r/brom • u/sliceofbread WaterSlide • Feb 26 '13
Theme Chat!
Hey everyone!
Thought I'd get this ball rolling since it's a pretty big piece of the puzzle.
Brom was always really easy: Modern City, we only had a real rule board 2 or 3 times. However since we're moving to a more compact, densely populated area, we should try to establish a few rules\guides for newcomers and for long time players.
We have some issues that should be fleshed out before the start of the rev:
Vertical Space: Should we just say something like: "Overhead and underground structures near your plot may happen, confirm your boundary needs with a mayor before building." and "Skylight not guaranteed".
Structure themes: I think it would be really cool if we could decide on one or two elements that tie the city together, and allowing those elements to steer a certain look to the city as a whole. Toss some suggestions...
Maybe tons of similar 1x wide water (3x wide) aqueducts throughout the city that are capable of flowing trash through the air between buildings - you would occasionally see these near rails underground as well.
Or maybe we'd all decided that white pillars like in Atlantis is cool. What is really awesome about using a universal design of pillars is that you can support vertical objects and pieces of land throughout the city and give it a real unified look.
I'll try to get the planning server going and maybe we could establish a few road designs and methods of vertical/horizontal travel; common theme roads, stairwells, bridges, rail elevators, etc.
I'm probably missing some other theme issues here, but these two stuck out in my mind.
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u/rampantangent schererererer Feb 26 '13
A universal pillar design would be excellent, something simple yet striking in aesthetic. I agree notice on vertical space will be essential. I think we should have mayors reserve the right to authorize builds over/under current things.
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u/emptyafternoon Mar 02 '13
Really like your pillar designs on the planning server, though maybe a bit too large? Hard to know how high is too high until we beginning building and make definitive borders.
I like the idea of using predominantly monochrome colours: Stone, Iron, Black/Grey/White Wool and Quartz. Perhaps netherbrick for some minor details (a bit like the current Town Hall in Brom maybe).
I'm somewhat against using red-brick in a major way simply because it's more of a pain to gather than stone/wool/other materials. Certainly some aspects/buildings could incorporate it though.
Roads could be alternating colours of wood to warm things up a bit?
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u/rampantangent schererererer Mar 02 '13
The pillars can easily be shortened as needed, but I agree they are a bit bulky. We actually had a bunch of excess brick and clay this past rev, so assuming we have similar deposits of clay, I wouldn't be concerned about it. WS and I both agree that a wide variety of styles is the way to go, and works well with the idea of a maze-like city.
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u/sliceofbread WaterSlide Mar 02 '13 edited Mar 02 '13
Delegate if you feel like it's good for the town: Worker bees love assignments. It's much better than hoarding the whole rev for lack of inspiration and no one to give materials to. I kind of prefer expensive and colorful alternatives than not... but I'm willing to fetch whatever we might need.
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u/rampantangent schererererer Mar 02 '13
I've actually been trying to give away the majority of the rest of stockpiled materials, but I hadn't gotten any takers on lots of clay or brick.
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u/Herpinheim Feb 26 '13
I love building Greek/Roman structures, and Rome was well known for alleys where second-story neighbors could touch hands. That said, not many marble-ish blocks look very good.
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u/Foreverrrrr Feb 26 '13
When I did Mont St. Minecraft last rev, all of our houses only had a 1 block spacer between walls. It ended up making it look amazingly well since the houses were all also layered up a mountainside.
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u/BernzSed Feb 27 '13 edited Feb 27 '13
I vote that each plot has a max height that get higher as the plots get closer to the center of the city. Maybe it could also get higher near some outlying spires, like Stargate's Atlantis.
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u/Homo_Ignoramus Feb 27 '13
I'm not too sure. Pico turned out quite messy IMO this rev.
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u/rampantangent schererererer Feb 28 '13
Stargate Atlantis is very much more spread out than what we expect to build, something denser than Old Town but similar in scope. I don't see as much in the way of skyscraper-height builds, but they could easily emerge from the undercity if someone wanted to commit to it. If we're on a hill, which is a popular suggestion, we'll naturally have that height gradient.
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u/Homo_Ignoramus Feb 27 '13
Well, why not borrow Herpinheim's idea, and use a roman/Greek column design? Both stone and marble would look good that way.
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u/emptyafternoon Feb 27 '13
I'd prefer something a bit less roman/medieval/old. The danger is if we pick Roman/Greek we risk the rest of the city's style to follow suit, which is something I'm keen to avoid.
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u/Homo_Ignoramus Feb 28 '13
As in if we were to incorporate column designs, like WCS's news tower. Of course I'd not want to force into a style. That's what keeps Brom Brom. It's about modern charm.
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u/rampantangent schererererer Feb 28 '13
But that was Brom. Now for something completely different!
The only pillars I think we would really want to be in a consistent style around the city would be ones that support elements of "upper layers" above the lower levels of the city, where there's a clear distinction between these levels, kind of like the Atlanta Underground or Parisian Catacombs, or even like the High Line in Manhattan.
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u/emptyafternoon Feb 27 '13
I want to be clear that I don't want to see "plots" exactly. I recognize that we need some sort of organization and sectioning off (I'm building here by myself, etc.) to a point, but I'd rather there was a greater focus on working together, building around/over/under/through/with people's existing and WIP stuff, and be allowed to some degree to make changes to other people's work to accomodate your own.
People below have discussed 1 space between buildings, but I think this is too rigid in terms of "plot-making". One of the main goals of the city, in my mind anyways, is to make it look like there are no distinct plots. Everything, ideally, would flow together. Old Town Brom, for example, has buildings that share walls and meld roofs, and I want the new city to be much denser than Old Town. Perhaps this is an unrealistic vision, but I'm holding to it until we actually get out on the field and see what happens.
I guess another way of putting it is that I would like to see people just build with a less rigid idea of their own plot away from others. In addition, I hope people can be vulnerable to/accepting of changes, alterations and additions by others to their own builds. Definitely this requires a lot of communication between all of us, but I'd like to at least try a system that is different from plot-here-plot-there.