Atlantic Roleplay Community Boards

[GreyPawn]

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For more than a decade now, I have been a part of the Moonglow Town Council. I have watched player-run cities rise and fall - countless have come and gone. Even the ones that received the highest honor of a Seer blessing have all fallen to ruin. I have striven towards building up Moonglow as a player city to last the test of time, and it has fluctuated widely over the years as we have gained and lost members and buildings.

As a part of my work towards making Moonglow a true player city, I've tried to encourage a uniform building code - so that the player owned houses on Verity Isle can be easily identified as being a part of MTC just by looking at them. During my regular rounds awhile back, which is when I hop in-game to inspect the structures and the stability of the lands under my protection, I added Umbra and its environs to the list.

I am saddened to say that in terms of uniformity, OES wins hands down. You have what appears to be maybe 7-8 buildings of moderate size, all constructed with the same design uniformity. The same dark castle stone, the same theme. I resign that this is something I will never be able to do with Moonglow.

At current, the Moonglow Town Council HQ, which has stood for the better part of that decade I mentioned, is constructed of dark castle stone. Previously it was white and shadow stone, and a theme was even created called "Greater Moonglow" as a style guide.

As of this writing, none of the other buildings owned by MTC members match the HQ. In fact, none of them even match each other. To the south of the HQ is a structure I suffer Alzheimers with, because for some reason I keep giving it away to a passionate MTCer who promises to adhere to set Moonglow style. The "Tavern", is part plaster, wood, and thin gray slate stone. To the south of that is a structure I've purchased no fewer than 8 times, owned by I have no idea, who refuses to decorate it. To the far east, on the eastern shores of Moonglow, we have "The Moonglow Library". Now, I know what you are saying, Moonglow has a Lyceaum. And MTC HQ has an entire floor dedicated to being a library. But the Mayor, in her infinite wisdom, has considered it a benevolent thing that we should have a "The Moonglow Library", and done up in the fashion of biege gargoyle stone with cyan highlights. You know, like the rest of Moonglow. To the north of that, what was the Armory, in white stone. To the west of that, well, you see where this is leading.

If I had the power to hold more than one house on my account, I would. And Moonglow as a city-state would be so much the better for it. If I had the money to maintain the number of accounts I would need to at least KEEP OWNERSHIP of the dozens and dozens of plots and houses on Verity I have purchased over the years and given to psychotic glowpugs, then I would - and would instead gladly rent out co-ownerships. Instead, I will have to make do with another decade of MTC HQ being a "one man stand" on an island of misfit mages. Luckily, according to the fun requirements as posted by our EM's, one structure doesn't quite cut it as far as player-owned cities go. Way to go, Moonglow! Our housing scheme is Fail Blog worthy.

OES, I don't know how you do it, but kudos.
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[Sara Delan]

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You're obviously upset and ... that's fine. You've put a lot of time and effort into MTC.

However, this is hardly the way to go about dealing with it. If it's upsetting you this much, you should have taken a few minutes and calmed down first. Insulting the people who made it the way it is won't solve anything. Did you even try telling anyone you were upset before you went on this tirade? This is the first I've heard of it.

Look, I'm sure you got other things going on in your life. No big deal. But it's unfair to disappear for weeks or months, then show up for a day, complain about how things are being run. If you don't like it, you shouldn't have given up your power to make the decisions.

Finally, so what if we don't fit a color scheme? You really want to be a cookie cutter guild? I understand that identification of a house belonging to a guild at first glance can be nice, but what about the people who own the houses who don't want to fit the ideal of what you think it should be? It's their houses, they paid money for it and put time and effort into designing it the way they wanted to. It's their choice, not yours.

So the next time you get upset about something like this, think about it first and maybe try to solve the problem a little better.
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I have no idea what you are talking about.

Sig curtisy of Yasamin

[Kaelthir]

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Firstly, I'd like to say thank you for the compliment. One of the reasons why the OES buildings look so damn good is I design 2 out of 3 of the core houses in the area (Charnel Hill not included, Azalin designed that), and Darrien designed the last. But the second and more overbearing issue is that OES style just looks good. I'm at your mage tower now, and I'm sorry but the style is ugly. Not only that, but you can't buy the evil stone tiles anymore either. Your MTC style would be impossible for me to make, and even then all "MTC style" seems to be is a box of a house with mismatched tiles. The evil stone tiles looks really out of place and mis-matched how you've used them. Your one example of MTC architecture is something we at Umbra would contact the owner about scrapping if it was in the Grove area with our core guild houses. But I also want to note, outside of those 4 core houses, we don't tell people what to do with their homes. OES style is "Take stone and do awesome architecture with arches and miscellaneous tiles," which is fun to play around with and ends up looking good, and so people do it. Not because we force them to, but because it looks good. OES style developed in Umbra when Azalin designed some absolutely sexy looking buildings, and it's stuck even though he doesn't play the game and likely couldn't care less about it just because it looks good. People use different kinds of stone, but the overlying architectural features persists and everything ends up looking unified. I believe if you want to encourage people to make uniform houses, you need to start by giving them more and better examples, and make it look good enough to be rewarding on its own.

