A Comprehensive Review of The New, New Cinfras

Link to the Google Doc for easier reading​

No spoilers for this one, it's long but it's not that long and I think it's all fairly important to understand my opinion. Feel free to skip the background section for a shorter read or just skip it all and say how you feel about the new city.

- Introduction -​

First, before I talk about the new Cinfras, I want to thank ConquistadorBob, he’s a legend. His willingness to entertain my concerns as well as the concerns of others over the 1.20 Cinfras build and address them is something that should not only be appreciated but also commended, it’s not often that the people involved in making this game are willing to entertain the degree of back and forth he was engaging in, not only now but also during the beta.


I also want to add that it’s wild to me that despite all the things we found common ground on, there were things he fundamentally disagreed on and instead of just sweeping those points under the rug and ignoring them, he (in the nicest possible way) called me out. Even if there are still some things I disagree with, I greatly appreciate his willingness to defend his perspective, I really think more of that attitude would go a long way in helping the community understand the reasoning behind certain decisions or features.

- Background -​

First, I want to talk a little bit about the background of why I’m making this post in the first place. Since the 1.20 beta about a year ago I’ve been pretty vocal and critical of the new Cinfras. In my long 1.20 review, I wrote quite a bit about the changes (rebuild) to Cinfras and how I was concerned about the direction of rebuilds moving forward. I never disliked the city, and I want to be clear about that, my major concern is that the city didn’t “feel” like Cinfras. While I still somewhat stand by that, after seeing all the effort put into changing the city, I’ve realized that the old Cinfras didn’t “feel” like anything, it was the most generic, wood and stone, fantasy city I have ever laid my eyes on. While I might not agree with the direction Bob took the city, I’ve decided that an interesting idea that I don’t fully agree with is better than no idea at all.

With all that said, here’s the list of major criticisms I’ve leveled against the build;

• Too dark, looks shady and more like a winter city
• Too cramped, doors were too small, lots of stairs to get into buildings
• Screw the lamp, also ban the guy who said the city center “needs a thing”...
• Center feels small, way too small for such a massive city
• Not a fan of the roofs, they don’t really make sense

I don’t like to be critical without offering suggestions, so for disclosure, here’s all the pitches I’ve made (relating to the build) since the beta;

• Remove the slabs from the edges of the roads to widen them up (changed during beta)
• Remove a lot of overhanging stuff (changed during beta)
• Remove stuff off roads (changed during beta)
• Move bank NPC’s and chests to the outside of the room (changed during beta)
• Lighten up colors (changed in newest build)
• Remove lamp from center (was added in beta (lol), changed in newest build
• Widen doors (changed in newest build)
• Move Item ID’er and blacksmith outside (changed in newest build)
• Add a clock to the guild hall (not added, understandable)
• Remake the color pallet with brighter colors (Thank goodness that didn’t happen lmao)
• Widen the city (not needed anymore)
• Move all the core NPC’s into the guild hall to open up the center (lol)
• Burn it all to the ground and start with something new (...)

Since some of you can't read, I was not the only one making suggestions and I was definitely not the only one making these exact same criticisms. This list looks long, but if you saw that my main complaint was that the city felt cold, most of these suggestions stem from that. Half these suggestions were made in the beta too, so for all of you saying "changed because one guy", your precious first version of the city probably wouldn't have been so precious if it hadn't been for people including myself pushing for the top half of the list. Similarly, most of these suggestions are extremely generic, "lighten up colors" could be interpreted in a billion different ways, almost any change adding color would have checked that one off. Same with "Widen doors". Finally, I didn't suggest the roads and while I did suggest moving the NPC's, they were already moved before I suggested it.

I didn't get everything I wanted because a lot of the stuff I wanted was comically stupid but it's easier to say I got everything I wanted over saying the changes made were everything I needed to like the city.

Clearly, some of my suggestions were, well, not winners, especially that last one. In my defense, I was saying my dream version of Cinfras would require a total rebuild to work so I wasn’t meaning to offend. Regardless, I think I put forward some good ideas in the past year and those ideas (which I’m not claiming were mine alone) were taken into consideration and contributed to the new build which is something I'm very happy about.

- Overview -​

With all that out of the way, the ultimate question (for me) is how do I feel about the city now that it’s had some revisions? Positive, very, very positive. Shouldn’t really come as a surprise, I’ve basically gotten every single reasonable thing I asked for along with a whole ton of stuff I didn’t ask for but appreciate nonetheless. Does that mean that I think the city is perfect? No, but what I will say is that the changes have made it my new favorite city in the game surpassing the new Detlas and Corkus so I think that means it’s good enough.

- The City Center - ​

The city center got what I believe to be the biggest physical changes so I’m starting with it. Compared to 2.0, Cinfras 2.1 got quite a few changes which I think are important. First, the lamp is gone. That alone makes the city center about 20 times better in my books but there are other changes too.

