I vote for flying island spawn but mini parkours that don't give points but are tehre for fun and training

If I have to picture an appropriate spawn, I would go for a simplistic straight-forward spawn. (e.g. flying spawn) Just a small one to facilitate navigation, not cluttered and disorganised. A giant castle would suffice as a great themed parkour map, but, in my opinion, not as a spawn. In addition, easter eggs and astonishing views, like buildings and statues or whatever, can of course be used in spawn, as long as it, in a blink of an eye, is clear to new players how to start.

I do have to agree I might have been a bit extravagant, I shall go back to the drawing board to propose a second.

isn't going for a floating island spawn lazy?

Isn't a spawn suppose to first bring in the players, not make them think: "well, they made an floating island spawn, they are either lazy, or have shitty builders".
Yes floating stuff is awesome and what not, but true imagination comes from improvising in the distance, like making you to look at a sky-box for long enough to make you feel your'e in a different world. for example, Borderland the Pre-squeal, I look at the space station and Pandora long enough to make myself think, "Fuck, I was just there before".

My advice SD, stick with your castle, add some more open space, have a barren waste land of either hell or, a desert or something in the background to make the player feel something or rather.

we want players think that we have put a lot of effort into the server, not only in the maps, be across the entire server.

PS, if we do a vote on either a floating island or land based spawn, the floating island will win no matter what, because most of you bastards like simple shit.

Ive found that floating islands spawns tend to discourage me more than a wide spawn. We even had a couple floating island spawn before, it was small but easy for new players to know where to go to but it wasn't as pretty or well done as other types of spawns Ive seen. I remembered a couple other spawns since Ive seen like the first one I saw had a long path the led to plots, hunger games, and survival. That was easy enough for players to follow. Perhaps when making a spawn, making paths to follow that leads to portals or whatever might actually help to tell newer players where to go would help.

After slaving for over 300 hours in ms paint I have created a rough basis on a new spawn idea. I will go with chubby's suggestion of keeping a castle but having a very open spawn. Perhaps add mountains waaay into the background to add some emphasis to the foreground. I could create a floating island with the mountains but have a LOT of detail to the structures (To the point where it isn't a simply eyesore). Simple, but intricate on its own accord.

yeah nah I'm for having a somewhat large non-floating spawn with mountains around it (but with mountains at different distances, so not just a dirt wall with spikes)(Heck, this is minecraft. rainbow clay mountains!)

you spawn inside the castle, portals on the left, right, and center walls. (or however)
behind you would be the door of the castle.
outside there's a bunch of pretty stuff!
(which does little to nothing, or if it does have it right by the gate.)

ExtraTerrestrialAss?