Vestige of Memories

The Vestige of Memory
A Grand Archive
About
Owner	Clomik,  ScarClaw72
Contributors	AdoreKitten,  LordOfTheShadows,  Acerst,  Lilly_24
Category	Museums
Underground?	Yes
Public?	Yes
Started	8 March 2025
Completed	24 January 2026
Size north to south	192m
Size west to east	192m
Height	100m
Location
Dimension	Overworld
Please contribute the coordinates of this building.

Amidst the many museums of Freedonia, the Vestige was designed to address many common design flaws, and create the definitive museum for both items and server history.

History

Commission

In dense year of 2025 for projects,  ScarClaw72 and  Clomik collaborated on multiple large scale projects. This included The Locus, The Great Cookie Coffer, and eventually the Vestige of Memory. ScarClaw72 was contracted for the design, while Clomik would handle the bulk of construction.

Designing a "Cookie Museum" was one thing, but Scar had certain opinions when it came to the idea of designing an item/server museum. Since the advent of Collectibles, "" had become a dime a dozen across Freedonia. Most were focused on displaying collections, but often shared a handful of design pitfalls. ScarClaw72 had long refrained from the idea of making her own museum, but when contracted by Clomik, said:

"If I'm going to design a museum... I'm going to design one right." -  ScarClaw72

Design

A great amount of effort went into the function design of the Vestige before any blocks were placed. A list of goals were established, along with the aforementioned common design pitfalls that were to be avoided.

A snippet of the planning document.

Pitfalls to Avoid

1. Size Issues. " A proper museum takes up a considerable amount of space to account for all items and future items on the server."
2. Categorizing. "Many museums don't categorize their items very well, and it leads to them being spread out quite far. Even when categorized, sometimes they aren't each given the proper room needed."
3. Zone Planning. "Many museums start small with small expectations, often a smart starting point, but then aren't prepared to scale up when their museum inevitably expands. This can lead to "Xanpi's Mansion Syndrome" where they get confusing to navigate and lack cohesion."
4. Poor Theming. "Many museums either aim to keep a very simple (or lack of) theme, or one that is unified but can not well adapt."
5. General Quality. "For whatever miscellaneous reasons, some of the older museums just generally lack a firm sense of quality that I believe can be achieved by such a project. This is not to shame or denounce their existence or place in the community, but to instead put forth the idea that improvements can be achieved to the status quo. That is what the Vestige aims to do."

Goals of the Vestige

1. Create an easily navigable museum with visual and written cues for each region.
2. Go beyond simply displaying items and use signs (and maybe books in the future?) to give lore and context to each exhibit.
3. Create a design that can expand and scale properly as needed for the foreseeable future.
4. Represent as many aspects of the MCO Server as possible.
5. Space exhibits out enough to hopefully reduce lag from hyper-dense museum displays.

   

   LOTD's Hall of Heroes vs Vestige's Central Tower

6. Make a statement about what a top tier Freedonia museum can truly be. We should either inspire others to contribute/merge with us, or at least set a new bar for others to try and match.

Design Hallmarks Aka, what specifically makes the Vestige stand out compared to all other museums?

1. We aren't just displaying items. We talk about them, and more topics from server history.
2. We are intelligently organized and laid out, with clear room for future expansion.
3. Our exhibits are more than just rooms. Their designs tell a story about what's contained within.

Ultimately, the organization became the most important principle. Instead of one continuous building, the Vestige became a campus of multiple buildings. The center tower served as a central hall, where each cardinal direction categorized the exhibits into relative themes. Buildings were spread out enough to reduce entity overload, and provided adequate space for future exhibit expansions. Some exhibits would be dedicated to server history itself, and not just items.

When it came to the actual architecture, an excessive amount of time was spent nailing down the palette. Weeks were spent in a private server testing, iterating, and revising. Some choices were requested directly by Clomik, such as the Arcs being styled after Project MOON. After build design had wrapped up for The Locus, ScarClaw72 wanted to flex their creative muscles enough to surpass the Great Cookie Coffer. Inspiration was taken from real-world museums, and notably the "Dragonborn Gallery" from Skyrim's famous Legacy of the Dragonborn mod. Once the exterior finished design, the interior was slowly build out, with themed exhibit rooms. Much like a real museum, each exhibit had a completely unique design based on what was displayed. This allowed for a large range of creative ideas, and was intended as one of the museums hallmarks.  LordOfTheShadows joined the project to design the Flippeh and other major server event exhibits in the central tower.

Some disagreements over the Southwest tower's purpose persisted between Clomik and Scar. Although initially the intent was to include banners from across the server's cities and factions, Clomik was hard opposed to the idea. He didn't believe they held value being displayed, and ultimately the tower was repurposed into player head overflow.

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  Sizing the tower.
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  Blocking out the buildings.
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  Shaping the outer towers.
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  Planning the interior floors.
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  The arcs needed stairs but also a clear path to the wings.
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  The wings stretch outward on the edges of the Vestige.

Construction

Work begins at the construction site.

Design may have taken weeks to complete, but construction would take much longer. Burnout from  Clomik, a lack of secondary help, and a severe resource shortage contributed to the long process of building the megaproject.

