World The Wynncraft Build Style Situation

With the release of 1.19 a seemingly new building style was introduced with The Silent Expanse:

Spoiler

A simple yet detailed cube-esque style, it was a beautiful change of tone for the new area and dungeon. This style was unique for the region since it was not used anywhere else and fit it perfectly – until 1.20
For the sake of this post, I will keep referring to it from here on out as the “SE style”

Gavel was reworked on 1.20 and that is exactly what a lot of people – including me – wanted; a new and updated Gavel, what could go wrong?

Spoiler

Now that looks… awfully similar to EO and Lutho, but it’s slightly different. It’s alright, surely it’s just Cinfras since it’s a big city that needs to be beautiful-








(Though it barely resembles it, and it wasn’t in 1.20, i’m including llevi’s exit gate anyways)

That’s enough of the sass. Don’t get me wrong, the style looks fantastic, it's beautiful, but it’s getting used a little too much.

I have no idea what the Builders’ intentions were with all of these changes or their thought process before and after it; therefore I can only speculate from what seems obvious to me.


Threads have an image limit so I will try to limit it to about a few for every section.

• Elkurn & Tempo Town

Of course, slab spam Cinfras wasn’t good, in fact, it was horrendous. ut it still had the most important aspect; Life and atmosphere.


One of my favourite people in the Minecraft community – GoodTimesWithScar says

“It’s one thing to make a pretty looking build, it’s a whole other thing to give it sole purpose, and that's that human element that makes you really feel like there has been life here before and life going on now.”


It feels very cliche, but it’s true, the new Wynncraft build style is stunning, but it lacks uniqueness and life; I’m not saying that every city should adapt some crazy new style of its own, but simply not re-using the same style over and over again, it takes that uniqueness away from every single build and it becomes bland and lifeless.


Take Elkurn for example

Spoiler: Elkurn

This is the new Elkurn, I’m sure you all know what it looks like.
It doesn’t adapt the SE style, it adapts a simple normal style, it’s still pretty and I’d say because of how unique that has become, it’s a lot more lively than other areas.
Compared to other cities I’ve had a great time doing the quests that required me to go to Elkurn simply because walking around in this town feels good.



Now, Tempo Town on the other hand…

Spoiler: Tempo Town

What is that?
SE style, barely has residential buildings, unfitting cliff edge, random weird spot

This “town” is too small to be even called a town, it isn’t unique, it feels industrial and dead.
Yes, it is small because it’s a new town, but why would there be a bank and barely any residential area? In fact, there’s barely any room for any more houses, that’s not a town that could ever prosper.
There is already a town nearby; Elkurn.

Logically, no one would go on some cliff to make a small town because some random old man told them to, but that’s just part of the quest’s lore so I’ll ignore that for the sake of this post… Was there no better cliff or area nearby?

I myself have no idea, I don’t know how work is done in the server, but there are hundreds of players, dozens of which are willing to give feedback – good and bad – you just have to take the good, compare it, think about it, and make a decision.


“A lot of players give harsh, meaningless, and useless feedback. Taking feedback would hurt us more than help us” That is correct, it has happened a lot and it still continues to – but only for actual gameplay.
The casual player that doesn’t understand much about design won’t care to give feedback, and if they do, it’ll either be “This looks nice” or “I don’t like how this looks” and in both cases you can just ignore or have a short sentence response. The people that would actually give meaningful feedback are people who care about it and understand it – like me and some other individuals, and they are not too few in number for the feedback to be unreliable.

• Cinfras & Guild Hall

Spoiler: Cinfras

This is without a doubt a million times better than slab spam, but as I have said in the previous section, it’s missing life, meaning, and purpose.
The style looks nice, but it takes away the individuality of the builds, there is only so much variation you can do to make every house look different and that is not enough when it’s getting used everywhere.


Eltom is doing fine with this style, it’s a small town so it doesn’t need as much variation and it looks and feels fitting with the setting.


Cinfras has a different history and culture of its own, the fact that it looks very similar to other cities and towns across the world makes it seem like it has nothing that makes it stand out other than the airbase.


And now the Guild Hall:

Spoiler: Guild Hall

What hall? Where’s the hall?
I’m still repeating this; it looks amazing, but what’s unique about it? Where’s the hall? What is this place supposed to be?
It feels like it was made with one purpose: to look good.

