South Qin Memorial Garden - The true tale of a magical garden

AmberA · 2019-07-02 02:10:54

By day I’m a game producer and UI artist but by night in One Hour One Life, I’m Amber and I’m the gardener.

This is the true story of South Qin Memorial Garden, if it had a name that’s what it would be called. I was born into the Qin family and was told that three cities were all linked going from North to South. The southernmost city has a garden. I didn’t create the garden, someone else did. The garden had at its center several ripe mango trees surrounded by a wooden walk path that weaved it’s way around, hugging the edges of the tree-line. Surrounding the mango grove were blooming pink rose bushes and bright greens trees. You could enter from the north and exit the little garden in the south. That is when I decided to expand the garden. I added more pathways so people could walk in from four directions and a foot path that surrounded the whole garden. When I died I hoped to see it again.

The next time I found myself as a Qin, I again headed to the garden to continue my work. I added more roses: one by one taking a precious seed into the snow. I spend my entire life tending the trees; watering and feeding them, and clearing the walkways. Someone saw what I was doing…maybe it was my child…I’m sorry my memory fades it was so long ago. But this person added a Cistern to be a sparkling blue fountain in the garden. There was a spot under the mango right in the middle where I thought, “when I die, I’d like to go there, I’d spent so much time taking care of this.” But I was so caught up in expanding the garden that I forgot to ask and then someone else came by and buried someone else in that spot. I felt sad, like my spot had been taken, but it was never my spot.

I then found myself born to the middle Qin city and as soon as I was grown, I left. Sorry mother. I walked the long route south with food in one hand and keeping a close eye out for snakes. When I arrived I found that some of the garden’s trees had to cut for wood. It was so sad to see. But it was easily fixable. Again I spent my life watering, feeding and growing the garden. Showing all my children what it was and how they could help tend it when I was gone. Many of them did.

Now on my fourth life as a daughter of the Qin family, I again left my family because the garden called to me. The path leading south was now better paved but not fully. The garden was in good shape when I arrived. Someone in the community had added a tree full of birds which really brought the place to life. A few more graves had been added. To be honest I was sad to see it, I didn’t want the beautiful garden to turn into a graveyard. Notes were placed to loved ones that had passed. Much of my life was raising my children and teaching them about the garden. Many of my children were born there among the greenery. As an old woman, surrounded by my family and friends someone came by with a camera. We gather together around the roses for a photo.

My fifth life brings me such anger just thinking about it. As a male this life I had no kids so I was free to work on the garden. I was gathering materials to add more walkways to the southern end when I hear a gut wrenching sound. The chopping of a tree. Then again. And again. And again! I spot in the distance a boy, a teen in red pants chopping the trees. I yell to stop and he runs away. I immediately get to work trying to replant the murdered trees when I heard another sound. Too close. It sounds like…oh no! That same teen has grabbed an adze and was ripping up my floors and throwing down grave stones! He was a griefer. He was doing it on purpose for no reason. He had destroyed half the garden. I sought help in town and got a hold of a knife. As I was telling the others, a farmer came by and told us that someone had slaughtered every one of the town’s sheep. It was the same boy. I rushed back to the garden and caught him again chopping more trees! Even the one with the birds! Oh the horror! I pulled out my knife but I tripped and he got away. I went back to town and everyone was on high alert looking for him. I gave my weapon to someone younger that could catch him. We cursed his name. Hunting parties roved the town and guarded the garden. New mothers brought their children and you could see the anger on the faces of the children. Everyone was seething at the atrocity. Immediately we all said "we must rebuild!" and we did. I was able to repair most of the wooden pathways and the town’s people came together to rebuild the garden. It was truly a community effort. I died not knowing if he was caught or what type of garden would remain.

The next time I found myself yet again with a Qin family name, I knew I had to check on the garden to see what had happened. I was in the north-most town so I made the long trek south. What did I find? The garden had been restored! Most of the plants had been replanted and new types of trees were added. It was a beautiful site. This is when I realized I shouldn’t feel sad that it has graves because this garden is a community creation. Our history has made it what it is today. The garden has grown and evolved. Again I spent my life watering and adding more trees and roses. Near the end of my life I saw a child accidentally cut down one of the trees but I was close to death, I’ll have to fix it next time. Because I’m the gardener.

