The bells!

Disclaimer: This is a rant. I will try to lay out some arguments, but in the end, it will still be a rant. Proceed with caution.

IC event invitations are not only cool, they're a necessary factor when you want to bring characters x and y to event z. They promote roleplay and interaction, and I should love them dearly, yet I find that I do not in fact love them. Why, you might ask, and the answer is simple: They are the homeland of a terrible monstrosity. They are the secluded mansions haunted by the thrice-damned bells. Yes, from the wondrous lands of IC event descriptions the bells hunt their chosen prey: My sanity. Their hunts are always successful.

Below: A video about a specific time.


[insert descriptive title of event] will start at eight bells sunday evening." We've all read descriptions like that, and we likely will again. Why does this hurt my mind so? There are multiple reasons, and I'll start with a fairly simple one.

Bells are not time units, they are objects of metal that chime. Some bells at public buildings chime at hourly intervals. For example when a church bell chimes four times, one could say that the bells rang four. One would not, logicly say that "Wow! Did you hear that? It's 4 o' bells!" neither would one excitedly poke ones companions declaring "I must go, it's 4 bells and my time as a magical princess is over because my fairy godmother doesn't want me to get laid.".  When I say "4 bells" as a commonly used term isn't logical, that's not something I just pull out of my ass, nor my ass hat. Firstly, for the bell to be rung at hourly intervals (or any other intervals, really) the hour (or what have you) must exist already. As this interval has been defined and established before the tradition of ringing the bells to mark the passage of them, it makes very little sense to name the interval after the tradition marking it. Why? Because there was no pre-established relationship between the bell and the passage of time.

Secondly, from an irl perspective, the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] is ancient. They've been about since 3500 BC wikipedia would have it, so lacking better knowledge, I'll accept that as a fact. You'll notice that 3500 BC is considerably earlier than say, medieval times, guns, steamtanks and gyrocopters. While this is real history, not a part of the fictional universe our shared adventures take place in, I hope it gives you some perspective. Even pretty primitive cultures have a grasp of the concept of time. Azeroth as seen in wow is not primitive, heck, I personally would bet that even the orcs we'll meet on Draenor will have established some system to catalogue time. Making systems is very basic to human nature, and I'd argue the same would go for all the playable humanoids in the World of Warcraft. The sundial is a lot more similiar to modern watches and clocks than bells. Have a look.

Now. Given that I managed to present those trains of thought in way that you're able to follow, this would very likely result in the hour as a concept, preceeding the tradition of building cities. Following that again, it'd predate the tradition of ringing the bells to indicate that an hour has passed. In current-day Azeroth, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] seem to support my view. The existance of gnomes and goblins would further imply that fairly accurate technology to measure time with also exists. The flavor text of the first of those items especially cement me in my views on this.

Now, the arguments, as well as the most relevant evidence, have been laid out. So please, pretty please: Can we stop using those bloody bells as a time unit in event descriptions now?

Saying "it starts at eight bells in the evening" does not make you sound cool. It makes your character sound like a braindead moron. From what I can see it's not in line with the official lore, and for me personally, it's incredibly immersion breaking. I welcome all views on this to the topic, I made it to discuss it, after all. But should you disagree with my points, I personally would very much like to see actual evidence supporting your views.

Also: Potato.

I'll just add one thing.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

That's a clock tower.

<3

Kind of an odd detail to get worked up about.

Yeah. Personally I'm fine with either. Most people don't have watches (or similar time-keeping devices) handy and such it'd seem perfectly logical to keep track of time based on the number of chimes that happened at the last hourly chiming.

Personally I'm pissed about the fact that Azeroth doesn't rotate. I'm pissed about the fact that time is exactly the same on outland as it is on Azeroth... that the sun goes down at the same time in the eastern kingdoms as it does on kalimdor...

etc...

etc..

I could go on.

but nobody really cares.

My characters can see the in-game clock that's in the interface.

How? do they have a HUD?

Edit: I mean my characters just have pocket-watches.

I agreed with Berahnek, I don't understand the bells system and it seems unnecessary when we have the giant f-ing clock tower in the middle of Stormwind!

No offence was meant to those who use the Bells system, its just that.. Its outdated and I really think its about to patch this problem.

The bell system is a fantasy fiction myth. It has never been outdated since it never - really existed.

Its a mix of the fact that churches ring their bells at specific times (indicated by the big big fucking clock in the tower) and the fact that it is used on ships to denote watch-length.

It simply got used by a lot of fantasy authors to mask the fact that their world isn't the 365days, 7 days a week, 24 hour day system. and is indeed another world. Because saying 8 bells is sounds more "dated" than 8 pm.

So since there's clock tower and mechanism there's time?
Time mages !

erwtenpeller wrote:Kind of an odd detail to get worked up about.

It is. But like a roof that leaks a single drop at a time, gradually would turn the people living there quite wet over the course of a rainy night, these tiny sprinkles of bells have with time grown into a major annoyance to me.

Amaryl wrote:Because saying 8 bells is sounds more "dated" than 8 pm.

To me it doesn't. To me it sounds like a narrative cop-out. I mean, I'd vastly prefer a ridiculous explanation like that an hour marks that a gigatonne of Nether has floated from the second sun to the elemental plane of sausages over "it's not something we talk about".

If people want to use the bells, that's their choice. How about you go look up the characters posting those pamphlets and go tell them it's bullshit.

Meanwhile, here's something related in name that I couldn't resist posting.

That was what I was saying. It is a narrative cop-out. but so is: "Well! Magic"

What we do know is that climate on azeroth doesn't make sense. by all intends and purposes the world is flat; the sun shines from straight above and slowly dims at dusk. Why winterspring is filled with snow, and tanaris is the desert, nobody knows. there are no tides, azeroth has a strange gravity. We do have a harvest festival in october, which implies that "earth-like" farming happens, but that makes no sense since the weather isn't colder in december than in june. all there is that we know is that there's a clock. and its the exact same clock as outland a completely different plane of existence. but the world is subjected to winter and summer-time...

bottom line, physics of warcraft don't make any fucking sense. why would RP time be regulated in the same manner as ours, except for convenience?

For me convenience is a good enough reason to just go with GMT+1. but that's really the only sensible reason why our time should be used with the "facts" that we know.

We tell the time by saying "By the eight bell in the morning/evening" etc, because those that want to immerse themselves fully into the game and its environment use it. It just sounds better RP-wise than saying 8am/pm.

You have to admit though...

It does sound cool.

I prefer 8 o'clock somehow.

Could be becouse the cathedral's bells don't right exactly on time as the servertime? MAYBE IT'S A CONSPIRACY?!