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Xereva

Xereva

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You're slipping with your punctuation / grammar.

I have a duty to do a full critique for those I haven't critiqued at all before critiquing revisions, so I'll review Azi's and then I'll do a one-post critique on your follow-up.

Chuk, I think there are ways that you can fit the passive voice / progressive aspect in and not have it affect the integrity of the piece, but (in my opinion) your use of it needs a little more work before it flows. I've never been good at using it myself, so I haven't made an effort to understand it, but if you can find a way to make it work more power to you.

With regard to the dream scene, if it fits for you then go with it. I'm one voice, and the character is yours to command, the story yours to plot. There will probably be many others who like it.

As for the armor, there's a few points I had flit through my head. One, armor is really expensive and really, really hard to take on and off. It's not a casual process where you can just undo a couple of strings and it drops to the ground. It's also not the kind of thing you'd want leaving around, since selling a piece of even half-decent armor would net a fantastic profit. Full armor is also fairly hard to come by, as it goes—there are ways to make it more quickly and more cheaply, but soldiers by and large are going to be armored with leather hardened in various different ways, perhaps with metal pieces here and there. That's my understanding of it, anyhow. I'm not a medieval history buff, and this is also (to my knowledge) set in RuneScape, so there's that. History can be your playground.

I just thought that it would be easier to have a character who was a dedicated archer tag along with the group, maybe one of a pair or one of three, for ranged support in engagements. That way you can have someone who's more lightly armored (and therefore more agile) to shoot at someone and run them down.

01-Feb-2013 02:10:20

Azigarath

Azigarath

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Indeed, it takes some effort to get armour off. My replica cuirass and pauldrons have straps of black leather, about 1cm thick, and these can be such a pain to loosen, and often it’s best to have someone else undue the straps for you.

I tend to implement fantasy with history perhaps too much, so I should work on that. I hope my submission isn’t too much of a hassle though D:

01-Feb-2013 02:40:22

Xereva

Xereva

Posts: 7,589 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Shouldn't be, I'm just getting into the finer points of how large (in exact measurements) the city I'm designing for my thesis is going to be. Approximately 1.6 million people need to fit into it, and apart from the hollowed out mountains of the exceptionally elite much of it is one, two, and three-story buildings. Then there are the major roads, the river that cuts a track roughly through its center, the parks, and the expansive market in the high district. Square mileage is becoming a pain to figure out, even with references.

01-Feb-2013 02:55:56

Chuk

Chuk

Posts: 14,177 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Azigarath, no it's not from Echoes. It's something I wrote just for this exercise.

And thanks for the responses from both of you. Hopefully I can learn something and find the happy medium in further writings.

And, because I like numbers, I'm gonna give a stab at your city thing, Xen.

I'm going to assume 1/4 the population lives in a ghetto sort of situation, so maybe 250 square feet for a family of four. 400,000 people/4 gets 100,000 families times 250 square feet for 25 million square feet, or just under one square mile. (1)

Then, a further quarter of the population lives in some degree of poverty, but not ghetto, so maybe 600 square feet for a family of four, or just over two square miles. (2)

Then, the third quarter is pretty well off, 1200 square feet per family of four, 120,000,000 square feet or about four square miles. (4)

Then, the next 3/16 is well off at 2500 square feet per family of four. 75,000 families at 2500 square feet 187,000,000 square feet or seven square miles. (7)

The last 100,000 people are pretty darn rich. 10,000 square feet per family of four, on average. That's 250,000,000 square feet, or nine square miles. (9)

Then, allow four square miles for shops, markets, etc. (4)

Two square miles for parks, streets, etc. (3)

That's 30 square miles, if everything was at ground level -- no second or third stories at all. So knock it down to 20-22 square miles to allow for the double and triple story buildings. How'd I do?

01-Feb-2013 07:46:33 - Last edited on 01-Feb-2013 07:53:26 by Chuk

Xereva

Xereva

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I don't mind if it's not perfectly realistic. And I appreciate the effort very much. ^_^

I'm slowly settling on a measurement system (only distances, so far) and it's probably going to be about five miles or so from the gates of the Spires to the front gates. Which means the front wall will probably be about ten or so miles in length, the second wall around five, the last half that. I'm no good at math, but that should be ample room, especially considering Lowarc (the district sandwiched between the first and second walls) is going to be about a mile and two-thirds wide at the largest with nearly ten miles of stretch. I might back that off some, depending on how many people I want to cram in, but I'm definitely approaching a final size.

01-Feb-2013 21:13:22

Chuk

Chuk

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So you've got something like this...



