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The Rank I'm applying for is: MC
My Game Name is: Ember_Animus
My Project is called: Tree of Mystery and Beauty
To get to my project: /warp EmberMC
A brief description of my project: The tree once beheld a civilization who's name is now lost to man kind. The people of this age found the tree and began exploring it, to find not only was there once life here, but it seems to have been recently inhabited! Their smeltery, sleeping areas, food preperation area, everything was here and it would be livable, but they decided to not live inside the tree just yet as some parts need to be refurbished, and to avoid their own demise. So the people whom discovered it decided to setup around the tree, to discover what may have happened..
Three mandatory screenshots:
Click here for imgur album

Note: This isnt quite complete yet, but i wanted to rough out the score so far and maybe get some tips on what i can do better with what i already have.
Note 2: All of this was originally built in 1.8, i just added the crystals recently because they fit the witching room's atmosphere

Ember's MC App

Apprentice/Architect/Master Crafter/Epic Crafter/Legendary Crafter: Points required: 15 / 30 / 35 / 37 / 40
Working for MC so you need 35 points.
Uniqueness: 8
Beauty: 7
Execution: 6
Scale: 7

I'd give this a 28 as it stands right now.
It's a really great start. The scale of the tree is nice, but the unfinished parts of the town brings down the score by alot. I'm very interested to see where this story leads. Why are these people here, where did the tree come from, how did the others learn about it. It leads to some interesting questions. Below I've left a pretty detailed list of critics and suggestions. I wrote it as I went through each piece. Since you stated this was a test to see where you stood, I tried to add as much information as I could. I'm very eager to see how this build grows. Don't be afraid to go back over something in passes to add in more, change things. This build has so much potential. I'd be happy to talk to you ingame more about it if you have any questions I didn't hit on here.
I can't wait to see what you do with it!

Small house needs a way inside the fence. Maybe pathway to door from road. Landscaping, flowers trees would be nice. Inside : most of the decorations are on the floor. add some shelves for height? You have a balcony with nothing in it. designate this room for something. sitting/reading area or anything really. When grading an app I need your build to lead me and show me what's going on. Some empty spaces inside could be used to show if it's a workshop, home area, study, lab. I like the different blocks you've used in it. They work well together and aren't seen often.
The quartz and netherbrick house is better decorated inside. The outside is unique and interesting. I like the seating area, places to eat and gather. The kitchen shows the function of the room/house. Downstairs was a bit harder to find. maybe a path leading to the door to make this more prominent would be good. I enjoyed the bedroom arangement. I'd love to see some tables with flowers in the empty spaces, maybe throw rugs? If someone lives here I'd enojoy seeing something to attest to their personality. Is this the barkeep's room? Is it a by-the-hour kinda place?
The Tree
Trees are pretty hard to do. This one is quite large. From the story I gathered it grew in this fashion to help the people that live inside.
I like the entrances and the stairs to the smelting floor. I really like the sea lamp trees inside there. There are some leaf blocks missing, I'm not sure if they decomposed or if this is on purpose. The library is a nice room. It's a bit dark in some areas, especially for a reading room lol. I'd like to see it a bit more homey, maybe paintings on the walls, flowers in vases or some natural plants here. Same issue with the floor.
The armoury is nice, again some dark empty spaces in the corners (of a round tree no less lol) could be used better and same floor issue. Love the treelamps. The crystal room with the cauldrons is nice. I like the different blocks in the floor. Again some empty spaces in the corner. I think things against the wall really bothers me. Use the area you have, you don't need to make it cluttered, but don't neglect most of the room/floor space you have to work with.
lol pink and blue bathing quarters, I like this. It really shows the overall 'community' feel of the people living here. The bathroom is very dark inside tho and scary. Storage room has good space. I'm not sure what kind of people live in here. I found it difficult to access the sleeping quarters. I like the storage in the middle. I'm not sure about the fire behind the doors, what's that supposed to be? Also, is that a death machine? The anvils and the pistons?
Loved the sleeping quarters. It's cute the way the rooms are inside the room.
So overall, As I ascended I really started to feel the community living vibe. The expansion of a town makes sense around such an unusual tree. It could draw very different people to the area, which would explain the different houses outside. I'm not sure if the plots have the right tone for this build. Why are these houses sectioned off when the tree is all about community? I feel like there's alot of personal information missing right now. What type of people live here. Even in a community we'd see the individuals as we went to where they ate, slept, worked. People always leave behind a mark of some type. If this is military, then security would be more strict. I'm not sure what I feel as it stands right now.
For me, every build is story driven. If I don't have a story in my head the build just won't make sense. I can't wait to see you finish this story!

wannsa wrote:I like the storage in the middle. I'm not sure about the fire behind the doors, what's that supposed to be? Also, is that a death machine? The anvils and the pistons?

No the fire behind the doors is supposed to be a smoker if its what i'm thinking of. The anvils are grills (there is a grill and a stove), the pistons are a grill press. The 'storage area' is more of a big spice cabinet like salt, paprika, basil, oregano, etc. in addition to probably flour, sugar, etc. That whole area is just a big kitchen, reasonable for a semi-large community. Which also bears the walk-in freezer you saw.

As for the spaces in the flooring at first, it was intentional, the people first explored the tree to find its hidden secrets and such, as they got to the top they saw the decay of the tree and wanted to save some of the more personal areas first which are at the top, the people around it are in the middle of the 'repairs' and such of the tree. Yeah, the lighting in some areas i will improve on, like the library for example, but the bathroom i left some of the edges less lighted, for a few reasons. Even in a close-knit community everyone has their insecurities, maybe self image, etc, especially around the same gender for pride or competitive reasons, so i left some of it a bit less lit to accommodate things like that, maybe its a bit of me coming out in the build haha.
The corners though, while a common complaint i cant quite think of what to use there, maybe a bit of suggestions or ideals would be nice for that.

I do need to work on the smaller house some more and in the end add some signs to personalize each home and clever informational tags. I plan to place some 'eggs' here and there that tells a bit of the story with each one, as the whole story will be fleshed in a word doc but spread out in the build, i think that will be a nice addition of my own, so on the true post, keep an eye out for em , i also like the gardening idea.

The reason its sectioned off is a practical reasoning for me and help me judge scale as well as progress on the build, as i have an ideal on how many houses i want, and so on. However, there is a story reasoning as well: The people who are settling around the tree came originally to research it and figure out what is going on, as their HQ informed them that the tree was peculiar and had some interesting development's in comparison to other tree's they have seen before, they were warned that it would be a long journey so bring your families along with, most of them are younger couples but there is a family or two that has children as well, and all of them wanted their own home to live in so that there was privacy, as they were accustomed with in the city. The HQ laid out ground work around the tree after initial investigation to ensure it was safe, but never touched the inside or base of the tree to keep it 100% pure. the homes were built and they investigation went underway (this is before present day).

While the plots don't exactly have the right tone in comparison to the tree, there is a reason it doesn't, it helps show the differences between the lost civilization with their 'older' practices and our civilizations. Further, it shows that even though people might be willing to look at ancient buildings, temples, etc, and have to stay there for weeks, months, maybe revisit it over years, no one is ready to let go of their customs and past, even if it is for their safety or the better good.

As for the rest, thank you so much for the suggestions i'll try to implement them the best i can, on my next post i will flesh out more of the 'intro' to the story in a summarized and leading way for you, so that its more interesting and mysterious.

Again i cannot express enough how much i appreciate the tips and compliments! Hope i score well enough on the actual submission.

Ps: Don't worry about 'spoilers' there is much more i am going to plan and map out story wise, it might turn out to be quite bigger than i think!