Riess Palace
 Riess Palace
| |
 Riess Palace as it stands today. | |
| About | |
|---|---|
| Owner |  Unkle_Genny,  KingServal,  Raflamar
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| Contributors |  VonRiessfeld, Unkle_Genny,  helpimdeadinside,  LordOfTheShadows,  iiSpyro,  TheDemetri, KingServal, Raflamar,  EastDakota,  SlaggyP
|
| Category | Castles |
| Public? | Mostly |
| Started | May 29, 2019 |
| Completed | January 6, 2021 |
| Location | |
| Coordinates | X=6899 Y=70 Z=2688 |
| Dimension | Overworld |
| Settlement | Town of Life |
| Map Link | |
Riess Palace is a massive palace positioned at the eastern end of Town of Life.
Initial History
The palace's construction began on May 29, 2019, with VonRiessfeld designing the entirety of the palace's exterior. He took inspiration from Mozsda Castle, a real-world castle in Poland, and a Minecraft build of said castle, although he scaled it down and altered it quite a bit. After it was finished, he had no intentions of building an interior for it, and so the palace stood as it was for many months.
The palace on the first day of its initial construction.
A terraformed hill Von constructed surrounding the palace that was later removed by Unkle.
The palace at a later point in its initial construction.
In July of 2020, Unkle_Genny reached out to Von to get his permission to add an interior to the palace, looking to do so not only due to a long-held fascination with the palace's magnificent exterior design, but also due to his equally long-held grievance with massive builds that have marvelous exteriors but disappointingly empty interiors. Having secured his permission, Unkle went about a long, careful process for renovating the palace.
Interior Design/Renovation Process
First, Unkle took a Schematica schematic of the palace as it was on the server, and with it rebuilt the entirety of the palace, block-for-block, in his singleplayer testing world. During this process, he discovered many symmetry-breaking flaws within the palace's build, ranging from absolutely tiny in size to relatively noticeable, which prompted him to go about fixing these flaws as he went, turning what initially was going to be a simple interior design project into more of a renovation project.
Once the palace was fully reconstructed in his singleplayer world, with all minor flaws ironed out, Unkle then proceeded to redesign the already-present interior walls so as to allow consistency and pre-defined structure to work within when later designing the proper interior. This process managed to take way longer than anticipated, but was accomplished nonetheless. It was around this point that Unkle realized that this "castle" wasn't very defensible, and seeing that the difference between a castle and a palace is that a castle is built for protection and a palace for luxury, he decided it was more of a palace, and named it Riess Palace after its original builder.
After the present interior redesign, Unkle began planning his full interior. During this process, he came across several conflicts of vision. Firstly, adding an interior with rooms, walls, and halls going from floor to ceiling would eliminate the sense of awe felt by players as they gaze up at the high ceiling of the palace. Secondly, the sheer amount of materials that would be needed for a full interior, from one end of the building to the other, would be quite the headache to gather. Thirdly, a full interior would leave many rooms that would be difficult to find use for. The solution Unkle developed to all three of these quandaries was to split the interior in half; the northern wing of the palace would contain the actual "interior", rooms, walls, and the like, and the southern wing would be left relatively open, with only floor decor and lighting to take up space. And so, with this plan in mind, Unkle got to work.
Once the final design for the palace's interior was complete, Unkle took a schematic of the build, brought it into the server, and got to work. After several months, including a month-long break from the server as a whole, it was finally finished in late November of 2020. However, his work was not yet done, for there were two issues left with the palace as a whole - the lack of an easy means of getting into it, and the fact that it was practically floating over the terrain it was built upon after Unkle removed the terraformed hill surrounding it. So, in a process much like the one used for the interior, Unkle got to work seeing that this was fixed.
In the span of a week, Unkle designed multiple terraformed and artificial support structures for the ground beneath the palace, as well as a means of getting up to it from the ground. Among the support structures are a massive tree in the shape of a hand, several detailed pillars, and terraformed terrain working off of the pre-existing hills and mountains within the palace's vicinity. The construction of these elements on the server was completed on January 6, 2021, and marked the very end of the palace's construction after many, many years.
View of the front of Riess Palace at night.
The hand-shaped tree holding up part of the palace.
The front of the statue in the feast hall when viewed from the floor.
The front of the statue in the feast hall.
The back of the statue in the feast hall when viewed from the floor.
The back of the statue in the feast hall.
The center area of the palace when viewed from the floor.
Center area when viewed from the stairs.
Center area when viewed from above.
The lounge on the first floor of the northern wing.
The hall connecting said lounge to the western first floor balcony.
The feast hall in the southern wing.
The hallway lounge on the second floor of the northern wing.
The materials storage room.
The crafting room.
The lounge above the crafting room.
The meeting room.
The "indoor ceiling" atop the second floor of the northern wing.
The above gallery shows only some of the rooms within the palace. If you wish to see all rooms of the palace, ask Unkle to take you there in-game, as the palace is very far from any warps or Nexus links.