Dream: Twilight Chateau
by the skullkitty (30th May, 2007 @ 9:34 pm)- fURL: furc://twilightchateau
- Website: http://tc.kozinu.com/
What makes a good dream? It almost seems like an odd question, coming from a self-proclaimed dream reviewer, but maybe that’s the point. So I’m gonna ask it again; what makes a good dream?
I have to admit I was a bit baffled when the request came down to review a dream that was only referred to as ‘TC’. I was originally going to track it down the hard way — by visiting every single upload with the initials ‘TC’ in Furc — until the neonbat once more came to my aid and pointed out that the abbreviation is short for long-time FurN staple, the Twilight Chateau. I mean of course it was; hell, I’d even visited the place, once upon a time. So armed with that knowledge I booted up an alt and threw myself in for a little look-see.
From the moment I walked into the place I knew TC was a dream I really, really should like. And there’s certainly a lot to like here. The ‘weaving is some of the tightest I’ve seen yet, with virtually none of the kinds of clipping errors that plague most dreams. I didn’t see a single room corner sticking into the edge of my map the entire time I was there, which is almost a first for F!W I think. The DS is minimal but smooth, and all transition effects and handled flawlessly. Like I think I’ve mentioned previously, I’m a bit of an aesthetic sucker for dreams that use black-and-accent colours. TC pulls this idea off aggressively, sticking to an almost exclusive palette of grays, blues and foliage green. It’s simple, it’s neat and it works. The whole place is oozing with gardens and water fountains of the kind that would make Frank Lloyd Wright bristle enviously. It’s the kind of thing that I’ve seen fail miserably in other dreams but TC manages to pull it off fairly convincingly.
Like I said, there’s a lot to like about TC. A lot to like except…
Except what makes a good dream?
Sure, TC is technically solid. The patches are far from original but they’re all nevertheless high-quality and carefully selected. I think that’s the thing, though; everything about TC feels excruciatingly carefully selected. From the cutsey local species (a kitten and the kitterwing) to the fluffy pillows to the very dream layout itself. If you remember a couple of reviews ago I was talking about what I call the Big Six Public Dream Rooms; the six places that every single dream in FurN is apparently required, by law, to have.1 Well, I couldn’t find a chapel in TC but I found no less than three bars, two strip clubs, about a zillion private rooms and a pool/sauna… though with all that water flowing about I kinda had to wonder what the point was. I saw at least one emit mentioning an arena, too, though I couldn’t really locate it. Sort of a bit like the tattoo parlour; there was supposedly one ‘near the bar’, but the rabid uniformity of TC’s architecture made it a little hard to locate. If you’re thinking that the place sounds huge from the description then you’d be absolutely right; it’s a rabbit-warren. Not only that, but I get the sneaking suspicion that it actually feels much bigger than it is; the uniformity of the rooms means it’s easy to walk through the same place several times from different directions without realising it (I only noticed when I was collating the screen shots). And this is where I start to run into my real problem with TC.
Yeah, it’s pretty all right. But it’s pretty like Paris Hilton; a vapid, calculated prettiness that hides the complete and utter lack of any kind of substance underneath. Twilight Chateau wants to be popular; the desire oozes from underneath every fluffy pillow and from behind every curtained architrave. It wants to be the next Golden Tether; the place where all the trendy digokids and their fae, hermaphrodite gosurori characters hang out2. The only problem is that scratch away the pretty veneer on TC and you’re left with absolutely nothing; no continuity, no community. There’s not even really any roleplay here; it mostly just feels like a vanity chat-room for someone else’s self-insertion persona-play ‘cuddling’. And I mean, while that’s great for the owner’s immediate circle of friends, Twilight Chateau just doesn’t feel like a private dream. Like the stereotypical fat girl on MySpace, it wants to be popular and it’s going to whore itself out hard to get there.
Digokids, I love you guys, really. I love you and your characters and your identical dreams, and maybe you’ll enjoy soaking up the vapid prettiness of the Twilight Chateau for at least a little while. Maybe. But there’s little here that feels original or even really particularly creative, and overall the whole place is so soulless that I just can’t bring myself to recommend it as anything other than a morbid analogy for everything that’s wrong in online communities.
Overall Assessment
- Pros: Technically solid.
- Cons: It’s totally soulless and if it tried any harder it’d be awarded the Golden Boot.
More Images
Popularity: 27% [?]
- If you’re wondering, they are; a bar, a strip club, a chapel, private rooms, a bathroom and an arena. [↩]
- Fair disclosure; I am absolutely one of these people. [↩]
The next TGT? >>; Actually, we came before them. But that’s a nice long story. :D
Really, I’m well aware TC’s huge, and barren. Some of it comes from the fact that we’ve not been able to keep a regular spot. We’ve been booted from our regular ones twice now, and it’s hard to stay in any decent location without help(I don’t have many lackeys like I know many dream owners do. ;P). So far as the size problem.. I’ve been meaning to give TC a full remodel. I’ve been waiting on this supposed update I heard about.. Easier transitions from room to room, no black space, phoenix-speak, etc. Waiting… waiting for a while now. >>; I could redo it now, but it seems pointless when they keep suggesting the update is just around the corner. x_x Ah well, I may be on the edge of my seat waiting for quite some time.
