Abandoned Horn Hill by Dragons, Wolf and Inf

[AerioOndos]

Something I'd like to point out.

Horn Hill is very close to Highgarden. On a 20 something view distance its possible to see the gate to the hedge and the hill itself.
Most of the Torrentine valley isn't developed and is empty space.

It would be possible to extend Hornhill lands further south into the red mountains, perhaps giving it some highland meadows in the red mountains themselves, and shifting the castle a little bit further away, even just another 50-100 blocks.

This wouldn't have a huge impact on the larger torrentine valley, as it is huge and already and has plenty of room for creating immersive features that make it seem larger.
Just a suggestion and my two cents.

 

[DutchGuard]

Your tests are looking really great Wolf! I hope you reach out on the forums if you'd like help with anything

 

[Margaery_Tyrell]

Something I'd like to point out.

Horn Hill is very close to Highgarden. On a 20 something view distance its possible to see the gate to the hedge and the hill itself.
Most of the Torrentine valley isn't developed and is empty space.

It would be possible to extend Hornhill lands further south into the red mountains, perhaps giving it some highland meadows in the red mountains themselves, and shifting the castle a little bit further away, even just another 50-100 blocks.

This wouldn't have a huge impact on the larger torrentine valley, as it is huge and already and has plenty of room for creating immersive features that make it seem larger.
Just a suggestion and my two cents.

I kinda disagree with this approach as the Red Mountains are typically the border for the Reach and Dorne, extending the Tarly lands into would go against this canon that is the historical basis of conflict between Dorne and The Reach.

And per canon, Horn Hill is very close to Highgarden, its the closest castle of any House to it. That being said if its that much a concern, the lands are already planned to be densely forested and clever applications of groves and forests can be used as a natural "screen".

 

[AerioOndos]

I was trying to suggest moving the Red Mountains further south to allow more room for Hornhill

 

[TheYoungWolf]

Update:

Horn Hill is starting up again. I'll get right to all the changes to the project.

- removed hornhilltown2, it was too close to Highgarden
- keep hornhilltown1 as the only larger settlement in Horn Hill lands
- remove hornhilltown3, replace with a village for the miners

- rural style and nature in development at /warp hornhillrural, developed by Dragons & Alex

- hornhillseptry changed into fortified sept, inspired by église Saint-Martin in Esnandes

- hornhillmanor removed, too close to the Highgarden manor

- hornhillvassal stays roughly where it is

- hornhilltown3 replaced with mines and an ore processing facility

- the castle design will be submitted for approval once it's been planned

I hope I've listed all the major changes and I'm really happy to see this project move forward.

 

[Veggie]

Good to see progress picking up, happy to step in as approving mod in Endy’s absence.

 

[Jakethesnake8_8]

Flying around Horn Hill, I've noticed that while the style is very well done, props to Alex and Dragons, it doesn't really have any consistency with any of the surrounding projects (Highgarden and Starpike). Only a small river separates the two project borders, so I don't necessarily think that's enough of a natural border to warrant a completely new style in this region, especially seeing as the current style at Highgarden is up to date, and has no problems. The current house style seen at Horn Hill is more reminiscent of the crownlands, or the Northern Reach mega build rather than the central reach in my opinion. These regions are characterised by the jungle wood + brown daub combo, alongside the hipped rooves. I think that having a lot of wooden buildings really contrasts with Highgarden's stone buildings just across the river. I think this will cause problems down the line, as it outdates all the central, and southern reach projects (Hammerhal, Woodwright, Highgarden, Starpike, Whitegrove). I'd suggest sticking to the current style we have in this part of the Reach in order to promote regional consistency.

 

[SeapunkPeaches]

The style seen at /warp hornhillrural is meant for the wooded hilly areas of Horn Hill inspired by southwestern France. Flatter areas to the north and northeast will use more reach stone and traditional reach aesthetics of the Mander area while still keeping the stylistic consistency with the rest of the project. I don't see the problem with having a style that's unique enough to establish a certain vibe for a project while still evoking the general style of the region (thatch roofs, timber framing, reach stone).

