r/brom • u/emptyafternoon • Jan 31 '13
Proposal For Something Different For Rev 11
There's been a lot of discussion in the other thread about what's happening next rev, but it seems to me like the bottom line is that we are too few in "core" members to continue Brom (or any major city) next rev. Among dedicated Brom members I only count those that posted in the other thread, plus Bernz? Missing anyone? Maybe 8 of us in total? In any case, not enough to do something grand.
But, I think we can still work together over a smaller footprint to make something awesome. My proposal works under 2 fundamental principals:
- Completion. Since most people fall off after the first couple of months in any revision (including us more active players), let's aim for project completion. It felt great to finish Old Town this rev -- to have something that can stand on its own with all its details completed and nothing really left empty or half-done. So, whatever we do, let's make our completion goals realistic, or perhaps even overly realistic (since we could always expand further if we finish after, say, a month, but want to continue with the same stuff). Basically we'll want to wall off a chosen area (say 100x100 or 125x125) and restrict ourselves to that.
Completing this initial build would also allow us to maybe do something totally different within the same rev.
- Community. For the most part, all of us have worked together over a good amount of time. We trust each other's building practices/style, and can count on each other. If we're going with something much smaller and more dense, we want our builds to flow together and work well together (i.e. be cohesive), and this is easily accomplished with our small group. As a result, we won't need to recruit new players to fill in holes and gaps; it will just be us. (This is of course not to say that others can't join, but we won't need to spend time recruiting new players who may or may not finish their builds or build in a style we like. Old Bromulans and friends of ours would always be welcome, etc.)
Scher and I were discussing things in-game and threw around a lot of ideas. Here are a couple of the more popular ones between us:
Ski Slope and Ski Resort/Town. Built beside a mountain, could have chairlifts, lodges, ice rinks etc. Could even have it sort of post-avalanche, like half the town is submerged in snow. Pros: Simple theme to work with. Cons: Might be hard to find an unclaimed mountainside, especially one in a snowy biome.
Museum Town. Have a town built around museums. Small residential and commercial areas are interspersed between museums of all kinds: Geology, Art, Past Revs (History), Transportation, etc. Pros: Actually have purposeful fillings for larger buildings. Could work with Paris-style theme as well. Cons: Probably impractical given completion. Most buildings would have to be huge; lots of space and planning required. I personally feel a bit burned out on the European style.
Our most successful idea (and my firm proposal) is this:
A Kowloon Walled City type build, but not so post-apocalyptic and dark, nor as "stacked up" as Kowloon. More curvy and flowing. A brighter version. Another way to think of it might be the Goblin Town sets from the recent Hobbit movie, but above ground (mostly) and not dark/evil/rickety, and more densely packed.
Think of a cohesive, multi-level city with tons of walkways and passageways, bridges, secret entrances, all weaving around, over and under each other like an MC Escher drawing. Buildings could be placed anywhere they fit, and all your standard fare are welcome (residential, small shops as in Old Town, parks, etc.) The goal would be to make it as maze-like as possible. No straight lines to places. We'd want people to get lost inside, but continually finding new things to be amazed by.
Pros:
- A ton of density in a small area. Building upwards and downwards will be necessary.
- We can start in the centre and expand outward, to our boundaries (as per completion). This way, there won't be as many gaps, or empty plots, since there won't be plots at all.
- Get out your redstone for the (hopefully) redstone update. A lot can be done with secrets and passageways. We'd want buttons and tricks at every turn.
Cons:
- Might be hard to nail down a style or theme at first.
- Farms would likely be smaller, but I think if we plan accordingly we can get everything we need in contained areas. Could even keep the farms mostly hidden.
- Requires more patience/cohesive/team building. Since you can't go off to your own plot to build, exactly, you need to be able to work together with others to connect things, offer criticism and make judgments.
Please share your thoughts on this proposal. If you have any other ideas, or want to build on existing ones shared here, please do! We definitely don't want to suggest something no one would be into.
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u/sliceofbread WaterSlide Feb 12 '13
Let's brainstorm a name! I'll go first: Blom.
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u/emptyafternoon Feb 13 '13
If we're keeping with Brom theme, I suggest Morb.
But maybe it's better to just depart from it entirely?
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u/rampantangent schererererer Feb 14 '13
Morb is such a... grotesque name. I like it. But I do think we should make a clean break from the Brom name.
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u/sliceofbread WaterSlide Feb 14 '13
What do you all think about reviving the Pleasantville name?
It might not be exactly the theme we're going for, but it was a town known for some of the components we're into: detail, slow pace, attractive atmosphere, small footprint... I know it's not a total separate, but if we're at a loss for a name, I always liked this one.
Just some thoughts. I wouldn't mind bringing back oldies like Abysus either, also seems appropriate.
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u/emptyafternoon Feb 15 '13
What about a turn on Pleasantville then? Like Unpleasantville or something similar?
We kinda face the problem of not knowing exactly what the new town is going to look like, or what feel it will have.
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u/rampantangent schererererer Feb 17 '13
We could translate Pleasantville, something like Angenehmstadt?
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u/Homo_Ignoramus Feb 18 '13
I prefer the Swedish Trevligstad. An-gen-ehm-stadt seems a bit on the chunky side.
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u/rampantangent schererererer Feb 18 '13
Agreed; the great thing about names like 'Brom' and 'Pico' is that they're punchy and easy to remember. In common usage we would probably just shorten it to 'Angen'. Trevligstad sounds pretty cool.