-Amber A.

Bob 101 · 2019-07-02 02:33:49

Ah, The gardens. Probably the only example of culture in a town.

I've seen the garden and it was quite grand.

Last edited by Bob 101 (2019-07-02 02:37:54)

RodneyC86 · 2019-07-02 03:16:25

Faith in OHOL humanity restored, mostly.

Kitaelia · 2019-07-02 04:10:19

Aww what a great story!

I hope to see this garden someday!
I've seen a few small gardens and burial shrines that are really lovely. <3

Peaches · 2019-07-02 07:02:53

I was there!

Peaches wrote:

Oh, I was in that town today!
I was a baby when the griefer, Lucija Qin, hit the town. My mother was following him around and it was the worst case of griefing I'd ever personally witnessed. He tore up roads and flooring, chopped down every tree, killed all our sheep, hid tools, ruined the park, and did just about everything save for killing people.
Absolutely heartbreaking, destruction without reason, and far more than any one man should have been capable of. But he did it.
I ended up never getting named because of all the chaos and *finally* found a bow a few years into his tyrade, but he just kept running around and somebody else ended up making a knife and killing him. An old woman named me Hero (it turned into Heron Qin) after I repaired a lot of the flooring and made some more food. She may have thought I killed him, given the bow nearby.
There was so much destruction and confusion after everything that I lost all motivation to continue playing for the day and allowed myself to starve at 44.

I hope I get reborn there at some point, I would love to see the garden in a less destroyed state.

Last edited by Peaches (2019-07-02 07:03:29)

AmberA · 2019-07-02 07:15:31

Yes that was the name! I played that life during my lunch break and I was so seething with rage after that. I wanted so much to go play again but I had to go back to work. It took me a few hours to calm down. I'm glad to hear someone was able to kill him. I have some screenshots of during the destruction and then after the rebuilding but I don't know how to post them.

Peaches wrote:

I was there!
Peaches wrote:
Oh, I was in that town today!
I was a baby when the griefer, Lucija Qin, hit the town. My mother was following him around and it was the worst case of griefing I'd ever personally witnessed. He tore up roads and flooring, chopped down every tree, killed all our sheep, hid tools, ruined the park, and did just about everything save for killing people.
Absolutely heartbreaking, destruction without reason, and far more than any one man should have been capable of. But he did it.
I ended up never getting named because of all the chaos and *finally* found a bow a few years into his tyrade, but he just kept running around and somebody else ended up making a knife and killing him. An old woman named me Hero (it turned into Heron Qin) after I repaired a lot of the flooring and made some more food. She may have thought I killed him, given the bow nearby.
There was so much destruction and confusion after everything that I lost all motivation to continue playing for the day and allowed myself to starve at 44.
I hope I get reborn there at some point, I would love to see the garden in a less destroyed state.

lycca · 2019-07-02 07:39:11

I was also there.. the griefer was my son and he started destroying the garden at the moment I showed my other kid the birds. I had never felt so heartbroken before while playing but I am glad to hear that the community was able to rebuild it!

pein · 2019-07-03 04:20:02

with gardens come some idiots too

once my mom was an asshole
she told me she want to make a garden and i respected it, but i hate rpers with crown so i took 2 crowns, and tried to make a bell, she stab me
i wasn't even 8 and she didn't even say shit just kill me
at the point when someone is acting like a total jerk cause has a crown or a baby who jumps all over you cause you took "her" crown i don't care if others stab them for it, sometimes i even did it myself if they too annoying. this generally ends up with every other idiots who just cant take care of their business and think that drama over crowns will serve any good
the worst people i seen are the ones who roll around the town with a crown and just say shit to others and don't contribute at all
they also kill someone for the wrong reason or frame you or both, so better off without any crowns

