Towers have just been released and everyone is busy building his own, so let's have a little break with a nice block of text.
Towers
First, I'd like to say that it's amazing to finally have a public space everyone can shape and share with others.
The only problem being that it just makes no sense for a single person to own a gigantic tower.
I agree with all the reasons posted over there, but I believe these would work just as fine at a smaller scale. Alright, so people want to build their own thing, where they can show off their decorating skills, meet some folks, and sell some stuff, but do they need nine floors for that?
We have tiny home streets, with human(glitch)-sized constructions, so other buildings should follow the same proportions, something more garage-sized or just like your local grocery store round the corner.
As one real-sized tower obviously doesn't fit into a cultivation plot, they now look like strange miniature models, especially next to the biggest houses, or when you have a look at that door...
Regarding collaboration, it's a shame people don't get rewards for helping others to build.
From my point of view, that choice of some I've_Got_The_Biggest_One Personal Tower only keeps shining another (huge) light to the self-oriented nature of the current game.
Group Halls
Back in first beta, there was a lot of expectations around these, and only a few of us had the chance to try a first version of those at the end of the beta. (I wasn't there but you can see all the details here).
So, I was a bit disappointed they actually looked like streets, and with only a few customizations available. There are already a bunch of public streets, so group-owned spaces should look like that interior (hall) of a building, the one you can fully customize, match the theme of a group, and appear welcoming to its guests.
Now we have these towers, all of that is possible, but it will always feel as an empty shell as long as they're owned by a single person.
Let's not make it a long term possibility, and have some actual collaborative possibilities before the end of this beta, or it would sound like deja-vu...
In my opinion, player Home street "towers" should be limited to one floor and a lobby, with more person-sized (or additional) chassis. (People would get a refund, I mean it happened already so what) And Group Home streets should be created, featuring a real sized tower instead of the house.
These streets would work just like the player streets, with the ability to create networks and connections, and you would have much more space to build something more Jethimadh'esque, where lots of people could contribute in design, and use.
So yeah "everything is amazing", and these updates are a great job, couldn't resist building my own too actually. But it just feels like the more you're gonna add personal stuff, the more it's gonna get complicated to have these things working in a shared environment.
Following these analogies, we don't have interconnected villages yet, only connected houses, where villages do have a central point. If you don't want "one", there is still the need for multiple focus points to emerge, where things converge and make the network express itself for real.