I think the big change is what was done to the Item Identifier and Blacksmith NPC buildings. In the 2.0 version, they were both hidden away inside buildings with one wide doors, it made them hard to access, hard to find (sort of) and made the city feel a lot more closed off since huge amounts of the center were taken up by the solid walls of the buildings which housed them. In the 2.1 build, the NPC’s have been pulled out from the buildings and the buildings have been pulled back quite a lot, blowing open the city center a shocking amount. It’s amazing to me how much this change paired with the removal of the cursed lamp opens up the center in a way I honestly didn’t believe to be possible before and how much the expansion of the center does to open up the city.

I’m also a big fan of the crafting locations. I’m honestly not sure if they actually got moved, I’m fairly sure at least a couple moved, but even if they didn’t I know for a fact that they weren’t all visible from the center before and now they are so that’s another big improvement.

Really, my only issue with the center at this point is with the Item ID’er area, for some reason there’s a weird post sticking out of the ground which rubs against the building, honestly it feels kind of out of place and I think it would be fine if it just got removed. There’s a 4x4 green disk right next to it, I feel like that could be recolored and made into an eye by replacing the green with blue and the netherbrick with green with a black line down the middle and it would look a lot better but that’s just a bit of a nitpick.

I’m also not a huge fan of where the party finder is located. I know I said everything should be in the guild hall but for real, I think that’s where he should be. If that’s not possible, I at least think he should be moved against a wall, just being in the center doesn’t really look too great.

I think another common nitpick has to do with the green ring in the center, I’ve been told it’s been changed to yellow already so I’m not concerned, I honestly don’t think the green looks bad but I think the yellow is going to be much better.

Overall, I’m a huge fan of what was done in the center, it took what I thought felt like a dead city and really makes it feel alive. That liveliness is also greatly contributed to by what I want to write about next, the roads.

- The Roads -​

I think this is probably going to be the most controversial change and I think that’s really disappointing. Ripping off the bandaid, the roads are red, very, very red, and it’s glorious. Is it possible that I’m biased? No, as long as you don’t read the message I sent before seeing the roads where I said I would defend them no matter how good or bad they looked. That’s not important though, so let’s just move on…

I like the red, I really do. One of my biggest complaints was that the city felt cold since at ground level, the city was just shades of gray and blue which are generally cold colors. There was orange on the roofs, but if we’re being honest, you really don’t see it all that often. The buildings also had some color but because of all the shade from the overhangs and the dark floor I really don’t think the colors had a chance to shine. I can assure, that’s not an issue anymore, the city feels so unbelievably bright, vibrant and lively now with the red on the ground and the blue on the first floor.

The added bonus of having a lighter floor is also that the roads feel wider. The roads were widened a little bit during this update as well, but I really think the change in color is doing the heavy lifting. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel claustrophobic walking through Cinfras, I would even go as far as to say that the roads feel wider and more open now then they did back in the original.

- The Identity -​

Tying all this back to my central complaint about what I thought Cinfras should be, this is what Cinfras is, this is the Cinfras. The old one will always have a place in my heart, much like the original Detlas (no, not the pre 1.18 one, the old one, I’m a wynn boomer) but for the first time I feel like Cinfras has an identity which makes sense. The original build had no character, it was just a generic big fantasy city but it had the bright feeling, it felt alive. The 2.0 had the character but none of the feeling (to me), it felt cold and dead. Finally, the 2.1 build has managed to capture both and I’m not talking about the bad parts. It’s the best of both worlds in the best possible way. I love the colors, I love the shapes, it all finally makes sense to me. From now on, Cinfras will be the bright city with the red roads, not the shady town it previously was.

- Conclusion -​

After being disappointed with the original rebuild, I kind of just gave up. I always said I thought it was a good build, but I really didn’t think it could ever be a Comprehensive Review of the New, New Cinfrasbuild that I liked and I’m happy to say that I was so, so wrong about that. It’s probably a good thing I’m not on the build team, not that I’m actually skilled enough to be anyways but my attitude of burn it all down clearly has its issues and I think this rebuild has really made me reconsider the extent of change that is actually required to fix some of the other issues I have with this game.

At this point, there isn’t really anything negative I can say about the city, I have gotten literally every single thing I’ve asked for plus some. all the changes which I believe were needed to make the city great were made. I still want the clock, but I think Bob deserves a break from working on this so I won’t be bringing that up anymore.

As for a TLDR, I like the changes, the city center is the best in the game and the red roads are striking and unique in what I consider to be a positive way. Big upgrade over both the original and the rebuild.

To wrap all this up, thank you ConquistadorBob. You put up with all the dumb (and smart) things I’ve said about your work, you took an interest in continuing your work on it and you refined it into what I believe to be a masterpiece. I know this isn’t a 14 page review like I promised but I hope it’ll do.

 

love that builds can be changed completely because 1 person complained

 

this is so epic (I did not read most of what you typed)

 

ok cool cool now please change it back literally 1 (one) person wanted this

 

the red roads combined with gray buildings does not fit, at least 1.19 cinfras was fully gray

 

idk dude, I liked the old Cinfras better cause honestly I dont know anything about minecraft build and stuff so as generic as it was, it was still better than detlas mk2 for me

 

rephrasing: a road on a minecraft server getting a color change isnt a big deal, i just hope the change wasnt made because one or two people complained really loudly and that the change was made with both sides of the argument in mind
otherwise it might set a precedent that complaining = you get what you want

 

Bank is still awful, feels more like a cramped temple than a bank. Why are the LE merchants lower than the regular E merchants? Why is there a big crystal in the middle? Give us proper tellers lines like almost every other bank in the game.