Furthermore, I think it's a good thing that the styles ranging from Starpike, Whitegrove, Highgarden and Horn Hill differ. Starpike captures that Provence-y vibe that perfectly fits the area closest to Dorne. Whitegrove serves as sort of a buffer zone between Starpike and Highgarden, which is more english/central-north french and Horn Hill which is further south towards the Pyrenees, but not as mediterranean-inspired as Starpike. You also have to take into account the real vs minecraft distance of these locations. In a realistic Westeros, these would be much further apart. As stated by Marge earlier in this thread, there are and will be forests and groves that will further separate these projects that will make them seem farther away.

As for the comparisons to the northern Reach, I believe the earlier houses at /warp hornhillrural have been built before the current style of that area. It is beyond our power as builders to allow or not allow others to get inspired by what we build. I believe that what Luk has been doing in his project is really nice so far and with the terrain, vegetation and other details finished in both projects, the similarities will be a lot less noticeable.

I hope this clears some of your concerns or at least gives valid arguments for the stylistic choices at Horn Hill. Keep in mind that it is a project in progress.

 

[CashBanks]

Hey, just relaying the outcome of some mod discussions around Horn Hill. It seems apparent that the project has become stuck, and we're not really clear if the project leader Wolf is still doing any active work on it, or to what extent the most recent plans reflect those that were included and approved in the original application.

To serve as a circuit breaker, we're suggesting a hiatus on any current works, and a revised, final, castle layout is submitted by Wolf for feedback and approval (if he's indeed interested in continuing work on the project).

If we don't hear from Wolf about it within the next three weeks we'll flag the project as abandoned and available for application. We appreciate a lot of time and thought has gone into Horn Hill over the years and we hope to find a way to move forward that incorporates the best of everything that's been created for the project to date.

 

[_Simbaa]

Hey, just relaying the outcome of some mod discussions around Horn Hill. It seems apparent that the project has become stuck, and we're not really clear if the project leader Wolf is still doing any active work on it, or to what extent the most recent plans reflect those that were included and approved in the original application.

To serve as a circuit breaker, we're suggesting a hiatus on any current works, and a revised, final, castle layout is submitted by Wolf for feedback and approval (if he's indeed interested in continuing work on the project).

If we don't hear from Wolf about it within the next three weeks we'll flag the project as abandoned and available for application. We appreciate a lot of time and thought has gone into Horn Hill over the years and we hope to find a way to move forward that incorporates the best of everything that's been created for the project to date.

May I recommend giving Wolf time until summer? from my understanding he has been on hiatus due to his studies - like many other builders, and stripping his project away from him after 6 month since the last forums updates seems bit drastic? According to /seen he has been online a month ago which roughly correlates the Winter exam/holdiay period of Eastern European Universities.
Furthermore while the current plans do not seem to reflect the original plans that were approved in the original app, it does seem to match those included in the 25th july post that was approved by Veggie, with some progress being made on them, alas rather slow which I do not necessary see as an Issue.
Lastly, if the mods are introducing a new policy of trying to regulate projects that no longer show apparent progress, may I ask why has only Hornhill been selected? I am quite sure there also other projects where the progress has been non-existent for longer period of time, with builders being awol for more than a month. Such as Dreadfort, Felwood & Redlake among others.
-_Simbaa

 

[Emoticone11]

May I recommend giving Wolf time until summer? from my understanding he has been on hiatus due to his studies - like many other builders, and stripping his project away from him after 6 month since the last forums updates seems bit drastic? According to /seen he has been online a month ago which roughly correlates the Winter exam/holdiay period of Eastern European Universities.
Furthermore while the current plans do not seem to reflect the original plans that were approved in the original app, it does seem to match those included in the 25th july post that was approved by Veggie, with some progress being made on them, alas rather slow which I do not necessary see as an Issue.
Lastly, if the mods are introducing a new policy of trying to regulate projects that no longer show apparent progress, may I ask why has only Hornhill been selected? I am quite sure there also other projects where the progress has been non-existent for longer period of time, with builders being awol for more than a month. Such as Dreadfort, Felwood & Redlake among others.
-_Simbaa

I'll try to clarify for Cash since he's out of town right now.

