Approved House Peake of Starpike - Project Application by SseriousBusiness

Hey guys,

Sorry for the confusion but, when the palette issue was brought up, I didn't have the time to focus and be online because of a portfolio and an early christmas trip. Added to that I had to adapt and learn a palette I've never used before compared to my months of work with the terracotta palette. So I decided to delete the app and wait for another time so here it is :D


Hope you like it!
-Seri
 
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EStoop

Knight of Fairmarket
Hey Sseri, I know I’m not a moderator anymore but I felt like I had to point out a couple of things:

Map
  • I don’t think a manorly house is fitting in a region known for its many wars, raids and skirmishes.
  • There are a lot of hamlets that seem to be really large (assuming the numbers in brackets are the house numbers).
  • What will the geography be? I’m seeing lots of forest surrounding grass plains but it doesn’t tell me anything about elevation or the valleys you mentioned.

Castle
  • Though the castle is already large, it feels as if it is supposed to be larger. It makes me feel like I am walking through a 2:1 scale model. Features that attribute to this feeling are; super narrow courtyards, high walls and towers, and small rooms and halls (especially so compared to the castle).
  • The castle doesn’t really sell the “ancient castle” and “really hard to siege” canon there is of the place, with courtyards that are more fitting as a palace garden than as defensible, king-slaying pits of death, it not having a proper keep or something that looks like it could have been a First Men keep before renaissance conquered the place.
  • The signs of war you plan to add are a bit too much. Large damage, like destroyed towers or walls would be still visible, but I think that after 70 years someone would have thought of patching up the minor damage.

Town & villages
  • The town is enormous. For comparison, your grand total of 58 houses is almost half of that of Fairmarket (123 within the walls).
  • Will there be gardens or would it just be clusters of houses?
  • The house tests work well on the outside, but I cannot see them work on the inside.
  • I haven’t seen 2 block wide houses since we redid Lannisport.

Having said that, it’s a really nice app.
 
Hey @EStoop ,
Thanks so much for the feedback!
My response:

Map
  • On this one I have nothing to say, I agree so the manorly house will be removed and the vinyards will be manned by the noble family residing on the HF
  • Same with this one I'll reduce the number from 5/8 to 4/5
  • I though I explained very well the terrain I want through the locations irl mentioned and the drawings, and I think I'm not demanded a typographical map of the lands on an application.
Castle
  • The castle Is located on the top of a very steep hill, given the limited space on the hill they had to "tighten" things up. And another consequence with the smaller area, they had to build upwards to make use of space better, ennhce why there are very tall halls and towers.
  • The primarly reason I chose Alcazar de segovia as prime inspiration is due to be fitting for a reach castle and also fits with the geography and climate. If you examine more the castle test a central keep is located on the northernmost point of the castle. That was the first keep and the first structure built. With time the expansion continued adding more buildings and more buildings. On the alcazar's history the castle was completely diferent then what it is today, a big restyling was made in the 14th century that gave the alcazar it's destinctive slate roofs and coned tip towers. Another reason I built the test I built, is to give continuity to the area, the castle has some similair aspects to Hornhill and other projects around it. Which also have a similair history to House peake with it's long History. Also side note, the king wasn't killed inside starpike he was killed with a stone thrown from the starpike's battlements, and with that I decided to go with a very very dificult castle to empragnate but once you're in you've taken the castle (another reason why the rest of the castle isn't damaged). But besides that, have I convinced you of my castle? If not would be helpfull if you went into more detail of what you think would be the best choice for this castle (pics? inspiration?)
  • I never planned on destroying halls and towers just damage on the walls specially outer walls.

Town & Villages
  • I can lower it what would you advise me to lower to?
  • I answered this on the previous app I made, yes there will be gardens, the town map is a rough organisation didn't went into too much detail.
  • The town tests are meer style showcases, if you look at the "variation" houses the layout is diferent and bigger.
  • And yes I admit that house was a bit of a stretch since I wanted to give a more tiny cosy feeling for the village.

Any other feedback please do share!
-Seri
 
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Enah

Skinchanger
Hey seri, my approval still stands, however, I AGREE (omg wut) with stoop's critique of the immense damage to the front wall. it has been something like 67+- years since the siege. but otherwise everything seems good so far, and i am fairly happy with it. so, if we need though be prepared to change things if they need it. :D
 

Elduwin

Skinchanger
Staff member
Hey sseri, glad to see you reapply for Starpike!
I haven't seen your new castle test yet, so won't feedback it, tho I should be able to connect in the next few days.