The biggest pain point was the large quantity of quartz used in the design— a particularly rare material as the nether's been slowly mined dry over the last decade. The most reliable way to obtain quartz was farming Delta City. Dozens upon dozens of hours were spent killing Dr. Deads, slowly gathering in all the quartz possible. This was exhausting and only furthered collective burnout— but thankfully a silver bullet came to the rescue. An anonymous donor gifted 8 entire dubs of quartz, which more than satisfied the needs of the project going forward.

The build site was due northwest of FunkyTown, and west of The Great Cookie Coffer. Enough distance was required so that entity lag wasn't an issue. The construct itself mirrored the size of its parent town.

Due to unresolved bugs with Craftbook, a major addition of the museum was forcibly delayed. The exhibit lore and information could not be implemented, and was absent during the Grand Opening. Once the next server update arrives, whether the bug has been resolved or not, the museum will transition into using lecterns instead.

The clock ceiling was brought to life with the help of  AdoreKitten.

A sizeable hiatus in the middle of construction delayed completion into the new year. Burnout from the sheer scale of the project took it's toll on Clomik, as it tends to do for many Megaprojects.

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  Designing the entry path.
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  The outer paths followed an organic-curve pattern.
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  Building up the library.
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  The outer builds before wall designing.
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  A top down view of early construction.

Contributors

The Ceiling Clock.

Design Lead:  ScarClaw72

Design Contributor:  LordOfTheShadows

Construction Lead:  Clomik

Construction Contributor:  Lilly_24

Construction Contributor:  Acesrt

Construction Contributor:  MattyQ

Technical Lead:  AdoreKitten

Quartz Donator: [Anonymous]

Layout

The Endsurrection Exhibit in the central tower.

The Anti-Phishing Exhibit.

The Valentines Exhibit.

The Merry Christmas Freedonia Exhibit.

The Silly Exhibit.

The museum is split into different zones. Each cardinal direction is focused on a branch, further divided into each building and floor. It is also accompanied by the library, central and outer towers.

The Building Competitions Exhibit.

Independent

Central Tower

Contains exhibits for the major server events and an End portal. The main entrance leads directly inside, and offers directions for the rest of the museum. The clock inside the ceiling is synced to a Minecraft day, completely a cycle every 20 minutes.

Main Floor: End Portal, Directory

1st Floor: Endsurrection, Petrifaction, Tour of Terror, Astral Fracture, Temporal Rift

2nd Floor: Placeholders

Outer Towers

Located to the north-and-south east, these two spires house a large collection of player heads.

Northeast Tower: Player head collection

Southwest Tower: Player head collection

Library

A large collection of written books from across Freedonia split into categories. In the future, these will be displayed on lecterns.

Main Floor: Information Books, Official Books, Contracts 1st Floor: Trading Cards, Advertisements, Autographs 2nd Floor: Lore, Fiction 3rd Floor: Poems, Real World Books 4th Floor: Spam, Shitposts, Forbidden Books

North Branch

North Arc: Hall of Commodities

Dedicated to the display of miscellaneous items sought after by players divided into levels of rarity. The Miscellaneous Items exhibit includes chocolate, uncraftable potions, and special Ender items.

Main Floor: Misc Items, Rare Commodities

1st Floor: Illegal Items, Ultra-Rare

2nd Floor: Lounges

North Wing: Hall of Staff

Dedicated to many staff-centric items, including admin-given gifts and replacements for contraband. The featured staff exhibit chronicles every "Mod of the Month" and similar commendations.

Sublevel: MCO Paintings

Main Floor: Admin Gifts, Item Replacements

1st Floor: Featured Staff

East Branch

East Arc: Hall of Contests

Dedicated to the server's rich history of contests, minigames, and often random events.

Main Floor: Build Competitions, Boat Races

1st Floor: Minigames, Co-op Events

2nd Floor: Miscellaneous Events, Lounge

East Wing: Hall of Achievements

Dedicated to the MCO Awards and the server's milestones through version updates and server hardware.

Main Floor: Trophies, Ceremonies

1st Floor: Hardware, Updates

The top floor of an outer tower.

The Library.

South Branch

South Arc: Hall of Collections

Dedicated to items apart of themed series.

Main Floor: Anti-Phish Exhibit, Donor Vault

1st Floor: Merry Christmas Freedonia, Silly

2nd Floor: Lounges

South Wing: Hall of Alt-donias

Dedicated to the temporary maps where players go on vacation, usually for server maintenance.

Main Floor: Holidonia, MySQLdonia, 1.12.2 Tempdonia

1st Floor: Hall of Temp Maps

West Branch

West Arc: Hall of Seasons

Dedicated to the annual holidays and seasonal events, including dungeons. The Miscellaneous Holidays exhibit includes the server's birthday, Canada day, New Years, April Fools, Lunar New Year, and Matariki.

Main Floor: Christmas, Halloween

1st Floor: Pride Month, Valentines

2nd Floor: Easter, Misc Holidays

West Wing: Hall of Dungeons

Dedicated to the permanent dungeons open across Freedonia.

Sublevel: Mosaic Maze (Coming Soon)

Main Floor: Delta City, The Locus

1st Floor: Shulker Ranch, The Hive, Empress's Tomb