Cornflower: Where Villagers Roam Free [IDEA]

I was wandering the server, looking for public villages, when suddenly it occurred to me: why do we keep villagers as virtual slaves? Even the nicest villages keep their villagers trapped inside their own homes, forced to live out their days in confinement for our convenience. Surely we can do better!

Introducing Cornflower Village! While it's only a dream for now, when finished Cornflower will be the premier village of its kind: a place where villagers are free to walk about as they would in the wild, while still enjoying all the conveniences of player-maintained life! Villagers will live naturally within the bounds of my Residence on SMP9, where I will care for them and update their village as updates require – after all, it's my home too.

Features for the initial village will include:

• At least 10 villagers
• Housing to accommodate 20 villagers
• Workstations for all 13 professions, contained within individual, decorated buildings
• Housing options for villagers including single and group houses
• A small public farm with a variety of crops and livestock
• Lamps, paths, and other decorations, including a small well

As the village expands, I plan to add:

• More housing, including a communal lodge
• A plaza around the well with plants and fountains
• A town hall on the plaza, consisting of a central meeting hall with bell and a variety of workshops that will house additional stations
• An expanded farm with several sections as listed below, to be added separately
  • Separate large fields for each main crop, each with their own villager
  • A tree farm
  • An apiary
  • A rabbit hutch*
  • A barn for large livestock with connected pasture*
  • A chicken coop with hidden hoppers*
  • A stable with connected pasture**

Cornflower is, obviously, a very big project – so I'll need your help to make it happen! Please contact me here or in-game to see what kind of help I need. Thanks so much!
*Will only be accessible to those who help with the constructions
**Decorative only

FAQ

• What makes Cornflower different?
  • In Cornflower Village, the villagers will be permitted to roam the village freely, unlike other villages where they are imprisoned for convenience.
• Won't that make it harder to trade?
  • Well... yeah. Sorry.
• Where will Cornflower be?
  • At BayLaurel's (my) residence on SMP9! I'd put in on the Frontier, but that would open it up to higher levels of griefing and villager-stealing.
• Why won't the livestock be fully public?
  • In order to "harvest" the livestock, you'd need permission to kill them. If I gave that to everyone, the villagers would be in danger. Even with segments, a wandering villager might run into trouble.
• Why is the stable decorative?
  • Cornflower is a village and utility, not a store. Selling horses would be stretching our goals too thin.
• What biome will Cornflower be in?
  • Plains, mostly because I've already built an oak treehouse for myself that I don't want to tear down. It'll live on the outskirts.
• Will you add (feature)?
  • Probably not. Unless it fits in with the "plains village" theme, I don't want to add more things. Pond for fishing? Maybe, if I get really ambitious. Kelp farm? No, because you won't find those on the plains.
• What do I get for helping?
  • People who help with the construction or donate resources will get access to the livestock and be credited with signs on the things they helped create. Also, you'll get a warm fuzzy feeling of satisfaction! If you want specific further compensation, please contact me directly with your requests.
• How can I help?
  • I'm going to need a lot of help – mostly collecting resources and building the actual village. Anyone who helps will get a fair amount of say in the details of how the village turns out – stuff like the design details and layout.
• Can I design a building for Cornflower?
  • Absolutely! Keep in mind the "plains village" them – mostly oak wood, and wool accents should be themed around the blue dye extracted from cornflowers. Talk to me here or on the server to tell me about your ideas! You'll be fully credited.

SCREENSHOTS

Right now these are from my Creative mode blueprint. As building begins, I'll update with images from the server.

The simple well for the young village.

A hidden lantern keeps the square bright at night.

Weirdly reminds me of Animal Crossing! Sounds really cute. Please let me know if you ever need anything!

Update: It turns out I live in a taiga biome. RIP.

So, what am I going to do?

I'm hoping to still build Cornflower someday! I... just need to find someone willing to host it. I don't have enough tokens for a biome change, and I'm not a supporter so I can't just get a second res. So, Cornflower is on indefinite hiatus.

On the other hand...

My residence is proud to announce Sweet Berry village, a taiga village for free-roaming villagers, because when life gives you lemons, make taiga villages. I do have a river biome running through my res – I could spawn the villagers there and trick them into being Plains villagers – but honestly, I'm happy with a taiga village. It's a little more unique, and I can put snow everywhere and have foxes. Foxes are cute.

If you want to help Sweet Berry – great! Same place, just different style. I've spawned my first couple of villagers and am trading them up while I build, so if you have spare wheat, beetroots, and coal – come over and trade!

Very cool project, sounds great! Very detailed OP, too, wow.
And then this comes along... xD

Haha, that sounds cool too!

This is a really nice idea. I get sad at the destroyed/depopulated villages out in the waste...and also at the caged, battery farmed villagers in town. My few villagers on my res have a little mini village to live in with beds and some room to work and play. I do admit sometimes I get them out of bed to trade though

Well...

After planning, scheming, and plotting, I have concluded that my res is just too dang small for the village I envision.

So – Sweet Berry is on hiatus too. Sigh.

What am I going to do? Well – eventually, I'll build a village out in the wild as a public utility. I don't know how I'll protect the villagers, though, because people are jerks. I'll have a wall, of course, but some people are just determined to ruin everything for everyone.

On the bright side, though, I've recently gotten involved with the PWU team on SMP8 – so there's a lot of other stuff I can do for the common good!

Aw, really? Well, I can imagine, 60 blocks isn't as much as it sounds like... maybe if you could get a res on Utopia?

I will allow you to make this on my utopia res if you would like and I would donate ten stacks of villager eggs for you

Also if u need help getting their trades up I can help with emeralds

Oh, wow! Thank you so much for your offer!

If you really want to host a village – consider the hiatus on Cornflower ended! With your support, it'll be possible to build something incredible!

Thanks to Sefl and his fans, I have a month of gold supportership! Construction has begun on Utopia at res 5905! Come visit, trade, or even pitch in for our first building: the Stables!

I did, but I felt really awkward about it. You can have it back.

I have done this from time to time.
Right now, there are 6 villagers living freely in a corner of my res on smp8 with houses that I built for them.

17972 if you wanna see them.

Are you building this in town or out in the wild?

You could definitely do it out in the wild, just light up a sufficiently large area with torches so that zombies dont spawn and kill your villagers.

Dont be afraid to venture into the wild.

It wouldn't be nearly as easy for people to visit it, though. I also thought it could be cool, as it could be more expansive and blend in with the surroundings. But villages generate naturally in the wild... so you wouldn't need to build one, which seems to be the main work to be done for this project.

The point of the project is to have Town villagers living freely as their "wild" cousins do. So finding a generated village is not the point.
Secondly, there will be no new villages generated very close to the /Wild Frontier spawns (due to never resetting). So making a public trading area would still have to be built. Back to square 1, so to speak: Town has protections on keeping the villagers from being harmed or stolen.

If you can't grow your own villagers, store bought is fine