Yes, I noticed the quotes. But you brought it up as if it was relevant.
You’re the one who made “theme parks” a central point in your topic. Like I said, you could’ve made it about the abuses of the building system – e.g. building too big or too close – but you insist on making it about “theme parks”. I don’t see how examining your notions of form vs. function would be off-topic.
You claim that your base is functional, but you don’t explain what you consider functional, beyond saying that “no part is built purely for aesthetics”, which is something that can be interpreted in different ways and applied to different degrees.
Since you don’t want to discuss your base in public, feel free to take a look at mine in its current incarnation on the officials. I consider my base functional, too, but it has many elements that are built for aesthetic purposes.
The function of each of the six shrine towers is to house the T3 shrine for a particular deity and to contain the storage chests loosely associated with that deity. For example, I have chests holding booze and entertainer thralls in the Derketo tower, chests containing crafting supplies and crafter thralls in the Mitra tower, chests containing weapons and armor and fighter thralls in the Ymir tower, etc.
The main function of the central compound is to house all the crafting stations I need, my own bedroom where I’ll respawn after dying, and the map room.
The main function of the courtyard is to hold the big placeables like the taming pen, the greater wheel, and the large well with fish traps.
There’s a certain amount of room allocated for future growth, so that I don’t need to expand the base when Funcom adds more stuff – like when they added mounts and I had enough space to plop down the stables.
That’s a quick review of the functional aspect of my base. As you can see, everything has a function, but that doesn’t mean no part of it is built for aesthetic purposes. For example, the courtyard had to be big enough to house the animal taming pen, so why not use the size of the courtyard to make some nice looking arches? The map room could have been right on top of my bedroom, but why not make it high enough that I can enjoy the view from the top? The “council room” is completely unnecessary, but it only adds some verticality, so it doesn’t affect the footprint. Likewise, the “great hall” is just for aesthetics, but it doesn’t affect the footprint, since the crafting stations take up that space anyway on the floors above.
So again, is that a theme park? Is that a functional base? Or is there some middle ground? Does it even matter?
And that’s just a base. What about building an arena where people can have jousting bouts and other players can stand in the spectator gallery and watch the fight? What about building a menagerie to house your pets, so you can keep them there when you’re not taking them with you to fight? Are those theme parks? Are they functional? Are they both/neither? Does it really matter?
No theme park builder is forcing you to adhere to their aesthetic standards, the way you’re trying to force other players to adhere to yours, by lobbying Funcom for a change against “theme parks”.
Building something other people have to see when they walk by and forcing people to build a certain way are two very different proposals.
I agree wholeheartedly that official servers should have rules and limits. I disagree vehemently that those rules and limits should have anything to do with the aesthetics. Feel free to provide arguments to the contrary.