 

Na the guy didn't even ask for the road color changes. I did that myself because I thought it made it look nicer. The changes he asked for that I made because I agreed with was opening up the city center, making the paths wider, and making some merchants easier to get to.

 

Lmao, as if I was the only person who complained, I along with others offered suggestions, I just happened to have some really generic suggestions that were bound to be incorporated in one way or another since there was basically no way to fix things without somehow crossing something off the list. If you actually read what I asked for I basically just wanted the city to be more open, that doesn't seem like an unreasonable request and the fact that anybody would complain about that is kind of strange.

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I disagree that the buildings are gray, they're really closer to blue now and with all the other vibrant colors scattered across the city I really don't understand how that's an issue.

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Respect the honesty, you can still have an opinion though without reading mine :)

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There have been threads for the last year asking for revisions, none of which were made by me and all of which put forward similar or the same suggestions. The list is a list of things I wanted, but it's far from being a list of things only I wanted, a lot of it comes from reading stuff other people wrote too. Also, based on the poll, the 2.0 version is the least popular version of the city so you really shouldn't be making call outs like that when the data really doesn't support the conclusion.

For all you "One guy asked for this", I've added to the thread a little addition, just for you made with love and care <3

"Since some of you can't read, I was not the only one making suggestions and I was definitely not the only one making these exact same criticisms. This list looks long, but if you saw that my main complaint was that the city felt cold, most of these suggestions stem from that. Half these suggestions were made in the beta too, so for all of you saying "changed because one guy", your precious first version of the city probably wouldn't have been so precious if it hadn't been for people including myself pushing for the top half of the list. Similarly, most of these suggestions are extremely generic, "lighten up colors" could be interpreted in a billion different ways, almost any change adding color would have checked that one off. Same with "Widen doors". Finally, I didn't suggest the roads and while I did suggest moving the NPC's, they were already moved before I suggested it.

I didn't get everything I wanted because a lot of the stuff I wanted was comically stupid but it's easier to say I got everything I wanted over saying the changes made were everything I needed to like the city."

 

Oh okay. I don't read Sg's bible-length responses in depth so I thought that was part of the suggestion. In that case I guess it's fine.

 

He writes a lot lmao. He asked me to make a whole huge amount of changes that basically would require the city being reworked just for his liking. I only made changes that were popular outside of just his opinion and that I agreed with.

 

Make the roads yellow and you have the best city in the game

 

Bruh what even is your opinion? It's okay as long as I as an individual didn't suggest it?

It's fine that you didn't read what I wrote, I'm trying to start a discussion not railroad my opinion down peoples throats but that's just a hilariously bad perspective.

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You two are clearly on the same page.

Also, I swear to christ if the roads get turned to sponge I will never visit that city again. Yellow could be okay though but it would need to be a brick texture.

 

wynncraft sponges are rainbows though

Here is my opinion after seeing it in game:
It's actually pretty nice. I know I said I disliked the brick road on another thread but it makes the city a lot more vibrant than it was before and it fits with the "EO style" pretty nicely. I think with some tweaks it could work much better (such as adding more plant life and making the city appear more overgrown, i associate bricks and the colour of terracotta with outdoors and plant life, so I think it could look good). I'm still a little torn on it but I'm currently more on the side of the current version being the best version

 

Where’s that coming from? I barely even know you. Why would I have any beef with you personally?
I was worried that the change happened because a very loud minority kept complaining about it, and the CT just caved in. Clearly as I see now that was not the case, and that it was already planned to do so. I just didn’t want a precedent to be established. I don’t care about a brick road on a block game.
I’m not disagreeing with you bro it was a partial misunderstanding

 

"I don't read Sg's bible-length responses in depth so I thought that was part of the suggestion. In that case I guess it's fine."

Kinda a weird thing to say chief since it implies that it not being part of my "bible-length" post is what makes it okay...

Also, that misconception was caused by you not reading and doesn't excuse the fact that suggesting one person bullied the builder into making changes is demeaning to all the people who took issue with the build before and the builders themselves. It's a super critical thing to say for somebody who doesn't care about a brick road in a block game.

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I actually didn't realize that, I saw the pitch for yellow roads and assumed that's what you're talking about but now that you mention it those rainbow blocks are actually nice, they might be a nice center piece actually :)
Also you're entitled to your opinion, I want people to agree with me obviously so I'm arguing for the thing I like but if you don't like it that's okay too, my opinion isn't any better or more important than yours.

 

It doesn't look too bad here but when the sponges are other colours it looks terrible

 

Oh, I was thinking more along the lines of doing something like a white center with them in basically that set up but yeah, idk. It's an idea I guess. I really like how it looks now though so I really don't want to see it changed imo.

 

threads like these show how content starved the community is lol