you don't need a crown to be a leader
leader generally work and inspire you by their work
so far i got twice rewarded with a crown for my work
once it was a revived city where no one figured out where water is and gen 4 i made the first compost
once it was given to me cause the lady liked how fast i smith, generally just throwing around iron, stone, hammer etc. i just hear up 3 things and hit them and arrange it then each run i make charcoal and optimize it so it wont cost too much resources to make
also i make a few reserve shovels, hoes and stuff we actually need

also you can wear a crown and be a leader but there is no advantge whatsoever, and it doesn't matter as long as you don't rub under others nose so generally people who can ru na town don't wear crowns or don't think it affects anyone

so i was ruining her fences around the garden first because she killed me and i knew she annoyed me, and secondarily cause she cursed me and quit before i was 8 to return the favor, which is also a signal how selfish people are, like they kill for something it's none of their business and when karma coems back at them they think they not deserving it

so a good rule of thumb is just don't have crowns when you make parks and gardens

you could have a general town where all randos are and a town further away from it where you make nice things but generally people follow each other and either all of them are in the town or in the outpost at same time, and males even quit when they see no woman for like 10 min

ollj · 2019-07-03 04:26:47

these gardens are mostly used to hide items from newbies in plain sight, which are usually just excess items for a fast backup, and that item is often three setile pads (a second backup packet of them), bows, arrows, swords or sometimes even knifes. just kidding, no city is sane enough to ever agree that it has too many knifes and even id, they just all end up in the kitchen, for maybe 5 minutes, till a traitor takes it to kill someone.

I lost count of qin cities, most people believe there are olny 3 qin-founded cities, from north to south, almost connected by one longer road, but they are missing out.
theres more, up to 5 or 6 in many moments.
i know this, because i seeded the qin half a week ago, by taking a basket of excess goods from a city south of all the qin cities north, and dropping four baskets near four well sites, over 2k distance. you would only know this if you were the lucky eves, that found my present baskets next to well sites. the early evfes may not have made much, but the most sucessful one turned out to be qin, that qhiuckly foind the remains of 3/4 others. but not the southermost seeding city, and surely, thenorthernmost fourth basket was never found by anyone skillful.
and what do you know, three of these four sites became that line of qin cities.
and they are also ignorant of all the much better city locations nearby that i keep telling them about, they exist within 700 tiles of almost continuopusly populated qin cities (with bell towers)
thers just way too much time wasted in bery farming, that yould be spend building roads and gardens next to roads.
the outskirt cities are just less often populated, but they are far from continuously ruined places. every now and then an eve waddles into them, full of loot, and reboots them.
the bells sure help to temporatily keep many outskirt cities somewhat active.
knifes and prolerty fences have the oposite efect, greed just ends in family murder and suicide.

i once took a horse 2k north from qin gardens, there was a spot with 3 nearby wells, lots of green, but hey, all my kids sucked, and kept falely claiming "this place sucks", nope it waasnt the place with ruined roads that lead to three well sites, it was just you, myson.

Last edited by ollj (2019-07-03 04:42:15)

arkajalka · 2019-07-03 13:41:14

lycca wrote:

I was also there.. the griefer was my son and he started destroying the garden at the moment I showed my other kid the birds. I had never felt so heartbroken before while playing but I am glad to hear that the community was able to rebuild it!

Was living there too when the griefer chopped down the trees. Was the one chasing him, but was too small to actually get anything done well as so low on food bar and he just loses you when you have to eat.

Its a shame how one bastard can undo so much hard work in a moment.

AdelaSkarupa · 2019-07-03 18:52:30

This was all in Kilian, one of my favorite towns I have lived in. In one of my lives, my grandmother started the huge orchard of maple trees just east of the memorial garden. I was also there in another life right after a griefer chopped down every single tree. It's sad to see how many people enjoy trying to figure out how they can hurt people the deepest.

ollj · 2019-07-03 20:09:23

i remember the garden town as evil cult town.
they have four active nosai in the two touns south there.