This is for sure not an eye-sore, the Guild Hall needed to be rebuilt from the ground up as well as all of Cinfras, but it didn’t have to use the same perfectly square structures, beams, ridges, and overhangs as a ton of other places.
A slightly more round version of this style would’ve worked better, especially considering old Cinfras had round arches everywhere.


As I walk through the new Cinfras, my eyes are pleased with pretty-looking builds but I can’t feel the same excitement of exploring a new area and its history like before.

• Olux, Kander & Paths

One of the things I really loved doing on my first playthrough was exploring, getting lost, finding random areas, then getting back on track when I needed to; I had the quest book, coordinates, and a responsive map; that is a lot more boring now.

The old Kander was pure cancer to say the least, simply because there were too many holes in the path, lots of soul sand, random fences in the way, and tons of mobs. Well, the new Kander did fix all of those issues; The paths now have no holes in them, they’re made out of visible contrasting blocks, they’re big and well-connected… too well-connected.

Spoiler: Kander Forest

Kander is now extremely beautiful, and that’s the problem; it’s supposed to be a dark unwelcoming forest, full of horrible monsters and not a simple desaturated forest with well-laid out bridges and paths; It looks like a huge modern-day park.


You might think “isn’t that counterintuitive to what you said earlier” and no, it isn’t.
The forest was annoying because of all of those reasons, you could get rid of them without making it too normal. Yes, there are a lot of young and dumb players who can and will get lost but that’s the beauty of having a vast open world, people will get lost, find loot, easter eggs, cool hidden areas, start a quest by accident if they’re lucky, and in the end they can use coordinates or the map, not to mention most people nowadays make new players play with Wynntils for the Mini-Map so getting lost and confused isn’t an issue big enough to strip an area like Kander Forest of its life and atmosphere so that the game becomes easier.
Again, I have no idea if that was the reason as to why it’s so clean now, but even if it isn’t, the point stands.


New Olux shares some of that issue as well, it's supposed to be a decaying swamp, but it looks too sleek for that.


Speaking of lost players,
Now the paths:

Spoiler: Llevigar & Kander

The Llevigar paths from the pictures above fit the area neatly because they’re coming straight out of a major city, going from quartz to gravel and dirt would look weird and boring, but for areas like the swamp and Kander, they don’t need that contrast.

A swamp and a Dark forest; there is absolutely no reason for them to have well-defined contrasting paths.


Another example:

Spoiler: Hot Springs

A dangerous volcanic area with clean and well-defined paths.

These sorts of paths are understandable and look great when they’re used to connect major towns, leading out of a city, anything of that sort; however, for dangerous areas, they do not fit at all.

• Rodoroc

Spoiler: Rodoroc Gate

Old Rodo had a few horrendous spots because of slab spam as well, but I’d take old Rodo over the new one any day because it felt like a dwarven city; the dwarves did not care about the beauty of the city but about its functions.

If the build has a story and history, then the style and theme should reflect that, but what does this style reflect? Everyone in the world — from thousands of years ago and today — had the same mindset and architectural skills.


Rodoroc’s gate is without a doubt, the most “EO looking” one, and it does look really pretty but that’s it, there’s no special history relating to the dwarves, there’s no uniqueness, it’s just yet another gate of the same style, and that is honestly a shame.
It doesn’t have to be a new style, it just needs to be unique and help tell the story of the dwarves.


For comparison, this was the old Rodo gate

Spoiler: Old Rodoroc Gate

(Picture taken from an Olinus10 video. Couldn’t find one anywhere else)
The ugliness of slab and stair spam aside, it has unique characteristics that you only see in other dwarven towns.


Molten Height’s gate is nowhere near as bad as Rodoroc’s gate, I would in fact salute it and the builder for not copying the exact same look and shape of EO’s entrance.
It feels fitting and looks nice.

Spoiler: MH Gate

• Personal opinion part

I assume this new style wasn’t introduced for SE but it was the first time they ever used it and it happened to be with that place – and coincidentally it helped with the alienating feeling since it was something entirely new.
It’s a pretty, easy-to-build style which might be the main reason it’s getting adapted everywhere, but just because it’s easy to build and pretty doesn’t mean it needs to be used over and over again.


