I'd like to preface this post by saying that I appreciate your feedback and your concerns are being heard. I have received additional feedback from other people, including one of my approving mods that I do plan to implement, though it will not drastically change anything, rather just clean and tidy some stuff up. Now to address the concerns you brought up:
First, Finn pretty much hit the nail on the head with his take. I would certainly be lying if I said I hadn't taken inspiration from Varner, but I don't believe that's necessarily unreasonable seeing as how it is the newest completed build on the server, and as mentioned, seemingly draws much of its inspiration from English towns (Jake, please correct me if I'm wrong), much in the same way that I have for Antlers. Varner certainly fits its northern Reach home, but at the same time it personally wouldn't strike me as out of place if I ran across it while taking a stroll through the Crownlands.
On to the style. I personally don't necessarily see what others see as a stylistic overload, but that also could just be a result of personal bias. When I constructed the warp platform and the build guide, I did three example builds and tried to write the guide as specific and in-depth as possible when it came to building. The inclusion of the purported "trouble blocks" I'll call them (Stormlands and sandstone blocks mainly) came about when some builders took creative liberties when building their houses, which I did in fact approve of and support in general. My reasoning in doing so was that a) it looked great, b) despite going outside of the "defined style" of the Crownlands and using blocks not included in the palette, it could reasonably be justified why such blocks would be present, and c) I am of the opinion that allowing builders creative freedom to think outside the box results in some of our best builds. Additionally, stormlands and sandstone blocks are used in Duskendale in conjunction with the dun blocks. As for the bricks, I have intended on using bricks/brick timber blocks in the palette since the beginning of the project years ago, and do have tests on my plot dating back that far. There are several brickworks scattered across the Crownlands and outside of the dun blocks, almost no builds constructed using said manufactured bricks (more on this later). I have a brickworks present on the southern end of the project, which would justify the local usage. In addition, when completed, Antlers will be almost entirely surrounded by thick forests, making it somewhat isolated in the northern Crownlands and allowing for some vernacular architecture to develop. When people built houses in the Middle Ages, they built them with what materials were available to them in the local area at the time (exceptions obviously for nobles and wealthy landowners). The idea is that the houses were constructed using materials the builder of the house could reasonably afford or obtain at that given time, be it brick or grey stone.
I disagree that the Crownlands has an established style, but only to a certain degree. Of the entire Crownlands, only four projects have been completed in recent years and in our most up to date quality: Pyle, Gaunt, Mallery, and Duskendale (Bullock being WIP). Of those projects, Antlers only borders one of them, Mallery. Outside of Maidenpool, the surrounding projects (Harte, Blount, and Cressey) are all older projects. While these projects do not look bad by any means, in my opinion, as we continue to improve our quality, some projects edge closer and closer to being classified as "outdated". That being said, while they share similarities with the other Crownlands projects, they also differ. Gathering an average of all the Crownlands projects, I feel it's safe to define the "Crownlands style" as follows: brown daub huts, grey stone castles, and dun mixed in for good measure. Applying that to some of the aforementioned projects, we can see that they check some of the boxes, but certainly not all of them. In a region with a solid mixture of older projects and newer, up-to-date projects, I feel that it is hard to actually define a consistent "Crownlands style", as there are some projects that use other blocks outside of that defined palette. Personally, I wish more bricks would be used in the Crownlands given not only the amount of brickworks present, but also the Crownlands' English inspiration.
On a final note, I have received a lot of positive feedback and compliments on how Antlers has developed so far, and relatively little in the way of criticism or things people would like changed. I appreciate all feedback whether it comes in the form of compliments or constructive criticism, because I think through this process our builds turn out the best they can possibly be. As builders though, I believe we have to walk a fine line between incorporating every bit of feedback that is given to us verbatim versus just doing so ad hoc (though it is important to mention blatantly ignoring feedback is not okay). I think we have and can continue to strike a happy medium between those two, and just understand and respect that we all have different tastes and creative differences in how we do things. Hopefully I answered any questions people might have and addressed some of the concerns that have been brought forward, and I implore people to continue to provide any feedback they might have for me!
Sorry for the essay
Thank you,
-Star
