Abandoned Project application: House Rankenfell

[Elduwin]

Alright, let's go for the feedbacks!

From the dynmap:
- warp rankenfell is poorly placed, above a platform of grass with signs, ask a mod to move the warp to a better place, near the ground
- you have a mix of "rkX" and "rnkX" for the warp, which will be very confusing, choose one or the other, but stick to the same abbreviation (i'd suggest "rkf" as to not confuse with the redkeep/RK")
- "rk4" is for the castle, usually we try to give special warps for main locations, like "rkfcastle" and "rkfvillage"

In game:
- there's is a flying yellow wool circle with a sign indicating "sept", but there's not sept (close to warp rankenfell)
- actually, there are quite many yellow platforms with nothing there, as if there were some other locations planned but that you didn't take the time to do in the end...
- you should remove everything that will not stay, tags and all
- parts of the lands are quite empty, like south/south-west of the castle, you only have 2 houses and rest is empty

Castle:
- the gate is really strange: first, 1 block large door, wagons and even horses wouldn't be able to go through, and then the 2nd one, wooden, larger, but with multiple blocks with no consistency
- you should put more arrow slits on the front of the gate
- no shutters on the training models
- why a paper for the guard of the prison? it'd be illiterate
- the forge below would fill the whole basement with smoke. Also, it doesn't have any chimney. You should probably do it on the ground, for the smoke to vanish more easily
- skulls in cell... too cliche, why the hell would they leave it there lol
- near the servants area, there's a small room, with a nice stool cushion and a paper on a table, though it's a poor area giving access to only servants quarters, they wouldn't have these signs of wealth/culture

I haven't been able to fly over most of the lands, but from what i've seen so far: the ending of this project feels very rushed, so I'd like you to be a bit more careful and assiduous when reviewing your lands, because it needs it.
I'll try to take a closer look at the other locations, but you already have some work to improve now.

Good luck!

 

[GrayJedi]

-asked a mod to place the warps better and with rkf(1,2,3,4,5) and rkfcastle.

-the flying yellow circles were to help mods find each location easy from the dynmap ,i was gonna remove them after eval but i ll remove them now i guess.

-removed the tags, some mods in the past have asked me to keep them so they know who built what.

-i decided to keep the lands near the mountains(aka south-west) for shady people , as you see i have thieves and people on the run,some witch and stuff because the east is filled with normal hamlets in which they cannot live.As a result they look more empty otherwise they would not be able to live there if there were a lot of people to begin with.

- tried something different for the castle gate ,have a look.

-added more slits ,removed shutters

-replaced guard's paper with flagon, thought he'd have some sort of documents for the prisoners.

-removed the forge.made a new one on the ground.

-removed skulls.

-made an eating area for the servants on that wealthy room.

 

[Elduwin]

Alright, some more feedbacks:
- don't do street lamp or lanterns outside
- prefer wooden ladders instead of rope ones, it's much easier to climb
- you don't have any barns for the livestock
- there's a tree growing inside one of the abandoned house, though they don't seem to be that old, the tree is few decades old at least, the houses would be much more crumbling down after that long, so either keep the tree and make them more ruined, or remove the tree
- what's up with all these baskets hanging from trees? what are they supposed to represent?
- don't use the rope block harness if there's nothing hanging, cause the rope looks weird with nothing tied to it, prefer the simple vertical rope
- i've left some melons in the village, hamlet and HF

I come back again on the subject of the emptiness of the lands. I completely agree that not all the lands should be filled with human features, but this doesn't mean they should stay empty, almost vanilla-like.
I'd like you to do more forests, groves, woods and such, to make more natural features to your lands. For example, the witches' houses are visible from the castle, which doesn't make sense as they go and kill them, the witches would search a hidden place to live, hence would prefer woods or forests. Same with the hunters north of the lands, i really wonder where they hunt as there's not much trees around the houses.
The fields are very generic too, in shapes and crops. I believe we are doing much nicer countryside now, and we have plenty of way to improve the fields we do. I'd really encourage you to see how to make them more natural (like not having big rectangles or squares, with straight lines, but maybe rounder angles).

Ps: have checked the castle, changes are fine

 

[lemonbear]

I checked out Rankenfell, and I left melons over some places. I 100% agree with Elduwin about how empty the area surrounding Rankenfell is. Please do as he suggested in that regard.