I characterize this style not by “Resemblance to EO” but by the square nature of it. The base, support beams, ridges & ledges, and generally squareness all over.
You can only use this style so much until it starts looking extremely repetitive, and that has happened extremely quickly, especially with areas that mimicked the exact shape of EO
And the problem with that is that it takes away the life and meaning out of the different stories and cultures the Wynn lore and world tell.
The alternative is not slab spam or the same old “build a hanging roof with different heights and palettes”
I’ve seen countless builders make their builds look pretty while telling the story behind it, and it was never a generic, ugly, or repetitive style.




Finally,
The point of this isn’t just a rant or to blame the builders; they have done a great job at making ravishing structures and terrain, but from what I and other people have seen and experienced, they don’t seem to take feedback about it, and sometimes they only really respond to feedback and no results are actually given.

Not all feedback is good, but not all is bad either, I have seen good feedback from people that got ignored – or in some worse cases – the builders got frustrated with the person giving feedback.

This isn’t me telling the builders how to build, I can’t teach someone better than me – it’s me, a player, telling the builders the seeming underlying issue with the overuse of one style.
There are builders, head builders, and other people in the team that can think about it and figure out what works best.


Wynncraft is an MMORPG, the world is to be experienced with the story, even without a story, repetitive action gets boring, and that should be obvious to everyone.

I and most people like the new builds and terrain, but more people would love them more if they fit the narrative of the world – at least, from my own knowledge, that would be the case.

 

unfortunately in feedback section so it won't get nearly as much traction

 

Much agree - I've always found the new builds in Gavel lacking for some reason, and I didn't realize until much recently that they do in fact look like Lutho and Eldritch Outlook too much. The Kander Forest in particular I find rather garish. I would compare it to some super-expensive sports car with a giant pink and lime lion plastered on the hood. It isn't necessarily bad, the car is made well and the artist painted the lion pretty well. It just... doesn't look right. It doesn't look like it belongs.

 

I suspect the main reason for this is that a lot of this work is directed or built by a small handful of builders.

 

Thank you for your feedback!

I will write something when i have a bit of time to do it. There are some things i can clarify probably.

 

I personally don't have a problem with any of these. The reason it's known as the ''EO Style'' is because it was unfamiliar and new when the Silent Expanse update dropped, so seeing it pop up all over the world came as a strange surprise to many. But I seriously don't have an issue with this. Each build using the style is different enough and it looks nice. I would only have a problem with it if they went back on a bunch of old Wynn cities (Ragni, Detlas, Almuj, etc, also Llevigar and Ahmsord in Gavel) and did this again because I think their current builds fit fine without the EO style and don't need to be randomly changed.

It's a nice building style, it works, the only con is it brings slightly less variety to the game

 

I personally think that the new Rodoroc gate is good. Although the structure is actually quite simmilar to EO, and the colors don't help either. However, I think that if you want to give the impression of great strength and being able to support the tons of rock above the wall, pillars/buttresses are a good way to do that. So it kind of naturally got that look simply because that's a good way to build it.

 

The post refers to "telling the story" of the area quite often but doesn't go into what that looks like exactly? What builds do it well? For a feedback post, some specific issues + solutions could probably help this thread start a good discussion, be a bit more respondable, and not just come off as "this is bad".

Personally, I like the new build style a lot better than the old. I would much rather have builds that are functional, better to look at, and show consistency in the game than try to be different for the sake of being so, especially with what limitations the game has in the Minecraft platform. The new, vibrant style makes that much more achievable than sticking with traditional wood/stone spam. Even old Wynn builds like Ragni and Detlas have taken on the color institutions in order to help guide new players better. I do agree the new build style makes things more similar, but because color is nice to look at.

Similar thing for paths and the environment, I would put their function and purpose over the realism of "dangerous area shouldn't have roads". An area being dark and brooding doesn't mean it can't look fantastic, and I'm rather surprised the post left out the grey portion of Kander. By going east out of Gelibord you start with the more traditional forest-y Kander that eventually turns grey and bizarre as you get closer to the heart of the decay, if that isn't purpose and story. As for paths, Wynncraft navigation sucks already. It doesn't have the floating waypoints, minimap, or compass on the same level as any other RPG, and everything is blockified so shape contrast is not high. So, it needs all it gets in terms of helping the player find their way and bound their expectations on where they can go and find content. Without defined paths, there's just a fuzzy confusion on whether there's actually purpose there or not.

