are so big, nobody would need more than the whole farm anyway.
Quite a few players have helped buildings those, including JogarCraft, B455M4N, MrDimension, Baconfortress, USMC, and of course Bbycake.
Despite being so extensive, a plot is still open and could be used either for mobs, if they become ok when the lag reduces, or for a more “fun” farm such as a cake farm (egg farm+wheat+sugarcane+milk), or even a flower farm?
Aljady’s building would come in the center and be the real centerpiece of the farms. It would tie up the whole place and make it much prettier. We would definitely theme the roads around it according to the building, but for that, the building has to be built.
Filling up more of the area north would cost a lot of filling ressources, and frankly, we need those to fill up the underground. Plus, a road has been built, with a very nice land-holding wall to make it look pretty, with lamps ready to be linked to Simon’s Spawn Streetlamp System.
=> http://i.imgur.com/FfTdHK3.png
By getting even closer, we would definitely loose the “natural look” we tried to keep until now, north of the farms.
Also, since we’re talking about farms, we get rid of the farm south of Spawn. It has become redundant and is really ugly. It will make space for more player builds!
That leads to my next point: From the majority of spawn, the farms are not visible, that means making it overly pretty and loosing in efficiency and purpose is meaningless. We need them to be first of all useful when you actually use them. Have a lot of ressources, like netherwart, that people frequently ask for and never know where to find! Or vines, the greatest friend of any medieval builder! (like for the House of Chests).
Proof: http://i.imgur.com/oCsUfmb.png
II- Embassies
The Embassies are not normal builds. They have been envisioned as special extraordinary builds. For someone to have an embassy, he has to have either a strong, well-established old community (Hydra, Rhalyon’s Jungle), or a strong and well-established Role Play existence (Shambhala plateau, People’s Republic of Taiga, Dwarven Mordor). For that reason, it is not a build anyone can have. Having a huge area for them is pointless.
We will never have more than 6 or 7 embassies. For that reason, I propose:
-either we simply keep the plan we have
-or we destroys the first builds on the road to the Embassy District and the Farms, to make place for Embassies.
But we DO NOT:
-Change the whole geography
-Destroy the air-metro, a crucial landmark, symbol of the West of Spawn, that will be able to showcase the embassies.
And to resolve any problems with the size, and since it’s exceptional builds, admins have to give their approval of a base plan of the build before it is authorized to be built, or ask for info on how it will look, or even a screenshot of a test for it.
Why here?
The Embassies will have a wide open view thanks to the farms, but will also nicely overlook the harbour behind them. Perfect. Let’s not change that.
And frankly, we don’t have the time to change plans every two weeks. Our original plan is good, even for the embassies, and we should keep it.
I would like to emphasize the fact that this IS a place for elite builds. They are NOT normal builds. And player-built structure in spawn could perfectly be smaller embassies of their region, simply they would not be in The Embassy District, featuring the most important embassies. It is an incentive to be active and to form a stable community, or get into Role Play (but not in a kinky way.).
I would like to address another quick issue, while I’m at it, and since at spawn everything is linked:
We should not authorize players to have massive chunks of Spawn, such as Sharp’s claims on the Southeast of spawn, having already a huge house. This sort of claims is a problem. Embassies taking up some space frankly aren’t.
III- The Strip Mines
I cannot propose a better idea than B455M4N’s, in my opinion, and I fully support him. He is a trusted member of the community, I’m sure he will do a great job !
Closing word / TL&DR:
We keep what we have, because it works.
Aljady’s building will make the farm look nice.
Embassies, elite buildings, are in the right place with the harbour
Let’s finish this spawn cleaning and rebuilding. It’s taking too much time for nothing. We’re at the end of it, we just need Alj’s building, finish the underground filling and to reopen the land claiming.
Let’s not, on the other hand, throw ourselves into another 2-month long process of waiting for authorizations, when we already have something.