AdelaSkarupa · 2019-07-03 20:34:09

That's the thing about towns. As they cycle players, the culture can change pretty rapidly.

testo · 2019-07-04 00:44:55

Gardens and Shrines are nice because they show the willingness of players to express some way of culture in game. The bad part is the game doesn´t really support long term cultural expresion since they are just for aesthetics.

AdelaSkarupa · 2019-07-04 02:58:08

testo wrote:

Gardens and Shrines are nice because they show the willingness of players to express some way of culture in game. The bad part is the game doesn´t really support long term cultural expresion since they are just for aesthetics.

I think slot boxes full of jobs or town laws are an increasingly present form of cultural expression. Whether or not future generations keep those traditions is up to them but I think that's like real life too. If you think back on human history, culture in any given country can change drastically every decade. So that means if the culture of your town lasts even close to the full sixty minutes of your life, then culture is actually progressing quite slowly.

sdlwlxf · 2019-07-04 03:40:02

Do you know Qin Dynasty in Chinese history is the first united centralized feudal state?

testo · 2019-07-04 06:28:48

AdelaSkarupa wrote:

testo wrote:
Gardens and Shrines are nice because they show the willingness of players to express some way of culture in game. The bad part is the game doesn´t really support long term cultural expresion since they are just for aesthetics.
I think slot boxes full of jobs or town laws are an increasingly present form of cultural expression. Whether or not future generations keep those traditions is up to them but I think that's like real life too. If you think back on human history, culture in any given country can change drastically every decade. So that means if the culture of your town lasts even close to the full sixty minutes of your life, then culture is actually progressing quite slowly.

That is true. However, there are several psichological aspects of culture in real life that are not possible to model in the game. The more relevant unmodeled aspect: identification. Without an external reward to keep any cultural trait, new generations in game simply can´t reach the real life reward of cultural identification.

AdelaSkarupa · 2019-07-04 06:37:46

A lot of culture is about art. I thought some kind of paint and canvas would be a nice addition. If we could create images on the canvas that could be saved similar to the photo server, that would be amazing. Maybe the canvas could have a long decay time but could be revived with some sort of restoration tool set. I guess a similar system could be used for some kind of sculpting. I don't know how well these ideas would play with the current engine though.

testo wrote:

Without an external reward to keep any cultural trait, new generations in game simply can´t reach the real life reward of cultural identification.

Is there some external reward in the real world for cultural identification? I think the passing on of cultural traits is based on imitation when young, then respect and fear for previous generations as one gets older. Those would be hard to simulate. The other motivator is alive and well in the game in some cases: national pride. Slap a sign on a wall with a town name and throw some swords down and you will surely have a zealous army.

Last edited by AdelaSkarupa (2019-07-04 06:42:06)

testo · 2019-07-04 07:13:16

I wonder if imitation is exclusively a human process. As you said, imitation, fear and respect are hard to simulate.

Art is a very good way to develop a cultural trait (not even thinking about tradition at this point tbh). It´s a shame the strongest motivation for artistic expression is also lacking in the game

AdelaSkarupa · 2019-07-04 07:36:49

testo wrote:

not even thinking about tradition at this point tbh

In my experience, OHOL players find traditions tedious. Or worse, griefing (e.g., Bob cult)

testo · 2019-07-04 08:10:57

AdelaSkarupa wrote:

testo wrote:
not even thinking about tradition at this point tbh
In my experience, OHOL players find traditions tedious. Or worse, griefing (e.g., Bob cult)

Come on, Bob cult was hardly a meaninful tradition and had a high risk of protecting from curses. How many places have you heard in human history that named all the people the same?

And traditions could be a good thing if players had an incentive to keep them, they are tedious because they become a meaningless repetition of someone elses expresion.

AdelaSkarupa · 2019-07-04 15:35:05

I think Jason is concerned more with the mechanics of the world rather than forcing any particular stance on culture. We all live on the same planet but culture emerges from common experience. So, that's something that's going to have to come from the players if that's really what the people want.

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#1 2019-07-02 02:10:54

South Qin Memorial Garden - The true tale of a magical garden

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