Another thing that I'd bring up related to the new build style is the "boulder" build motif around caves, a great example of function in builds. They're used everywhere and can be said to make all cave entrances the same, but I think that teaching the player "boulders means a cave with something inside" and actually utilizing that pattern is much more useful than what could be lost by their ubiquity.

 

You're right, I should've included more suggestions and solutions instead of just pointing out the problems, but the main reason I didn't is because I myself am not sure if I could come up with something good, and I don't want to make a paragraph about a solution that is of the same quality or worse; hence why later in the post I mentioned that the team is more skilled than I am and they can (most likely) figure out what's best.


The issue of the style isn't the colors but the repetitive shape, the style worked well in Eltom because the shape had to ever so slightly change to match the size of the houses, and MH's gate does a more unique shape that hasn't been mimicked as much as the one used in EO and the Guild Hall.


Paths that are connecting towns or leading to important regions/areas are perfectly understandable, but an extremely well-defined contrasting path leading nowhere special is unnecessary. It can and should still be eye-catching and traversable, but not as much as the main roads.

Frankly, I haven't been to Kander in ages so I forgot about this transition from outer to inner Kander, but even that is not enough in the grand scheme of things, a good portion of Kander does not look or feel like the dark horrible forest it is brought out to be, similar thing with Olux.
A dark, gloomy forest doesn't need to be deadly and unforgiving, but it doesn't need to be very sleek and charming either.
In general Kander's situation isn't the worst one here.

As for boulder caves
In this case, terrain serves a completely different purpose than structures, I don't think the boulders and the repeating new style can be compared because of that.


I am not saying the old style was better. It was not, it was horrendous slab and stair spam, but the new style isn't the best either because of its usage. It almost completely disregards the lore and what the old builds had going for them. And while it still looks way nicer now, I imagine it looking and feeling a lot nicer if done more uniquely, simply by taking inspiration from the old builds and following the theme of the area.

For example, old Cinfras had round arches everywhere, which felt unique relative to cities like Llevigar and Detlas, but now there's none of that, and it's only using this one style all over the city.

Old Rodoroc's entrance was a mighty wall that showcased the bruteness and strength of the dwarves, but now the wall looks like it's showcasing the dwarves' architectural skills that are shared across time, space, and species.

The simplest solution for both would be to use the general shape of the old version as the base for the new version, then applying whatever new building styles needed to make it look nice and updated.


The style is not bad, but it's not that good either. I would go indepth about every single thing I've mentioned in the post but since I don't think the "solutions" I have in mind are that much better, I'd rather not say them at all.


In general, it's definitely my bad for not explaining everything in greater detail, I'm hoping to discuss that or update the post if necessary.

 

Yeah, glad you were able to pin it down to one thing, shapes, which really makes this more constructive. A lot of the new builds do have strong, horizontal, bricky layers, so it would be nice to see some other types of embellishments in the future. Maybe something bottom-heavy and not so extremely layered would be good to see in the future. I think the Molten Heights gate was pointed out in this regard since it doesn't have the jutting horizontal layers and is not too top-heavy.

I do still think the Kander Forest and Olux Swamp are fine though, Kander with its monstrous candle-trees and haphazard, splotchy ground, then turning more alien with all the mycelium. It's not really trying to represent the whole dark and brooding forest; that's what the Dark Forest already is for, but instead it's just showing the next step. It's visibly different than the Dark Forest (which honestly I think is worse). The swamp is also pretty subdued and winding enough for the first decayed area the player encounters. Sleekness is fine; I don't think purposefully making something harder to navigate for theming is a good thing.

Overall though it's definitely still an evolving thing though, and totally doesn't take into account how the build team operates anyways. I think it would be very helpful if the defining features of the builds were continued to be pointed out, as specific details like that can be recorded and kept in mind later, which is much more useful than just discussing the "story" and "uniqueness" in a build.

 

interestingly, I haven't seen many people criticize detlas, even though it's style seems quite close to the 'EO style'
I wonder if it comes down to block palette? the new builds seem to use a lot of terracotta, concrete and sandstone, which are really smooth, whereas detlas is mostly cobble and stone bricks, with the really smooth blocks mostly used for texture and highlights. the combination of smooth blocks and shapes might just not work unless the build is big enough that you wouldn't be able to see the textures anyways, and the domes and pillars are needed to make up for this lack of detail

 

overall much prefer the more colorful state of the game

i think the biggest issue with wynn builds is how often things can seem... lifeless. the game certainly has its fair share of quests and mobs that add to the atmosphere but so often do builds look very pretty yet lack much to actually interact with. it'd probably be interesting if GMs would collaborated more with builders to add more NPCs to buildings that can either say a funny line or even give more lore to the regions theyre in, or something else that involves player interaction. not saying that every single building in game needs to have an NPC to feel alive, but things like the Teachings of Old secret discovery, olux swamp fisherman and ahmsord cheese merchant really help wynn as a whole feel more alive.

