Hello flaming horse riders, WoodReviewer here, today I am looking at a staple of my blog post history. No, not Asimo, and if you still haven’t figured out that I include the name of games in my title than that is your own problem. Today I am taking another look at Meadows Ranch. More specifically, the Halloween pumpkin hunting map. So if you are reading this after October ends, it may not apply to you if they remove it. Unless they reused the map for another event. Still, today it is time to focus on the present, and for that we need to look at the map.

The map looked fairly nice, although a bit small. Overall it was well built, but this should be expected as Quenty built most of the map. However, Quenty built most of the map, and as a result the wood grain on the trees is bad because he still thinks I won’t check them. For those that are new here, I do not care how wood grain goes on trees, if it is vertical or horizontal, because the texture is not being used as wood grain, but as bark. I just ask that the grain all goes in the same direction, so if some branches have the bark wrap around the tree, all the branches have the texture do the same. This is not the case here, as some bricks have vertical wood grain and other parts have horizontal wood grain.

But enough of the trees, I’ve seen them several times before. Getting back to the windmill, there were several issues with wood grain. I was told by Quenty that this was 100% not his fault and that he did not build it, so I think it is safe to assume he also built it. The first issue was on the blades, where the wood grain on the leading/trailing edge of the blades had horizontal wood grain, instead of the correct vertical wood grain that would have stretched from the central hub of the blades out to the edge.

Don’t question how my horse got here

Next up was this trim on the top of the lower roof. The wood grain should go out from the wall, along the crown of the roof, but instead goes perpendicular to the roof.

The last issue with wood grain here was the floor at the bottom of the mill. The board all go away from the center of the door, in a circular shape. The grain should follow the direction of the boards and go the same direction, acting similar to lines going outward from the center of the circle. Instead they follow a similar path to the outer edge of the the circle.

Moving on to the town, one thing I noticed were the shutters. Normally, this would be bad wood grain. However, shutters are usually made of wood similar to this so it is OK. However, what is bad here is the top of the shutters. The grain should follow the grain on the front and go from one side to the other, not front to back.

The next issue in town were this pillars on the upper deck of a house. Simple issue here; the wood grain should be vertical, going from bottom to top, but instead is horizontal.

The next issue was the steps and deck of the witches hut. Here, the lines on the sides of the ends of the boards should be vertical to match the lines on the top of the board. This is not the case and should be fixed.

The last piece of bad wood grain here was the top of the door at the witches hut. Similar issue here; the main door was OK, but the top texture was improper, with the texture going from front to back rather than following the front face and going side to side. This could be fixed by a simple texture flip, or by closing the door so the top texture can’t be seen.

Overall, how was it? Not good. I mean, the event was good and it was a lot better to earn money by getting pumpkins than shoveling poop, but the wood grain was bad. It was especially concerning because Quenty knows what I want yet he still doesn’t fix the wood grain on the trees. Hopefully the next events and maps are better and maybe one day one of these reviews will not focus solely on bashing bad wood grain.