Withdrawn Project Application: House Hersy by EverlastEvil

[EverlastEvil]

Hi all, here's my app for House Hersy of Newkeep-

House Hersy of Newkeep

House Hersy Of Newkeep Project Application by EverlastEvil Resume- Mini Projects: Lumber camp at Rousemont project Abandoned hamlet at Tarbeck Hall project Wetlands hamlet at Maidenpool project Holdfast at Hammerhal project Solo Projects: House Amber Canon- House Hersy: House Hersy of Newkee...

docs.google.com

 

[Jakethesnake8_8]

Hey Ever! Nice app. My two cents here; I’d choose a more coastal inspiration for the mountains, as Newkeep is getting storms, and harsh winds, using a central Alpine inspiration is a bit illogical. I’d say the mountains don’t need to be that tall, as they’re coastal. You could make some really nice foothills that will eventually fade into mountains.

Another good thing to do, is to map out the ridges of more steep terrain, so you can create a guide over the actual project and follow that.

But yeah, super excited to see how this turns out!

 

[EverlastEvil]

Hey Ever! Nice app. My two cents here; I’d choose a more coastal inspiration for the mountains, as Newkeep is getting storms, and harsh winds, using a central Alpine inspiration is a bit illogical. I’d say the mountains don’t need to be that tall, as they’re coastal. You could make some really nice foothills that will eventually fade into mountains.

Another good thing to do, is to map out the ridges of more steep terrain, so you can create a guide over the actual project and follow that.

But yeah, super excited to see how this turns out!

Hey Jake, thx for taking a look at the app. I do agree that my current inspo for the mountains may not be the most fitting do its location, however I was more drawn to it because of its extensive/long mountain range which is something that will come in handy when doing terrain. I see now that I forgot to mention that the mountains won't be as tall because I do agree that they shouldn't be so tall near the coast or in the outer most part of the Vale mountain range. Furthermore, I do see the benefits of mapping out the ridges of the steep terrain, however I will put it down as I think its best to think about that as I work with the terrain (At least for my part).

 

[EverlastEvil]

Bump*

 

[Gealrüable]

A while ago, Nikas found this amazing website for German Castles: https://www.burgrekonstruktion.de/rekonstruktionen/

While Burg Taufers is an amazing castle, it is quite close in style to castles in the westerlands and the northern stormlands. So perhaps some german daub might be cool in the vale?

 

[Emoticone11]

Hey Ever,

Thanks for being patient while I had a chance to look at the app in more detail! Very nice app overall, the plans and tests look great. Here are some of my assorted thoughts:

- The canon about the fertility of the Vale is moreso referring to the Vale of Arryn itself, i.e. the valley surrounding the Eyrie and stretching to Old Anchor. The region around Newkeep would plausibly be a bit stonier and less fertile for the same reason that the Fingers are, though might have some flat patches of glacial till which is highly fertile. There's also the fact that only hardier crops would be able to grow right along the coast due to the salinity. All in all, I'd suggest having your vineyards and wheat fields nested between valleys, with hardy veggie patches and pastures closer to the ocean, as well as little fishing hamlets in coves. If you're going to have forests near the coasts, make sure to use tree species that grow in poor saline soil as well - the Scots pine is one example.

- I agree with what Jake said regarding the inspiration. While it sounds like you have the right concept in your head, it would be nice to see some inspiration images that show alpine foothills; this will help with getting the vegetation and erosion right. The foothills around Genoa might be a good starting place, for instance (this example was also brought up in the Gulltown terrain discussion thread but seems applicable here too).

- Although I quite like the swiss chalet inspired house tests, I'm not really sure about the use of this substyle in the Newkeep region - the reason being that it's fairly cut off and separate from the rest of the Mountains of the Moon, and more contiguous with the Fingers and Riverlands. In my rough idea of the different stylistic zones of the Vale, I had imagined a predominantly high Germanic style being used for the low-lying coastal areas towards the south (Wickenden, Gulltown, Old Anchor, etc.); the Swiss-influenced style being used for the more central alpine regions of the Vale (so spanning approximately between Redfort and Ninestars); and a poorer, stonier style for the Fingers. A rough map of what I mean is shown below, with these styles colored yellow, purple, and gray, respectively.