 

I agree with the overall point, but I feel like the examples you use aren't that great. I honestly really like the new Cinfras, I usually think of Gavel as being this sort of dreamy place and the new Cinfras fits that vibe. Honestly Rodoroc is the only complaint I have, since it's almost an exact copy of the Eldritch Outlook, and doesn't really look "dwarven" at all.

On the other hand I absolutely agree with your point of Wynncraft builds tending to not have "life". I think one of the main causes of this was the original Gavel update. The CT built an entire other province that was twice the size of the province they'd already built over quite some time, in ONE update. This means a lot of Gavel felt a bit lifeless because the province was so big that the CT never got proper time to focus on the small details.
I think Grian has a bit of an obsession with "mega" builds, as he refers to them on youtube. I don't think there's anything wrong with this in general, a lot of these builds, such as EO and Cinfras, look really great, but when you're trying to build bustling towns or densely populated cities that feel alive, you need to be able to build things that are small, small houses and tight narrow streets and things of that sort. Starting a build with the concept of it being large and then building inwards means you'll add less details and the details you do add will feel more in-your-face and less natural, this isn't a problem with EO since it's meant to be nightmarishly larger than life, and large empty spaces fit well with it's vibe, and Cinfras is kind of a happier version of that, but when everywhere you go it's just a bunch of big towns like Levigar, Almuj, and Troms, that are all big because that's the default of what a city is, it get's old and takes away from structures that are big for a good reason.

 

I think there’s actually at least three other reasons why towns can feel lifeless, even beyond the “EO” style of builds. First, the villager AI just sucks. They’re basically just punching bags that wander aimlessly, and they have a bad tendency to loiter in random places. NPCs that actually *can* talk don’t unless you actively talk to them. Because of that, everything feels like it’s rather static; it doesn’t feel like things are happening unless you, the player, decides to make it happen. I also think this is why Detlas still feels pretty full of life despite having a similar design style; because it’s so full of other players that they effectively fill the role that the NPCs are supposed to. Players are usually moving around actively, or at the very least clustered in the city center. Second, there’s no ambience in the cities. The only ambient sound you get is the soundtrack changing, and the indistinct villager noises. It’s really quiet for what are supposed to be bustling cities. Finally, there’s the fact that a lot of the clutter of builds have been stripped away to provide greater accessibility. The most extreme example is probably the Letvus Airbase. It makes it easier to navigate, but it makes the cities feel less lived in.

 

I agree. The wynn build team is really, REALLY good but some of the builds don’t really make that much sense for example the new bridge between Detlas and Nivla.
My idea is that each province would have its own architectural design. Wynn would have the EO designs, Gavel would get a new design, and Corkus would also get its own design (which I think it does)

 

( l am answering independently. This is not a response from the CT, it is just a response from me. )
I agree, I feel a lot of builds could benefit from their own architectural styles, and I believe it is well within our capabilities to be able to give each area it's own distinct style -- beyond just an alteration in color pallette -- without it feeling too disconnected from 'wynncraft's overall build style'. Until you pointed it out, I didn't really notice the impact that the similar, simple yet complex style had - being making everything feel homogeneous, even if they were completely unrelated and essentially on the other side of the world.
One thing I do have to disagree with, however, is Kander Wood's 1.20 overhaul. It's true, most of the place is very colorful, with various purples, oranges, greens, blues, reds, etc etc. Yet, the Kander Woods is a product of Dernic Influence through the Parasite, and not a natural decay or rot. The only other place currently afflicted by Dernic Influence is the Silent Expanse -- and one look at that area is enough to fill your eyes with about every color and hue of the rainbow. I personally really love the look of 1.20 Kander Woods, and feel it fits with the defined appearance of Dernic corruption. But, I'm also bias because I immediately love anything dern-related, and your opinion is just as valid as mine.

Personally, I'll certainly be applying this criticism to my future projects.

