[Human 4.0 Dev Blog] Part 4: Housing Explained

[Senda 472]

Dev Blog 4: Housing Explained

 

Hello, and welcome to the fourth Human 4.0 Capitol Dev Blog! I'm Senda, the person in charge of the Oren construction team, and in today's edition we're going to delve into the fourth stage of this (somewhat) massive undertaking.

 

On behalf of everyone involved, I can tell you that we are all incredibly excited to finally start lifting a few of the curtains that will, for the most part, continue to block and obscure the full view of 4.0, till the eventual release.

 

 

In the first Dev Blog, we briefly covered the outlines of the plan for basic houses in the new Capitol. Today, we shall delve a tad deeper, to come to understand the thought-process behind the modular design, as well as the manner in which we have chosen to implement it.

 

Before we delve into the modular design however, let us take a look at the distribution of plots within Abresi (the Capitol at the end of 3.0):

 

 

 

The above being a rough outline (scaled down) of what the city looked like, with:

• [brown] Merchantile District

• [blue] Residential District

 

During our time in Abresi, we made an effort to track the concentration of roleplay within the city. We wanted to find out /where/ the various 'hotspots' of roleplay would arise.. and /why/ in those locations.

 

What we found, was that both districts got a fair amount of the roleplay, but that the Merchantile disctrict recieved the lion's share of it. Actual numbers are hard to put on this, but we estimated it at a rough 80% vs 20% ratio.

 

What this means, bluntly put, is that the Brown section recieved four times as much roleplay the Blue section.

 

As we want to condense roleplay even further, to ensure that people visiting a Capitol city actually walk into a bustling metropolis (of sorts), we decided that we want the roleplay that takes part in the residential district.. and have that activity inside the confines of the merchantile district, effectively merging all the roleplay into a smaller overall footprint.

 

The reasoning behind this is fairly straightforward: Activity breeds activity.

 

If you can ensure a stable supply of roleplay, people will take note.. and add to it (as it is fun to do so).

 

Now, this is known. However, what a city designer needs to look into, is how to reach this 'critical mass' of roleplay opportunity, where the design of a city starts to work in your favor.. and by its very shape and size, does the hard work for you.

 

With that in mind, the idea was coined to take the Blue section.. and simply stack it atop the Brown section, by making the houses twice as tall.

 

 

 

With this basic plan, we would effectivly shrink the districts to 50% of the original size.

As we anticipated merging/eliminating most of the other communal buildings into the new Keep, this plan would effectively guide us towards a city that would equate to an overall footprint roughly 75% of Abresi.

 

Design-wise, what we are aiming for is the proverbial sweet-spot where the city is large enough to house a large number of people, yet small enough to ensure people are near-constantly subjected to the roleplay that occurs in it.

 

No matter where you are, there should be a high chance of encountering roleplay.

 

The one problem that occurs at this point is a saturation of roleplay, where the chat channels become filled with so much activity, it is hard to keep track of everything. 

Personally, Ill take a situation like that over an empty ghosttown any day of the week.

 

But, in the interest of people finding further enjoyment from a bustling metropolis on this server, it should be pointed out that the addon 'More Player Models' allows for chat-bubbles to appear above players, allowing for a smoother experience when multiple people engage in roleplay together.

 

We shall add a small guide to said addon in a future Dev Blog.

 

 

Now, during the construction of New Abresi, we saw the basic design of the houses thought up.

During the 4.0 design process, this got expanded upon to make the houses bigger.

 

But, to understand the process behind building a house like the one we shall be building, one must start at the very foundation:

 

 

 

The houses use three basic elements to start off with, as seen in the above picture to the left.

 

Three sections that, when combined, can be arranged into all manner of varied layouts.

 

Using these elements, then aligning them as in the picture, will ensure that from the very foundation, all houses work towards the same building style, yet have the flexibility to be built up into a wide variety of differing builds once completed.

 

Once the basic outline is down, the houses can be built up.. but during this process, a couple of additional /defining/ details can be added to it:

 

 

 

Defining addons such as a simple balcony, or even a somewhat more elaborate tower, can radically alter the overall look of a house. One can build two houses that start off with the exact same floorplan, yet when one adds a tower (and/or other addons) to only one of them, the pair will stand apart from another as two clearly distinctive plots.

 

Eventually, it might evolve into something like this:

 

 

 

A typical variation, built up from a simple floorplan, that as it was built up, saw the inclusion of some addons to further define the house, drawing primary attention away from the basic shapes and breaking patterns that, when repeated in sequence next to each other, can cause buildings to appear 'bland'.

 

Keen-eyed observers can take note of the variation in cobble/stonebrick/mossycobble that was used, as yet another variation that, in a subtle way, adds to the overall atmosphere of the house.

 

Come the launch of 4.0, only a /very/ few items of interest in the Capitol will be completely finished. Basic houses are not on that list, bar a single one.

 

This means that with the launch, a tremendous effort will take place in the Capitol, that will see the formation of teams of gatherers and builders working together to build up the city, that we may live in it.. and call it our home.

 

 

 

And with that, we reach the end of today's blog.

 

I leave you with a few pictures of a city under construction, now that you can appreciate the amount of work that lies before us still.

 

 

 

 

 

Till next time!

 

[Peter Chivay 2494]

Beautiful.

[Devland99 180]

MM that stuff, I like it though

[AlmondTree 418]

Looks but why not use Default texture pack?

[John Ivory 4546]

A pleasure to read as always.

[Lark 2227]

Please oh please fix the towers, they really don't look good at all and prolly unneeded. 

[Senda 472]

MM that stuff, I like it though

 

Well, there is certainly a precedent for a bit of added 'messy' for these buildings. We did it in Abresi, we can do it again here.