I think the Newkeep houses should shoot for somewhat of a transitionary Riverlands -> Fingers style (which I've marked blue in the image), perhaps based on rural central German architecture (if the Riverlands is more low German & Dutch). You might be able to make some use of the chalet style, though, if you have some alpine pastures higher in the mountains - I think it would be appropriate there.

Let me know what you think; other than these things I'm happy to approve once they're addressed.

 

[Scubooty]

I am very keen to see a new vale project opening up and I wanted to give my opinion on the discussion at hand. I believe that having coastal mountain ranges like in Evers plan and at the current Newkeep lands is not necessarily unlikely/unrealistic/irrational. There are plenty of coastal mountain ranges like the Coast Mountains of the Pacific Northwest, or another fitting example would be Norway and its dramatic fjords which I believe resemble the Fingers and Vale the most from an overview. It should be noted that these places having mountains fitting for the area is in no way indicative of that style/climate being used in the project. It's just to show that it is completely plausible. Additionally, I would note that trying to remove the specific inspirations mentioned in the application would cause a need for the entire project currently in existence to be almost entirely disposed of which, goes against what was discussed in the Redo Appeal. The mentioned ideas for having hills instead of mountains would be most fitting at the far western end just as a buffer between Riverlands and the finger Newkeep resides on, and as that area is undeveloped it poses the least risk of conflict with current things. Given all of this, I think we should be more open to allowing this application to proceed rather than cause a need for quite a lot of revision and amendment.

 

[Jakethesnake8_8]

Adding fjords to such a narrow area of land such as the fingers would require us to contradict the current shape of the Vale. You could make the spaces in between two fingers into a fjord, seeing as that’s most likely where they’d form. Newkeep, however, is not suited to this particular landform. Fjords form narrow and deep trenches, that typically run at an angle where they intersect the coast, not run parallel to.

Newkeep would benefit from having foothills that give way to more dramatic mountains. Think Cinque-terre in Italy.



Ever’s inspirations are more fitting for inland mountains. They are primarily Swiss, meaning they aren’t representative of the erosive features that would be at play in Newkeep.

I think it really messes with scaling to have the terrain go from sea level to y=200~ mountains over the space of a hundred or so blocks in places. Opting for a more gradual incline, like Emot and I suggested, is much more fitting for the area.

Genoa and Cinque-terra would serve as great inspirations, because they are coastal landforms.

 

[AerioOndos]

One can still use much of the current terrain and adding in more cinque-terra and Genoa like mountains, particularly at the eastern side. Its simply a matter of figuring out where they would work best where in the project.

On the note about fjords, we don't have enough room to do n-s running fjords. However, the fingers themselves most likely are huge glacial valleys (at the 'knuckle' before branching out to the fingers peninsulas).

 

[Emoticone11]

I'd also add that, while having high-elevation coastal mountains along the northern coast of the Vale may be geologically plausible (based on examples such as the PNW's Coast Mountains), it would make a pretty poor environment for large-scale agricultural settlement due to very strong katabatic winds from the mountains to the coast. Shorter foothills would support a milder climate.

To my knowledge, Mandos never got that far with his custom mountain terra before going inactive, so I think Ever has quite a bit of room to work there while still respecting the vision that's been set out already. I also think that foothills would be the easiest way to preserve the work that's been done there already; it would just require rethinking the tree cover and snow distribution a bit, keeping in mind that what's now at max world height will, after we get to 1.18, be about half of the world height. Basically, do your terraforming assuming that your mountains will connect to even taller peaks to the south in the future. The actual mountains don't necessarily need to be much shorter than they are currently.

 

[EverlastEvil]

Hey, now that I had some time to reflect on the fb from Emot I have to admit that I'm not content or satisfied with the way this app is going. The reason I chose this project in the first place was because of the style I had planned for, rather than just going for any project. At this point I'll have to scratch most of my tests if I hope to get approval. This is due to a style already being set in the area without any public knowledge (afaik), my main issues are: When was this decision made, was the discussion open to ALL of us as a team? I don't remember seeing any threads about this, why wasn't I approached about this when everyone knew I was applying for Newkeep and also seen my tests? I had to wait nearly 2 weeks after applying to be told that my plans don't go accordingly to something I was not made aware off, not to mention the amount of time I spent making them.

