Bells

[JeffCrook]

Originally posted by Kimberly:
6:30 bells near the Refectory fireplace

6:30 bells? This sounds very strange to me.

I found the use of 'bells' as the measure of time odd in the first place, considering its nautical connotation. But when you use 6:30 bells, or even six and a half bells, that doesn't even make sense. How can you have half a bell, or :30 of a bell?

Why not just say o'clock? Put a huge old clock somewhere in the castle. It would be a great place to meet at specific times.

The use of 'bells' just sounds so out of character for the castle, and then when bells are used incorrectly, it makes it even worse. At least say 'half past the sixth bell,' 'quarter to the seventh bell,' 'quarter after the seventh bell.'

I know, this is terribly anal of me. Sorry.

[Angron]

Put a huge old clock somewhere in the castle.

There's a clocktower already, although you can never read the time on the clocktower and trying to look at the clock returns "The clock on the clocktower is not a real thing".

[Artegal]

A clock with real ringing bells would be great. It would also be a player aid because not all of us are on Pacific time and a brief, but general announcement on the hour--

The courtyard clock strikes six bells.

--would help to orient everyone.

Special events could cause the clock to ring differently or even stop. Imagine the panic and stories that could ensue from such events.

"The courtyard clock ominously rings midnight," for example, instead of "The courtyard clock rings twelve bells," could cause some real consternation and help set mood for plot points.

I am sure that some might feel that an hourly bell might be annoying, but I think it could add to the feel of the outer bailey, and the inner bailey characters might snootily say that they prefer not to visit us for yet another reason: Lady Rather-Nasty-Smell says "Ah, yes, the outer bailey. How charming. Of course, I never go there because any time I do I always leave with a dreadful ringing in my ears." http://www.skotos.net/ubb/biggrin.gif

[stealthkat]

I had always thought that the term 'bells' referred to the number of times the bell rang in the clock tower. Granted my character knows how to read and write, but I don't think it's too far fetched to say she doesn't know how to read a clock. She just knew how to listen to the bells and count the number of times they rang.

The reference to 'bells' instead of o'clock also, for me, has a connotation of quaintness or has an archaic quality to it.

I live across the street from a church, and their clocktower has a bell which strikes the hours. I can't hear it in my house, but if you're outside you can hear it for quite a few miles.

Now that I think of it, it also reminds me of the grandfather clock my grandparents used to have. As a child I loved to count the chimes...does that make me archaic as well?

Anyway, my point was that I find it fitting for the game, and personally nostalgic.

Kathy

[JeffCrook]

Originally posted by stealthkat:
The reference to 'bells' instead of o'clock also, for me, has a connotation of quaintness or has an archaic quality to it.


It is archaic, but it is also very nautical. The use of bells indicated the bells of the watch. They were rung every half hour so that you didn't end up with such things as six and half bells or even half past six bells. Six bells was 3 o'clock, 6:30 would be 13 bells. It isn't that difficult to figure out, once you know what it means, and just as you said, the number indicated how many times the bell rang, so you wouldn't needed to be able to read a clock to know what time it is. But they decided not to go with the half-hour bells because it might be too confusing.

Maybe a small change in how it is worded would remove the nautical feel (and for me, the first time I heard someone say six bells in the game, the confusion). Rather than say 'six bells,' say instead 'the sixth bell,' or 'the sixth bell of the clock.'

Which of course leads to 'the sixth bell o' the clock,' and eventually 'six o'clock.' http://www.skotos.net/ubb/wink.gif

[Atama]

You're right, Jeff, in that it isn't very accurate, but vernacular often isn't. People will use colloquialisms to twist words around until they sound different than what they originally meant. I like the "Bells" time standard, it's just as kooky as using AM or PM (who speaks Latin anyways?) and gives Marrach a bit of unique culture.

[Lobo]

What if there were chimes along with the bell. I know the clock we have in the kitchen/living room has seperate chimes for hours and quarter hours.

So you could have say 6 bells and 3 chimes for 6:45. AM and PM arn't really a problem, though a day/night cycle would be niece (ever try to gaze at the stars with your niece when the sun NEVER sets!!)

[Aeriale]

Originally posted by Angron:
There's a clocktower already . . .

Is there really? That's great! Where?

I think it'd be great to have the clocktower actually do what a clocktower is supposed to do. I dunno. Just an idea. (And I dunno about the quater hour chimes - maybe just half hour chimes, huh? Quarter hour would be too often.)

Aeriale

[ChristopherA]

Originally posted by JeffCrook:
It is archaic, but it is also very nautical.

I actually wanted to do traditional nautical watch bells for Marrach.

Watch bells (say on an old sailing ship) are designed to define the different watches on board, and go in a cycle of 4 hours. The first watch begins is 12 midnight, and will have 8 bells. At 12:30 one bell will ring, 1am two bells, etc. until 8 bells again at 4am, and time for the second watch to get up and take over. 4:30 would be one bell again. Also, when there are more then one bell rings they also rung in pairs, so the 3:30 bells would be ring-ring, ring-ring, ring-ring, ring.

The advantage to watch bells is that they are timeless -- they don't give an advantage to any time zone, and I thought that since the Winter Watch was an essential component of the game that they could use it for watches.

However, all the other game designers thought that most people would not understand it, and in particular newbies would be confused, so the idea was scrapped.

-- Christopher Allen

[StaciD]

Originally posted by ChristopherA:
[B}However, all the other game designers thought that most people would not understand it, and in particular newbies would be confused, so the idea was scrapped.
[/B]

On the contrary, I personally have nothing against an alternate clock scheme (like Christopher's proposed Bells), but not without a system behind it that allows players to easily convert bells to real time. It would be a big pain to have to try and calculate what time it was in the castle at the moment, or what time I needed to log on for the big ball. Give players the option of setting a time zone property, and then a few basic commands like "time" to get the present time, "time 8:30 pm" to convert to castle bell time and "time 6 bells" to convert from castle bell time to real time in my time zone, and I'll happily support a more distictive time marking system for the Castle. http://www.skotos.net/ubb/smile.gif

Staci

[Seidl]

I've actually got a time command in my beta java client. Right now it just reports approximate castle time (pacific time). It wouldn't be hard to hack the code to report the time in some other format, if one was decided on.

-=- Matt aka. Martel

[Aislyn]

Originally posted by Artegal:
A clock with real ringing bells would be great. It would also be a player aid because not all of us are on Pacific time and a brief, but general announcement on the hour--

The courtyard clock strikes six bells.

--would help to orient everyone.

I think this is a GREAT idea! It definitely gets my recommendation...