Abandoned Project Holyhall: Booben, Ben, Jose

[Knight_Krawler]

Regrettably, it comes with great sadness that I have decided to drop Holyhall.

I just wanted to note that no progress has been made on the lands since Ben dropped the project approx 3 months ago

 

[Emoticone11]

Updating with information from the old application for future use.

Here is our long awaited application for Holyhall. Enjoy!

Click Here!
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Really cool application! Nice to see the space around Highgarden slowly fill up.

Since I'm highly concerned with maps, I'd like to remind You of two major roads crossing the Mander at Highgarden (and thereby at Holyhall too).

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Roseroad
In your plan the roseroad comes from Dustonberry and I suggest to focus the main raid onto this bridge. (Right now it looks more like a minor way and has no settlements at the rather important bridge)

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Ocean_Road
This one comes from Old Oak and in your plans should come from rather the north of Uffering. In the South of your plans there is a second crossing for the Mander, I guess you should adjust your roads a little, so it fits the main travelling route from North/West to the South where Highgarden is and the Ocean Road meets the Roseroad,

Don't want to talk to much in your nicely done App, so excuse my points.

Regards,
Andy

Okay, here is the Whitewash Lower Class House Test that I forgot to include on the original application.

Also, regarding the bridge(s) in our lands. We removed the easternmost bridge and now have the Rose road meeting up with the Ocean road and crossing a main bridge into the Highgarden lands to the South-West. We will work with Rob, who is leading Uffering to make a nice transition between our lands and his and we will leave a space for the bridge, which will be built as a part of the Highgarden lands. Here is a new updated map of our lands with the new paths of the Ocean and Rose roads. The gold dotted line is the new Ocean Road, and the Rose Road now runs through our lands and meets at the bridge. Enjoy!

Myself and some other mods have concerns about the town at Holyhall. Right now they aren't matching up with the plans proposed in the app. In general, the town in place right now is designed and planned to be a town much larger than it actually should be.

• Why does it have a sewer? The size of the town doesn't warrant one. It's also —from what I can tell— just a muddy basement…? What is it collecting from? Where is it draining to? These people should at best be having outhouses or public shitting areas if they aren't just collecting their own shit and throwing it in the river.
• Why does it have a town hall so grand? It looks like a small church. I'm questioning the need for a town hall at all when it's just 30 houses, let alone one so big. They could meet in a town square.
• Your sept doesn't need to be that large. The grandness supersedes the size of the settlement.
• The ship in the port is a sea-faring ship not fit for the river, which is relatively shallow.

You currently have 40 plots (according to what you told Estoop), which is 5-10 more than the town you proposed in the app. Many of the plots have professions or purposes that aren't appropriate for the setting or scale of the town. You don't need one of every profession available. There would be lack of certain professions, especially given the population. Not all of the professions would have a reasonable customer base. The bookbinder and mercer are especially guilty of this. There would also be a large number of people dedicated to working the fields instead.

• Antique shops are definitely not within reason or believability for Westeros. People aren't going out to the shop to pay marked up prices for cute, vintage home decorations
• Why would they leave a burnt brothel standing? How did just that brothel burn in a town so condensed? Why is the brothel a separate entity from the tavern?

We have to consider Highgarden, which is the main attraction here. The town shouldn't be so grand as to distract from HG, which will be basically on the other bank of the shore. With a settlement that developed and grand, it makes me wonder why people wouldn't dock there instead of Highgarden. This project needs some downsizing, and de-escalation of it's facilities.

Before we start our reply, we would like to remind everyone how difficult it is to picture what your town will look like before you start building, Fairmarket is an excellent example of this as it has been changed numerous times. Also, a house count is very easy to misjudge before a project, as your layout will somewhat alter this premature decision. Stoneysept and Wickenden are great examples of this. Stoneysept was originally to have 200 houses and ended up with 299. Wickenden on the other hand was approved on 10-15 houses a currently has somewhere in the twenties. This is in no way meant to disrespect the builders of those amazing projects, but to show examples of this dilemma.

Here we go...
[user]5603869[/user]

- The room under the town hall is an undercroft used by villagers on the west shore of the river to take shelter in if there were ever to be a raid on the town. It is NOT a sewer.

- Our sept has been replotted and will not be too over-the-top. However, Holyhall is the seat of the very pious House Graceford and their lands and holdings should rightfully express this religious lifestyle. When starting on this project, our group always thought of Holyhall being a sort of pilgrimage site for followers of the Faith. We would like the sept to have some grandness, but it will be nowhere near as immaculate as the canon-named septs on the server.

- We were not aware of the ships predicament, and it will be changed. We used ships docked near Goldengrove and Ivy Hall as examples, so this is in part where our confusion comes from, as they are upstream from Holyhall in much more shallow water. If [user]972374[/user] or another builder would like to help us with a more appropriate ship design, it would be very appreciated!

- We are in the process of re-plotting our town. It currently only has 29 houses in it, which is under our house limit set in our application. Smp, you make a great point about the professions and the more 'lavish' ones have been removed and replaced with more appropriate ones. Regarding the serfs living in the town, we had planned on them mainly living in hamlets outside and around the town, as they would have easier access to their fields. The residents that live in the town itself would mainly be professionals or seamen.

- The antique shop name and interior was a joke between our group and was not a serious profession. It has been removed and the profession has been changed.

- The burnt brothel was an idea we had from the beginning of our project. Obviously, House Graceford is very pious in nature and would thus recoil at the idea of a brothel being present in their religious town. This burnt brothel would be an example of the heights that the Gracefords would go to in order to purge a blemish like this from their lovely town. We have taken your concerns seriously and have segregated the brothel at the end of the road, so as it could not be a fire hazard to neighboring buildings. The tavern has also been deleted and replaced.

If there are any other concerns at the moment, please let us know! We are trying to make this project a beautiful addition to the Reach. Thanks!
-Ben, Jose, and Booben.