Furthermore, I understand the need to have different stylistic zones in one region, which is why I made sure to not make the houses too "chalet" and gave them a more subtle approach than the ones we will find in central Vale as I also expected them to be placed there. The only houses I made that had more of a swiss/chalet influence are those that would be found in the main settlement for the higher class population, my reason behind it is that I expect such settlement styles to be more influenced by the governing style of the region (just in a more subtle way). As for the lower class houses, I believe they do a nice job on transitioning from the Vale-Riverlands, as I went for a stony-wooden look which can be found on both regions. They also fit the climate expected at Newkeep and the resources available in the area, I excluded using daub and wattle on the houses as I can't force myself to believe it will fit the area, it also sets it apart from the transition areas in Southern Vale-Riverlands.

To sum it all up, I find it really discouraging that I had to wait this long to be told this, with the new style being proposed my vision for the project is all over the place, personally had I been made aware of the style proposed above I doubt I would've picked up the project, so I have to say that I'm currently at odds with it. Of course this in no way is meant as an attack on the substyle areas proposed by Emot above, rather just my say on how this app and my work is being handled.

 

[Emoticone11]

Hey Ever,

I'm sorry to hear you're not content with the way the app's been going so far.

Regarding the wait - I can only speak for myself here. Until I left my message, I simply hadn't had the chance to look at and think about the application to the extent that I usually try to do. I have a very full schedule IRL which I try to balance between my work as a graduate student, my sports/exercise, moderation tasks for this server, and rest/leisure. Practically speaking I only have an hour or two of productive time to allocate for stuff like this on most weekdays, and I had a bunch of other things on my stack of tasks to take care of - between builder apps, other project apps, 1.16 migration work, and other overhead - before this app. I totally understand that investing work into tests and then having to wait for a while to get a response is really frustrating, but for a project that will likely take upwards of a year to finish, I don't think a 2 week delay to make sure that everyone is on the same page is that unreasonable.

Now, about the feedback itself - I apologize if there was a miscommunication in my original post, but these styles weren't some formal decision that were previously set in stone for the Vale. They were just my thoughts after reading through your application (and briefly discussing the chalet style with other mods), as I tried to convey with phrasing like "I'm not really sure about...", "I had imagined...", "I think...", etc. However, I see it all as very much still open to discussion from anyone. The Newkeep region is a bit idiosyncratic, being cut off from the rest of the Mountains of the Moon, but also being distinct from the Riverlands and the Fingers, which is why I think it's most appropriate to discuss it and come to a decision in this thread.

I think your lower class house tests are right on the money and do a good job blending the Riverlands style with the stonier Fingers style. It's mainly the chalet style that I'm skeptical about, as the transmission of culture, building techniques, and materials in this region would likely run east-west along the main road, whereas the chalet style is characteristic of the Vale of Arryn region and Mountains of the Moon (such as at Redfort and Crayne as currently existing examples) which are geographically cut off from the Newkeep region. I wouldn't mind seeing something like a "wealthier" version of the lower class tests instead.

Hopefully you're interested in continuing the application, since I genuinely think your tests and plans are quite good except for this (fairly minor, in my perspective) quibble about the chalet-style houses.

 

[DutchGuard]

I also hope you continue with the application Ever, though I do agree with the above comments from Emote. Unfortunately, I hadn't heard the rumour that you were wanting to apply for Newkeep ahead of time.

There have been a number of instances where folks have reached out to me in the past to ask about a project they want to apply for and I am usually pretty good at giving advice on what the mods will expect (I wrote the application guidelines after all). In some cases the builder was dissuaded, others encouraged. Either way I would recommend anyone considering a project to reach out ahead of time as I have a fairly good idea of the work involved in, and expectations of, various projects.

It would be even better if the discussion could be posted on the forums, as has been done in the threads of appeals and regional discussions, to get a grasp on the communities' expectations for a project. The forums is the ultimate place for this. Do not expect information to spread to everyone through discord or in game chat.

Anyway, I think this app is really promising, the chalet style can be used higher up in the mountains, and there can be a subtle transition towards the coast and riverlands. It could be a really interesting transitionary style, much like what Jake is doing at Varner, it just requires a little more planning.