[Cal Hurst]

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MTC is bad because they don't conform.
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[Cam]

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You're dating the mayor.
Your correct response would've been: Let Yasa design her MTC house teh way she wants and everyone else has to copy her.
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Butter
Hawtness

[GreyPawn]

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I've spoken at length to the individuals responsible for their houses in Moonglow. In fact, one of the conditions of ownership on these particular houses I mentioned was that they would adhere to some semblance of uniformity. That's generally what they agree to BEFORE the house is in their possession. Afterwards, not so much. Please understand that if these were homes that were simply purchased by members themselves individually, I wouldn't be as frustrated about the situation. Many of these homes are legacy though, many, like the Tavern, I have purchased multiple times over many years, since the very original purchase I made of the god awful Large Marble owned by Polgara for $450.00. I've told Fong, I've told Yasamin. I've told everyone. I simply don't know what the solution is.

I'm not sure what you mean by "disappear for weeks or months". I maintain a consistent presence. Just because I'm quiet doesn't mean I'm not here. Moreover, I didn't give up my power to make decisions. Are you under the impression that I did?

My goal was never to be a "cookie cutter guild", but a player-run city should have a unique and uniform look to it. At least a theme. Again, I don't care what members do with their own private houses, but these structures are the property of the *guild*, purchased with *guild* (read - my) funds. I never wanted to turn into the twisted mad crazy that Xanthar was, forced to own all the houses in his city to keep the constant march of time from chipping inevitably away at a city's holdings, but I did at least have some vision for what it would have been nice for Moonglow City to look like.

"OES Style just looks good". Congrats for finding a style that is replicable with the UO custom housing tile sets. Who would have guessed that "ruined castle" was a natural fit for a game whose development team comes out with 12 tiles and calls it an expansion. Yay for ruins being prevalent. My intent with the MTC HQ was to copy the original Atlantic Mage Tower style, hence the gray castle stone. Boxy? Sure. Space is at a premium on our island. Do you have an alternative geographical location where I can pick up Moonglow and relocate it? Somewhere with 18x18 plots, if you please. There are at least five dozen spots in UO where "evil" architecture is in play, to provide magnificent examples of how it is done. As far as mages go? We've got the white marble of Wind, the thatch-cottage college town of Moonglow, and the white stone of Terrort Skitas. Not that that matters when your membership architectural variance screeches widely from orc fort to gargoyle aviary.

*sigh* Frustrating.
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[Sara Delan]

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Hey, what's that over there? *points*

*walks away*
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I have no idea what you are talking about.

Sig curtisy of Yasamin

[Cam]

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I know I'm butting in but.. I like the wall tiles Fong+Yasa used a lot better..
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Butter
Hawtness

[Isk]

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I gotta agree with GreyPawn, myself being a resident of golden age MTC when G-Prime was the mayor and Richard was the Captain, I can honestly say that we had few buildings that matched, we had wooden, marble, stone, etc... all the possible base choices. There was no customization so things looked natural since our eyes were trained to only see the 8-12 or what ever possible house types. Now we can go nuts with design and so each house can look radically different, which in the case of land based guilds can make things look uniform and not at all town like.

I had a feeling a lot of quick changes or scrambles would occur as the guilds strive to get their blessings. Forums popping up, changing all house signs to match, etc. We just gotta keep in mind that the decision to bless or what ever is one the seer people are making isn't ours to make. Though if it was I'd love to see some sparkle effects or at least SOMETHING inside or near the MTC base.

[GreyPawn]

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In a show of uncharacteristic open-mindedness, I have given Dragoona access to my account and she is constructing her rendition of a headquarters for a magical themed organization like MTC. Only reason I do this is because I maintain that it is more difficult than most believe to construct for mages. The Undead theme is simple beyond comprehend - the designers left hundreds of tiles available for ruins, dilapidated castles, graveyards. Mage Towers, a bit difficult.

Let's see what happens.
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[Darrien Church]

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Seven houses?

We have 13, and all but two match! hah! (and those two match one another, so it works sorta...)

Most of the thanks goes to Azalin for the original concept and then either Dragoona or Kearia who are our respective designers most of the time.

[Kaelthir]

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One thing with OES housing is we could entirely redo the deco inside of most of the houses, and you'd have a house that MTC could use. On one of my days off I might actually entirely redecorate Morn Cirith to be a MTC building to prove it. Our buildings aren't ruins, only Charnel Hill is due to how it was formed. But for the house challenge Greypawn gave me, I'm going to try and focus on making something entirely different than what I would normally do for a mage house to try and give a different kind of style to Moonglow.

I've also suggested a secondary style for smaller houses in Moonglow, since not everyone wants a stone tower or stone house. Especially since there are so many non-mages and civilians. The best of both worlds would be having a stone bottom floor, with plaster on top. It looks good in small houses, especially if a roof is put on top. Here's an example of a large house with it. And if people gave their houses a roof too? Wow, Moonglow would be STYLING. I know it's harder to do with smaller houses, but it sure looks good. I'll hop onto test centre and whip out some examples in the near future.

[SunWolf]

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Even though they are all made out of different matierals, each one I looked at (expect libary, didn't know of it and the flat house) they all had some sort of tower or themed around a tower. I think that is a rather cool theme that they had and surprised no one noticed it.

Another thing, a few other towns always been around aswell, even though they might be by other names of who run them, but the areas are always active and communication is there. Though it is nice in away to still see MTC still around under the same name.

[Teh Glouris Lrod Kujabis]

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Mad when EMs aren't involved in player stuff, mad when EMs are involved in player stuff.

[Ceinwyn ab'Arawn]

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All I would need to do to make my house look like the rest of the Grove houses is change the color of stone I use from yew crypt gray #3 to charnel hill brown #5. It's still from the same menu selection. Not really a big difference, but for shading. The house itself wouldn't change a bit, retaining its ornamental arches and such.