.......................Spires...............
...................../..........\.............
..................../.............\...........
................../....lastwall...\...........
................./...................\..........
................/.....................\.........
.............../.......................\........
............*******;-2wall_5mi->___\........
............/.............|...............\......
........../...........1.66mi.............\........
......../.................|.................\.......
....../...................V..................\
...*************;-1wall 10mi->--------\......

With Spires down through the city to 1wall being 10 miles? So Spires to 2wall being 8.3333miles?

That gives just over 12 1/4 square miles between 1wall and 2wall. At a population density of 37,000 people/square mile (Very dense - Buenos Aires) that gives you 450k people in the lower arc. At 27,000 people/square mile (Dense - New York, NY) about 330k.

Then in the other two arcs, 8.333 miles vertical, 5 miles across the base, you get another 20 square miles (1.5*base*height -- triangle geometry), or 800k people at Buenos Aires Density, 600k people at NY density. Still only gets you 900k-1.2million depending on density. So you might make dimensions a little bigger if you want 1.6million, especially in most buildings less than three stories tall.

Though, unless you provide census numbers and very exact dimensions, hardly any readers would ever notice or care.

01-Feb-2013 22:49:14 - Last edited on 01-Feb-2013 23:04:46 by Chuk

Xereva

Xereva

Posts: 7,589 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
You are a wonderful human being for going through all that. My math skills are atrocious. 1.2 million seems a fair number of people to have, I might just downsize to that and call it okay. I'm also planning to go up to four stories throughout the Arcs, so that will increase the amount of space available as well.

02-Feb-2013 00:29:50

Xereva

Xereva

Posts: 7,589 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Alright Azi, your turn. Bear with me, I have a lot to say.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"...generally wandered about..."

- I think you're missing a 'he or she' or 'one' right before this passage.

"...renown as to defeat them."

- Did you mean 'so as to defeat them?'

"...at the end of the frozen desert in that direction..."

- You can probably leave off 'in that direction' and be done with it. It reads well both ways, but it feels more streamlined without the latter half.

"To the South, passed the desert..."

- Past the desert.

"It was not known what existed after all..."

- Beyond instead of after, I think. Also, 'lands' in this sentence should be 'land's.'

"The weather was often..."

- I don't think this sentence is needed, and if it is you ought to re-word it. 'Cloudy and foggy' is hardly a description that matches up with the epic feel of your earlier paragraphs, and it sounds too repetitive besides.

"Walking towards the city solitarily..."

- 'Walking toward the city was a solitary armoured figure' sounds much cleaner.

EVERYTHING REGARDING ARMOUR

- Believe me, I appreciate your extensive knowledge of armour, and I wish like hell that I could have such mastery myself. But to put this much detail into a story does nothing but slow the pace. You could get a better effect on the reader with little more than a couple sentences, and confuse the lesser-educated ones far less. At the very least, condense everything on armor and weapons into a paragraph. And try not to use any specialized terms, or even parentheticals if you can help it. The only detail that you should include that I believe is significant is that the armour is held together by hinges and rivets rather than straps and laces, although the sentence that begins "The armour was held together by..." is a bit confusing. Do you mean to say that all armour in the world is held together by hinges and rivets, or straps and laces?

02-Feb-2013 05:47:10

Xereva

Xereva

Posts: 7,589 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
"The figure approached the citadel..."

- You use citadel twice in the same sentence, and the rhythm suffered. Try just 'entered.' Also remove 'citadel' in the next sentence, instead using something more like 'The interior had seen much fighting/conflict/battle,' etc.

"The fortified city had not been besieged..."

- What you're describing is fantastic, and I love the way that you describe it overall. I'd just recommend that you structure the sentence differently.

"There was a castle at the very centre..."

- The order of the sentence makes it seem like the castle managed the regulation of war, rather than the monarchy. Try this: 'The monarchy and the most powerful nobles managed the regulation of the war from a castle at the very centre of the city." Or: "At the very centre of the city, there was a castle from which the monarchy and powerful nobles managed the regulation of the war."

"...for the figure’s armour showed rank."

- You mention that the figure is a 'her' only a sentence earlier. To keep things consistent, I would recommend that you always refer to her as a 'her' after this. The paragraph in which this sentence is set would also read much more smoothly if you started it with 'her' instead of 'the figure.'

"...but there was no fear of theft."

- In a city of endless fighting, this seems strange to me. I can guess at why, but it's nonetheless an unresolved question in my mind.

"The figure waddled..."

- 'Waddled' sounds a bit strange to me given the air of sophistication and stateliness of the rest of your description.

"...young men, all wholly bedecked in plate..."

- That's a hell of a lot of money—and would you really outfit your retainers with full plate? I get that it's a conflict-torn city, but they're indoors, yes?

02-Feb-2013 05:47:30

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