Overall, the aim of the Capitol is to be a lot less 'messy' then the average Raevir town, but that still gives us plenty of room to use some of the tenants of MM to add a bit of detail and variety to our new Capitol.

 

Definitely something we are keeping in mind for when we build up the houses, come the launch of 4.0

 

Looks but why not use Default texture pack?

 

Not a big fan of the Default texture pack myself. Much prefer the John Smith Legacy pack, that (I feel) gives a better 'classic medieval' atmosphere.

 

Of course, personal opinions differ here greatly. Some swear by those ultra-realistic texture packs,while I personally cannot stand them.

 

In the end, our builds /do/ take the Default texture pack into consideration. While I will not go so far as to say "If it does not look good in Default, it will not work.", I do appreciate the basic thought of "Do not use blocks just because they look good in your own texture pack."

 

 

Please oh please fix the towers, they really don't look good at all and prolly unneeded. 

 

As per the above, it is unlikely that everyone will see eye to eye on everything, about everything.

 

In fact, I am pretty sure that while many greatly approve of our work, there are also people out there that cringe in absolute disgust at what we have been working on thus far. 

 

Early on, I decided upon the style and drew up a plan. I then proceeded to put a crew to work and after a good two-three months, here we are, at the brink of completion.

 

We can only continue to strive towards pre-building the best possible human Capitol this server has ever seen (lofty goals are important), but in the end, pleasing everyone is impossible, therefore it should not be planned for.

 

 

Having said that, if you have suggestions on how to improve designs, do share them with us. 

 

(Preferably in a pm, as we do not want these Blogs to become a hotbed of discussion, rather a place of information and clarification.)

[Reckless Banzai Screamer 15456]

These development blogs man. It's like chasing the dragon. 4.0 feels so close, but I don't know if we'll ever catch it. Heroin is one helluva drug.

 

 

Kidding, but I do look forward to role playing in the capital, and the rest of Oren in general. Keep up the good work Senda and team! 

[Dohvi 622]

This is fast turning out to be one of my favourite MC builds ever.

I have a question though! You're condensing RP and making fantastic use of space, but with this, I'm curious if you're leaving any room for buildings which are born from RP instead of necessity. The way I asked for a High Elven embassy to be built in Kaldonia serves as a good example. Not something that was planned ahead for, but was deemed a good enough idea when it came up in RP.

[Proddy 2415]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GoCvuu0dlQ 

[Senda 472]

This is fast turning out to be one of my favourite MC builds ever.

I have a question though! You're condensing RP and making fantastic use of space, but with this, I'm curious if you're leaving any room for buildings which are born from RP instead of necessity. The way I asked for a High Elven embassy to be built in Kaldonia serves as a good example. Not something that was planned ahead for, but was deemed a good enough idea when it came up in RP.

 

Short answer: Yes, it will be possible.

 

Partly due to the fact that the houses can be altered after they are built (if that suffices, which it will likely do for things like Guilds/large families) .. and partly due to the fact that I have purposefully planned in some 'empty space' in the main Keep (look for this in a future blog) for eventualities just like this one.

 

Obviously, when things like this happen, it will simply be determined on a case-by-case basis.

 

Who knows, we may come up with a completely different answer then the above. RP is after all, a fluid thing.

[Dohvi 622]

Fantastic. Thank you for clarifying that.

[mystic 50]

Well, there is certainly a precedent for a bit of added 'messy' for these buildings. We did it in Abresi, we can do it again here.

Overall, the aim of the Capitol is to be a lot less 'messy' then the average Raevir town, but that still gives us plenty of room to use some of the tenants of MM to add a bit of detail and variety to our new Capitol.

 

Definitely something we are keeping in mind for when we build up the houses, come the launch of 4.0

 

 

Not a big fan of the Default texture pack myself. Much prefer the John Smith Legacy pack, that (I feel) gives a better 'classic medieval' atmosphere.

 

Of course, personal opinions differ here greatly. Some swear by those ultra-realistic texture packs,while I personally cannot stand them.

 

In the end, our builds /do/ take the Default texture pack into consideration. While I will not go so far as to say "If it does not look good in Default, it will not work.", I do appreciate the basic thought of "Do not use blocks just because they look good in your own texture pack."

 

 

 

As per the above, it is unlikely that everyone will see eye to eye on everything, about everything.

 

In fact, I am pretty sure that while many greatly approve of our work, there are also people out there that cringe in absolute disgust at what we have been working on thus far. 

 

Early on, I decided upon the style and drew up a plan. I then proceeded to put a crew to work and after a good two-three months, here we are, at the brink of completion.

 

We can only continue to strive towards pre-building the best possible human Capitol this server has ever seen (lofty goals are important), but in the end, pleasing everyone is impossible, therefore it should not be planned for.

 

 

Having said that, if you have suggestions on how to improve designs, do share them with us. 

 

(Preferably in a pm, as we do not want these Blogs to become a hotbed of discussion, rather a place of information and clarification.)

 

I understand that I am a New member to the Community But I Would Happen to like to Apply to the Build team of The Human City I do, Believe that I will be a Great Addition and Am Able to Pull My Weight In Such Amazing Builds such as this! Really Looking forward into Shaping this Into Something we can all sit back at and see with Pride Being able to Say " I helped Build that" I do Have Experience in the Past of Major Builds such as this in the Past :D Its Just what I love to do! ~Mystik the Architectural  Skyforge Engineer

[Senda 472]

Images should be visible again 

 

(for some unknown reason the bandwith restriction from Photobucket seems to be gone.)

 

Should they become shrouded again, I have them backed up on Imgur.

[TheBareSheet 194]

Moved to the Great Library. It shall be sorted into appropriate category shortly.