I’m very glad to hear you like my weaving skills, though. I may not be the best weaver, but I try my hardest. (Considering I couldn’t pixel my way out of a paper bag!) By commissioning some items here and there, finding and using some of the best, in my personal opinion, and trying to stick to a few themes. Perhaps with my ’skills’, when the update comes out, I can better TC. Then I’ll have to invite you back. ;P
Thanks much for taking your time to come out and take a look around, I’m glad you were able to.
I believe she was referring to TC being “the next TGT” in terms of popularity, not order of appearance.
o-o; I kinda figured that. But still.
Oh yes. I know good well of that nice long story. A story filled with being bullied around by a dream that got its start with the help of FVG and his dream reviews that pretty much bashed on most of the dreams of FurN, all the while calling TGT the best and giving them their much needed boost. So in all. TGT got its power to steal The Slave Pens’ spot that it held for over 8 years and gave them to power to bully smaller dreams like TC and harasses Xai to the point that Felorin was needed.
Well, we do dabble in that kind of thing. If you’ve got a story, here is the place to tell it…
Edit: I also noticed you’ve banned me from your dreams. We get the hint; I mean, you could’ve just asked…
As it happens. We ASKED for the spot, and yest dispite all the confusion with Tegome at the time as Xai knows about. I have actually spoken with Fira the original owner and she has no qualms about us bing on the spot. TSP wasn’t up for 8 years, and FVG was no friend of ours at the time. Dispite the little boost a review did, we earned our population and worked hard to maintain it.
I don’t think over 200 people would come to a dream that treated them like cattle.
Side note: Don’t ever pretend to play nice with me again Van. I have known a long time the sort of things you pulled in furcadia. Unencrypting whole dreams from others. Maybe thats why your not a beekin head anymore.
And a second note, you can ask felorin yourself about that incident. I’ve never taken the time to get called on by felorin, Fel having heard me talking about an issue I had took it apon himself to go talk to Xai. Becuase dispite the serious length of time we where on the spot and maintained it, and even past the time of FVG or any other, dispite just a “spot”’s success we worked very hard to have what we have now, and its not even about the population, but rather the rp enviroment I was trying to set up.
Any dream in any spot if run well and having an open enough theme, or managment with good intentions and the diligance to do something that others enjoy can do what we did.
Felorin spoke to Xai on my behalf in reguards on his own motivation, becuase the dream spot being taken over and over between us both. Its over, and we both had set asside our differences in the matter I had hoped. It dosn’t matter anyhow becuase the new furN will provide alot better access to dreams and Im happy to see it’ll be less reason for these kinds of drams.
-From the Horses mouth
Sorry but I just dont trust people that like to review dreams. I don’t need someone that doesn’t know jack and only has a one sided view saying that my dreams suck, all the while over 20,000 people have been in my dream. Oh yes. I can back that claim up also. I once set my bot to record all the people that went in my dream in only a month’s time and it was over 20,000. So don’t need to hear some review site bash my dream and call it bad, when they are wrong and a hell of alot of others will say other wise. Maybe I’m wrong about you but I just don’t like people that judge others. If I knew that you were only doing real veiws and not doing what FVG did by bashing dreams to give a boost to his friend’s dream. I’d have no problem with it. I will unban you tho. Maybe you’re nice.
Surely you appreciate the hilarious hypocrisy of what you just said? Then again, maybe not…
Oh, and I believe you about the 20,000 people; more-or-less. My bots do the same thing (in fact there’s a guide on how to do it in the Tutorials section), and the F!W dream gets similar traffic. The numbers are fairly irrelevant, however, unless you start looking at the average visit length. [shrugs] Besides, I’ve seen some beautiful dreams that are all-but empty, and hideous hell-holes that are absolutely packed. Population is not an indication of technical quality by any means.
Incidentally, I wouldn’t go as far as to say anyone here is ‘nice’. We’re not in the business of being ‘nice’. But were are honest. Personally, I think that’s worth much more.
Vandala, are you humming hypocrisy when you speak?
Is that even possible?
I know skullkitty just posted about that, but when I read “Maybe I’m wrong about you but I just don’t like people that judge others.”
That is a pretty big judgement you’ve just made. Any judgement can be wrong, but its still a judgement.
Especially when you’ve banned them because of it.
Are you going to banish yourself now?
Good luck with that.
Top notch skullkitty,
I checked out TC after your review and I can’t agree more.
Why thank you. [bows]
If there’s one thing my mother taught me (that stuck) it was that people like to project. In this line of work I can’t take other people’s judgements too seriously; the hypocrisy alone would kill me. :P
Dramadrama. x-x Even as much of a mess as all that is, Van did do some to try to help me, and I thank you for that, hun.
+ Still, I thank you for coming. Ya told me a lot of what I already knew, though I was glad for the compliments as well, about my ’style’ at least. TC serves my purpose tho, a nice looking place to relax, chat and idle away from the rest of furc, and a good wide text box with nice out-of-the way areas for my RP, and my friend’s RPs too, no doubt. Either way, thanks for taking the time. :D We’ll leave the rest of the drama aside.
And.. o-o; It killed the rest of my comment. What happened?