 

It’s less so the colors and more so that Olux swamp and Kander are too flat, bare, sleek. On the one hand it’s less of a pain to navigate through them, but on the other hand like the post said they don’t feel like actual swamps or forests. The old Olux swamp had a lot more foliage and texture in the terrain so it felt more overgrown like a proper swamp. Now it just feels more like someone took a flat world and copy and pasted willow trees everywhere with the occasional hill. This is less of an issue with Kander since it does have cliffs and pits and imo it had too much clutter previously.

 

Yo this is not a response for the CT, but I am the builder that made like 95% of the builds talked about here so I should probably be the one to speak lol.


I think part of the reason you see the style often is I am the one that makes almost 100% of the large builds in wynncraft. So there will almost always be some overlap no matter how hard I try. However, some of the other reasons are gameplay related, and some are just oversights.


I think to go through this it’s best to just explain the thought process of the builds and also the reasons for the oversights.


---Note: After I have written this out I noticed that I am pretty rambley here, and I understand that might be frustrating to read, but I feel it is necessary to show the full thought process which, other than a rambley explanation here, could only be explained with a reply that would take months to create. So yea, just keep that in mind that this is pretty much me just talking and not a formal essay kinda thing.


---Note 2: Post and Lintel basically means designs that use a lot of vertical pillars with horizontal slabs on top. It’s most associated with old Greek stuff but can be used more generally.


The eldritch outlook style went through a lot, and I mean a lot of changes over time. If you ever get on the CT I can show you like 12 different versions and hundreds small changes. One of the original versions was planned to be a weird like nest/hive organic looking thing. Another was a fantasy/medieval take on an art deco skyscraper. But the final take was based on the idea of an alien trying to create the greatest monument to human architecture. It was very very big, bigger than most any other build. The proportions are a bit all over the place and, and the colors are all wack.


The cube-like details, post and lintel design, and more color than normal was not something meant to be reserved for it. In fact the idea was that it would look kinda similar to human buildings, just slightly off.


I do agree that a lot of builds look too similar to this style, and those are mostly oversights. The gate in molten heights was made by another builder and I even said it looks a bit similar, but it still managed to get in. There was another build that looked almost exactly like EO, but that got cut. There was also a planned revamp for the town that got cut because it made the town look very lifeless and too much like other towns. In fact I think there was more than one. I think this kind of almost direct copying happens as new wynncraft builders are learning they want to copy what is already well liked, but that ends up having problems when we want something new. This is something that is already known and being kept in account for the next time we do large map changes that involve towns and such.


Before I get into completely disagreeing with you I can cover what I completely agree with. I made a tempo town, and I really don’t like it. I am considering remaking the houses but we will see if I have time. Basically, tempo town was super rushed, and made for a specific reason. That being adding more of a reason for new players to explore time valley, with the NPC and all. The rest of the town, bank and all, were only added so it would be easier to use the NPC. The town's placement was a real pain because it can’t be put anywhere that would ruin an aesthetic, like in time valley ruins, or in the little wood where it was for a little bit. So the edge placement was a compromise for being near timevalley, but not ruining the atmosphere. I do think the builds suck though. Not just that they don’t fit, but that they suck. I really don’t like how they came out. I had plans for more log cabin kind of builds, or more circular huts, but I didn’t have time to see that through as the update had to come out almost immediately.


Now for the harsh disagreement. I think the point on paths will never be changed. Paths, when they exist, are being made more clear and contrasting to the environment to make gameplay more clear and smooth. Some places, like the eyeball forest for example, were designed with less paths in mind so people would explore off paths and into other areas more easily. But where paths do exist our core design philosophy has changed to make them as clear as possible, even if it looks slightly off. Although, I do agree that the paths in the hotsprings take that too far, but in every other area I think they should not be changed for pure level design reasons.


Those same level design reasons are kinda funnily enough why the Detlas bridge was changed for seemingly no reason. For such an important bridge for new players it didn’t look that remarkable or have anything notable other than it’s made of stone. The new one having the pretty big roof and the red sides was made to have more distinct features to new players so they know for sure that’s the way to and from Detlas.