Otherwise, concerning your app and regarding estoop's feedback, I have to agree with him on reducing the amount of houses for the town and the different settlements (you already answered to that feedback, but i just wanted to support estoop on that). Another reason would be that, regarding the dynmap and your map, it seems the town, the gold mine's village and the clay industry hamlet (which are the 3 largest settlements) are very close, and would certainly be visible from one to another. So I'd like you to space them out more, or reduce the amount of houses of both clay and gold mine village/hamlet. You could move the clay hamlet a bit further north, on the southern shore of the lake.

While it is not required to do a topo map for an application, as you propose to do a very particular landscape there, I'd like you (or someone you'll trust to be your editor at Starpike) to make a terraform test of what you call dry grasslands and the canyon/valleys geography. I'm not entirely sure how high/large the canyons would be, and if you'd have enough space for it to make sense and be realistic.

I'll check house style and the castle asap, but overall this is a very nice app!
 
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Hey Eld thanks for the feedback!! I have created a topographical map of the reagion, I must say that I haven't done one of these before so bare me if it's not prefect. And also I've updated the map so it has the slate/clay industry based hamlet farther away and I also made the quarry a bit more into the mountain range. Also I discovered that the road network House peake has gives them the advantage of having a path that connects directly the Prince pass to Highgarden and Hornhill, not only that but along the way has the hidden septry in the valleys and the town's sept, so it's also a great path for piligrims. As for the settlements what I had in mind is that the only stable and fixed groups of houses (medium/big settlements) are the Town the village and the clay hamlet, as for the hamlets they're just small groups very sparse allong the roads and resource points nothing majour, so my position still stands on those hamlets being aroun 4/5 houses.

Maps:
I've done this new map for the town lowering the number of houses inside the walls to 36 making the town a total of 52
Thanks!
-seri
 
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Elduwin

Skinchanger
Staff member
While it is not required to do a topo map for an application, as you propose to do a very particular landscape there, I'd like you (or someone you'll trust to be your editor at Starpike) to make a terraform test of what you call dry grasslands and the canyon/valleys geography.
Your maps are nice, tho I'm not sure that you understood me, I was talking about an actual terra test.


I've taken a look at your house and castle tests today too, here's my feedback:
- for the town, my main concern is that you made too narrow streets, on the "scenario" test, between the wall and the houses, and on the street test with several houses. The narrowness is accentuated by the facing overhangs; I'd have at least one of 2 facing houses without an overhang. I don't know if you're still using them, but i'm not a huge fan of the 3 low small houses (1 with black slates and the 2 others with thatch roofs), especially the window on the roof. And pls, no 2 blocks ints houses D: narrow can be nice, but don't overdo it too much. Not a big fan of the gate's tower on the scenario test, but I really like the one named as "main gate" (near the sept test). The market hall is really cute too. Not a fan of using full block for windows: fish trap and glass block, instead of net and glass panel.
- for the castle, I support estoop (again) on the idea that it could be a bit larger here and there (not the whole thing tho): main hall could be 9 large instead of 7, and I'd have the 2nd courtyard larger(after the stairs, just before entering the main building), it's too narrow right now. But overall, I really like it :)
Hope you'll be fine with all this, don't hesitate to ask for more details here or on an email as I'm not too active these days due to christmas ;)
 
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Hey Eld thanks for the fb!

-The narrowness of the streets can be corrected and yes not all houses wil have overhangs ofc
-The normal hamlet houses can be changed to the normal reach houses seen at nearby projects such as whitegrove and Hornhill?
-I've said this on a previous post but I'll say again, yes it was a bit of a stretch to do a 2 wide house.
-Enah liked the tower and so did I, it blends well with the style and it's made of less expensive materials, so I guess that's just personal preferance?
-I'll use the net and glass panel blocks everytime possible but due to them not connecting to specific blocks and sometimes cleaness of a build I'll use the full block version.
-So aperantly I didn't understand stoop's, the main hall and most halls are 11 wide being inside 9 wide already, I can make the 2nd courtyard longer.

