Amazing life in a walled city

jasonrohrer · 2019-05-16 18:55:00

When I got old enough, I asked why the city was walled, and they said that they had a raider in the past who tried to kill people, so they built walls to protect the town. They generally left the gates open, but they could close them if needed, and they kept gate ownership going by passing it on to town leaders, who could grant it to everyone in the town who was trustworthy.

As the fence became rickety, it was repaired. I saw this happen once in my lifetime.

Later on, a ginger woman carrying a sword migrated in, and the town guard (the one who explained all this to me) was suspicious, but the ginger woman gave us lots of gifts, so we knew she meant well. She had a few ginger babies in our town, and we helped them learn the language a bit, and her grandbabies even more so. They still spoke with thick accents, but we could mostly understand each other.

I made some paper and asked the ginger grandma where her town was, and if she could take me there. She tried to respond directly, but the gap in understanding was huge. It's amazing how hard abstract concepts are to clarify. I repeated it back to her, but that didn't help me understand what it meant, or her to understand my word for that concept (whatever that concept was). Concrete words are easier, because you can lay the object on the ground and say it.

This is the problem of radical translation laid bare. And it's pretty amazing. We take this for granted in everyday life, because known translations exist between all modern languages. But if we were starting from scratch.... well, there's no easy path there, and no short-cuts. You essentially have the movie Arrival. And even after you think you have a translation understood, the doubts would linger.

I've always wanted to make a game about this issue, but never managed to tackle it correctly. I tried in the game Between from 2008, for example. And here it is, fully functioning, but just as one tiny feature in a game about other things.

Anyway, she finally got some paper of her own and stood there for a long while, composing her thoughts. All the elders in the village stood around her silently, waiting for the big reveal. I fed her to keep her from starving while she did this. She finally came out with:

MY VILLAGE WAS DESTROYED. I SURVIVED, SO I CAME HERE.

I repeated the word for DESTROYED back to her in her language, finally understanding that abstract concept that had eluded us before. A few people around her made sad faces. Her granddaughter picked up the note and read it aloud in a thick but almost intelligible accent.

The ginger grandmother carried the sword with her throughout her life, never using it, or even drawing it. But it was there as a reminder to us of her history as an outsider, and of the real trust that we had built with her over time.

futurebird · 2019-05-16 19:01:55

I think I was in the same town when the wall was being built. At first I objected, but two people were intent on it so I let it go. What I did do was hit two of the gates with the stone so I would own them.

(it was kinda funny since the people building the gate were suddenly very concerned about me not adding them, funny how it's not pleasant to be on the other side of that)

Although, I tried to say "you own this" as much as possible I think I only added 4 people to those gates in my life. Another got closed and we couldn't find the person who owned it to open it, making getting to the woods for kindling a real pain.

One positive aspect of having a fence that I overlooked it is helps with keeping the town tidy. I moved all of the bones out of the town, and people seemed to get it and bones were quickly removed except from the grave yard. Having a the wall made it more clear when bone piles were too close.

I would have loved a way to just add everyone with my last name to the gates before I died. I worry about these places becoming death traps... or more likely simple tasks become annoying because you need to walk to a far away gate just to get out.

What if "MY FAMILY OWNS THIS" added the entire lineage?

Also, it'd be nice if a succcessful "YOU OWN THIS" made a sound like a curse. I never know if it worked and it's a pain to pester kids to "try this gate" over and over.

Last edited by futurebird (2019-05-16 20:15:27)

BladeWoods · 2019-05-16 19:51:50

futurebird, I had the same suggestion. A sound on successful ownership transfer and color the text like curses are colored. But you can also say "firstName lastName owns this" and that gives ownership too which helps a little if you didn't know that.

I was in a walled town too but it wasn't the same one.

There was so much hate for this update, but I'm starting to like it. We never got any inter-family interaction or stories before. If you did manage to find another town, a very tough task, you could just walk in and instantly be a member of the place. Often no one would even notice your arrival.

Last edited by BladeWoods (2019-05-16 20:38:06)

Grim_Arbiter · 2019-05-16 20:10:51

See i was in that same place jason but I felt trapped by those walls and decided to go explore a bit.

I ran into another family close by. It was a woman on a horse with a sword. As soon as i saw her she had a baby, and I immediately gifted the baby the other backpack I was carrying like a basket. I tried translating a few things, but accidentally ruined a piece of paper she had to ask me where my town was. I ran away from guilt and shame, and decided to go try find any ground iron I could bring them back to make up for the note.

I travelled 800 tiles to find one piece of ground iron. 1k for the second one.. but I was finding various other loot along the way.

I then found a dead village with iron that I was going to try and bring home. I swear I travelled another 500 tiles to find a dang horse. And as soon as I did i found a tipped cart next to it. I broke apart the lasso and got that horse cart and a at least a bag full of iron (I wish I could have brought all that iron I found) and set towards the trap town. I made it there in my last 10 seconds and died as soon as I took a pic.