As for Cinfras, I honestly think a lot of the criticisms about it are meaningless and don’t help anything. Not necessarily yours in particular, but in general I don’t hear a lot of meaningful feedback on it. The most I got was people yelling at me about how the roof lines used to be orange, and how they all hated it, but now people yell at me about how the orange was great and I am stupid for changing it to brown. *sigh*


But a lot of the real criticisms can’t be helped that much, or I simply don’t understand them. The fact that there are less narrow corridors and stuff like that is simply for gameplay. That kind of stuff with tiny corridors and small cramped areas feels cool for a build server / plotme world, but in a game it’s a real issue and makes moving around hard and confusing. This is the same reason most big towns are kinda flat, or totally flat. Elevation always makes it harder to walk around the area. These things that look nice but are bad for gameplay can be alright for small towns, but for a big central town like Detlas, Cinfras, or Corkus City, it simply can’t be confusing to walk around and get to what is needed in the towns.


As for what I don’t understand, I don’t get why Cinfras looks like EO. I get that it has a darker roof, but that was kinda the idea for making it stand out from other towns, black roofs. The blue walls were also chosen, after a long time of thinking, because no other town really uses blue as a main color for its buildings. I also think there is a good balance of smaller and lively details with banners, carts, trees, small windows and all, with a larger space that is able to be walked around in. Cinfras was also designed to be a more clean city than others, sorta like llevigar, because it’s pretty much an old well established, yet prosperous city. Not new and ramshackle, but not old and ruined.



I do however understand that the houses use very square post and lintel designs do get old, but it was really only meant to be used for Cinfras. For most of the reasons described above. The other gavel revamp cities just kinda copied the Cinfras style of clean post and lintels which was an oversight that will be corrected for future cities.



I do kinda agree that the guild hall looks like EO, but that is kinda, the point. You are thinking about it in terms of how the updates came out, that guild hall was meant to look like EO, but you should be thinking about it player level wise. Like I said before, EO is meant to look like an alien trying to recreate the greatest human architecture. As the player levels up they have seen pretty grand buildings, romanesque fantasy ones in particular. Guild hall, all the different grand gates and churches and castles that dot wynn. But when they get to EO they see a similar building but even more ridiculously huge with proportions out of whack, and almost every color except what they would expect on such a building.


I mostly agree that some of the builds look the same. Sometimes by accident and other times just due to limitations because wynncraft is a game not a plotme server, and those limitations will create similarities. These can be corrected in new builds. Some existing builds need improvement, tempo town, but others, like Cinfras, can't be helped with the current player feedback coming in. I can’t fix a problem that I don’t believe is a problem. And I am not saying that because I don’t want to change my build, I changed EO 12 times, and have made huge changes to builds when player feedback convinced me. I just simply don’t believe most of the feedback related to lifelessness is useful or even correct, and I have not seen anything to convince me otherwise. Maybe that can change, but who knows.

Hopefully that ramble kinda gives context to some of the things that happen with wynn. Idk if the existing builds that look similar to Cinfras or EO will be changed as its a lot of work and time that I simply don't have, but future ones are going to have an effort put into making more styles unique to the area.

 

Honestly I don’t know if there’s a design of Cinfras that can satisfy everyone. I used to like the old Cinfras a bit more, but I’ve heard plenty of people hate the old one as well. And playing recently during the festival I’ve come to appreciate the current style more. I especially like the lion statues near the entrances.

 

I don't think many people think Cinfras looks bad per se, (at least I really hope nobody has any fundamental issues with the actual build), rather, I think the issue is that the new build isn't really what the central city in the province of light should look like from a structural perspective. It feels like it would be more at home in a wintery wasteland rather than a completely open field in a temperate area, mainly because the types of roofs on all the buildings were specifically designed to prevent snow from sticking on them which would literally never happen. The city is also super claustrophobic and cramped from the narrow roads with extremely tall buildings close on each side which makes it feel cold, again, like a snowy city. Finally, it's also built using mainly cold colors with a few hotspots and I don't think I need to repeat what feeling that conjures. I honestly think if they put a little snow on some of the roofs and on the ground and gave the NPC's coats like Nessak the city would be 100x better which is kind of concerning for again, a city located in a temperate area.

I can't say for sure exactly how Cinfras should looks, but I think instead of looking at Russia for inspiration they should have looked at Britain, something with lighter tones and cool shades of green and gray as accents rather than the main colors. It also would have been cool to see the guild hall reinterpreted with a big functional clock on the front like the big ben but that may be asking for too much.

I agree people will never all be happy with any build, but I also think there's an issue when a build fails to make sense even on a basic level like the new Cinfras does, especially in a game with otherwise good designs.