The main thing that prompted this is the observation that the castle design that Wolf and Dragons have worked on since the aforementioned July post has recently been nuked. Given the lack of communication and overall inactivity, it's not really clear what Wolf's input in this recent decision has been, or what new plans prompted this decision. Overall, this project in the last 5 years has been a constant churn of small prototypes that get developed and then later abandoned. This hinders long-term progress and makes it difficult to evaluate the style and plans at any point. I'm not trying to be overly harsh here, as many of these prototypes have been quite cool, but the point is that we think that formalizing and committing to an updated plan and workflow for the project before any further progress will help break out of this redo cycle and improve transparency.

Probing projects that have inactive project leaders for updates (and putting them up for orphanage if no update is given within a particular timespan) is by no means a new policy, but rather is how we've approached inactive projects for years. All of the inactive projects that you mentioned are ones that we've considered doing this for as well (one difference, though, is that those projects do not have the same uncertainty over plans or leadership).

Lastly, it is certainly not our intention to strip Wolf's project away from him! So long as he's able and interested in continuing with the project, there's no problem whatsoever waiting for a time when he's less busy. The timeframe that Cash gave was just for hearing back from Wolf about the status of the project and whether he's still interested in continuing with it. No hurry for the updated plans.

 

[Margaery_Tyrell]

If I could piggy back off the mods, in addition a lot of builders have remarked that progress has gone backwards with the project being less done now than it was when I first joined the server 4 years ago.

In addition the current proposed style (in the form of the current floating tests) of Horn Hill matches basically nothing in any of the numerous projects surrounding it (Hutchenson, Highgarden, Starpike, Woodwright, Hunt, Hammerhal) and looks closer to something in the Crownlands or Riverlands.

 

[TheYoungWolf]

Hey everyone,

I feel like this post has been overdue for a very long time. As most of you seem to have noticed, the Horn Hill project has been at a standstill for quite a while now. The reason for this is probably fairly obvious: real life has hit.
While my professional career and my private life take up a lot of time and energy anyway, I have to admit to myself that my interests and priorities must have shifted as well, so that this project and also the server itself have fallen more and more into the background and yes, even were forgotten somewhere. This is anything but fair, neither for the community, in which I’m sure there are brilliant and talented minds just waiting to finally bring this project to life, nor for the project itself, in which there is so much potential.
After a brief but reasonable conversation with my friend WhereRmyDragons, who although not even running the project anymore, has carried it far more than myself over the past months and years, we both came to the decision that it is now time to move on and officially drop the project.
Looking back on the last years of the project, especially on the beginnings with InfinityMe123, I have to say that all in all it was a great experience. So I would like to quickly thank everyone who has been involved in this project in any way, especially WhereRmyDragons and - not to forget - Endymion and Alex, for putting so much time and love into it.

I look forward to what the future may hold in store for Horn Hill.
Until then,
Wolf <3

 

[SeapunkPeaches]

Hey everyone,

I feel like this post has been overdue for a very long time. As most of you seem to have noticed, the Horn Hill project has been at a standstill for quite a while now. The reason for this is probably fairly obvious: real life has hit.
While my professional career and my private life take up a lot of time and energy anyway, I have to admit to myself that my interests and priorities must have shifted as well, so that this project and also the server itself have fallen more and more into the background and yes, even were forgotten somewhere. This is anything but fair, neither for the community, in which I’m sure there are brilliant and talented minds just waiting to finally bring this project to life, nor for the project itself, in which there is so much potential.
After a brief but reasonable conversation with my friend WhereRmyDragons, who although not even running the project anymore, has carried it far more than myself over the past months and years, we both came to the decision that it is now time to move on and officially drop the project.
Looking back on the last years of the project, especially on the beginnings with InfinityMe123, I have to say that all in all it was a great experience. So I would like to quickly thank everyone who has been involved in this project in any way, especially WhereRmyDragons and - not to forget - Endymion and Alex, for putting so much time and love into it.

I look forward to what the future may hold in store for Horn Hill.
Until then,
Wolf <3

<3

 

[Emoticone11]

I appreciate you guys being candid about your commitments, and Wolf, I hope this frees you of some stress so that if you’re ever in the WC mood you can help out with some smaller builds. We’ll see to it that the precedents and high standards you’ve set for Horn Hill are preserved by whoever picks up the project in the future!

 

[ChewyMan125]

I'll miss Horn Hill as we know it today, for sure one of my favorite builds to see come to life, but I hope everything works out for you all in the real world without the build being more of a burden