Thanks for the suport eld! As for the terra test I did something quick cuz I'll be away tomorrow and probably won't be online that much tomorrow. The hole test isn't complete but it's a rough representation of what it would be like, but the valleys would be wider on the base. the hill the castle would sit on would also be taller and steeper since rn it looks a bit weird. Gotta thanks Fin for the great guide on the pine forests.


The test is located next to the castle test which is west of /warp whtest
Since I'm not an "expert" on terraforming and general editor tasks the terraforming work would be done by me and a helper hopefuly. If not thats fine also.
Any more feedback is welcomed!!
Thanks!
-seri
 
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Elduwin

Skinchanger
Staff member
We talked earlier in game, mostly about the terra.
I've asked seri to make the plateaux not too high, and keep the slopes smooth, except for the one right under the castle.

Everything looks fine to me, so you have my approval!
 
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Okay so... this post has been a long time coming. I've been pushing it back until I was at a stage to do it and it's finally time. Last post was in December 2017 and the last time I had worked on Starpike was early 2018. Because of a lot of problems irl from personal, family stuff and school/uni I wasn't able to go online for a year and If I did, it was once or twice for 20 mins. But enough of that, last July/August I came back to the server with time and energy to swing right back into it. As I went through all the work I had, I realized my project was neither up to date nor was to my liking anymore. So this is the progress I made:

Starpike Castle: the first test I did, I loved right away back in 2017. But nowadays, there are a lot of inconsistencies, the castle doesn't follow the natural terrain, the mass of the buildings was too great (with large interiors), the overly decorated parts, etc. for reference here's how it looked : https://imgur.com/a/7uHOjsa

So I did a second test that has a more natural floor plan, the volumes of the different buildings aren't enormous except for the big main keep, the palette was changed, the more white-ish stone has a reason to exist (I'll explain later), the overall style reflects a mix of the regions Starpike borders (Reach, Dorne and Stormlands) I also changed a bit my inspiration, although Alcazar de Segovia continued to be my main one.

Inspiration: https://imgur.com/a/dYb26u3

I do understand that some of these castles are 19th century revivalism structures or have elements of that era but, I chose castles that stayed generally true to what a medieval castle would look like and took only elements that could have been (speaking of style and engineering feasibility) done in medieval period. The donjon of the castle was inspired by the Tower of Carlos II from the Alcazar de Segovia. I tried to maintain the same feel the previous test had.

161616171618161916201621

Terraforming: I have done a big part of the lands (shape wise) but there's still a lot to do (the rest of the lands, ground painting, vegetation, streams and rivers, etc). The western most part will be much more hilly and green while the easternmost part will be the characteristic green valeys with drier plateaus

1622

Images: https://imgur.com/a/hZplrst

Other areas: I have made tests for both hf1 https://imgur.com/a/ThP2HBa and hf2 https://imgur.com/a/RDGKqqH (the village is subject to change) it was with this holdfast that I was inspired by Estremoz castle in Portugal https://imgur.com/a/W5lTEKs and why I decided to change the palette. In Portugal there is a very specific stone only found in our country that's named Lioz, which when I was searching for an english equivalant term I found Lioz marble, but it isn't marble it's white stone that varies in tone (pinkish, brownish etc). Highgarden has plenty of buildings with the White Harbor stone in their palette. So the quarry that was planned to exist in the Starpike lands will be the equivalant of an asoiaf Lioz stone quarry, that was used for HG, Starpike and neighbouring projects such as dustunbury to the north that is coincidentally the previous Manderly castle from which the New Keep was inspired from.

I think that's about it. The only thing I wonder is about my approving mods, Enah was one of them and he no longer is a mod so I guess that needs to be figured out.

-Seri
 

Veggie

The Old Bear
Hi Sseri,

Thanks for keeping us updated-- I'm sorry to hear of the difficulties you've been having that have kept you away from the server. I hope these issues have gone now and you're back with renewed vigour! It demonstrates good practice to come back with a fresh perspective and reorganise your plans, so kudos on that front.

I adore the silhouette of the new Starpike keep, though am mindful that with excessive decoration it could venture into something that looks a little fantasy, so please be mindful to keep it reasonable in terms of ornamentation.

I am happy to step in in lieu of Enah, I know we had some discussions back in the day as Starpike was on my radar at one point. Love what you're doing so soldier on.

Feel free to utilise me in any way you need me.

Veg