Note: Just a quick note from me, beat, about this project. While nearing the completion of Arganzulum I discussed taking over Forlond with our server leader @Fornad. This was set in motion right after Arganzulum was finished. In the period I took over, my academic year also kicked off, so it went a bit messy. Now I am creating a sort of to-do list to lead this project to a succesfull completion. I do like a lot of the work that was done before I took over this project and by no means do I want to nuke everything and start over. I do however feel differently about certain aspects of the city and in accordance with others these things will be changed. It is however, now my project and I will be held responsible for its’ completion and quality. I am only willing to take on this responsibilty if I am given the freedom to build this city to my ideas.
Lore: One of the three elven harbors built on Gulf of Lhun during the second age. Also known as the North Haven, it was built after the drowning of Beleriand. “In Lindon north of the Lune [Forlindon] dwelt Gil-galad, last heir of the kings of the Noldor in exile.” The Noldor’s interest in art and ability with stonework has provided the greatly advanced architecture for the city of Forlond.
Overhead plan: http://imgur.com/a/410n8 (Drawn by Wheelle, and Turambar respectively).
In purple are the Noble houses which host guilds. The open area towards the south will hold the palatial complex. The yellow buildings are the academic buildings. Most of the inhabited houses will be high-class, as elves in middle-class houses would have eventually moved into the abandoned high-class houses. Many of the abandoned houses will have been repurposed into garden terraces, and constructed terraces will contribute to slight verticality in the city. A lot of the food in the city could be provided by these gardens, although outlying farms would still be necessary. The city walls will be mainly ruined, as the elven population stayed towards the coast and away from the walls.
Anything built upon the seastack would be badly damaged due to sea erosion. Forlond has been incapable of giving non-crucial maintenance due to the lack of sufficient masons.
Regarding the university area, I think it needs some major work. The whole district seems a bit directionless with where its going. The layout so far is decent, but it’s individualizing all the buildings which makes it feel a bit amateurish and not so elven in regards of a flow, not to mention too spaced out. The dorms and library are okay, but the university building itself also needs some work. We tried cutting off pieces of the old one in an effort to reduce the crazy size, but ultimately resulted in it looking really weird, and extremely boxy, more like a keep of a castle than anything.
Imo the best bet would be to rethink the layout of the campus, perhaps downscale it a bit and reorganize where the buildings go and how they can work better together, redo the university structure itself and plan it in a way that it doesn’t result in a huge box.
In any case, it needs some further reconsideration and discussion.
The main problem I keep running into is the terrain. Not our worldpainter terrain, but what was done with the terrain before I took over. The university, for example, stands on a large cliff by the oceanside. Not only does this make the university insanely tall compared to the beach. This fucked me and my planning on the other side as well. Because the university is so high and water can only flow downhill, there is a big difference between where the stream flows and where the lower end of the campus is located now. These cliffs were created afterwards, not by me, and this creates a weird situation with the walls as well. I marked a theatre between the university and the walls. This makes the walls look very low, but this theatre was a trick to make the difference in height between the university and the ocean less noticeable. There are two options to solve this wall issue, either raise the walls or lower the theatre. Raising the walls makes them gigantic on the other side and lowering the theatre fucks with the height difference.
Now, on the other side of the campus are the dorms. These dorms look great, but they are higher than where the rest of the buildings are located. But then again, these dorms are lower than where the road is located. Therefore these are stuck where they are.
I am not advocating a completely flat plain on which to build a city, but I want to propose some major terrain changes to Forlond. Most notable of these will be; removing the hill on which the palace stands and lowering the cliffs on which the campus is located. The palace, as it is marked now, will still tower above the city and lowering it may solve some of the comments people have had on the Burj Khalifa. Lowering the university solves a lot of height and scale problems on all sides around the campus. If the terrain is lowered, the old parts of the university could be pasted back in because then the height is no longer a problem.
Lowering the university solves only part of the problem. There is a big height difference between this and both the stream and the ocean. On the other side of the university, say the side of the dorms, there is a big difference between the university itself and the hill of the palace, Collis Palatium. Only lowering the university will make this problem worse. The circular road down to the dorms goes down roughly 8 blocks and the dorms themselves go down a number of blocks. If the dorms are lowered to ~3 blocks above the campus and the road leading to the palace is a couple of blocks above this, then I am quite sure the university and surrounding area will be improved. The road towards the palace can still go up a number of blocks so that the palace is higher than the rest, but it would not be as high as it is now. On the other side of the palace is a cliff and this gives sufficient room to lower the hill.
It is more about the hill of the palace than the towers of the palace in this case.
After just flying around the area, maybe add a cliff face between the university and ocean instead of these high, undecorated walls? The stream just outside the wall is weird too I think. It’s just about 30 blocks long. could turn that gully/area into a slope with the wall on top of it.
so the blue area the slope and the black area lower cliffs like to the right. excuse my 10 seconds paint skills
No problem, I welcome all tips and criticism. Now that the terrain is most likely going to be edited the stream could be directed to flow past the walls and stay inside the walls.