Last edited by Grim_Arbiter (2019-05-16 20:33:12)

futurebird · 2019-05-16 20:59:46

Hans wrote:

I also played in a walled town as a member of the Angel Lineage. We had three exits but only one was protected by a gate, wich I couldn't use. Wouldn't it be convenient for village walls to be able to pass ownership to all members of a family at once? Maybe something like "Family ..... owns this" and then all currently living members would be granted access.

This is what I just said. (see post above)
Also I was in the same town.

Mr.XIX · 2019-05-16 21:01:16

Can confirm.

In response to raiders, people build walled cities, but the gates aren't easy to maintain.

Hans · 2019-05-16 21:02:56

futurebird wrote:

Hans wrote:
I also played in a walled town as a member of the Angel Lineage. We had three exits but only one was protected by a gate, wich I couldn't use. Wouldn't it be convenient for village walls to be able to pass ownership to all members of a family at once? Maybe something like "Family ..... owns this" and then all currently living members would be granted access.

This is what I just said. (see post above)
Also I was in the same town.

yeah embarressing
I just had that idea and wasn't in the mood to read the entire thread
great minds think alike

jasonrohrer · 2019-05-16 21:03:28

I wonder about this.

Having to interact, and seek people out by name, isn't such a bad thing. People tend to want to automate these kinds of interactions, because they feel like an obstacle to "getting down to business," which is a kind of solo focused crafting and personal goal gameplay. But that's not trade or negotiation or cooperation. That stuff is actually messy.

The gates are imperfect and a bit of a pain to use on purpose. It allows stuff to emerge. If you really want the whole town to own it, delegate the process in a "telephone tree," and that will be log(N) time to give ownership to N people. I grant to two people, and each of you find two people to grant to, etc.

I'm not making a piece of word processing software here.

Sukallinen · 2019-05-16 21:18:21

Trying to mouseover ppl running around is tough.

How would I know if person already have ability to use door ? Let's say it takes 15 secs to negotiate this, 15 secs to run to door. Four doors would be 60 s/runner, about 45 s/other people, plus if every door is 30 secs away 90 secs for all of two people to get permissions.

So players would lose seven years of their life for two people to get door permits.

Edit: four doors is minimum here, also supposing the person has long enough speech-bubble and instant-typing.

Last edited by Sukallinen (2019-05-16 21:21:58)

futurebird · 2019-05-16 21:25:12

I don't find that after granting ownership that the conversation goes on or it leads to much of anything. Frankly a lot of people just ignore it until they are locked in or out of a critical location and no one can find anyone to open the gate.

The people who built the fence and were worried about me owning some of the gates wandered off without naming gate keepers making it hard to get out of the east side of town. I named a few and kept opening the gates when I saw them closed so I hope that no one will be trapped.

Jk Howling · 2019-05-16 22:25:31

I was born to a woman of Ofallon line who was traveling around just seeing what there was to see. She had a backpack and a sword, and nice clothing in general. I chose to stay with her [was a male] and follow her out of curiosity. She eventually found a horse cart and once I was old enough to fend for myself, we parted ways.

Later we stumbled into each other again at a dead town. She told me she'd come back when she was nearly dead to drop off her supplies. I stayed in the town for about 10-15 minutes, just long enough to feed a sheep, make a saddle, and tame a horse of my own. Just as I was about finished, I saw her death message displayed thanks to the Hetuw mod..

I assumed she was close by, but I never found her cart and supplies. I did find a couple other dead camps, and a second walled city though. Was told by someone on the discord who recognized the walled city that Angel City was to the NE, but I'm dumb and went northwest instead, and only realized this after another 1-2k tiles went by.. lol.

I found a lot of corpses. The freshest one was a mere 27 minutes old. Unfortunately, I never found living people.

I was reborn next life to the town she came from. Unfortunately I ragequit when I was around 40 because the people were just... terrible. It was hard to tell if everyone was griefing/doing dumb things on purpose, or if they were just.. new, or didn't know any better. But I preferred to suicide than try and combat an entire town full of those kind of players, to avoid being cursed to hell and back.

Lineage Link

Pic of the walled city I found:

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2019-05-16 18:55:00

Amazing life in a walled city

#2 2019-05-16 19:01:55

Re: Amazing life in a walled city

#3 2019-05-16 19:51:50

Re: Amazing life in a walled city

#4 2019-05-16 20:10:51

Re: Amazing life in a walled city

#5 2019-05-16 20:59:46

Re: Amazing life in a walled city

#6 2019-05-16 21:01:16

Re: Amazing life in a walled city

#7 2019-05-16 21:02:56

Re: Amazing life in a walled city

#8 2019-05-16 21:03:28

Re: Amazing life in a walled city

#9 2019-05-16 21:18:21

Re: Amazing life in a walled city

#10 2019-05-16 21:25:12

Re: Amazing life in a walled city

#11 2019-05-16 22:25:31

Re: Amazing life in a walled city

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