We certainly learned a lot in our latest survey and now that we have gotten enough responses, we would like to share the results.
The overall leader of the three styles surveyed is what we have been referring to as ‘Tudor Style’.
You can see the choices for Tudor style below.
One thing we want to make clear, which came up in the survey a number of times, is this won’t be a cookie cutter village where all the buildings look exactly the same. There will be some wealthier looking buildings and poorer looking buildings. Some elaborate, some simple. Each building will have its own personality; but we do want an overall “theme” so the town appears natural and cohesive.
Here are few other interesting points that came up in the survey that we will absolutely be taking into consideration:
- Stairs. A number of people expressed concern over stairs causing a safety hazard in combat situations. Safety is definitely our top priority. While we won’t claim to have everything 100% solved yet (and realistically it is impossible to make a LARP site 100% safe), in instances where the design of a building does require stairs we will take appropriate safety precautions to prevent injuries.
- Accessibility. Another point that has come up is, if we do have stairs, how will we make the site accessible to those with physical disabilities. Where appropriate, such as in the Inn which will likely be 2 stories with rooms for rent on the second floor, there will be elevator access and the elevators will be designed to fit in with the theme of the building so that, as much as possible, they don’t break immersion.
- Merchant sleeping quarters. Having bedrooms attached to merchant buildings so the merchants can stay in their shop ranked VERY positively, and we do intend to implement this in our designs.
- The Castle. Though the Tudor style buildings ranked higher overall than the other two styles, the castle for the Tudor style did not rank very well, and your feedback on it has been extremely valuable. Two key factors came up in the survey which were: having a large courtyard within the walls for plot events and having wide enough exterior walls that they can be walked on. If we are able to fund the castle, you can be sure we will have a spectacular courtyard. As far as the walls, there are many safety factors that have to be looked at before we can consider making the castle walls accessible for walking on, so we won’t be able to confirm that feature until we get closer to construction.
- Multiple styles. A lot of you said that you liked all 3 styles and would like a little bit of all of them in the town. This is definitely part of the plan. We don’t want a cookie cutter village, so as much as possible we plan to give each building its own personality and flair. In the end this will make the village more realistic and improve immersion.
- Space Efficiency. Nice spacious buildings are definitely a luxury, but sometimes you need to fit a lot of people. All of the houses in our town will be designed to convert from ‘single family home’ to ‘military style barracks’ with a minimum of effort. This will allow us to accommodate a wide range of needs in terms of player and NPC housing.
The next stage is to take your survey responses and develop full color 2D mockups. We are also in the works on a 3D rendering, which will allow you to take a free pre-view tour of our town before it is even built. We hope to have version 1.0 up and running very soon, so stay tuned.
Thank you all so much for the feedback you’ve given so far! We appreciate your support tremendously. Please do not hesitate to drop us a line if you have any other comments, suggestions or questions, or would like to get involved. An easy way to contact us is our Contact Form.