In terms of the castle, I feel that the furnishings could be a bit better done since currently the floor, the ceiling, some of the walls, and the furniture is all oak wood and blending together. I am also not the biggest fan of the exclusively dirt floors in some of the buildings in the castle. It would be more interesting to add some stone in the corners or rushes in places. Additionally, the castle stone gradient needs a bit of work in some places, especially on the keep and parts of the inner castle wall.

As a whole, the fields/pastures and rkf2 feel like they don't fit in naturally with the area. For rkf2, maybe some changes to the yard shapes will help.

 

[GrayJedi]

Alright
eld:
-removed street lamps,replaced rope ladders with wooden,added livestock barns,removed tree from abandoned house.
-removed some hanging baskets,they are less frequent now,i ve explained to eld ig what they are
-rope block harnes replaced with veritcal rope
-addresed all the melons i have seen.

lem:
-i have less paper and books now
-furniture is from jungle wood now
-added some stone floor in the corners of dirt floors
-tried to fix the gradient in and out(not sure where its lacking)
-fields crops and pastures are now less edgy ,have more rounded corners and are more lifelike

also:
-added dense forest in the northern part of the map where the hunters are,
-added dense forest in the witch area,100% unseeable from the keep now.
-regrassed the whole area and added more life on the ground and trees in general.

 

[lemonbear]

The changes to the castle look good. I've taken a bit more time to look over the Rankenfell lands, and I've left melons in some places. Overall, I still think you could go a bit further on making the grassy areas and forested areas look better and more realistic.

We've recently been having some discussions about what might be considered too many flowers, but Rankenfell has the opposite problem. In real life, flowers tend to grow naturally wherever they can if provided enough water, sunlight, and nutrients. Rankenfell has barely any flowers, except a few patches here and there by houses and where the GroundCover brush happened to put them. I'd like to see more flowers, especially in the uninhabited areas/off the beaten path. Look at Fairmarket for an idea of a reasonable amount of flowers (not necessarily type of flowers, though).

Additionally, I think you should add dead leaves blocks under trees and, in general, reduce the amount of grass in more heavily forested areas. I wouldn't call the forest south of the castle dense by any means, and I think you should make it denser. However, you generally should not have large or tall trees right next to the walls of your castle, since they could be used as battering rams or materials to build siege engines, or even just be used to scale the walls.

The areas by the rivers also need work. Just because people might not be living on the steeper banks doesn't mean there shouldn't be plant life and whatnot. Also, the one super sandy bank by the clay hamlet doesn't make any sense, since it's the only river bank that north with sand, and there's a lot of it there. I also want you to think about the flow of the water in the rivers and adjust the terrain or houses right along their banks to fit the flow. For example, I've marked a water mill and a bridge that don't seem to fit the flow of water.

 

[GrayJedi]

-added more flowers to the whole region and mostly on areas around water.
-added fallen leaves under trees and reduced grass on heavily forrested areas.
-made the southern forest denser, reduced the height and volume of trees close to the castle.
-tried to fix any melon I saw.
-remade rivers with sand and different vegetation.
-increased the frequency of rocks,leaves and ground stuff in general.

 

[lemonbear]

You've made some progress, but there's still a ways to go.

- The sandy riverbank still looks awkward. I think lowering the sand layers a bit and adding more dirt and gravel will help.
- The bridge I marked still doesn't work. You need to change the banks to fit the flow of water. If water can't pass behind the bridge, sediment will build up as the water changes its surroundings to allow its flow.
- You need to change the rocks lying around everywhere to Westerlands Terrain Set.
- The trees you've placed don't look very natural because they're kinda random. Cluster some together, esp. some of the same type, to make it look more natural.
- Add trees around the pastures/fields.

 

[GrayJedi]

-tried to change the riverbank at the clay hamlet
-made a the banks a bit different in the bridge
-i changed every type of rock to westerland.
-added more trees around pastures and fields
-added some clusters of the same trees slightly but i really think thats not an issue, i ve seen many forests with mixed tree tops.

 

[DutchGuard]

As I am updating the wiki I would like to know the status of this project. It is currently listed as in progress.

 

[DutchGuard]

Just waiting on final post-approvals from lemonbear and Elduwin so I can mark this project as completed.

 

[DutchGuard]

Still trying to rescue this project from limbo. lemonbear Elduwin

 

[DutchGuard]

Yep still waiting on an update here lemonbear or Elduwin

 

[DutchGuard]

Due to this project never being post-approved and the leader going inactive, Rankenfell has been added to the Projects Orphanage and marked as abandoned.