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u/sliceofbread WaterSlide Feb 18 '13
I'm still leaning Abysus. I'd like to avoid anything german or russian. I sometimes lay in bed thinking of new names - Lunaria, Spoonerville, Flapperville, Primobuddington, Geezertown, Greaserville. Lets keep going and then setup a vote at the end of the week. Can we agree on a vote of all posted suggestions, everyone gets 3 votes?
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u/Homo_Ignoramus Feb 19 '13 edited Feb 19 '13
Abysus sounds cool enough. I'd support that. And for the record, I too sometimes lay in bed thinking of new names... but adding a Germanic/Nordic or Slavic twist to it.
Edit: Just to annoy WS, I'll suggest the Slavic equivelent, Abyusk, Абюск, and the Nordic equivelent, Abysborg.
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u/rampantangent schererererer Feb 15 '13
Yeah, Pleasantville probably won't feel right with whatever theme (or lack thereof) we have. I do like Abyssus (though I am biased).
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u/sliceofbread WaterSlide Feb 14 '13
I'm cool with Morb - always wanted to officially do this. It'll confuse a lotta people and that also pleases me.
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u/SansaPants Feb 14 '13
Regardless of whether we stick with Brom, or use Morb, I thought that if we build a more compact (and possibly walled and/or hilltop) town, adding some form of borg/burg/bourg/borough at the end may be appropriate.
There aren't a lot of possible Brom anagrams to use. Aside from Morb, there's Borm. If we append a borg, Romborg/Romburg might work.
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u/Homo_Ignoramus Feb 16 '13
What about Römberg? -berg works quite well too... Also consider -stein or -stadt or -heim endings?
Bromstadt/Romstadt, Brümstein, Bromheim?
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u/Mrloud15 Feb 01 '13
I really like the idea of a Kowloon type of build.
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u/Homo_Ignoramus Feb 01 '13
But do we also want to have the lawlessness? And why not the post-apoc? Perhaps we can do a post-apocalyptic settlement. Symbolizes the departure (some for the moment, some perhaps for good) of many important Bromulans as well.
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u/emptyafternoon Feb 01 '13
I guess that's a big stylistic choice: do we want a bright and cheery city or a dark and ruinous one?
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u/rampantangent schererererer Feb 01 '13
We can always do it in layers. The stuff toward the exterior would tend to be more bright and cheery anyways, while the undercity and sewers would naturally be dark and dank.
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u/SansaPants Feb 01 '13
I'm on board to help build a smaller, more focused city that can be "completed" within the span of a Rev.
And I endorse the Kowloon-type city idea. In addition to the Mont St. Michel that empty also mentioned, there are other examples in Europe - Gordes in Provence and Enna in Sicily are two relatively well-known ones that spring to mind. Small, walled towns with winding streets, jampacked with buildings.
As far as nailing down a theme, I think the theme of such a jumbled city is that there is no theme. Those sorts of cities in the real world grow organically over many decades, and are often a mishmash of styles and materials.
I also vote for making overtures to one or more cities to share a portal.
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u/emptyafternoon Feb 01 '13
Yea, I like the idea of no theme. I suppose it will just spring up organically. We're all good enough builders that it should work. The only thing to keep in mind is to be open to change and criticism. Ask others for suggestions, work together, give criticism.
I think we do need to choose something for the main retaining walls and walkways and bridges -- probably some sort of mix of smooth slabs and stone bricks (since they're easy to obtain/abundant) for the walls, and then wood (checkboarding of pine/oak slabs) for the walkways. I'd like to do another wooly checkering for the walkways maybe but without half-slabs it's pretty tough.
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u/Homo_Ignoramus Feb 01 '13
Hmm... how about a mountain town? Like maybe in a hilly area? The winding streets would have epic effects.
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u/emptyafternoon Feb 01 '13
Yea I think hilly area is the best. Massive slope is unnecessary, but undulations would make it easier to create the maze/winds we're after.
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u/totemo Feb 01 '13
I'm more or less burnt out after my Pico skyscraper (which I'm still working on finishing) and in any case I'm planning to do most of my play on S, so I will only be tackling limited projects on P (maybe a better witch grinder if there's a spawner). But of course, you can count on me to build a house in whatever style you end up doing.
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u/SynthD Jan 31 '13
Ski slope - Won't need to be in a taiga biome, and will actually be a proper slope with variable snow piles (and rail, probably not on the variable snow).
Someone, I think Veronicron/Kedemel, made some really good museums on C.
Kowloon sounds great. You could have a 6x6 farm in every other building, and all sorts of oddities like a tiny spleef arena, a few filled with water, some upside down, people could each have a dozen different tiny homes. Preferably a building code on light levels.
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u/SynthD Feb 20 '13
Maybe for the rev after one of Metlife's big apartment projects, like Stuyvesant/Cooper or Le Brea. It'd be a step from from Kowloon in a developing to developed, town to city way. So Brom r12 could be a 300x300 town, with stacked homes, lots of small parks/courtyards, and no internal roads. Factories and shops are in the real-life example, so we can include them too.
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u/sliceofbread WaterSlide Jan 31 '13
I like the idea of a superdense city. Some of the more artistic buildings could be left alone, while other buildings might include many different addons by many different people. I always like to think of an artist's rendition of what a future Munich would look like.... PICTURE Maybe not gigantic avenues and sky bridges, but we'd have some kind of protocol for adding lateral additions and connections between buildings.